It's just that now I have a rational reason:
This presidential race was no contest: John McCain sped to the finish while Barack Obama was reluctant to leave the starting point.
But there's no guarantee giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches will predict the real result in November.
Of course it's via FARK...There's no reason to be so serious about all this, is there?
A variety of alternative sources of energy is a necessity.
Because, after all, accidents can happen:
I used this analogy in a conversation we had regarding the middle east early in 2003:
W was beating his war drum for Iraq at the time, as I recall...
Over at This Modern World, Jonathan Schwarz offers a glimmer of hope for humanity's continuation on this rock called earth, but the best lines sum up the current state of America:
INSANE BILLIONAIRES: Let’s kill everyone and take their money!
SANE BILLIONAIRES: I like the way you think. I really do. But if we keep everyone alive, and working for us, we’ll make even more money, in the long term.
INSANE BILLIONAIRES: You communist!!!
Now That Is Comedy.
I'm still not altogether sure I would actually fit in one of them, however.
It is fun to watch some testing, though:
Because I want to read this book:
The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party (Hardcover)
By Sidney Blumenthal
The good news of Rachel getting the hour after KO means that Dan Abrams is losing his hour following KO:
Mr. Abrams, who is well liked at MSNBC, is expected to remain at both that network and at NBC News, where he is the chief legal correspondent. He will also serve as an anchor during some of MSNBC’s daytime coverage, as well as a substitute host on NBC’s “Today” show, Mr. Griffin said.
He had his moments. I thought he was an intelligent, articulate, and fair.
But, of course, the numbers will probably improve with an actual liberal on the air and that's the name of the game in TV.
It seems there was a touch of trouble in the Caucasus:
Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
But wait, there's more:
There is much talk now in the United States about rethinking relations with Russia. One thing that should definitely be rethought: the habit of talking to Russia in a condescending way, without regard for its positions and interests.
Our two countries could develop a serious agenda for genuine, rather than token, cooperation. Many Americans, as well as Russians, understand the need for this. But is the same true of the political leaders?
Damn, I almost spilled my coffee when I read that. Doesn't Mikhail know that the Grampa/GOP/Cheney plan is fear? Our electorate is getting tired of fighting them over there so we need Eurasia to rise up again, as per the plan.
Eastasia is getting tired of us.
Got a show following KO on MSNBC!
I'm extraordinarily happy.
If you realize where we're going with the computer age, you probably want to buy the September issue of Scientific American.
Heck, you should probably want to subscribe.
Says what needs to be said about Saddleback as only The Rude One does.
It's a bit past PG, I would say.
There are a whole lot of things in this world that happen that don't seem to make sense. When something doesn't feel right, some people like to take a look at those events a little closer. Once you look at things a bit closer, sometimes you find an overlooked detail that leads to more overlooked details. Then you find a possible answer to the question (cui bono?). Then, in a fevered state, your brain puts it all together into a perfectly abhorrent plot that aims to empower or enrich one person or group of people over others in what your brain tells you is an unfair way.
We can't help it. Evolution made humanity this way.
And Bast knows that we've got enough theories out there.
But every once in a while you've got to remember to breathe, for crying out loud:
DID MICHAEL PHELPS REALLY WIN THAT 7TH GOLD MEDAL AT THE 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS
OR
WAS THIS A CONSPIRACY OF OLYMPIC PROPORTIONS?
If I may give the short answer?
No.
Go ahead a take a look at the pictures. Your brain might tell you different, but it's pretty much settled in my mind.
You can help our veterans:
Dear Earl,
In just about a week, many of the veterans of VoteVets.org will be descending on Denver, to make sure that those assembled at the Democratic Convention know where we stand on the issues. Our veterans will be doing TV and radio, attending events, and speaking to leaders, all to carry our message on matters of importance to our military and veterans.
Each of our veterans is paying their own way to Denver, because they believe so strongly in what we all stand for. Will you help them defray some of the costs they incur while out in Denver?
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO HELP A VETERAN IN DENVER
Your donation will help our vets with some of the costs out in Denver, so they won’t need to pay everything out of pocket.
I know that everybody in this world wants another slice of your money.
But this could make you feel a little better for a little while at the same time.
From The Guardian:
LATEST: Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf announces he is to resign in speech defending record. More details soon ...
Which, if you read Newshoggers, does not come as a surprise.
Instant Update, courtesy of the NY Times:
Breaking News Musharraf Resigns as President of Pakistan
So...there goes the dictator we know. Currently awaiting replacement...
In the past month I have had to wait for at least two trains hauling a great deal of 3' diameter steel pipe.
Where is the new pipeline being built in Canada?
