Posted 4/29/2009 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

Pig Flu. PIG FLU!!!! That's all that's on the news today. Pig Flu.

Swine flu arrived in Houston Wednesday as a Fort Bend County teenage girl became the first local resident confirmed to have the disease and a 2-year-old Mexico City boy who fell ill in Brownsville and was taken to Texas Children’s Hospital became the disease’s first U.S. death.

PIG FLU!!! 35,000 people in the United States alone die, every year, from the flu. Not Pig Flu, but just the regular old flu. So it's going to take a lot, in my mind at least, to push pig flu up past SARS and bird flu or whatever the last GLOBAL PANDEMIC they're trying to scare me with this week. So let's not lose our shit just yet, people, m'k?

Labels: pig flu

Posted 4/29/2009 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

P.J. O'Rourke is consistently funny, even if he's not consistently right. Take his latest jab:

It's going to be hard to do a worse job running America than the Republicans did, but the Democrats can do it if anyone can.

The Left is the party of government activism - the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, slimmer, taller, and take a dozen strokes off your golf game.

The Right is the party that says government doesn't work. And then they get elected and prove it.

Were it only true. Were it only the case that the Republicans wanted less government. That's a nice sound-bite, but it's total horse shit. Then there's this:

America needed a Republican president. Because America has a Democratic congress. Republican president, Democratic congress - this means gridlock. I love gridlock.

The worst thing in politics is ''bipartisan consensus.'' Bipartisan consensus - that's like when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.

Ha! Wait, what? A Republican White House and Congress under Bush changed virtually nothing about how the federal government redistributes people's money (their one true job). So honestly, what difference does it make? Can you make me laugh now?

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don't understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people's money.

Ok, I like that part. There's nothing compassionate about giving away someone else's money. But let's finish on a high note, P.J. How 'bout foreign policy?

So far, the best Obama has been able to do by way of an Iraq policy is to make what I think of as the ''high school sex promise:'' I'll pull out in time, honest, Honey.''

I love it. Does this mean Iraq is pregnant?

Labels: P.J. O'Rourke

Posted 4/29/2009 05:25:00 PM by Douglas

Pig Flu! This time, High School athletics.

Also, officials suspended all high school athletic and academic competition statewide until at least May 11 because of the spreading flu, which has prompted five districts to cancel classes entirely, including three in suburban San Antonio.

Let's be honest. Canceling high school athletics the last week in April in Texas is like 86'ing the "talent" portion of the Miss America contest. Who the fuck cares?!? But it kind of puts it in perspective, doesn't it? Texas is willing to cancel the "all participant Jr. High track meet" due to pig flu. Just another indication that I could give a shit less about pig flu. On the contrary, had Texas canceled a Friday night football game? I'd be pretty worried right now. And if Texas had canceled a high school playoff football game for pig flu?!? I'd be robbin' a Walgreen's at gunpoint for some tamiflu.

Perspective, people.

Labels: pig flu

Posted 4/29/2009 05:10:00 PM by Douglas

What a needless tragedy.

The box culvert that became a death trap for an SUV driver in Tuesday’s floods was slated to be equipped with barriers, but the state and a contractor were still working out design and pricing details when the tragedy occurred.

So guess who gets to figure out the pricing details now? The widow's lawyer, and expect the taxpayer of Texas to pay 20 times what that barrier would have originally cost.

Not to mention we'll still pay for the barrier.

Posted 4/29/2009 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

This is a bit outdated since Texas has already had a pig flu death, but it's still pretty damned funny. Closing the border off with Mexico. Boy, that's rich.

U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called for the border shutdown, saying, “The public needs to be aware of the serious threat of the swine flu, and we need to close our borders to Mexico immediately and completely until this is resolved.”

Ha ha! That's a good one, Eric Massa, D-umb of N.Y. Have you ever been to the Texas-Mexico border? Obviously not, so here's a news flash for you: saying "it should be closed for health reasons" is about as effective as closing our flight schools to people that want to learn to fly, but aren't interested in learning to land airplanes. Which is to say, not at all.

Labels: pig flu

Posted 4/27/2009 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

Effictive, if not trite explanation of Barry's $100 million budget cut:



Just like a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, we're never going to cut $100 Billion 'till we cut $100 Million, so I can admire the sentiment, but talk about the proverbial drop in the bucket.

Posted 4/26/2009 12:53:00 PM by Douglas

I'm a big fan of the Brooklyn Bridge, and as much as it would suck if its view was obfuscated by other structures, the reality is that it's not on the barren steppe of West Texas: It's in Manhattan, and while it's interesting to note that at the time it was built it was the tallest structure in North America, it's not anymore. It may be sad to think of its view becoming even more eclipsed by buildings, but not any more sad than the first structure that went up in New York that was taller than the bridge.

Now, alas, plans are proceeding to build an 18-story luxury apartment building within a hundred feet of the bridge on the Brooklyn side. (A vote in the process is expected this week.) The building, as proposed by the Two Trees Management Co., would stand 184 feet high and just about ruin the view of the bridge from on shore, as well as the view from the bridge looking toward Brooklyn—in other words, the view for just about everyone except those living in the apartments. To permit such a project so close to the bridge would be a shameful, inexcusable mistake. There is no other way to say it.

Would we wish to see an 18-story building go up beside the Statue of Liberty, or next to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, or beside the Washington Monument? Of course not.

Well, duh. That's why D.C. has very strict building laws that limit the height of any structure, to prevent colossal skyscrapers from turning D.C. into a city like (wait for it) New York.

But it turns out Mr. McCullough may have been a little misleading with his assessment.

As the primary developers of Dumbo, a neighborhood adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge, we are incredibly sensitive to the importance of this iconic landmark. While we respect the scholarship, prominence and intelligence of David McCullough (“A Masterpiece in Jeopardy,” April 27), his opinion piece about the Bridge, in regards to our mixed-used residential project, Dock Street Dumbo, is not an accurate or fair representation of what we have proposed for the community we care so deeply about.

