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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
richie73
|
8:30p |
Another good one from Bill Maher
(Not sure why a coherent orgal argument that doesn't fit a 10 second soundbite is called a "rant" these days, but there you go.) |
richie73
|
8:21p |
|
richie73
|
5:48p |
The Waters of Mars
just finished watching. Not going to post any spoilers but I got the distinct impression that the doctor is going to die in the final episode. EDIT: This episode was much more substantial than the previous one. |
richie73
|
3:46p |
Two random entries from my modern political dictionary.
Promoting Freedom. To make the world safe for corporate special interests to exploit, plunder, pillage and rape. (in finance) Innovation. Finding new ways to game and defraud the population and to suck more money out of whatever is left of the real economy. |
richie73
|
2:10p |
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richie73
|
12:32p |
The consistency of biblical morality.. and the people that claim to follow it.
Thou shall not kill?You shall not kill. Exod. 20 [13] and Deut. 5[17] (the fifth commandment) Lev. 20 [15]:If a woman approaches any beast and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the beast; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them. Num 31[17]: (...) Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. Deut 13 [6-9]: "If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, `Let us go and serve other gods,' which neither you nor your fathers have known, (....) but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 1 Sam 15[2-3]: And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ash'kelon and killed thirty men of the town (..). Judg. 14[19]: Thus says the LORD of hosts, `I will punish what Am'alek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Am'alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'" Slavery: approved by the BibleLev. 25[44]: As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. God likes capitalism and hates communism?Acts.2 [44-45]: And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. Religious Tolerance as practiced in the BibleDeut.7 [1-5]:"When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gir'gashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. You shall not make marriages with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Ashe'rim, and burn their graven images with fire. Two Biblical Commandments that Bible-Believing Christians usually ignore"You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff." (Lev. 19[19]) "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." (Lev. 19[27]) Jesus and "family values"Luke 14:26: "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. " "Abstinence" and pre-marital sex in the bible2 Samuel 11[2-5]: It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathshe'ba, the daughter of Eli'am, the wife of Uri'ah the Hittite?" So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her (...). And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am with child." If I could impose one wish, one sentence upon all reborns, evangelical christians, christian conservatives or whatever they may call themselves, it would be this: READ YOUR ENTIRE BIBLE INCLUDING ALL THE CRAP THAT YOU CONSISTENTLY IGNORE. |
mai_neh
|
9:32a |
a lot of mediated worrying about the US dollar
 A coworker of mine, somebody who normally never brings up topics related to the economy, asked me last week about why the US dollar has been falling. And there has been lots of worrying about the falling dollar in the media lately. It has been falling rather steadily for the past seven months in a row. But financial market trends should always be looked at over the long term, in context, if you want to understand what is going on. It isn't enough to look only at the past seven months and then wail about the falling dollar. Between July 2008 and March 2009 the US dollar increased in value by 18% compared to a broad trade-weighted basket of foreign currencies. The speed and extent of this increase was unprecedented in modern times, as wealthy investors panicked and moved into dollars as a safe haven. I'm still not sure how people could rationally consider the US dollar a "safe haven", but they did. As the panic faded, wealthy investors started moving back out of dollars, allowing the dollar to fall 9% between March 2009 and October 2009. So these recent fluctuations in the US dollar are the result of a panic, followed by a slow return to normal. For a wider conclusion to be drawn about the ultimate seaworthiness of the US dollar, as compared to other paper-based currencies, you might want to look at its long-term performance, which has overall been pretty strong, more than tripling in comparative value since 1973. ----- But even a relatively strong paper currency like the US dollar is not an absolute store of value over the long term. Compared to the Consumer Price Index, the relative value of the US dollar is down 90% since 1947 and down 95% since 1913. History teaches us not to store our savings in paper currencies over the long haul. The best investment category, at least in the US, since 1925, has been small cap stocks. But stocks are not always the best investment over the long haul, for a reason you may not have thought about: war and revolution. Here in the US we have not had a revolution in over 200 years, have not had a war on our own soil in nearly 150 years. In countries that do suffer revolutions or wars, it is typical for investments in stocks (and nearly everything else) to be wiped out, either via confiscation or destruction. But, if you are interested in investing over the long haul, and you trust that your country will suffer neither revolution nor war, diversified portfolios of small cap stocks are the way to go ;-) Current Mood:  amused |
mai_neh
|
8:51a |
I didn't want to see this movie anyway
2012 is the sort of movie so aggressively hyperbolic and devoutly over-the-top that it makes traditional descriptive labels obsolete and thus requires the invention of whole new words. My suggestions? How about catastrophaganza—the subgenre to which 2012 belongs—and retardiculous—a combo word to describe its barfy blend of low-quality yucks; treacly, social-welfare obsessed melodrama; buzz-word-laden psuedo-scientific babble; and gleefully apocalyptic pyrotechnic spectacle.http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/14/2012-global-salvation-through |
