March 29, 2011

Well mine, obviously

America faces the clear and present danger of a takeover by theocrats who want to impose their religion on everyone else. The only problem is, we don’t know which religion.

March 28, 2011

Might work with a Seahawk theme, too

These guys win.

Last post here

As Google is now asking for phone numbers and threatening to banninate users who fail to comply, the several individuals using this username have elected to communicate by other means.

Good-bye, Blogger...it was a good eight years.

If anyone asks, yes, we still believe what we believe.

LOJCSGPBTGTSA

A re-post from Fark user I Said, who also draws your attention to this chart:


LOJCSGPBTGTSA

The List Of Job Creating, Small Government Proposals By The GOP To Save America

1. Ban/Restrict abortion
2. Redefine rape
3. End Net Neutrality
4. Ban Gay Marriage
5. Investigate Muslims
6. Voter ID
7. Secession
8. Make Obama show his birth certificate...again...everyday... forever
9. Repeal Union Rights
10.Restrict voting ability of college students
11.De-fund Obama's Teleprompter (seriously)
12.De-fund NPR and PBS.
13.Declare Global warming a fraud.
14.Repeal Healthcare.
15.Read the Constitution...except for that amendment...and that one...that one too
16.Raise taxes on Girl Scouts.
17.Budget cuts to kill 1 million jobs.
18.Get rid of fluorescent light bulbs.
19.Ban Sharia law.
20.force women to see sonograms of their soon-to-be aborted fetuses.
21.Renew Patriot act.
22.Restore F35's second engine.
23.Eliminate Assenge.
24.Criminalize miscarriages
25.Defund Planned Parenthood
26.Declare English America's official language
27.Put "In God We Trust" on all Federal Buildings
28.Extend Bush tax cuts for top earners.

More proposals will be added as the GOP finds new ways to secure your rights as an individual and create jobs!

March 25, 2011

Mr. Whitekeys loved it, too

His first Google search

#2 son turned on the computer, breached security (asked his older brother for the password), started Firefox, then typed his first search into Google.  He then refined it, and I had to explain that those toys were meant mainly for grownups, and that I would buy some for myself, but if he was good maybe we could share.

March 24, 2011

Stewart unlimbers his fastball

March 23, 2011

Change

1970
Detroit: 1,514,063
Anchorage: 48,081

2000
Detroit: 951,270
Anchorage: 260,283

2010
Detroit: 713,777
Anchorage: 291,826

[UPDATE]

1970
Detroit: 1,514,063
Alaska:  302,583

2000
Detroit: 951,270
Alaska:  626,932 

2010
Detroit: 713,777
Alaska: 710,231


Source:  The Internet

Lord Getz has taught you well

March 21, 2011

Birdsong

March 20, 2011

I was wrong about Mister Rogers

I know now he was cool. But I didn't know how cool, until...

March 18, 2011

On What to Get

Here's what to get.

I'm not proud of it

Archer (free on Netflix) makes me laugh.

March 16, 2011

Hey Larry, I'll give you five bucks for it

Sun.com to be de-commissioned.

March 15, 2011

Hmmm

"There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen," said the European Union's energy commissioner.

Event now classified as "Accident with wider consequences"...

Eisengeiste approves

...of this proposal.  Make it so.

You see, the world needs to be funnier. Safer, sure, less starvation, OK, if you must, but above all, it must be funnier. There's too many people yelling and dying and Tea Partying right now, and it's just all so damned serious that it makes us want to poop. If there were more people laughing in this world, we would have, by definition, more people laughing in this world.

March 14, 2011

I want one

Airstream, with improvements.

March 12, 2011

On a scale of 1 to 7...

The Japanese authorities have classified the event at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 as a level 4 "accident with local consequences" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). The scale is used to consistently communicate the safety significance of events associated with sources of radiation. The scale runs from 0 (deviation -- no safety significance) to 7 (major accident).

The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania was a level 5 ("accident with wider consequences"). The 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a level 7 ("major accident).

link

Football blues? I have two words for you...

Gareth Bale (artist's impression)

March 11, 2011

12 countries called America

Terrific interactive map from The Atlantic, here.

Also of interest:  Richistan

Report from paradise

The local paper offers this list of affluent - that is to say, rich beyond the dreams of avarice - people living on the mid-Peninsula (San Mateo down to Mountain View):

- Larry Page, Google, $19.8 bn
- Mark Zuckerberg, Facetube, $13.5 bn
- Steve Jobs, Apple/Pixar, $8.3 bn
- Eric Schmidt, Google, $7 bn (greatest career move ever)
- Charles Johnson, mutual funds, $5.1 bn
- Rupert Johnson, mutual funds, $4.9 bn
- Charles Schwab, stocks bonds etc., $4.7 bn
- Gordon Moore, Intel, $4 bn
- John Sobrato, real estate, $3.3 bn
- Andreas von Bechtolsheim, Google, $2.3 bn
- John Doerr, venture, $2.2 bn
- Dave Cheriton, Google, $1.8 bn
- Thomas Siebel, Siebel Systems, $1.7 bn
- Ken Fisher, investment management, $1.7 bn
- Kavitark Ram Shriram, Google, $1.6 bn
- Richard Peery, real estate, $1.5 bn
- John Arrilaga, real estate, $1.4 bn
- Vinod Khosla, Sun Microsystems, $1.4 bn
- David Filo, Yahoo, $1.4 bn
- Scott Cook, Intuit, $1.4 bn
- Romesh Wadhwani, "software", $1.4 bn
- Meg Whitman, E-Bay, $1.3 bn
- Jerry Yang, Yahoo, $1.3 bn
- Carl Berg, real estate, $1.2 bn
- John Morgridge, Cisco, $1.2 bn
And, oh yes, Lawrence Ellison, Oracle, $39.5 bn.


