Kaip Suprast

You know, one day, honest citizens are gonna stand up to you crooked cops! They are? Oh, no! Have they set a date?

2011-11-04T12:08:00.004-04:00

Of course the red light camera's a way to raise revenue. Anyway who claims otherwise is blatantly lying to the public. Governments all want more money. Ideally they just come in at night and wreck up the place taking whatever than can grab. But that can tend to be unpopular as can higher taxes. So what to governments do when there's no convenient way to raise money? Issue more tickets, have require more permits and fees, etc. No honest person would ever argue that ticketing cars that go over the white line improves safety, and no reasonable person would ever believe it. If this was really about safety there's an easy way they could prove it, donate all the revenue to charity. But of course they would never do that. (also even if they did donate the money to charity it wouldn't justify their action it would only prove that they are actually stupid enough to believe what they claim about safety.)

My campaign is a disaster, Moe. I hate the public so much! If only they'd elect me. I'd make 'em pay! Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

2011-10-14T02:11:00.002-04:00

Not quite as funny as some of his other things, but still worth a laugh.

Let the bears pay the bear tax, i pay the homer tax.

2011-10-12T02:08:00.003-04:00

Credit where credit is due. Hoyer is right, voters are to blame for the fact the congress is doing nothing. Of course by that same logic voters are to be credited for the fact that congress is doing nothing. During the clinton years/going all the way back to the Reagan years we had mostly a split between the congress and the president. During most of the bush terms and Obama's terms the same party held the presidency and both houses of congress. So let's see what works better a government that does whatever it wants like bush/obama, or a government that does only the essentials because of a seperation of power like clinton/reagan. As a libertarian i would already believe that i would almost always prefer the government/congress did nothing rather than anything because almost anything they would every do would be bad. But just looking at history i don't know how anyone could justify unified power/the ability of government to do whatever voters elected them to do as having a beneficial effect on the the government or society. The best thing the government can do is nothing (assuming they don't have the will power to reduce their previous actions to make the net action less than nothing, which would be very rare for the government.)

You doctors have been telling us to drink 8 cups of gravy a day.

2011-09-27T00:26:00.002-04:00

So this is an article from some idiot at the new york times about fast food. I wrote a big thing about how stupid it was on her wall, so here it is for the blog audience.

Spoiler, this article is completely stupid. What a stupid, stupid article, on so many different yet stupid levels. First off
this article purports to be about people who are on a budget, but then the author goes on an extravagant spending spree at McDonald's and claims it's not cheap at all. What's cheap at McDonald's is their dollar menu I've eaten off of it many times. It is extremely cheap, a 200 pound man like me can eat a very full meal for $3. Don't tell me it costs 28 dollars to feed a family of 4 at McDonald's, that just a lie. Yes you could spend that much, but if the point is that good food is just as cheap as junk food, then you need to compare it to cheap junk food, not expensive junk food. This is a completely straw man, and completely delegitimizes the entire article right off the bat.

Second, Comparing food to alcohol is a false analogy. Food has a primary purpose which is to keep us alive, alcohol's purpose is purely pleasurable, people drink it because they enjoy it. For some (me) who drink it mostly for the alcohol content we do in fact judge alcohol based on the price per alcohol content (also with some weight given to taste and calories.) For those who drink not so much for intoxication but for flavor, that takes precedence. There is no point in them pay money for grain alcohol which they will not derive pleasure from because their goal wasn't to get drunk. Also grain alcohol is not even the cheapest way to get drunk, cheap vodka and box wine is. Something i was already pretty sure of, but took me all of 30 seconds to check on the internet. Way to do your homework new york times writer, i guess actually fact checking his claims just wasn't worth 30 seconds to him. Delegitimized number 2.

And then as if that wasn't enough author goes on to admit (perhaps to missed it alexandra) that junk food is cheaper than other food, but he chooses not to recognize this fact because people have enough food already. If you are measuring how expensive food is, the only way to measure it is based off of the number of calories, not some fictional notion of how much it takes to be a meal (apparently a lot if your at McDonald's but much less if it's real home cooked food.) Thus the author dismisses objective factual proof that contradicts his thesis and relies only on his own opinion to prove that he is correct. In fact the only other piece of hard evidence he points out again contradicts his thesis. Fresh produce has gone up in price by 40% well junk food has fallen by 30%. Despite his assertion that broccoli is cheaper than chips we are given zero evidence of this and forced to rely entirely on trust that he must be right. which makes sense i guess given how right he is about everything else in the article. Delegitimized number 3

And finally he completely ignores all the other problems some people might have with cooking the food he so much prefers. Yes it might be cheaper to cook a chicken for you family, if you have a working stove, if you have a working refridgerator, if you have someone at home who can put the chicken in the oven so it's ready in time for dinner. Many of the things he wants will require upfront purchases of pots/pans (which also have to be cleaned afterwards.) A bag of chips you can just eat any time, it doesn't need a fridge, it doesn't a stove or cleaning. Ditto fast food restaurants. He contends that because people watch an 1 and a half of television a day they must all have time to cook dinner. What terribly stupid assumption, the one has nothing to do with the other. If i'm a single mother, i get off of work at 5 get home at 5:30 and have hungry kids i need to feed them soon. So i take them to McDonalds or give them something processed from the super market (frozen pizza, etc.) and then after dinner i watch tv for an hour and a half. So that means that in the authors world i should have started preparing the chicken and made the kids weight until 8 in order to eat dinner. Obviously this makes no sense. Delegitimized number4.

And finally he never writes anything about the true nature of food costs. Carbs, and fat are cheap and high an calories leaving children full on the cheap. Vegetables, fruits and low fat meats are expensive on top of which children don't want them (especially vegetables) leaving children irritated, and not full while spending more money. You can have cheap home made meals if they consist mostly of carbs like rice/pasta/potatoes, which are all dirt cheap. People have also been eating said carbs in huge amounts, maybe because the government told us, maybe just as a coincidence. In either way that's what led to the fattening of america. The more meat and vegetables you start trying to add in the pricier it gets. Especially vegetables which don't do nearly as much to leave someone feeling full as carbs or protein (at least in my experience. This doesn't really delegtimize what the author wrote, just makes it pointless since he completely ignors the real costs of food.

In conclusion i actually agree with some of what he thinks, but everything he wrote is just awful. The fact that he gets paid to write something so full of poorly thought out arguments and logical fallacies boggles the mind. I guess thus ends the rant.

Sir, there's an unruly mob here to see you. Does it have an appointment? Yes, it does.

2011-09-22T01:01:00.002-04:00

Is this the future of human ingenuity. I've been reading more and more about things like this. Instead of single scientist who may be very smart, working alone and getting stuck trying to solve a problem, unleash the power of millions of people all bouncing crazy ideas around until one of them falls into place. It seems like it could be the wave of the future, there's only 1 real question, who gets credit for the solutions created. Are solutions that are created patentable? What if a cure for aids was created in such a way, who gets the right to produce the drug, or does nobody get it, and the information is free for anyone to use? It seems like the creators of the game who figured out a way to involve a bunch of different people deserve the most credit. Ultimately money will decide the future of crowd surfing in this way. In the meantime, congrats on the work and score 1 for mob science.

Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so that it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be

2011-09-22T00:57:00.002-04:00

It's about time young people got hip to the fact that they are getting a raw deal. Older generations continue to crow about their accomplishments and the aimlessness of the youth when in fact they leached off of society their whole lives and are now leaching off of future generations to secure their retirements.

These prices suck! 10,000 yen for coleslaw?

2011-09-21T01:35:00.003-04:00

It will be interesting to see how the collapse of greece ends up affecting lithuania in the future. First off, it probably means LT will never be allowed to join the Euro. I would be surprised if the core members of the Euro will ever let another country join. That's assuming the Euro the survives, but what if it is disbanded. What will LT do, will they tie their currency back to the dollar? I would think they might try it to the mark (assuming germany brings the mark back when the euro is disbanded.) In either case if they tie to a different currency, will they do it at whatever the current exchange rate is? 2.345 litai per the dollar, or whatever it turn outs, or round to an easier figure. Or will they just let the currency float and let investors take it where they might?

How would I go about creating a half-man, half-monkey-type creature? I'm sorry, that would be playing God. God shmod! I want my monkey-man.

2011-09-21T01:28:00.003-04:00

Moving ever closer to gattaca. The first step is getting enough DNA on file so that they can determine what genes will make for extra smart/athletic babies. Then they can start trying to fertilize eggs and test to keep the best ones. If parts of the code can be edited then who knows where we'll end up. There was some slight mention of that in gattaca, give him an extra music appreciation gene or something 5 grand.

I thought you said the law was powerless. Powerless to help you, not punish you.

2011-09-19T22:50:00.003-04:00

Also could that simpsons line be more perfect? It's like it was written for this specific instance. I guess it's just such a perfect view in how policedom operates.

If government employees can't get out to do the job to help people, they can at least make damn sure that nobody else is out helping. The real secret is that they want things to go badly. It's the same reason fireman are refusing to accept volunteers to put out raging wildfires. Because the worse things are for ordinary people, the more they can argue that they are underfunded. Yeah we'd like to ahve a cop out there to help with traffic, but if you want that, we'll need more money. So if somebody else can just show up and alleviate traffic then less people will demand more funding to the cops. The worse the fires rage, the easier it is for fireman to argue they need more money for trucks/men/equipment. I'm not saying every individual person thinks that way, but the union itself thinks that way. The unions are like parasites leaching off the blood of their hosts. Maybe not exactly parasites because they are somewhat reciprocal, but there only concern is to increase the size of the host and thus the amount of blood they can get, regardless of what is best of anybody else, including the host.

That's a pretty lousy lesson. Hey, I'm a pretty lousy president.

2011-09-19T22:43:00.002-04:00

This Solyndra thing strikes as just being stupid, not crooked. Obama has so convinced himself that green jobs must work that he believes they really will work, even when the numbers say it won't. He wanted a big green jobs project to show off, and that's why he forced the loan even when it wasn't wise. On the other hand the LightSquared thing seems inherently corrupt. There is no innocent justification for it that i can see. Clearly a donor went to talked to Obama/minions about his business, and then Obama/minions went about trying to make things easier for the donor. This isn't exactly the worst thing ever, i'm sure it happens in politics all the time. But mostly what i'm sure of is that bush had forced a big loan to a company experimenting with new ways to drill for oil that went bust, or went out of his way to try to help a military contractor that had given him a big donation, the news would be enormous. Obama hasn't been able to dodge all of the Solyndra fall out, but not nearly enough people are questioning why we should even listen to any of his suggestions on a new stimulus when everything coming out of the last one proves so disastrous.

I call him Gamblor.

2011-09-16T21:48:00.001-04:00

Who says politicians can't ever get anything done. Apparently the trick is to elected the ones who used to run illicit massage parlours.

The school's on strike, maybe forever! Oh, overload, pleasure overload...

2011-09-16T21:34:00.003-04:00

Why do adults think that lecturing kids on what makes gay people good will cause kids to be less resentful of gays? I would expect it to make them more resentful. Maybe it will make them more cautious about making their feelings known, but i don't think it will make them any friendlier. This reminds me of an episode of louie i just saw. Louie goes to a PTA meeting where they are discussing the schools big problem which is something along the lines of child apathy, but they had some other word for it. And after several of them bring up various stupid points louie just goes isn't the problem just that school sucks. I mean it's school, it's supposed to suck, you do the best you can, but it's school. Kids don't respect the things they have to learn in school, that stuff is stupid, and to be mocked. They may remember it to do well on an exam but they don't come home with a new found respect for the information. Hey i thought gays were stupid, but according to the teacher actually they are awesome, i learned so much today. Really? That's how you think this is going to work? On a related note, this seems like a good plan.

Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

2011-09-15T23:37:00.001-04:00

So i didn't want to write this on my wall because it's going to end up being so long, and probably kind of ranting, but I just wanted to comment on how stupid the olympics qualifying is for basketball. Lietuva made it to the qualifying tournament, but that doesn't diminish the stupidity of the process. Only 12 teams get to play in the olympic's basketball tournament, so you'd think it would be really important to get 12 of the very best teams into the olympics. But you'd be wrong. The olympics doesn't actually want the the best teams in the world to compete because it's more important to have some sort of political correctness where we have to have countries from every continent in the world. It doesn't matter that Europe has by far the best teams in the world, as measured both by FIBA, and by world wide international competitions (which admittedly overlap.) If we look at international competitions going back to the 2006 world championships we see Europe consistently at the top of the charts. 2006 6 of the final 8 teams were european (with the US and argentina.) In the Olympics in 2008 4 of the top 6 teams were from Europe (plus the US and argentina.) Australia and China took spots 7 and 8, the only other non european teams with a top 8 finish in the past 5 years of international events (european teams took spots 9 and 10 giving them 6 of the top 10.) In the world championships in 2010 6 of the top 8 teams were european (plus the US and argentina.) So no country outside of Europe, Argentina, and the US has been in the top 6 of an international competition in the last 6 years. Likewise 6 of the top 8 teams in FIBA's world rankings are European (plus no surprise the US and Argentina.) 8 of the top 12 are European, and at least 6 of the top 10 finishers in each international competition were european countries. So why is that Europe only gets 2 Automatic spots in the olympics (i'm not counting great Britain's team which is not even one of the 12 best in europe, much less in the world and only got its place as the host country.) There's no doubt that 6 of the best teams in the world are from Europe, but they only get 2 spots. Even if they win all 3 of the final qualifying spots they will only get 5 teams. Meanwhile africa gets an automatic bid so Tunisia ranked 37 in the world gets to go to the olympics because we need to have a country from Africa, even though no country in Africa is ranked among the top 12 teams. We also need to have a country from Oceania. You know how many countries played in their tournament? 2. New Zealand and Australia. So because they aren't part of some other continent either New Zealand or Australia automatically qualifies for the olympics, and the other automatically gets into the olympic qualifying tournament (for the last 3 spots in the olympics.) That's no small prize either. Turkey, which won a silver medal at the world championships in 2010, won't get a spot in the qualifying tournament Either serbia or greece, both top 10 countries will also be left out. Australia is a top 10 team, and new zealand is a top 20 team, so it's not a terrible that they got their spots, it's just stupid that their spots are guaranteed just because they are not part of any other continent. Asia has only 1 team in the top 20, China. If they win they get asia's only automatic spot, which would be okay, but if china has 1 bad game and doesn't win the automatic spot we'll get another terrible team to go along with Tunisia. The Americas get 2 automatic bids, which would be fine because they have 2 good teams, but the US gets a bid for winning the 2010 world championship so they get 2 other teams. Meaning Brazil, not rated in the top 15 gets into the olympics.

