Posted 2/29/2008 04:19:00 PM by Douglas

More on Buckley. I like it that The New York Times used the word sesquipedalian in its obit of the man, but if you want the real scoop, you gotta go to the Telegraph. Some highlights:

His spirit began to show at the age of eight, when he wrote King George V a sharp note reminding him of the debts Britain owed the United States for the First World War.

After Millbrook School at Millbrook, New York, where he earned a dollar a page typing up his schoolfriends' essays (with a surcharge of 25c for correcting the grammar as he went) he progressed, in 1943, to the University of Mexico.

Oh, I bet he would correct your grammar like a son-of-bitch. And his most famous quote, from the first edition of National Review:

Buckley started the National Review in 1955, with his own and his wife's money, as an antidote to what he perceived as the dangers of liberal influence on public affairs. The magazine, he declared when setting out his intentions in the first issue, would "stand athwart history yelling 'Stop!'".

But who could forget his heated exchange with Gore Vidal:

He also appeared in a series of television debates during the 1968 Democratic convention with Gore Vidal. The atmosphere often became heated. Vidal, in one programme, called Buckley a "crypto-Nazi", to which Buckley replied: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddam face."

Too bad he didn't. But you gotta love this comment, and from a Brit, no less:

Constantine Fitzgibbon, in The Daily Telegraph, characterised Buckley - a rich man with no need to work, vigorous and successful in all he undertook - as "what the English used to expect of their aristocrats".

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Labels: Telegraph Obits

Posted 2/29/2008 04:05:00 PM by Douglas

Does anyone give a shit what Prince Harry is up to?

A defiant Prince Harry is flying back to Britain tonight determined to return as soon as possible to frontline duties in Afghanistan.

Before he boarded his flight the 23-year-old second Lieutenant in the Household Cavalry was moved from his base, only 500 yards from Taliban enemy lines in the volatile Helmand Province, to a secret and secure location after his presence in Afghanistan was leaked on an American web site.

Well good for him. I can't believe they can find anyone that want to serve with him, considering the huge royal target he's got on his ass.

Posted 2/29/2008 03:52:00 PM by Douglas

I can't imagine anyone in the judicial system that could possibly think that this is a good idea. And we mock China's human rights record.

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

Let's not forget one of the main groups saturating the prison population: non-violent drug offenders. Murderers, rapists, politicians: hell, those are the people we build prisons for. But this problem isn't going to go away until we stop locking up people that want to smoke a plant that grows on every corner of god's green earth.

Posted 2/29/2008 03:47:00 PM by Douglas

What happens when a stable, very predictable demand for energy is met with a supplier that comes and goes, literally, as the wind blows? This:

A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.

ERCOT said the grid's frequency dropped suddenly when wind production fell from more than 1,700 megawatts, before the event, to 300 MW when the emergency was declared.

Get used to it, Texas, as this is the price we're going to pay for being the "largest wind-farm state" in the country. Or as the long-time reader who sent me this story asks, "if wind is so reliable, why don't the tankers that bring us oil have sails on them?"

Labels: wind power

Posted 2/29/2008 03:47:00 PM by Douglas

Pay up, gringos!

Posted 2/27/2008 07:07:00 PM by Douglas

The Agitator nails his eulogy of William F. Buckley.

Buckley leaves an enormous legacy, but to the detriment everyone, the right left Buckley years ago. Where Buckley stood athwart the tide of history and beat it back with wit, sophistication, and argument, we today get best-selling Regnery screeds from lowest-common-denominator clowns like Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, and Glenn Beck. Where Buckley mistrusted government and aimed to slow the world down, he’s been usurped on the right by the likes of William Kristol and David Brooks, men who want to use government to remake the world in their own image.

The 15-year GOP assent to power from 1980 to 1994 gave rise to rightist thinkers more inclined toward activist government, just one that was active promoting conservativism. With Republicans at the helm of the federal government, limiting government’s scope and reach no longer seemed like such a good idea. So old right thinkers like Buckley lost influence in favor of big government neocons like Kristol, who gave quarter to grand dreams like an imperial presidency, using the federal government to promote conservative values through intervention in areas like health care and the public schools, remapping the Middle East, and other ideas that require too great a belief in the competence and benevolence of bureaucrats and politicians for sensible rightists like Buckley.

Damn right. Don't confuse today's Republican party with anything remotely "conservative."

Posted 2/27/2008 07:03:00 PM by Douglas

It seems like an outrage to think a teenager isn't standing down at the DPS office at 7:30 in the morning of their 16th birthday, but apparently that's no longer the case:

No longer. In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third, according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.

To that mix, experts also add parents who are willing to chauffeur their children to activities, and pastimes like surfing the Web that keep them indoors and glued to computers.