I would oppose anything as stupidly named as the Dock Street Dumbo, but I'm a bit of a heretic.

We are left to wonder if Mr. McCullough is even aware of the fact that the local opposition group is led by a number of people who stand to lose their private views from their expensive condos (in fact, one such view was used by Newsweek as the accompanying photograph but failed to note that it was a view from a private apartment). These individuals – who, it should be noted, were notified of this possibility in their contracts of sale – have unsurprisingly not publicly disclosed their personal interests in the matter, choosing instead to manufacture supposed “public harm” to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Yes yes yes, we know that the new "great view" is blocking someone else's "great view," just like it did first. Yawn. These people remind me of the idiots that jockey for position for their luggage at the baggage claim. The carousel is comin' around again, flap-jack. But, as long as we're manipulating people:

That the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission found there to be no impact on local historical resources, including the Brooklyn Bridge was not mentioned by Mr. McCullough, nor was the overwhelming support of the local Community Board, which approved the project nearly unanimously, nor was the support of Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz

"No impact?" It may not be significant, but there certainly some impact. Also, I generally stop listening to people that use terms like "nearly unanimously." Isn't that a meaningless fucking term? Like "sort of pregnant" and "almost sober?"

Posted 4/26/2009 11:34:00 AM by Douglas

Ha! I do so like to antagonize the squirrel, but come on. I didn't really intend to make it a man/woman thing, but I just don't understand why women are so quick to make Rush-fodder out of their position by implying their actions have no consequences. This isn't an issue with men because, hey, who wants to look at some hairy dude? Except those guys with purple mohawks, tribal earlobe mutilations and metal studs in their eyebrows. But I have the exact same reaction to them: I'm going to stare. Hell I might even take a picture to show Brandeen and Cletus back on the farm. But as this is apparently about women's butts, let's just stick with the ladies.

Let's say you're enjoying a typical day, I'd say you're probably bored out of your mind, at SeaWorld when someone snaps a picture of you. Do you care? Why? Even if the guy was "hiding in the bushes" as the story states, which doesn't really make much sense for SeaWorld, but that's as specific as the story gets. Do you care? Why? It's kinda creepy, but more sad for him. I still don't see what the issue is. You are presenting yourself publicly in a manner that you're comfortable with, and your photograph, and video, has already been recorded dozens of times before (and probably as) you walked through the gate at FishTown.

So why does this guy go to jail for doing the same thing SeaWorld, TxDOT, and the 7-11 that sold you the Sincker's bar did as well?

And the "always her fault" bullshit is disingenuous at best, and rather annoying. Is it my fault for staring at some 19 year old's rack wearing a V-neck cut down to her navel and a Hello-Kitty tattoo on her left boob? Again, she didn't go to all that trouble because she wanted people not to look, so I'm happy to oblige. She's fine with it, I'm fine with it. Just don't expect privacy in public, and if you're embarrassed with your appearance, do something about it.

Posted 4/25/2009 01:42:00 PM by Douglas

Taking pictures of people in public is illegal now? Sure sounds like the guy is a creep but unless he was positioning his camera to get some up-skirt shots or something like that, I don't see the problem. [via]

A 68-year-old man is free on bond Thursday after being arrested on a charge of taking improper pictures of women at SeaWorld, authorities said.

The guard initially approached Jackson after noticing he was adjusting the lens of his digital camera on a woman in a yellow dress on the other side of a dolphin pool, according to an arrest affidavit.

OK taking pictures of women that could even be considered improper, through the dolphin pool at SeaWorld, is so hilariously pathetic, the guy should walk out on general principle. [side note: I used to have a picture of the dolphins doin' it in the pool. I wish I had any idea where it was]

Not to mention the government funded surveillance, every time you walk into just about any store, you're being photographed. You don't get a choice where that camera is zoomed, either, so is that inappropriate? Hell no, and last time I checked, women don't wear low-cut shirts and short skirts with their junk hangin' out because they don't want people to look at them, so don't cry foul when someone whips out the now ubiquitous digital camera. Just think of it as some random, old, creepy guy, admiring your beauty, whenever he wants.

As a wise woman once said, a mini-skirt and a wonderbra aren't smart-weapons: There's bound to be some collateral damage with such things, and you may get some attention from people you don't want. Deal with it.

Posted 4/24/2009 05:45:00 PM by Douglas

On a basic level, I don't have too much sympathy with people that ignore warnings of looming danger, but I think this is a bigger question of what we pay for, how we pay for it, and the use of emergency services. So, does this mean the Coast Guard is just going to sit on their ass, drinking coffee during the next storm because, hey, they told you to leave? What if you can't pay?

People who have to be rescued by emergency workers after ignoring mandatory evacuation orders in the face of an oncoming hurricane will have to foot the bill for the rescue under a bill passed Friday by the Texas Senate.

More than 20,000 people stayed on Galveston Island last year despite a mandatory evacuation order as Hurricane Ike approached the Texas coast. Allison Castle, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Pery, said there were 3,540 rescues in the region by state and local authorities, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

“They have that right to remain if they choose to,” said bill author Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas. “But they stay at their own peril, and they stay with the possibility that if recovery is necessary to preserve their lives, they’d pay the related cost.

"And that’s potentially a lot of money.”

The cost of a helicopter rescue is about $4,400 an hour.

Ike wasn't cheap, but were the rescues the long pole in the tent? Also, We know the ambulance isn't free, but is the fire truck? If you house burns down, does your municipal fire department send you a bill for their time, equipment and water? Why the hell not? You knew you weren't supposed to plug 14 things into that outlet by that box of oily rags. You're stupid, pay your stupid tax to the state.

