3000th Post

I think that it is interesting that I average under 10 page views per post and about 50 of the posts account for about 50% of all traffic.

Anyway. Happy 3000th to me.

I blog because I am not thoughtful-er

Top 10 Constitutional Myths

Hullabaloo:

"Conservatives believe only in 'original intent' and others believe in a 'living Constitution,' meaning whatever they want.
The Founders wrote the Constitution to restrain Congress and limit its powers.
The 'Unitary Executive' means all unclaimed federal power flows away from Congress and to the President.
The Constitution does not provide for separation of church and state.
Corporations have precisely the same First Amendment rights as natural persons.
The Second Amendment was 'intended' to make government 'fear the people.'
The Tenth Amendment and state 'sovereignty' allow states to 'nullify' federal law.
The Fourteenth Amendment was written solely to address the situation of freed slaves, and has no relevance today.
Election of Senators is unfair and harmful to the states.
International law is a threat to the Constitution and must be kept out of American courts."

Does Apple Get Off Easier Than Microsoft?

Wi-Fi Sync Developer Accuses Apple of Ripping Him Off - Gizmodo:

"Of course I'm not absolving Apple from any wrongdoing. Even though they've imitated and adopted so many third party apps, it doesn't get less shitty each time. It's unfair for developers that Apple gets to 'be inspired' or 'rip off' their apps with no compensation. But it also comes with the territory of building third party apps for their platform. [The Register]"

Can anyone seriously believe that the reaction to Microsoft doing this would be "oh well that is the risk of being a third party developer"? I can't see it but then maybe I am not paying close enough attention

Sign Me up - 1Gbps fiber for $70

1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.:

"Jasper doesn't think like a typical US Internet exec; in an interview last year, he made clear that his company tries to avoid artificial limits as a way to make more money. 'The natural model when you have a simple duopoly capturing the majority of the market is segmentation: maximize ARPU [average revenue per user] by artificially limiting service in order to drive additional monthly spending. But fundamentally this is the wrong model for a service provider like us, and we have looked to Europe for inspiration… I believe that removing the artificial limits on speed, and including home phone with the product are both very exciting.'

Though the current trial is small-scale, Sonic.net's pricing reminds us just how much room there is in the US Internet market for truly disruptive pricing of the kind that Google has been promising—but on a much larger scale—with its 1Gbps fiber builds in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas."

NASCAR - Johnny Sauter is an idiot

How stupid do you have to be to get black flagged on a green/white/checker restart?

Fuckwittage: Ryan Fattman Edition

Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com - Immigrant checks urged:

"Asked if he would be concerned that a woman without legal immigration status was raped and beaten as she walked down the street might be afraid to report the crime to police, Mr. Fattman said he was not worried about those implications.

“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward,” Mr. Fattman said. “If you do it the right way, you don’t have to be concerned about these things,” he said referring to obtaining legal immigration status."

4 Am Deep Thoughts

Where do people go when they are no longer in your life?

Why yes, I do have a headache? Why do you ask?

Good writeup on NASCAR and those fuel problems

The Math of Fuel Mileage » Building Speed: "Average mileage under green is about 4 miles per gallon. At a one-mile track, than means one lap (one mile) requires one quarter of a gallon, which is one quart. A car running out of gas coming out of turn four is short by probably a cup of fuel. On the one hand, it’s amazing that it takes a whole quart of gas to do one lap. On the other hand, the fuel cell holds 18 or 19 gallons. Let’s say they get 18.5 gallons in the fuel cell – that’s 74 quarts, so you’re talking being off by 1/74th of a tank, which is a pretty narrow margin of error."

Krugman on Pawlenty's 5% growth fantasy

Why I Don't Believe in the American People - NYTimes.com: "Tim Pawlenty — who has turned out to be a much bigger fool than I or, I think, anyone imagined — replies to criticism of his claim that he can get 10 years of GDP growth at 5 percent:"

Does the McKinsey Study Suck?

We can't tell because they won't release the methodology

Dan Rottenberg may not be a misogynist asshole

Broad Street Review: Male sex abuse and female naiveté:

"Earth to liberated women: When you display legs, thighs or cleavage, some liberated men will see it as a sign that you feel good about yourself and your sexuality. But most men will see it as a sign that you want to get laid."