Beyond this stupid "let's let the fat kid play in the olympics" attitude, even stupider is that the bids rely entirely on a single tournament which takes place a year before the olympics. So despite turkey winning the silver at the 2010 world championship and being ranked 6th in the world they don't even get into the qualifying tournament. Despite LT coming in 4rth in the 2008 olympics, and 3rd in the 2010 world championships and being ranked 5th in world if they had lost today they wouldn't have gotten into the qualifying tournament. That's like if we decided that only the top finishers of a single track and field event got to go to the olympics (or rather 6 different meets held on 6 different continents.) If one of the best runners in the world turns and ankle, or false starts then he doesn't get to go to the olympics because of 1 bad event. Who thinks that's a good idea? If it's not a good idea for track and field, why would it be a good idea for basketball? LT's team for example was playing without their team MVP from the world championships last year, Linas Kleiza. So if they hadn't played well in the tournament because their best player was hurt would it make sense to keep them out of the olympics a year from now when he is expected to be healthy. Or might it maybe make more sense to look at a general body of work to see what teams are the best in the world.

The most natural connection here is to the NCAA tournament. In the Tournament some teams get automatic bids for winning their conference tournaments. So even if they aren't one of the 64 best teams, they still get to play in the tournament pushing a better team out. And then after all the automatic bids are take some 30 or so of the strongest teams are picked by a committee to fill out the bracket. That's fine because there are 64 teams. So if you get the 50 best teams plus 14 bad teams to give the underdogs a shot, you still have the 50 best teams. So if you're team number 51 that's too bad but you were 51 you weren't one of the best teams in the country. The olympics only has 12 teams. And there are at least 2 teams that nobody would argue are among the 25 best in the world (Great Britain and Tunisia) and another team (Brazil) that is not one of the top 10 teams in the world. So that means you're no longer leaving out team number 51 you're leaving out a top ten team. At least 1, probably several of the top 10 teams in the world won't get to play in the olympics. What if instead of combining this let the fat kid play strategy with the make the bids completely dependent on 1 tournament a year before the olympics policy we just gave the top 8 teams in world rankings an automatic bid. Then the next 12 ranked countries could get bids to the qualifying tournament. That would give the top 20 teams entrance. Then 12 more bids to the qualifying tournament based off of automatic bids from these tournaments, and or wild cards where the olympic committee gets to pick teams. I don't have a problem with giving automatic bids to the qualifying tournament to teams from africa/asia/oceania especially if the best teams in the world have already been given at least an entry to the qualifying tournament. Then if they play their way in and get one of the olympic spots good for them, and if they don't they had a shot and they weren't one of the best teams. It's just so disappointing to find out that great teams like turkey, greece which won silver in 2006, and Serbia came in 4rth in 2010 and was a single shot from silver, are already out of the olympic running a full year before the tournament starts, while a team like Tunisia already has it's spot secured.

Outsiders have kidnapped some of our property. We must respond with our deadliest weapon... The lawyers.

2011-09-14T00:26:00.003-04:00

Here's a plan, how about you stop eating at white castle. I don't want to get into any fat jokes, if this guy wants to be fat that's his choice. But if he then finds life to be less comfortable because of his obesity, it's not up to society to conform to his choice to be obese. If white castle wants to conform voluntarily in order to attract more fatties that would make sense, but if they don't then that's their choice. Stop eating there. Also when he brings up pregnant women? Really? Because that's what pregnant women really need better seating areas at white castle. If other fast foot restaurants are more comfortable, go eat there. Instead he decides to sue somebody to get all of society to conform to him.

Out of my way. I'm a motorist!

2011-09-14T00:17:00.002-04:00

Funny little bit of trivia. The first car to hit and kill a pedestrian in the US was 1899, i would have thought for sure it was after the turn of the century. Also it was an electric car. No wonder we got rid of those.

I stand by my ethnic slur! Do your worst, you filthy, pretencious savages!

2011-09-13T00:12:00.002-04:00

More good news from the war in Libya. There's no doubt that some of these weapons will end up in the hands of people fighting against american soldiers, and will be used to take down american airplanes. This raises a few questions 1. was it really worthwhile to invade libya in the first place. And 2. was it really worthwhile to completely avoid having american soldiers involved. Obama kept american soldiers out of Libya for political purposes. So he could claim there was no war, although i think gaddafi might disagree. In any case what if the involved of US soldiers had led to 100 deaths, but also the destruction/capture of a lot more of Gaddafi's weapons preventing the possible deaths of a 1000 soldiers in the future. In the short term politically a hundred deaths now is much worse than a possible 1000 deaths at some undetermined future date. Even if those deaths happen they are unlikely to be traced to these weapons and so there will be no political fallout. The end result being that political incentives it is politically prudent for the president to trade 100 american soldiers today for 1000 tomorrow. Of course these numbers are completely made up, and the entire question is hypothetical, but i do think it's worth considering.

Beer, is there anything it can't do?

2011-09-13T00:02:00.002-04:00

I don't need a boast in wi-fi because i don't use the internet in different parts of the house, but for anyone who does, and also has empty beer cans, according to an instapundit reader this does in fact work.

They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one! But you can't stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!

2011-09-07T23:47:00.003-04:00

So early modern humans had sex with other humanoids all the time. No surprise there. I guess when i guy cheats on his wife he can claim it's evolutionary. If my ancestors were going around having sex with neanderthals and other human cousins how can you honestly expect me not to have sex with my secretary. On the other hand this doesn't really discuss how often it took place, was it customary, or was it more like a fetish. There are guys who have sex with animals today, so of course there would have been guys having sex with almost humans a million years ago. The important thing is that they were able to have children and that those children were able to ahve children. Of course by my understanding of biology that means they were the same species. If neanderthals and Cro-magnons were able to have children with each other then they were no different than whites and chinese or blacks and hispanics. Might look different and be of different size, have different skills, but still the same species.

Union rule 26. "Every employee must win 'Worker of the Week' at least once, regardless of gross incompetence, obesity, or rank odor." Heh heh heh heh.

2011-09-07T23:31:00.003-04:00

What's wrong with unions. Of particular problem is number 3. A teacher is caught watching porn on his computer. The charges are indisputable, but the teacher/union doesn't think the teacher should be fired, only reprimanded for GETTING CAUGHT WATCHING PORN ON A SCHOOL COMPUTER. I mean beyond the moral implications, this guy should just be fired for plain stupidity. If you are that desperate to watch porn bring your laptop to school, or easier an Iphone. I don't have an iphone, but i assume you can download porn to it, and that would be pretty easy to carry into the bathroom with you where nobody would bother you. Anyway the union put up such a fight that it cost $400,000 to fire this guy. And that's with clear uncontested gross misconduct. Imagine how hard it would be to get rid of a teacher just for completely sucking. I don't have a problem with unions advocating for more money (maybe a little problem with public unions doing it, but even so.) The problem is that unions come up with all sorts of rules that A. make it impossible to ever get rid of a bad employee, and B. make it impossible to ever try to implement new methods of work. The result is to strangle an industry with incompetent employees who cannot be gotten rid of and cannot be required to learn new skills. Which is why private unions are all dying out/going bankrupt. Only public unions with unlimited tax dollars to leach off of can survive.

And if you think naming a destructive storm after a woman is sexist, you obviously have never seen the gals grabbing for items at a clearance sale.

2011-08-30T11:23:00.002-04:00

That's true... but he shouldn't say it.

So my thoughts about the lack of power was realizing just how much of the world runs on power. Wait you mean the air conditioning doesn't work either? It seemed like the whole world was falling apart. No lights, no fridge, no stove and no toilet. Obviously death is was on its way, the only question is how long will we manage to stave it off before the inevitable. Luckily there were ritz crackers and cheeze-its to eat. Plus a giant bag of popcorn leftover from a weekend get together so at least death was not imminent.

But then slowly through trial and error, i came to realize that not everything was shut down by the power outage. Books for example seemed completely unaffected. (At least those made of paper and ink.) I wasn't sure if they had some sort of complete natural immunity to the effects of the power outage, or if they were just resistant and would soon succumb. In either case i decided to take advantage of my find and start reading. I have now successfully finished reading the hobbit in lithuanian. Not the easiest thing ever but you'd be amazed how much of an incentive having nothing else to do is. Likewise while the lightbulbs have been rendered completely nonfunctional, their dullard cousins, the candles and the oil lamp, seem to be if anything brighter than ever. They don't quite make it bright as day like lightbulbs manage to, but cast enough light to play cards after the setting of the great light in the sky.

Yesterday i came to realize that while my own little neck of woods had reverted to the middle ages there were still some places where people managed to live like kings, using electricity without concern. specifically middletown. So i made the sojourn out to find out exactly what the situation was. Not only do they have an entire depository full of books, and lights by which to read them (what a goldmine,) they had actual computers with access to other computers all around the world. So i managed to set my fantasy sports teams and check on the best sandwich recipes to use when your only ingredients are bread and unrefrigerated cold cuts. It turns out the best thing to do is put the cold cuts (no longer cold) on the bread and then eat it. Success. Who said cooking is hard.

Nature also seems largely unaffected. Except for the loss of a couple of orchard trees, admittedly extremely unfortunate, nature just keeps going along. The stars seemed particularly bright last night, possibly the brightest i've ever seen them, as if to say sorry about my half sister irene, she can be a bit of a jerk sometimes when she's drinking. The grass continues to grow, rejoicing in its ability to live without electricity, but its victory is short lived. For while the grass might have thought it had come to a golden age with the demise of electricity, it turns out that the grass's nemesis, the lawn mower, is also functioning as normal and ready to begin a bloody wholesale massacre of the jubilant little grasses.

In conclusion thanks a lot irene for being a big jerk. Knocking out the power is one thing, i get that joke it's kind of funny. Look at all you little goofs so addicted to your electricity, won't it be funny if you had to live just a couple of days without electrical power, the way human beings have had to live for more than 99% of our existence on this planet. And then we all scramble around all frantic and beside ourselves. That's a good one, and i'll give credit where credit is due. But why did you have to knock down our pear tree and our peach tree? That's not funny. We only had 2 pears and peaches left, and now we're down to 1 each. Even if we manage to get new trees to grow (dubious) it will take 10 years for them to get big enough to start producing fruit. That's really a jerky move irene.

Things aren't as happy as they used to be down here at the unemployment office. Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors.

2011-08-22T22:45:00.002-04:00

Useful people are starting to feel the pinch.

Even the new york times is now saying that green jobs have been a failure. (i didn't link to them because who wants to read the new york times, but it's there if you want to look at it.) I think this guy who tends to be very articulate does a good job of pointing out the allure of green jobs to obama/the democrats while also showing why it's complete fools gold.

Do you know how many memories I have? Three! Standing in line for a movie, having a key made, and sitting here talking to you. 38 years and that's all

2011-08-22T21:46:00.003-04:00

I believe aras has been interested in the idea of a medical fountain of youth for some time. This guy is proposing way more than that. The only question is will we live long enough to bathe in the fountain.

Bonus simpsons quotes (i was looking for the one in the title (or similar about the flour bag, etc.) but stumbled across these other awesome ones by accident.)

Bart: Dad what are you doing here?
Homer: Reading about this Edison character. They wont let me in the big people library down town. There was some.. unpleasantless I can never go back.

Homer: And these hearty boys books are great too! This one's about smugglers.
Bart: They're all about smugglers.
Homer: No, not this one: "The Smugglers Of Pirate Cove", it's about pirates.

Or what? You'll release the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths, and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?

2011-08-18T21:04:00.004-04:00

Well, go ahead. Do your worst.

Do my worst", eh? Smithers, release the robotic Richard Simmons.

It's like they are trying to create skynet. This article could be right out terminator II. Learning computers? That's exactly what arnold claims to be.

when a blade of grass rises above the others, do we applaud it? No, we cut it down.

2011-08-18T20:51:00.002-04:00

No need to read all of these articles. But it's a little round up of people fleeing extreme liberal areas that have collapsed, and/or increasing various liberal mandates causing people to flee. Essentially atlas has started to shrug (not really because people are fleeing to some secret location, but rather to less liberal locations around the world, but the effect is the same for liberal areas.

Briton
New York
Greece
Detroit
The states in general

You'd think there would be some sort of lesson here. About how being super liberal and having giant governments causes states to collapse. It happens over and over throughout history, the Soviet Union being the most obvious example. Meanwhile what is government that has collapsed from being too small? I guess you could argue that countries that lost wars should have spend more on bigger armies, but i think for the most part countries spent everything they could on wars and then collapsed from not having anything left to spend, not from not spending enough. Hong Kong and other small government countries are doing pretty good right about now. But what lesson to liberals learn? Obviously they failed countries haven't been spending enough money on the government because if they had been everything would be dandy. More government spending for all.

there's only one sure way to make him realize how much he loves you. And that is a phony kidnapping.

