Pencader Days

Sean Thomas Lugano

2011-09-11T11:41:00.000-04:00

Sean Thomas Lugano

Today's the day. Ten years gone and the rest of our lives to go.

This blog honors Sean Thomas Lugano

I knew Sean casually. We went to college together and were on the rugby team together. He was much better than I was. He was very fast and much stronger than he looked. Sean was one of those guys who was reserved but very funny. He wasn't one of those guys who garnered attention by being outrageous or demonstrative. He was just there, always with a smile and quick with a laugh or a joke. He took a lot of flack in college because of his modeling career. He used to model to make money for college and the idea of a rugby player being a model seemed absurd. The only commercial I ever saw him in was for The Gap and ironically, he was playing rugby in the commercial. That seemed to redeem him somewhat in the eyes of his teammates and we didn't rib him much after that.

I didn't know Sean well enough to keep in touch with him after college. Occasionally, I'd see him in the bars in Manhattan or Hoboken after that and we'd chat. His family owned a bar on the Upper East side and my friend was the bartender in the bar next door. I was surprised to see him working the door one night as a bouncer. (Sean was strong but short.) I looked inside and saw his sister and she smiled and waved. That was the last time I saw him. He was only bouncing to help out at nights and on weekends. During the day he was working downtown somewhere in one of the bigger firms, I don't remember which one (BBH?).

I didn't hear about Sean's death until sometime after that day. I think I was looking through the official victim's list and saw his name. I remember I was struck numb. Of all the people who died that day, he was the last one I thought I'd see listed. I don't know why that is, but it seemed impossible that a guy as nice as Sean was killed like that. I am doing Sean a disservice with such a poor tribute but it's not easy to do.

He was known in his apartment building as the guy who would help everyone. He would fix things for the older ladies who lived alone and need help from time to time. He knew everyone's name and always said hello with a smile. He was the guy you'd introduce to your sister hoping she'd marry a guy like him.

Goodbye Sean, you are not forgotten. I wish I had known you better.

Why the "green energy revolution" has been indefinitely postponed

2011-06-08T16:43:00.000-04:00

Several local bloggers have been wailing and gnashing their teeth because their favorite boondoggle has not been sufficiently funded by the State of Delaware. I've long been skeptical of "green" or "renewable" sources. Most of them are net energy losers, are too expensive, do not scale or a combination of those. I believe the way to a cleaner energy source is to use much more nuclear energy. Thorium is plentiful, cheap and safe. It has its own drawbacks but they are far better than the alternatives. I also believe that we can use the resources we have more wisely and continually work on polluting less and less. I don't like the idea that we are so firmly wedded to a hydrocarbon economy from a risk standpoint more than anything else. In terms of resources usage we've been rather foolish and wasteful. There are many ways we could substantially improve our energy efficiency that we're not doing for various reasons. Some are political, some aesthetic and some are practical.

Nuclear energy is politically unpopular. Some blame the echoes of Three Mile Island, Silkwood and Chernobyl. I think the latter looms larger than the other two. Unfortunately, Chernobyl is a case study in what not to do if you're running a nuclear reactor. (Wikipedia has a longer explanation)

From an aesthetic point of view, we have houses that are largely (or wholly) subterranean. Underground structures have much lower heat variances. If more houses in the US were built this way we would only need to use heating and cooling a fraction of what we use now as you would only be heating or cooling the space by a few degrees. It's almost 100 degrees today. That means your A/C is going to have to do some serious work to get it down to whatever you have it set for. Conversely, how does your basement feel? We don't live this way because people want natural light and windows and it would probably be claustrophobic for some and just plain ugly as viewed from the curb.

On the practical front, solar cells are very expensive, uneven providers in most markets and do not scale enough to lower ROI to a point that makes them competitive. I suppose they have more value in places like Arizona, New Mexico and Texas where they get much more sunshine than say, Seattle. Still they're not able to compete without significant subsidies.

But solar is both clean and renewable, right? Not so much:

A recent Washington Post article, however, has revealed that China’s booming solar industry is not as green as one might expect. Many of the solar panels that now adorn European and American rooftops have left behind a legacy of toxic pollution in Chinese villages and farmlands. The Post article describes how Luoyang Zhonggui, a major Chinese polysilicon manufacturer, is dumping toxic factory waste directly on to the lands of neighboring villages, killing crops and poisoning residents.

So it's clean for us but very much not clean for Chinese people. This problem also extends to electric vehicles. Electricity isn't a power source. It's generated by power plants. So while electric vehicles don't emit pollution where they travel, they merely transport it to the plant where the power is generated. Prius owners (now with 22% more Smug!) either don't know or don't care about the environmental damage the creation of their batteries has wrought on China.

As for wind, which we've heard endless droning on about here in Delaware; it's not all it's cracked up to be.

In California, the wind turbines have turned into bird chopping machines:

The green killer: Scores of protected golden eagles dying after colliding with wind turbines

California's attempts to switch to green energy have inadvertently put the survival of the state’s golden eagles at risk. Scores of the protected birds have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines.

So we have a trade off. "Clean" energy or rare birds. Enough to tie an environmentalist in knots (pardon the pun).

But wind is good because it's reliable and free. Right? Not so much: Britain is running out of wind

According to government figures, 13 of the past 16 months have been calmer than normal - while 2010 was the “stillest” year of the past decade. Meteorologists believe that changes to the Atlantic jet stream could alter the pattern of winds over the next 40 years and leave much of the nation’s growing army of power-generating turbines becalmed.

Great. Now you're stuck with some very expensive pinwheels.

Sadly, in other news biodegradables are worse for the environment than regular trash:

There is increasing interest in the use of biodegradable materials because they are believed to be “greener”. In a landfill, these materials degrade anaerobically to form methane and carbon dioxide.

Additional simulations showed that for a hypothetical material, a slower biodegradation rate and a lower extent of biodegradation improve the environmental performance of a material in a landfill representative of national average conditions.

Environmentalists don't like these types of facts because it conflicts with their vision for the future. A future where we all live in splendid harmony with nature, all our trash is recycled, all our power is renewable and pollution free and we all have cool jobs and everything is designed by Apple. If only reality would stop getting in the way.

Lastly, we have an article that should have received much more attention than it did. It passed without a blip on the national radar because it points us in a direction that they don't want to go:

Everything you've heard about fossil fuels may be wrong:

If gas hydrates as well as shale gas, tight oil, oil sands and other unconventional sources can be tapped at reasonable cost, then the global energy picture looks radically different than it did only a few years ago. Suddenly it appears that there may be enough accessible hydrocarbons to power industrial civilization for centuries, if not millennia, to come.

So much for the specter of depletion, as a reason to adopt renewable energy technologies like solar power and wind power. Whatever may be the case with Peak Oil in particular, the date of Peak Fossil Fuels has been pushed indefinitely into the future.

Without massive, permanent government subsidies or equally massive penalty taxes imposed on inexpensive fossil fuels like shale gas, wind power and solar power may never be able to compete. For that reason, some Greens hope to shut down shale gas and gas hydrate production in advance. In their haste, however, many Greens have hyped studies that turned out to be erroneous.

In 2010 a Cornell University ecology professor and anti-fracking activist named Robert Howarth published a paper making the sensational claim that natural gas is a greater threat to the climate than coal. Howarth admitted, "A lot of the data we use are really low quality..."

Howarth’s error-ridden study was debunked by Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations and criticized even by the Worldwatch Institute, a leading environmentalist organization, which wrote: "While we share Dr. Howarth’s urgency about the need to transition to a renewable-based economy, we believe based on our research that natural gas, not coal, affords the cleanest pathway to such a future."

There are a few caveats here. We don't know enough about some of the economies of scale for these technologies so the author rightly makes note of them. Oil sands are already online and pouring cash into Canada. I for one, am glad our neighbors to the north are pumping as much oil as possible. I'd like to see our country buy from friendly nations like Canada, Brazil and (nominally friendly) Mexico. That wouldn't prevent oil from funding horrible regimes or terrorism, but it would help break OPEC and their ability to fix artificially high prices for oil.

Would I rather live in a world of clean, green energy? Of course but right now we cannot possibly switch from one to the other. I would like to see us transition there as quickly as possible. We can mitigate risk by having multiple concurrent energy sources competing for market share. Let them compete fairly. No cash subsidies and let the states decide if they want to give tax incentives to lure the businesses. I don't think there's going to be a one size fits all solution for a nation as large and varied as this one. Let the market decide. Let the States experiment.

Look, I made a funny

2011-06-07T16:37:00.000-04:00

Some ages ago, I received an email from a friend entitled "50 Questions For Men We Want Answered ASAP". I don't know the origin of this list but I answered them and meant to post the answers here. Blow the dust off and see if it makes you laugh.

50 Questions For Men We Want Answered ASAP

1. Did you really think those Super Bowl ads were funny?

Mostly no.

2. Why do you take so long pooping?

I may be the exception. Redirect, your honor? WTF takes you so long in the shower? Don't give me that "shaving my legs crap".

3. Why do you cup your balls so much?

Very comforting somehow. Don't ask me to explain it if you don't have the gear.

4. Bar soap or body wash?

Bar. Body wash is for chicks.

5. Why ask for my number if you’re not going to actually call?

Same reason you give guys a fake one when they ask.

6. Why the mindset that being in a long-term relationship is the end of fun?

Because we know people who are in them.

7. Why are you so convinced that sex is so much more important for you than it is for women?

See above.

8. Do you ever fake orgasms?

No, why would I?

9. Is there such a thing as “too slutty”?

In public? Yes. In private? Hells no.

10. What percentage of your female friends do you want to sleep with?

Not too many. 10 years ago? All of them.

11. Have you cheated? How often?

Never. Not once.

12. Why do you always seem to be drawn to women who are dramatic?

This is the provinence of young men and it's the same reason you women are drawn to assholes and then complain that they're assholes.

13. Hypothetically speaking, do you remember what I was wearing when we first met?

I don't even know what *I'm* wearing now. I'd have to look down to figure it out.

14. How often do you look at porn when your girlfriend isn’t home?

How long is she going to be gone for?

15. What is going through your head when we’re annoyed with you?

Depends on what we're doing. If we're at work, it's running in the background like TeaTimer and taking up a lot of CPU cycles but not producing anything meaningful

16. Do you actually notice when it’s laundry day and we’re wearing old/unattractive panties or do they all look kinda the same to you?

Yes we notice but those panties are like parsely. Push it to the side and start eating.

17. Seriously, isn’t watching six straight hours of football a bit too much?

Not unless you run out of beer.

18. Why do you continue to eat spicy foods if it only makes you feel sick?

For the same reason you love someone who drives you crazy.

19. What makes you think we will go see movies with guns/bombs/explosions if you will not go see rom-coms with us?

Because guns bombs and explosions are exciting. Rom-coms are on par with root canals.

