Posted 10/31/2007 06:09:00 PM by Douglas

To those of you currently wasting your poli-sci degree, the gauntlet has been laid down. Or is it gamut? I forget. Anyway:

Political scientists at the Cato Institute announced Monday that they have inadvertently synthesized a previously theoretical form of government known as megalocracy.

"We were attempting to recreate a military junta in a controlled diplomatic setting, and we applied too much external pressure," said head researcher Dr. Adam Stogsdill, a leading expert in highly reactionary ruling systems. "The resultant government has the ruthless qualities of a dictatorship combined with the class solidarity of a plutocracy—it's quite a remarkable find."

Well good for them! I know their parents must be proud!

Posted 10/31/2007 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

Prohibition is closer than you might think. This time, in our nation's capital.

The breath test revealed that Bolton's blood alcohol content (BAC) was 0.03 percent, a level a 120-pound woman could expect after drinking one glass of wine. It was well below the 0.08 percent limit that marks a driver as legally intoxicated in D.C. It was not low enough for the arresting officer, however. This middle-aged mother of two, who hadn't drunk to excess, who hadn't run a red light or run a stop, was arrested, handcuffed, and fingerprinted for an innocent mistake. She sat in a jail cell for hours and was finally released at 4:30 a.m. Bolton spent four court appearances and over $2,000 fighting a $400 ticket. She then spent a month fighting to get her license back after refusing to submit to the 12-week alcohol counseling program.

The arresting officer, inaptly named Dennis Fair, insists: "If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance....Anything above 0.01, we can arrest." Fair recognized that nearly everyone in D.C. was unaware of this zero tolerance policy. Still, he told The Washington Post, if "you don't know about it, then you're a victim of your own ignorance."

And the idiocy goes on like that. This is a really great article, and it goes on to talk about several states with dumb drinking laws, but the best line is from Candace Lightner, founding mad mother of MADD.

Lightner has moved on from MADD, and since then has protested the shift from attacking drunk driving to attacking drinking in general. "I worry that the movement I helped create has lost direction," she told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1992. BAC legislation, she said, "ignores the real core of the problem....If we really want to save lives, let's go after the most dangerous drivers on the road." Lightner said MADD has become an organization far more "neoprohibitionist" than she had envisioned. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol," she said. "I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."

Wow, she sounds like a rational person. It's no wonder she's not involved with the nutjobs at MADD anymore.

Sad, really, when the legalized (read: taxed) drugs take a cue from the insanity of the Drug War, and not the other way around.

Labels: prohibition

Posted 10/31/2007 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

Yet another reason to dislike Airbus. Or maybe just Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines has taken the unusual step of publicly asking passengers on its new Airbus A380 plane not to engage in any sexual activities.

The potential problem has arisen because the first class area of its giant superjumbo contains 12 private suites complete with double beds.

Singapore, which is the first airline to start flying the A380, said the suites were not sound-proofed.

So does that mean I can get my freak on if we're real quiet about it? I mean if I'm real quiet about it. But I guess it doesn't really count if you try the "mile high club" by yourself.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:47:00 PM by Douglas

Would you believe this picture was taken in the Texas Panhandle?

I'm not sure I do, either, but still a cool picture. Definitely a good way to liven up any camping trip.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:35:00 PM by Douglas

Texas Baptist elect a woman. Am I the only one surprise that they let them vote?

The largest state Baptist convention in the nation elected its first female president on Monday.

Retired missionary Joy Fenner was elected president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She defeated preacher David Lowrie by 60 votes, 900 to 840.

Forecast in hell: snow. This bodes well for Hillary, I think. Aww, who am I bullshiting, no Baptist is going to vote for Hillary.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:29:00 PM by Douglas

It's official! This report reports that Texas has too many reports.

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission is declaring there are too many state reports.

It says so in a 668-page report.

No need to read any more of that one. Damn, I'm in a dumb mood today.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:24:00 PM by Douglas

Another city falls prey to red light cameras.

This Fort Bend County city will begin operating red-light cameras next week, joining Houston and other area government agencies already using similar systems.

Sugar Land's three cameras will start snapping pictures Monday, but violators will receive warnings for the first 30 days of the program. The city will start issuing real citations when the grace period ends. The owner of a vehicle photographed running a red light will be subject to a $75 fine.

Sleep tight, Sugar Land. I'm sure your city has your best interests at heart.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:19:00 PM by Douglas

This one made me laugh. How do you 'bluff' your way out of jail? Apparently it works.

The 27-year-old, alleged to be a member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, bluffed his way out of prison by pretending to be his cellmate. County officials say the ruse apparently worked because of a miscommunication among jail workers.

Not quite the great escape, but kinda reminds me of the jail break scene in Idiocracy. Either way, you can bet there were idiots involved.

Posted 10/30/2007 04:14:00 PM by Douglas

Enjoy your new area code, losers.

Callers accustomed to New Mexico's single 505 area code now have 12 months to adjust to the state's 575 area code.

Permissive dialing began Oct. 7 for the 575 area code, which includes the eastern, southern and northern part of the state. The 505 area code will still be used in central and northwestern New Mexico.

"There was an exhaustion of the numbers that were able to be issued out of 505," said Danny Mayfield, Chief of Staff of the New Mexico Public Regulation Committee. The 505 numbers were projected to be exhausted in 2009.

It was a bit odd coming from a city that has no fewer than four area codes to a city whose entire state only has one. I guess all those pay phones in the casinos need numbers, too.

Posted 10/29/2007 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

Kids these days. I'm not the only one that thinks they're getting dumber.

But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.

It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.

Something tells me that every generation since the beginning of time could say the same thing. But dang, these kids today are friggin' stupid. But here's the money quote, perfectly encapsulating the idiocy of our "educational" system and its standardized testing:

It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it.

Let's not forget the confiscatory taxing authority behind it all, either.