2011-08-18T20:40:00.002-04:00

Jon steward wonders why nobody is paying attention to Ron Paul. While this clip is funny, and i wish ron paul had a chance, the fact of the matter is, he doesn't. To some extent it's a self fulfilling prophesy. Media decides he has no shot so they don't bother to cover him, nobody here's anything about him, they don't know anything about him, so they don't vote for him, hence justifying the media for ignoring him. And maybe that's true, but he's got plenty of other things that make him unelectable. For one he's just too old, nobody is going to elect a 75 year old. Also while libertarianism is a growing brand right now, i just don't think his libertarian views could possibly pull enough in the primaries where religious voters won't back him. Unfortunately religious voters make up such a big segment of the republican population that you have to kowtow to them in the primaries even if it might hurt in the general election.

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

2011-08-17T22:14:00.002-04:00

Well this is crummy news. Watching an hour of tv a day cuts your life expectancy by 22 minutes. So really that hour of tv you watch is wasting more than an hour of your life, it's wasting almost an hour in half. Waste 3 hours watching tv, the 4rth is wasted for free. Of course this is extremely foolish. This study is almost certainly measuring correlation and not causation. The implication is that doing anything for any hour where you are not moving around will cost you 22 minutes of life. So reading for an hour, or blogging for an hour will both cost you 22 minutes. Working at a desk for 8 hours sucks almost 3 hours of your life away. That may be true to some extent, but i doubt these researchers are going to tell kids they should stop reading books (unless they are willing to runaround while reading them of course.) I have read suggestions of getting standing desk so you have to stand over them, instead of sitting at them, and that could be good, but these researchers don't mention it, even though people spend far more time hunched over a desk than watching tv. Ultimately the point of this study is that people who watch the most tv, (as opposed to reading/working at a desk) also tend to be the laziest, and so they probably also exercise the least, eat the worst, have worse jobs, worse health care and die the earliest. That's not exactly news, but it is kind of funny.

Okay, you just bought yourself a 317, pointing out police stupidity.

2011-08-17T22:09:00.003-04:00

Well this sounds like another good use of government resources. Quick, drop everything, somebody is making fun of the police. We need to arrest this person immediately, and then we'll figure out what crime they've committed later. The city attorney who is trying to prosecute this case, and any judge who grants authorization for any kinds of searches or subpoenas should be disbarred. This is a clear indisputable (by reasonable people) violation of the constitution and these people's positions of power. They should at a minimum be fired, and better prosecuted for corruption.

But first, lets check the death count from the killer storm bearing down on us, like a shotgun full of snow.

2011-08-16T22:19:00.004-04:00

Finally!!! The government accomplishes something. It took a year of investigation, and 15 different government agencies working tirelessly in conjunction, including several brave men who offered to put their lives on the line by going under cover, but a dangerous gang of individuals who were selling illegal goods on the streets of california has finally been put away. Thank god we can all rest easy. What were they selling? Coke, Heroine, possibly Swank, (it's 10 times as addictive as marijuana) maybe guns or bomb making equipment. No they were selling unpasteurized milk and cheese. Also they weren't so much selling on the street as in a store. And as it turns out unpasteurized milk is legal in california as long as you have the proper permits, but this group allegedly didn't have the permits. So what is the death count from this deadly barrage of raw milk bearing down on us like a grenade full of cheese? Well as of the now the death count is 0, but it is ready to shoot right up. Damn you cheese!!! Thank god these intrepid government agents spend a year of their life investing this abomination unto humanity. Government salaries for the dozens of operatives working day in and day out on this investigation well worth the millions of dollars as long as we could prevent people from buying raw milk from somebody who hadn't filled out the proper paper work.

Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

2011-08-16T22:06:00.003-04:00

TMQ is generally well written, often hilarious and definitely worth reading if you are into sports. But he does right like million word columns, which is fun if you enjoy sports/his writing, but a bit of a downside if you just want to skim through to see what's funny. There were quite a few good things in this article, but the best was this

"Standard & Poor's Call for U.S. Debt to be Reduced by 10 Quintillion Zimbabwean Dollars: In Zimbabwe this winter, the country's 100 trillion-dollar bill was trading for about $5 US. This means that expressed in Zimbabwean currency, the United States national debt is 240 septillion dollars."

It's funny because it's true.

I want a crystal bucket for my slopwater and a brand new filthy blanket.

2011-08-15T21:48:00.003-04:00

This could be good news. The unfortunate thing about the current economy is that whenever the economy starts looking good oil prices go up and they strangle the economy. The strangling of the economy then causes oil prices to fall. If some big oil developments (or any big energy developments, gas/solar/nuclear) could cause the price of oil/energy to drop it would be a huge boon to the economy both here and world wide (except for maybe places like saudi arabia which are completely reliant on the sale of energy at high prices.) Of course if this oil is close and readily accessible the US would get the biggest boost from the oil sands specifically.

Ach! They call this a soccer riot? Come on, boys, let's take 'em to school!

2011-08-15T21:41:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately Nothing funny or clever for aras to boast his day. Just a recap of media coverage about the tea party vs. coverage of leftist rioters. And of course this opinion is not restricted to the media. If you think of some of the liberals you know (or if yourself a liberal reading this post) you know that many of them (or you) agree. Tea party activist are violent racist bigots, despite not being the cause of any actual violence, deaths, or property damage. But when liberals, or people who represent liberal causes (inner city blacks) are violent and do cause deaths/property damage they are not bad people, but simply an oppressed minority striking out in righteous justice.

Everything changes when you hit the big one-oh. Your legs start to go, candy doesn't taste as good any more...

2011-08-10T23:37:00.003-04:00

Shocking, government interference causes shortages in health care markets? If only there was some way to have foreseen this. Like if only there was a history of government interference causing shortages like in rent controlled housing markets. Obviously the only solution would be for the government to become even more involved, in the health care market so they can solve these issues they've created. In fact we should just put all our health care eggs in the government basket, that's sure to lead to a good outcome. It's sure working out well for the brits, except for the shortages caused from the government being in charge of health care, but as has already been mentioned that is completely unforeseeable.

I am imposing a curfew. Any kid caught on the street after dark will be shot. Or, returned to their parents, as the situation may warrant.

2011-08-10T23:27:00.003-04:00

Occasions like this cry out for a return to corporal punishment. This huge increase of flash mobs of groups of teenagers getting together and committing crimes (mostly groups of black teenagers attacking non blacks.) Obviously something needs to be done to discourage this kind of behavior, but even if we could there's no point in imprisoning all of them. The best solution is that anyone who is caught being part of a violent flash mob simply has some sort of corporal punishment. Nothing too extreme no scarlet letter of anything, maybe just a nice paddling.

Nothing get's chocolate out, see.

2011-08-10T00:10:00.003-04:00

Interesting article about the possible exercise benefits of eating dark chocolate. It's not clear if the chocolate helps with only muscle fatigue, or could also help with muscle strength. In the actual article (which is linked to by this site) it suggests that the chemical in chocolate induces the growth of more mitochondrias in the mice's muscles which helps provide energy to the muscle which helps prevent exhaustion. Nice for distance running, like the rats were doing, but maybe not as helpful for people trying to build muscle mass. Anyway the suggestion is to eat 5 grams, 1/6th of an ounce, of dark chocolate a day (which is not very much) if you eat more than it might undue and helpful effects. Milk chocolate is not helpful.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

2011-08-10T00:08:00.002-04:00

This guy is hilarious. I've read some of his stuff before, he did in fact make me laugh out loud. Highly recommended. In fact, I'm going to go back through some of his archived stuff to read because i really enjoy his style.

The most rewarding part, was when he gave me my money.

2011-08-09T00:20:00.003-04:00

Well the bad news is i have no control over whether or not i live to be insanely old. It's been predetermined in my genes, and nothing i do matters. The good news is that i have no control over whether or not i live to be insanely old, and nothing i do matters. So might as well start that all bacon diet i've been contemplating. (Probably won't do it for a while, but sometime before i die i do plan to eat nothing but pork products for a whole month, and see how it goes. Man, that's going to be an assume month. I'll inundated in bacon, sausage, and ham)

Up and away in my beautiful my beautiful motor boat! Da da da da!

2011-08-05T23:39:00.002-04:00

So here's a bit from the simpsons, enjoy that first. (from snpp which i use for all my simpsons needs.)

Bart: But we didn't enter any police raffle.
Homer: That doesn't matter, the important thing is we won.
[parks]
Marge: I don't know, there's something very peculiar about
this!
Homer: Sheesh! You're the most paranoid family I've ever been
affiliated with. [gets out]
-- Care-free Homer, "Lisa the Skeptic"

% Snake beat Homer to the station, but Homer tries to cut to the front of
% the line.

I'd like a yellow boat please, with extra motors.
-- Homer knows what he wants, "Lisa the Skeptic"

Snake: Yo! No cuts bro! Where's my motor boat pig?
Wiggum: Right through that door [he laughs. Snake enters we hear screams.]
Wiggum: Alright, Simpson, Homer. Your'e next.
Homer: Wohoo! [goes through] Howdy gents. I'm hear to collect my free...
[they get him] Oh, oh, my boating arm. What's going on?
-- He walked right into it, "Lisa the Skeptic"

Wiggum: Your'e under arrest slimebag, what's this punk in here for Lou?
Lou: 235 unpaid parking tickets, totalling $175.
Wiggum: I hope you brought your'e check book, wiseguy.
Homer: [gets it out his back pocket.] You lousy cops. Lucky for you I'm
double parked. [gives him check] Now, can I please have my motor boat?
-- Uh, sir, you didn't quite get the point, "Lisa the Skeptic"

% Within no time, our favorite family are driving home. Homer isn't happy
% about what happened, and seems to be giving everyone the silent treatment.

Bart: Dad, why arn't you saying anything? Where's our motorboat?
Homer: I didn't like it. The mast had termites.
Lisa: Why would a motor boat have a mast?
Homer: Because... the thingy was... shut up!

You might think think Homer acts so stupidly it couldn't happen in real life, but that's where you'd be wrong. Now read this article, and enjoy. As usual it turns out the simpsons is funny because it's true.

that's the saltiest thing I've ever tasted! And I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt!"

2011-08-04T23:08:00.002-04:00

It's nice to know after years of public indoctrination that in fact salt is not bad for you, and there was never any actual evidence that salt was bad for anybody. But since some time in the 20th century the government decided it was their job to start telling people how to live and had to come up with stuff for people not to eat salt made the list. Similarly despite a complete lack of evidence (in fact despite evidence to the contrary) the government decided that fat was bad for people and commissioned all manner of studies to prove that fat was bad for people only to continually fail to prove that there is anything wrong with fat. Meanwhile they managed to jump of the carb bandwagon only now to have us find out that all those carbs are what made america so very fat. Carbs were good because they were cheap and full of calories. Only it turns out that they make people fat because they are cheap and full of calories. Well done government. I can't wait to see what plan you come up with next.

Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so that it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be

2011-08-04T22:55:00.003-04:00

extracted for our personal use.

This sounds good, lets be more like them. Lets have governmental healthcare for all that will restrict people's access to medical treatment based off of what government managers think is worthwhile and cost effective care. Now this isn't to suggest that in a free market system people could get all the surgery and medical treatment they want. Or that you wouldn't have some corporate beauracrat going 5 layers deep to find a reason why the insurance company doesn't have to pay for your surgery. But the nice thing about private companies is that there's more than one of them. If you think one of them is doing a bad job you can switch, and if enough people do then it will go bankrupt. No such like with the government. You are unfortunately pretty much stuck with the mess they put you in.

The further point is that this idea of unlimited medical treatment is really just crazy. No society is going to be able to maintain unlimited medical treatment for all. Treatment has to be restricted either by how much a person can afford to pay, or by government waitlist like the one in this article. I guess some people may prefer the latter to the former, they know they won't be able to pay anyway, so might as well take their chances with the waitlist. I just wish people who promote the waitlist strategy would at least be honest about what's going on instead of pretending that we can have unlimited healthcare for all. What if someone thought we should have unlimited food for all. That anybody should be allowed to just show up to a supermarket take whatever food they want and the government will pay for it. Would anybody think that was a good idea? because i'm pretty sure they wouldn't. There's a difference between having soup kitchens which can provide basic food, and having a complete unlimited supply for people. There's a difference between a 70 year old break his leg and having it set at tax payer expense, plus some pain killers to go with it, or the tax payers paying $500,000 for an 80 year old to get a new heart. Maybe medicare could continue to exist in a greatly reduced form or in some sort of capped system, but the rate it's going now is obviously unsustainable.

Won't somebody please think of the children.

2011-08-03T22:02:00.002-04:00

This is another in the series of adults trying to destroy children's childhoods because of their own phobias and insecurities. Note, children are not adults. They do not act or react to situations like adults. You should not treat them as if they are adults. My main pet peeve is when kindergartners get expelled for sexual harassment or something because a little boy/girl touched somebody else's butt, or some other stupid thing. But this is just as bad, and if the research is accurate parents are in fact doing a serious disservice to their children by trying to protect them. (Not in this article, but i've read similarly that not letting children ever play in the dirt or do the various crazy non hygienic things kids do can hinder them from developing proper immunities/resistances to diseases/etc.) Kids have been growing up for 1,000s of years in roughly the same fashion exposed to all sorts of dangers/violence/etc. why is it that all the sudden we believe kids can't handle it and need to be protected from it at all costs. (admittedly for 1,000s of years child mortality rates were much higher, but their a difference between having modern medicine/measles inoculations/good nutrition/etc. and not letting a kid play on the monkey bars.) I guess i can't really blame parks and schools if they are getting sued when a kid falls and breaks his arm, but i can blame a court system that seems to feel that every time somebody is hurt somebody else must be to blame, and must be made to pay. And i can blame parents who would sue over their kid getting hurt and parents who would make a big stink about kids safety.