I find it incredibly ironic that a representative from Dallas is advocating the Coast Guard institute a credit check to those in peril. As a society, we're either going to save people, or we're just going to let people die in the streets. Let's see what The Honorable John Carona would think about Hurricane "it's just a cat-2" Ike hit HIS home before he decides that rescue is unwarranted.

Posted 4/23/2009 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

Holy crap, did I write this?

You know what I like? Blizzards and sleet and hail—the shit that becomes a hazard to public health. And not because I think it’s pleasant—no, I hate having my fucking eyelids freeze together too—I just like to see everybody else hobbling along in droves outside. Because I know that as long as there’s snow on the ground, I won’t see any culottes or public drum circles.

After April 15, on the other hand, everywhere I go is…

“Hey, Matt. Sure is a gorgeous day to get drunk and throw beanbags back and forth on the front sidewalk for 11 hours!”

I look at him and think, “Someday, I’ll eat pancakes on your grave.”

The problem, as Bill Hicks said about people that hate people, "it's just real hard to organize my people." But this guy speaks to my inner misanthrope.

Posted 4/23/2009 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

Not content with wasting tax money, DPS issues a new driver's license design. I understand the Texas Capital building, but why the other Austin buildings? Seems like the picture less about Austin as a city than it is about those particular buildings, especially the Nose Hair Clipper, a.k.a. Frost Bank Tower.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has redesigned the state’s driver’s licenses and identification cards to enhance security, the agency announced Wednesday.

Production of the new cards began April 15 for customers receiving new, renewal or duplicate licenses and ID cards. Current driver licenses and ID cards will be phased out as they expire.

“The changes will give law enforcement improved resources for verifying the authenticity of Texas-issued driver licenses and identification cards, while combating counterfeiting, photo swapping, tampering and other types of fraud,” said DPS Director Col. Stanley E. Clark.

DPS would not discuss the additional security features.

Hold the phone, hoss. More disturbing than the Austin Skyline, what kind of "additional security" are you using? Why the hell won't you tell us what it is? A document required to traverse public byways in the state, and you won't even tell me what abilities it has? I'm sure it's an RFID tag, but then comes the next question. Why? I'm sure the conspiracy theory nuts are going to have a field day with this one. I mean we are going to have a field day with this. Closer picture here.

Posted 4/22/2009 03:24:00 PM by Douglas

This is perfect earthquake weather.

Recent studies have predicted a powerful earthquake and tsunami striking the Oregon coast within the next 50 years, prompting the state government to take precautionary measures.

So wake up, Oregon. You may have to put down your meth pipe and comb out your dreadlocks sometime in the next 50 years.

Posted 4/22/2009 03:09:00 PM by Douglas

Have a good day celebrating the birth of your hero, V. I. Lenin. Oh yeah, it's also earth day, comrade. Celebrate accordingly, by spitting on a lefty.

Remember, the green tree has Red roots!

Posted 4/22/2009 02:56:00 PM by Douglas

Here is an interesting if not unique solution to dealing with the urban blight of the rust belt: Tear it down.

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

It's gotta be depressing to see your entire town to crumble in around you, but wishing for the glory days of 1950s expansion isn't going to make it happen. Take a look at these pictures. Doesn't look like the fire department even tries anymore. Shit, why would they?

Labels: Detroit Decay

Posted 4/22/2009 01:14:00 PM by Douglas

If you're experiencing one of the worst days you've ever had, I recommend Zydeco. It's really hard to be miserable and listen to Buckwheat, yet somehow I'm managing.

Posted 4/22/2009 01:12:00 PM by Douglas

Maureen Dowd made me laugh today, but this time it was with her, not at her. Turns out, we share the same opinion of the pointlessness of twitter. Her questions to the head Twits:

Did you know you were designing a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls?

Why did you call the company Twitter instead of Clutter?

Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?

I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account. Is there anything you can say to change my mind?

Brilliant! All excellent questions.

Posted 4/22/2009 01:06:00 PM by Douglas

Payday loans are a huge rip off, but only if you consider 400% interest unusually high. I don't know they skirt existing usury laws in the first place, but I really don't think they need to be illegal.

Two state representatives told a House panel Tuesday the payday loan industry's skyrocketing interest rates are hurting Texas borrowers who live paycheck to paycheck.

But industry representatives countered by saying borrowers are not only happy with such loans, but payday lenders provide a service that banks and other financial institutions do not offer.

Or some guy that begins each transaction with the phrase, "hey buddy!"

No, they're not a good deal, but the people that get them, need them. If this is the only way some people can get a loan, they're not going to be better served by the legislature removing that option.

Posted 4/21/2009 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Fuck these clowns. This has been my font of choice for personal and professional emails for the better part of a decade:

The font, a casual script designed to look like comic-book lettering, is the bane of graphic designers, other aesthetes and Internet geeks. It is a punch line: "Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, 'We don't serve your type.'" On social-messaging site Twitter, complaints about the font pop up every minute or two. An online comic strip shows a gang kicking and swearing at Mr. Connare.

The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web. The mission: "to eradicate this font" and the "evil of typographical ignorance."

"If you love it, you don't know much about typography," Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, "if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

It's clear, readable, and not as boring as the MicroSoft Standard that everyone uses. I'll keep on using it, thank you very much.

Posted 4/21/2009 05:16:00 PM by Douglas

Stunning pictures from the Cassini probe of Saturn. But that's not what got my attention about this site. Read the captions. Are they written by unemployed romance novelists?

Cassini peers through Saturn's delicate, translucent inner C ring to see the diffuse yellow-blue limb of Saturn's atmosphere.

Prometheus (86 km/53 mi wide) just touches the inner edge of Saturn's F ring at right, and is followed by a series of dark channels in the ring.

Prometheus is just about to pass behind the planet, and a faint streamer of ring material lies below and to the right of Prometheus (86 km/53 mi wide), in the faint, inner strand of the F ring.

