enthalpy

Monday, March 29, 2010


The bloody do-gooders in New Braunfels continue to do everything they can to keep drunks coming to their town and spending a lot of money in their town.
Tubers who enjoy an exhilarating ride in the back of an outfitter's pickup to reach the Guadalupe or Comal River may be disappointed this year. The open-air rides won't be allowed.

The ban on using truck beds to shuttle tubers is just one of several new rules the New Braunfels City Council recently approved to improve regulation of river outfitters and keep tubers safe.
Yeah, because floating down a river drunk off your ass is OK, but riding in the back of a pickup is dangerous.
Each year, New Braunfels, a city of 53,000, plays host to about 1.5 million visitors to Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort and the two rivers, said Judy Young, director of the New Braunfels Convention and Visitors Bureau. River tourism alone has an estimated impact of $22.5 million per year, she said.
So come here, have a good, time, don't have too good a time, spend some money and leave. Thank you, come again.

Previous lunacy from the killjoys in New Braunfels.

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How much is a false arrest if it's the result of a huge company? If it's Wal-Mart, it's $9 million.
A spokesman said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reviewing legal options after a jury reached a $9 million verdict in favor of a woman who was wrongly arrested at one of the retail giant's stores in Houston.

Nitra *, 24, filed a civil lawsuit against the retailer after Meyer Park store employees accused her of trying to exchange counterfeit Walmart money orders for cash. She was arrested and spent two days in jail. The Harris County District Attorney's Office declined to pursue charges after it was determined that the money orders were genuine.
You get thrown in jail for no reason, yeah, that's worth something, but $9 million? I would sue for eleventy gazillion dollars and stuff. . .



No one enjoys the misfortune of others, but at some point these unemployment stories just get to be too sappy to endure.
Heather * put herself through law school, working during the day and attending classes at night, so that one day she and her family could move out of their two-bedroom rental apartment and buy a house. She saw that dream slip away in August of last year, when she was laid off from her job as an attorney and was unable to find work.

"Before I got laid off, they were talking about year-end bonuses, and I put in as many hours as I could so I could hit that mark," said Tanner, who lives with her family in Pacifica, California. "My husband and I were going to use that bonus as a down payment for our house. You go from dreaming about that house you want and having a backyard to not even being able to pay the rent on your apartment. My six-year-old will say things like, 'Mommy, you can have my money for the new house.' But the dream is out the window -- it will be years now."
First of all, is there anyone going to shed a tear about an unemployed lawyer? I doubt it, but especially for one this whiney.

You live in Pacifica, California, where the median home price is one of the highest in the country. So you lose your job, do you do anything you can, including move, to take care of your family, or do you get on unemployment and whine about it? Did I mention she's a lawyer? Maybe instead of going to law school she shoulda majored in "not getting fired."



Arrrrrr!
The EU Naval Force says pirates have hijacked a cargo vessel off the coast of Yemen.

Spokesman Cmdr. John Harbour says the Monday attack took place 10 miles (15 kilometers) from Yemen against the Panama-flagged Iceberg I.

Harbour says the pirates then sailed the ship across the Gulf of Aden toward Somalia.
Pirates, stealing boats in 2010. Note to the captain of any ship sailing in the Gulf of Aden. Buy a gun. But this part cracked me up:
Pirate attacks have continued to climb despite the presence of three dozen warships off the Somali coast. The area of ocean where ships are vulnerable to pirate attack is too vast to effectively patrol.
I have no idea why this area is so prone to piracy, but I don't think this particular part of this particular ocean is any more vast than the other two thirds of the earth's surface that's covered by ocean. But it's a well known fact that pirates can't stand that "cozy" ocean.

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Thursday, March 25, 2010


And now, the real winner in the whole health care insurance expansion: Ted Kennedy.
Interviewed Monday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," Kennedy said his father "always believed that our country was about expanding opportunity for more and more Americans. ... As he said, this is the unfinished business of America."
Nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than when a dead millionaire that's never worked a day in his life finds a better way to spend people's money for them.



Wednesday, March 24, 2010


You're not still paying your mortgage, are you? sucker. If you wait long enough, it'll be free!
Bank of America Corp. is giving some of its most troubled mortgage borrowers relief from the threat of foreclosure.

The bank, the largest mortgage servicer in the country, said Wednesday it will forgive up to 30 percent of some customers' total mortgage balances. The homeowners must have missed at least two months of mortgage payments and owe at least 20 percent more than their home is currently worth.