Doesn't bode well for the motivation of this generation, does it?

Posted 2/27/2008 06:59:00 PM by Douglas

The New York Times, on Texas politics:

“It’s like running a national campaign,” said one veteran Texas Democrat, Garry Mauro, state director for Mrs. Clinton. “There are no similarities between Amarillo and Brownsville and Beaumont and Texarkana and El Paso and Austin and Houston and Dallas. These are very separate demographic groups with very diverse interests.”

With recent polls showing that Mr. Obama has cut deeply into Mrs. Clinton’s lead in Texas, or even erased it, the state has become a political battleground to a degree not witnessed in a generation. And the rapidly mounting fight has reminded national political strategists yet again of Texas’ strange largeness — or large strangeness — a state that Congress decided in 1845, the year it joined the Union, might well be later divided into four more states should it consent.

Hillary and Obama are sure pouring on the money here in Texas. It seems like every other commercial is for one of the lying scumbags. With the republican race pretty much sewn up, I bet the Dems get a big turnout next week. It should be interesting to see how bad Hillary is going to lose.

Posted 2/24/2008 08:26:00 PM by Douglas

It's Oscar time and who are you wearing? It's rigged, the whole thing is rigged. But it's fun to watch. Take a shot every time you hear one of these mental giants says the word "amazing." It's up to 13 already.

Posted 2/23/2008 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

Ooops!

A B-2 stealth bomber plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on Saturday, the first time one crashed, but both pilots ejected safely, Air Force officials said.

The aircraft was taking off with three others on their last flight out of Guam after a four-month deployment, part of a continuous U.S. bomber presence in the western Pacific. After the crash, the other three bombers were being kept on Guam, said Maj. Eric Hilliard at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii.

At least one B-2 bomber had taken off safely from Andersen Air Force Base but was brought back when another aircraft plunged to the ground.

There were no injuries on the ground or damage to buildings, and no munitions were on board. Each B-2 bomber costs about $1.2 billion to build.

Good to hear that the crew ejected safely. The GAO puts the unit cost closer to $2.2 billion, so here's some fun facts about the B-2:

• How much of a Space Shuttle would a B-2 buy? About 1.3. And we have 20 of them!
• A string of 2.2 Billion one dollar bills would stretch from San Francisco to Guam 37 times.
• If the B-2 were made entirely out of solid gold, it would still cost $2.2 Billion.
• The cost of a single B-2 is about 69% the GDP of Guam. And we have 20 of them!

Your tax dollar at work. And so on. . .

Posted 2/23/2008 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

For the record, the only cool sign that says "Chelsea Clinton peed here" is a tattoo, preferably on one's face.

Posted 2/23/2008 04:52:00 PM by Douglas

And now, for no reason, here's a couple of camels:

No, this picture wasn't taken in the middle-east. It was taken on the barren steppes of West Texas, where I hear they even eat mesquite trees. They'll be turned out and wild in about 20 years. Hunted in 25.

Posted 2/23/2008 04:38:00 PM by Douglas

Fashion, said Oscar Wilde, is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. So does everyone that engages in such activity have to be such an idiot?

If you’ve ever read one of the hundreds of books on the market telling women how to dress and how to shop, you know why fashion writing needs some more smart girls to come over to their side. These books exist, and are in some ways needed, because there is a huge disconnect between the fantasy world of Vogue — where women spend their days romping in fields wearing $1,500 sequined leggings — and reality.

What on earth does reality have to do with the world of fashion?

Freeman wrote a book for women who actually exist. Women who have to wait for buses in the middle of winter. Women who like to dance at parties, and do not want to have to sit in the corner because their feet are bleeding. She knows that these women live in the real world, where fur is not harvested from free-range chinchillas that all die of natural causes (see “Fur: bad”).

Ha!

Posted 2/21/2008 05:57:00 PM by Douglas

Dude, where's my bridge?

Police in the Czech republic are trying to find out who stole a 4 tonne railway bridge from the border town of Cheb.

The company which was responsible for looking after the bridge raised the alarm when, ever alert, they noticed that the bridge wasn't there any more.

Martina Hruskova, a spokeswoman for the Czech police, commented to AFP: 'We are not sure if it was taken for personal use or for its scrap value.' Exactly what that 'personal use' might be was left unsaid.

What's the confusion about "personal use" for a bridge? Haven't we all wanted our own bridge, from time to time?

Posted 2/21/2008 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

How adorable! And what an excellent way to get decapitated!

Posted 2/21/2008 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

I wonder if the Sierra Club sets a great example by only using electricity generated by their own good intentions?