Oh who am I kidding? There is no other way to think of anyone that wrote the above bit of stupidity.

Building Wars!

Class warfare in Atlanta | Atlanta Business Chronicle:

"There’s still battle raging in the streets of Atlanta … but you won’t notice munitions flying overhead as you drive up Peachtree. This struggle pits today’s new or recently traded/upgraded Class A buildings against the Class A and even B buildings of yesteryear in a fight to secure the city’s largest tenants. It’s a largely silent war … because neither side wants to expose the fire power of capital and concessions necessary to prevail. And landlords everywhere are trying to avoid big wins that may in fact be Pyrrhic victories."

Gingrich as Black Knight

Gingrich Defiant: 'Fundamental Difference' With The 'Traditional Consulting Community' (VIDEO) | TPMDC:

Why does Newt's response to his senior staff jumping ship remind me of this Monty Python bit?

Joe Lieberman Forgets the Third Leg

How Medicare can be saved - The Washington Post:

"Medicare cannot be fixed without both more revenue and significant changes in its premium and benefit structure."

If there isn't cost containment as well then it is all going to suck up as much revenue as you can shovel into it. Wonder why Joe didn't mention this? Could it be because of how his wife made her living?

She worked for the lobbying company APCO Associates, which serves many pharmaceutical and health care corporations, as well as four major drug companies. In March 2005, Lieberman was hired by Hill & Knowlton as "senior counselor" in the firm's "health care and pharmaceuticals practice."

I guess it would be cynical of me to think that wouldn't it?

BooMan On NATO

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community:

"Yes, there is a degree of hypocrisy involved here, since America has fostered this situation. We'll no doubt hear from Europeans that we've thwarted previous efforts at military independence. But, let's be real. Europe hasn't tried very hard. And now things have changed. I'm not very comfortable telling other countries that they should be spending a higher percentage of their budgets on bombs, but it's more about the U.S. spending a vastly smaller percentage on them without costing NATO in military capabilities. If NATO can't run an operation in a narrow strip of desert land on the Mediterranean coast for eleven weeks without running out of weapons, then they're almost useless."

Quackery Alert - Magic Light Therapy

Features and Specs | BioVeda Technologies: "Yes. The AURA PTL II is unique from any other stand alone laser on the planet in that it utilizes not only the traditional benefits of Low Level Light Therapy but utilizes the extensive library of substance specific patterns to transmit energetic information to the cells."

My Woo is an Awesome Woo

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Acupuncture colorized : Respectful Insolence: "Esogetic ColorpunctureTM is a revolutionary evolution in holistic healing and one of Europe's most popular new alternative healing disciplines. The originator of Colorpuncture is a German scientist and naturopath named Peter Mandel who has conducted over 25 years of intensive empirical research to develop this unique system of healing. Colorpuncture involves focusing colored light on acupuncture (and other) points on the skin in order to energize powerful healing impulses in our physical and energy bodies."

Buyer Beware Even More Important after a disaster

Editorial: Consumers need to beware of scams after tornado | masslive.com: "Natural disasters mostly bring out the best in people, but they almost always spawn some unsavory operators out to make a buck at the expense of someone else’s misfortune.

“The issue of fraud and deceptive practices in the aftermath of a major weather event is nothing new, but a weak economy in recent years has led to an increase in aggressive and or questionable solicitation practices,” said Frank O’Brien, spokesman for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America."

Video - Epic Drum Battle - Buddy Rich vs Animal

Things I am tired of - Progressive Butt Hurt

Progressives Call On Democrats To Show Some Spine After Weiner Scandal | TPMDC

: "It's not clear how far this will develop. Defending Weiner is not something many are willing to do. But for some progressives, the response to Weiner is another sign of the Democratic party letting its left wing down."

Note to all the folks getting their knickers in a twist about this being another stab in the back for the progressives.


IT ISN'T ABOUT YOU.

Rainbows banned at Mississauga Catholic school

Rainbows banned at Mississauga Catholic school:

"In February, Xtra revealed there are no GSAs at any Ontario Catholic school. Then, in April, all Ontario Catholic boards were instructed to allow “anti-bullying groups,” but a silent ban remains on all student groups focused on gay, lesbian and trans issues and group names can’t contain the word gay. GSAs are prohibited because “they lead to activism.”"