The plan is the newest provision of an agreement the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank reached 18 months ago with state attorneys general to settle charges over high-risk loans made by Countrywide Financial Corp.
Sorry you bought a house you could afford. If only you'd been a dumbass and gone nuts on a McMansion you could never be expected to pay for, guess what?!? You wouldn't be expected to pay for it!



I still can't figure out what, if anything, the new healthcare bill means to anyone. Glad to know the French have weighed in.
"On Sunday evening the richest, most powerful country in the world, the USA, finally entered the 20th century. Yes, not the 21st century, but the 20th," read an article published Monday on the popular French news website Rue89.com.

"Where health care was until now a closed privilege, Obama and the Democrats have made it a law," read an article in the paper Monday. "One of the most important differences between America and other industrialized countries has finally been lifted."

Europeans have long expressed dismay at the fact that millions of Americans have no health insurance
Well keep expressing dismay, Euro-fags, because there's plenty of people without healthcare.

Also, and I'm still pissed off this point gets left out of this story, but we're not talking about health care, but rather health insurance. Health Insurance pays your claim when they feel like it, denies it when they can, and charges 15% for the privilege of playing along.



Men are stupid, women are smart. But not funny.
2. Women aren't as funny as men. We're often cleverer, frequently wittier, but to be really funny demands a certain clownishness that our grace just does not allow. It's fine, really it is.
Deal with it, ladies.



Monday, March 22, 2010


Her Majesty's Royal space port now deemed significant.
The nation has been alone among the major industrialised nations in not having an executive body to direct its activities beyond the Earth's surface.

The new organisation is expected to take control of the money spent on space by government departments and science funding agencies.

It will also represent the UK in all its dealings with international partners.

Britain currently puts about £270m a year into civil space endeavours, most of it via the UK's membership of the European Space Agency (Esa).

This is not expected to change dramatically with the creation of an executive agency, especially with the government committed to cutting the public deficit.

The hope, however, is that the reorganisation will bring more coherence to space policy, enabling the available monies to be spent more effectively.
Wait, what?!? England is going to cut their deficit, spend MORE money on their space program, yet they want to commit more to space exploration. Gee, where have I heard that before? Now it's clear England doesn't have any clue where it wants to go with it's [non-existent] space program, either. Where's the British Lapdog Tony Blair, telling the world that the American's are always right when you need him?



Sunday, March 21, 2010


Why don't we take the horse to the doctor and put down the red-neck that caused this?
A bronco rider broke his leg and the bucking horse was euthanized following a fall during Saturday competition at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Is there anyone that enjoys this that sees this as anything better than dog fighting, bear-baiting, or a good old fashioned bull fight?



Saturday, March 20, 2010


Jail? Since when has it been illegal to be an ignorant asshole?
An arrest has been made in the case of a racial comment being made over the public-address system at a Walmart store in southern New Jersey, police said.

The Washington Township Police Department said on its Web site early Saturday that an arrest has been made in a "bias incident" at the retail store. The posting said police and Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office will announce the arrest at a midday news conference.

Police and prosecutor's office spokesman Bernie Weisenfeld declined to comment Saturday.

A male voice came over the Walmart public-address system Sunday evening and calmly announced: "Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now."
Geez. What better way to validate this idiot than arresting him.



The pilot that buzzed the beach has been identified and is under investigation.
The owner of a Jefferson County company acknowledged Friday that he is the pilot accused of buzzing a crowded beach on the Bolivar Peninsula last week and is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“It was taken straight to the mechanic's shop,” he said. “At this time the plane is not airworthy.”
So was the plane flying low because it's not airworthy, or is it not airworthy because it was flying low over the beach?
Asked if the low passes over the beach were the result of mechanical problems, the spokesman said, “That's going to be in the FAA report. You can draw your conclusions from there.”
What conclusions could you draw from the report?
Witnesses said the aircraft did not appear to be suffering from mechanical problems when it buzzed two large groups of Jeep enthusiasts on a beach outing.

Nunez said the aircraft made at least four passes and came in so low that he ducked and those beside him threw themselves onto the sand.
Making four passes over a crowd of people then flying 90 miles home doesn't sound like mechanical trouble to me.
“There are just a couple of people in that Jeep club who are trying to get their 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “There's two sides to every story.”
There sure are.



Thursday, March 18, 2010


Finally, a way to make basketball as interesting as a kick in the balls.
Since a vasectomy requires a few days of rest, the people at ORI reasoned what better time to get vasectomy than March Madness, when you have a good excuse to sit on the couch?