Posted 10/29/2007 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

Here's a reason kids don't really have an incentive to learn: Adults want to be kids.

Some would call it a sickness, and whether you label it the Peter Pan Syndrome, the Forever Young Syndrome, or Permanent Adolescence all suggest the refusal or inability of adults to act their age. The phenomenon has been well documented of late, but nowhere more thoroughly than in Diana West's new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. The title may smack of hyperbole, but West makes a convincing case that big babies make lousy citizens. My grandparents' generation, for instance, could appreciate St. Paul's meaning when he wrote, "when I became a man, I put away childish things"; nowadays we would consider Paul of Tarsus a wet blanket and a preachy bore. No doubt a Republican too. What is to account for this generational shift?

West begins with the birth of the teen-ager, a historical event that occurred some time round mid-century. Prior to World War II, a clear line of demarcation divided childhood from adulthood. Upon entering puberty most children were pulled out of school and made to pull their weight. In exchange you received room and board and the family staved off starvation for another winter. (That is how it was for my grandparents on their southern Illinois dirt farm, and, so far as I know, that is how it has always been.) Naturally, few adolescents had much in the way of disposable income, nor was there anything even resembling a teen market. All of that changed in the 1950s, as more teen-agers stayed in school -- sometimes through college -- and fewer kids were expected to help with the family finances. Postwar affluence more than trickled down, it showered disposable income on record, magazine and hairspray-buying adolescents, and Hollywood and Madison Avenue took notice. Youth culture was commercialized, capitalized, and institutionalized and overnight a whole low-brow culture grew up round the teenybopper.

Aside from being just another book of how the Boomers ruined the world, I think she's on to something. Now the boomer's kids are faced with (gasp!) adulthood, and fewer seem to be embracing the responsibility. It's not going to be too long 'till there's no one left to run the day care center that is our country.

Posted 10/29/2007 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

So does this mean if I tell my mortgage company that I can't pay them they'll change the terms of my loan? Somehow I doubt it:

Mortgage companies scrambling to ease the terms on thousands of loans destined for default may be doing more harm than good by rewarding investors and homeowners who took on excessive risk.

Efforts to help Americans pay their mortgages have forced companies such as Countrywide Financial Corp, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, to expand their practice of loan modifications, which lower payments for borrowers vulnerable to foreclosure. Countrywide on Tuesday said it would refinance or modify $16 billion of loans.

Sooo. . . get a loan you can't afford and Countrywide will "modify" it so you won't default on it. Hey Countrywide, give me 0.09% or I'm gonna default, ya stupid sons of bitches.

What the hell am I doin' paying my bills??

Posted 10/26/2007 04:11:00 PM by Douglas

Go out tonight and look at the moon. It's freakin' bright. Here's why. And according to this, the next time this is going to happen is December 12, 2009, so enjoy it!

And if you're out in the middle of East Texas drunk and shooting at things, be careful!

Posted 10/25/2007 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

As with most health care, your Vet isn't in business for you not to pay for whatever services they're offering.

Take what happened with my cat Sabra. At age 21—the equivalent of a 100-year-old human—Sabra was fading. She had stopped grooming and was barely eating. She spent her days curled in a chair, hissing occasionally like a deflating whoopee cushion. Instead of letting her go gently, of course I took her to the vet. The vet shook her head at Sabra's condition. She likely had cancer, kidney disease, multiple organ failure. All this would have to be sorted out through several days of rigorous testing. Instead of saying, "I'm going to take her home and let her deflate in peace," I handed her over.

Sabra had no such luck. Two days and $800 worth of tests later, the vet couldn't find out what was wrong (besides the fact that she was 21) and said she was arranging a transport to a facility where Sabra could get an MRI. When I said I was coming to pick her up, the vet became hostile. "She might have a cancer we haven't found! She's not in good health!" said the vet. I returned Sabra to her chair, and she died a few months later.

I was left feeling the whole exercise was a way of shaming me into covering the overhead. But when I described what happened to Dr. Gerald Snyder, a Charlotte-based veterinary practice management consultant, he clarified the miscommunication for me. "The veterinarian is on the cat's side, not yours," he explained.

Some people just find it incredibly hard to say "no" to anyone in a white coat. They must know more than you do, right? Well, not always.

If anyone's looking for an Aggie Vet in Kemah that's a total dickhead and ignored obvious signs of kidney failure during regular checkups, then still managed to charge me $90 for putting down the sainted Gatisima, just lemme know. I'll give you the bastard's number.

Posted 10/25/2007 05:40:00 PM by Douglas

Hey League City residents, we'd like to raise your sales tax some more, but the State of Texas says it's illegal, so we're asking you to vote on it. I'm afraid the idiot sheeple won't be able to see through this bullshit and pass it with flying colors. I LOVE the picture of the guy on the main page, with outstretched clenched fists. Nope, sorry buddy, your taxes are going to go up and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

I love the other justifications listed on the buttons down the left side, this one in particular. The L.C. raises your taxes and suddenly you've got a job here? Someone explain that logic to me.

But for the real clincher, gotta go with this one. This is why it won't fail: it's "For the Children™." What utter bullshit.

But back to the main page; better streets? What the hell are League City taxes currently paying for road repair if they need an additional $1.1 Million for "better streets?" And I understand about pursuing economic development, but guess what else draws new businesses to an area? LOWER FUCKING TAXES!

There are those that think there is no problem that can't be solved by a taxing entity bribing the population with more of its own fucking money. I however, am not one of those people.

Posted 10/25/2007 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

You'd think that the City of Houston has learned its lesson about refugees from natural disasters, but you'd be wrong.

Although the University of Phoenix Stadium in suburban Glendale, Ariz., appears the most likely place for this weekend's game between the Texans and San Diego Chargers, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell created a stir at the league meetings on Tuesday when he mentioned San Diego, Los Angeles and "Texas" as possibilities.

Texas means Texas Stadium and Reliant Stadium are options.