An environmental group's protest in downtown Houston on Wednesday put a spotlight on the debate over coal — which generates half the nation's electricity but also contributes to climate change.

The Sierra Club said it is launching a national campaign against coal-fired plants by Houston-based Dynegy and punctuated the announcement with a rally outside the company's headquarters.

Dynegy, which has as many as six coal-fired plants in its construction plans, responded that it must meet the growing demand for electricity in the short term while long-term alternative energy sources are still being developed.

Most of society, including the Sierra Club newsletter, couldn't exist without electricity. Why don't they protest their own uses? Also, I wonder if they walked to their downtown Houston protest? But who could ignore a rant that begins with "hey hey, ho ho?"

About 40 protesters carried picket signs and chanted "dirty coal has got to go" to mark the start of the campaign.

I can never get my mind wrapped around the narrow, unenlightened self interest of these people. Do they think that these huge evil energy companies just want to destroy the planet? They're providing a service that everyone, including the Sierra Club, uses on a daily, if no hourly, basis. Shut your whining pie hole or get off the grid.

Posted 2/21/2008 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Totalitarianism against smoking in England continues, unabated.

A ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone who does not pay for a government smoking permit has been proposed by Health England, a ministerial advisory board.

The idea is the brainchild of the board's chairman, Julian Le Grand, who is a professor at the London School of Economics and was Tony Blair's senior health adviser. In a paper being studied by Lord Darzi, the health minister appointed to oversee NHS reform, he says many smokers would be helped to break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in".

The permit might cost as little as £10, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night.

His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."

Wait a sec. Don't smokers already pay the government for the privilege to smoke? Sure they do, (some more than others). Considering how much they cost and how much more all those non-smokers are draining our country's health care systems by living so much longer, the government should be giving cigarettes away to anyone that wants them. You know, to keep their costs down.

Posted 2/21/2008 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

I've worked my share of retail jobs, and I'll be damned if I'm going to get run over for the register, much less for a stack of pallets.

Fort Bend County investigators are searching for the driver of a white van who ran over and injured a Home Depot employee during a theft attempt.

Carlson said the incident happened about 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Home Depot in the 6800 block of South Fry Road near Katy.

Investigators said store employees saw a white van pull up and stop near the shipping and receiving area. Employees thought the driver was a customer and went to help. However, Thomas noticed the driver and others who were in the van were trying to steal pallets.

Thomas was run over when he tried to stop the men.

Geez, let it go. Is The Home Despot going to get run over for you? Or even offer you health insurance? Let it go, dude.

Posted 2/21/2008 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

Twice the pet, half the mess!

Harry Potter, the newborn two-faced kitten, died early Wednesday morning. The male kitten, part of a litter of seven, was born early Tuesday with two mouths, two noses, and four eyes.

Renee Cook, the owner, had taken the kitten with her to the Clements Prison Unit where she works the night shift as a nurse. She said Harry Potter was doing well until around 6 a.m., when he died.

"He was feisty all night long. He didn't want to be covered up," Cook said. "It was like he wanted people to see him. It was like he was saying, 'Here I am, world. Come see me.' He just didn't last very long."

Poor little guy. Rest in peace, you little freak.

Posted 2/21/2008 05:01:00 PM by Douglas

The offending organ. It's history now, and they wouldn't let me take it home, perhaps because I told them I wanted to use it to make gumbo (Mmmm, spicy!).

Posted 2/20/2008 10:08:00 PM by Douglas

Looks like the Navy hit it!

A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said. Full details were not immediately available. It happened just after 10:30 p.m. EST.

Two officials said the missile was launched successfully. One official, who is close to the process, said it hit the target. He said details on the results were not immediately known.

The goal in this first-of-its-kind mission for the Navy was not just to hit the satellite but to obliterate a tank aboard the spacecraft carrying 1,000 pounds of a toxic fuel called hydrazine.

Well there ya go, folks. It's all going to be alright. Isn't it?

Officials said it might take a day or longer to know for sure if the toxic fuel was blown up.

Don't get out of your bunkers just yet, folks

Am I the only one that saw this movie?

Posted 2/20/2008 06:49:00 PM by Douglas

So the shuttle landed today, clearing the skies for the Navy to shoot down a rogue, toxic satellite. Why does this story stink to low-earth orbit? Oh, Ida know, maybe it's listening to their own, errant, bullshit that doesn't fill me with a lot of hope:

On the first part of the kind of the sequence of information and how this is unfolding, one of the criteria that I laid out when we started in the last briefing was that we weren't going to do anything until we had the shuttle on the ground. So the shuttle's coming down here in the next few minutes, if it's not down now. It's down.