| Thursday, November 12th, 2009 |
richie73
|
10:20a |
Star Wars
Brian and I have been watching the "new" Star Wars show The Clone Wars. I don't like the animation style all that much, but it's still very entertaining. |
mai_neh
|
7:29a |
|
legalmoose
|
12:04a |
Ida/Family/Reinvesting
I'm currently sitting in my parents' motor home, listening to the remnants of Hurricane Ida blowing past. Every now and again a particularly strong blast of wind manages to shake the coach back and forth. Reminds me of a camping trip we took when I was little and we had to flee into the vehicle we'd driven up in because the tent was literally about to be blown over by the wind that night. That's not a concern here, obviously, but it is a bit disconcerting when your "home" rocks with the wind. Completely forgot to bring any snacks, or Adult Tang, so I think I'll be shopping tomorrow rather than this weekend. While I'm out in the wilds of Virginia I find it a good opportunity to hit stores I wouldn't normally get to, or get things that it's easier to haul home in the car rather than attempt to carry home via the Metro. If I can get out, that is. There's more than a bit of flooding going on here, which made the drive down interesting once the sun set. I got to spend the past two weekends with Mike - I went up for Halloween in Salem with him, and then he came down this past weekend for Code and a visit. We continue to talk nightly, and haven't managed to run out of things to talk about. I head back up in early December to see him next, and visit Provincetown for the first time. I'm thinking of taking a CPR course in late December. It would be good to know just in general, and also for my continuing work with our New Triathlete Program with my tri club. I'm trying to get myself back into "triathlon" mode, picking up literature I need to go over both for NTP and for my own training, and reinvesting myself back into a training mode that I've been out of since September's race. |
| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 |
richie73
|
7:50p |
|
mai_neh
|
8:19a |
book review -- Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns
During my last year or two of high school I became a libertarian and began devouring the complete works of Ayn Rand. This conversion has never totally stuck; I voted Democrat in my first presidential election in 1988 at the age of 21. I continued to vote Democrat for the rest of my adult life, but for one defection to the Libertarian candidate in 2004 while living in DC (where Bush got single digits). Yet, this conversion has also never totally disappeared; I remain sympathetic to many libertarian principles, goals, and arguments. Ayn Rand is not typically considered a great author by those who believe they are best suited to judge such things. But a massive Internet poll of the 100 best English novels since 1900, conducted by Random House in 1998, had her four novels taking 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th place -- with Atlas Shrugged at #1 and The Fountainhead at #2. So we know lots of early Internet adopters were Rand fans ;-) This biography of Rand was especially gripping for somebody like me who enjoyed reading Rand as a youth, but who also has learned through the experiences of adult living that Rand's philosophy is an impossible and potentially harmful ideal. The book traces her life from childhood to deathbed, seemingly covering every important event and many unimportant but illuminating details. At the end I felt like I got to know Rand, understanding her personality and why she was driven to achieve her particular type of success. The book was written by a historian, not a Rand fan, not an "Objectivist", so it seems to take a balanced view of her politics, philosophy, and personal relationships. It appears that Rand was a difficult person to befriend, that she took every political or philosophical difference personally. She had great feuds with those you might've thought would be her natural allies, and wrote people off unforgivingly for the smallest of perceived slights. Shortly before her death, she bitterly denounced Ronald Reagan, even though he was the most libertarian American president since perhaps the 1920s -- cutting marginal tax rates more than any president has ever done, and holding the line on government spending better than any modern president. Despite her prickly personality, Rand's influence grew quickly via word-of-mouth and after publishing The Fountainhead she and her husband never had to work for a living again, due to continued high levels of book sales. Her principles may never have been applied as purely as she desired, but she was a primary influence behind the politics of Ronald Reagan and the economics of Alan Greenspan -- she may be the one person most responsible for the current troubles of our economy and our widespread reluctance to regulate industry or tax capital. If you'd like to know more about Rand's life, ideas, relationships, and influence, this book is entertaining, interesting, fair, and comprehensive. Current Mood:  awake |
| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 |
bender772
|
8:15p |
Beware
I think I'm making my way out of my funk. Am I ready to reenter the world of the internets? Current Mood:  rejuvenatedCurrent Music: Go West - King Of Wishful Thinking |
gregmce
|
12:41p |
Nine Down
I’ve now had nine “adult” teeth removed, although on the bright side each extraction has gotten easier. The first four removed were from back when I had braces as a teenager. As part of the re-arranging of my mouth, they had to come out. Two of them came out quickly, but the other two had double-roots and weren’t so willing to budge. I still have vivid memories of a dental hygienist holding my head in place, while the dentist and a second dental hygienist simultaneously tugged at the stubborn tooth. When it finally came free, they shot backwards across the office and slammed into a wall. Meanwhile, I had so much novocaine pumped into my face that my eyelids were asleep.