"We'd love to have the Chargers play at Reliant Stadium," Texans owner Bob McNair said from Philadelphia. "I think we could sell out in three days. But from a competitive standpoint, I'm not sure the Chargers would want to do that. We're just waiting to see."

Remember what happened last time? They never left. Think about it, Bob.

Posted 10/25/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Just finished watching Frontline's Showdown With Iran. Scary stuff. The money quote, this time from Mohammad Ali Abtahi:

Relations between Iran and America won't get better anytime soon. Leaders in both countries don't just see themselves as politicians, they also see themselves as carrying out the work of God. They have left the ground a bit, and that is very dangerous for the World.

It sure is. Keep telling yourselves that we invaded Iraq because they had weapons, dumbass.

Posted 10/24/2007 05:39:00 PM by Douglas

The attack on Ron Paul continues unabated. This time from (wait for it) Neo-con trolls at some FreeRepublic knock off.

Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul. Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal.

Sure, that's the recipe for success to the Republican party. Censor someone that wants to discuss something outside the box of boring, pointless election year tripe. Here's a guy that has more honest to god conservatism in brown flushable chunks than the red-diaper baby neo-cons have in their entire hateful bodies. But I digress. Then there's the response from some other guy I'm proud to say I've never heard of before:

Having been to the CLC, I disagree with Leon's assumption that these Paul supporters are all or mostly cryptoliberals. Plenty of libertarian-leaning Republicans exist in the party, along with the former Buchananites and isolationists of the GOP. Instead of cutting these people off, it might be better for Redstate to keep engaging them. After all, Paul will not be in the race all that much longer, and we need those voters to stay in the GOP when Paul disappears. There are worse impulses than libertarianism.

Holy Crap, do you mean it's OK if someone disagrees with you? That can't be. And what in the hell is a "cryptoliberal?" Judging from the context, I'm going to have to say it's someone that doesn't 100% buy every line of bullshit that drops out of the mouth of Bush or his legions of loyal sycophants.

Labels: Ron Paul

Posted 10/24/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

Getting tired of all those stories of pit-bulls eating the face off a baby? Try this one on for size. The pit bulls eat a kid's pony. Oh, it gets worse:

A pair of pit bulls killed a miniature horse given to a cancer-stricken Pampa boy by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Raul Vasquez believes he was just seconds from saving Anniversary, a 31-inch-tall gelding, but ended up scaling a tree when the dogs turned toward him.

One dog was caught moments after Monday's attack, but the other remained on the loose Tuesday and may be injured from a gunshot wound, Gray County Sheriff Don Copeland said.

Anniversary was purchased from a breeder in Kentucky for $1,800 by the Make-A-Wish Foundation and delivered to Vasquez's son, Christian, in August. Christian, who will be 4 on Nov. 11, was diagnosed in January with medulloblastoma, a malignant form of brain cancer that requires him to undergo chemotherapy sessions in Amarillo.

How freakin' terrible. At least they didn't interview these curs owners that tried to trot out same old pit bull defense that these animals are harmless.

Vasquez said Christian bonded with Anniversary, making it tougher to break the news to his 3-year-old son.

"He said, 'who killed my horse?' And I told him it was some mean dogs that did it," Vasquez said. "Then he asked me 'why?' And I told him 'they were really mean dogs.'"

How horrible. Really mean dogs indeed, and stupid, stupid people that claim they're "just dogs."

Labels: pit bull attacks

Posted 10/24/2007 05:12:00 PM by Douglas

Perhaps the police have a lead in this case.

A Katy man was on his cell phone with his wife when he crashed into a freight train on Tuesday, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Investigators said they are unsure whether Santiago Cadena, 33, was trying to beat the train or didn't see it coming before the crash happened around 2:30 p.m.

Cadena's wife told authorities that she overheard the wrenching, screeching crash, said DPS Sgt. Chuck Havard.

A west-bound Union Pacific freight train slammed into the cab of Cadena's empty flat bed truck, splintering it into pieces.

Tragic, yet tragically predictable.

Posted 10/24/2007 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

The crack staff at Duh! have released another astute study.

Teenagers who smoke are five times more likely to drink and 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who do not smoke, according to a report issued on Tuesday.

The report by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse presented further evidence linking youth smoking to other substance abuse and spotlighted research on how nicotine affects the adolescent brain.

"Teenage smoking can signal the fire of alcohol and drug abuse or mental illness, like depression and anxiety," Joseph Califano, who heads the center and is a former U.S. health secretary, said in a telephone interview.

Smoking: the gateway drug! Next thing you know these brainiacs will tell us that condoms cause horniness in teenagers.

Labels: Duh

Posted 10/23/2007 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

Giuliani: all terror, all the time.

"If (there's) something living on another planet and it's bad and it comes over here, what would you do?" the boy asked.

Giuliani, grin on his face, said it was the first time he's been asked about an intergalactic attack.

"Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens," said Giuliani, who spent the day campaigning in the key early voting state.

What if this alien terror attack comes on May 7th, and not on September 11th? What then? Will he be as prepared? What a grandstanding douchebag.

Posted 10/21/2007 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

Interesting database with the salaries of professional baseball players. Also interesting that three of the teams in the final four for the World Series this year, the Rockies, the Diamondbacks and the Indians, are in the bottom eight of all major league payroll, and combined don't pay their players what the hated Yankees pay their spoiled attention-whores.

But really, $2.47 Billion dollars? That's $8.19 for every person in this country. That's a bit much.

Posted 10/21/2007 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Some of these signs are hilarious!

Posted 10/20/2007 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

Cheerleaders are like strippers: They aren't particularly attractive, but god bless 'em for just showing up and shaking their ass. This site cracked me up. Why do so many of them want to have dinner with Oprah, Audrey Hepburn and Jesus?

Also, can people under 25 describe anything without using the word "amazing?"

Posted 10/19/2007 05:53:00 PM by Douglas

Libertarians explained, this time, by a total retard.