20. If your mother started an argument with me, whose side would you be on?

Publicly, you but privately, depends on whos' right and who's wrong.

21. What do you have against special facial cleansers?

nothing but they're for you, not me.

22. What does it feel like when you fall in love?

It's very distracting and somewhat unnerving.

23. What are you really thinking during sex?

This is AWESOME!

24. What is the one thing you wish girls did in bed that they never do?

Bring a hot friend

25. What do dudes talk about when they are alone?

Sports, cars, beer, guns, politics, hot chicks and dick jokes.

26. Why do you just disappear? If you don’t want to keep dating me, why not just say something?

Less drama. As Mitch Fatel once said, when you try to break up with a women it resembles a trial. There are witnesses and evidence. "You wrote on this card, 'I love you forever' did you not? Were you lying then or are you lying now"?

27. Why won’t you just buy a new pair of shoes?

Because there's nothing wrong with this pair.

28. Why won’t you ask for directions?

A myth. We do. Just not every 2 blocks.

29. What are your expectations of a romantic partner?

Audrey Hepburn in public, Julia Child in the kitchen and Jemma Jameson in the bedroom.

30. Why do you enjoy video games so much?

Because they're competitive and stimulate the brain.

31. Why don’t you ever change the toilet paper roll?

Because you fuckers are always the ones using all the toilet paper.

32. Do you hate it when we ask you to kill the bugs or does it secretly make you feel kind of macho?

Meh. I just see it as something I do.

33. Have you ever slept with a prostitute?

Not ever, not once. I don't even like looking directly at them. Too afraid of hideous STDs.

34. What is my favorite flower? C’mon, surely you’ve been listening.

Tulips.

35. Do you really like the way we taste down there?

Yeah, not answering that one here.

36. If she cheated on you, would you take her back and try to save the relationship? If not, would you expect the same from her?

Ugh. Depends but I don't know if we'd survive that one. Too many hard feelings. Unless we're talking about with a hot chick in which case we're all good so long as I have a video of the event or a front row seat

37. Do you have a hard time if she’s more successful financially?

Nope. Why would I?

38. If a woman gives birth, do you have a hard time seeing her as a sexual partner?

No, you get over that before she does.

39. Why do you want to stick it in our butt so much? Don’t you think about poo?

Forbidden fruit law.

40. If you were with a woman who never let you near her butt, would you be cool with that?

Yes.

41. What’s worse: Marriage or loneliness?

Who says they're mutually exclusive?

42. Do you care if they’re real boobs or fakes?

If I can feel them they're real enough for me.

43. Do you secretly wish we were virgins the first time we slept with you?

Yes and every time thereafter.

44. What does being kicked in the balls really feel like?

Like taking a baseball bat to the gut with the added bonus of nausea.

45. What do you think about when you’re going down on us?

Let's see if I can get her to lift her butt off the bed

46. Does your mom really like me? Do you care?

Yes and yes.

47. How was your first cunnilingus experience?

Awkward for me but effective for her.

48. Have you ever fantasized about one of my friends? A guy?

Yes and is you crazy?

49. Does your dick feel like a dangling appendage when you run?

No. I have to wear special equipment to keep it from knocking out my teeth.

50. Have you ever considered milking the prostate? I’ve heard it’s the jam!

a million times no.

Mind = Blown

2011-05-24T16:02:00.000-04:00

F1 For Sale

2011-04-20T16:32:00.000-04:00

Rumors abound that Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim are looking to form a consortium to buy F1. Bernie Ecclestone (F1 supremo since 1978) says that is completely not true. That can mean only one thing; it's completely true! Bernie is famous for finding out that his wife was divorcing him by reading about it in the newspapers. If he's that out of touch with his wife you can imagine how out of touch he is with F1. OK, that's a bit of a joke. He's probably more in tune with F1 than his marriage which probably explains why he's still in F1 but no longer married.

NewsCorp. is mum on the subject as is Slim. But consider:

Mexican billionaire Slim already has a relationship with the sport via the Telmex-backed Sauber team through his eldest son Carlos Slim Domit.

and JPMorgan is reportedly advising which explains the leak. They've been leaking deal news like a sieve since 2005 or so when they're trying to either close a deal or pump up interest in a market segment.

CVC capital acquired F1 in 2006 and they've been sliding since then. Stupid rule changes, unwise market expansion and wildly increasing costs have been narrowing margins as well as overall revenue. It would not surprise me if CVC was looking for an out.

Add to that the new F1 track coming online in Austin in the very near future. That puts the US back on the map for marketing and increases sales opportunity for TV rights which puts Fox in the catbird seat.

So; if you have a new track in the US, the ownership is US/Mexican you shift the center of gravity from Europe where the sport is lagging and push it on the US front which has a great love of autoracing (if not F1) and it starts to make sense.

The Vlying Vitaly

2011-04-12T12:28:00.000-04:00

Vitaly Petrov Steering Wheel Comes Off

Shame. He had such a great race in Australia. First Russian to ever make it to the podium. He's a great driver I think he just totally misjudged the track apron. I still can't figure out why he went off in the first place.

F1 season is well underway and it looks like this year's rule changes are indeed, making a difference. Let's hope we avoid the boring-ass season we had last year.

I bet I can make you cry

2011-03-23T16:41:00.002-04:00

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Shimkus Questions Sebelius on Budget Gimmicks in the Health Care Law

2011-03-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

Didja get that? "Both."

They lied when the debated the bill, they lied after they passed it and they continue to lie about it.

Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi: whose line is it anyway? | World news | guardian.co.uk

2011-03-02T13:33:00.000-05:00

Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi: whose line is it anyway?

I got 6 out of 10 and most of them were wild guesses. This can only mean one thing; Gaddafi is a drug addict who loves porn stars.

50 questions about sprirtual growth

2011-03-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

1. Have you spent time in silence today, meditating, journaling, praying, or writing morning pages?

Yes.

2. Have you in the last 10 days called or visited, a grandparent, parent, aunt or uncle?

Yes.

3. Have you in the last month left an extra large tip for someone?

Yes.

4. Have you spent time playing, laughing, and smiling in the last three days?

Yes.

5. Have you planned a vacation or play date with the people closest to you in the last six months?

No.

6. Have you sent a hand written note to someone you take for granted in the last 60 days?

No. If I did they wouldn't be able to read it.

7. Have you looked around and expressed deep gratitude for everything around you in the past week?

Yes. Every day.

8. Have you forgiven yourself for making a mistake or the wrong choice in the last 10 days?

No. I'm Catholic so guilt is part of the package.

9. Have you forgiven your parents or other care takers for their poor choices in your life time?

Yes.

10. Have you called an old friend to connect in the last 30 days?

No.

11. Have you sat with a trusted friend/coach/therapist in the last 90 days and poured your heart out?

Meh. I complain to my wife. Does that count?

12. Have you asked for what you want lately?

I don't ask questions that I know are going to result in a firm no.

13. Have you read a book from cover to cover in the last two weeks?

No.

14. Have you looked in someone's eyes and said, "I love you" in the last seven days?

Yes.

15. Have you paid someone a compliment today?

No, but it's early yet.

16. Have you decided what your life will look like five years from now?

I don't even know this year holds.

17. Have you praised a child or young adult in the last 24 hours?

Yes.

18. Have you unexpectedly picked up the tab in the last month?

Since I haven't gone out w/ anyone this question is moot.

19. Have you stopped to smell a flower in a garden in the last year?

I don't have a garden.

20. Have you been spontaneous in the last five days?

Every day is me reacting to events. Does that count?

21. Have you spent an afternoon daydreaming in the last 7 days?

This question is laughable.

22. Have you helped out a neighbor in the last 2 months?

No.

23. Have you sent someone flowers in the last 3 months?

No. Flowers are for funerals.

24. Have you surprised someone with a visit in the last 30 days?

Yes but I'm not sure it was a pleasant surprise.

25. Have you saved any money since January 1st, 2011?

Certainly not. That's unamerican.

26. Have you asked for what you wanted today?

See question 12.

27. Have you eaten more vegetables and fruits in the last 24 hours?

More than what?

28. Have you uncluttered your home in the last year?

Yes but it's still cluttered.

29. Have you read a book to a child in the last four months?

Yes.

30. Have you volunteered your time in the last 90 days?

No. I don't have time for daily obligations for my own offspring let alone strangers.

31. Have you in the last 21 days changed a bad habit?

No.

32. Have you in the last week recognized someone cooperating with you?

Yes,.

33. Have you spent quality time with your loved ones in the last 48 hours?

Yes.

34. Have you told someone what you will do to improve your relationship in the last 14 days?

Yes.

35. Have you donated money to a good cause in the last 2 months?

No.

36. Have you made out your will yet?

No for reasons that are too complicated to list here.

37. Have you spent a weekend alone in the last year?

Surely you're joking.

38. Have you in the last month really listened to someone?

I'm sorry, what did you say?

39. Have you spent time in nature over the last week?

I drove through much of it on the way to work this morning.

40. Have you spent in the last year a full-day taking a personal inventory of your character defects?

No but it would take more than a day. Actually I'm well aware of my character defects.

41. Have you disconnected from all electronics for at least 24 hours in the last month?

No but we did have a power outage for a few hours last week.

42. Have you spent time creating something new that has nothing to do with work in the last 4 weeks?

Yes.

43. Have you expressed your feelings honestly and appropriately to a loved one in the last 5 days?

Yes.

44. Have you held self-love in your heart in the last 12 hours?

I don't even know what this means.

45. Have you released an unhealthy attachment to a person in the last 6 months?

No as I don't have any unhealthy attachments.

46. Have you expressed compassion to someone in pain in the last 2 weeks?

Yes.

47. Have you appreciated yourself in the last 24 hours?

No. How is that done?

48. Have you decided what you want to experience today?

Well I'm at work so I don't have a lot of choices. (In fact I shouldn't even be doing this)

49. Have you experienced joy in the last 24 hours?

In small doses, yes.

50. Have you experienced inner peace in the last 24 hours?

What am I Buddha?

Quote of the Day

2011-02-02T22:20:00.001-05:00

It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear
so lean in close and I will whisper the last words you hear.

How to win at Christmas

2011-01-04T16:00:00.000-05:00

The look on Mom's face when she realizes it's him is perfect.

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!

2011-01-03T14:21:00.000-05:00

The rule of Leftist logic is as follows: Republicans are either dunces (Bush) or evil all powerful geniuses (Rove).

In either case, they are to blame for everything from papercuts to higher gas prices.

Our formerly sane friend Kavips has a new one about
Gasoline Pricing and the Republican Tax Code.

Democrats control both the House and the Senate, oh, and the White House too. This doesn't stop the tax code from being "Republican." No word on how many votes are required to make it either "bipartisan" or "Democrat". I suspect it's based more on the perceived evil or stupidity of the bill. (NB: I'll have to ask for a ruling)

I seem to remember a few posts about oil prices from Kavips so I checked the archives.

