Posted 11/30/2006 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Try this shit after three beers and she'd spend the next 20 years of her life in jail. Why the disparity in sentencing?

State's Attorney Julia Rietz made the call not to lodge any more serious charge than improper lane usage against Stark, saying that the legal definition of recklessness, to sustain reckless homicide or reckless driving, did not fit her actions.

But Rietz argued for the maximum sentence of six months of conditional discharge a form of probation without reporting to an officer a $1,000 fine and traffic safety school.

Reckless? What the fuck difference does that make? Making the decision to drink three beers and getting behind the wheel and then rolling through a stop sign will get you a night in the klink and about $10,000 in fines. Changing the ring tone on your stupid fucking cell phone and killing a kid gets you six months probation and a fine? I would argue that something that results in a death is inherently more reckless than just about anything that doesn't result in a bodycount.

Posted 11/26/2006 06:08:00 PM by Douglas

It's that time of year again, kids. Get 'em while they're hot.
Seriously, is an aluminum pole any dumber than a tree?

Posted 11/26/2006 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

From an old Radio Shack catalog: That's a good price on a cell phone the size of a shoe box. Be sure and check out that screamin' 16Mhz 386.

Posted 11/26/2006 05:55:00 PM by Douglas

Another 'generator' site.

Posted 11/26/2006 05:39:00 PM by Douglas

Winning of hearts and minds in Iraq. And then there's this from Frontline last year.

Posted 11/26/2006 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

This brings new meaning to the phrase, "observe" all posted traffic warnings.

This has got to be a joke. A good joke, but still.

Posted 11/26/2006 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

Whod'a thunk that going out on Saturday night would be so complex.

It’s a night that people accustomed to quoting Andy Warhol or Diddy may summarize by invoking another New York luminary: Yogi Berra, who said, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

What a great line. But it gets more complicated when talking about elitists New Yorkers that don't realize that the line is satire, and that they may run into people in public that aren't nearly as cool as they are. GASP!

“In the old days, Saturday was the destination night for chic New Yorkers headed to Studio 54 at its most resplendent,” Mr. Musto said in an e-mail message. “But things changed as more and more tri-staters were willing to use the bridges and tunnels for here-we-come Gotham weekends, so the locals started staying home and triple-bolting their doors as if in a George Romero film.”

Oh My God! All this in the same city as the U.N. Imagine the carnage?!? You have to stay home one night a week to avoid someone from Jersey because he's more annoying than you are, or at the very least, annoying in a different way. Did America lose a war or something? It gets worse:

Last Saturday, four Manhattanites in their early 30s were huddling over a low table downstairs at Buddakan, the cavernous pan-Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district. “During the weekends, you get a lot of clutter, if you will,” said Brian Kirimdar, 30, an investment banker. He and his wife, Ashley, tend to hide out in restaurants on Saturdays, avoiding all but a few of the Chelsea clubs. “You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”

Yeah, you really gotta pick and chose, Brian and Ashley. You gotta find the "few" restaurants and clubs where you can find human beings and not the arrogant assholes that are overwhelmingly convinced of their own self-importance.

Posted 11/20/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Finally, just what America needs. Yet another dollar coin no one is going to use.

Can George Washington and Thomas Jefferson succeed where Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea failed? The U.S. Mint is hoping America's presidents will win acceptance, finally, for the maligned dollar coin.

The public will get the chance to decide starting in February when the first of the new coins, bearing the image of the first president, is introduced.

Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are scheduled to grace the coin in 2007, with a different president appearing every three months.

Wow! I mean, who cares? I'm getting repetitive: Get rid of the penny, bring back the $2 bill, and make a $1 coin someone might want.

Labels: seigniorage

Posted 11/20/2006 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Does this ao dai make my butt look big?

Russian President Vladimir Putin, wearing Vietnamese 'ao dai' silk tunics, during the official photograph for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Hanoi November 19, 2006. REUTERS/Jim Young

Or

Yeah, Poppy couldn't get me out of having to wear this silly robe, either.