I've been hearing the rumor that Julia Child was a spy during WWII for a long, long time.
Turns out there's a reason I ran across the story so often:
Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.
They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.
Neat.
She always seemed good with knives.
Perhaps too good.
But, to put forth my personal opinion, ATV drivers are often behaving like this:
As more and more Americans light out for backcountry trails, officials are seeing a parallel rise in episodes of "off-road rage": unpleasant, even violent encounters between drivers of all-terrain vehicles and hikers, mountain bikers and others.
"Move your bike or I'll run over it," the driver of a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle warned Bill Connelly, who had laid his mountain bike across a trail in the Glade Run Recreation Area, just outside Farmington. Signs were posted banning motorized vehicles from the stony track, and in the summer of 2006 Connelly was tired of ATVs going wherever they wanted.
"Go ahead," he said, according to Dan Dunn, his riding partner that day.
The ATV then crushed the bike, Dunn said, and Connelly grabbed the four-wheeler's handlebars, which brought the driver, a high school wrestler, off the machine, announcing, "I'll show you, old man."
Dunn and Connelly limped home with broken ribs.
If you actually read the quote, you would have noticed that MOTORIZED VEHICLES WERE BANNED from the spot this incident took place. In a just world, the high school wrestler would have been arrested and/or shot for being a stupid (bleep) punk.
If you're going out into the countryside, know the rules.
Your chances of being shot are fewer.
The Russian president speaks:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday he had ordered troops to stop military operations in Georgia before he was due to meet French President Nicholas Sarkozy for peace talks in Moscow.
One has to wonder what Vlad thinks of this.
Or if Dmitry will live to see Wednesday.
How long does it take you to click 100 times? Find out here.
I got 7.498 seconds.
First off, a bit from Krugman this morning:
...the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”
...and, for some reason, that annoys me. Right down to my overanalyzing core.
d r i f t g l a s s, I think, realizes it as well:
Because, Senator Obama, its not “like these guys take pride in being ignorant”
It is that these angry little wads of dumb are absolutely peacock proud of their shiny , impenetrable rind of real ignorance and Fake Jebus, which is why the conversation will never ascend to a genuine debate over real positions on real issues.
Bast knows I used to struggle against the stupid on a daily basis, but these past 28 years have been exhausting, so I've shifted my position in favor of freedom.
You are free to be as smart/stupid as you want to be.
I am free to be as smart/stupid as I want to be.
Because, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote:
When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.
Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.
Or, of course, choose to remember.
A cropped screencap of my email's spam folder:
...and when something like this starts happening, I get suspicious.
So I do some research. Snopes can be handy.
Just a little FYI tonight.
Not for any particular candidate, but for the nation:
Well before Senators Barack Obama and John McCain rose to the top of their parties, a partisan shift was under way at the local and state level. For more than three years starting in 2005, there has been a reduction in the number of voters who register with the Republican Party and a rise among voters who affiliate with Democrats and, almost as often, with no party at all.
While the implications of the changing landscape for Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain are far from clear, voting experts say the registration numbers may signal the beginning of a move away from Republicans that could affect local, state and national politics over several election cycles. Already, there has been a sharp reversal for Republicans in many statehouses and governors’ mansions.
And it's not even the fact that I consider myself a Democrat that makes me say that.
I consider myself a reality-based citizen.
(Quit laughing, Kirkrrt!)
Another step toward pharmaceutical nirvana:
For all who have wondered if they could enjoy the benefits of exercise without the pain of exertion, the answer may one day be yes — just take a pill that tricks the muscles into thinking they have been working out furiously.
Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego reported that they had found two drugs that did wonders for the athletic endurance of couch potato mice.
...as we look for even more ways to destroy the continuing evolution of the human race...
Morford isn't exactly known for subtlety, though:
You can sense the shadow, the darkening, the imminent and oily doom. The dinosaurs are trembling, scribbling out their wills as fast as possible. They know the end is near, the signs are all in place, as that giant $63K Toyota Land Cruiser V8 you bought just a couple years ago violently depreciates down to less than half of what you paid for it. Ouch.
Yes, the imploding petroleum economy has spoken, and this is what it said: The era of the big, happy, dumb SUV is over.
It is kind of interesting to me. We're watching the invisible hand of the market as it curls into a fist and beats the snot out of slowly-evolving automakers...
Warren Zevon, Desperados Under the Eaves:
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
Los Angeles took another step toward San Francisco yesterday:
An earthquake struck just east of Los Angeles on Tuesday, rocking tall buildings and rattling nerves across Southern California, but causing no serious injuries or major structural damage.