In June of 2009 the price of gas was not determined by the tax code (Republican or otherwise) but rather by "artificial financial devices". Interesting. I wonder what, precisely, makes a financial device artificial? Is it based on the arbitrage of Quatloos, gold-pressed Latinum and dollars? Perhaps it's the market rate for Unicorn farts. Who knows? My vote is for Carbon Credits which is suspiciously close to Unicorn farts.

In November of 2007 it was most assuredly "not seasonal". Rather it was "dropped for the election". By whom? Obama? Has to be. After all, didn't help Republicans any.

Earlier that year in June, the cause was not elections or mythical financial instruments or Republican tax codes. No. It was "because republicans controlled all three branches of government. There was no way the people could investigate and determine whether they were paying a fair price, or being gouged."

Earlier still in March of 2007 it wasn't any of those things it was "jitters" by speculators and WHAT'S THIS!? "Gas or coal will be jerked around as demand rises versus the supply."

WHAAAAAAA? Oil and Gas are subject to the laws of supply and demand? That's crazy talk!

Sean Thomas Lugano

2010-09-11T11:01:00.003-04:00

Today's the day. Nine years gone and the rest of our lives to go.

This blog honors Sean Thomas Lugano

I knew Sean casually. We went to college together and were on the rugby team together. He was much better than I was. He was very fast and much stronger than he looked. Sean was one of those guys who was reserved but very funny. He wasn't one of those guys who garnered attention by being outrageous or demonstrative. He was just there, always with a smile and quick with a laugh or a joke. He took a lot of flack in college because of his modeling career. He used to model to make money for college and the idea of a rugby player being a model seemed absurd. The only commercial I ever saw him in was for The Gap and ironically, he was playing rugby in the commercial. That seemed to redeem him somewhat in the eyes of his teammates and we didn't rib him much after that.

I didn't know Sean well enough to keep in touch with him after college. Occasionally, I'd see him in the bars in Manhattan or Hoboken after that and we'd chat. His family owned a bar on the Upper East side and my friend was the bartender in the bar next door. I was surprised to see him working the door one night as a bouncer. (Sean was strong but short.) I looked inside and saw his sister and she smiled and waved. That was the last time I saw him. He was only bouncing to help out at nights and on weekends. During the day he was working downtown somewhere in one of the bigger firms, I don't remember which one (BBH?).

I didn't hear about Sean's death until sometime after that day. I think I was looking through the official victim's list and saw his name. I remember I was struck numb. Of all the people who died that day, he was the last one I thought I'd see listed. I don't know why that is, but it seemed impossible that a guy as nice as Sean was killed like that. I am doing Sean a disservice with such a poor tribute but it's not easy to do.

He was known in his apartment building as the guy who would help everyone. He would fix things for the older ladies who lived alone and need help from time to time. He knew everyone's name and always said hello with a smile. He was the guy you'd introduce to your sister hoping she'd marry a guy like him.

Goodbye Sean, you are not forgotten. I wish I had known you better.

So wrong and so funny

2010-08-19T10:52:00.000-04:00

How to capture a moment

2010-08-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

me and you and you and me

Five Rules For Men to Follow For a Happy Life

2010-07-28T12:34:00.000-04:00

Five Rules For Men to Follow For a Happy Life: "FIVE RULES FOR MEN TO FOLLOW FOR A HAPPY LIFE

1. It's important to have a woman, who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.

2. It's important to have a woman, who can make you laugh.

3. It's important to have a woman, who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.

4. It's important to have a woman, who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.

5. It's very, very important that these four women do not know each other"

I Write Like Stephen King

2010-07-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

How to make ugly people less so..

2010-07-13T15:45:00.000-04:00

Funny as hell. I don't think she's ugly by any means and she's got a great sense of humor.

About honesty

2010-07-12T11:12:00.000-04:00

He's dying. At least I think he is. He's my uncle and he's 90 years old. I'm getting ahead of myself, let me back up a bit.

My aunt and uncle live in Baltimore. They've always lived there. In fact, I think they built Baltimore around them they've been there so long.

They met in Europe after WWII. He was backpacking around with some buddies after he was discharged and she was travelling with her sister.

She lived in New York and he in Baltimore. After they got back home, she moved to Baltimore to be a teacher and he worked as a salesman.

Fast forward a few decades and I arrive in Baltimore as a college freshman. They looked after me while I was there. I had a home cooked meal from time to time, a place to do laundry and a quiet place to study during finals. I kept in touch with them after that and as they got older I was the one looking after them.

They've moved into a nursing home now and he's been declining for a while. He's become very thin and frail.

Last week I called to check on them and see how they're doing. My aunt answered and she was atypically curt. She opened with "I can't talk right now". I was concerned. Normally if she can't talk she'll banter for a bit and then say she has company or was on her way out the door or whatever. Not this time. I said that was fine and asked her to call me back when she was available.

A few days later she called back. Seems my uncle had been to see the doctor as "he hasn't been feeling well lately" and has been "losing weight". I'm telling you the guy doesn't have any more weight to lose. He's thin as it is.

So, I think he's dying and doesn't want anyone to know. The way he's wasting away I fear it's cancer. When you're 90 and you have cancer I don't imagine there's much you can do but make him as comfortable as possible.

I just wish they would be straight with me. He's entitled to keep it to himself but I hate the idea that he's dying and I'm not going to find out until it's over. I don't have the ability to see him as often as I like which makes it that much worse.

He's a remarkable guy. He's the one I've told you about before. He was a Marine in WWII and Korea. He was in Guadalcanal, one of the bloodiest fights in the Pacific theater. He has a wonderful sense of humor and irreverence which is the absolute opposite of my straight laced prim and proper aunt. I think that's one of the reasons she was drawn to him. He was sharp witted and something of a rogue as a young man.

I once asked him directly about Guadalcanal and he merely said it was "pretty bad". He then turned the conversation to Parris Island which he would speak about at length. The salty hard assed DI's who tormented them mercilessly to get them in fighting form. He would also talk about his adventures in Europe after the war. War, however, remains off limits.

He's not even gone and I miss him already.

If Twilight was written by a man...

2010-07-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

Just weird

2010-07-07T17:35:00.000-04:00

OK, at work I sit next to a Ukrainian guy and a Chinese guy. Nothing too unusual there. The odd part is that when they're on their cell phones having a conversation they don't want overheard they speak in Chinese or Ukrainian (respectively). Again, nothing odd their. The weird thing is they both drop their voices and cover the phone. Now that automatically draws attention. Anyone attempting to be discreet in any language piques your interest. I guess it's one of those things that is simply human nature and cannot be avoided.

Independence Day

2010-07-04T11:29:00.003-04:00

To all who make our freedom possible, thank you.

God bless America.

President now reduced to insulting twelve year old boys

2010-07-01T10:58:00.000-04:00

Racine Post: Seventh-graders crawled through crowd to ask Obama a question: "The two 12-year-old seventh-graders got the opportunity to ask President Barack Obama a question during Wednesday's Town Hall meeting at Memorial Hall. Spencer and Gerald, trading lines, asked the president about financial aid for college students.

Obama, who had just talked at length about financial aid, took the question in stride. He first asked the students if they had spent so much time rehearsing their question that they forgot to listen to his answers. The comment drew laughs from the audience."

Really? Really Mr. President? These kids are probably very nervous and given how you drone on and on ceaselessly they probably couldn't remember your initial comments because it had been so long since you started. Plus, they're twelve. You need to spoon feed them sometimes. Instead of talking down to them and insulting them and showing just how petulant you are, you could have been more of a statesman or at least more fatherly (something you at least have some experience in) and patiently reiterated what you had said earlier.

This is an angry, petulant, impatient man. He has a very poor temperment for the job.

Cheerwine meets the Krispy Kreme

2010-07-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

Cheerwine meets the Krispy Kreme

This abomination couldn't be any more Carolina unless it was shaped like Charlotte Motor Speedway and topped with pulled pork BBQ.

Krispy Kreme is meh. I never understood the mania around them. They're donuts and super super sweet at that. Cheerwine is the local cherry flavor soda. It is also poisonous to anyone who is not born and raised on it. Think of it as Carolina's answer to Vernors or Moxie . (Bonus points for anyone who's had all three) It's red, it's fizzy and very sweet. Cloyingly so. Now the idea that they've put two of the sweetest items ever created into one unholy alliance gets me this close to a diabetic coma just reading about it.

Put this a the top of my FOOD TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS list.

Sounds like me from 15 years ago

2010-07-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

Riehl World View: My Warning To The Establishment GOP: "Today's�establishment GOP is a reasonable conservative's enemy. They are not our friends."

She essentially lays out my path to becoming libertarian. I agreed with the Regan GOP. They were much more focused on deficits, debts and foreign policy. More secular if you will. Then after Milquetoast Bush left office the GOP lost it's bearings. They cast about in frothing anger during the Clinton years and put up (God help us) Dole as the counter to Clinton. I can not think of a worse choice. I say that merely from a strategic point of view. I like Bob Dole and I think he's a good guy. But he has a severe charisma deficit against your average politician let alone the megawatt charm of Clinton. Just wasn't going to happen. After that fiasco, they picked George W. I didn't know much about the man but he seemed together and composed. Like a computer program that runs in the background and you never really notice it. He had the pedigree and the money. Sometime after the primary the Evangelicals essentially took over the GOP. That gave us a very weird version of big spending social conservatives. The exact opposite of ~~sane people~~ me. In the public sphere I'm much more in favor of small spending social liberals. I don't believe in codifying in law social mores that I don't agree with (exceptions noted). Moreover, I don't think the state has the right to dictate most forms of social behavior that don't involve harm or fraud.

The current GOP establishment disdains working schlubs like me and want my money, my vote and my silence. That's why I left. I can only pray for something approximating a Tea Party coup in the GOP to tear it all down and start over. Fire everyone at RNC and start over.

Maybe if they do that and come up with new party platform that focuses on fiscal issues, constitutional issues, foreign policy issues and relegate a great deal of domestic issues especially social issues to the states I'll start listening again.

And then the 10 year old inside me went bananas

2010-06-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

Lightcycle!

Oh my dear sweet Lord. I never thought I'd live to see the day but lo, there it is. So wonderfully bizarre and geeky and awful and if I had the scratch you'd see me blasting up and down 301 on this thing.

Can't wait for this one

2010-06-30T09:13:00.000-04:00

Loved the first one. I hope this one keeps to the spirit (pardon the pun) of the first one

Science historian cracks "the Plato code" (The University of Manchester)

2010-06-30T09:05:00.000-04:00

Science historian cracks "the Plato code" (The University of Manchester)

This is all Dan Brown's fault. Crappy pulp conspiracy after crappy pulp conspiracy only feeds the fire of fools.