To oversimplify: Democrats are for Big Government; Republicans are against it.

Bullshit. Right off the bat. Point to one spending bill Bush didn't approve of. Republicans are all about big government, they just get pissy with the Dems as to how it's administered.

Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they're not being oversweetened and touchy-feely. Libertarians, by contrast, are not the selfish monsters you might expect. They are earnest and impractical--eager to corner you with their plan for using old refrigerators to reverse global warming or solving the traffic mess by privatizing stoplights. And if you disagree, they're fine with that. It's a free country.

Well, yeah, but it's more than that. Some of us don't think we need to get taxed to death to fund a whole bunch of stupid shit that benefit the few.

There's not a nickel's worth of difference between the Republican and Democratic party anymore. The only question is how they're going to take all your money to control you.

Posted 10/18/2007 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

One time in High School me and a buddy crashed his pickup through the ice of a frozen river and I had to call my mom to pick us up after we walked four miles to the nearest house. When she was leaving, she got pulled over by the local Sheriff because someone placed a dead cat on the trunk of her Oldsmobile, which had by then, frozen to the car. Still, that's not nearly as difficult to explain as this.

The Air Force is planning to fire at least five officers for an incident in which nuclear-armed missiles were mistakenly loaded on a B-52 bomber and flown across the U.S. — the worst known violation of nuclear security rules in decades.

In an embarrassing incident that lawmakers called very disturbing, the B-52 mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., with the missiles mounted under one of the bomber's wings and no one noticed for hours.

The officials declined to say what procedures were not followed. But the mishandling in August would have required not one mistake — but a series of lapses by a number of people in order for armed weapons — as opposed to unarmed ones — to be inadvertently taken out of a storage bunker, mounted on the B-52, misidentified on a flight manifest and flown across the country for three hours without anyone noticing.

Sleep tight, America! We're the Government, and we're here to help!

Posted 10/15/2007 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

Once again, The Onion nails it. If only this weren't too true to be funny.

NASA has suffered from a public credibility crisis in recent years due to perceived incompetence, a failed mission to Mars, the damaged and dormant Hubble telescope, and its inability to procure a long enough USB cable to reach all the way over to engineer William Chen's cubicle. But NASA officials argue that a secure high-speed line could prevent disasters such as a 2005 incident in which an employee attempting to download the movie trailer for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 crashed the Mission Control Center mainframe computer for two weeks.

Griffin may have an uphill battle convincing Congress to fund the project. As the NASA administrator himself admitted at the press conference, even if a workable wireless router is successfully purchased, engineers will need at least an additional two years to examine the owner's manual before attempting to install the complicated equipment.

Once the wireless local area network is completed, Griffin said that NASA will embark on its next great project: constructing a laptop capable of taking advantage of Wi-Fi's high-speed access by 2037.

Ouch. That's funny. And spot-on!

Posted 10/14/2007 10:00:00 PM by Douglas

Colbert runs roughshod over Maureen Dowd. No, this isn't a left-wing pr0n/snuff film, but still kinda funny reading, if even it's clearly a book plug. Still, I can't think of Miss Dowd without this quote coming to mind:

Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas.

Now THAT'S funny. Anyhoo, Colbert on Dowd [figuratively]:

I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”

Ha! I bet they could get that on pay per view!

So why I am writing Miss Dowd’s column today? Simple. Because I believe the 2008 election, unlike all previous elections, is important. And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates.

For instance, Hillary Clinton. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she’s actually easy to beat, or if I’m supposed to be scared of her because she’s legitimately scary.

Or Rudy Giuliani. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to support him because he’s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated, or if I’m supposed to support him because he’s legitimately scary.

And Fred Thompson. In my opinion “Law & Order” never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler.

Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.

Well?!? BUY MY BOOK! But this has got to be the funniest passage, in that I don't think he meant it to be:

Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.”

I knew he was a good Catholic, but I had no idea he was this good! H/T the squirrel for this little nugget.

Posted 10/14/2007 06:58:00 PM by Douglas

Austin cavers, safe.

A group of college students who didn't emerge for more than a day from a cave they were exploring have been found safe, an emergency worker said Sunday.

The two women and one man were found in a 500-foot-long crawl space about the width of a sewer pipe, said Frank Urias, division commander of Austin-Travis County emergency medical services. They are expected to be pulled from the cave in a few hours.

"The victims are uninjured, our crews are safe; it doesn't get any better than this," Urias said.

The three University of Texas students had gone into a narrow passage near Austin called Airman's Cave on Saturday morning and told friends to call for help if they weren't back by midnight, said Austin Fire Department Lt. Matt Cox.

Cavers are nuts. I'll never forget a "Caver party" I went to in Austin many moons ago. The only place I'd ever seen a wood-fired hot tub.

Posted 10/14/2007 06:44:00 PM by Douglas

Mark Anderson, my new hero.

A dentist accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients is trying to keep his dental license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases. Mark Anderson's lawyer says dental journals discuss the need to massage the pectoral muscles to treat a common jaw problem.

Police say Anderson said during recorded phone calls that he routinely massaged patients' chests to treat temporo-mandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, which causes neck and head pain.

I'm not sure about the science of any of this, but gotta give it to him for coming up with the most creative bullshit for coping a feel. I wonder if he did the same for his male patients with TMJ problems. Then there's this:

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Phillips gave Lew three new complaints, including one from a 31-year-old woman who said Anderson fondled her at least six times over two years.

She took to wearing tight shirts with high necklines, "and Anderson would still get in under her shirt and bra," according to a police report.

Six times over two years? Why in the world would she keep going back? I wonder if it works.