The mutual gravity between particles may pull them into clumps as they are periodically forced closely together by the action of Mimas.

The terminator engulfs Penelope (foreground), one of the largest craters on Saturn's moon, Tethys

Half an hour after Prometheus tore into Saturn's F ring, Cassini snapped this image just as the moon was creating a new streamer in the ring.

Half an hour? Really? I guess some planets are quick to recover.

Posted 4/20/2009 06:22:00 PM by Douglas

I think all this fake hysteria over O'Bama and Chavez is kinda funny. Who'd a thunk that's the way to get your book to the top of Amazon's list:

A book which the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez presented to US President Barack Obama at the Americas summit has become a bestseller in just two days.

The book, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, was ranked 54,295 on the sales charts of bookseller Amazon.com.

Now, it has risen to number two.

Weird, eh? But even funnier, the first book he gave him:

I would have gone with Heather has two mommies but what do I know?

Posted 4/19/2009 02:50:00 PM by Douglas

This sounds like an interesting read about the "freshness" of food, what that means, and how refrigeration has changed the world food markets for good, but not necessarily the better.

Ancient cultures used preservative methods, such as salting and pickling, in order to extend the durability of produce for domestic use. Refrigeration delivered a paradigm shift by removing the site of production from the sight of consumers. The idea of freshness emerged to fill the conceptual ellipsis that resulted. Adam had no need to question the physical integrity of the apple Eve offered him, whatever its moral risks. Self-sufficient agrarians did not define freshness, because they watched their chickens lay and slaughtered their own cows. But fridges, from the outset, posed difficult, potentially lethal questions of age and origin. Extemporized eggs, suspended in cold storage, hatched a new language to answer modern needs.

I like the take on the 'morality' of refrigerated (vs. "fresh", i.e., beef you saw mooing a few minutes ago) food, too. Leave it to the fucking Puritans to suck all the joy out of life, this time with frozen chicken:

But fears of technological advance persisted, particularly among the religious. Fridges meant left-overs and left-overs meant loose morals, said the Puritans. The small-farm lobby replied to the industrialists’ trumpeting of wants over needs by declaring the “moral superiority of meals prepared fresh”, as well as the health benefits. Freshness demanded the preservation of immemorial relationships between people, land and animals.

There's something to be said for the fruits of your labor and raising, killing, and cooking your own food. But the world where that was the norm is 1700, with only the wealthy and royalty enjoying such luxuries as fresh fruit and meat that may or may not kill you. But guess what? I can go out in the dead of winter and buy a lemon the size of my fist and fresh, disease free meat, things the King of England wasn't afforded 300 years ago.

So where does that leave us? The cities of the world today simply can't exist without the refrigerated food they depend on, not to mention the trucks that deliver them:

In 1931, a US trade paper suggested that without refrigeration “our present daily existence would become unworkable. Cities with thousands of inhabitants would fade away. We would probably turn into beasts in our frantic struggles to reach the source of supply”.

Cut the food, the fuel, or the refrigerant that feeds the world's hungry, and there'll be blood in the streets.

Posted 4/19/2009 11:27:00 AM by Douglas

The numbers from yesterday. 7.88 inches. What the NWS doesn't tell you is that is all in about three hours. Even back in aught one when Tropical Storm Allison came back on June 9th, that 10.86 inches fell all damn day.

Posted 4/19/2009 11:20:00 AM by Douglas

More tragedy from yesterday's deluge. Turns out, driving into the bayou after 5 inches of rain is really, really bad.

Five Houston children died Saturday after their sedan slid into a rain-swollen ditch when the driver lost control while trying to answer a cell phone, authorities said.

John Cannon, a Houston police spokesman, told several Houston television stations that the driver of the car was the father of four of the dead children, all 7 or younger. Cannon said the driver was taken for blood-alcohol testing.

So he may or may not have been drinking, but it was the distraction from his phone that provided the distraction that caused the deaths of five young children. Who is going to be the villain here, ethanol or telecommunications? Stay tuned.

Posted 4/18/2009 07:34:00 PM by Douglas

It's floodin' down in Texas: That's my mailbox in the arroyo that was once my street.

Got water going all the way up to the garage, but it stopped short. Not a pretty sight. What would Stevie say about such a situation?

Posted 4/18/2009 01:44:00 PM by Douglas

If paying taxes is such an honor, I would love for 10-year old girl and albino smurf Paul Begala to pay my share.

This country has showered me with the blessings of liberty. So what do I owe my country in return? Paying my fair share of taxes, it seems, is the least I can do.

I love this shit. The Agitator has got this one, though. But these do-gooding liberals are, of course, lying. If you want to go with full on crazy, gotta go to a Hollywood nutbag. Take it away, Janeane:

On Thursday's "Countdown," MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and his guest Janeane Garofalo defamed fellow citizens who attended the prior day's Tea Parties with the same vitriolic contempt.

Garofalo actually called Party-goers "a bunch of teabagging rednecks," adding "this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up."

Yeah, that's it. It's racism.

I had a friend in college that was half Irish and half Mexican (no, he didn't have a temper, or a drinking problem) that always loved playing the race card, however jokingly. When he got cornered in an argument, he'd always finish it off by saying "you're a racist!" There's no way to recover from that, but at least when he did it, it was funny.

Posted 4/17/2009 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

Even before hurricane season aught nine is officially here, predictors can't wait to tell us how good they're going to do, based mainly on what a great job they did last year.

By steadily improving their forecasts and setting high expectations, hurricane scientists may be getting too good for their own good.

As Hurricane Ike crossed Cuba and approached the Texas coast, forecasts provided by the National Hurricane Center proved to be more accurate than the average set during the last five years.

Yet upon returning to Texas, the center’s director, Bill Read, says he hears all the time that Ike was a bad forecast.