The folks at the Oregon Urology Institute did so well last year that they are following up with "Snip City 2009."

The office has 24 prime slots to get the surgery during the first couple days of the tournament. Anyone who gets the surgery, which costs around $1,000 if you're paying out of pocket, gets to take home a kit that consists of an ice chest and frozen peas.
Sounds about right. I'd rather saw my balls off with a rusty hack saw blade than have to sit through three days of basketball. Or as I like to call it, pointless running.



Wednesday, March 17, 2010


And speaking of airplanes and beaches, there's this little jewel from Hilton Head.
The kit-built single-engine plane was gliding quietly as it came down for an emergency landing on a beach. Pharmaceutical salesman Robert Gary Jones, listening to his iPod while jogging, likely never saw or heard it before the aircraft hit him from behind and killed him.

"There's no noise," aviation expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the National Transportation Safety Board, said of the Monday evening accident. "So the jogger, with his ear buds in, and the plane without an engine, you're basically a stealth aircraft. Who would expect to look up?"
I've never really understood the headphone phenomenon. Why people have to be listening to something at all times just doesn't make sense to me, but here's a perfect example of a time when you need to pull your head out of your ass. While it's true, he probably wouldn't have heard it coming even if he weren't listening to his ipod, but it just goes to show why you need to be aware of your surrounds, wherever you are. Why? Because you might get clipped by a fucking plane, that's why.



What a great way to lose your pilot's license.
Federal Aviation Administration investigators want to question a pilot they believe buzzed a crowded beach on the Bolivar Peninsula over the weekend, flying low over startled beachgoers.

"We know who owns the airplane, and we’ve got a good idea of who was flying it at the time," FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said. "Our investigators are planning to interview that person as soon as possible." He declined to name the suspect.
Flying below 1,000 feet and the FAA will bust your balls just because they're bored. "Buzzing" a crowded beach when your N number is clearly visible and you're asking for it. Full throttle at 10 feet AGL is just fuckin' stupid.



Tuesday, March 16, 2010


Hurricane predictions are going to improve this year due to, well, you can't really tell from this story, but somehow GPS is going to help somehow.
How much storm surge will a hurricane drive ashore? How much rain will a hurricane making landfall on the Gulf Coast bring to places as far inland as Kentucky or the Northeast? When does a monster hurricane suddenly dissipate?

The answer to many of these type of questions often is tied to knowing how much moisture swirls in the atmosphere around a hurricane.

This hurricane season, researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say they will use Global Positioning System technology to measure the dynamics of moisture far offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. And they say that will help them track the fuel available to ramp up tropical systems moving through the Gulf.
GPS. Is there anything it can't do? If only this story explained anything.



Hipster Bingo. I thought I posted this a long time ago. I guess we need to add "food stamp recipient" on there somewhere:




This recession is hard. I'm glad to see that someone is finally thinking about the Hipsters. Where are they going to get their organic arugula? Don't worry, they know where to turn.
"I have $80 bucks left!" Magida said. "I'm so happy!"

"I have $12," Mak said with a frown.

The two friends weren't tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.

Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding -- and her usual gigs -- to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she's used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.

"I'm eating better than I ever have before," she told me.
Food stamps are way too easy to get and bereft of any shame or stigma if idiots with ironic facial hair and white belts are using it for rabbit with tarragon.



Monday, March 15, 2010


Guess what? People aren't going to pay for on-line news.
Getting people to pay for news online at this point would be "like trying to force butterflies back into their cocoons," a new consumer survey suggests.

That was one of several bleak headlines in the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual assessment of the state of the news industry, released Sunday.

The project's report contained an extensive look at habits of the estimated six in 10 Americans who say they get at least some news online during a typical day. On average, each person spends three minutes and four seconds per visit to a news site.
Someone needs to tell The New York Times.



The days of cutting off your finger with a table saw are now official over.




Saturday, March 13, 2010


And now, for absolutely no reasons, here's the tale of one of the funniest damn things Steve should never have eaten. The different sized containers is purdy funny.



How many times have you heard this one before? Your friend's car is making a funny noise, so they take it to the shop and the mechanic tells them it's going to cost $2,300 to fix whatever's wrong with it. So they take it somewhere else where they give it a can of STP and a new air freshener and it's fine. They come back cussing about those crooked mechanics and how they're just ripping people off left and right just because they have a boat payment due.