OR

Ironic, ain't it? I actually went to Viet Nam to get out of going back to Washington. Say, that 'minds me. What's irony?

Or

Hey Pooty, you start pitching a tent in that thing and me and you's gonna have issues.

I'm friggin' nine years old today.

Posted 11/19/2006 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Ban on silicone breast implants lifted, separated.

The government ended a 14-year virtual ban on silicone-gel breast implants Friday despite lingering safety questions, making the devices available to tens of thousands of women who have clamored for them.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the implants for women 22 and older, or those undergoing breast reconstruction surgery, but warned that patients probably would need at least one additional operation because the implants don't last a lifetime.

Yeah, who cares?

Posted 11/18/2006 04:25:00 PM by Douglas

Does anyone else think this wine tastes like ass?

Bathers toss a glass of wine as they dip in wine-poured hot spring at an open-air spa in Hakone, west of Tokyo Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006 to mark the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

Posted 11/18/2006 04:09:00 PM by Douglas

Maybe you're not crazy. Maybe that bee really is trying to kill kill you.

Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

Wow, I can't imagine this technology getting out of hand. I wonder if it can find Sarah Connor? I for one welcome our new robotic insect overlords, and as a engineer, I could be useful in helping them rounding up worker drones to toil in their underground sugar-caves.

Posted 11/18/2006 04:00:00 PM by Douglas

I've said it before, but it's clear the R&D boys over at Gillette have been reading the Onion.

If you watched the World Series at all last month, you may recall that the team that made the most powerful impression was Gillette. The unit of Procter & Gamble repeated the same ad for its new six-blade Fusion razor so many times that it made you either want to throw something at the TV or to run out and buy the razor.

Fuck it, we're going to six blades!!!

Posted 11/18/2006 03:48:00 PM by Douglas

A burrito is not a sandwich.

Is a burrito a sandwich? The Panera Bread Co. bakery-and-cafe chain says yes. But a judge said no, ruling against Panera in its bid to prevent a Mexican restaurant from moving into the same shopping mall.

Panera has a clause in its lease that prevents the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury from renting to another sandwich shop. Panera tried to invoke that clause to stop the opening of an Qdoba Mexican Grill.

But Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke cited Webster's Dictionary as well as testimony from a chef and a former high-ranking federal agriculture official in ruling that Qdoba's burritos and other offerings are not sandwiches.

The difference, the judge ruled, comes down to two slices of bread versus one tortilla.

Are there on oppressed, downtrodden people in the world in desperate need of legal representation? Why are lawyers so freakin' bored that they argue about crap like this?

Oh yeah, keep in mind that the status of a tomato as a fruit or a vegetable went all the way to the supreme court.

Posted 11/18/2006 03:39:00 PM by Douglas

More on our inundated legal system. I don't know what turn of events have happened in your life for this to happen, but it's pretty sad. If you're ever in a situation where your defense for having public intercourse with a deer is that it was dead at the time, maybe you need to take a deep and introspective look at your life choices.

Prosecution of a Douglas County case involving alleged sexual contact with a dead deer may hinge on the legal definition of the word “animal.”

Bryan James Hathaway, 20, of Superior faces a misdemeanor charge of sexual gratification with an animal. He is accused of having sex with a dead deer he saw beside Stinson Avenue on Oct. 11.

“The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass,” Anderson wrote.

Something to be said for the zealous representation of your client, but holy crap!?! I know it hasn't been that long ago that it was made illegal to have sex with a dead person, so it's no wonder carcass action isn't specifically outlawed in Minnesota. But I think reasonable people would agree that a dead animal is still an animal, if for nothing else but for how completely disgusting this is.

Ah, who am I kidding. He's gonna get off. Again.

Posted 11/18/2006 03:14:00 PM by Douglas

When is Starbuck's gonna learn? Stop selling hot drinks to idiots.

A Hancock County couple have filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, accusing a Fishers store of serving scalding hot chocolate that seriously burned their little girl.

Brennan ordered a child's hot chocolate with whipped cream and an adult hot chocolate without whipped cream at the drive-through. According to the lawsuit, Starbucks' policy is to serve child drinks at lower temperature than adult drinks to avoid kids getting burned.