Comment Rescue

2010-06-29T15:51:00.000-04:00

From Kavips:

Panic buttons often get pushed too early in the final analysis, primarily because they got pushed at all. Doing so, creates a rapid response that changes the course away from what could have happened had that panic reaction never occurred...

Fair enough, I'll agree that's one problem with reading tea leaves. It is, however, foolish to not prepare for the worst.

I think panic is a good thing; For one, I was never a believer in trusting self confidence... I only trust facts...

Except where those facts do not confirm his bias. He posted the other day about how things were going so well on all fronts there was nothing to blog about. If he truly believes that I don't know how we can possibly have a conversation. We're in the worst recession in 70 years, the market is weak and fluctuating, American diplomacy continues to be an abject failure, the oil spill threatens myriad more jobs, wildlife and on and on and on.

And all facts stack up to one conclusion... we need more government... all our problems, 1) wall street...2) health insurance...3) no oversight of BP ...were cause by Republican philosophy....a philosophy that stated, "don't oversee. Let businesses run themselves." For the Republicans to have a chance, even a remote one of winning, that secret, they they are the ones who cause all these problems, can never get out...

More government couldn't have helped any of this. Quite the opposite, it is government that got us into this in the first place.

1. Wall Street's problems were caused by Fannie and Freddie loaning money to people they knew couldn't pay and moreover, forcing banks to lend money to people who couldn't pay. That was not deregulation but misregulation. The loosely regulated hedge funds escaped this mess largely unscathed. Why? They can't count on a bailout like the big banks. The Too Big To Fail banks were counting on a bailout (not unlike the S&L bailouts which started on the Republican's watch) and they got them. Banks have successfully lobbied to get their losses absorbed by taxpayers and gains are kept private. How nice for them. They felt comfortable making insane gambles because they knew they'd be bailed out. Most of them were right. Also remember that it was Bill Clinton who tore down the wall between retail and investment banking. The idea was to give banks more stability as they typically perform as exact opposites in bull and bear markets. (FWIW, I think that was a good idea and I can tell you first hand that two of the Fortune 100 banks I worked for were carried by retail banking in bear years. They may not have had bonuses those years but they didn't have layoffs either)

2. Health insurance problems are caused, again, by regulation. Health care companies cannot compete across state lines which creates intrastate monopolies (like cable companies) both of which are overpriced and need not compete so their customer service is crap. Health care is the most highly regulated industry in the nation. More regulation is not going to improve it. Why are elective medical procedures flourishing? Healthcare, we are told, does not operate the same way as normal markets. Bullshit. It does and the massive growth of elective cosmetic surgery and Lasik and the like are proof. Wal-Mart is staring to put in medical clinics because they can do it better and cheaper than your average doctor's practice.

3. No oversight of BP. Simply not true. They are tightly regulated. This problem is a direct result of the ban on drilling onshore. The supermajors have been forced farther and farther off shore into mile deep ocean to meet the insatiable demand for oil. The Jones Act is preventing appropriate assets from coming to help. The Coast Guard is stopping reclamation vessels with safety inspections. The Dutch offered to help day one and were turned away. Hundreds of miles of booms are sitting in warehouses unused. There is no coordination of the containment and cleanup efforts. All of those unforced errors are government.

This "secret" that Republicans are to blame for all of this is no secret at all. Democrats have been blowing that vuvuzela for years. We've heard nothing but "blame Chimpy McHaliburton Bu$hitler" or "blame Darth Cheney". Blah blah blah, that dog don't hunt no more and the American people are sick of it. You can blame all of this on Republicans all you want but that won't get your friends elected and Keynesian economics is a proven failure. The stimulus that was supposed to lift us out of this mess was nothing but a payoff to government workers and unions.

It becomes harder to keep that secret hidden, once panic sets in on the other side...

That's why 'panic' is definitely a good thing for the American people....

The American people are panicking because they know the trillion dollar tab is going to come due. We're broke and we have lived beyond our means for years. Not just government but personally as well. We bought houses that were overpriced and cars that were leased and had too much credit and on and on. Government was even worse, they spent like crazy. I was sickened by the prescription drug plan. That was senior vote buying bullshit. I was outraged by the trillion dollar "stimulus". I wasn't the only one. That is what begat the Tea Party and may have awakened the sleeping giant of Middle America who has had enough not only of the endless rapacious hunger of government for their money but the ceaseless meddling in every facet of our lives. This far and no further. States are going to rightly be flexing their muscles. California is this close to telling the Feds to go fuck themselves and legalize marajuana. They'd be right to do so. The Federal government has no right to tell the citizens of California whether or not they can legalize this or that drug. I hope they do. I have no dog in the fight. I've never used the stuff and never will. I do, however, want to see the States standing up to the Fed and telling them it's time they took their proper place. That place is as the arbiter between the states and in charge of diplomacy, defense and national trade agreements. They need to stay the hell out of the States' internal affairs.

We're spending almost $12,000 per pupil on public schools. For what?

End Them, Don’t Mend Them | The Weekly Standard: "The Digest of Educational Statistics (read by Monday, there will be a quiz) says inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending increased by 49 percent from 1984 to 2004 and by more than 100 percent from 1970 to 2005.

Bell bottoms and Jerry Rubin hair versus piercings and tattoos—are kids getting smarter? No. National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test scores remained essentially the same from 1970 to 2004. SAT scores in 1970 averaged 537 in reading and 512 in math, and 38 years later the scores were 502 and 515. (More kids are taking SATs, but the nitwit factor can be discounted—scores below 400 have decreased slightly.) American College Testing (ACT) composite scores have increased only slightly from 20.6 (out of 36) in 1990 to 21.1 in 2008. And the extraordinary expense of the D.C. public school system produced a 2007 class of eighth graders in which, according to the NAEP, 12 percent of the students were at or above proficiency in reading and 8�percent were at or above proficiency in math."

Public schools are an abject failure. If you abolished the Department of Education tomorrow nothing would change. If anything, things might get better. All those bureaucrats who have spent their lives in the DOE would have to find real jobs.

I'm not going to go into my whole rant about how many government agencies could be eliminated but the simple fact is we're way way overtaxed and worse than that, we're overregulated. We don't have any respite from the oppressive hand of government. People are fed up and I pray they keep that anger going until we have a government of proper size and scope.

Interesting read

2010-06-29T14:06:00.000-04:00

The making of Thriller. The groundbreaking short film/music video shot in 1983. Read the whole thing from someone who was there. I was never an MJ fan (esp. wrt his personal life) but that video was undeniably awesome. As loathsome as his personal conduct was he was an amazing entertainer.

Fake Irish Passport

2010-06-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

Russian spies using fake Irish passports

Mossad assassins using fake Irish passports

It seems that Irish passports are easy to fake. Perhaps the Dubai team wasn't Israeli after all. My guess is they were but you never know. (Why did they go to Iran when they left Dubai if they were Israeli. That seems awfully risky. Also, why such a large team? They never use those kinds of numbers but the KGB did.)

It seems almost quaint hearing about the arrest of Russian spies. As if there's nothing to worry about with Russian spies. Bah! Who cares, it's not like they're jihadists dropping vials of plague on the subway or anything.

My how things have changed.

Grounds for impeachment

2010-06-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch: "'It's a great moment. I'm proud to have been here,' said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. 'No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.'"

Got that? This is now the second time that Democrats are passing a bill so they can see what's in it. This is insanity. The height of hubris and irresponsibility. They are passing laws that they openly admit they have no fucking clue what they do. This is totally indefensible. Any of Delaware's congrescritters that voted for this should be impeached. I am completely serious. Anyone who would vote in favor of a law or package of laws that the do not know what they do is unfit for office. Period, the end.

So pissed off I can't even blog about this.

8 House members investigated over fundraisers held near financial reform vote

2010-06-28T17:49:00.000-04:00

8 House members investigated over fundraisers held near financial reform vote:

"The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating eight lawmakers who held fundraisers within 48 hours of a major House vote on a Wall Street reform bill or received substantial donations from business people with a financial stake in the bill, according to congressional sources and letters."
(snip)
The office is scrutinizing five Republicans and three Democrats...

This is exactly the kind of bullshit I've been endlessly moaning about. Corruption is not, and never has been, limited to one party. If you have the idea that your party is the Good Guys and The Other Guys are the corrupt ones you're an idiot and a partisan hack. All of these men are drawn to Washington because they want power and money. They will use the former go get the latter. The longer they are in DC the more corrupt you become. I don't care what party they are with it's a function of time. They learn how to game the system and skirt the law and line their pockets and reward their cronies. This is the perfect argument for term limits. Since that will never happen I encourage everyone to always vote against the incumbent. Always. They have gerrymandered themselves into permanent jobs and not beholden to the little people.

Any supporter of either side should be zealous in their prosecution of frauds especially in their own party. If either side was as interested in the ethics of their own party half as much as the other guy, we'd have the cleanest government on Earth.

Why Mr. Anti-Bullshit Won't Call Out Islam or Scientology - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

2010-06-28T17:43:00.000-04:00

Why Mr. Anti-Bullshit Won't Call Out Islam or Scientology - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine: "Are there any groups you won't go after? We haven't tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn't want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I'm not sure. And we haven't tackled Islam because we have families.

Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back ... Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific. [...]

You do go after Christians, though ... Teller and I have been brutal to Christians, and their response shows that they’re good fucking Americans who believe in freedom of speech. We attack them all the time, and we still get letters that say, “We appreciate your passion. Sincerely yours, in Christ.” Christians come to our show at the Rio and give us Bibles all the time. They’re incredibly kind to us. Sure, there are a couple of them who live in garages, give themselves titles and send out death threats to me and Bill Maher and Trey Parker. But the vast majority are polite, open-minded people, and I respect them for that."

I think there's a lesson in there somewhere but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is? Anyone?

Delaware falling down on the job

2010-06-28T17:36:00.000-04:00

List of U.S. state tartans

That's right. We don't have an official State tartan. How on Earth have we survived this long? I suggest something blue and gold. Perhaps more gold than blue to make it distinctive. Oh, and we should require all members of both state houses to wear them when in session. That would rule.

"Extended?"

2010-06-28T15:41:00.000-04:00

Gun rights extended by Supreme Court: "Gun rights extended by Supreme Court"

How about "upheld" or "restored"? If this were a First Amendment case and they were lifting a ban on blogging I doubt this story would be played the same way.

Biden's speechmaking claims another victim

2010-06-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

GE CEO collapses during Biden speech

"Campbell, who was seated on a stool at the end of the stage set up inside a warehouse at GE's Appliance Park in Louisville, fell from a stool and off the stage as Biden was nearing the end of his remarks.
(snip)
Freeman says Campbell's collapse appears to be heat-related."

So Biden's speech was so full of hot air he nearly killed someone.

Good to know.

Must see of the day

2010-06-28T15:13:00.000-04:00

First one is for Hube:

These guys are hilarious. Must see of the day. OK, this one and one more.