Well, yes and no. Let's pour a ton of money into 'predictions' and see where they're going, so we can rely on ineffectual local leaders to fuck people out of their lives and their property. Yay! But big picture here:

“That storm sure did a dance before it came ashore,” Gov. Rick Perry said.

Well no shit. They all do. Check this out, for example. Do anyone honestly think any computer model could have predicted that path? Get real, they're just pissing into the wind.

Posted 4/17/2009 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

Because I'm not depressed enough, take a gander of this list of sad songs. Geez. I think I need to get some sunshine.

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry

Good lord that's fucking sad.

Posted 4/17/2009 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

UT students content to rely on the same laws in effect at Virginia Tech two years ago to keep their campus safe, even though anyone in Texas with a permit can carry a handgun, pretty much anywhere.

On the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre, about 300 University of Texas students marched to the state Capitol to protest bills that would allow concealed firearms on Texas college campuses.

The state House and Senate are both considering bills that would prohibit colleges from banning concealed weapons license holders from carrying their weapons on campus.

You live in Texas, for Chrissake. Concealed weapon permits are legal in Texas. Do you think it makes any difference if your campus makes it illegal to carry a gun? Does it make a rat's ass when that person with no regard for the law breaks the law and shoots up the place? Focus up, kids.

Posted 4/17/2009 05:19:00 PM by Douglas

It's old, but it's a perfect synopsis of today's Faux News version of a patriot. Daffy Duck gets drafted and cries like Sean Hannity. Or maybe vice versa.

Posted 4/16/2009 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes in a Funyon.

Posted 4/16/2009 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

George Will bloviates (does he have another setting?) on the evils of blue jeans and the eminent breakup of our social fabric by people wearing them.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

I wouldn't disagree with his argument, although I'm guilty of it a lot of the time, but blue jeans? Really? That's the nit he wants to pick about how Americans dress like shit? The last flight I was on had me sitting next to a guy in a tank top, cut-off blue jeans, a backwards turned Skoal Bandit cap and a dirty pair of Crocs, which have to be the absolute worst thing inflicted on humanity since the guillotine or Russell Brand. On a plane where over half the occupants weren't even wearing socks, I'd have loved to see some slobs actually put on a pair of jeans.

Posted 4/15/2009 07:05:00 PM by Douglas

NASA pussies out and names Node 3 Tranquility, but gives his name to a treadmill.

One small step for NASA, one giant running leap for Stephen Colbert.

NASA announced Tuesday that it won't name a room in the international space station after the comedian. Instead, it has named a treadmill after him.

NASA earlier held an online contest to name a room (or "node") at the international space station. With write-in votes, the name "Colbert" beat out NASA's four suggested options: Serenity, Legacy, Earthrise and Venture.

On Tuesday's "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, astronaut Sunita Williams announced that NASA — which always maintained it had the right to choose an appropriate name — would not name the node after Colbert.

There's no way they could get away with naming it Colbert, but this was pretty funny as a consolation. The patch is pretty funny:

Posted 4/15/2009 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

Fake advertising controversy was real funny when it laughing with the Mexican, not at them:

Fast food giant Burger King apologized Tuesday for an advertisement featuring a squat Mexican draped in his country's flag next to a tall American cowboy and said it would change the campaign.

Mexico's ambassador to Spain said posters released in Europe for Burger King's new Tex-Mex style "Texican whopper," a cheeseburger with chile and spicy mayonnaise, inappropriately displayed the Mexican flag, whose image is protected under national law.

Burger King said the ads were meant to show a mixture of influences from the southwestern United States and Mexico, not to poke fun at Mexican culture, but said it would replace them "as soon as commercially possible."

Instead of wearing a Mexican flag, they're going to have to go back to using their first choice to designate the actor in the commercial as a Mexican: A leaf blower.

I don't know, Jefe, that looks like a pretty good burger to me.

Posted 4/15/2009 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Ron Paul is on top of this whole pirate thing.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and a growing number of national security experts are calling on Congress to consider using letters of marque and reprisal, a power written into the Constitution that allows the United States to hire private citizens to keep international waters safe.

Used heavily during the Revolution and the War of 1812, letters of marque serve as official warrants from the government, allowing privateers to seize or destroy enemies, their loot and their vessels in exchange for bounty money.

The letters also require would-be thrill seekers to post a bond promising to abide by international rules of war.

I'm sure there's someone in the country would like to shoot pirates.

Posted 4/14/2009 05:09:00 PM by Douglas

I wonder if the pilot had the fish for dinner?

White, 56, landed the plane on his own about 30 minutes later, coaxed through the harrowing ordeal by air traffic controllers who described exactly how to bring the aircraft to safety. The pilot died, but White somehow managed.

When a controller asked whether he was on autopilot, White replied: "I'm in the good Lord's hands flying this Niner Delta Whiskey," giving the code for the aircraft.

White had logged about 150 hours recently flying a single-engine Cessna 172 but had no experience flying the faster, larger King Air. He declared an emergency to air traffic controllers — White already knew how to use the radio. On Sunday afternoon, he got his first lesson landing the larger craft.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue!

Just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you:

Labels: Airplane

Posted 4/13/2009 05:56:00 PM by Douglas

Pack your bags, kids, we're going to Cuba! Seriously, what travel agent's packaged deal could possibly compete with Cuba's abject poverty and their thirst for tourism dollars?

In a measured break with a half-century of U.S. policy toward communist Cuba, the Obama administration lifted restrictions Monday on Cuban-Americans who want to travel and send money to their island homeland.

In a further gesture of openness, U.S. telecommunications firms were freed to seek business there, too. But the broader U.S. trade embargo remained in place.

Well it's a start, ain't it? It sounds like the Castro brothers aren't long for this world, anyway, so this is likely to evaporate just as quickly as $50 at a Havana brothel.