Brennan handed her daughter the child drink, and as she pulled away from the window, it spilled into Rachel's lap.

What the hell is wrong with these people? She bought a product described as hot chocolate. I can see how you could make a case if it was coffee or tea, because let's be frank, its thermal properties aren't included in the name. But Hot chocolate? Pretty much know what you're getting with that one, even if you are retarded. She bought it, dropped it, and her kid got burned. How do they muster the balls to call a lawyer over that?

Posted 11/16/2006 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Ironic headline of the week:

Accused cat killer says he likes the animals

Just not cats, right?

Ornithologist Jim Stevenson won't say how many feral cats he has shot since he moved to Galveston a decade ago but acknowledges "it's a lot fewer than the number of birds I've saved."

Stevenson doesn't admit to that offense but has stated in a posting on an Internet birders' Web site that he shot as many as 24 cats with a .22-caliber rifle on his property in the first year he lived on the island.

Although he admits shooting some feral cats in the past, Stevenson, who founded the Galveston Ornithological Society and publishes the group's quarterly newspaper, "Gulls 'n Herons," denies being a cat-hater.

"It has come across in articles that I hate cats and that's just not true," Stevenson said in an interview at his home today. "I actually like cats in the house. I have friends I visit and I play with their cats in my lap."

I guess he's too much of a pussy to pull out the .22 and shoot a cat sitting on his own nards, eh?

Birds fly. Cats eat birds. No amount of rimfire .22 ammunition is going to change that fact of nature. But nice try. Maybe the majestic animals with a brain the size of a cashew you're trying to protect can devour the corpses of all your shot cats for sustenance. Ah, the circle of life. . . .

Posted 11/16/2006 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

Sometimes the headlines just write themselves:

Perry wants teacher pension fund to invest in startups

Oh really?

Gov. Rick Perry is asking the Teacher Retirement System, Texas' largest pension fund, to consider investing up to $600 million in young companies that receive money from Perry's emerging technology fund.

Last year, Perry persuaded lawmakers to put $200 million into a new Texas Emerging Technology Fund that invests in startup companies and public research projects. Perry wants the state to up its bet and is asking for the Teacher Retirement System investment.

Many of the startup companies have little or no revenue and uncertain prospects, but Perry and other backers of the tech fund say the state money is needed to boost Texas companies in industries of the future, such as medical devices and nanotechnology.

State officials "encouraging" where private money is invested? I smell trouble.

I wonder if the "underpaid" teachers of Texas had a say in the $130 Million loss TRS suffered from poor investments in WorldCom and Enron? Did the Governor encourage those, too? What the hell does he care, it's not his money.

Posted 11/15/2006 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

You lost, whiner, now shut up already.

Clint Curtis said he is considering a legal challenge to the election results: "In this election, the results did not match the Zogby pre-election poll, our internal VoteNow2006.net polling, or our exit polling," Curtis explained.

"These anomalies need to be investigated and cleared up, not just in my race but for every district where the count just doesn't add up."

This is stupid for so many reasons. The electorate doesn't put any faith in polls. It's the elections that count, and anyone with half a brain (in deference to politicians) knows, like Stalin did, that it's not about who votes, but who counts the votes:

The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

So the electorate didn't do as good as Zogby's limited sample size said you would? What a shocker.

Look folks, the election is over. Can't we get on to the discussion of the real winners? Politicians.

Posted 11/15/2006 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

Here's an idea: It's a judgment call and I'm makin' it, but if you can't pass pre-cal and physics in high school you've got no business going to college. Yeah, I know I'm a in the minority, but I'm also not a raving idiot, either. (oh, wait)

Those two classes strike terror in the hearts of many high school students, though both can be avoided by college-bound youths. But that could change as state education policymakers implement a new rule requiring students on the recommended graduation plan to take a fourth year of math and science.

A battle about the rigor of the courses that will count toward the so-called "4-by-4" curriculum rages anew at today's State Board of Education meeting.