The quake hit at 11:42 a.m. local time (1842 GMT) about 30 miles (48 km) east of Los Angeles in suburban Chino Hills and registered magnitude 5.4 -- making it the strongest seismic event centered near America's second-largest city since the 6.7-magnitude Northridge quake in 1994.
It was, thankfully, not too bad after all:
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Jodi Miller said there were no reports of injuries or structural damage.
So set 'em up for the next one...
Just try to imagine this as mass transit:
Meet the Martin Jetpack, a contraption unveiled at a US air show yesterday. It is a real-life version of the toy we all fantasised about as children (and some of us as adults) and which Sean Connery as James Bond got to wear in the early minutes of Thunderball. Simply attach, the manufacturers claim, and up you go. No more traffic jams as you slice through the air at speeds of up to 186mph.
OK, try to imagine 186mph. In the air. With a thousand other idiots flying through the air around you.
I've done about 120mph on a Kawasaki and that was an interesting enough experience in two-dimensional transportation.
I can't even begin to imagine adding another at that speed.
Even in Syria:
Like most Syrians, Samer Zayat has no love for Israel. He was a little uneasy when Syria announced in late May that it was holding indirect talks on a peace settlement with its old nemesis.
Yet Mr. Zayat, a 35-year-old television cinematographer, says he views a peace deal with Israel as necessary and inevitable — not just for political reasons, but because Syria’s vulnerable economy needs all the help it can get.
“We are tired, the country is suffocating,” he said, as he played backgammon with a friend at a cafe here, the sweet smell of apple-flavored tobacco drifting around him. “We have suffered a long time from the political boycott and the sanctions.”
Prosperous economies can actually keep a larger percentage of people happy, it would seem.
Happy people generally shoot fewer people.
Seems to make sense, doesn't it?
It does happen, once in a while:
Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of toxins found in children's products, handing a major victory to parents and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove harmful chemicals from toys.
The ban, which would take effect in six months, would have significant implications for U.S. consumers, whose homes are filled with hundreds of plastic products designed for children that may be causing dangerous health effects.
It would seem that every once in a while, our government can promote the general welfare...
WSJ:
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
I'm not going to get into an argument about moral equivalence. If a person were as rich as Bruce Wayne, he would probably find other ways to salve his pain. The only thing Bruce and W have in common is the wealth, though to different degrees.
One fact remains, however.
Batman is a fantasy. A revenge fantasy for every little comic book geek who picked him up at the age of 8. Even in his best light, it is relatively easy to regard him as a criminal.
Governing by revenge fantasy (or in a criminal manner!) is a horrible way to govern.
A quote (It's Superman talking, just to confirm the fantasy!) from The Dark Knight Returns:
You were the one they used against us, Bruce. The one who played it rough.
When the noise started from the parent's groups and the subcommittee called us in for questioning...you were the one who laughed...that scary laugh of yours.
"Sure we're criminals," you said. "We've always been criminals. We have to be criminals."
So...take the parallel as far as you like, WSJ.
It will all come to the same conclusion, frankly. Batman=Criminal, just as W=Criminal.
The only difference is that there isn't an international criminal court for Bruce Wayne.
In this reality, though, there is The Hague.
Robert Novak may not have seen that pedestrian, after all:
Novak said he was diagnosed on Sunday with a brain tumor and will soon begin treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He issued the following statement:
"On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I have been admitted to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment.
Of course, it would be inappropriate to snark in his general direction at this point. Just as it would be unethical and treasonous to out a covert CIA operative. Run wild, run free...
(At least according to the CIA...)
You just know that there's more going on in China than they (prefer/allow) to be known:
Two public buses exploded during the Monday morning rush hour in the city of Kunming, killing at least two people and injuring 14 others in what the authorities described as deliberate attacks as China is tightening security nationwide and warning of possible terrorist threats in advance of next month’s Olympic Games.
I can only imagine what they're going to do in order to suppress dissent in the coming month...
If you've got the time for a little history lesson, watch Robert Newman yuck it up.
East Coast Theaters that ran midnight shows of The Dark Knight should be emptying.
I will be googling "Dark Knight spoilers" for a little while if only to prove what a geek I am...
Eighteen hours from now.
On the other hand, ten hours ago I was flipping through channels and happened upon this on the History Channel:
Delve into the world of Batman and the vigilante justice that he brought to the city of Gotham. Batman is a man who, after experiencing great tragedy, devotes his life to an ideal--but what happens when one man takes on the evil underworld alone? Examine why Batman is who he is--and explore how a boy scarred by tragedy becomes a symbol of hope to everyone else.
It was interesting enough, but I didn't really learn anything new. I've been a BatGeek for most of my life, after all.