NB: Not all actors are morons

2010-06-28T14:18:00.000-04:00

Costner cleanup device gets high marks from BP: "It was treated as an oddball twist in the otherwise wrenching saga of the BP oil spill when Kevin Costner stepped forward to promote a device he said could work wonders in containing the spill's damage. But as Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, the gadget in question — an oil-separating centrifuge — marks a major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology. And BP, after trial runs with the device, is ordering 32 more of the Costner-endorsed centrifuges to aid the Gulf cleanup.�"

The Right wing in this country continually derides the intelligence of most celebrities in the US largely b/c they're mostly liberals and if they're not on the Right side then clearly the must be morons. Meh. I've never been one of those. I've made fun of their dumb comments from time to time but I've tried not to throw a Blanket Of Stupid on them. Some of them are indeed, well educated. The ones who are famous who then go on to Ivy league schools don't impress me. They get in because they're famous and will probably give the school lots of money. There are a few who get in there before they're famous. That tells me they're not too dumb. (NB: it's also possible to be smart and wrong but that's another post)

In fact, I think the Right is doing themselves a disservice by deriding celebrities. Why would they want to consider themselves conservative or Republican when they're told how dumb they are?

Can we get back to calling people wrong instead of stupid? They are two different things and just because someone disagrees with you that doesn't make them dumb. Stupid, to me, is doing something you know or damn well ought to know is going to end up badly and then does after you do it anyway. Yes, I see some of you saying, "Well that's exactly why I think the other guy is stupid". Yeah, but see, it's not. It's not the same thing. Diving into water when you don't how deep it is? Stupid. Raising taxes for public funding of the arts? Not stupid. Wrong, but not stupid. (I'll agree that's at least arguable on the wrongness bit.)

So please, let's get back to wrong instead of stupid.

Aren't liberals against torture?

2010-06-28T14:06:00.000-04:00

Oliver Willis: "I think many Americans would like the fingernails of BP’s fat cats pulled out if it meant relief for people in the Gulf."

I see. I'm sure he'd roll his eyes and say he was making a point or wasn't serious or whatever but I don't think he is. I honestly believe he absolutely would pull out this guy's fingernails to stop this thing. That's fine if that's his opinion. If however, he wouldn't do the same for terrorists who have information that would prevent the death of hundreds or thousands of innocent people then he's a hypocrite.

About that stimulus...

2010-06-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

Biden: We Can't Recover All the Jobs Lost: "Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, 'there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.'"

Translation: We knew we couldn't fix it but we needed to throw money at our voters so they'd stop complaining until the next election.

The stimulus failed, we all know it failed. Even lefties know it failed. The indicators may be turning around but that has fuck all to do with anything this Congress or President is doing or has done. The only thing government can do to an economy is throttle it. Up or down. They can lift the yokes of restrictions and taxes and watch it grow. Or they can pull harder on them and shrink it.

Crazed Teabaggers set fire to police cars, loot city

2010-06-28T11:34:00.000-04:00

Oh, wait, it's just leftists at G20 again. Nothing to see here, move along.

F1 Valencia

2010-06-28T11:15:00.000-04:00

Fernando Alonso calls foul over treatment of Lewis Hamilton in Valencia

The issue in brief:

1. Passing the safety car is not allowed
2. Lewis Hamilton passed the pace car
3. He was penalized and force to do a drive through the pit lane.
4. That is the standard penalty

Everything else is just noise. Mostly from Ferrari and Alonso. Essentially Hamilton passed the pace car when it was mighty close to coming on track and I think he knew when he committed to passing that he shouldn't have but it was too late. Because he made it past the pace car he was able to finish second and Alonso finished 11th, out of the points. Alonso is mighty pissed because it means that Hamilton is well on his way to another championship pulling away from the Spaniard.

Alonso's claim that he "always plays by the rules" however, is hilarious.

In Hungary in 2007 he stayed in the pit allegedly "discussing tires" or something while Hamilton sat behind him unable to refuel for further qualifying. Alonso knew that he currently had the lead for pole and that Hamilton was surely going to outqualify him so he screwed his teammate. Oh, did I not mention that? He was willing to screw his sponsors, and his team (out of constructor's points) in order to serve his own interests. Asshole.

In Singapore in 2008 his team principal Flavio Briatore order the junior team member to crash at the worst possible spot on the track to ensure Alonso had a safety car until the end of the race ensuring a win. Not cheating there either? (NB: the junior driver later confessed to tanking the race on purpose which resulted in a force retirement for Briatore)

Ferrari is known by fans as the dodgiest team on the sport. In fact, they have a slang term called "red horse rules". It's shorthand for "the rules don't seem to apply to Ferrari (again)." This is especially bad when Ferrari is racing at home (Imola and Monza).

Frankly the fact that the whole thing meant that Hamilton didn't lose a spot and Alonso ended up out of the points makes me smile. Frankly, the both got what they deserved.

Socialism wins again!

2010-06-25T12:50:00.000-04:00

Chavez pushes Venezuela into food war:

"The 'battle for food' coincided with a botched devaluation in January that pushed up the cost of imports.
The result has been an economic catastrophe in the only Latin American economy in recession. Inflation leapt to 21 per cent in May as food prices rose 41 per cent over the level of a year ago. Soldiers have been deployed to raid private homes for food stores. Long lines regularly form on streets for basic commodities.
Mr Chavez is undeterred by failure. Last week he relaunched a chain of supermarkets his government had expropriated from a French-Colombian joint venture. He boasted that the 40-strong chain, Bicentennial Supplies, was already operating at a higher profit margin that under Western management."

So to sum up:

1. Socialism has been a huge success despite massive failure
2. It has been so successful that 80,000 tons of meat were left to rot rather than be distributed or sold.
3. The theft expropriation has been so successful that soldiers are raiding private homes for food.
4. The store is now more capitalist than when the capitalists ran it.

I suppose the last point is true in that shortages cause price spikes so the goods they stole from the private company they then sold for the new shortage price. By that reckoning they are operating at 100% profit. Funny thing about theft. Low overhead.

Watch the last 30 seconds or so

2010-06-24T16:58:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart FTW.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

World Cup 2010: Into Africa - US Beats Algeria

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Yeah but see he "cares about the little people"

2010-06-24T13:43:00.000-04:00

Didja get that? The workers were sent home for unpaid leave so Chairman Zero can make a speech. Remember this next time he or his ilk talk about looking out for the interest of workers or some such claptrap.

Italy Training Camp

2010-06-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

Even in flyover country

2010-06-24T10:48:00.000-04:00

they're World Cup crazy.

Please no more nonsense about soccer being communist or whatever. Just stop, you sound like an idiot.

Why Soccer is awesome

2010-06-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

The best goal I've ever seen. The best goal anyone has ever seen and very rarely talked about.

Seriously, the level of skill required to make this shot is insane. This is Michael Jordan scoring a full court shot over his shoulder while diving out of bounds to save a wayward pass.

And the crowd goes wild!

2010-06-23T19:26:00.001-04:00

Landon Donovan's late goal lifts United States over Algeria, and into next round of World Cup

Story is good but the clip says it all. The unbridled joy when Donovan scores is awesome.

This man is trying to kill me

2010-06-23T17:08:00.000-04:00

That's him. He's trying to kill me. He is the host Head Inquistitor of something called P90X. This is a self torture video that is designed to maim but not kill you. If you attempt to follow the entire regiment after years of inactivity you will be crippled (at least temporarily). Allow me to explain. In April I decided to get serious about dropping weight and getting into some sort of shape. Some of you remember that I used to play soccer on Wednesday nights (nb: Hube was too scared). That was 2+ hours of running around every week. Good for the calorie burn. They closed the field as it was in terrible shape and wanted to "rest" it over the summer and that was the end of that. The games never came back. I had heard good things about the P90X program and decided (yesterday) to try it. The good thing is, it's on video which makes it handy to follow along and its all plyometrics which means no weights to buy or lug around. So far, so good. The best part is that each video is a mere 15 minutes. Bah! I can do 15 minutes of anything. Right?

So going alphabetically, I started with, I am not making this up, "AB RIPPER X". Hyperbole thought I. It's fifteen freakin' minutes. Started off strong and going well. I can feel my stomach muscles working and working hard at that. I kept up for the first, oh, 6 minutes or so. By minute 8 I was sucking wind and really feeling it. By the time he was done I was in tears crying for mommy. I laid on the floor and waited for my rubber legs to dissipate so I could get a drink and maybe something to eat. Ha ha, no. I was upstairs and food lives downstairs. I had to go down the stairs on my ass for fear of falling on my face and breaking many things. I ate something, drank some water and went back upstairs to shower. Finished the night with some Hulu and went to bed. This morning when I woke something was very wrong. My oblique stomach muscles were sore but that was to be expected. It really wasn't that bad. Just the normal post workout burn you feel. My hips, however, had been somehow been injected with ground glass. Agony. Stiff and sure agony. I managed to hobble myself to the shower and had to lift each leg behind my thigh to get into the tub. I felt like a freakin' mime. I showered and, again, lifted my legs out of the tub and back to the room. Getting dressed was not easy. I finally got going and started my walk to work. Each step was stabbing pain from the tops of my thighs to the bottom of my ribcage. I asked Mr. Google why that is. Seems my hip flexors are in rebellion. Any attempt at stretching was met with yelps of prostestation and comically limited range of motion.

Got to my office and started working. Around oh, 10:00 AM I had to get up. That was a problem. I had stiffened up from all that sitting. Now when I walked I looked like a guy who had to take a dump or just had taken one in his pants. Walking was so painful I started to sweat. The pain actually decreases with mobility and range of motion gets better but I'm dreading the walk home tonight. This is gonna suck

USA! USA! USA!

2010-06-23T14:26:00.000-04:00

Happy tears for Donovan

Very well played. Can hardly contain my excitement. They were nearly robbed again as the Dempsey goal was called off despite clearly being on sides. The refs have it in for our team. Once is a fluke, two call that bad is not. The Germany/Ghana game starts in a minute. We want Germany to win this one so they play England and then we'll play Ghana. They play rough so the chances for injury are higher but Germany is a very powerful team. One we want to avoid as long as possible.

Attention South Africa

2010-06-22T15:29:00.002-04:00

Put down your stupid horn and try this:

California is insane. Example #3,476,221

2010-06-22T12:51:00.000-04:00

Official state rock is bad for your health, state senator says

Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, has proposed legislation to strip serpentine of its title because exposure to chrysotile asbestos, a cancer-causing mineral inside it, can increase risk of lung disease, she says.

I suppose if you stopped smoking them you'd be fine. I swear Californians will smoke everything except tobacco.

Romero's legislation would leave the state without an official state rock.

ZOMFG!!!!11!1! How will they go on?

Sometimes it's a tax, sometimes it isn't

2010-06-22T12:20:00.000-04:00

Remember that? Taking money by force of law for public goods are not a tax. Emphatically not.