The next four were my wisdom teeth, which came out in 1993. It actually wasn’t a bad experience; the teeth came almost all the way in (and were actually cutting up the sides of my mouth) so there was very little cutting that needed to be done. A new extraction, though, happened yesterday. Years ago after a tooth cracked, I needed to have a root canal that went through two teeth. (Eek.) It started bothering me this summer, so I went to an endodontist who was able to fix the one closer in that was causing pain. Unfortunately, the other one (which wasn’t actually causing any pain) needed to come out. So after a lot of delaying, I finally bit the bullet.
![Pre-Extraction [365portraits: 312]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2575/4091076880_ff2051e99b_m.jpg) I have to give the oral surgeon credit, that was much less painful than I’d imagined. I’d been warned that the tooth was brittle (as all root canal teeth are) so I “might hear some cracking noises.” Eeek. I had mental images of the tooth shattering in the process and then them having to dig the roots out of my gums. Not good, right? But I was worked on for less than five minutes and suddenly the surgeon was taking the brace out of my mouth and saying, “All done.” You know it’s gone well when even the receptionist is startled at how fast it was taken care of.
That unfortunately meant lots of packed gauze and painkillers for the rest of today, and I’m still taking some 600mg of Motrin to ease the pain today, but it’s not that bad. (I actually just feel unusually tired and run down today more than anything else. We’ll see how the day progresses. Hopefully all will still be well.) I’m also not looking forward to the implant that will need to come for replacing the tooth, as I know that’s the more hefty of the procedures. But still, that’s a few months away.
Hopefully this is the last tooth extraction for a long while. I appreciate that they’ve been getting less and less painful, but still. I’d like to not have to gum my food down the line, right?
[Originally published at gregmce.com. You can comment here or there.] |
| Monday, November 9th, 2009 |
richie73
|
9:50p |
|
richie73
|
2:47p |
Finally some movement on "organic" body care fraud.