Sigh. Of course they lead to activism. That is kind of the fucking point.

Bon The Geek Vents

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Really? REALLY?:

"Okay, I'm going to go into this letting you know I am furious. The more I write, the more angry I become. This is partly a vent and partly an open letter to all the holier-than-thou jackasses who think that their beliefs give them the right to trample other people."

Go read the rest. You will enjoy it.

Newt's Campaign Staff says "buh bye"

Senior Gingrich 2012 aides resign en masse | 11alive.com: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newt Gingrich's campaign manager and numerous other key aides have resigned together, a strong blow to his hopes for the Republican presidential nomination."

What government services Would You Pay Taxes For - Serious Question

With the current fad of saying that all government spending is bad and such odd things as "the google test" I have to wonder what it is that people are willing to pay for the government to do.

I am pondering the question myself and would love to hear some suggestions from my readers.

As Long As I can give my computer the finger

Using the hand as a joystick: "ScienceDaily (May 26, 2011) — Up until recently, users needed a mouse and a keyboard, a touch-screen or a joystick to control a computer system. Researchers in Germany have now developed a new kind of gesture command system that makes it possible to use just the fingers of a hand."

Cookies, anyone? - Robot Cook

Cookies, anyone?: "The process of creaming butter and sugar, mixing in a handful of dry ingredients and sprinkling in chocolate chips to make cookies is a recipe simple enough for most humans to follow, but for a robot it is a complex task that requires hours of hierarchical planning by roboticists and real-time planning by the robot."

Yglesias and a fun hypothetical

If Supply-Side Economics Was True, Would Liberals Embrace It? | ThinkProgress:

"To play devil’s advocate here, is this really so implausible? It seems to me that I’ve read an awful lot about the evils of income inequality over the past 10 years. If cutting taxes on the rich increased inequality, but let the government raise revenue to finance much better bus service, is that something Kevin Drum would support? My impression, particularly over the past year, is that lots of my colleagues in the progressive blogosphere are in fact very worried about relative incomes and don’t believe that increased public services are a viable counterweight to a flatter income distribution. Right?"

The problem with the hypothetical is ... the premise is demonstrably not true so you might as well say "if the moon was made of green cheese ...".

Yeah, it is fun to play with hypotheticals but it is nice if they have at least a small anchor in reality otherwise it is just masturbatory nonsense and will turn out to be link bait for conservatives to say "even the liberal Matt Yglesias wonders this".

My Last Post on Weinergate - What Glenzilla Says

The joys of repressed voyeuristic titillation - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:

"Yes, Anthony Weiner lied -- about something that is absolutely nobody's business but his and his wife's.  If you're not his wife, you have absolutely no legitimate reason to want to know about -- let alone pass judgment on -- what he does in his private sexual life with other consenting adults.  Particularly repellent is the pretense of speaking out on behalf of his wife, as though anyone knows what her perspectives on such matters are or what their relationship entails.  The only reason to want to wallow in the details of Anthony Weiner's sex life is because of the voyeuristic titillation it provides: a deeply repressed culture celebrates when it finds cause to be able to talk about penises and naked pictures and oral sex while hiding behind some noble pretext.  On some level, I find the behavior of the obviously loathsome Andrew Breitbart preferable; at least he's honest about his motive:  he hates Democrats and liberals and wants sadistically to destroy them however he can.  It's the empty, barren, purse-lipped busybodies who cannot stay out of other adults' private and sexual lives -- while pretending to be elevated  -- that are the truly odious villains here."

Reasons Not To Have An Automatic Signature

Among GOP, anti-tax orthodoxy runs deep - The Washington Post:

"I know it's too simple a solution but it could be a start, a flat consumer tax. A flat tax we all have to pay. No more IRS. We already pay way too much in taxes as citizens, the ones of us who do pay taxes. That's the point. We have so many entitlement programs and only so many taxpayers to support it all. Something has got to give and I say it should be entitlement programs and making everyone pay their fair share in taxes. We should not have to pay so much of our hard earned money to the government to redistribute our money nationally or globally. Smaller government, fewer entitlements. 
 