Posted 4/13/2009 04:39:00 PM by Douglas

I wish I were rich. That way I'd be "eccentric" like him instead of just being bat-shit crazy:

Millionaire prankster and artist Stanley Marsh 3 is back at it.

The 71-year-old's newest creation is unlike most of his others, though. This one - not far from where Marsh began his playful ways 35 years ago by burying 10 vintage Cadillacs nose down in a wheat field - will be peaceful and verdant.

And less noticeable, which is how he likes it.

This time the art lover, philanthropist and, some say, eccentric is building a replica of Claude Monet's water-lilies pond - a very big one - to grace the backyard of Toad Hall, his 300-acre spread in Amarillo.

What the worst thing that anyone could say about me in the paper:

He's been sober for years, said Wyatt McSpadden, a longtime friend.

Oh Noes! I has the sober!

Posted 4/12/2009 03:30:00 PM by Douglas

More on the surviving pirate: He could face life in prison:

A Somali pirate captured during a hostage standoff in the Indian Ocean was in military custody Sunday and could face life in a U.S. prison.

Something tells me that life in a U.S. prison is a whole helluva lot better than his life in Somalia. So "negotiating" prison is much better than the deal the other three pirates got "negotiating" with the SEALS.

Posted 4/12/2009 03:20:00 PM by Douglas

Who did the Navy send in to negotiate with the pirates? SEALS, of course. Pirates zero, SEALS 3:

The American cargo ship captain held hostage by pirates jumped overboard Sunday from the lifeboat where he was being held, and U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation.

At the time of the shootings, the fourth pirate was aboard the Bainbridge negotiating with officials, the source said. That pirate was taken into custody.

Negotiate this, bitches! We got something better than ninjas. We got SEALS.

I don't think we can send in the SEALS every time some wack-o takes an American hostage, but this is quite a deterrent to those three pirates. They arrrrrrren't going to be taking any more hostages.

Posted 4/11/2009 08:58:00 PM by Douglas

What if you had an arm that no one could see, but you could still use it?

After having a stroke, a 64-year-old woman reports that she now has a "pale, milky-white and translucent third arm" that she can use to scratch itchy parts of her body. She also says the limb can't penetrate solid objects.

It is "the first case known to doctors of a person being able to feel, see and deliberately move a limb that doesn't exist." The woman underwent an MRI and when doctors asker her to move her imaginary third limb, her brain responded as if she really had the arm. Her visual cortex activity also indicated that she saw the arm.

Weird, but real handy!

Posted 4/11/2009 08:55:00 PM by Douglas

This year's winning peeps diorama.

Posted 4/11/2009 10:35:00 AM by Douglas

Russian, worse than most western nations, is disappearing.

The symmetry is striking: in the last sixteen years of the Communist era, births exceeded deaths in Russia by 11.4 million; in the first sixteen years of the post-Soviet era, deaths exceeded births by 12.4 million.

So get to fuckin', Russians!

Posted 4/10/2009 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

The gender-gap in China continues, unabated. What's the worst that could happen?

China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.

The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems, including a possible spike in crime by young men unable to find female partners, said an author of the report published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

32 Million mateless males, or as I like to think of it, a country the size of Canada with no pussy. Crime is the least of their worries. Or should I say, the worries of their neighboring countries. Any 14 year-old boy will tell you, lack of pussy is the reason men go to war.

Posted 4/10/2009 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Newspapers continue to spiral away from relevance, this time in Los Angeles.

An advertisement dressed up as a news story on the front page of the Los Angeles Times has reporters at the newspaper fuming and the publisher defending the move.

The advertisement, for the NBC television series "Southland," appeared on page one of the Times on Thursday. Although it was labelled "advertisement," the ad resembled a news story complete with a bold-type headline.

Fake story/ad on the front page? You're done, no better than the ValuPak that clogs the postal services before it falls in the land fill.

Posted 4/10/2009 05:18:00 PM by Douglas

I'm tired of hearing about 'sexting' but this is over the top. He's a sex offender now? That's stoop-id.

He had just turned 18 when he sent a naked photo of his 16-year-old girlfriend, a photo she had taken and sent him, to dozens of her friends and family after an argument. The high school sweethearts had been dating for almost 2½ years. "It was a stupid thing I did because I was upset and tired and it was the middle of the night and I was an immature kid," says Alpert.

Orlando, Florida, police didn't see it that way. Alpert was arrested and charged with sending child pornography, a felony to which he pleaded no contest but was later convicted. He was sentenced to five years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender.

So let me get this straight. A picture of a naked body is pornography, and if that person is less than 18, it's child pornography. So what about this trash. Was she 18? And don't get me started on this filth. You can see his junk!

Posted 4/09/2009 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

Watch out, ladies! Who knows what's going to happen to your world if "woflin' pussy" becomes a credible defense for other crimes.

He sued last year after a state appeals court rejected the NYPD's use of hair to test cops for illegal drug use.

"This is a very special human being who devoted his entire life to being a police officer," said lawyer Paul Goldberger. "He would no more use drugs than the man on the moon."

Goldin's lawsuit said the cocaine in his system was the product of "passive ingestion" from performing oral sex on girlfriend Coreen McCarthy, who, once he tested positive, admitted to him that she was a regular cocaine user.

Ah yes, the oral sex defense. He thought it sounded like a really good idea, but after 45 seconds, he got really tired of this premise. But in court, he continued with his oral argument, anyway. Turns out, he's a very cunning linguist.

Posted 4/09/2009 05:38:00 PM by Douglas

Oregon, or as I like to say, Idaho's Portugal, passes some real legislation today:

The proposed new law nobody wants to talk about would make it a second degree sex abuse crime to propel "a dangerous substance at another person." That substance being semen or other bodily fluid flung out of sexual desire.

Yep. Apparently such behavior is part of a gang initiation rituals.