For years makers of body care products have been getting away with selling fake organic products. You know the ones.. the ones that are made with Pure Organic Wildcrafted Rose Oil, hand-pressed by virgins who blessed every single petal.. harmoniously blended with organic this and organic that... nothing but the finest, most natural ingredients.. made under a rainbow at the time of the full moon.. in a base of toxic petrochemical goo composed of carcinogens and irritants just like all the crap you can buy in conventional grocery stores. Fortunately, there is now a chance that the US government may crack down on this ongoing fraud. (Press release from the Organic Consumer's Association): Thu Nov 5, 2009 3:05pm EST National Organic Standards Board Votes to Crack Down on Organic Personal Care Cheaters Consumer Boycott of 'Organic' Cheater Brands Begins WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a milestone victory resulting from years of work by the US organic community to address known fraud in the organic marketplace, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has voted 12 to 1 for the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to enforce the law for organic personal care just like they do for organic food. This would mean shampoos and other body care products that claim to be organic, but are not certified, would be forced to drop the organic claims made on their products or improve formations to meet organic standards. "I'm really pleased by the NOSB's recommendation," says Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). "Brands that are using the word organic improperly should be on notice that USDA enforcement is imminent. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan has said that she is going to get 'tough on crime' in the organic industry. At the NOSB meeting this week, National Organic Program director Miles McEvoy announced a 'new age of enforcement' in organic. I expect them to make organic cosmetics fraud a top priority. In the meantime, retailers should start cleaning up their body care aisles. Whole Foods Market, for one, was a big supporter of the NOSB recommendation." At the end of September, the OCA promised to announce the names of brands that have cheated consumers for years and recommend honest organic brands in order to promote certified organic personal care. As of today, the Boycott/Buycott is in effect. Major Brands OCA Will Boycott: Desert Essence Organics Body Care, Organics by Noah's Naturals, Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Nature's Gate Organics, Amazon Organics, JASON Pure Natural and Organic, and Avalon Organic Major Brands With USDA Organic Seal and OCA Will Buycott: Alteya, Amrita, Baby Bear Shop, Badger Balm, Buddha Nose, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, Earth Mama and Angel Baby, Kimberly Organics, Little Angel, Mercola, Motherlove, ONEgroup, Organicare, Origins Organics, Purely Shea, Rainwater Organic Lotion, Rose Tattoo Aftercare, SoCal Cleanse, Seasons of the Soul, Sensibility Soaps/Nourish, Terressentials, Trillium, Vermont Soap Dan Giacomini, the only NOSB member who voted against the personal care recommendations did so because he felt the board was looking at things in a limited way. He wanted to address fraud in all product sectors, such as dry cleaning and not simply personal care. The Coming Clean Campaign has been working to clean up the natural and organic personal care industry for the past six years. To view the Certification Commitment Contract; the NOSB Recommendation or for further information on the Coming Clean Campaign, go to: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/index.cfm |
richie73
|
12:33a |
|
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 |
gregmce
|
11:09p |
Epileptic Disco
I just heard the most awesome thing ever, and it was on my local NPR station, WAMU. One of the classical music CDs they were playing as part of their program “The Big Broadcast” started skipping. And not just a little bit. It sounded like an old 33rpm album cranked up to 45rpms, during an earthquake so the needle jumped every half second.
I normally reserve my hysterical laughing at NPR programs for “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life” but it turns out there is something out there even funnier.
After about five minutes, I gave them a call and let them know what was happening. Much to what I’m sure was great disappointment to the other listeners, they did then fix it about 90 seconds later. (Or rather, the station went silent, and then turned on a BBC radio news feed.)
Craaaaaaaaaaaazy radio!
[Originally published at gregmce.com. You can comment here or there.] |
richie73
|
7:10p |
|
gregmce
|
12:17a |
The schnozberries taste like schnozberries!
While heading up to a friend’s shindig this afternoon, it hit me that if I took the Baltimore-Washington Parkway up to the top of the Beltway (instead of the George Washington Parkway up to the side of the Beltway), I’d drive right past IKEA. And since I recently used up the last of my lingonberry preserves, well… a trip to the IKEA “grocery store” might be in order.
If you’ve never had lingonberries before, it’s a tiny bit hard to describe them. They’re a little tart but sweet at the same time, and they’re an essential ingredient on swedish pancakes. (Places like IHOP actually offer a lingonberry syrup for their swedish pancakes.) As I’ve been on a pancake kick lately (and really, why not?), more lingonberry preserves was a must.
I actually picked up two other similar foods that I’ve never eaten before, though; cloudberry preserves, and gooseberry jam. I have no idea what either of them taste like, but how can I resist something called a cloudberry? It sounds like what Frodo and Sam would have picked off of bushes on their trip to Mordor. Or maybe something Mario would eat to get a temporary power-up while trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser. I, for one, can’t wait to try them. (A gooseberry doesn’t sound quite as interesting. But in the interest of trying something new I bought it.)