On a similar note I watched an episode of the closer recently and a kid goes missing at the beginning of the episode after which the father blames the mother (who also blames herself) because she let the 9 year old ride his bike 2 blocks to the summer camp unsupervised. Really? 2 blocks? Since when can a kid not go 2 blocks on his bike? First off it's barely worth getting onto a bike for 2 blocks, but beyond that it's certainly not worth owning a bike if you parents are afraid to let you ride more than a block away. Somehow we want to on the one hand treat children like adults and demand that they act like adults. But on the other hand we want to treat them like babies and supervise their every action. Just like them be normal kids.

That's his stomach eating itself.

2011-08-03T20:54:00.003-04:00

So good news for all of us dieters. It turns out the reason we are hungry while we are dieting is because our brains are litterally eating themselves. I don't know what that is supposed to mean for our future thinking abilities, i take it not many brain cells are consumed, probably not any different than getting drunk which also kills brain cells.

Are you kidding me? This baby is off the charts.

2011-08-02T22:44:00.002-04:00

It's nice to see the government is out doing the hard work of making the country better for us ordinary citizens. I'm not even going to comment further for fear of blowing up the sarcasm

When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power... like God must feel when he's holding a gun.

2011-07-27T22:31:00.002-04:00

So when police officers not allowed to carry weapons they have trouble apprehending armed men? Well this is really a shocking development. If some of the people there had been armed, it also wouldn't have been so easy for this guy to just keep around shooting people with impugnity. I like the norwegians quote he would rather live in a country where the cops are unarmed because it sends a signal that it's a peaceful society. That would be nice if it was a peaceful society. I would also like to live in a society where cops don't need to carry weapons because people are killing each other, but that's not the society we live. This article doesn't mention anything about what is leading to the uptick in violent crime, it might be interesting to look at what's causing it. I would put immigration and bad economy as my 2 prime suspects without any knowledge. Some people might try to blame violent movies or some other thing. But in the meantime police officers should have guns. If you want to say not every police officers needs a gun, maybe i could get behind that. I can also believe taht having guns makes cops feel important and encourages them to act in more abusive ways towards the non armed people they are supposed to protect. So if you want to say only police officers who go through extensive extra gun training/pass various tests/whatever can carry guns that might be okay, but there needs to be a significant number of cops who have a gun readily available. (Of course i also would encourage a better armed citizenry, but that's a whole other issue.) Maybe there is nobody else in the country who has any interest in going on a killing rampage, but if there is even 1 or 2 others in the whole country, the ease with which this guy did is likely to encourage others to try. The now know there will be little to no resistance. Norway can keep living in a dream world where nobody ever attacks each other, but that dream is going to turn into a nightmare for the people who are attacked and have nobody to defend them.

Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it

2011-07-19T22:23:00.002-04:00

Another Stunning success for green jobs of the future. No wait, what's that other word, oh yeah failure. Of course this isn't unique to green business that's just an added bonus. Towns try to lure in new businesses by promising them money, business come, soak up the money and go bust. It was basically steve and barry's whole business model. Everyone wondered how they could sell clothes so cheap. It turned out they were selling so cheap because towns kept paying them to move in, and they would live off of that money. Until eventually there were no new towns, and not enough revenue from their stores, and they went bankrupt.

Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby, but with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my own crapulence.

2011-07-13T22:34:00.004-04:00

It almost seems cruel to continue to mock Krugman. He has lost so much credibility already that it's not entirely clear that there remains any point to pointing out his inconsistency it's like taking candy from a baby. On the other hand although i did quite a bit of mocking of him earlier, it's been several months plus he was a nobel prize winning economists, and still pretends that he's a serious person. I don't know, maybe in his own mind he still is a serious person. I don't see that anybody else could read what he writes and take it seriously, but the New York times continues to print it, so he (and by extensions them for continuing to employ him) must be mocked every once in a while as a reminder. What's particularly perplexing is that his columns are not just inconsistent or poorly thought out when writing about some sort of moral or philosophical problem, but when attacking specific economic issues like this. It makes you wonder how he could win a nobel prize for economics when he can't even keep his own thoughts consistent on the economic issues. Maybe he won one for work they thought he would do in the future, just like obama won one because everyone figured he would end US wars. But then instead Obama increased US wars (Libya, Somalia, etc.) claimed that they didn't even count as wars, and as such he could make the decisions entirely unilaterally and decide on his own recognizance to send drones off to bomb people. Maybe it turns out krugman is as bad an economist as Obama is a peacemaker only as it turns out the Nobel prize picking committee is even worse at picking nobel prize winners than obama is at fostering peace, or krugman is at economics.

I'm going to come back with the greatest gift a husband can give his wife: An annulment from his secret wife...

2011-07-13T00:12:00.005-04:00

Mr. Simpson, under Nevada law, bigamy, or Mormon hold'em, is perfectly legal. Both marriages stand.

I have long said that although i support gay marriage in theory i am not that upset about not having gay marriage because supporters of gay marriage fail to advocate for similar rights for polygamists. Either the government has the authority to regulate marriage or they do not, if they do not that polygamist marriages should be just as legitimate as gay marriage or straight marriage. If they do then they have the right to ban gay marriage just as much as banning polygamist marriage. But this article reminds us that beyond the right to marry, polygamists don't even have the right to live together in peace. Because of common law marriage rules in some states a man can be declared to be married to multiple women if he is living with them and then he can charged with polygamy, which is a crime. This has happened. That even though they are just trying to live peacefully, not even trying to claim they should be allowed multiple government recognized marriages, just that they want to be left in peace. Polygamist rights are where gay rights were 40 years ago when sodomy was illegal, and cops could arrest gay guys just for having sex with each other if they wanted. So all those activist upset with government intruding in people's personal lives should stop worrying about getting gays the rights to marry and start worrying about getting polygamists the rights to live without government persecution. (or better yet, worry about both, but that seems beyond them.)

I'm having a little trouble with the government. Oh, those jerks, always walking over the small businessman. Don't get me started about the government

2011-07-11T00:29:00.003-04:00

Why are governments allowed to get away with being so stupid. Since when does suitable mean common? That's just bizarre. On a list of the word suitable's synonyms common would not be in the top ten. Suitable means appropriate, not common. Now just think to yourself what would happen if this was a private company. Not that a private company could put somebody in jail, but if they mistreated some customer and claimed that because of some bylaw in their code book they had acted appropriately. And people said hey that's crazy, that doesn't make any sense, and it got into the newspapers and lots of people found out about it. A private company would apologize. They would say sorry for the mistake, we didn't mean any offense and we will look into updating out procedures so we don't have this kind of a mistake again. Or something along those lines. But does the government have to apologize? No, of course not. They claim they were right all along and come up with some convoluted theory about the meaning of words to justify putting somebody in prison. Similar things are playing out on a bigger scale right now. Are atlanta politicains/unionized teachers going to be punished for systemic cheating on standardized tests? Is the federal government going to be held responsible for letting guns be sold illegally and moved to mexico all the while under the watch of ATF agents? Are police ever held responsible when they deliver a no knock raid at at the wrong address, mistake a guy holding a remote for a gun and shoot and innocent man to death? No of course not. Those are all terrible accidents for which nobody should be held responsible. But rupert murdoch's company get's caught up in some wiretapping scandal (i haven't really followed the details because i don't care) and the company needs to be dismantled and everyone needs to lose their jobs and possibly go to prison. An innocent guy sitting at home has his home broken into by armed men who don't say what they are doing and defends himself by shooting one of them only to find later they were police delivering a no knock warrant, he needs to go to prison too. He should have known better than try to defend himself against armed men breaking into his home unannounced. But not the government, or government employees. They are immune to repercussions for their actions. In fact it's actually written into the law that government employees can't be sued for terrible behavior because they work for the government after all. If somebody else did it, it would be a crime and you could sue them, but because it's a government employee well we just couldn't allow that. How is this a democracy? Do a majority of people really think this a good idea?

I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. Well, goodbye.

2011-07-09T00:49:00.003-04:00

First off, i don't understand why anybody cares about the casey anthony case. In case anybody doesn't know, she is a 25 year who is accused of murdering her toddler child and recently was aquitted by a jury. A lot of people seem convinced she was guilty. Okay maybe she was, so what. There what 10,000 a 100,000 murders in the country a year, meanwhile for some reason this one is so important that this woman is going to be getting multi-million dollar deals for her story/appearing on various shows. And this isn't just a consequence of the outcome, this case was enormous the whole time. So she was convicted of lying to the police instead and will be let out soon because of time already served. But on a more important note it brings us to this article. people care so much about this girl getting off that they want to create new laws that she could have been charged with. This and similar laws ought to be unconstitutional. The purpose of this law is specifically to punish someone for a crime which cannot be proven. If police think that a woman killed her child, but cannot prove it they will try to use this law to punish her instead. That is only purpose of this law. The same thing goes on with anti-gun laws. Mobsters are killing people/dealing drugs/etc. and so the government wants to put them in jail. But they cannot prove the crimes against them, so they create artificially large punishments for basic gun law violations. Which is why plexico burress (football player) was sent to prison for 2 years. Because they set up automatic prison terms for anyone with an unregistered gun so that whenever they pick up a drug dealer or mobster with a gun, now they can imprison them without having to prove any charges against them. Ditto perjury trials against baseball players who used steroids. They couldn't prove that barry bonds had illegally used steroids, so they tried to imprison him for lying about using steroids. First off his crime is using steroids, you should try him for that or nothing, charging him with lying about his crime is bogus. Second if you are going to make an ass of yourself doing that you better at least win (which they didn't.) Third end result? The government spent $50,000,000 trying to put barry bonds in prison for lying about using steroids and failed. Job well done. Anyway back to the issue, all these laws are created not with the purpose of protecting citizens, or preventing crime, but imprisoning people. That should not be allowed.

a gun is not a weapon, it's a tool, like butcher's knife, or a harpoon, or ah... an alligator.

2011-07-06T00:40:00.002-04:00

If I was a woman living in or near detroit i would definitely want to own a gun. Frankly if i was a 6 foot 2, 200 pound man living in or near detroit i would definitely want to own a gun. It's important to realize with all the anti gun feelings going on, that widespread adoption of firearms is the best thing a feminist could hope for. It evens the playing field. A man is not stronger or faster than a woman with a gun. There is plenty of interesting historical research of the correlation between the rise of the gun and the rise of democracy. Specifically that the ease of using the gun empowered peasants to stand up for themselves in a way that was far more difficult when fighting was done hand to hand. Peasants had neither the weapons nor the training to fight professional knights, and so had little option to stand up for themselves. While it might also have been difficult for them to get their hands on guns, once they did they could not be easily stopped. With no guns the weak are at the mercy of the strong, be it women to men, or weak men/elderly/disabled, etc. But once armed even someone who is wheel chair bound can defend himself against a mugger. Also plenty of studies showing that areas with looser gun laws, and a higher percentage of the population with a gun have lower crime rates. Even criminals would rather not deal with people who have guns.

Won't somebody please think of the children.

2011-07-04T23:37:00.003-04:00

More shocking news. School systems in wisconsin (and therefore students) are better off now that unions have been curbed. Shocking i know. Although i don't think even unions would have argued that cutting union power could possibly hurt students in the short run. That's just crazy. The unions/teachers position aught to be that in the long term you won't get as many good teachers because people who might have become teachers will decide against it when they realize the poor wages/treatment non unionized teachers have. I'm not sure i believe that, but it's a legitimate argument. But in the short term teachers don't have anywhere to go. The same teachers will be teaching next year as last year, only now they will make less money which leaves more money for the school. To hire more teachers, or get new books/computers, or whatever. We have yet to see what the future holds for wisconsin teachers. When measured in absolute terms they rank as one of the better states for education, but when measurements are controlled for race they fall way down the list. (They have all white kids who generally perform better than hispanics or african americans but their white kids don't do better than most other states, and the hispanic and african american kids they have don't do better either. So once race is controlled for the performance is really mediocre.) I'm sure their will be a lot of eyes on wisconsin and what test results are in the next few years. This may give teachers the perverse motivation to do a bad job so kids do poorly and they can blame this change in the law. On the other hand they may fear for their job and thus work harder to make sure the kids do well. We'll just wait and see.

The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

2011-07-02T00:13:00.002-04:00

Of course. Now i get it. To prevent people from using race as a determing factor in a person qualification is unconstitutionally racist. Because if we don't use race to determine a persons qualification then we are unconstitutionally discriminating against them because of their race. No wait. How does this make sense again? It's one thing to support affirmative action and say it's a good thing if harvard decides they want to use affirmative action. It's quite another for a federal court system to tell a state it is illegal for them to ban race determination in their college admissions. An overwhelming majority of michigan voters decided they don't think it's appropriate for their state schools to determine admissions based on race, and a couple of federal judges get to overrule the entire state based on what exactly? It's just silly. Nor does preventing race determination actually prevent schools from encouraging kids who grew up in bad situations. They can still use low income affirmative action, inner city affirmative action, didn't grow up in a stable family affirmative action. The only difference is that that way rich black kids won't get preferential treatment over poor white kids. Is that's racist because?

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

2011-07-01T00:06:00.001-04:00

I enjoyed this guy rant.

Dad, do I have to brush my teeth? No, but at least rinse your mouth out with soda.