And if you think the movie is suffering from a lack of publicity, here's an article from Scientific American:
Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long
Easy enough to believe...
There are differing opinions on the current economy of Saudi Arabia and where it's going to be in the future:
But they do say that they're trying to make it better:
Over the next few years, Saudi officials say this stretch of desert will be transformed into a buzzing hub of scientific research and development, with cutting-edge universities, hospitals and housing for more than 130,000 people attracted by the idea of living in the city where Islam's prophet Muhammad is buried.
The project, called Knowledge Economic City, represents a first serious step by Saudi Arabia toward building a post-petroleum economy. It is one of six major industrial centers planned to rise over the next 15 years. At a cost of more than $100 billion, the sites are expected to provide housing and jobs for the country's fast-growing population, half of which is younger than 21.
It's kind of funny, reading Saudis being smarter than we seem to be:
With oil prices peaking above $145 a barrel in recent weeks, the kingdom is reaping an unprecedented windfall from its vast reservoirs of oil, which represent a quarter of the world's proven reserves. Saudi Arabia reported oil income of $200 billion last year and projects $700 billion in revenue over the next two years. The kingdom earned an average of $43 billion annually throughout the 1990s.
But Saudi officials have long feared that too-high oil prices would push the world toward alternative fuels, a concern captured by one former oil minister's tart reminder that "the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone."
A nice little touch of philosophy there.
Finally, if only to provide a bit of comedy:
"With this second oil boom, we want to build the soft infrastructure to help the business environment prosper. We want to learn from the mistakes of the '70s," Hameedadin said.
It would be nice to see that someone learned something from the mistakes of the '70s.
Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle — decide instead to get it on and dance. "I don't want to kill you," Heath Ledger's psycho Joker tells Christian Bale's stalwart Batman. "You complete me." Don't buy the tease. He means it.
Considering that Batman Begins was probably the Best Batman Movie Ever, this excites me...
Very, very, very badly...
Heavy rains complicate Calif. firefighting efforts
You would think otherwise, but:
Violent thunderstorms brought rain bursts that modestly helped firefighting efforts Sunday, but the downpours also triggered mudslides that complicated California's unfolding wildfire disaster.
``If it isn't fire, it's flood. If it isn't fire or flood, it's the mud,'' said Christina Lilienthal, an interagency fire spokeswoman. A ``horrendous'' amount of precipitation in the Sequoia National Forest dampened the ground, but also caused a creek to flood, cutting off a firefighting crew's escape route when a road washed out, she said.
It's been an interesting year, weather-wise...
via FARK.
How can you not look forward to seeing someone try to drive this?
Seriously Cool.
If you recall the photoshopping of a couple of NYTimes employees last week, you've been paying attention. Congratulations.
Now it's Vanity Fair's turn.
I can't figure out what got 'shopped on Billy Kristol's pic, though.
Damn, but I love innovation and theoretical physics:
If a professor at the University of Florida (U.F.) has his way, the first flying saucer to grace Planet Earth's skies isn't likely to come from outer space but rather from Gainesville, where the faculty member is drawing up plans to build a circular aircraft that can hover in the air like a helicopter without any moving parts or fuel.
In other words, it will look like a UFO, but will actually be more of an IFO—an identified flying object.
Sure, I'm skeptical because of the power needed for such a beast, but it sounds pretty neat...
Harold Meyerson runs down the list of cheap global labor and how capitalism, in order to benefit stockholders, needs to run human labor into the ground:
Doing business in China is beginning to cost real money. Not that Chinese workers are buying second homes or anything like that: Their average wage is still a little short of a dollar an hour. But so many Chinese have now left their villages for the factories that the once bottomless pool of new young workers is beginning to run dry, and the wages of assembly-line employees are rising 10 percent a year.
Worse yet, new labor laws are making it harder for employers to cheat their workers out of their wages and benefits. Many American businesses that do their manufacturing in China had warned against those laws; the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai had flatly opposed them.
Isn't that a lovely thought?
Here's another: It may be only a matter of time before energy prices raise shipping costs so much it wipes out the savings in labor.
We might have to start making stuff here in America - again.
So if you can believe it, China's slave labor is starting to get too expensive, so corporations are starting to move to Vietnam because it has an edge:
Vietnam's edge, it seems, is political. "Communism means more stability," Laurence Shu, the chief financial officer of Shanghai-based Texhong, one of the world's leading manufacturers of cotton fabrics, told Bradsher. This view, Bradsher reports, is common among Asian executives and some American executives, too, though they have the presence of mind never to say so on the record.
The mind reels when you start thinking about what those executives would do were they allowed...
I believe the term would be Fascist Swine were Hunter S Thompson still around.