WE STAND WITH ISRAEL! "

(Emphasis mine)

Wouldn't a rant about spending too much (including on foreign aid) be a bit more effective if it didn't end with a salute to one of the USA's largest client states? Just thinking out loud...

On The Bigger Picture - Weiner Edition

Balloon Juice » Why Weiner Should Stay Put: "Weiner didn’t do anything that will merit more than a slap on the wrist from the House Ethics committee, and whatever national political damage he could do has already been done. He needs to stay in his seat, turn off his Blackberry, and ride out the next year so that Democrats can hold NY-9."

Possibly the Dumbest piece ever in Huffington Post

Frank Schaeffer: Anthony Weiner: Metaphor for How Sexual Selfishness Destroyed the Left's Agenda: "The Weiner Problem is a bigger problem (no pun intended) than one man's sick folly: It is a metaphor for a whole post-60s generation of American progressives that became more interested in winning culture war battles and fucking around personally than in the traditional lefty agenda of unions, organizing, workers, change, political voting rights, and a fair economy."

On The Gender Pay Gap

The Gender Pay Gap Starts Right Out Of College | ThinkProgress

I always suspected that the income disparity could be explained simply by the simple fact that women choose career paths that don't pay as well. Engineering is male dominated, teaching is female dominated. The income difference is VAST, but that doesn't mean it's discriminatory.

I don't think it is necessary to point out the fact that there is a glaring logical problem with this.

Tim Pawlenty May not be a fool

Pawlenty Wants To Abolish the Army - NYTimes.com:

"“We can start by applying what I call ‘The Google Test.’ If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn’t need to be doing it,” Pawlenty said."

But he says some pretty foolish things

Palin and Thatcher - Ain't gonna happen

Margaret Thatcher to Sarah Palin: don't bother dropping by | Politics | guardian.co.uk:

"Allies of former prime minister regard darling of Tea Party movement as a frivolous figure unworthy of an audience

"

On Simpler Times

I am currently sitting on my sofa and pondering a long ago image of two little boys in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle PJs.

Things change.

Video - The Constitutional Case for Marriage Equality

Bet you never thought that I would post a video from the Cato Institute. This is good stuff.

QOTD - On Congress and Stupidity

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Wouldn't You Like To Be A. Weiner Too:

"If being an idiot is grounds for resignation from Congress, the place would be empty."

Erasing data could keep quantum computers cool - physicsworld.com

Erasing data could keep quantum computers cool - physicsworld.com: "Erasure of data – the blanking of memory so that it can be used again – is a fundamental operation any computer must perform. In today's computers, erasure generates heat, which not only wastes energy, but also causes problems for engineers trying to make smaller or more powerful computers, since the heat could damage the circuitry. But now theoretical physicists claim that, in the world of quantum computing, the act of erasing data might actually cool a computer."

Expelled - Bankrupt

I guess that saga is now done : Pharyngula: "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed — the 2008 creationist propaganda movie fronted by Ben Stein — is scheduled to be auctioned, lock, stock, and barrel, pursuant to the bankruptcy proceeding of Premise Media Holdings LP."

Recipe - Cucumber Salad with Peanut and Lime

Cool Spicy Cucumbers with Peanuts & Lime |familystylefood|recipe:

1 English cucumber, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
1 Serrano pepper or 2 jalapenos, finely chopped
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts, finely chopped or pulsed in a food processor
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons roasted peanut oil (or olive oil)
1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste"

Over to the source for the directions

On Weiner's Wiener - Epilogue

So, it appears that Rep Weiner was outsmarted by Twitter and accidentally tweeted a pic he meant to DM.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that everyone reading this has done something like hit "reply all" followed immediately by "OH FUCK". This is a close approximation of what happened here. I don't give a rat's ass what anyone does in their spare time although I have a hunch that he will be sleeping on the couch for a while.(as he should be)

If you listen carefully to what he said a few things are interesting to me. He was very clear that this was not a one time thing and he was just as clear that all the relationships were online only. There was no physical contact and it appears that there was no plan for physical contact. There are those (I am NOT among them) that say that he wasn't actually cheating on his wife.

This is a new world that we live in. Our morality has to adapt with it and we have to try to figure out what is the right thing to do in some new situations. Anyone that thinks that the answers are simple isn't thinking about it hard enough or has never been in a similar situation.