Right next to this article there are two others:
  • "Menlo official spent $745 to get to Fresno"
  • "Teacher layoff notices ready"


Sources:  Forbes, PA Daily Post

March 09, 2011

The First Sea Lord should sue

It appears his concept of the Angstenjoke is catching on...


March 08, 2011

a transmundane portrayal of utmost hilarity

March 07, 2011

A little problem with immanence

Wordsworth, in a particularly expansive mood, wrote:
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something for more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting sins,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky and the mind of Man
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts
And rolls through all things.

Which tells me Wordsworth didn't have a magnifying glass.  Here are some examples of nature at her most freakishly terrifying - mostly targeting ants, for some reason:
And eight more.

If the deity is truly present and expressed in all things...yikes.

March 06, 2011

The last adult Republican

"You know, people need to be very thoughtful about entering wars without a declaration and without much more congressional scrutiny of what's involved." - Richard Lugar

3 Reliable Reds Under $7.50

 Trentarte Rosso

About $6. Trader Joe's wine guy: "We sell out of this about a day after we get it."  None of these are complex, but this is thinnest, cleanest and best food wine of these. Recommended if your girl is a cheap date with good taste.

Goliath Giant 47 Pound Rooster Cabernet Sauvingon

A buttery, big friendly cab- the black lab-mix of cabs. I see this around $7 very often. It has the feeling of looking out across Golden Gate park on a partly cloudy day, looking at all the people strolling by the museum, and saying, in the Laird's timeless phrase: "here we see the Hell that is Northern California."

Don Ramon Vino Tinto Barrica 

I see this at $6 to $7.50  in Seattle. The silly old-timey label with its red wax seal works its magic on you  whether you like it or not. Perfect for introducing your Spanish captor to a non-inflected Indo European language.  It's my favorite of these three, a smooth blend, but one of the best all purpose drinking wines I know. Serve at conversations with Cervantes, Goya, or Gandalf, in ceramic goblets.

I mention all of these particularly because they prove consistently good every year.

Special Note: Points, universally reviled, are damned practical for the budget-panicky.  A combination of Wine Spectator points over 87, and a giant price differential from $11-20 down to $5-10 yields good bargains say 80% of the time.

Special note 2: on 2 Buck Chuck. If you can find it, the Australian Cab is the best of the definitely shy of appalling classic.

March 05, 2011

Well done

Vonn clinches title

March 04, 2011

Today's Tomorrow's Less-Funny-Than-Usual Headlines

  • Local Man Decides Poetry Isn't Worth It
  • New Finding Replaces "Perfectly Sensible" Scientific Explanation With Horrific Existential Jigsaw
  • Olympics Cancelled After Athletes Mistakenly Read "The Lotos Eaters" (link
  • Study: George Washington suffered from Kicking England's Ass Syndrome
  • Determinist Tries to Explain Affair to Wife

Boehner, you worthless stooge

From Daily Kos:

Senators Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin sought the use of the Capitol Rotunda for Buckles to lie in honor there, an honor reserved for few Americans but certainly one for which Buckles is worthy... Indeed, who could say no to such a request? Speaker John Boehner...

Boehner.  It rhymes (almost) with "LAMER". 

(ragelink here)

Quonset Huts of the Central Valley, #2

Fresno
 

Labels:

March 03, 2011

Well, yeah

Life during wartime

Instead of walking freely through the capitol building, I was subjected to the myriad humiliations of a woman visiting her husband in federal prison. I was forced to empty my pockets of every dime, expose all my belongings to the scrutiny of a line of officers, even take off my coat so that I could be security-wanded by an officer. I could not walk through the building unless I was accompanied by both a staffer and a police officer, every single step of the way to my representative's office. I was told that I would not be allowed to use the restroom without a police officer in attendance. I had to pass inspection before at least 30 officers, lined up both outside and inside the King Street entrance...


The Wisconsin state constitution gives each and every citizen--male or female, young or old, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor-- the right of free assembly within the capitol. We have every right to visit our representatives, to testify at hearings, and to protest bills within our capitol. That right does not depend on our political affiliation, nor does it depend on our governor's whims. We are not a police state, even though that fact seems to have escaped the understanding of Department of Administration, who have chosen to ignore a restraining order from the judge that orders the capitol building to be opened to the public.

March 02, 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen, I Now Present

The Beast.

Neil got game

The first music I remember liking was the theme from the Batman TV show.  Terrorized the household running around making that cool noise.

Ever go for a walk and get the theme from The Odd Couple (movie, tv show) stuck in your head?  Used to happen to me a lot.  Billy May covered it nicely, the cast of Friends...less well.

I spent a good part of 2002 listening to George Gee's version of Splanky, until I heard the original and switched to that.  The swing, the tension, the latent power, and then the drum roll into the greatest trumpet shout EVER...

Actually, he arranged that whole Basie album, the one that brought Basie all the way back and showed the world what the New Testament band could do.

His name was Neil Hefti.