In September, the board gave a tentative nod to a plan that would allow students to choose from a variety of courses, including some lower-level math and science classes, for their fourth credit. But many in the business community and some concerned parents are stepping up pressure on the board to require more-difficult courses for seniors.

"A lot of key occupations like engineering and nursing are suffering because we've taken our eye off the prize and watered down the curriculum so much that it builds very little skills in students by the time they've graduated from high school," said George Edwards Jr., a former trustee of Cypress-Fairbanks ISD who favors requiring challenging courses such as physics and pre-calculus.

How dare industry dictate to the public confiscatory taxing/education system that they teach kids stuff they actually need to know?!? Don't they know there was a game this week?!?

Seriously, high schools are getting dumbed-down in lock step with colleges, so in a few years this won't even matter, but if you're in school as a serious student and you're complaining that the administration is trying to teach you too much, you need to do a little research and find out what McDonald's is paying. That's where you're headed, pep-rally kid.

Posted 11/12/2006 07:06:00 PM by Douglas

In the wake of the "regime change" from last week's elections, the moronic dunderpates at The Weekly Standard are now using The War of Northern Aggression as their model in Iraq.

The proper response to that calculation is to make emphatically clear that the fight will not end until one side or the other wins, decisively. That kind of battle can only have one ending, as Abraham Lincoln understood. In a speech delivered a month after his reelection, Lincoln carefully surveyed the North's resources and manpower and concluded that the nation's wealth was "unexhausted and, as we believe, inexhaustible." Southern soldiers began to desert in droves. Through the long, bloody summer and fall of 1864, the South had hung on only because of the belief that the North might tire of the conflict. But Lincoln did not tire. Instead, he doubled the bet--and won the war.

Holy cow, that's the stupidest thing I've ever read. Lincoln finally got the General he deserved with Grant, in that "he fights" as Lincoln said. But the battles of 1864 were pretty horrific, in human scales. Petersburg, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor cost the Union 40,000 men. As Lincoln knew, it wasn't easy to find a general that would lose that many soldiers in a month and keep marching forward. Sure the Union had three times the population of the South and thousands of troops that had never heard a shot fired in anger. Where the hell was I going with this??

Oh yeah, America has neither the troop-strength nor the intestinal fortitude to endure such a war of attrition in the 21st century. Declare victory and get the hell out.

Posted 11/12/2006 06:21:00 PM by Douglas

Sounds like someone in Florida has been watching Brewster's Millions.

A Florida voter may have unwittingly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by using an extremely rare stamp to mail an absentee ballot in Tuesday's congressional election, a government official said on Friday.

The 1918 Inverted Jenny stamp, which takes its name from an image of a biplane accidentally printed upside-down, turned up on Tuesday night in Fort Lauderdale, where election officials were inspecting ballots from parts of south Florida, Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom told Reuters.

Only 100 of the stamps have ever been found, making them one of the top prizes of all philately.

Philately, or as I like to call it, "a bigger waste of your life than smoking."

Posted 11/12/2006 06:12:00 PM by Douglas

What's more alarming? The thought of the IDF hitting a site in Southern Lebanon that contained some kind of radioactive material, or the IDF nuking Southern Lebanon? That's a coin toss, in my book.

The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. The measurements were carried out by two Lebanese professors of physics - Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi. The data - 700 nanosieverts per hour – showed remarkably higher radiocativity then the average in the area (Beirut = 35 nSv/hr ). Successivamente, on September 17th, Ali Kubaissi took British researcher Dai Williams, from the environmentalist organization Green Audit, to the same site, to take samples that were then submitted to Chris Busby, technical adisor of the Supervisory Committee on Depleted Uranium, which reports to the British Ministry of Defense. The samples were tested by Harwell’s nuclear laboratory, one of the most authoritative research centers in the world. On October 17th, Harwell disclosed the testing results - two samples in 10 did contain radioactivity.

About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities:

1. This material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army.
2. The enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work.

If there's a positive spin to this, I'd love to hear it.