"I absolutely reject that notion."

Now, that notion is no longer rejected. Rather, it's the basis for a motion to dismiss a Florida lawsuit. Now it's a tax again because they have the power to tax but the power to compel the purchase of goods and services is much more circumspect. That this is now a tax either requires Obama to direct the DOJ to drop the motion or the MSM to note this is a plain violation of his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. I'm not holding my breath for either one.

We've arrived in Crazytown

2010-06-21T16:21:00.000-04:00

If this is to be believed:

We've arrived in crazytown. This is the stuff of North Korea. The Dear Leader had a hard week so he's going golfing (for what, the 6th time in 60 days of this crisis) and it's for your own good. It benefits all America when The One partakes in leisure. If that is so, let him sit out the next four years and stop fucking things up. I suppose that would benefit all Americans.

Some fresh outrage from P.J. O'Rourke

2010-06-21T15:58:00.001-04:00

Enough, however, of outrageous statistics. Let’s generate some pure outrage. Here’s my proposal: Close all the public schools. Send the kids home. Fire the teachers. Sell the buildings. Raze the U.S. Department of Education, leaving not one brick standing upon another and plow the land where it stood with salt.
[snip]
In the article on Education in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I found this quaint description of the subjects studied at a typical American high school: “Latin, Greek, French, German, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, physical geography, physiology, rhetoric, English literature, civics and history.” Or, as we call them nowadays, a smattering of Spanish, Fun With Numbers, Earth in the Balance, computer skills, Toni Morrison, safe sex, and multicultural studies.

I have a brief with this paragraph:

“Wouldn’t closing the public schools eliminate valuable programs targeted for disabled students?” Yes. As of 2007, there were 6,007,800 children and young people with disabilities in the United States. But, also as of 2007, the Department of Education’s budget was $66 billion. Those funds have been freed up. That’s about $11,000 per disabled child plus the $15,000 each will receive as his or her pro rata share of the nation’s education spending. A yearly benefit of $26,000 should provide some tutoring and therapy—or a pocket full of Ritalin.

But if you've been here before you'd know that. Why? Well, the private schools for autistic kids (esp. severe cases like my son) start at around $60,000 and then go up from there. $100,000 is not unusual if, that is, you can get into one. Private schools are under no obligation to take anybody and they like to keep their ratio around 3:1. The higher up the cost ladder you go, you get to 1:1 and even 1:2. I suppose I'd be able to afford that if my other two were cut checks for $15,000 each. If I deduct what the local Catholic school costs, I'd still have to kick in out of pocket but I could probably find something. I'm not sure what but it would not be zero.

I do, however, agree with the overall thrust of the article. Public education is not doing it's job and has not done so for a long long time. That is not to say that I didn't get a good education in the public schools I attended. Indeed, they were very good. However, that is not the norm. O'Rourke ignores the cynical reality that compulsory public education functions as state run babysitting so parents can go to work and keeps kids out of trouble (as much as possible) and at least, makes policing cheaper. Few things are more destructive than teenage boys with too much idle time on their hands.

What would happen if we seriously pulled the plug on public education? (Granted this will never happen but bear with me). Let's assume that only the federal component was eliminated. That would be the end of donor states and recipient states. States would be required to self-fund without any money coming from Washington. Nor would they have to worry about federal mandates for whatever strikes the DOE's fancy. We would probably see the reduction of standardized testing and the overhead would decrease for record keeping and so on. Some states would see serious upheaval as they overturned the teacher's unions stranglehold on education. Those states would have a very vibrant and robust education system that would probably look more like our college/university system. The state would have some schools and they'd be pretty good but usually quite large and the private ones would be the best of the lot and frequently smaller.

What if we eliminated even the state level? We'd probably see education businesses buying up those schools in a hurry and hiring the best people they could possibly find and they'd have their doors open pretty quickly. I'd wager quite a few of those teachers would apply for their same jobs back and would probably get them at least in the short term. Again, the unions would face massive upheaval and would be fighting on all fronts to keep their hold where they could. There would be far too many battles to fight and they'd have to focus on the largest (read: urban) areas to keep something going. The school administrators would likely be more like CFOs than educators. They'd have to budget and hire and fire. They'd be in charge of marketing and endowment building. Delaware, for example, would see a massive increase in applications to existing private schools which have things in place and would not require startups.

I admit to a bias here. I have always favored not the destruction of the public education system but rather, I want it to compete on a level field with private schools. I often ask opponents of vouchers and private schools, why our secondary education system works so well. How can it be that the (relatively) unfettered secondary education market makes for good public as well as private schools but that model would somehow fail if it did the same with primary school. Imagine if you had a check from the state for $10,000 per year. Don't you think you could find a good school for your child? I do. Hell, a great many parents would stay in their local district. We have an ersatz version of school choice here. I don't know the details but from what I understand there is some mobility between schools here but not from public to private. Only from public to public. That's not much but it is more than most states have.

Choice and competition always foster a better product. Always. Monopolies are bad. Always.

Again with the "imagine if it were...."

2010-06-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

Embed not working

Imagine if any Fox News outlet said they were working on something with the administration. Especially the previous one.

Seriously, we're paying attention now. While I appreciate your honesty it's ponderous that you have no shame in working for the Executive Branch. Taking what they're saying a gospel truth rather than, you know, that whole "speaking truth to power" crap you're always on about.

Time to push the panic button?

2010-06-21T14:42:00.000-04:00

For Democrats the answer is yes according to The New Republic. He cites some solid reasons but really even if he's completely right it's not going to be another 1994. It will be enough to blunt Obamas further efforts are massive, drastic changes. It will also make his favorite activity (Blame Someone Else) that much easier. It will take the pressure off for the True Believers who will be able to stay safe and warm in their cocoon of belief. It will ensure Obama runs in 2012 and likely defeat. That's a long way off but I think this Gulf fiasco is turning his most ardent supporters toward re-evaluation at least. I'd wager even the redoubtable LGOMB and Kavips have doubts they won't publicly air. In fact, Kavips posted one not too long ago that reeked of whistling past the graveyard. November is a few months away and any sort of predictions are very very early (That doesn't seem to stop you -ed). If things continue apace November could be very bad for Democrats. Certainly if the leak is not contained by then it will be.

When athletes were heroes

2010-06-21T14:18:00.000-04:00

Manute Bol is dead at 47. He was known mostly for his enormous size. I remember him as one of the first seven footers in the game indeed he is reputed to be the tallest player ever to play in the NBA. He was a tireless activist for peace in Sudan. He made millions but spent most of it in Sudan trying to help the people there. He even once incurred a $25,000 penalty for skipping two exposition games while attending a peace conference in DC. He is survived by his second wife and ten (!) children. The NBA could use a few dozen more like him.

Watch it for the hotlap

2010-06-18T09:40:00.001-04:00

Pure awesome. The absolute deadpan makes it perfect. The hotlap at the end is simply brilliant. Simply brilliant.

I have to admit the first line made me laugh

2010-06-17T16:00:00.001-04:00

Wannabe New Jersey Jihadist Was An Internet Meme

Great, now our nation is under attack by memes.

I'm sure his defense will be; "Death to Jews!? What? No! I just hate liquefied fruit. I must have been at the wrong rally."

Crazed Violent Redneck Racist Export Their Ideology

2010-06-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

Tea Party clones are popping up in Russia, Israel and Holland

How can that be? The Tea Party is about hating Obama, or black people, or Mexicans or whatever. Isn't it? Or could it be, that as they've been saying all along, it's about liberty. It's about controlling the government rather than letting it control you. It's about fiscal sanity. It's about lifting the yoke of regulation and tax and bureaucracy from citizens.

It has broad appeal. International appeal because everybody wants to breathe free. Wants to be left in peace to conduct their own affairs as they wish so long as they do not harm others. I have always believed that the core defining principle of (small l) libertarianism animates most Americans. Hell, even most people.

I think people everywhere are finally seeing that enough is enough and they're getting very little return for their money.

My fear is that after the next election cycle the Tea Party will fizzle out. That the fervor will dwindle when a few of the more egregious Obama items are rolled back. That would not be good. We need that passion and focus on smaller government for a good long time. I hope I'm wrong and they keep it going for a long, long time.

From the "Who Exactly Is Surprised By This" file

2010-06-17T14:22:00.001-04:00

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider | Full Comment | National Post

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider.

So that "Eleventy Billion Nobel Scientists Agree" that I've been hearing is a total lie? Got it. We knew as much but I'm glad they've come clean. This, of course, didn't make the news. Not one story. It is a huge, huge story but it doesn't fit the narrative so out the window it goes.

Brevity is the soul of wit

2010-06-17T14:21:00.001-04:00

I think someone finally found an appropriate use for Twitter:

Barack Obama Embraces His Inner Jimmy Carter

The best summation of the speech comes from our own Caleb Howe, who tweeted, “Let me be clear. Some oil spilled. But Katrina. And make no mistake. I’m having meetings. In conclusion, something about China. Windmills!” That, ladies and gentlemen, is the President’s whole speech in 140 characters.

I am not making this up

2010-06-17T09:39:00.001-04:00

Puppy thrown at German biker gang

A German student "mooned" a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

I swear this sounds like a Monty Python sketch.

The worst thing about World Cup

2010-06-17T09:18:00.001-04:00

Give me a break. And no, this is not "part of the game". It's cheating, it's poor sportsmanship and it makes you look like a pussy. Man up and play the damn game. I'm glad they've been booking the for this crap this time around. Last World Cup had more acting than Summer Stock.

When the Internet Generation meets paleopoliticians

2010-06-16T16:41:00.001-04:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I love this one. The guy sits down for what he thinks is going to be a fluff interview and boom goes the dynamite! At first he laughs, and shifts in his chair. He can't believe this isn't a softball interview. Then he tries to bamboozle the kid by asking which committee and the kid delivers. Boom Goes The Dynamite Part Deux. Then he feigns ignorance on the vote he supported. Then, he runs away. Yes, this State Senator ran away from an interview with a High School Student. He couldn't handle the hard hitting journalism of a teenager. That can only mean the "real media" in that area is falling down on the job. Kudos to this kid. More please.

Coke n' Mentos Rube Goldberg Machine

2010-06-16T15:26:00.001-04:00

Win!

Simultaneously cruel and hilarious

2010-06-16T14:15:00.001-04:00

Brilliant!

2010-06-16T14:14:00.001-04:00

Holy Flaming Jesus!

2010-06-16T13:36:00.001-04:00

I swear I'm not a Godblogger but this was just too awesome not to post.

NNooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

2010-06-16T13:31:00.001-04:00

Skip to the 2:00 minute mark and see how long you can last.