Personally, I hope that he does not resign, runs for re-election and has a great career. If he allows this to define him then he has IMHO only himself to blame. He can overcome this if he wants to.

Weiner - I fucked up, Am sorry, won't quit

Rep. Anthony Weiner Admits Sending Pictures; Apologizes. But first, Andrew Breitbart hijacked the press conference. | Crooks and Liars: "Rep. Weiner just admitted that he sent the original photo along with the ones Breitbart published. He apologizes, says he will not resign, says he did not use government BlackBerrys to send the pictures. He says he is embarrassed, ashamed, and apologizes."

Could Anthony Weiner have been stupider if he had tried?

No.
another edition of SATSQ

Myths about the Canadian Medical System

In defense of Canada | The Incidental Economist:

"Paul Krugman has been on a tear the last few days with a number of posts defending Canada’s Medicare. This was all leading up to his latest column, where he questioned why Medicare should be unsustainable in this country, when it’s sustainable there.

I’m sure we’re going to now face the usual howls of protest, comparing Canada’s health care system to a death sentence. So let me summarize a few of my past posts to try and pre-empt some of the false rhetoric."

Now, I don't want to see comments with links to horrible anecdotes that show why the Canadian systems sucks because someone's aunt had to wait 6 months for a new hip. For every one of those I will send you 5 links of people that have been cut off by their insurance company or forced to work for a company that is abusive because they have a pre-existing condition and would be refused coverage if they changed laws. Or I could just photocopy a couple of the bills that my insurance company doesn't feel like paying because .. well they don't feel like covering them.

Go read the rest of the post, it is a good read.

On the Place of Rick Santorum in the Race

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Man On Dog Action: "Santorum combines all of the worst positions of the GOP spectrum with a personal charisma that ranks somewhere between a used litterbox and a petri dish of syphilis, and if the rest of the GOP super long shots like Herman Cain or Jon Huntsman needed somebody in the race to make them look like legitimate candidates, Santorum has answered the call wholeheartedly."

Those Damn Unqualified Nobel Laureates

When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough - NYTimes.com: "LAST October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be?"

Egypt not so Islamist?

WOMEN'S LENS - Un coup d'oeil féminin: Poll finds most Egyptians do not back Islamic party, contradicting widely-held view: "A poll released Sunday indicates that at this point, only a small minority of Egyptians support the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, and less than 1 percent favor an Iran-style Islamic theocracy.
The Gallup poll conducted after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak found that while 69 percent of Egyptians want religious leaders to have an “advisory role” in new legislation, most do not want a government based in religion.
Only 15 percent said that they support the Muslim Brotherhood, while more than 60 percent showed no political preference.
The results appeared to counter a widely held view that the Muslim Brotherhood will be the main winner in September’s parliamentary elections."

Good Thing Conservatives Don't believe in Demagoguery - Haley Barbour Edition

Haley Barbour claims that Obama is raising gas prices on purpose | Video Cafe: "'No question about that,' Barbour insisted. 'I mean, this administration's policy has clearly has been to drive up the cost of energy so Americans would use less of it.'"

In favor of poverty

Wikileaks: U.S. Intervened To Keep Haiti Slave Wages Low On Behalf Of Hanes, Levi Strauss | Crooks and Liars

"Two years ago, Haiti unanimously passed a law sharply raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t), but it was two and a half times the then-minimum of 24 cents an hour.

This infuriated American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department involved. The U.S. ambassador put pressure on Haiti’s president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies (the U.S. minimum wage, which itself is very low, works out to $58 a day)."

How to Keep the bankers happy - Trash your economy

No BELL Prize - NYTimes.com: "Their determination to stay with the euro and service their debts is impressive. But they have all taken huge hits to their real economies. They have made a desert and called it internal devaluation."

Pity The Oppressed

The Reference Frame: Interview: Is climate change caused by solar inertial motion?:

"What welcome did solar motion research get among the scientists in your country?