Posted 11/12/2006 06:04:00 PM by Douglas

If you're ever stuck in a flint quarry in Northern Texas and you need a flint arrow head or a spear tip, you would be hard pressed to find anyone around that could make a better on than Ranger Ed Day.

Early Native Americans quarried flint at the Alibates Flint Quarries for more than 12,000 years to make dart points, arrowheads and other tools. The colorful flint lies just below the surface of ridge tops in a layer up to 6 feet thick.

On Wednesday, Gray demonstrated his flint-knapping skills for a group of fourth- and fifth-graders from Our Lady of Guadalupe School and impressed upon them the importance of protecting the monument's wildlife and flint for future generations.

"Everything here's protected. Everything," Gray said, pausing during a hilltop hike to caution his inquisitive, young visitors against taking any of the flint home in their pockets.

Whatever you do, don't steal any flint and don't slash open your class-mate's arms with razor-sharp flint on the busride home. I'm just sayin'. . . .

Ranger Day, in all his flint knapping genius:

Posted 11/12/2006 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

Snakes, on a motha-fuckin' plane didn't live up to its self created hype. Duh:

The movie promoted the hype more than the hype promoted the movie.

That's it, in a nutshell. The movie was a 90 minute slasher flick with every horror-cliche in the book, but I still say it was pretty damn funny. Interesting that the SoaP movie didn't live up to the SoaP hype, and kinda sad people would rather laugh at the joke than go see it. Oh well, at least it made its money back.

Posted 11/10/2006 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

Absolutely brilliant depiction of what happens when a municipality stops focusing on collecting traffic fines and actually focuses on driver and pedestrian safety. They get rid of stupid traffic lights and their roadway fatalities drops significantly.

Hans Monderman, a traffic planner involved in a Brussels-backed project known as Shared Space, said that taking lights away helped motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to co-exist more happily and safely.

Residents of the northern Dutch town of Drachten have already been used as guinea-pigs in an experiment which has seen nearly all the traffic lights stripped from their streets.

Only three of the 15 sets in the town of 50,000 remain and they will be gone within a couple of years.

The project is the brainchild of Mr Monderman, and the town has seen some remarkable results. There used to be a road death every three years but there have been none since the traffic light removal started seven years ago.

There have been a few small collisions, but these are almost to be encouraged, Mr Monderman explained. "We want small accidents, in order to prevent serious ones in which people get hurt," he said yesterday.

What a novel concept. Slow people down where they're actually paying attention to the road, and they get through traffic faster than they do by stopping every block at a stoplight. What a concept! Now, let's discuss why this will never work in America:

"It works well because it is dangerous, which is exactly what we want. But it shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk, to the driver being responsible for his or her own risk.

What?!? I'm responsible for operating a moving vehicle that could kill me or others?!? Surely it's the government's fault for not putting up a sign or something. I can't be held liable for running over that other driver. I was simply driving to work. And changing a CD. And putting on eye-liner. And eating a burrito. How is that my fault?

In short, if motorists are made more wary about how they drive, they behave more carefully, he said.

What?!? How dare he suggest that I pay attention to the road and vehicle I'm operating. I'm an American! That's why I pay insurance. Helena, drive it home:

"I am used to it now," said Helena Spaanstra, 24. "You drive more slowly and carefully, but somehow you seem to get around town quicker."

Imagine that. Pull your head out of your ass, drive the car, slow down, yet still get around town quicker. Yet another example as to why Americans are more concerned with appearing to be safe as opposed to actually being safe.

Posted 11/10/2006 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Ok, so the GOP lost Congress. I couldn't help but notice the sun continued to rise on Wednesday. Enter the hyperbolic (either that or he's trying to be funny) politics of NRO.

His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."

This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.

I don't know what's more alarming: That he thinks this is shrewd, funny, or actually useful info for the President in his last two years of office.

Republicans lost, but more importantly, they lost for a reason. Instead of pounding your chest about it, how 'bout trying to figure out why. Karl Rove is undoubtedly very tired by now.