2011-06-30T23:32:00.002-04:00

Shocking Who would have ever thought diet soda was bad for you? Oh i don't know maybe everybody. Those fake sugars are worse for you than normal natural sugar. "I think prudence would dictate drinking water." How about you just drink soda on occasion as a treat, instead of chugging it down. I don't drink much soda, it's too sweet for me, (I also cut all my juices with water) but for those who like it there's nothing wrong with soda or juice any more than there is something wrong with ice cream or bacon or candy. Just don't make it your primary nutritional source. It's like that movie supersize me. The idea of eating nothing but McDonalds is just so completely bizzare, but if you want to do it, eat it in moderation don't stuff yourself stupid (as we saw in all the replies to supersize me where people eat nothing but McDonalds and lost weight because excersized and didn't eat 5,000 calories a day.) Or you can eat like crazy just excersize it off, like Phelps

You can stand there finding fault, or you can knit me some seatbelts.

2011-06-29T22:40:00.003-04:00

For any of my readers who like to ride bicycles (aras.) “There’s as much penis inside the body as outside,” probably more if you've got a small penis. I don't ride bicycles anymore, but if i did i would certainly take a look at this. Seems like pretty clear evidence that you are doing something to your penis, it may not be permanent damage, but who wants to risk it. If you were a professional cyclist maybe the risk would be worthwhile, but for a normal person, not way. Plus i suspect that cyclist don't actually gain any advantage from the penis crusher. They are used to riding a certain way and indeed they use some muscles that they couldn't with these other seats, but these other seats would probably allow them to use more ass muscles or something, balancing it out if you were used to it.

What is it with you kids and that word? I'm going to shave you bald, young man, until you learn that hair is not a right: it's a privilege!

2011-06-28T00:56:00.005-04:00

So a court has ruled that principals can't punish students for making fun of them online. What? How was this ever an issue? Who thinks it's a good idea for principals to have the power to punish kids for what they do at home? I suppose principals should also be allowed to punish kids for not eating all their vegetables, or playing violent video games. This is just crazy. And the worse part is that they had to have this ruling because the 3rd circuit ruled in 2 different ways, so one group of judges actually ruled that the principal should be allowed to suspend a student for making fun of him on facebook. So they got everyone from the 3rd circuit together and decided by the slimmest possible margin (8-6) that was crazy. Who are these 6 judges who think that public school officials should have the right to get involved in a students personal life. Once a kid leaves school anything he does is his/his parents own business (or maybe the police if there is a crime involved, but in these cases there wasn't.) This is part of the continuing mistreatment of children that goes on in this country because they can't vote. Because children can't vote nobody minds trampling their rights. The fact that they are citizens and entitled to the same rights as adults is meaningless because they can't vote to punish those who would ignore those rights.

Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!

2011-06-24T00:28:00.002-04:00

I'm not going to link the article because the link is like 5 lines long, but "the average Chicago household now owes a staggering $63,525 to cover local government debt, according to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas." Well that's good news. Now that's just the local city government mind you. Then you've got State debt on top of that (and in Illinois, that is substancial) plus federal debt which is 45,000 per person, 130,000 per tax payer (and that's only money that's already been spent, that doesn't count promises made to social security/medicare/pensions/etc.) If you figure 1.5 tax payers per household than that's 195,000 plus the local debt is 260,000 plus it's got to be at least 40,000 for the state, which brings the total to over 300,000. Plus all the money that has been promised out in future payments. Now take a second and think. Where is all this money going to come from. People in greece are now outraged saying why should my taxes be raised, why should my pension be cut, i didn't do anything wrong, i didn't steal any money. This is that money. Everyone in this whole country has stolen this money, or at least allowed politicians to steal it on their behalf. this money has all been stolen from the future and your children and your children's children will all be paying it off unfortunately for much more than 3 months. This money has to come from somewhere eventually. And nobody is going to accept any tears when the bill comes due, just like greece's bill came due. When all these numbers are thrown around in billions and trillions i understand it can be hard to follow, but this is how much you personally, your household owes. Can you pay that kind of money? You are already on the hook for that, its been spent. Your drunk friend the government already bought shots of 100 year old scotch from everybody and the bill is coming. the only thing you can do now is keep them from ordering another round (which senate democrats have just asked for by the way.)

If I didn't have this gun, the King of England could just walk in here any time he wants, and start shoving you around. Do you want that? Huh? Do you?

2011-06-22T00:57:00.004-04:00

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/King-Co-requires-life-vests-for-swimmers-1432255.php

Well this makes sense. Obviously people could never be trusted to make their own decisions on whether or not they know how to swim. Also we should have laws requiring tooth brushing. I bet people in that state don't even brush their teeth every night. Lets assign police officers to go door to door and do teeth brushing inspections. In fact, better yet, lets just have the government monitor every actions of every person to make sure they never do anything silly or stupid. It will be like the truman show, only instead of watching for entertainment, government employees will watch to find actions that can be fined, and make money for the government by sending out fines to everyone. Or you know we could just agree to live in a country where the government doesn't have the right to tell you how to run your own life, but i guess people have gotten tired of that. After a few hundred years it gets old and people long for the good old days when the king could make you do anything he wanted to on whim, just because he was the king. Can't have a king today so we'll just have a committee that fulfills the same purpose.

It's funny. Their clothes are different from my clothes.

2011-06-21T00:17:00.002-04:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,769329,00.html

I haven't read this whole article yet, (it's 5 pages so be aware before you get started.) It's about the problems the Euro is facing, and the problems European unity in general is facing with the collapse of the Euro. Seems kind of like the idea was a group of friends wanted to go into business together because they thought it would bring them all closer together, and it worked for a while. But then it turns out a couple of the friends have been misusing company funds, and/or creating all kinds of shit where ever they go. And now if they can't get it all together the business is going to split up, and they will all end up worse off friendship wise than ever. It will be interesting to see what LT does is the Euro is disbanded. Will they tie their currency to the dollar again, or tie it to some stable european currency like the mark or the pound, or just let it float freely? It might be good for them if the litas depreciated a little because it was tied to the dollar while the dollar was going up, and then they decoupled and attached to the euro just before it started going up with the result that the currency has appreciated quite a bit.

To the book depository

2011-06-15T23:58:00.002-04:00

http://www.baen.com/HeinleinQuiz.asp

For anybody who considers themselves a Heinlein fan. I got 8 of the 20 wrong. which is not great. There are some books they ask about that i have never read, and there are a lot of personal questions that i really just had to guess on. So, give it a shot.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

2011-06-15T01:16:00.002-04:00

http://www.space.com/11960-fading-sunspots-slower-solar-activity-solar-cycle.html

This isn't exactly a new story. Anecdotal evidence of decreasing sunspots has been going on for years. But this is the first i've seen of scientific explanation of what forces/changes on the sun may be responsible for the changing sunspots. The article doesn't specify, but in case anybody is not aware, the maunder minimum coincided with what is known as the mini ice age. Whether those 2 events are directly linked, or just coincidental is up for debate, but i seems pretty reasonable to assume that any changes in the sun that are important enough to significantly reduce sunspots, could be significant enough to effect the temperature on earth. So it is a reasonable leap to make that if we are in fact facing another maunder minimum we are likely to see significantly lower temperature in the near features. (there may also be debate about whether the mini ice age was world wide, or just northern hemisphere, but in either case europe/north america seem likely to be on the docket for big chills.)

How is education supposed to make me feel smarter?

2011-06-13T23:42:00.002-04:00

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/06/university-administrators-will.html

Quick and easy explanation for why higher education has gotten so expensive. It's no longer about education. The big money isn't spent on educators, but on administrators to navigate legal issues, and assist various minority student groups on campus. Alcohol awareness programs, and other nonsense. At northwestern a kid drank himself to death, so northwestern ended up paying his parents 2 million dollars, and agreeing to a whole host of stupid anti alcohol policies for which they will need to hire a bunch more administrators. The education part isn't that expensive, it's the baby sitting that is so pricey.

Lamentably, no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satiety.

2011-06-09T01:14:00.002-04:00

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1447/saturday-night-live-taco-town

I was just internetting, and came across some list of foods that sound made up, but are real (like the bacon explosion) and it reminded me of this. One of the better fake commercials, because it taco bell really was doing that with all their commercials, layering one taco onto another, and another. Hilarious.

That's not a job, it's a waste of time. What can poor people pay you? Nothing! What satisfaction you get from helping them? None!

2011-06-08T00:26:00.002-04:00

Who wants to help poor people anyway? Nobody!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/crime/os-homeless-feedings-arrests-20110601,0,7226362.story

It's clear that these people were intentionally breaking the law, after that law was upheld in court. So i can't exactly blame the cops for arresting them. But why is there a law against feeding people. Who does this law help. Whose going around saying, "you know what's wrong with society. All these people going around feeding the homeless. We need to put a stop to that." This is just stupid. Why do we have these laws preventing consenting adults from interacting with each other. I realize you need to have laws against giving away bad food. If for example some people put exlax in some food and then fed it homeless people because they thought it was a funny joke, i could see that as being a problem. But assuming there are no complaints about the food, who is being hurt? Any activity that doesn't hurt anybody should not be illegal.

Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be

2011-06-07T00:34:00.002-04:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394945/The-green-killer-Scores-protected-golden-eagles-dying-colliding-wind-turbines.html

The law of unintended consequences strikes again. People always have the best intentions when they come up with their various ideas, the problem always is that they don't foresee all the consequences of their ideas. Of course if global warming is really going to destroy the planet, than causing the extinction of the golden eagle, and or the condor is a small price to pay. But i highly doubt that the advocates of these wind farms realized or would have admitted that killing of these bird species was a possibility. If someone wants to drill for oil someplace and there's a chance that the drilling could be harmful to an endangered species, the EPA blocks the drilling. But now that it's a green friendly energy system that is harming an endangered species. Oh well, that's too bad. We'll try to use it less during heavy migration times.

Jimmy Carter? He's history's greatest monster.

2011-06-05T22:53:00.002-04:00

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/yearbook-causes-controversy-afer-it-names-george-w-bush-in-list-of-worst-people-of-all-time

Really? Listing a former US president and vice president on the same list of worst people hitler osama bin laden and charles manson has upset people? That is shocking. What i don't understand about this story is how that list ever got into the year book in the first place. Obviously nobody wants to accept responsibility so everybody has ducked the question, but somebody had to put it in there. It didn't just appear on its own. Either a teacher or a student took the initiative to put it in there. I would hope it was a student because a teacher ought to know better. Of course some teachers is supposed to oversee it i'm sure, but if there is some goody two shoes student who was in charge of putting it together, and the teacher only skimmed it because they figured the it was a good student i guess i can understand. Meanwhile said student is probably a hyperliberal who has actually been raised to believe that bush is evil and thought nothing of it.

As was just listening to wicked today and was thinking about how this is what's wrong with politics today. Too many people jump to the conclusion that somebody they don't agree with is evil or terrible. That's not to say there aren't any politicians who i think are truly terrible politicians, and also bad people, but the majority of them are doing what they think is good for the country. But if you only listen to one side (as happens in wicked when everyone listens to the wizard's PR director) then you are likely to conclude that the people on the other side are evil and intentionally ruing the country, and then you don't feel bad about demonizing and spitting all kinds of bile about them, and then you start to think that anybody who could support this vile evil politician must be a terrible person too, and pretty soon the whole country ends up hating each other. Take a lesson from wicked, or from the dragon lance book the doom brigade and realize life isn't all black and white. people aren't all good or evil, and those who try to paint people as good and evil are doing it for their own purposes.

Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding. Unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.

2011-06-01T00:40:00.002-04:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20067591-503544.html

Poor media. They are just trying to do their duty as journalists, and that mean old sarah palin won't tell them where she's going. CBS singing a sob story for it's poor reporters who can't keep track of palin is among the most off putting things i can read about it. As if these CBS people are mother teresa just trying to educate the american public about the politics of the day and Sarah palin is viciously and without cause blocking their every attempt. They should feel like paparazzi, because that is exactly what they are. They are not covering politics, sarah palin is make any political speeches, or giving her opinions about the pressing matters of the day. They are just covering a star and tracking her every move to get people to read the dirt they dig up on her. I'm no big sarah palin fan, but anybody who can get under the mass media's skin like this, is okay by me.

I like my tv loud, my beer cold, and my homosexuals flaming.

2011-06-01T00:33:00.002-04:00

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Gay-Student-Crowned-Prom-Queen-at-Va-High-School-122872164.html

I'm sure some will feel like this progress for gay rights, that this gay boy was accepted in his community and voted prom queen. That is completely backwards. This is a man. As far as the article says there is no suggestions that he is a transexual and is planning to have a sex change operation to being a girl. What might be progress is if a gay man were voted prom king. Instead, this simply promotes stereotypes about gays as being effeminate and not masculine. And certainly many people in america claim that the male dominated society treats women as being less than men. I'm not sure i agree with that, but for anybody who does it should be pointed out that this lowers the value of a gay man, as not actually being a man, but being closer to a woman. For reasons that are entirely unclear to me this idea of the extremely effeminate and even predatory gay kid who secretly lusts after straight kids (which seems like it should be the height of offensive) has been accepted by the gay community as being a positive image of gayness, as portrayed by the gay character on glee. What if instead we just had a gay person who was not particularly different from the american norm, except that instead of being attracted to women he was attracted to men.

Won't somebody please think of the children.

2011-05-27T00:31:00.003-04:00

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sebelius-early-learning-initiatives-need

What exactly is the indication that a 5 year old is not ready for kindergarten? Is it possibly that the kid is 5 years old. Why would anyone expect a 5 year old to have the ability to sit still? That's just stupid. America is lagging behind much of the rest of the world in education, is there some sign that children in other countries have improved sitting still capabilities than american children? Somehow i doubt it. Why have adults forgotten in the past 25 years that children are children, not adults. All the sudden it has become a sin for a child to act like a child. Punishment is required for any child who cannot behave to the level that would be expected of an adult (despite the fact that many adults are themselves not capable of behaving properly.) How about instead we just let kids grow up and learn about the world the old fashioned way, by being kids. This is just another excuse to spend money for no purpose other than to spend money.