Labels: crazy dentist

Posted 10/14/2007 06:38:00 PM by Douglas

The billboards are everywhere, and everyone in and around Houston has no doubt seen the ads for "The Boardwalk Bullet." Since Astro-World closed down a few years ago, there's been a shortage of roller coasters around here, and The Kemah Boardwalk stepped up to the plate with this little jewel:

Ok, looks like a solid wooden roller coaster. I never understood why "coaster enthusiasts" made such a distinction between wooden and steel coasters. Does that mean you get splinters when you're decapitated, rather than dieing from metal fatigue? Who knows. Anyway, where was I going with this? Ah yes

I'm driving down 146 past Kemah today and I see the sign, and something about it cracked me up:

First off, I've never seen an advertisement for carneys before. Do you really need to advertise for that? I just assumed that it was a skill that was passed down from one carney to another from generations of thumbless chain-smoking "ride-operators."

But $7.00 an hour? Do you really want to entrust your life to the machine and the operator, knowing they're paid the same as the guy working the drive-thru line at Wendy's?

Posted 10/12/2007 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

All the news that's fit to print, and this is the first crack The New York Times had with these topics. I like this one:

Instead of having to type detailed instructions on a keyboard, using a special language, in a few years users will be able to communicate with computers more like they do with fellow human beings. Computers might develop the ability to understand the particular nuances and style of their owners. “They will have as much stored knowledge of what you know, what you’ve said, what you’ve done than any friend would have the patience to learn,” predicts William H. Gates, president of Microsoft, a Bellevue, Wash., company that has designed software for many personal computer manufacturers, including I.B.M.

Ha! MicroSoft has been blowing smoke up our collective asses for 30 years now. How 'bout making a computer that will turn on in less than 90 seconds and doesn't crash for no freakin' reason.

Also, I.B.M. used to make computers? Weird.

Posted 10/12/2007 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

How can you tell this cat is not really using the computer? You can't hit Ctrl+Alt+Del without a thumb.

And what's he looking at on your computerz? Kitty-pr0n. What else?

Posted 10/12/2007 05:01:00 PM by Douglas

Say what you will about crappy fast-food, but you can be sure you won't be eating any of this crap. Oh. My. Oprah! I've never been hungry enough to eat a crunchy baby duck.

Surprisingly absent, Cuitlacoche.

Posted 10/11/2007 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

This is baffling to me. Well, kinda. I can see how Turkey would be upset with the "genocide" tag since they want in the EU so desperately, but since when did such things get determined by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and why the hell are the Turks listening to them, anyway? No one else does.

Turkey's government on Thursday warned the U.S. that a congressional bill recognizing the mass killings of Armenians during World War One as genocide could jeopardize relations between the two countries.

In a statement, Turkey's foreign ministry said the country's government "resents and condemns this decision" and called the resolution an "irresponsible act" at an "extremely critical time."

The issue threatened to "not only endanger the relations with a friendly and allied nation but also jeopardize a strategic partnership that has been cultivated for generations," it added.

"We still hope that common sense will prevail and that the House of Representatives will not move this resolution any further."

Common sense? House of Representatives? Good freakin' luck! But even if they did (sorry Turkey, you're not the first group screwed over by Congress, so get in line) get legitimately wronged by the US government, why take it out on Boeing?

Boeing could lose more than a billion dollars worth of defense contracts with Turkey if the House of Representatives adopts a resolution to label as genocide the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago, a State Department official indicated Thursday.

R. Stephen Beecroft, executive assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told reporters traveling to Russia and the Middle East with the secretary that Turkey would consider canceling its Boeing contracts if the House passes the measure, which could be voted upon as early as next week.

You can point all the 90 year old fingers you want and call it what you will, but a Billion dollars is a Billion dollars. Someone's phone better be ringing over that one. This one, too.

Turkey has made clear that it reserves the right to send troops into northern Iraq, despite heavy pressure from the United States and the European Union to keep out.

Turkish officials say that their primary goal is to prevent a humanitarian disaster - an outflow of refugees from Northern Iraq.

That has happened before.

After the last Gulf War almost half a million Iraqis - mostly Kurds - fled to the Turkish border after President Saddam Hussein brutally crushed their uprising.

This time, Turkey says, it will offer humanitarian assistance to displaced Iraqis "inside Iraq on more suitable terrain."

It is also keen to prevent remnants of Turkey's Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, from using a refugee exodus to sneak back into Turkey from bases in Northern Iraq.

What?!? Turkey can't invade a sovereign nation for no reason, can it? Oh right, that's our job.

I'm going to hold off on making a WWIII tag for this story out of historical optimism. Not like the Turks have a history of that in that part of the world or nuthin'.

Posted 10/11/2007 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

TX DoT's unwavering dedication to safety continues, unabated. [click on the tag if you want to read up on this stupidity from three years ago]

The highway hazard elimination project that drew howls of protest from people the last couple years opposing removal of Panhandle trees is now in its second phase.

Ninety-seven trees along the U.S. 60 and U.S. 83 roadways were slated for removal, and all but a few in Ochiltree County are down.

Other aspects of hazard elimination in Gray, Roberts, Hemphill and Lipscomb counties still are under construction and about 50 percent complete, said Kenneth Corse, Texas Department of Transportation area engineer for those counties. He is based in Pampa.

A public outcry ensued when the original 2004 plan called for the state to remove 1,185 trees in Hemphill, Roberts, Lipscomb, Ochiltree and Gray counties. Highway safety guidelines generally call for cutting trees within a 16-feet safety zone from the white line at the roadway's edge. A 30-feet wide safety zone is recommended for more heavily traveled roadways.

193 structurally deficient bridges in Texas and this is what they're wasting your money on?!?

Panhandle TX DoT are remarkably stupid (even when gauged against nominal TX DoT stupidity) and not a one of them has ever been East of Wichita Falls. I would hate to see one of these morons navigate Texas 241 between Linwood and Rusk in East Texas. The Piney Woods would make short work of these fools.

Labels: Killer Trees

Posted 10/10/2007 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

Even for a politician, this may go down as one of the dumbest things I've ever heard come out of a candidates mouth.