So we're now into the window, okay, the length of the window. There's some significant ambiguity at the back end of the window, based, as I said at the time, on how high the atmosphere is on any given day, because that then tells you when the satellite naturally would start to hit the atmosphere. So we want to catch it before it naturally hits the atmosphere, because when it hits the atmosphere, it tumbles and it's next to impossible to track.

So we're pretty comfortable right now that we'll have windows available to us through about the 29th or 30th. And then after that it will really start to become, let's say, more ambiguous, because we're trying to predict the weather out that far. So that's kind of the period, starting today and running basically out to about the 29th.

One Royal Bullshit story after another one. First, you have to wait 'till the shuttle lands? What about all the other satellites in low-earth orbit that mankind relies on for navigation and communication? What about, oh, Ida know, the freakin' International Space Station? What is that, chopped liver?

But more importantly, what about the window that's open 'till the 29th or the 30th? This story says

Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March.

So. . . first week in March and it's leaving a penile rivulet of hydrazine in the mud somewhere, right? So why does a "SR. MILITARY OFFICIAL" say their window for shooting it down is open 'till the 29th or 30th. . . .of February? Are they really that slow? Sadly, that story was posted on the D.O.D's own webpage, so it would seem that they are.

Sleep tight, world!

Posted 2/20/2008 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

In case you're not pugged out by now, try this. Pug Bowling.


Seems like I've blogged this before. yep, a year and a half ago. I don't care it's still funny.

Posted 2/20/2008 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

Two airforce F-15s achieved spontaneous disassembly over Florida.

Two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter planes collided in midair on Wednesday over the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Florida, during a training mission, officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guard recovered one pilot and a second was reported missing after the one-seat F-15C Eagles crashed at 4:21 p.m. EST (2121 GMT) about 50 miles south of Tyndall Air Force Base.

If you keep crashing your $30 Million jets, how are you going to convince us that you need an extra $100 Billion, on top of the $120 Billion or so you get normally. So your additionally needed funds are greater than NASA's total funds? Sounds about right.

Posted 2/20/2008 05:16:00 PM by Douglas

Is your monitor clean? Better get it wiped off.

Posted 2/18/2008 01:55:00 PM by Douglas

I don't think it's much of a stretch to think that going to work is a more productive way of taking care of yourself than going to war, although this country has an alarming long history of convincing other to our viewpoint with the barrel of a rifle.

Companies that empower their employees to cut costs in the workplace not only improve their bottom lines, but also may foster civic engagement and contribute to peace in the societies where they operate, according to research published in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Author Gretchen Spreitzer, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, examined survey data from 65 countries around the world, comparing detailed measures of employee workplace empowerment with broader measures about the quality of civic life. Her analysis, based on surveys taken between 1981 and 2001, shows that empowered, satisfied employees tend to live in open, peaceful societies -- and that improvements in workplace empowerment often precede social changes. Employees, it seems, can take lessons learned in the workplace and apply them to social and political life.

Well, duh. Ms. Spreitzer's research grant not withstanding, the broader question is how to convince the have-nots of the world to stop shooting each other and get a job.

Posted 2/18/2008 01:39:00 PM by Douglas

Hey, who are you calling dumb? I don't think it's a stretch to think that we, as a culture are getting dumber, but the alarming thing, even through my own observations, is that we're proud of that fact.

The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it's the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism -- a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse.

It is past time for a serious national discussion about whether, as a nation, we truly value intellect and rationality.

You could blame this on a lot of things, but until the shift is made to actually valuing intellect, the high score of RockBand will reign supreme.

Posted 2/18/2008 01:07:00 PM by Douglas

The internet is evil because someone said some bad things about me on their myspace page. [Holy crap I gotta stop reading this.]

In Mr. Siegel's rendering, the Internet promotes a form of cultural obesity – its vastness, often heralded as an unparalleled good, now threatens our intellectual health. Journalists and critics who should approach this new medium with healthy skepticism instead kowtow to the latest online trend, aiding and abetting the public in its uncritical embrace of technology.

This may seem in contradiction my an earlier post but I don't think so. Just like I don't think that the term "reading books" is a good indication of your intellectual health (how many million hard-cover turds did Steven King and Danielle Steel churn out last year?), "internet usage" can be as good as it is bad. For every dancing hamster there's at least a dozen or so Federalist Papers. Use it as you will. But he goes off the deep end here:

Not surprisingly, Mr. Siegel is especially exorcised by the loss of authority of the cultural critic; like travel agents, critics have seen their business severely compromised by the Internet. Yet the passenger who conveniently purchased his ticket online is often dismayed to find that he has no reliable advocate to intervene with the airline when his flight is suddenly cancelled.