The enlightened ones, and they are many, support it and help me a lot. The others use this topic for target practice. I was sorry to hear dr. Grygar, Czech astronomer and member of the Czech branch of CSI, compares SIM to some astrology. I wonder when he will grow tired of doing that. And our climatologists? I represent our institute in the Czech National Climate Programme. These people “research” only greenhouse effect vs temperatures. I call them “heaters”. Sometimes I feel like a lone Hussite warrior – myself against all. They deny the existence of solar influence on climate let alone the influence of the whole solar system. Most of them refuse to talk to me, most of them even do not say hello, when we meet. Even now when many world journals publish articles about the influence of the Sun on climate. Probably this requires more time. Many discoveries had to wait, some very long. I do not waste my time fighting windmills. God will sort it out when the right time comes."

Sorry, you aren't Galileo.

Geekery - Antimatter trapped for 1000 seconds

5 June 2011 - CERN experiment traps antimatter atoms for 1000 seconds: "Geneva, 5 June 2011. In a paper published online by the journal Nature Physics today, the ALPHA experiment at CERN[1] reports that it has succeeded in trapping antimatter atoms for over 16 minutes: long enough to begin to study their properties in detail. ALPHA is part of a broad programme at CERN's antiproton decelerator (AD)[2] investigating the mysteries of one of nature's most elusive substances."

On Cloud Girlfriend

Cloud Girlfriend Open To All: Hard Lessons For Dating Sims | ZDNet:

"Cloud Girlfriend means you can finally act like the douchebag you really are with no consequences – under the guise of being positive for someone’s self-esteem.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a slutty bimbo on the service. But that’s because I’m being honest not only about who will use a service that commodifies cheap and easy connections, but also about how it will be used.

If they’re expecting this site to be anything more than porny chat hookups, they might want to pivot that business model again.

Or just be honest, and give those of us seeking a genuinely superficial, anonymous time, what we really want."

Reality TV show mom busted for meth | accessAtlanta

Reality TV show mom busted for meth | accessAtlanta: "A Georgia mother who appeared on an episode of '16 and Pregnant' with her daughter -- Whitney Purvis -- was arrested Sunday morning for possession of meth and marijuana."

On rewriting wikipedia - Sarah Palin Edition

Talk:Paul Revere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Consensus is clear not to add Palin comments to Paul Revere article --CutOffTies (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)"

Booman On Noonan

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community: "It's hard to show a lot of warmth and high regard when your opponents are questioning your religious faith, questioning your citizenship, and calling you a socialist destroyer. I don't actually recall that Bill Clinton was all that warm and fuzzy when he was being hounded by Kenneth Starr. If I'm willing to grant Noonan anything, it's that the president doesn't suffer fools very well. And he's surrounded by them. It's these fools that Noonan speaks for, and to."

Signs that I have a strange Audience

The two most popular posts on this blog in the last week have been about a woman having a tombstone fall on her while fucking in a graveyard and a terribly geeky bit about a standard for markup for the semantic web.

I love reading and writing about politics but if I were trying to get pageviews I would write about weirdness/

Comment of the day - Lawyers, Guns & Money Edition

Sunday Crazy Blogging: Municipal Ordinance Edition. : Lawyers, Guns & Money:

"Here’s where I get offensive.

San Franciscans are very familiar with something we call “Greyhound Therapy”. That treatment modality consists of municipal officials (usually police officers) rounding up homeless people and giving them bus tickets (frequently to the Bay Area) and instructions not to return. Cities that have been caught pulling this include Phoenix and several Florida cities.

These cities are noted for having populations that largely self-identify as Christian, which leads them to interest themselves in California politics when it comes to issues like same-sex marriage. These same Christians seem to have skipped the Beatitudes and all that stuff about “the least of my brothers” and “when I was hungry you fed me” in favor of the brimstony bits.

Nice way to demonstrate faith."

If this happens I am moving to Argentina

No More Mister Nice Blog: "I'm not arguing that Palin gets no respect because she's a woman -- obviously, she's getting a hell of a lot of respect right now (a lot more than, say, Tim Pawlenty, who, last time I looked, was male). But I think someone who tapped into that bro thing the way George W. Bush did with reporters in 2000 could really pull this off."