The question in Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in Michigan came from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who asked, "Governor Romney... if you were president of the United States, would you need to go to Congress to get authorization to take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities?"

Romney responded, "You sit down with your attorneys and (they) tell you what you have to do. But obviously the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us against a potential threat. The president did that as he was planning on moving into Iraq and received the authorization of Congress..."

Matthews interjected: "Did (President Bush) need (a go-ahead from Congress)?"

"You know," Romney replied, "we're going to let the lawyers sort out what he needed to do and what he didn't need to do."

What? We're not talking about divorce proceedings or suing your neighbor for running over your dog. And you're going to let Bush's example of letting his lawyers determine foreign policy be your guide? Because that worked out so well for him.

Is there anyone there that's not a total jagoff? Sure there is:

When all was said and done, however, only Texas Congressman Ron Paul actually challenged Romney's disregard of the essential document.

Matthews asked, "Congressman Paul, do you believe the President needs authorization of Congress to attack strategic targets in Iran, nuclear facilities?"

"Absolutely," said Paul, who in 2002 was one of six House Republicans to vote against authorizing Bush to attack Iraq. "This idea of going and talking to attorneys totally baffles me. Why don't we just open up the Constitution and read it? You're not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war."

Paul's statement is almost as remarkable as Romney's. Remarkable that he's the only Republican with the stones to say it.

Labels: Ron Paul

Posted 10/10/2007 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

Everyone that's going to get your new plane in air in 2007 raise your hand. . . . .not so fast there, Boeing.

Deliveries of US planemaker Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner aircraft will fall six months behind schedule, the company has announced.

The delay - to late November or December 2008 - was caused by manufacturing problems, Boeing said.

Half the materials used to build the Dreamliner are carbon fibre composites, making the process more complex.

Come on, guys.

Posted 10/10/2007 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Texas Tech want a rivalry with someone so bad. It's almost sad, yet, they came up this this which is tactless, vulgar and hilarious.

Texas Tech has banned the sale of a T-shirt bearing the likeness of Michael Vick hanging the dog mascot of rival Texas A&M.

The red and black shirts, with text that says "VICK 'EM" on the front in an apparent reference to the Aggies' slogan "Gig 'em," was created by a Tech student who was trying to sell them before Saturday's game in Lubbock.

The back of the shirt shows a football player wearing the No. 7 Vick jersey holding a rope with an image of the mascot Reveille at the end of a noose. Vick, who faces up to five years in prison after pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges, is suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

So Texas Tech can tell students what to wear? Geez, sounds like High School.

Yeah, I know it's tacky, but anytime the Cult of A&M is the butt of one of their own jokes (this time, Lassie), I can't help but laugh.

Posted 10/08/2007 06:03:00 PM by Douglas

There's a reason that ballooning is almost five times more dangerous than the rest of general aviation. When there's nothing between your basket and a 75,000 volt power line, this is often the result.

The basket of a hot air balloon flying in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta tipped after hitting power lines Monday, killing a woman who was thrown out of the basket, police said.

The pilot was trying to land the balloon and had thrown out a tether line when the balloon began to rise again, striking nearby power lines and tipping the basket, Tingwall said. It was not clear if the landing was planned or an emergency.

The crash site is about three miles from the launch site for the fiesta, a nine-day event that began Saturday and features special-shaped balloons and competitions for balloon pilots.

I wouldn't stick a fork in a toaster, either, nevermind my values.

Posted 10/08/2007 05:02:00 PM by Douglas

Texas is number 3 in the list of government pork.

Texas has long viewed itself as a conservative bastion, but the Lone Star State ranked third in the nation between 2000 and last year in receipt of federal dollars, raking in aid and contracts worth more than $1.2 trillion.

The analysis provides an insight into where federal dollars are flowing and underscores what Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson calls the "pork-barrel libertarianism" philosophy of many Texans.

Guess what list Texas is #2 on? Population! So it seems that there's still a net deficit of how much money Texans send to D.C. and how much Texas gets back.

Time to secede.

Posted 10/07/2007 07:01:00 PM by Douglas

Longhorn football continues to be unwatchable.

Here's the good news for Texas: The Longhorns played their best game of the season.

The bad news? They still lost and that nasty Big 12 losing streak keeps getting longer.

Texas has been ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 for 115 straight weeks, longest in the country. The streak stayed alive Sunday mostly because every team ranked from No. 21 to No. 25 last week lost on Saturday, leaving pollsters few options to vote for somebody else.

Mack Brown has a lot of question this week, and less and less of them have "Colt McCoy" as the answer.

Posted 10/07/2007 06:42:00 PM by Douglas

The first Marathon runner 2,500 years ago dropped dead when he finished, and the tradition continues.

Organizers shut down the course four hours after the start of Sunday's Chicago Marathon because of 88-degree heat and sweltering humidity that left one runner dead and sent 250 people to area hospitals with heat-related ailments.

I don't want to belittle anyone's death, but 88º? That's what we call a South Texas cool front. Also, and I'm no genius, but I think I see a way out of this. Don't run 26.2 miles in the freakin' heat, morons.

Labels: Marathons

Posted 10/07/2007 06:27:00 PM by Douglas

Senator Larry Craig. Idaho Hall of Fame. Really?

Sen. Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame, despite his well-publicized arrest and guilty plea in an airport sex sting, officials said.

Wait a sec. I don't know if I'm more surprised that he got nominated for induction to the Idaho Hall of Fame, or that there is an Idaho Hall of Fame? Who else is a member to such a prestigious organization?

About 100 people have been inducted into the hall since 1995, including the late Nez Perce Tribe leader Chief Joseph, Coeur d'Alene writer and historian Louise Shadduck, World War II fighter ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and newspaper and hospitality magnate Duane Hagadone.

Indian Chiefs and a bunch of other people I've never heard of. Sounds about right.

This is a pretty funny segment. Really.
He does have a pretty wide stance, doesn't he?