And what if we've picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder?

2011-05-24T22:39:00.003-04:00

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/family-man-burned-after-prayer-group-dispute-20110523

Well this sounds like a good plan. Because jews don't have enough problems already, so they should start lighting each other on fire in disputes about where they pray. I don't tend to be super anti religion, i'm not very religious, but for people who enjoy it good for them. But it seems like so many of the worst things that people do, whether it's the muslims, or this, or looking back at history etc. religion is behind so many of them. I guess that's not fair because communism certainly has more than it's fair share of atrocities, but jebus. Is where another jew prays really worth lighting him on fire over.

I don't have any opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else and everyone is the best at everything.

2011-05-24T22:33:00.002-04:00

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_INDIA_SEX_SELECTIVE_ABORTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-24-06-48-11

I'm pretty sure i've written about this before, but it bears repeating, you can't have it both ways. Feminists cannot say on the one hand that a woman has a right to decide what to do with her body, but then be upset if she uses that right to abort girls. Homosexuals are likewise up in arms about finding a gay gene. Because although a gay gene might prove that being gay is not a choice, but rather a way you are born like eye color, they are afraid that if a gay gene is found it will lead to gay abortions. Either a fetus has a right to life, or it doesn't. The idea that gay or female babies should have special rights against being aborted is just childish.

Suggestion noted.

2011-05-20T20:27:00.003-04:00

http://bigpeace.com/dfriedman/2011/05/20/netanyahu-urges-u-s-return-to-1845-borders/

Funny because true. This might make sense if Israel had initiated the 6 days war, claimed more territory, and now to get peace the palestinians want that land back. That's not what happened. Israel was attacked. Israel was attacked and they won the war, and as part of the war settlement these lands were ceded to Israel. By what possible logic do palestinians now get to come back and say you know what we really would like it if you just pretended that you were never attacked and that the land was never ceded to you. The idea that Israel should be required to do anything to have peace is stupid. When has Israel ever started a war? Israel would have been happy to have peace from the beginning, it's the arab countries that find reason after reason to have war. Arab countries have never wanted, and will never want peace with Israel. Nobody what Israel does there will be war. This is no different than appeasement with Obama playing the role of Neville Chamberlin. Peace in our times.

As a side note, i don't understand why jewish people vote overwhelmingly for democrats/Obama. I guess it remains to be seen if they will continue to support him, but i would never support a politician who treated Lithuania the way Obama treats Israel. I guess a lot of american jews don't care about Israel, and/or don't believe they have a right to exist, and so don't mind having Iran wipe them out. There was discussion before his presidency if Obama was a muslim. I don't think he's a muslim, he's probably an atheist who goes to church for political reasons. But it's clear that he is far more sympathetic to muslims than he is to jews or christians. Possibly because of growing up in indonesia, or maybe just because of his political beliefs. Regardless Lithuanian americans put their time and money behind freeing lithuania from soviet control. American jews could have a very strong voice in supporting Israel if they wanted to, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for them.

The fingers you have used to dial are too fat.

2011-05-19T00:56:00.003-04:00

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/05/18/another-too-fat-to-fly-controversy-hits-southwest-airlines/

This is kind of a tricky issue. But i have to side with the flyers. Southwest shouldn't be allowed to let people fly one way at a given price and then for the return be allowed to double the price on them. If you weren't required to buy 2 seats on the way out, you shouldn't be required to buy 2 on the way back. That is of course assuming it was a short trip during which you couldn't have put on that much weight (2 weeks or less.) But in general fat people should absolutely be required to buy 2 seats. They cost more to transport because of their added weight, and they make people they are sitting next uncomfortable by taking up so much room. The difficulty is that it's a judgement call. There is no easy way to say who should be required to buy an extra ticket and who shouldn't, so you'll naturally have discrepancies.

I'm personally also in favor of requiring all people to step on a scale with their bags and carry ons and have the total weight determine the cost. There would have to be some base cost so that small kids weren't flying basically for free, but a flight that costs say 200 dollars now could instead cost 100 dollars plus 50 cents a pound. That way everyone whose weight plus luggage at up to more than 200 pounds pays more, everyone else less. This idea that it is wrong to require people who use more of a service to pay more is just stupid. (and i say this despite the fact that as a relatively large person, i would probably end up paying more.)

I’ll have the smiley face breakfast special. Uhh, but could you add a bacon nose? Plus bacon hair, bacon mustache...

2011-05-18T00:53:00.003-04:00

five o’clock shadow made of bacon bits and a bacon body.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/15-ten-second-health-tips

I'm down with anybody who recommends starting a day with bacon and eggs. The rest of the advice i could take or leave, but it's worth a quick read i guess. I have read several recent things about vitamin D being very good for you and helping people lose weight, and if you live in more northern areas, and/or are older your body doesn't produce as much naturally so that might be a good one to think about. Although i've also read relatively negative things about taking vitamin pills (as opposed to consuming vitamins which appear naturally in your food.)

Come to Duff Gardens, where roaming gangs aren't a problem anymore.

2011-05-16T23:36:00.002-04:00

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2011/05/14/Disney-seeks-SEAL-Team-6-trademark/UPI-91721305384760/

Why is this legal? Based on what should disney be allowed to claim exclusive rights to the term seal team 6 just because they filed some paper work. So now they get to make all the money that there is to be made off of this based soley on being the first to file paper work. That's stupid. In order to be granted a trademark you should be required to prove that either you've done something to create the value that a phrase has, or that you are planning to do something to create value in a phrase. If a phrase has become valuable through your efforts, then it makes some sense that you should be allowed to benefit from that value, and not somebody else. I have no problem with disney making money off of the happiest place on earth, or Muhammad Ali making money off of float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. They promoted those phrase. They instilled them with value. Seal team 6 is valuable because of the actions of the members of the team, and the national media using/promoting the term. The term should belong either to the government, the only group that can legitimately claim to have created the value, or just be in the public domain free for anybody to use.

Homer: Two more feet, and I can fit it in the fridge.

Marge: Homer, I found this behind the radiator. I really think you
should throw it away.
Homer: Suggestion noted.

Homer: Marge, I'd like to be alone with the sandwich for a moment.
Marge: Are you going to eat it?
Homer: [pause] Yes.

When will people learn, democracy doesn't work.

2011-05-16T23:24:00.002-04:00

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/16/mothers-crying-over-raw-milk/?page=3

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/05/16/philly-police-harass-threaten-shoot-man-legally-carrying-gun

Couple of more articles about the raw milk idiocy, and cops again harassing law abiding citizens. I realize it's repetitive, but it's just so outrageous i can't stand it.

Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it

2011-05-05T01:50:00.002-04:00

http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/02/hersh_olbermann_called_bin_laden_seal_team_assassination_ring_in_2009.html

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/05/cheneys-assasination-squad-just-killed-bin-laden#ixzz1LEYxY0CX

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/05/028953.php

Not really surprising the hyprocrisy involved here. If bush does something it is bad evil and stupid, if Obama does the same it is good and brilliant. Also not to say republicans are often equally hypocritical, but they often get called out about it by john stewart etc. I doubt stewart will be calling out pelosi or olbermann for their flip flops so i figured i might as well make note of it.

Marge, I agree with you -- in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.

2011-05-03T00:30:00.002-04:00

http://volokh.com/2011/05/01/victims-of-communism-day-3/

It is one the gross travesties of justice that communism is not held accountable for its crimes. Nazi are held in vile contempt and the symbol of nazism, the swastika is considered a hate crime if you paint it someplace. But communism is just that thing that didn't work. And the hammer and sickle is actually considered trendy or fashionable among many people. Germany has be forced to apologize and hang it's collective head in shame, but Russia is allowed to stand proud and celebrate it's murderous history. I blame this primarily on the academic left which has steadfastly refused to heap the criticism that communism deserves because they are essentially communists at heart and believe communism was just an unfortunate experiment that didn't quite work out. Also partially on the fact that americans and westerners in general were never directly confronted with the gruesome deaths caused by communist regimes. Those deaths were behind closed doors when they happened, and now are just numbers and statistics. Had the US soldiers marched into the Ukraine and seen the millions of dead from starvation the way they saw the jews in Germany i think condmenation would be much stronger. In any case Communism is responcible for far more deaths and is every bit as gruesome as nazism and i fully support any effort to bring more attention to the human misery it has created.

Crap on a crutch. They're milking rats. Milking rats. Rats? I'm outraged. You promised me dog or higher.

2011-05-02T01:36:00.002-04:00

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/28/feds-sting-amish-farmer-selling-raw-milk-locally/?page=1

Good to see the federal government has it's priorities straight. Obviously the country is doing so well, they have resources to spend preventing people from buying milk. If they were trying to pass off unpasturized milk as being pasturized, or just implied pasturazation by a lack of any sort of label that would be one thing. But people seek out raw milk because they think tastes better/is healthier/whatever, and the government is paying (the article doesn't specify but i would expect millions of dollars) to prevent it. That's not america, that's not even mexico.

Now take a seat, junior, and listen to someone who gave their youth in service to their country. Mrs. Crabapple, the pledge, please.

2011-04-28T01:08:00.002-04:00

http://www.wnep.com/wnep-sny-parents-buranich-english-teacher-writes-racy-novels-20110426,0,4057307.story

Are these people serious? So instead of being thrilled that they have a teacher who is actually a successful published writer, (and is by all accounts a good teacher) they are mad because she writes trashy steamy romance novels? Afraid of what her students will be thinking about in class? It's a highschool class. They are thinking about sex. They were thinking about it before, and they will think about it after, they will think about it regardless of what anybody says or does. And the teacher has been teaching for at least 25 years, so nobody in the classroom is going to be fantasizing about her. I just don't understand people.

Arr, I'm in a lotta trouble now. Hey, I'll give ya a hundred bucks if you'll take the blame.

2011-04-26T01:41:00.002-04:00

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/25/energy-america-oil-drilling-denial/

It doesn't so much bother me that these EPA people are shutting down oil production, as long as Obama would be willing to stand up and say, i don't think we should be producing gasoline in the US. He should stand up and say, i encourage blocking this oil production, and i encourage preventing all future oil production in the gulf of mexico because oil production is bad for the environment, and gasoline causes global warming. It is good that gasoline costs $5 a gallon because it will encourage americans to buy more efficient cars and use less gas. After all the europeans are paying considerably more than $5 a gallon. Those things are all true statements about Obama. But he refuses to admit it because he knows that very few americans agree with those statements. So instead he comes out and claims that oil prices are high because of speculators. Who are an easy boogey man because so few people actually understand speculation. So they can sit back and think, yeah, those rich fat cats driving up the price of oil. What drives up the price of oil is a limit in the supply. Libya isn't producing oil because Obama encouraged revolt there. Other arab countries need to keep the prices high to get money to pay off their people to prevent revolt. So they are not going to increase the oil supply. You know who could increase the oil supply? America. And that would drive down oil prices. These wells won't start producing immediately which is why they should have been green lighted a while ago, instead of Obama blocking all deep sea drilling despite court orders that he not do so. And if the price is high because of speculation denying drilling permits will only increase the speculation that there will be shortages in the future driving the price further up, while granting the permits wouldn't increase immediate oil supply, but would discourage speculating about high future prices.

Lisa i don't want to alarm you, but there may be a boogey man, or boogey men in the house.

The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

2011-04-24T00:45:00.003-04:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/04/22/2011-04-22_derek_fenton_koranburning_transit_worker_fired_from_his_job_after_ground_zero_pr.html

I wrote when this guy was first fired that it was nice that new jersey had so much money they didn't mind throwing it away by firing this guy for burning pages from a koran. The firing was clearly illegal and only and idiot or a politically correct extremist (idiot) would have fired him. And as it turns out, it was illegal. Now new jersey is out $50,000 (25 to the guy and 25 to the aclu for court costs) plus back pay for the guy and whatever their own court costs were. Add it all up and it's probably around $100,000. Not that it's that much money, but what should tax payers have to pay for this. Some government officials committed a crime by firing this guy and violating his constitutional rights. Is that person going to be disciplined in anyway? Will that person lose a dollar out of his own pocket? Is that person even going to have a note in his file that he cost the tax payers $100,000 with his reckless and clearly illegal firing of an employee? Almost certainly not. And another example of what's wrong with government. I'm not even saying the person responsible needs to lose his job, everybody makes mistakes. I think this would be a fireable offense, but just any mark in the file would be enough, so that if it happened again then he would be fired. Maybe that's happened. Maybe someone lost their job over this firing (I highly doubt it.) but in a private company where you can't just take an extra 100k from the tax payers they wouldn't be so cavalier about throwing money away.

You know, one day honset citizens are going to stand up to you crooked cops. They are!? Oh no! Ha-have they set a date?