If I had been going directly home I suspect I would have bought stuff out of the frozen section, too, but I was saved by warmer temperatures outside this weekend. Perhaps next time I’m up in the area…
[Originally published at gregmce.com. You can comment here or there.] |
| Saturday, November 7th, 2009 |
mai_neh
|
8:58a |
economic forecasting generally sucks ;-)
 An update of the graph comparing reality to the Obama administration's original economic forecast. According to their forecast, unemployment should have already peaked, due to the blessings of their stimulus program. Now, that was never my forecast ;-) But if you'd asked me a week ago to make a forecast, I would've guessed that unemployment will peak at around 10.4 percent around November 2010 -- just in time for the midterm elections. But yesterday's spike in unemployment to 10.2 percent causes me to wonder if I was too optimstic. Was this a statistical fluke that will come back down a little next month? Or will unemployment rise farther and faster than it did after the last two recessions -- perhaps because this recession was so much deeper and our debt levels so much higher? Or is the recession not truly over yet -- was third quarter growth a fluke -- we already know all the growth in the third quarter was due to Obama's stimulus plan, which peaked during the third quarter. Maybe we really are still in the middle of a Second Great Depression that has a couple more years to go. I dunno. Economic forecasting sucks because there are too many variables and too many changing circumstances. No recession is exactly like another. We can make forecasts based on the average or median outcomes of historically similar events, but economies are made up of masses of people, who move like wild herds of buffalo. Sometimes they stampede madly toward illusory oases, other times they stubbornly refuse to move as a dust storm approaches. Politicians often try to act like our drovers, but they rarely understand the job. Over the long course of history, Democratic presidents have done a slightly better job than Republican presidents at managing the economy, but individual results may vary due to skill or luck. My early Obama economic scorecard is that he's definitely got bad luck, and I'm not seeing much evidence of good skill. He put together an economic team made up of experienced government folks from prior Bush and Clinton administrations, and they came up with economic projections and an economic stimulus plan. They passed the stimulus plan, and then moved on to fix health care and climate change. But the economy refused to play ball, and Congress still hasn't fixed anything, and now Obama is starting to look like he's been busy farting while the economy continues to crash. ----- It's not like Obama is listening to me, so if I were to offer solutions they would not be implemented, and then later I could claim, "They should've done what I said," even though what I said might not have worked either. There's plenty of that going around already. But I do think Obama (and the Democratic Congress) has an image problem. He needs to reorient his image toward fixing the economy first. He thought he'd already done that back in February -- but his fix didn't work as planned, and now Democratic voters are unimpressed, while independent and Republican voters are pissed off and ready to throw out the bums. No Democrat wants to admit they could lose control of Congress next year, but they better start acting like they could. Because they could. Current Mood:  quixotic |
| Friday, November 6th, 2009 |
richie73
|
10:55p |
please ban fireplaces in the Phoenix metro area.
When it gets colder like right now, those damned things make the outdoor air absolutely unbreathable in the evening hours. Brian and I just took a 5 minute walk around the block and now my entire body smells like it's been smoked. |
richie73
|
8:27p |
great article
Market-Driven Hysteria and the Politics of Death http://www.truthout.org/1106095Friday 06 November 2009 by: Henry A. Giroux, t r u t h o u t | Feature If we take seriously the ideology, arguments and values now emanating from the right-wing of the Republican Party, there is no room in the United States for a democracy in which the obligations of citizenship, compassion and collective security outweigh the demands of what might be called totalizing market-driven society; that is, a society that is utterly deregulated, privatized, commodified and largely controlled by the ultra-rich and a handful of mega corporations. In such a society, there is a shift in power from government to markets and the emergence of a more intensified political economy organized around three principal concerns: deregulated markets, commodification and disposability. In spite of the current failure of this system, right-wing Republicans and their allies are more than willing to embrace a system that erases all vestiges of the public good, turning citizens into consumers, while privatizing and commodifying every aspect of the social order - all the while threatening the lives, health, and livelihoods of millions of working class and middle class people. ( Read more... ) |
richie73
|
10:18a |
There was some good news too yesterday..
So the Republicans were against trying 9/11 suspects in civilian courts because it would "criminalize the war" and create a" chaos zoo trial". Which is GOPspeak for facts might come out about 9/11 that would embarrass the Bush regime. Or worse. http://www.truthout.org/1106093Senate Rejects Effort to Block Civilian Trials for 9/11 Victims Thursday 05 November 2009 Washington - After an emotional debate over how to keep Americans safe, the Senate Thursday narrowly defeated an effort to prevent civilian trials in U.S. courts for the accused planners of the 9/11 attacks. The Senate's 54-45 vote to reject the measure by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., opens the door for President Barack Obama to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to trial in federal court, rather than the military commissions Graham helped create. ( Read more... ) |
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