What a horribly pithy example of the industries the internet is proving we don't really need. What "reliable advocate" are you going to call on when the 7:15 to Cleveland gets canceled? Travel agents, apartment locators, phone books printed newspapers, listen up: We don't need you.

Posted 2/17/2008 02:59:00 PM by Douglas

Remember that sense of frustration that can only be expressed by a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head? I'm sure you do, and we all had a good laugh. But I'll bet you didn't know the dexterity that this rabbit had for balancing crap on its head. You do now.

Posted 2/17/2008 02:37:00 PM by Douglas

I couldn't care less about the DTV switch next year, but this headline, as usual, made me laugh:

Hispanics are nearly twice as likely as whites to be left without television service following the nationwide transition to digital broadcasting next year, according to a new survey.

Beginning in February 2009, full-power broadcast stations will transmit digital-only signals, meaning people who get their television programming over an antenna and do not have a digital set won't get a picture without a special converter box.

Just like that old joke about The New York Times headline:

World to end Friday; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit

What do we do?!?

Posted 2/15/2008 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Honestly, I don't know what to make of this one. It's got more sides than a greased pig.

The falling satellite is named USA 193. It was launched Dec. 14, 2006. It has been described as being similar in size to a school bus and might weigh as much as 10,000 pounds. It carries a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch, never reaching its final orbit, and the Pentagon declared it a total loss in early 2007.

Since then, the satellite's orbit has been decaying — slowly at first. But in recent weeks USA 193's nearly circular orbit has been rapidly lowering. Currently, its altitude is approximately 160 miles (260 km) above the Earth.

Unless a proposed plan by the Pentagon is enacted to shoot down USA 193 during the next week, the satellite could conceivably re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up sometime in mid-March.

Ok, this isn't hardly news, but this is getting a lot of press lately. Why? Because the Shuttle is in orbit, or because the story the gubment is telling us doesn't make any damn sense?

Hydrazine? Really? Can a fuel tank full of hydrazine re-enter intact? Well, yeah. But is this just a lame attempt of the Navy to test their missile defense systems on a target in low-earth-orbit? Probably.

Either way, this story has more holes in it than a 1986 era SRB.

Posted 2/13/2008 06:52:00 PM by Douglas

Smoking ban in Amarillo goes back to a plebiscite.

It'll be up to voters to decide whether smokers will butt out of Amarillo's public places.

City commissioners approved putting a proposed smoking ban on a May 10 ballot after listening to opposing sides for almost two hours Tuesday.

Commissioners could have enacted an ordinance instituting the ban that severely restricts smoking in places the general public can go or where there are employees.

This is a democracy, so I can't complain if the people choose to ban smoking, but the problem I have with that is that the people that vote aren't the ones that want to go to a bar and have a smoke. But I digress. Here's the money shot:

"It's a very serious health problem ... It's not serious for the restaurant goer, it is (for) the employee," said Dr. Rush Pierce. "Workers don't have a choice where they work."

What?!? Is Amarillo, Texas, Soviet Russia? Workers don't have a choice where they work? What about those workers that want to make money off of people that choose to go to bar and smoke? What about smokers that want to smoke while they work and make money off smokers? Ok, it gets even dumber:

Sharon Stones, a registered nurse for more than 30 years, said it is a health issue that impacts children.

Say, here's an idea: Leave your kids at home when you go hang out in the smoky bar? Oh right, it's your god given right.

After a recent smoking ban, more families have been bringing children to pubs, and a spokesman for the chain was quoted by the BBC as saying, "Once the children have had their meal, we can't see a reason why they should still be in the pub."

In New York, too, the smoking ban has altered the bar's image. No longer a den of adult sin, the local tavern is seen as an attractive option for afternoon gatherings among parents. (Neither New York state nor city law forbids minors in bars, although state regulations say children younger than 16 must be accompanied by an adult, a State Liquor Authority spokesman said.)

If there's ever been a reason to allow smoking in a bar, it's this: So that there's at least one last bastion you can go and get away from a bunch of screaming kids and their whining fucking parents.

Posted 2/13/2008 06:21:00 PM by Douglas

I don't care what the rules say, a pedestrian does not have the right-of-way over a train.

A passenger on the light rail train that struck and injured a bicyclist Friday near the Texas Medical Center says the operator did not sound a horn or apply the brakes before the collision.

Let's say the pedestrian is 100% right. You're still an idiot for not getting out of the way.

Posted 2/13/2008 06:02:00 PM by Douglas

Uno!

The judge could hear Uno, the 15-inch beagle, baying as he gave his once-over to the standard poodle. And when he completed his observations, he needed four minutes before he pointed to the winner: Uno, the beagle, or Ch. K-Run’s Park Me In First, who will turn 3 in May.