Yet, these same people will not hesitate for a second to submit to anything a person in a white coat tells them to.
Americans, including the commander in chief, need to realize that "more care is not necessarily better care," wrote cardiologist Dr. Rita Redberg, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine. She was commenting on Obama's recent physical.
This really has nothing to do with Obama, but sums up perfectly what's wrong with the insurance-backed health care system. The doctors have absolutely NO incentive not to dispense every single avenue of treatment and diagnosis, as long as the insurance company is paying for it.
Doctors also often order tests or procedures to protect themselves against lawsuits — so-called defensive medicine — and also because the fee-for-service system compensates them for it, said Dr. Gilbert Welch, a Dartmouth University internist and health outcomes researcher.
Sure, there's the legal aspect in that they don't want to be sued, but how much of it is a doctor covering his ass and how much is it billing the insurance company for another thousand dollars that's really unnecessary? Are you going to question his judgment? You don't know any more about what his differential diagnosis than you do the timing for '78 Mustang. So we trust them, and sometimes, we get screwed, but guess what? We all pay for it.



Thursday, March 11, 2010


Great retro advertising from Moon-race aerospace companies.



The housing bubble burst and you can't sell your house for what you owe on it. Who is going to make up the difference? The government of course!
In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.
Sounds like the administration's most aggressive attempts to buy some votes in the middle class.



Sunday, March 07, 2010


Border patrol agents ever diligent in protecting America from smuggled Mexican. . . . cheese?
U. S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped more than 100 pounds of soft Mexican cheese from making a run across the order.

The federal agency announced Friday that officials seized 107 pounds of "queso fresco," which is soft Mexican cheese. The illegal cheese was hidden in false compartments of a vehicle trying to enter the United States Wednesday.
Sleep tight, America, knowing you're being protected from soft Mexican cheese.

In the time it took to read this, four tons of weed and coke just entered the country.



Friday, March 05, 2010


NASA cancelled the Constellation Program the same year the Shuttle program is slated to be mothballed. Now what?
NASA chief Charles Bolden is expected to discuss changes to U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to scrap the agency's Constellation program with at least one top lawmaker this week, according to an internal agency e-mail shared with Space News.
So what is it? NASA's budget got another Billion dollars a year for the next six years, but no one's knows where they're going.
In addition, while Obama's budget proposal calls for a $6 billion increase to NASA's top-line spending over the next five years, Coats urged Altemus to keep the alternate proposal's cost estimates in mind.

"Living within the budget is a huge issue, since it's doubtful we'll get more funding," he wrote.
Everyone has a budget they've got to live within. But most people have some idea where they're going to spend their money.



Things are looking worse and worse for Toyota. Still, I don't think the electro-mechanical defect in their design is the problem. The apparent cover up is quite troubling.
Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts.

The AP investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent — and sometimes even contradictory — in revealing exactly what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.
The automobile "black boxes" have been a popular topic here at crap-blog for a while. It's obvious that all the automakers have been less than forthcoming as to what they record and how owners can access the data. But Toyota, in light of their current troubles, is being downright dishonest with it.
Toyota's "black box" information is emerging as a critical legal issue amid the recall of 8 million vehicles by the world's largest automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this week that 52 people have died in crashes linked to accelerator problems, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.

When Toyota was asked by the AP to explain what exactly its recorders do collect, a company statement said Thursday that the devices record data from five seconds before until two seconds after an air bag is deployed in a crash.
What?!? It records data "five seconds before" the air-bag is deployed? Uh, doesn't that mean the data is being continuously recorded? Saying it's only recorded "five seconds before" the air-bag is deployed is like the old joke about the farmer giving the lost stranger directions: "turn left five miles before the road dead-ends."

Sounds like the auto-makers are going to have to come clean as to what these EDR devices, that we all pay for, actually do and how they can protects us in the event of a malfunction of our cars.

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Thursday, March 04, 2010


What a great government plan! Let's give people money!
A measure to give some 57 million elderly people, veterans and persons with disabilities a $250 check was rejected by the Senate on Wednesday, a setback for the powerful seniors' lobby.
That's all you need to read in this one.



The SNL ex-presidents come together to help Obama:




Wednesday, March 03, 2010


Aren't all Emus mad?
A mad emu gave deputies a Texas-sized hard time. El Paso authorities say the big bird was running loose Tuesday, snarling rush-hour traffic near Interstate 10 and attacking deputies trying to restrain it. Deputies with the El Paso County Sheriff's Office tried to prevent the tall, flightless bird from running into traffic. But when deputies neared the emu, it became aggressive and slashed one deputy's pant leg.