Posted 11/10/2006 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

Fascinating take between U2 and R.E.M., two of the biggest alpha-numerically named bands of the 80s and 90s, yet one has shrinked into obscurity while the other has become the "spokesband for human dignity." Let's start:

Either you loved U2, or you liked them fine. Either you loved R.E.M., or you hated them.

OK, so that's in the second to last paragraph, but it's still true. R.E.M. were cats, while U2 were dogs. Even if you don't like dogs, you don't hate them. But if you don't like cats, you hate cats. Such as it is with R.E.M. and U2. Even if you don't like U2, they've got that one song that won't disappear from the radio that you catch yourself humming while you're taking a crap. R.E.M. wasn't so. You had no idea what the hell they were talking about:

The lyrics could mean anything, and therefore they meant everything, weighted as they were with mystery, resonance, and passion. "It's not necessarily what we meant," writes Mills, "but whatever you think."

And I think this, above all else, is why I loved R.E.M. So much of their stuff (before they fell apart in 1996 with the horrid, New Adventures in Hi-Fi) was what dorks like me liked to call "open for interpretation." How many hours in dorms across the country were devoted to dissecting the lyrics of "Word Leader Pretend" or "Driver 8" or "Swan Swan H" or countless others? It meant something to you because dammit, you were thinking about it. U2 fans had it all spelled out for them with "Pride in the name of love," "With or without you," or "Mysterious Ways." Absolutely no 'mystery' or self introspection in that title.

The delicacy at the heart of R.E.M.'s 1980s albums fostered introspection and brotherhood among those of us who loved them in those years: introspection, because the songs pushed the listener inward, finding significance in every line; brotherhood, because we had to band together to defend our heroes against the unfeeling jerks who found R.E.M. precious and maddeningly opaque. I assumed, of course, that those jerks were U2 fans.

Not always but more often than not.

In the battle of the three minute pop song, R.E.M. caught my attention as something that made me think about things larger than myself. Sure, Stipe and company had their bad days ("Shiny happy people?" Geesh. Utter drek) but more often than not they wrote interesting if not compelling music and lyrics that got my attention, and to this day, each and every R.E.M. song that's near and dear to me reminds me of a specific place, time, event, person with which I shared that experience.

U2, on the other hand, is terribly over rated and has an incredible song about MLK's assassination. How much more impersonal could you get to a small town kid in the big city in 1993 that doesn't even know why he's wearing flannel?

Posted 11/10/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Governor Perry exercises his power and it pisses off some environmentalists. Imagine that.

The governor was talking about electricity that day — specifically 11 coal-fired plants proposed by TXU — and the bureaucrats he challenged weren’t those in Washington but the ones in the state government. Perry stood shoulder-to-shoulder with John Wilder, TXU’s CEO, when he made the pronouncement.

The “bureaucrats won’t be allowed to hold up approval” for the TXU plants, Perry said.

His support of those plants has become a hot issue in his race for re-election. Perry called last year’s blackouts a “wake-up” call for a state that needs more energy, but his major rivals say the state can find a more environmentally friendly way to meet that challenge.

Problem #1: Texas needs power, and need power plants. Problem #2: The governor is standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the CEO of a company that's going to benefit from his executive order circumventing laws set in place to oversee the construction of power plants. Can you say conflict of interest? What about the environment?

One of the major issues dividing the candidates is the potential effect on the environment. TXU and the governor say the coal-fired plants would dramatically increase the state’s power output and not hurt air quality. They cite a state-sponsored study showing that after factoring in other utility commitments, average ozone levels in Dallas and Fort Worth would decline with the new plants.

“These coal plants are going to be 80 percent cleaner than the national average,” Perry spokesman Robert Black said recently. “And we’re increasing energy capacity in the state. These are positive aspects.”

Decrease ozone levels in D/FW with new plants? Either I'm reading that wrong or I'm just plain stupid. Hell, I'll admit to both. But here's where this story gets just plain wacky in election year politics:

Bell said Texas should set a goal of producing 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2015.

And then there's

Friedman has said the state should produce 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

If only there were a candidate that advocated 17.5% of Texas' energy came form renewable sources by 2017. June, 2017, as long as you're sticking with the arbitrary date and percentage paradigm.