Dear Sweet Lord. That was painful. The worst part is it gave me flashbacks. See, when I was kid (late 70's) the Catholic Church (at least my parish) was a little bonkers. They were co-opting the Hippy/Free Love thing in hopes of keeping the younger parishoners from fleeing. It didn't work and mostly it drove away the other sane people (like my parents). Why? The above video is why. I remember being seven years old and sitting in the pew when the Priest was reading something and the band (that should be a clue to Catholics how far gone my parish was) started playing some sort of background music. I noticed some movement on my left, in the aisle. A young woman, probably in her twenties, was doing some sort of interpretive dance like the one above. She was dressed in a one piece spandex thing. I was literally agape. I had never seen anything like it and haven't since. Our weekly church attendance fell off a cliff after that and I wasn't bothered. I didn't like Mass much as a kid and was happy to have my Sundays unencumbered. Especially during soccer season. Games were on Sunday and it ended the need to rush home from Mass, change into my uniform and rush over to the field.

It wasn't until I was in college that I started going to Mass again. Mass with no "liturgical dance", no felt banners and happy-clappy bands and tambourines. No more "Day by Day". God help me but I hate that song. It's one of the few mainstays of Mass that I remember from those very odd days.

Odd thing though, I always liked our priests. They were, to a man, great people. Happy, eager to help and enthusiastic. No, we never had any sort of scandal at our parish. Nobody abused anybody and everybody got along well. (I just remembered that I was there one evening helping them set up for a carnival or some such event and I had to get a broom. The "broom closet" was the confessional. That, my friend, speaks volumes)

Jon Stewart FTW

2010-06-16T13:12:00.001-04:00

I am not Jon Stewart's biggest fan but this is great:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Respect My Authoritah

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Give him credit for intellectual honesty even if he's late to the party. Obama is losing even his most dedicated supporters. The tipping point is going to be whether LGOMB have another purge after someone hints that Obama may not be, in all ways, perfect.

Angry Clown Union Leaders

2010-06-16T12:41:00.001-04:00

No, not this group of angry clowns, this one:

Angry clowns decry armed robbery by imposters - wtop.com

Clown-union leader Carlos Vasquez says he plans to issue IDs to all real clowns and urge police to detain those who do not have them.

(Emphasis mine).

Clowns have a union. I...a union? Really? Are there scab clowns taking up all the plum clowning jobs somewhere? If there's any group of people that I imagined needing a union, clowns are most emphatically not on that list.

Do you think they only mime signing their union dues check? Cause that would be awesome.

In Praise of ESPN

2010-06-16T11:23:00.001-04:00

I'm not ESPN's biggest fan. There, I said it. The main reason why is the programming. They over-cover the big three (Baseball, Basketball and Football) to the detriment of all the other sports. They rerun the same thing over and over rather than throwing a bone to people like me who want to see the other stuff too. Let me be clear: what they do, they do very well. When it comes to analysis, reporting and recaps, ESPN is second to none. That said, their web coverage of the World Cup has been amazing. That's just for the opening round. For people like me who want to watch the cup but have these pesky "jobs" we have to show up for it's been a boon. I'm able to keep an ESPN window open with the gamecast. It tells me shots, substitutions, goals, fouls etc. They have been adding highlights of goals inside of 10 minutes. It's amazing. If you're in the GameCast window, click on the icon for goal that has a video highlight and you get the clip.

Thank you ESPN!

Tech Bleg

2010-06-15T16:55:00.001-04:00

OK, so I'm going build myself an HTPC. The plan is to buy the components from Tigerdirect or newegg and assemble it myself. I want to use the Mythbuntu build. In terms of specs I think I need about 2GB of RAM, ~250GB, Intel/Athelon dual core motherboard, 512MB NVIDIA card, generic dvd r/w, wireless card and an IR blaster. So far I'm having trouble finding a microtower case to hold it all and I'm concerned about heat with the smaller case sizes. Additionally, I have 1TB of NAS storage on the network which is Windows and I'm not sure how to get the Mythbuntu build to talk to the Windows NAS. Does anyone know if that's possible? I may end up making the NAS not really a NAS but just physically moving it from A to B when I need to move things on/off. I'm also looking to put in a hybrid card because from what I'm reading you can then stream from the interwebs to your TV much better than physically capturing then watching it later. Any help appreciated on that part.

So, the questions:

Do the specs look good?
Can I get MythTV or Mythbuntu to talk to my windows NAS?
Does anyone have any experience w/ hybrid cards?
Where can I get a decent microtower case?
Am I crazy for even starting this?

Stupid politicians

2010-06-15T14:43:00.001-04:00

New Jersey’s crazy war on oysters

So here's your choice: Polluted waters that NO ONE can use for swimming, fishing or whatever but those 1 in a thousand people who would otherwise eat these oysters will be safe. Or we have less polluted (and eventually clean) waters for everyone and polluted oysters that nobody can eat. Which would you pick?

I understand what the fear is. They fear that someone will either unwittingly take them and sell them or will knowingly do so (evil bastard) and someone will get sick and sue and blah blah blah.

Look, life has risks. We can mitigate them but not eliminate them. Just put these oysters in an area that makes them difficult to cultivate or cost prohibitive to do so. We need clean water more than we need fear bad oysters.

About that Congressman...

2010-06-14T15:47:00.001-04:00

Dems defend Etheridge, attack Breitbart

In other news, water is wet, sun rises in the east

The Democrats' talking points:

1. There is always the part of the story that you can’t see in these gotcha style videos — what were these folks doing, how did they approach him, how were the cameraman and/or others off camera acting?

Uh...standing on the sidewalk. What form of "acting" would have, in any way, justified the mans behavior? I suppose assaulting a small child or something but I doubt that was happening.

2. Why would any legitimate student doing a project or a journalist shagging a story not identify themselves. Motives matter — what was the motivation here? To incite this very type of reaction?

Perhaps they're journalism students. Or Political science majors. Or Psyche majors. Their motives, whatever they were, never entered into the equation. The man was asked one simple question on camera in public and he went bonkers. Does the author ever ask after Michael Moore's motives?

3. This is clearly the work of the Republican Party and the “interviewer” is clearly a low level staffer or intern. That’s what explains blurring the face of the “interviewer” and refusing to identify the entity this was done for. The Republicans know if they were caught engaging in this type of gotcha tactic it would undermine their own credibility — yet if it was an individual acting on his own there is no reason that person would have blurred themselves out of the video — and if it was the work of a right wing blog they would have their logo on the video and be shouting their involvement from the roof top.

"Clearly" twice in one sentence. I can understand the argument that the guy most likely has Republican leanings, but saying it's in any way "clear" that he's with the party or a staffer is drawing conclusions were there are none. James O'Keefe was affiliated only with himself. What possible "gotcha" are we talking about? The guy was overly aggressive in the face of a single question (ok, technically two but "how are you today" wasn't really the question). If he ambushed the guy with some scurrilous charge about misappropriated funds or beating his wife or drug abuse or enjoying the music of the Bay City Rollers I could see getting angry and possibly physical. None of that happened.

4. This was a purposefully partisan hit job designed to incite a reaction for political reasons — but it is a tactic so low — the parties involved are remaining anonymous.

"Designed to incite a reaction?" Are we to believe that Democrats are ragebombs waiting to go off if asked a simple question? And anonymity is now a surefire sign of low tactics? No more anonymous sources for journalism then eh? Good to know. The next time you see any democrat or democrat friendly story in the news that contains anonymous sources you can now discount it. Good to know.

5. The fact that no one wants to take credit for this should raise real questions in the minds of voters and the press.

Because it's not about them, it's about the criminal (literally) behavior of a Congressman. Also, given the hatchet job they've done on Joe the Plumber why would anyone want to expose themselves to such a campaign? I know I wouldn't.

6. Push hard w/ blogs the lack of credibility inherent to anything Breitbart does/posts, given its role in the debunked ACORN videos: (links deleted)

Push back hard? The guy was big enough to admit he was wrong (though he couldn't bring himself to do so without taking a swipe at his film crew.) The smarter move would be to applaud him for his apology and move on. Dragging this out further is not going to help him. Digging into the lives of the people who made the video won't either. Eventually they might figure out that doing that sort of crap just makes you look worse and keeps the original incident in the minds of voters.

Yanks Win 1-1!

2010-06-14T13:31:00.001-04:00

Awesome game. Fantastic goalkeeping and Donovan played well. The second half the team looked better than the first. They held their own despite blowing two good opportunities in the first half. The unsung hero of the game was Demerit who kept Rooney buttoned up. At this rate we're going to tie for first in the group and it will be decided on goals. Look for both the US and England to try and run up the score on both Slovenia and Algeria.

GO USA!

This man is crazy

2010-06-14T09:31:00.002-04:00

Seriously!? He assaults this kid after he said "Good morning Congressman" and then asks him if he "fully supports the Obama agenda". That's enough to get a Congressman that fired up? WTF? I think he saw the camera and freaked out. Note the demand; "I have a right to know who you are." No asshole, you don't. You don't have that right at all. If I were this kid, I'd dog this guy with a camera every time he was in public. I have no doubt he'd call the police and file a restraining order and so on.

Sorry, any Congressman who gets that testy that fast is either arrogant or filled with rage. Either way, he needs to be kicked out.

Wasting ammo

2010-06-11T12:50:00.001-04:00

Now you can waste ammunition faster than ever before! Unless you're in very close quarters I doubt you'd hit anything with the second shot.

Michael Jai White teaches you how to punch people in the face

2010-06-11T12:23:00.001-04:00

I've seen this guy in a few movies but nothing recently. I did, however, hear him on the Adam Carolla podcast and he was an interesting guest. I didn't know he was so into martial arts and from that conversation I could tell he took it rather seriously. In the following clip he talk about how to hit someone as a martial artist and not a boxer. He exemplifies why martial arts are not boxing. Boxing is a sport. Martial arts is fighting. Watch the clip and I'll chime in after....go ahead, I'll wait.

Notice his stance. When he stands he stands not like a boxer. He is not square. He turns a profile. Something boxers are taught never to do. Why not? Because of the way they fight. Boxers roll from the shoulders and use their feet very differently. If you've seen Million Dollar Baby, they illustrate how a boxer torques more from their feet to drive a punch. Not so with the martial artist. A boxer can count on different parameters for fighting that don't often apply to fighters. Sound footing for one. A referee for another. A boxer can count on solid, stable footing and even surface. That allows him to rely more on equilibrium and pushing from his feet. Telegraphing a move is less important because boxing is about points not knockouts (contrary to popular opinion). You need only hit someone for a point. Martial artists will turn their bodies to present a minimal aspect to their opponent. They usually have a lower stance making them harder to hit and a lower center of gravity. Watch this guy's fighting stance. Think he's done that move before? Michael White schools Kimbo by showing him the difference here. Tells me the dude knows what he's talking about. If the video continued I suspect he'd talk more about waist power which is critical for martial arts. You need to start punches with your hips for a whip like effect through to your arm. Does this mean that martial artists are better than boxers? No, just different. Styles never trump styles. People trump people. You could be the best boxer in the world but if it goes to ground, you have no hope against a good grappler. Conversely, Royce Gracie would be destroyed by a Manny Pacquiao.

oh, and this guy can't punch for shit.