Snoopy would be pleased. His breed, long passed over for glory, had finally triumphed.

That's one cute dog! And it made me $10! I made a bar-bet with a lesbian that just knew the poodle had it wrapped up.

Also, betting on dog shows with lesbians in a bar on Tuesday night? Sign #7 you need help.

The punchline? The lesbian thought I saw the results earlier and was scamming her. Yeah, that's my gig: I watch dog shows on TV then hang out in bars and trick dikes into making fixed bets. She said "if you're cheating, me and four of my dike friends are going to kick your ass."

"It's only gonna take two," I said.

Posted 2/13/2008 05:52:00 PM by Douglas

Quick question: If the U.S. Navy isn't shooting down Russian bombers when they fly-over an aircraft carrier in open water, who the hell are they shooting at?

U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers, including one that buzzed an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.

A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 flew directly over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 58 miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret.

The Saturday incident, which never escalated beyond the flyover, comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

It's clear: The Russian Air Force is getting a little ancy. Time to dust off that bomb shelter.

Posted 2/13/2008 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

Took an alternate route home today from the blood bank (have you given blood lately? Why the hell not?) and saw this store on the way:

I don't know what they're selling but it can't be too good.

Posted 2/10/2008 02:23:00 PM by Douglas

When does a timeline altering sickness on-orbit have "NO IMPACT" on the mission? Whenever NASA says so.

If Britney Spears wants some privacy, I have a suggestion for her: get NASA to fly her to the space station.

The space agency so vehemently protects the privacy of astronauts that even if they have to postpone a spacewalk, which costs something like a bazillion dollars a minute, because someone is sick, they won’t talk about it.

Even if the spacewalker, who has been training for more than a year, is sidelined, and a backup has to take his place, they won’t talk about it.

And even if the mission then has to be extended to make up for the extra day, they won’t talk about it.

In fact, those loyal folks at NASA will sit at a podium, look you straight in the eye and tell you that the medical situation has no impact to the mission.

If you have to delay the EVA for a day and swap out a crew member, then it does have an impact on the mission.

Posted 2/10/2008 02:12:00 PM by Douglas

Time to grow up, boys.

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import.

Ah, the video games. I don't get it either, but this description of South Park is spot-on:

With its cutting subversion of all that’s sacred and polite, South Park was like a dog whistle that only SYMs could hear

Ha! I wish there was some way I could tune out the frequency of those annoying voices.

Posted 2/09/2008 07:00:00 PM by Douglas

This doesn't sound like it's going to end well.

A Russian air force bomber briefly violated Japanese airspace over an uninhabited island just south of Tokyo on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said.

The three-minute flyby over Sofugan in the Izu island chain by a Tupolev 95 ended following warnings by Japanese air force fighter jets, said Foreign Ministry official Kotaro Otsuki.

The ministry immediately lodged a protest with the Russian Embassy in Tokyo and demanded an explanation, Otsuki said.

A switchboard operator at the embassy said no one was available to comment Saturday.

Japan's navy scrambled 22 fighter jets, including F-15s, and two airborne warning and control aircraft known as AWACs, a Defense Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.

Russian bombers, over-flying your country? That's going to end well.

Posted 2/09/2008 06:58:00 PM by Douglas

Something about this shuttle mission made me think of this:

Following an extensive analysis, managers determined that, although operating at a lower capacity, the system in question still provides sufficient cooling for shuttle equipment and Columbia can proceed with the capture and rejuvenation of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Some pointy-headed nerd at NASA whipped out his slide rule and did some cipherin' to say it's OK. Good for him.

Posted 2/06/2008 06:17:00 PM by Douglas

What a typical story about the legacy of the Bush administration

In an April 1995 memo, Bush invited his staff to come to his office to look at a painting. … The picture is a Western scene of a cowboy riding up a craggy hill, with two other riders following behind him. Bush told visitors—who often noted his resemblance to the rider in front—that it was called A Charge To Keep and that it was based on his favorite Methodist hymn of that title, written in the eighteenth century by Charles Wesley. As Bush noted in the memo, which he quoted in his autobiography of the same title: "I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail.

This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves." Bush identified with the lead rider, whom he took to be a kind of Christian cowboy, an embodiment of indomitable vigor, courage, and moral clarity.

Well, as usual, he almost got it right. But he's not one to be mired in details.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

Is there a better footnote to the Bush presidency? I think this is the portrait we all thought he'd bring to the Oval office:

The bulldog is cheating!!! Quick, let's carptet-bomb Georgia!!

Posted 2/06/2008 06:05:00 PM by Douglas

What could possibly go wrong by placing public records on the internet? Oh yeah, this

Police are investigating a fire they say was set to harass a registered sex offender who lived a few doors down from the attack.