The proposed law follows an incident last June when a man threw his semen on a mother in a Portland area Target store. Her little girl saw it first.

Yeah, I had no idea this was this much of a problem. But I can't imagine why anyone would want to keep this activity legal.

Posted 4/09/2009 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

I wish The New York Times would just come straight out and say "We want to take all your guns away from you, idiots, because we know better than you." But they won't. So they have to keep printing ridiculous editorials like this to garner support for "common sense" gun laws. Guess what "common sense" means? Yep, you guessed it, "total."

In this historical context, Binghamton is yet another reminder of America’s terrible gun problem and a summons to lawmakers to insist on common-sense gun laws. Yet Congress responds with a collective shrug.

Well, that's horrible, but about 770 people died that week, and every week of the year due to car crashes. The point being, we've done a lot of work to reduce the number of each, but no matter what we do, neither of those numbers is ever going to be zero. Cars are here to stay just like guns. But as usual, the anti-gun nuts allow their visceral ignorance get in the way of any meaningful policy discussion:

There was a moment, after Columbine, when the nation engaged in a promising conversation about gun violence, and it briefly seemed as though Congress might rise above the extremists at the National Rifle Association. In May 1999, the N.R.A. lost a showdown in the Senate over closing the loophole that allows unqualified buyers to purchase weapons at gun shows without a background check.

That victory was illusory; the gun show measure died in conference in the House, and the post-Columbine urge to do something meaningful evaporated.

Here we go again. When all you have is nothing, pretty soon everything starts looking like a gun show loophole. News Flash: There's no such thing. Any licensed firearm dealer, at a gunshow, swap meet, gun store or highway overpass is required by law to require the purchaser to fill out the form affirming they're of sound mind and not a fugitive from justice, and call in to the FBI's NICS database for verification. If you're too stupid to lie on the paperwork or the FBI's got a sheet on you, guess what, no gun. Period.

The so-called "gun show loophole" is a complete bullshit term derived from the left to scare people (shocker). If your state doesn't require each firearm to be registered, you can sell it to whomever you want, so if you bring it to a gun show and you happen to run into someone who wants to buy it, they can, and with no background check. But keep in mind, this is no different than a want-ad for people with guns who choose to focus their product in a concentrated market of those that might want to buy them. What's wrong with that? And there's more abject horse shit to dispel:

So far, the Obama White House has not been a profile in courage either. Witness the chilly reception to recent calls by Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to reimpose an assault weapons ban to make it harder for American gun traffickers to arm the Mexican drug cartels.

The so-called "assault weapons" ban was a joke, outlawing cosmetic functions of a few rifles and giving them the menacing nomenclature of "assault weapons," again, in an attempt to scare old people. It worked under Clinton, but Bush let it expire. There's no push to revive it because it's totally fucking meaningless, and Holder and Hillary know they don't have the momentum, at least now, to push for a meaningful ban because it would blow up in their face. What's sensible about that??

Then there's this. How bad could it get?

In the aftermath of one of these atrocities, nothing is more chilling than a gun advocate racing before a camera to embrace a lunatic’s right to carry and kill.

Refresh my memory again? What "right to kill" are you referring to? I missed that day in civics class.

If it was peanut butter or pistachio nuts taking down people by the dozens every week, we’d be all over it. Witness the recent recalls. But Glocks and AKs — can’t touch ‘em. So we’re awash in guns: 280 million.

Well I hate to pass judgment on a thing like this before all the facts are in, but I'll bet there are more than 280 million peanuts in the country. But that's not the point. The point is that they're both out there and we can't un-ring the bell. Using demonizing language, "assault weapon," "Saturday night special" or whatever, doesn't make a gun any more or less dangerous. Which leads to my favourite anti-gun argument of all time:

The assault weapons ban, outlawing 19 military style guns that no hunter with sense of fair play would ever use, should be reinstated.

Ah yes, because if a hunter doesn't want it, it has no place being legal on American soil. What a compelling argument. Help me out and point to the word "hunting" in the second amendment. Yeah, it's not there.

No one, and I mean even the most ardent gun nut, is going to advocate shooting people in the street. But a White House victory for the Democrats and The New York Times hitting F-9 on their keyboards (or whatever key automatically ejaculates their anti-gun rants) is more than enough to make the millions of rational American gun owners out there realize one thing:

A gun is a lump of metal.

Posted 4/09/2009 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Kudos to the weirdest Craig's List ad of all time. Coming soon: "I need a breeder womb for my dead son's sperm."

A judge ordered the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday to maintain the body of a dead man in order for his sperm to be collected, granting his mother’s wish for a chance to have a grandchild.

This is only going to get weirder.

Posted 4/09/2009 05:30:00 PM by Douglas

What?!? Children put a strain on marriages? Who'd a thunk it!?!

Parents all know that children make it harder to do some of the most enjoyable adult things. Bluntly put, kids can get between you.

Now scientists have attached some numbers to the situation.

An eight-year study of 218 couples found 90 percent experienced a decrease in marital satisfaction once the first child was born.

I thought people had kids to improve their marriage? What gives. The money quote:

Couples who lived together before marriage experienced more problems after the birth of a child than those who lived separately before marriage, as did those whose parents fought or divorced.

However, some couples said their relationships were stronger post-birth. They tended to have been married longer or had higher incomes.

Higher income makes life more tolerable, even with a spouse and child that are smothering your creative talent and keeping you from starting that band you've always dreamed of, or pulling all your money out of your checking account and running away and living under an assumed name in a small college town with a young girl who wears cotton sun dresses? I can't imagine why?

I mean, nuthin'

Posted 4/09/2009 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Kanye West's ego against the annoying voices on South Park is like the unstoppable force and the immovable object, but looks like Kanye's ego cried uncle.