Sure he's huge but he's all knotted up, keeps his hands around chest level and his punches are mostly rolling his body from side to side. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this guy's punch but he charges like a bull and any half decent Muay Thai guy half his size would lay him out in about five seconds. Big doesn't always win because big guys rely on size to win the day and often they don't know how to punch are are slow. Also most fights are not stand up events but it's one or two shots and everybody is on the ground.

England sinks further into Dhimmitude

2010-06-10T12:19:00.001-04:00

'Follow the Islamic way to save the world,' Charles urges environmentalists

You're not helping.

Yes I know he's supposed to make nice with Islam when he's speaking there but he probably should have worded it better.

My favorite howler in this one: "Charles, who is a practising Christian"

Lectures about the environment from the British Royal family is just too much.

I'm sure this is also Bush's fault.

2010-06-10T11:52:00.001-04:00

Ex-veep daughter Karenna Gore and husband Drew Schiff separate

Separated: Karenna Gore Schiff, 36, and Drew Schiff, 44, after nearly 13 years of marriage.

I'm sure this is because she was so devastated by her parents splitting which was Bush's fault because he won the election or something.

Basic economics and liberals

2010-06-09T17:52:00.001-04:00

Daniel Klein: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.

This is something I've been saying for a while now. The plurality of people I know who are liberals do not understand basic economics. Amazingly one of my friends has her own law practice but seems unable to grasp econ 101. Another guy I went to high school with is a journalist so you can imagine what his grasp is. He makes my brother completely mental. My brother is an equity analyst and journalist man is basically a marxist. I wish I had recorded some of the conversations they have had about banks, equities, economics and, God help me, "social justice". Oh, and the minimum wage one was awesome.

The real gems for this article are in the comments. There's a lot of chaff but some of the wheat in there are the liberals who attempt do debunk the study by adding in all sorts of extraneous reason why the study is flawed or unclear or biased. Really, it's amazing. One reader tries to argue that restricting the development of housing does not necessarily mean restricting housing. It might mean restricting the size of housing which would necessarily dictate lower prices. How this is so is not explained. This would be news to people in Manhattan and moreso in Hong Kong.

The other wonder explains that increasing minimum wage decreases unemployment because more people will apply for jobs that pay more money. Exactly how more than one person will fill that job irrespective of the number of applicants is, again, not explained.

The logic goes something like this: There is a job available at Burger Joint for $5.00 per hour. There will only be 10 applicants. Raise that number to $12.50 and now you have 100 applicants. That somehow means you've got the job market moving again.

Read as much of it as you can (nb: there were over 400 comments when last I looked)

There are three problems here

2010-06-09T17:39:00.001-04:00

1. Compression rate of motor is too high
2. Fuel mix too rich
3. Perhaps you should put it in park when bailing out.

Thanks for the lulz though...

YouTube of the day

2010-06-09T15:07:00.001-04:00

It's funny because it's true

Interesting. Worth a look.

So much fun.

Weekly picture dump

2010-06-09T08:34:00.000-04:00

Behold the power of computing in 1989. Today you could buy almost 1 MacBook Pro for the same money.

T-shirt most likely to be found in Thompkins Square Park

Truth in advertising

When Double Stuff just isn't enough

From the Bureau of Unfortunate Signage:

My new favorite meme:

Can't see where this could go wrong...

Grammar lesson of the day. Please make a note of it.

Puns are supposed to be the lowest form of humor but this one really made me laugh

If it wasn't a crime before why were they "illegal"? MSNBC is so far down the garden path they don't even see the problem with a graphic like that.

XKCD nails it again. Linux looks more appealing every day now.

This is feeling more and more real every day

So true

Why the top kill failed:

I loved this one. I firmly believe the only thing saving us from a second stimulus is the Tea Party. Without them we'd have done this a second and maybe even third time.

From the I Did Not Know That file:

Where's the bubble?

2010-06-08T12:39:00.001-04:00

Bubbles Past, Present and Future

Precisely so. The problem is that we've all become short investors. We expect large returns over short time with no risk. Sounds great but it's a fantasy. The best you can do is to keep with the index, outpace inflation and what you would get from a CD or other boring yet safe instrument.

Just a bit of perspective.

Way to stay classy Philly!

2010-06-08T12:36:00.001-04:00

Child caught on video ~~allegedly~~ drinking beer at Phillies game

Awesome. Epic parenting fail. The only thing that people are missing from this story is that the child appears to be drinking Miller Lite which only confirms what I've been saying for years. Miller Lite is for children, not men.

Governing is hard but campaigning is fun

2010-06-08T12:24:00.001-04:00

Obama Briefed in April by Carol Browner On How Bad BP Spill Was

This from The Daily Beast. Hardly an organ of the GOP. Does this mean the Left is turning on Obama? I think this is just them waking up from the insanely high expectations they put on the man. I don't expect him to single-handedly solve this over night but I did expect something other than endless meetings and blamestorming.

Look, as noted elsewhere the Saudis had a leak ten times larger in the Arabian Gulf and they got some empty supertankers and vacuumed the oil up off the surface and were even able to separate it from the seawater and recover 85% of it. All I'm saying is that if the corrupt and inept Saudis can come up with this there's no reason we can't do the same and even better.

Yes this is worse than Katrina. No this is not Obama's fault but the aftermath that continues is. He owns this shit now and endlessly blaming anyone else for anything at this point isn't helping. Stop blaming and start fixing. Blame whomever the hell you want when it's over but for now quit bitching and get going.

"I will not rest until this leak is plugged." Really? How's Paul McCartney fit into your Not Resting Plugging The Damn Hole plan?

I have news for you Mr. President, a great many people who make their living off those waters voted for you. Keep this up and rest assured they won't make that mistake again.

Now this is rich (pardon the pun)

2010-06-08T12:15:00.001-04:00

Democrats Skip Town Halls to Avoid Voter Rage - NYTimes.com

If the time-honored tradition of the political meeting is not quite dead, it seems to be teetering closer to extinction. Of the 255 Democrats who make up the majority in the House, only a handful held town-hall-style forums as legislators spent last week at home in their districts.

It was no scheduling accident.

With images of overheated, finger-waving crowds still seared into their minds from the discontent of last August, many Democrats heeded the advice of party leaders and tried to avoid unscripted question-and-answer sessions. The recommendations were clear: hold events in controlled settings — a bank or credit union, for example — or tour local businesses or participate in community service projects.

Oh the ironing!

Not too long ago The Angry Left (is there another kind? -ed.) pilloried Bush for not talking to the press and even less so, to the people. They were right. One of the President's jobs is to take his lumps from the Press Corp and, to a lesser extent, the public. Putting the Press Secretary out there as a bullet sponge week after week is part of the gig, but when big things are happening, he's gotta take some of the hits. Just the way it is when you sit in the big chair.

Now things are different. Ye Olden Rules are gone and the The New Rules are in. Now politicians need not speak to anyone unfriendly. Not on board with the drive for socialized medicine? Access denied. Townhalls participants decidedly less than fawning admiration? Cancel all further townhalls.

This is either a symptom or a cause of the increasing partisanship of the nation. By isolating your critics from you and putting them in the "them" camp, you're only confirming what they suspect and drawing lines between "us" and "them". Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise. Not on matters of principle mind you, but on law and policy. I want free enterprise virtually unfettered by law and government. I also know that is not practical and politically impossible. I am willing to make certain concessions to that end. I am not, however, willing to bend on the idea of capitalism and free enterprise. There are tradeoffs to be made and the wise man is the one who is going to realize that the sane, normal people are not the loudest. They are not at the poles, they're in the middle. Speak rationally, be able to address your critics with reason and sobriety and you'll win the day. I firmly believe that most people want mostly to be left to their own devices. They want to get up, go to work, come home to wife and kids (optional), recreate and then get up and do it again. Until the end. That's about it. Leave the average person to their own devices and most of them would thank you for it.

We're really at a crossroads here. The argument is a simple one. Do you want to centralize or decentralize? Do we want Big Oil to be an arm of the Department of the Interior? I don't. I don't think this spill would have happened if BP had been nationalized however. Never would have happened. Not because they'd have a superior safety record but rather b/c they never would have developed the technology to drill that deep. The only possible upside to nationalizing the oil industry would be the sudden sea change in the will to drill in ANWAR and other domestic, protected sites. Suddenly there would be some sort of reason why it would be all hunky dory. Then we could hope that in 2012 Americans wised up, threw the Centralizers out of office and de-nationalized (or privatized) BP again and left them to drill in ANWAR as a private concern. Then, and only then, would you see the prices drop.

I wish this guy would be more clear

2010-06-08T12:14:00.003-04:00

Don't hold back Pat, tell us what you really think.

Gold vs. "real" assets

2010-06-08T12:14:00.001-04:00

Gold vs Real Assets

In brief: the author (a venture capitalist) believes that buying gold in any quantity is detrimental to a "real" asset like real estate in that, it does not generate any income. This is missing the forest for the trees. As is typical with a VC, he cares only for the income something generates not oh, I don't know, stability or safety. VC's are the perennial shorts. They are always looking for short revenue and especially big short revenue. The problem with real estate is that the value is based on perception far more than commodities like gold. (Some of you who own homes, or know someone who does may have noticed a slight blip in the real estate market of late) The purpose of gold is to hedge against inflation and uncertainty. Given that the euro is in freefall and the uncertainty of the US markets broadly, it would behoove anyone with real money to cash out some part of the portfolio and put it into bullion and stash it in Switzerland somewhere.

Please be fake

2010-06-07T16:05:00.001-04:00

Please no.

This would be seriously bad for everyone. Rush Limbaugh would die from OverGlee. Ann Coulter would pen at least three books on the subject and everyone at DailyKos and HuffPo would be thrilled. All of them would look like idiots.

Let us never speak of this again.

Tell me again....

2010-06-04T12:08:00.001-04:00

Why is California broke?

Moving manzanita bush costs S.F. a small fortune

With the final bills in, the cost of moving the bush in January came to $175,000 - $140,000 to dig up and move the shrub, and $35,000 for "support" services from geological, botanical and climate experts in preparation for its new home in the Presidio less than a mile away.

That's it. I don't ever want to hear anything from California about their budget problems.

It can happen to you

2010-06-04T11:18:00.001-04:00

Debrahlee Lorenzana sues Citibank saying she was fired from Citibank for being too hot

Tell me about it lady. Why do you think I was unemployed for so long? I'm tired of being just a piece of eye candy. Won't someone appreciate me for my mind?

Oh, the humanity...

W00t

2010-06-04T08:33:00.001-04:00

10 Largest Homes in the United States

And two of them are in Delaware. Suck it Rhode Island!