The fire started in a trailer of carpet cleaning equipment in the driveway of a home in Evansville. The words "GET OUT PERV" were painted on the garage door.

But police say the fire likely was intended for a man living nearby who was arrested for chatting online and sharing lewd photographs with a police officer posing as a teenage girl.

No one was injured in the fire, and no arrests have been made.

Rule numero uno in lynching someone: Get the right house, idiots.

Posted 2/06/2008 06:02:00 PM by Douglas

Here's some other sobering news: I'm the fourth link down on the google search for millenarial dispensationalists. I need to get out more.

Posted 2/06/2008 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

Since I'm on the Jews/Christian thing, it's time to post the transcript to this SNL sketch from 1999. Christina Ricci playing Britney Spears in the "So This is Chanukah" sketch:

Britney Spears: Okay, y'all.. Chanukah is special holiday, where we, as Christians, take time out to think about forgiving our Jewish friends for killing our Lord. Oh, and on December 12th, I'll be appearing at Six Flags over Tulsa!

Classic! Don't look for it in the re-runs: Abe Foxman banged on his high-chair loud enough and got NBC to yank this sketch in syndication.

Posted 2/06/2008 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

Evangelical Christians overwhelming support Jews and Israel, yet the feeling is certainly not mutual. Why is that?

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

How long is this going to take to get to the millenarial dispensationalists? Oh yeah, about four paragraphs

The reason that conservative Christians—opposed to abortion and gay marriage and critical of political liberalism—can feel kindly toward Jewish liberals and support Israel so fervently is rooted in theology. One finds among fundamentalist Protestants a doctrine called dispensationalism. The dispensationalist outlook, which began in early-nineteenth-century England, sees human history as a series of seven periods, or dispensations, in each of which God deals with man in a distinctive way. The first, before Adam’s fall, was the era of innocence; the second, from Adam to Noah, the era of conscience; the third, from Noah to Abraham, of government; the fourth, from Abraham to Moses, of patriarchy; the fifth, from Moses to Jesus, of Mosaic law; and the sixth, from Jesus until today, of grace. The seventh and final dispensation, yet to come, will be the Millennium, an earthly paradise.

Interesting. Some should find this a bit alarming that we're supporting Israel so we can build the Temple that much sooner, but you gotta see their point: If that's gonna get JC to come back sooner, why not speed things along? Where they lose me, and the author comes across as a total idiot is here:

They believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and worry about the decay of morality; they must wish, therefore, to impose a conservative moral code, alter the direction of the country so that it conforms to God’s will, require public schools to teach Christian beliefs, and crush the rights of minorities.

Yes yes yes, that's exactly what evangelicals want, to crush the rights of minorities. That must sound ever so enlightening at dinner parties on the upper west side, but it just sounds so ridiculous that you know this guy is a leftist-tard.

Posted 2/05/2008 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

Celebrate democracy this Martes Gigante and vote for you favourite Texas license plate. I think the old one is still the pick of the litter

Posted 2/05/2008 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Sounds like an interesting book, and it's a fascinating article about the Muslim rule of Spain, or should I say, Al Andalus.

Lewis’s book is part of that revision. The Muslims came to Europe, he writes, as “the forward wave of civilization that was, by comparison with that of its enemies, an organic marvel of coordinated kingdoms, cultures, and technologies in service of a politico-cultural agenda incomparably superior” to that of the primitive people they encountered there. They did Europe a favor by invading. This is not a new idea, but Lewis takes it further: he clearly regrets that the Arabs did not go on to conquer the rest of Europe. The halting of their advance was instrumental, he writes, in creating “an economically retarded, balkanized, and fratricidal Europe that . . . made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, persecutory religious intolerance, cultural particularism, and perpetual war.” It was “one of the most significant losses in world history and certainly the most consequential since the fall of the Roman Empire.” This is a bold hypothesis.

It certainly is, as some would attest that the Enlightenment occurred because of, not in spite of, Christianity. One of those interesting "what ifs" that we'll never know. But I'm extremely thankful I didn't have to learn calculus with Roman numerals.

Posted 2/04/2008 05:36:00 PM by Douglas

It's days like this when there's this crazy shit in the Texas Legislature that makes me miss Molly Ivins.

The episodes culminated in December when Miles crashed a party at the posh St. Regis Hotel. Party host David Harris said a drunken Miles shocked guests with loud, profane language before planting a Godfather-style "kiss of death" on his cheeks, handing him a pistol and declaring,"You don't know what I'm capable of doing."

After proclaiming himself a "gangsta," Miles then allegedly kissed a female guest on the lips while her husband was away from the table.