2011-04-23T01:14:00.002-04:00

http://www.lvrj.com/news/exclusive-police-beating-of-las-vegas-man-caught-on-tape-120509439.html?viewAllComments=y&c=y

More stories of police brutality here. Not surprising. Police all over the country have reacted extremely poorly to being filmed. Filming police is completely legal and yet not only have police arrested people for this "crime" some district attorneys have tried to make the arrests stick. The problem police have is that they have always had all the power. What they say goes. Police are allowed to film you to verify their story, and if it turns out they beat up some innocent guy, well that tape just goes missing. So having other people tape them means for the first time they will be held accountable for their wrong doing, which is terrifying. Even the police union will have trouble protecting these guys once video is put up on the internet, although it does raise the question, why the hell is this cop still on duty. He attacks an innocent civilian breaks his nose among other injuries. The cop brings him in and arrests him for assaulting a police officer. So the cops word is enough to put the guy in prison, but now when the tape comes up proving the officer in fact attacked the man with no provocation, and then lied about it in order to put an innocent man in prison, not only has the cop not been arrested, not only has he not been fired, he hasn't even been taken off of active duty. This police officer ought to be immediately taken off duty, and should be charged with assault along with filing a false police report, false imprisonement, and any other crimes applicable. His attidute toward the end "Oh yeah, buddy. Hey, when you don't do what I ask you to do, then you're in a world of hurt. Then you're in a world of hurt. Aren't ya? Huh?" is exactly what is wrong with police officers. They live in their own little kingdom where they are kings and everyone else must obey them. And unfortunately with the power the police union even actually crooked cops are rarely disciplined, much less cops who just get out of line. There was a cop in CT not that long ago who got into a car accident while drunk and high on meth. He's on paid injury leave right now. What? Get hurt while committing multiple crimes and putting the public at risk and you get paid for it. That the way the cops have their union set up. Hopefully the spotlight on these cops will break some of this behavior, but i think in fact the public will forget too quickly for anyone to actually have to face discipline.

So you think you know better than this family, eh? Well as long as you're in my house you'll do what I do and believe what I believe! So butter your b

2011-04-23T01:03:00.003-04:00

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110422/LIFESTYLE04/104220401/Pastor-jailed-for-refusing-$1-%C3%82%E2%80%98peace-bond%C3%82%E2%80%99

The supreme court has held that people have the right to protest outside the funerals of soldiers, so in what possible theory could it be wrong to protest outside outside a mosque. It seems to me that this is blatant racism. The police officers/judges/etc. are essentially saying that most members of society are adults, and as such they are required to act like adults. So if you son dies in iraq and you have a funeral and some idiots are outside protesting, you are required to ignore them. But because muslims are not adults, but rather emotional children they cannot be held responsible for get upset if someone protests outside their mosque. So there it is required of the rest of society to change the way we act. We must take extra responcibility as adults not to upset the muslims who are children. Why aren't muslims upset by this infantalization? This is essentially an open insult of all muslim people that they cannot react peaceably to a protest.

Beyond that idiocy, the more general idea of this law seems inherently illegal. Essentially as i understand it. If you are doing something that is completely legal, but it causes someone else to react in a violent way and commit crimes like rioting/assault/etc. then you are held responsible for their illegality. The article says this law has never been challenged, but i believe it is clearly illegal and certainly immoral. If someone commits a crime, then they are guilty of that crime. Not some other person who has done nothing illegal. If you were already committing a crime and that led directly to someone else committing crimes then maybe i could see some sort of chain linking you to someone else's crime. But to prosecute a completely innocent man, who has committed no crime because it seems possible that someone else might commit a crime as a result of the first man not committing a crime is just silly.

One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.

2011-04-22T01:20:00.003-04:00

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/reviews/outdoor-tools/can-boutique-fuel-save-small-engines-from-the-wear-and-tear-of-e10?click=pm_latest

Here's a novel idea. So first ethanol is not economically sustainable and is used only because government forces it. Second it does not help the environment, or increase energy supplies because it takes more energy to create then you get out of it (even al gore has admitted it is bad for the environment and he only supported it to appease iowa's corn mongers.) And it is terribly corrosive, eating apart people's lawn mowers and chainsaws. So here's an idea how about instead of having government regulations forcing the use of this product, and government subsidies promoting the use of this product, instead we you know, don't. If anyone saw the ayn rand movie/read the book/thinks the government's idiocy in ayn rand is really just a gross exaggeration this is more living proof. A product that is terrible for everybody except for corn growers in Iowa, but because everyone wants to curry favor with the first state that holds a primary we can't get rid of it. This government interference/cronyism at it's absolute worst. Taking money from one person and giving it to another at lease you leave society roughly the same as it was. This is actively and intentionally make the rest of society (and society as a whole) worse off to help a very small segment of it.

Hutz: Don't worry, Homer, I've got a foolproof strategy to get you out
of here -- surprise witnesses, each more surprising than the
last. I tell you, the judge won't know what hit him.
[camera pulls back to reveal Hutz is in the cell next to Homer]
Cop: [bangs bars with nightstick] Pipe down in there, Hutz.

Homer has his day in court.

Judge: Your license is hereby revoked, and I'd like you to attend
traffic school and two months of Alc-Anon meetings.
Homer: Your honor, I'd like that stricken from the record.
Judge: No.

Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors - oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called "City Fathers" who

2011-04-21T01:33:00.003-04:00

cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/in-defense-of-offense/

Interesting opinion piece, mostly because it highlights why network television is dying. The major networks are so worried about offending anybody anywhere at anytime that they just recycle the same stale jokes over and over again. That is why none of the good TV is on networks anymore. When HBO became big with Soprano's and other similar shows, people wondered why they were able to make such a good show, and why the networks couldn't. It was claimed HBO had advantages like money or the ability to use curse words that the networks didn't have. But now all the best shows are on cable. And that's not my opinion, that's the emmys voter's opinions. The emmys now all go to cable networks shows like breaking bad, and mad men. These are both shows that they wouldn't allow on networks because they are too controversial. Breaking bad having to do with meth creation, and madmen for the constant smoking/drinking/degrading of women, etc. Even though they are all appropriate for the time period networks would be afraid to air them. Ask anybody between the ages of 20-30 and they are likely to tell you they like south park, and it's always sunny, both cable shows (i also like archer which is on cable) all three of those shows are very offensive to all manner of people and as such relegated to cable, but as such also much better and funnier than any commedy on the networks. His quote what could be more offensive than an offensive free show was just dead on. These shows on the networks are so politically correct they make me want to vomit. I started watching the league which is an fx show. It's actually pretty stupid, and i can't really recommend it, but i watch it just because it is so over the top offensive (although not in the clever/funny way that south park can be) that it's interesting compared to the homogenized drek on the networks.

I think it was called... "The bus that couldn't slow down."

2011-04-20T01:43:00.002-04:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378284/Secret-memo-shows-JFK-demanded-UFO-files-10-days-assassination.html

Well this should be fun for conspiracy nuts.

The following tale of alien encounters is
true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're
entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The
answer is: No.

In high school I was voted most likely to be a mental patient, hillbilly, or chimpanzee!

2011-04-19T00:15:00.002-04:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13400159

Can someone explain to me why it is that when some goof burns a koran it's described basically as a crime against humanity. It's portrayed essentially as justifying the murder of 20 people, or how ever many died in the following riots. It wasn't the muslim's fault for rioting, it was the american pastor's fault for his vicious racist attacks by burning a koran. But some doof puts a crucifix in a jar of urine or blood, and that's art. That's art and it's put up in museums with pride.

Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!

2011-04-18T02:20:00.003-04:00

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/17/theres_no_fairness_in_taxing_e_sales/

This story kind of buries the lead, but manages to get to it at the end. I can sympathize with the thought of retailers who say how can we compete with amazon, etc. They don't even have to pay sales taxes, of course people will buy their products. But that skips over the crucial question of what is the point of taxes. To the politicians taxes are just a way to raise money to increase their own power. The more money at their disposal the more power they have. Well obviously from that point of view anyplace that they fail to collect money from is a failure. But if we stop to think logically for a second, the purpose of taxes is to pay to run society, to pay police officers to make sure there are no robereries at a store's location, to pay to pave the roads so customers can come to your store, to pay for fireman, and snow plowers in the winter, etc. An online business doesn't require any of those things. They don't get anything at all from the states that they don't operate in. And as such why should they pay for anything the state does. They have a home state in which they require police protection and the various benefits the state governments provide, and so they should pay taxes for that, but in other states there simply is no reasonable explanation for why they should pay taxes, except somebody doesn't think it's fair. Well life isn't fair, and anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something. Of course ultimately states have it in their own power, if they don't like the results of the sales tax, switch to an income tax. That sets all business equal.

The internet? Is that thing still around?

2011-04-17T00:29:00.002-04:00

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/15/rep_jesse_jackson_jr_blames_the_ipad_for_killing_jobs.html

Why are people allowed to make these claims. This is just so crazy. Ipads are bad because they put people out of work because what's the point of going to borders if you can just download stuff to your ipad. Who thinks that way? Communists i guess. Statists who believe that any employment is good. First off he's complaining about that fact that we won't be printing books on paper. I thought that was a good thing. I thought that was saving trees, and the environment. I guess some democrats don't care about the trees. But beyond that, the idea that progress creates unemployment is best suited to a menonite town meeting. By that logic Henry fords assembly line was a bad idea because it took fewer people to do the same work which would lead to people losing their jobs. Tractors that made food easy to grow and very cheap are bad because now we don't have to employ thousands or millions of people working the fields with plows. Computers are bad because they have made everything so much easier that you don't need nearly as many people to do the same work. How about we go back to having female switchboard operators to connect all telephone calls too. That would create more jobs. Increased efficiency is automatically good for the economy. Some people will be displaced, and it will be bad for those people, but the good that is done for everyone else outweighs that loss. I'd like to say i'm socked and surprised that someone could be so stupid, but unfortunately i'm not. This is so bad it's like the stupid ideas ayn rand forces her idiot government officials to have. Ideas that are commically bad, and seem like an extreme parody that wouldn't exist in the real world, but then read the news, and there it is.

If we're late for school, we'll miss our free Federal breakfast. Big deal, it's just saltines and fig paste. Ew, saltines?

2011-04-12T01:33:00.003-04:00

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,4567867.story

Why is this legal. What is the school a movie theater now. No outside food or drink. That's fine if you are operating a business, or even a public area like a museum. But a school is a place where you legally require people to be. You legally require someone to show up to an area, stay there for 8 hours and not allow them to eat anything except for the food that you sell to them. What is wrong with people. What is wrong with administrators who think this could be a good idea. What is wrong with parents who allow it. And what is seriously terribly wrong with the parents who claim this is good because otherwise there is no check on the kids nutrition. YOU ARE THE CHECK. YOU FREAKING IDIOT. YOU ARE THE KIDS PARENT IT IS YOUR JOB TO MAKE SURE HE EATS HEALTHY IF THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU, NOT THE SCHOOL'S JOB. Jebus. And why is it okay to trample the kids rights. If a kid has his own money that he earned doing chores, or helping a neighbor move, or selling drugs, what business is it of the federal government how they spend that money. Governments always love to trample on kids because they aren't allowed to vote, and as long as they are taught by incompetent unionized teachers, they'll never grow up to realize that they were opressed by the government. Would the government make it illegal for their employees to bring junk food to work, why not, we can't trust them to eat healthy. From now on no more donuts for cops, just celery sticks and carrots. They are not allowed to bring any food into the precinct. No of course not. Nobody would ever think to impose such an opressive rule. By they have no problem doing it to the kids. If a child's parents asks the school to confiscate junk food from him, and the teachers are able to keep track i don't have a problem with that, but this blanket policy should be illegal.

Naw, that's OK. I'm pretty sure I can struggle my way out. First I'll just reach in and pull my legs out, now I'll pull my arms out with my face.

2011-04-03T01:25:00.002-04:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/stalemate-in-libya-increasingly-viewed-as-a-likely-outcome/2011/04/01/AFxt1uJC_print.html

This is very bad news for Obama. If this really becomes a protracted ordeal going on into the election of 2012, it could easily sink his re-election, especially if there is some especially ugly incident in Libya to keep it fresh in people's minds. This has basically been a disaster for Obama from the start. First the uprising starts and Obama decides to do... nothing. A clever ploy, and one he's been reaching for more and more. Why decide something today when i can just wait and see what everyone else says about it and then agree with them. Like after the shooting in arizona when he waited a week to give his speech on civility. So he waits a while, actually mocks Hillary for wanting to intervene, but eventually pressure builds up with people upset at him for doing nothing. The french and other europeans want to get something done and it seems like a political wind is blowing towards getting Gaddafi out of power so Obama makes his move and jumps on the bandwagon only to find the wagon is empty. He is roundly criticized in the US for getting involved in another war (although he prefers kinetic engagement) and for not consulting congress about his war plans. meanwhile the leaders in europe all ditched on paying the check because none of them wants to be seen as responsible for the war, and the muslim nations that encouraged involvement have denounced and there Obama is left holding the bag. So Obama has make a sharp pivot and declare this is not a war, that we are not going to try to have regime change and that american soldiers will not be on the ground in libya. Thus creating some sort of differentiation from the Iraq war. Except then when does the mission end? Never? The mission was what exactly, to keep Gaddafi from killing his people, but not to take him out of power. Obama was hoping the rebels would do that for him, but it turns out they aren't strong enough. I know lets sell them some weapons they can use against Gaddafi and thus defeat him without direct US involvement, oh no wait it turns out that mean of the rebel fighters are al-qaeda members or at least for with them, so handing over powerful weapons is maybe a bad idea. That would be the worst of all worlds when it turns out the weapons we gave the libyan rebels are later used in afganistan to kill americans. So now what, we can't just leave without get rid of Gaddafi. Whatever Obama claims, if you come at the king, you best not miss. So now they are proposing a holding pattern where nato resources are expended to make sure nobody controls libya and this is supposed to be better for the civillians how? A protracted civil war. It is just all a giant mess. The right thing to do is obviously just send in the marines kill gaddafi or at least drive him out and let the rebels do what they will with the country, but Obama has dug himself in and can't do that, so he'll just have to sit on his hands and hope things work out. (or have the CIA clandestinely assassinate him like the british suggested.

Gym, what's a gym? Oh, a gym.