Posted 10/07/2007 06:14:00 PM by Douglas

Here's a take on the RIAA's case this week that nails it.

The problem isn't the verdict. It's the penalty.

After decades of special-interest lobbying by large holders of intellectual property rights, U.S. copyright law has spiraled out of control. It's been transformed from limited protections of authors' rights for 14 years to a juggernaut with criminal enforcement, sky-high penalties, and up to 120 years of legal protection.

Copyright no longer abides by the fundamental principle of law, which is that the damages awarded should be related to any harm committed. No wonder Jammie Thomas got slapped with a $222,000 bill. (And I wouldn't be surprised to see attorney's fees add another $100,000 on top of it.)

"It doesn't strike a regular person that by passing a CD around the neighborhood, they should have their house taken away," says Lew Rockwell, president of the free-market Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. "And by electronic means it shouldn't be any different."

According to the RIAA, I should be in Git-Mo for making a mix-tape for my college girlfriend. Actually, I should be in Git-Mo for putting Patsy Cline on the same tape as the Beastie Boys.

Labels: RIAA

Posted 10/06/2007 04:50:00 PM by Douglas

OK, so she's guilty. She probably did what they said she did, so I'm not going to cry about that. But it's still a stupid law.

Thomas was the first person to fight back all the way to a trial. Six major record companies accused Thomas of offering 1,702 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network. At trial, they focused on 24 songs and jurors decided Thursday that Thomas willfully violated the copyright on all 24. Their verdict was for damages of $9,250 per song, or $222,000.

The recording industry won two victories with that verdict.

I don't think so. Is $220K going to do a damn thing for the industry? Other than further alienating their consumers, I doubt this will do a thing to deter more than a dozen file-sharing users to stop. So instead of dealing with the new technology, they're just digging a bigger hole for themselves in a vain attempt to regain the glory days of the $16 CD.

One of my favourite stories the Onion has ever done.

Labels: RIAA

Posted 10/06/2007 04:34:00 PM by Douglas

When interrogating military personnel of a despotic dictator, sometimes drastic measures have to be used. How about we revive some methods we used to use against the Nazis?

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

I'm pretty sure that Ping-pong is listed under the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual.

I can almost hear the "yeah-buts" coming from the Bush sycophants, and I'm pretty sure the first or second words out of their mouths is "9/11."

Posted 10/06/2007 04:27:00 PM by Douglas

The first time I heard about these I thought it was made up. A little too sci-fi to be real, but it's true. They're a real problem.

They've ruined missiles, silenced communications satellites and forced nuclear power plants to shut down. Pacemakers, consumer gadgets and even a critical part of a space shuttle have fallen victim.

The culprits? Tiny splinters — whiskers, they're called — that sprout without warning from tin solder and finishes deep inside electronics. By some estimates, the resulting short-circuits have leveled as much as $10 billion in damage since they were first noticed in the 1940s.

Now some electronics makers worry the destruction will be more widespread, and the dollar amounts more draining, as the European Union and governments around the world enact laws to eliminate the best-known defense — lead — from electronic devices.

"The EU's decision was irresponsible and not based on sound science," said Joe Smetana, a principal engineer and tin whisker expert with French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA. "We're solving a problem that isn't and creating a bunch of new ones."

Ain't that always the way? Fix something, and it breaks something else. I can't say that I really follow this reasoning, though, as to why lead solder was discontinued.

While scientists debate their cause, they agree on one thing: Small amounts of lead mixed with the tin have been remarkably effective at preventing whisker eruptions for decades.

Lead, however, is a serious health concern. In children, it can cause learning or behavioral problems and has been associated with anemia and kidney problems. In adults, exposure has been linked to high blood pressure and reproductive organ damage.

Here's a thought: Tell kids not to eat solder! Seems like a reasonable way to avoid this problem would be to stop making nachos out of old circuit boards.

Last year, Europeans barred the toxic metal from most electronics to prevent its being incinerated or accumulating in dumps after computers and other gadgets are tossed out. Similar measures are being considered or are already in place in other countries, including Japan, China, South Korea, Argentina, Australia and the United States.

Lead is toxic, we get it. But it's also a naturally occurring element. So how is lead in the landfill any worse than lead in a, say, a lead mine, or wherever the hell it comes from?

Posted 10/04/2007 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Fifty years after the first man-made chunk of metal made it into low earthorbit, humans are still at least a decade from leaving, yet again. Time to wax poetic about the impacts the space program has for mankind (and for your home constituency), but what NASA really needs is some vision. No one seems to know what's going on. Is the shuttle fleet going to be retired in 2010? Is it going to fly two, three, or four more years? Why? Are we really going to go back to the moon and then on to Mars? It's kinda sad when NASA's top administrator thinks that the next space race is going to be China, and we've already lost.

he Soviets beat the United States at getting a satellite, and a man, into space. Now, the Chinese may get to the moon before the U.S. can make a return visit.

Fifty years after Sputnik became the world's first artificial satellite, a new race is under way with the finish line on the moon. NASA, the former lunar champion, already is predicting defeat.

"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a low-key lecture in Washington two weeks ago, marking the space agency's 50th anniversary, still a year away.

"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it."

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Knute Rockne!

Seriously, is this supposed to motivate the people that are fighting countless levels of NASA bureaucracy to get the new ship designed, built and flown?

Either there's public support for a manned spaceflight program, or there isn't. We're not going to get anywhere ever again with this half-assed "designed by committee" approach to space travel.

Posted 10/04/2007 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Also celebrating 50 years today along with Sputnik, Leave it to Beaver. Please use your "Ward, don't you think you were a little rough on the Beaver last night" joke with discretion.

Posted 10/04/2007 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

This is disturbing for several reasons:

Iraq is buying 100 million dollars of light military equipment for its police from China because the US cannot provide the material, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reportedly said.