But here's where this article goes off the deep end:

“The debate on global warming is over,” and “carbon dioxide from SUVs and local coal-fired utilities is causing a steady uptick in the thermometer.”

How bloody convenient. No other source of global warming but SUVs and coal. So. . . . The veracious need of electrical power is going to be supplied only by those that kill dolphins and Texas air quality? Give me a freakin' break.

This is a big question. Texas can't have more people without more power, and obviously the air quality of Houston, D/FW, Austin and San Antone have just about reached their choking point. So what now? Ida know, but not supplying power, as politically murderous as it would have been for Gov. Goodhair, seems like it might have been an avenue worth exploring.

Posted 11/08/2006 05:42:00 PM by Douglas

I guess Bush has to eat a little crow and actually admit he's totally flubbed up Iraq by firing Rummy the day after the election. Too bad this wasn't six weeks (or months [or years]) ago when it could have helped the Republicans.

After years of defending his secretary of defense, President Bush on Wednesday announced Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation within hours of the Democrats' triumph in congressional elections. Bush reached back to his father's administration to tap a former CIA director to run the Pentagon.

The Iraq war was the central issue of Rumsfeld's nearly six-year tenure, and unhappiness with the war was a major element of voter dissatisfaction Tuesday — and the main impetus for his departure. Even some GOP lawmakers became critical of the war's management, and growing numbers of politicians were urging Bush to replace Rumsfeld.

Politically convenient for Bush, but I know the real reason. Rumsfeld wanted to take more time off now that Britney's single again.

Posted 11/08/2006 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting twist on WWII from the Russian perspective.

After talking at Cambridge recently about the preponderance of the eastern front and the scale of the Red Army’s triumph, I was accosted by an angry young British historian. “Don’t you realise that we were pinning down 56 German divisions in France alone,” he said. “Without that the Red Army would have been heavily defeated.” What is less acknowledged is that without the Red Army pulverising 150 divisions, the allies would never have landed.

Well, duh. One of Hitler's biggest follies is fighting the mulit-front war, regardless of who is on the other side of those fronts. But American conscripts in France in the West Vs. Russians in the East, defending their homes? Is there any real comparison?

When Churchill was writing in the late 1940s, he knew perfectly well that Stalin was no angel. Yet the sheer scale and variety of Stalinist crimes was not known. The statistic of 27m Soviet “war losses”, which appeared in the 1960s, concealed the fact that many of them were not Russians and many were victims not of Hitler but of Stalin. It has taken the collapse of the Soviet Union and more than 60 years for this body of certainty to accumulate.

So, what's the moral to the story? We should have stayed out of FDR's war? Soviet Russia and Germany, both with their genocide, concentration camps and mass murder, would have flung themselves at each other had not The Bright Shining Beacon of Democracy, America, intervened? Who knows. I'm no historian, nor do I have a book to push. Germany fell, the Soviets took control of Eastern Europe for the next 50 years, anyway, so I can't imagine anything worse from the fallout of our abstention of WWII. I'm sure 420,000 dead Americans might beg to differ.

Posted 11/07/2006 05:48:00 PM by Douglas

Suck it, Airbus! Looks like FedEx realized 15 planes in the air is better than 10 planes that can only land at two airports.

FedEx, the American freight and logistics company, on Tuesday canceled an order for 10 Airbus A380 superjumbo jets, becoming the first customer to abandon the plane in the wake of the production delays that have shaken the European company.

The order will instead go to its American rival, Boeing, which will supply FedEx with 15 of its 777 Freighters, a plane also designed for long-haul cargo flights.

The value of the FedEx contract for Airbus was confidential, but the passenger version of the A380 lists for about $300 million. Still, Airbus is not likely to lose $3 billion because freighters, which have less elaborate interiors, are somewhat cheaper, and because the FedEx order was placed at the lower rates from 2001, an Airbus spokeswoman, Barbara Kracht, said.