The Grifter In Chief

The Reaction: Is Sarah Palin duping her supporters into funding her bus tour?: "But why are they donating? Are they donating just to support the bus tour, one that includes a pizza dinner with Donald Trump? Or are they donating because they think she's running for president and that the bus tour is one of the first steps in what may be an unconventional rollout? I'd guess the latter, which means that Palin is basically duping her supporters into stuffing her coffers, into financing her egomaniacal quest for the spotlight, which had begun to fade for her, and for a life of luxury (in case you were wondering, she's not living on the bus), both on the tour and generally. It's one thing for Fox News to pay her loads of money to be whatever it is she is for that network. It's quite another for her to deceive her supporters, many of whom no doubt don't have much money to begin with, into adding to her wealth. (And getting 'visibly irritated' when asked about the bus tour. Why get defensive? What is she hiding?)"

Some Things I Believe

I sometimes get asked why I have come to be a liberal (or progressive .. or whatever kind of label you want to put on my vaguely lefty way of looking at the world). I thought that I would try to put up a few bullet points to see if I could draw a bit of a line around the things that shape my world view.

• I believe that people as a whole are not evil and while we may do selfish or nasty things on occasion, that is not what drives us.
• I don't believe that people are inherently lazy. I think that the vast majority of people want to work at something productive and meaningful that pays enough that they aren't perpetually on the edge of starvation.
• I believe that people want to have their own stuff. This is why I am not a communist, I think that having things of your own is important.
• I don't believe that bona fide "self made" people do it for the money. Money is merely how the score is kept in the game.
• I don't believe that increasing someone else's freedom necessarily diminishes mine.
• I don't believe that government is inherently good or bad.
• I don't believe that corporations are inherently good or bad.
• I believe that technology is often the answer to our problems, but not without humanity in its application
• I believe that every person has a right to health care delivered in an efficient, effective and dignified manner at minimal direct cost. Most patients will not abuse this and the few that do will frankly not cost that much to carry if the costs are spread across everyone.
• I believe that it is my responsibility as a human being to help ensure that the least among us have what they need to live in dignity.
• I believe that taxes are necessary.
• I believe that "user fees" for government services are in general needlessly regressive
• I believe that government should be the employer of last resort in an economic downturn
• I believe that government should be the lender of last resort in an economic downturn.
• I believe that every citizen should vote.

This is my quick list for this morning. I am sure that I will add to this list over time. Note that I said that I believe these things. They are the axioms that define the shape of my political views. If you change them, you get a different shape. It is an interesting exercise, everyone should try it sometime.

Being gay says little about your sex life

Wingnut: You Are What You Do : Dispatches from the Culture Wars: "Don Lemon hasn't done anything at all in front of your children's faces other than read the news. And say that he's gay. But that's the real problem here, isn't it? It's the very existence of gay people that bothers Heck. He doesn't want them to exist so he wants them all to stay in the closet so he can pretend they don't. Well suck it up, buttercup. There are lots of gay people in the world and they aren't going anywhere."

Political Wedding News

Christopher Nixon Cox married - Politico Staff - POLITICO.com:

"The reception for more than 700 guests was held at the Waldorf-Astoria. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was there, as were Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D.-N.Y.), Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Ray Kelly, New York’s police commissioner.

Among the former office-holders in attendance were former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former N.Y. Gov. George Pataki, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau."

This guest list tells you everything you need to know about our broken political system. It is all a game for these folks.

Cambodia Better Watch out

Henry Kissinger considers soccer role - Associated Press - POLITICO.com: "Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says he has not yet made a firm commitment to become an adviser to soccer’s world governing body.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter said Wednesday that Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford, had agreed to join a “committee of wise persons” to help investigate problems within the organization."

Geeky Post - Fun With Quantum Mechanics

Watching Photons Interfere: "Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer" : Uncertain Principles: "The more orthodox approach to quantum mechanics holds that the photons do not have well-defined position and momentum before they are detected at a particular position or with a particular momentum. In this version, the particular results of a given measurement of position or momentum is picked at the instant of measurement from a probability distribution determined from the wavefunction at that position at that time. If you repeat this process lots of times, you'll get a different position and momentum every time, but those values will follow a particular pattern. If you average together a whole slew of these measurements, you can come up with an average momentum and average position, which is what they've done here."

Oracle and I

I found this rundown of the various Oracle versions and what the big deal was about each.