"The capacity of the factories here are not enough to provide us quickly with all that we need, even for the army. One of our demands is to accelerate the delivery of the arms to the Iraqi army," Talabani said.

An anonymous Bush administration official acknowledged the problem to the Post, saying "We're working hard just to supply our own troops."

"Our factories are working for our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."

First off, we can't make enough small arms for Iraq? What the hell else do we make? It's obvious our manufacturing base has gone east, but we don't even make guns anymore? What happened to the good old days of arming the world, then invading them to take their arms away?

Also, isn't it just a little alarming that China has such extra capacity in their arms manufacturing capability? I figure with the volume discount, that's about 2 million AK-47. That's sure to fix the problem in Iraq, eh?

Posted 10/04/2007 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

This is wrong for so many reasons. I blame the squirrel.

Posted 10/04/2007 04:55:00 PM by Douglas

Remember the good old days when you could smoke in your own home? Not in Belmont, California.

Lawmakers in two California cities are discussing unprecedented legislation this month that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos.

Next Tuesday, the City Council of Belmont is scheduled to cast a final vote on an ordinance that would ban smoking in apartments and condos. The measure, which won initial approval last week, could trigger fines and evictions if neighbors complain and smokers don't heed repeated warnings.

A lease is a lease, and if you sign the papers that says you're entering in a contract for a non-smoking residence, you have to abide by it. But it's still a stupid waste of time for local politicians to enact and enforce such a law.

Posted 10/04/2007 04:38:00 PM by Douglas

The RIAA continues their steady march away from relevance. I have to admire this woman for not just emptying her bank account like most of the other accused did, but it doesn't look like she's gonna win.

Six major record companies accuse Jammie Thomas, 30, of sharing 1,702 songs online in violation of the companies' copyrights. The record companies claim they found the songs on a Kazaa file-sharing account they later linked to her.

After two days of testimony from 11 witnesses, the defense rested without calling anyone to the stand, and closing arguments in the civil trial were scheduled for Thursday morning.

Earlier in the day, Thomas set up her computer in court to show the jury how quickly CDs could be copied onto it. That demonstration came in response to testimony from an expert for the record companies, Doug Jacobson, who said the songs on one of Thomas' computer drives were copied at a pace so fast it suggested piracy.

Many appeared just 15 seconds apart, which Jacobson claimed was faster than Thomas could have copied songs from CDs she owned onto the computer.

But each song Thomas copied in court over Gabriel's objection took less than 10 seconds to land on the computer.

Wow. This kind of thing is going to sound really absurd in about five more years.

Labels: RIAA

Posted 10/04/2007 11:52:00 AM by Douglas

Sherry is such an urbane liquor. But not when you serve it, Freeport style!

Michael Warner, a 58-year-old machine shop operator, died at the couple's Lake Jackson home on May 21, 2004. According to an autopsy report, Warner had been administered an enema with enough sherry to get a blood alcohol level of 0.47. That is almost six times the level that can lead to a driving while intoxicated charge.

At the time Warner was indicted, Lake Jackson police detective Robert Turner said that Michael Warner was a longtime alcoholic who sometimes used enemas to get drunk because a medical condition made it painful for him to drink.

This has been going on for a while, but it's good to see that the D.A. finally wised up and dropped the charges. If he had a history of drinking and enemas, proving she did it would be tough.

Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne said Wednesday that the grand jury originally believed there was probable cause for indictment, but prosecutors became convinced that there wasn't enough evidence to bring the case to trial.

"This was an unusual case in that there was a consent issue," Yenne said. "It is as if I were dying of lung cancer and you brought me cigarettes."

And? How is that illegal? I think we all enjoy a nice smoke after our Freeport Cocktail!

Labels: Freeport Cocktail

Posted 10/01/2007 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

I know I have to feel bad for people that took out a mortgage they can't afford, but now I have to feel bad for students that took out too many student loans? What on earth for?

Kristin Cole, 30, who graduated from Michigan State University's law school and lives in Grand Rapids, Mich., owes $150,000 in private and government-backed student loans. Her monthly payment of $660, which consumes a quarter of her take-home pay, is scheduled to jump to $800 in a year or so, confronting her with stark financial choices.

"I could never buy a house. I can't travel; I can't do anything," she said. "I feel like a prisoner."

Really? Did the oppression start when the bank gave her the $150K, or just when she had to pay it back?

Anyone that can't figure out the basic principle of compound interest has no business going to college, anyway.

Posted 10/01/2007 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

That's a pretty sweet space station we had there for a while. Who ever is the last one out, don't forget to turn out the lights.

Partners in the international space station are arguing about when to shut it even though the orbital platform, billed as the most successful joint space endeavour, is not fully assembled.

The United States insists it will pull out of the station at the end of 2015 while Russia wants its life prolonged, said European Space Agency (ESA) chief Jean-Jacques Dordain at an astronautics congress in Hyderabad, southern India.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin has told space station partners that the US agency has no plans for "utilisation and exploitation" of the science research lab for more than five years after it is completed, Dordain said.

"ESA is not prepared to pay NASA's share when NASA has left the space station," Dordain told reporters Tuesday night on the sidelines of the space summit.

"If NASA is staying, we are ready to follow," he added. "If NASA is quitting, I shall not propose to ESA to pay part of the cost that NASA is covering today."

So if NASA is going to dump in after assembly complete with no science budget, why bother completing it? The next vehicle is on the books. What are they waiting for?

Posted 10/01/2007 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Fifty years ago, the space-race got off to a flying start with a beeping chunk of aluminum in orbit. Now, we find out what the Soviets were really up to.

When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

Whatever the reason, it opened up a shot in the arm to technological development the country had never seen. But this statement was a bit odd:

"We wouldn't have been the first on the moon anyway," Grechko said. "We lost the race because our electronics industry was inferior."

Yet 50 years later, they still haven't learned.

Also, did you know that Sputnik was launched the same day as Leave it to Beaver? It's true!