Though the industry has been rife with speculation about possible cancellations of A380 deliveries, FedEx's decision is nonetheless a jolt to Airbus orders at a time when it can ill afford such losses. It also could set off what Airbus likely fears the most: other cancellations and fewer orders.

Suck it, commies. How 'bout building a plane someone wants?

Posted 11/07/2006 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

Not my job, part two:

Posted 11/07/2006 05:04:00 PM by Douglas

In other FedEx news, or, as it were, Ex-Fed news:

The pop princess filed for divorce Tuesday from her husband, former backup dancer and aspiring rapper Kevin Federline.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court filing cites "irreconcilable differences," said court spokeswoman Kathy Roberts.

Spears, 24, married rapper Kevin Federline, 28, in 2004. They have a 1-year-old son, Sean Preston, and an infant son who was born Sept. 12. The divorce papers identify the baby as Jayden James Federline.

If those two crazy kids can't make it happen in this work-a-day world, what chance do the rest of us have?

Posted 11/06/2006 05:47:00 PM by Douglas

Waterboarding. This was just on FoxNews and it still made me want to throw up. I wonder if Cheney volunteered for this bullhshit.

Posted 11/06/2006 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

Not my job, part one:

Posted 11/06/2006 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

What a pathetic footnote to the presidency of Bush 43 that his approval with the American people peaked with September 11, 2001. The only thing to drive up his poll numbers was being attacked?

Posted 11/06/2006 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

The next time you call your credit card for a credit line increase, be sure and know how to speak just at little bit of Mandarin.

China's foreign exchange reserves have topped the 1.0 trln usd level, state television CCTV said.


The report cited the latest figures from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), although it did not specify when reserves had reached the 1.0 trln usd level.

The announcement had been long expected, particularly as SAFE said that reserves hit 987.9 bln usdat the end of September.

China had already surpassed Japan earlier this year as the world's top holder of foreign exchange reserves. Japan had reserves of 881.27 bln usd at the end of September against 878.75 bln in August.

China's reserves have swelled on the back of surging foreign direct investment inflows, bets on currency appreciation and a ballooning trade surplus.

Another sad footnote as the world's manufacturing base slips quietly to the east. There are just so many hamburgers that we can manufacture.

Reference; Empires: Greek, Roman, Portuguese, Spanish, British, American.

Posted 11/06/2006 05:03:00 PM by Douglas

Is this treason?

Hundreds of US soldiers have signed a petition calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq and the document is to be formally presented to Congress in January, organizers said.

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq," the petition says.

"Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for US troops to come home," it says.

The campaign's website, www.appealforredress.org, says the petition is sponsored by active duty service members based in the Norfolk, Virginia area and by a sponsoring committee of veterans and military family members.

The committee includes Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP) and Military Families Speak Out.

At the very least, a bit of dissention in the ranks. Only slightly less effective than not signing up in the first place.

Posted 11/02/2006 05:36:00 PM by Douglas

If you believe this is the first time I've disagreed with, Merriam-Webster, you've got another THINK coming!

"If you think that, you have another think coming" means "You are mistaken and will soon have to alter your opinion". This is now sometimes heard with "thing" in place of "think", but "think" is the older version. Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, gives the phrase as "you have another guess coming", "US: since the 1920s, if not a decade or two earlier". Clearly "think" is closer to "guess" than "thing" is. The OED gives a citation with "think" from 1937, and no evidence for "thing". Merriam-Webster Editorial Department writes: "When an informal poll was conducted here at Merriam-Webster, about 60% of our editors favored 'thing' over 'think,' a result that runs counter to our written evidence."

Webster was the biggest pirate of the King's English before the days of Elvis. It's high time we brought some honour back to the language.

Posted 11/02/2006 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

How's that whole Iraq thing going? Why not consult Cent-Com's own info-graphic.

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

A one-page slide shown at the Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.

The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

Color codes. . . always with the color codes with this administration. From threat levels to their self-described chaos levels in Baghdad, you gotta love the gross oversimplification of a complex problem.

The obvious question is where on this scale between "peace" and "chaos" does "repent" reside? Off-scale high?