The deputy was not seriously injured.

The emu died as it was being transported to an animal control shelter. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Hold the autopsy. I have a feeling what the cause of death of this Emu was. If only your local Sheriff took the same stance on Emos.



Sometimes I think people get out of bed and think to themselves, "how can I be an annoying doucehbag today."
A group of atheist students at the University of Texas at San Antonio is swapping pornography for religious texts other students trade in.

The "Smut for Smut" campaign is an annual campaign of the group Atheist Agenda at the UTSA campus. Group members contend that religious texts are, themselves, pornographic because of the violence and torture they contain and the sectarian violence they spark.
Smut for Smut. Does this mean these guys are going to be the Gideons of porn, leaving stroke books in the night stand in hotel rooms.



Tuesday, March 02, 2010


Looks like the Constellation Program has a new mission patch:



I sorta like the "Hotel Cancellation" too.




Happy Birthday, Texas!
It was on that site 174 years ago on March 2 that 59 delegates worked overnight to write the Texas Declaration of Independence during the Texas Revolution.
You don't look a day over 170!



Just like the summer games, one of the world's largest gatherings of young athletes turns into a big orgy after the events.
Over the course of 17 days, the health agency doled out 100,000 condoms, supplied by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. And after buzz, some based on rumors, grew that there was a shortage -- "We were not getting calls from people saying, 'Help, I need condoms,'" Adams laughed -- an emergency shipment of 8,500 additional rubbers came in from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research.
I don't think I've heard them call "rubbers" since high school.



It'll be sad I guess, when the post office won't be able to bring me a birthday card or the electric bill, but if they have to go under so I stop getting ValuPaks in my mailbox, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Though the idea of cutting service from six to five days has gotten a cool reception on Capitol Hill, Potter said that the plan would include enough flexibility so that customers who need Saturday service can get it and that this and other changes need to be implemented for the Postal Service to survive.

"We built a plan that we think is very reasonable. ... We intend to pursue that," he said. "It's a move that we simply have to make."
Reasonable would be if the post office charged the junk mailers the same rate they charged me to send a letter instead of giving a discount to those that fill your mailbox with garbage every single day.



There's dire economic predictions, then there's this.
“The next war will be a dirty war,” he told fund managers: "What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?”

His investment advice, which was the first keynote speech of CLSA’s annual investment forum in Tokyo, included a suggestion that fund managers buy houses in the countryside because it was more likely that violence, biological attack and other acts of a “dirty war” would happen in cities.
A chilling vision of things to come!



How to write fiction, by some people that know how. I still like Joe Bob's four step plan:
Okay, bud, here's the only advice I ever give:
  1. Write every day.
  2. Get the money up front.
  3. Be proud if they fire you for anything except plagiarism.
  4. The first time you repeat yourself, quit the job.
Later gator,
Joe Bob
That'll teach 'em, Joe Bob!



The New York Times and the second amendment. Yep, they're against it. While the First Amendment is universally unquestionable, the second is something needing to be fiercely regulated, less duly elected representatives allow citizens to exercise the rights guaranteed by the same Constitution that guarantees abortion on demand.
We disagreed strongly with the 2008 decision, which took an expansive and aggressive view of the right to bear arms. But there is an even broader issue at stake in the new case: The Supreme Court’s muddled history in applying the Constitution to states and cities. It should make clear that all of the protections of the Bill of Rights apply everywhere.
That's right. That's what the bill of rights is for, right?
A group of respected constitutional scholars and advocates is asking the court to switch to the privileges or immunities clause as the basis for applying the Bill of Rights to states and cities. That would be truer to the intent of the founders, and it could open the door to a more robust constitutional jurisprudence that would be more protective of individual rights.
Or, as they really mean, individual rights The New York Times happens to agrees with.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made clear that it is very concerned about the right to bear arms. There is another right, however, that should not get lost: the right of people, through their elected representatives, to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them against other people’s guns.
There's also another group. Law-abiding gun owners that choose to protect themselves from those that aren't deterred from gun ownership by a stupid law from a local municipality.



Monday, March 01, 2010


Whiney MBA student sends pithy email to professor. Professor replies, and hands him his ass, with hilarious results.

Dude, get your shit together!



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