Prosecutors are scrutinizing the episode. Meanwhile, the female recipient of Miles' unsolicited smooch filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages and demanding the lawmaker be tested for HIV. A hearing is set for Feb. 15.

It's hard out there on a Texas State representative. State politicians: Overachievers with too much weird shit in their pasts that keep them out of national politics.

Posted 2/04/2008 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

I'm scratching my head at what about Bush could possibly be construed as conservative. Case in point, the new budget.

President Bush introduced a $3.1 trillion budget on Monday that supports sizable increases in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts.

The spending proposal, which shows the government spending $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history, squeezes most of government outside of national security, and also seeks $196 billion in savings over the next five years in the government's giant health care programs -- Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

$3.1 Trillion?!? That's $10,000 for every human being in this country! Are you getting your $10,000 worth? I guess I should take solace in the fact that we're not getting the government we pay for.

Even with those savings, Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009.

The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.

For his last budget, Bush, as a moneysaving measure, stopped the practice of providing 3,000 paper copies of the budget to members of Congress and the media, instead posting the entire document online.

Wow, saving paper costs on 3,000 copies of the budget! That's gotta be at least a Billionth of a percent of the total budget! Momma can finally get that operation!

Posted 2/04/2008 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

More on the surfin' kitty. I suppose the American media is too busy with hard-hitting stories about how there's a nickel's worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats. [news flash: THERE ISN'T] But anyhooo:

However, an alternative theory might be that, since once she is out on the water the only dry place is on top of the surfboard, Nicolasa is not so much surfing as hanging on like grim death.

After all, even given the most charitable interpretation of this photo, most observers would be hard-pressed to say that she looks like she's enjoying herself.

There's a fine line between the activities described as "swimming" and simply "not drowning." This cat is obviously engaged in the latter.

Posted 2/03/2008 02:57:00 PM by Douglas

I found your camera. I like the concept. Hopefully there will be some more additions.

Posted 2/03/2008 02:52:00 PM by Douglas

This is post 3,501 here at crap blog. Coming up on the sixth anniversary, too, but don't worry, that will have its own pointless milestone. I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but thanks for showing up!

Labels: pointless milestone

Posted 2/02/2008 05:59:00 PM by Douglas

Double dipping: it's not only gross, it's just as dangerous as you thought.

Last year the food microbiologist's undergraduate students examined the effects of double dipping using volunteers, wheat crackers and several sample dips. They found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from an eater's mouth to the remaining dip sample.

"I was very surprised by the results," Dawson said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I thought there would be very minimal transfer. I didn't think we would be able to detect it."

"I like to say it's like kissing everybody at the party — if you're double dipping, you're putting some of your bacteria in that dip," Dawson said.

So unless it's a hot chick you want to kiss, you need to shut down the double-dippers.

Posted 2/02/2008 05:51:00 PM by Douglas

The embattled mayor of Alice, Texas finally resigns.

A small-town Texas mayor who secretly kept her neighbor's dog after telling them the pet died has resigned as a judge is set to decide custody of the Shih Tzu next week.

Grace Saenz-Lopez, who was indicted last month on two felony charges related to the alleged dognapping, apologized Friday to Alice residents and said she believed her actions were in the dog's best interest.


"I am sorry for the division that the events of these last few weeks have caused," Saenz-Lopez wrote in her resignation letter. "It was never my intention to bring any negative exposure to our city."

A custody hearing Monday is expected to decide who gets Puddles, who Saenz-Lopez renamed "Panchito" after taking the dog last summer.

A neighboring family accuses Saenz-Lopez of refusing to return the dog after leaving it in her care while they went on vacation. A day after her neighbors left, Saenz-Lopez called to tell them Puddles had died.

As I said earlier, as far as small town news goes, it don't get no better than this!

Labels: Panchito

Posted 2/02/2008 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

A League City man was charged with moonshine and guns. The biggest shock? It wasn't me.

A League City man was charged in federal court Friday with operating two moonshine stills and possessing four automatic weapons, including two Tommy guns.

Hinkley is charged with two counts of distilling spirits at a dwelling and three counts of possessing an unregistered firearm.

An Aug. 3 raid by federal and state agents and League City police on Hinkley's home discovered a still, boiler and equipment for making moonshine, according to the indictment.

Authorities also confiscated an Olympic Arms Commando model .223-caliber machine gun; a DoubleStar, Star-15 .223-caliber machine gun, and two 1928-type Thompson .45-caliber machine guns, the indictment said.

Hell, a guy could have a pretty good time in Vegas with all that stuff!

Posted 2/02/2008 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Calico kitties are the pampered-princesses of the cat world, so imagine how surprised I am to find out they can surf:

Hang 16, crazy kitty!