My first Oracle was Version 5.


v. 2 (1979): the first commercial SQL RDBMS
v. 3 (1983): the first database to support SMP
v. 4 (1984): read-consistency, Database Buffer Cache
v. 5 (1986): Client-Server, Clustering, Distributing Database, SGA
v. 6 (1988): procedural language (PL/SQL), undo/redo, latches
v. 7 (1992): Library Cache, Shared SQL, Stored procedures, 64bit
v. 8/8i (1999): Object types, Java, XML
v. 9i (2000): Dynamic SGA, Real Application Clusters
v. 10g (2003): Enterprise Grid Computing, Self-Tuning, mutexes
v. 11g (2008): Results Cache, SQL Plan Management, Exadata 
v. 12c (2011): ?Cloud? Not yet released … to be continued

Geeky Post - Oracle Latches and why you should care

MEDIAS-2011 « Latch, mutex and beyond:

"As you may expect, my presentation was entitled “Exploring the Oracle latches”. You can download it here. The presentation contains more math and less X$ materials than usual. Also, I added several introductory slides about Oracle, its performance and tuning."

Ok, 99.44% of you won't give a fuck but this is the kind of stuff I find entertaining. Well, and it pays the rent too.

What? You thought all I did was rant about how shitty the GOP was? If only there was a paycheck in that!

Geeky Post - Oracle Merge - Oops

Merge – argh! « Oracle Scratchpad: "If you’re using the merge command without including insert/delete options then Oracle will ignore check constraints. (What’s the most important requirement of a database – many people would say that it’s the correctness of the data.)"

About that debt limit

Nominal GDP Impact Of A Debt Freeze | ThinkProgress

: "To see just how much, imagine that this debt limit crisis happened last year. The budget deficit last August and September was $125 billion. If the government had been unable to finance that deficit it would have been forced to cut $125 billion from its spending during those two months—which if translated into a decline of that magnitude in economic activity would have resulted in GDP dropping by 2.3 percent, in nominal terms, from the previous quarter.

To put that kind of drop in perspective, consider that the biggest quarter-to-quarter drop in nominal GDP since 1947, when official statistics began, was 2 percent from the third to fourth quarter of 2008—the middle of the Great Recession, when we lost nearly 2 million jobs. In other words, had the government been unable to borrow last summer, it could have resulted in an economic contraction worse than we experienced during the depths of the Great Recession. "

Is this the GOP plan for America?

Our Fantasy Nation? - NYTimes.com: "I spend a fair amount of time reporting in developing countries, from Congo to Colombia. They’re typically characterized by minimal taxes, high levels of inequality, free-wheeling businesses and high military expenditures. Any of that ring a bell?

In Latin American, African or Asian countries, I sometimes see shiny tanks and fighter aircraft — but schools that have trouble paying teachers. Sound familiar? And the upshot is societies that are quasi-feudal, stratified by social class, held back by a limited sense of common purpose."

Heckuva Job TEPCO

Radiation in No. 1 reactor building at highest level yet | The Japan Times Online

: "Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday it has detected radiation of up to 4,000 millisieverts per hour in the building housing the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

When this started I think that I said that it didn't diminish my support for nuclear power. I have finally started to rethink that. This is such a collossal fuckup that I am wondering if it is a factor of the current designs just being impossible to deal with in a major crisis. Sure, maybe it is just that we are seeing human nature at work (not wanting to admit a huge fuck up) but if that is the case then it just means that we are unlikely to be able to be trusted with something that is as potentially catastrophic as nuclear power plants as currently configured.

I am not happy about this prospect because nuclear power is a part of the mix we need to get us off hydrocarbons and if we cannot rely on it then we are in a bigger pickle than I thought.

Nice little Pill you have ... would be a shame if anything happened to it.

Anti-Abortion Groups Push To Outlaw Contraceptives By Redefining Personhood | ThinkProgress: "A fringe anti-abortion group, Personhood USA, has been startlingly successful at pushing forward legislation across the country that would redefine life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, effectively outlawing contraceptives like birth control pills. Although the medical community has long been in agreement that fertilization does not mark the beginning of a pregnancy — fertilized eggs must first be implanted, and only about half of fertilized eggs actually result in a pregnancy — a growing number of lawmakers are supporting Personhood USA’s efforts to buck medical expertise and legally define life as the moment a sperm meets an egg."

Video - Kitties do like their fish