2011-03-31T01:18:00.002-04:00

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html

Interesting take on dieting. Essentially excersize doesn't help people lose weight. Excersize has 2 draw backs, first it turns out excersizing doesn't increase people's overall level of movement, because after excersizing people tend to sit around more balancing out with their earlier excersize. Likewise after excersizing people becoming hungrier, and eat more, which can more than balance out the calories you lost from working out. When they looked at a group of children, they found that children ate 100 calories more than burned off, just actually gaining weight instead of losing weight from their excersize. That isn't to say you shouldn't excersize, it's healthier anyway, but if you really want to use it as a weight lose device you have to make sure to keep your calories constant, and not reward yourself with extra food for excorsizing, or take the opportunity to reward yourself by lazing around instead of doing the gardening/housework/whatever you what have done.

Homer: Oh Marge, how could you let me let myself go like this?
Marge: Me? I'm not the one who puts butter in your coffee.

Here's the door to your body, see? And these are oversized novelty germs. That's influenza, that's bronchitis,

2011-03-24T02:51:00.004-04:00

and this cute little cuddle-bug is pancreatic cancer. Here's what happens when they all try to get through the door at once. [tries to cram a bunch through the model door. The "germs" get stuck] Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Move it, chowderhead! We call it, "Three Stooges Syndrome."
Burns: So what you're saying is, I'm indestructible!
Doctor: Oh, no, no, in fact, even slight breeze could --
Burns: Indestructible.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/virus-therapy-hiv/

Sounds like a good idea. If you can't beat them join them. Can't stop the spread of aids, so create a virus that attacks the aids virus whenever it comes into contact with it. It won't cure those people who have it, but if it can arrest its spread, it's a great start.

You go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle to resist the urge to punch 'em in the face, and for what?

2011-03-23T01:00:00.002-04:00

So some pimply little puke can treat you like dirt because you're not on the team. Well, I'm better than dirt. Well, most kinds of dirt. I mean not that fancy store bought dirt. That stuffs loaded with nutrients. I... I can't compete with that stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pB_TmpSjJI

The whole idea of eminent domain is essentially bogus. It's one thing if there is a war or some other sort of crises situation. But using eminent domain as an economic tool should be illegal. Eminent domain has been twisted to give the government the right to take your property any time they feel like it. This is a basic perversion of the original concept of the founding fathers who had almost used the phrase property instead of happiness in declaring universal rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the government, or any private developer wants to buy your property they should up the offer until you are willing to pay. If it isn't worth it to them to buy the property from you than it is both morally and economically wrong to take the property by force. By definition if they cannot offer you enough incentive in the form of money or other assets to get you to sell than you are receiving more utility from the building then they would from buying it (otherwise they could keep upping the offer) and thus it decreases total utility to transfer the property (not that it is really relevant because even if you could demonstrate increased total utility it would still be wrong to take the property by force.) This is another example of crony capitalism which is one of the most terrible problems of modern society, the unity of big business with big government. Rather then allowing the free market to run its course as the free market dictates modern corporations/developers/etc convince the government to help them out and close off markets/give them advantages that retard innovation. Unfortunately politicians get all their money from businesses so both republicans and democrats suffer from crony capitalism, the only difference is who their cronies are.

A lifetime of working in a nuclear power plant has given me a healthy green glow. And left me as impotent as a Nevada boxing commisioner

2011-03-22T01:22:00.004-04:00

http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/14/even-candles-kill-many-more-than-nuclear-power/

Good article about the relative danger of nuclear power. I'm afraid this accident will essentially kill nuclear power, which was just starting to get on it's feet again as a response to global warming/coal/gas fears. This isn't meant to suggest that nuclear power is not at all dangerous, but simply to put the danger in context. Everything is dangerous. Not a single person has died as a result of the accident at 3 mile island. According to the World Health organization chernobyl caused 4,000 deaths, up until now those are the only deaths attributed to nuclear power. That works out to less than 100 deaths world wide per year for the past 50 years we've been using nuclear power, compared to 126 deaths per year just in the us attributed to candles. It's unclear how many people will die as a result of the problems in japan, but even if that turns out very badly the fact is the death toll attributed to nuclear power is infinitesimal when compared to something like tobacco or alcohol. There may be more deaths caused by just general nuclear proliferation that haven't been properly accounted for. May just the general use of nuclear power plants causes enough general radioactive proliferation that it increases the cancer rates world wide, and that isn't being properly measured. But we know that pollution from coal power plants is absolutely responsible increased death rates, and solar power uses all kinds of chemicals that would have created it's on ecological nightmare had the earthquake/tsunami destroyed the solar panels and washed all the chemicals in the sea/water supplies. Obviously the nuclear problem in japan is very serious, but the lesson to take from it is to have better back up system in place in case of serious problems, not to abandon nuclear power all together.

Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is
true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're
entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The
answer is: No.

Come on, men! Smash those atoms! You there, turn out your pockets. Aha - atoms! One, two, three, four... SIX of them! Take him away!

2011-03-16T23:30:00.002-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13homes.html?src=recg&pagewanted=all

This is what is wrong with Unions, and public unions in particular. If this was going on in a private union, it would a scandal, the government would crack down on them, but because it's a public union, and therefore it is the government there's nothing for them to do. They don't dare take on the union, so they can't actually fire any of these people. So what does the governor, the governor who ignored all these problems as attorney general, do? First he proclaims that he is shocked, shocked to find out that there is gambling going on in this establishment, and then he fires the head the department as if that could possibly do anything. So the end result of the union, as is the natural order for a union, is that the bad employees are never punished for their incompetence, negligence or criminal behavior because that would set a bad precedent that employees could be judge based on how well they do the job. But when along comes the accidental could employee, he must be punished and put down in his place. If he were to outshine his fellow employees and demonstrate just how woefully they are doing their jobs it would be bad for everybody. This is not confined to public unions i've heard similar stories about people who worked briefly at one of detroits big 3, work faster than time required by union negotiated rules and you get yelled at by the union. If you've ever seen stand and deliver, it's a similar story. Nobody wants to believe that the children could possibly be taught because if that were true than the teachers would be responsible for failing to teach them. As such a teacher who proves that the children can be taught is a terrible terrible enemy. The sooner we end these unions, the sooner we get back on a road to be a successful country.

We can't bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

Revenge List: Bill of Rights, Grandpa, Fat-Free Lard, Gravity, Emmys, Darwin, H2WHOA!, Billy Crystal, God, Soloflex, The Boy, Stern Lecture Plumbing

2011-03-16T23:24:00.002-04:00

Econo-Save

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-03/gravitys-sworn-enemy-roger-babson-and-gravity-research-foundation

I agree, gravity is for suckers. Man's greatest natural enemy. Gravity, gravity and dinosaurs. one down, one still to go.

Marge! I just realized. I am the "ow" in the word "now."

2011-03-16T00:31:00.001-04:00

http://www.copblock.org/1904/the-anti-rave-act-of-2011/

As long as you're in my house you'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So Bart butter your bacon.

2011-03-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041106,00.html

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=172669

All cultures are not created equal. In modern academia it has been decided that all cultures are different and unique and beautiful, and it is wrong for people from 1 culture to criticize another culture just because it's different. That's idiotic. If racists in the southern US started celebrating and handing out candy because a black family had been murdered, including a baby, everyone would naturally condemn them as being ignorant racist psychopaths. But because it's some palestinians it's okay? No, it's not. There is something wrong with modern muslim society, that is i guess that it is not modern. They are still morally living in the dark ages. So i need to be clear here this isn't a problem solely associated with muslim societies, many of the current problems with muslim societies could also have been found in christian societies through various time periods, but we now recognize that what christians did back then was wrong. I'm sure you could have found people in nazi germany who would have celebrated jewish babies being murdered, but we don't excuse them because they had a different culture, we condemn them. The second article if possible is even worse. And i would like to use another comparison, but nazi germany is really the most legitimate comparison. It boggles the mind that people could treat each other this way, to beat a 14 year old girl to death because her 40 year old cousin raped? (it's not clear if the rape was forcible, or statutory, but either way.) It ranks right next to think how Germans could treat the jews, or now that i think of it how american slave owners might have treated their slaves. But once again modern academics condemn and we as nations are ashamed of what happened in our past, people should be condemning muslims countries for their barbarisms, taking a pass with some notion of the beauty of all cultures.

Nonviolence never solved anything!

2011-03-15T00:36:00.003-04:00

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/03/13/time-magazine-headline-wisconsins-governor-wins-he-still-dead-man-wal

No real surprise here. Nobody ever took the chris mathews of the world seriously when they decried violence. The left loves violence, it's their go to move. What they don't like is the tea party so they wanted to take the opportunity to try and smear the tea party. Since then we've got democrat assembly men in wisonsin telling a rublican colleague that she's dead. Democrat congressmen calling on unions to go out into the streets and get bloody. Union members comparing Walker to hitler/putting crosshairs over a picture of him. Serious death threats made to members of wisconsin's senate, and now a national liberal publication call walker a dead man. And where are all the leftist pundits to decry violence in political rhetoric now. Where is Obama to tell people they need to tone down their violent imagery or to denounce violence. They've moved on to new and exciting talking points. Violence got old as soon as they could no longer claim the tea party was violent.

Kaip Suprast

You know, one day, honest citizens are gonna stand up to you crooked cops! They are? Oh, no! Have they set a date?

My campaign is a disaster, Moe. I hate the public so much! If only they'd elect me. I'd make 'em pay! Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

Let the bears pay the bear tax, i pay the homer tax.

You doctors have been telling us to drink 8 cups of gravy a day.

Sir, there's an unruly mob here to see you. Does it have an appointment? Yes, it does.

Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so that it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be

These prices suck! 10,000 yen for coleslaw?

How would I go about creating a half-man, half-monkey-type creature? I'm sorry, that would be playing God. God shmod! I want my monkey-man.

I thought you said the law was powerless. Powerless to *help* you, not punish you.

That's a pretty lousy lesson. Hey, I'm a pretty lousy president.

I call him Gamblor.

The school's on strike, maybe forever! Oh, overload, pleasure overload...

Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

Outsiders have kidnapped some of our property. We must respond with our deadliest weapon... The lawyers.

Out of my way. I'm a motorist!

I stand by my ethnic slur! Do your worst, you filthy, pretencious savages!

Beer, is there anything it can't do?

They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one! But you can't stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!

Union rule 26. "Every employee must win 'Worker of the Week' at least once, regardless of gross incompetence, obesity, or rank odor." Heh heh heh heh.

And if you think naming a destructive storm after a woman is sexist, you obviously have never seen the gals grabbing for items at a clearance sale.

Things aren't as happy as they used to be down here at the unemployment office. Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors.

Do you know how many memories I have? Three! Standing in line for a movie, having a key made, and sitting here talking to you. 38 years and that's all

Or what? You'll release the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths, and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?

when a blade of grass rises above the others, do we applaud it? No, we cut it down.

there's only one sure way to make him realize how much he loves you. And that is a phony kidnapping.

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

Okay, you just bought yourself a 317, pointing out police stupidity.

But first, lets check the death count from the killer storm bearing down on us, like a shotgun full of snow.

Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

I want a crystal bucket for my slopwater and a brand new filthy blanket.

Ach! They call this a soccer riot? Come on, boys, let's take 'em to school!

Everything changes when you hit the big one-oh. Your legs start to go, candy doesn't taste as good any more...

I am imposing a curfew. Any kid caught on the street after dark will be shot. Or, returned to their parents, as the situation may warrant.

Nothing get's chocolate out, see.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

The most rewarding part, was when he gave me my money.

Up and away in my beautiful my beautiful motor boat! Da da da da!

that's the saltiest thing I've ever tasted! And I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt!"

Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so that it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be

Won't somebody please think of the children.

That's his stomach eating itself.

Are you kidding me? This baby is off the charts.

When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power... like God must feel when he's holding a gun.

Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it

Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby, but with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my own crapulence.

I'm going to come back with the greatest gift a husband can give his wife: An annulment from his secret wife...

I'm having a little trouble with the government. Oh, those jerks, always walking over the small businessman. Don't get me started about the government

I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. Well, goodbye.

a gun is not a weapon, it's a tool, like butcher's knife, or a harpoon, or ah... an alligator.

Won't somebody please think of the children.

The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Dad, do I have to brush my teeth? No, but at least rinse your mouth out with soda.

You can stand there finding fault, or you can knit me some seatbelts.

What is it with you kids and that word? I'm going to shave you bald, young man, until you learn that hair is not a right: it's a privilege!

Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!

If I didn't have this gun, the King of England could just walk in here any time he wants, and start shoving you around. Do you want that? Huh? Do you?

It's funny. Their clothes are different from my clothes.

To the book depository

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

How is education supposed to make me feel smarter?

Lamentably, no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satiety.

That's not a job, it's a waste of time. What can poor people pay you? Nothing! What satisfaction you get from helping them? None!

Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be

Jimmy Carter? He's history's greatest monster.

Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding. Unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.

I like my tv loud, my beer cold, and my homosexuals flaming.

Won't somebody please think of the children.

And what if we've picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder?

I don't have any opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else and everyone is the best at everything.

Suggestion noted.

The fingers you have used to dial are too fat.

I’ll have the smiley face breakfast special. Uhh, but could you add a bacon nose? Plus bacon hair, bacon mustache...

Come to Duff Gardens, where roaming gangs aren't a problem anymore.

When will people learn, democracy doesn't work.

Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it

Marge, I agree with you -- in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.

Crap on a crutch. They're milking rats. Milking rats. Rats? I'm outraged. You promised me dog or higher.

Now take a seat, junior, and listen to someone who gave their youth in service to their country. Mrs. Crabapple, the pledge, please.

I thought you said the law was powerless. Powerless to help you, not punish you.

In high school I was voted most likely to be a mental patient, hillbilly, or chimpanzee!