"South Park" may have accomplished the impossible — getting Kanye West to check his ego. The Comedy Central show skewered the famously self-important rapper on its show Wednesday night, painting him as a narcissistic figure so out of touch with reality he couldn't even take a (very politically incorrect) joke.

It's always funny to watch people that can't get over themselves. But not if you have to deal with them.

Posted 4/08/2009 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

Mmmmmmm. . . . Prehistoric fish.

Posted 4/08/2009 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Getting killed at work, getting killed at home. It's time for a little Kipling.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

An unforgiving minute. Man, this guy knew his shit.

Posted 4/08/2009 05:17:00 PM by Douglas

And we're complaining about OUR auto company's bailout is bad. Let the real socialists show you how it's done:

The factory here has been stamping out the same version of the Lada, the typical boxy people’s car of the former Eastern Bloc, for four decades.

Known as Avtovaz for short, it is one of the least efficient automobile factories anywhere in the world — each worker produces, on average, eight cars a year, compared with 36 cars a year at General Motors’ assembly line in Bowling Green, Ky., for example.

Yet the government is giving Avtovaz (pronounced aft-OV-az) billions of dollars in aid, no strings attached. No chief executive firings. No renegotiation of workers’ contracts. No demands to turn out better-quality cars, much less fuel-efficient hybrid cars. (The first car with an airbag was introduced here in 2005.)

They're already in Europe, but we'll be driving Tatas in five years. Thanks a lot, UAW. Way to 'protect' yourself not only out of a job, but driving one of the nations largest companies into the ground.

Posted 4/05/2009 06:36:00 PM by Douglas

Your town burning down is pretty high up things I don't want to see.

Severe winds sparked an 8,000-acre wildfire Saturday that threatened to destroy the town of Wheeler.

The Wheeler County Sheriff's Office urged all of the city's roughly 1,400 residents to evacuate about 3 p.m. as the fire moved to within five miles of the city limits, spokesman David Rushing said.

By 7 p.m., the fire had moved southwest of the city and jumped U.S. Highway 83, where firefighters were able to contain it. Residents were allowed back in the city once the fire moved past, Rushing said.

At least it's contained!

Posted 4/05/2009 06:22:00 PM by Douglas

Really? You'd feel bad for paying $250k for a house valued over twice that, only two years ago?

"My heart goes out to everybody that lost their home [and] lost their jobs. I'm real sympathetic toward them. But the reality for us was, if this didn't happen, we wouldn't be in this situation."

So an overinflated housing market corrects itself to the point that families can again move into empty houses that are breaking the backs of the nation's banks. What's the downside?

Posted 4/04/2009 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

They came for your booze, and you did nothing. Then they came for your smokes, and you did nothing. Now they're coming for your grease. Are you going to stand back and let the State take away your right to eat like a pig?

Texas diners who like everything — Twinkies to bacon — a heaping lot better if it’s been deep-fried soon may be chowing on healthier cuisine if the Legislature approves a measure to ban heart-clogging artificial trans fats from restaurant meals.

The oils, which have been treated with hydrogen at high heat to prolong shelf life, were touted as healthful alternatives to butter until doctors found they contributed to cardiovascular and other diseases

When did we lose the ability to take care of, let alone feed ourselves?

Posted 4/04/2009 05:27:00 PM by Douglas

West Texas is SO dry. How dry is it? So dry small towns are being evacuated because they're at risk for burning down.

Wheeler County officials in the Texas Panhandle ordered evacuations Saturday of the north and west sides of Wheeler, the county seat.

That’s after a wildfire jumped the North Fork of the Red River and threatened the town.

Details on the fire are sketchy. However, county emergency management officials say they’re moving residents of the evacuation zones 50 miles to the east to Elk City, Okla.

Yikes. What's worse, your town burning down, or being evacuated to Oklahoma?!?

Posted 4/03/2009 08:08:00 PM by Douglas

I can't be 100% sure about this, but I've got a good hunch that this isn't about lawn-care. I could be wrong.

Posted 4/03/2009 08:06:00 PM by Douglas

As usual, the squirrel screws it up for the rest of us.

Another outage affected customers in Amarillo about noon after a squirrel touched a line in a substation at 34th Avenue and Bell Street.

About 4,000 customers were affected. Power was restored by 1 p.m.

But the squirrel was OK, right?

Posted 4/02/2009 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

Just like the author of this piece, I have no idea why I'm posting a story about Britney Spears. I liked this assesment, though:

Never in the history of pop music has anyone achieved so much with so little talent as Britney Spears.

That's a big claim, isn't it? Five of her six studio albums have climbed to No. 1 (the other peaked at No. 2). Seven of her singles have landed in the Top 10. She's sold 32 million albums in the United States alone. Those are amazing accomplishments for someone who can't sing without the help of gadgetry. (I attended a rehearsal for the 2000 Grammys, and the show's audio engineer declared her live singing "unusable.")

Ida know, she's kinda cute?

Posted 4/02/2009 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

This is what happens when engineers have too much time on their hands.

Kinda reminds me of that famous Honda commercial, only cooler.

Posted 4/01/2009 06:10:00 PM by Douglas

April fools day was never more lame than when it was online. Google had some zingers in the past, but this was kinda dumb. I did like this sentence, I mean paragraph.

But close though we may have come to a theory of the brain, the body - computer hardware - wasn't capable of handling the extraordinary processing demands that any reasonably "intelligent" brain would place on its circuitry until Moore's Law really kicked in a few years back and the modern ultra-dense machinery of atomic scale-sized gates and their light-based interconnections finally reached the scale of brain neurons - and then surpassed it, when, in early 2007, a tight-knit, vaguely feared quantum computing group here at Google extended computers with quantum bits of Einstein-Bose condensate, polynomially speeding up our machines' data-processing ability.

Pretty clever.

I liked this offering from Expedia. Sounds like a nice place, but no atmosphere.