I just read some sad news on Bloomberg news - Apple CEO Steve Jobs was found dead in his California home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his Macs and iPods, there's no denying his contributions to personal computing. Truly an American icon.
McCain does have slightly more credibility than his rival: Slightly more than half of registered voters say Obama says what voters want to hear instead of what he believes; a smaller percentage, 44 percent, say they same of McCain.
So, basically almost half of Americans think that Obama is a straight-shooter and over half think McCain is? Or at least, since there's no reference to the "unsure" crowd, perhaps I should phrase it differently: Essentially half the American populace believe that some politicians may not be lying to us.
To these people I'd like to ask: "Did you also know that 'gullible' is not in the dictionary?" After all this time, half of us still believe what these assholes say to us, or are at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. There's just not enough lumber in the world to make the clue by fours I'd need to beat people with, is there?
(Filed under: bug)
So, Friday night I'm driving with my wife and son through Tempe on my way to the bookstore so my wife can pick up her copy of this vampire/werewolf book everyone seems so gaga over.
I'm driving down McClintock Avenue when the red and blue lights come on behind me. "Hmmm... not speeding, plate is current, didn't do anything wrong". I turn off onto a tertiary street, and after a few minutes the officer comes up to us, asks for the trinity (license/registration/insurance) and informs us that our plate has been flagged for non-compliance with insurance. I did get a letter from the MVD that this would happen, because my policy got rewritten to comply with AZ law when we moved back, and that caused the old policy to be canceled. But I went to the MVD to straighten it out and they said everything was hunky-dory.
I want to stress at this point that the police officer was a complete professional through this, and was respectful, courteous and friendly the whole time. But he did notify me that he is basically forced by law to confiscate the car's license plate. He says "let me run this one more time and we'll see if it's just a computer glitch." He comes back again after a few minutes and says "you're free to go. I should've looked closer. The plate I put in came back to a Hyundai (we have a Ford Windstar), and I typed 225 instead of 255. Sorry for disturbing you."
Mildly annoying, sure, but it's only ten minutes, so no big deal, and he admitted he made a mistake which is way more than I expect from any government authority (Local cops in Tempe and Mesa are professional and decent human beings. I'm much more wary of Arpaio's boys). I started thinking about it more and more. If instead of a simple financial responsibility law infraction, the plate that is so similar to mine was tied to a violent criminal on the lam, or God forbid, some terrorist suspect? Would the simple act of hitting a record in the computer database woken the vast fitfully sleeping machine far beyond what a Tempe, AZ cop intended because of a duffed keyboard entry? I'm glad I didn't have to find out.
I think license plates should have a modulus check digit.
So, about a year ago, I bailed from Slashdot, wiped my journals (so stupid!), dabbled with Multiply, which I despised, so I left there, and basically became a hermit.
All I have to say is I don't think I've coped with life very well these last couple of years. But, things have a way of returning to their base state, and I have been reading
Also, my office here at the newspaper has been emptied. And at home the house is all but packed as we await the movers tomorrow to return to our beloved Arizona deserts. I will once again be working in space sciences, and hopefully, I can return to my normal zany insanity instead of the brooding miserable insanity that has possessed me for the last two years.
So, as I return to "my happy place", I'll try to do better to keep in touch.
So Randy Moss is now a Patriot.
Corey Dillon managed to work within the program for a couple of years (and once he acted up, we cut him).
Rodney Harrison didn't have the best reputation for the Chargers (though that may have been more because of his prodigious fine total...).
Arguably, TO would be a better project for the Patriots; Moss has a history of, well, laziness, which doesn't necessarily fit in with the Patriots system. Still, I think that his willingness to renegotiate the contract underscores a desire to get a ring, and if he reverts to prior form, the core leadership in the locker room (Brady, the elite-level QB that Moss has never really had (save for maybe Cunningham in Minnesota way back when?), Bruschi, Vrabel, etc.) may need only to flash some Super Bowl rings and say "you can raise hell when you have even two rings."
If worse comes to worst, he can be cut rather easily, and the Patriots have really only burned a fourth round pick. On the other hand, the tandem of Stallworth and Moss has got to be giving secondaries throughout the AFC nightmares....
EDIT to add the fringe of soccer that was advertised: Villa win 2-0 away to Man City. Providing more evidence that Martin O'Neill's vision is being realized, James Maloney and John Carew (both January window acquisitions) were Villa's scorers, while Petrov and Ashley Young (the other main acquisitions this season) performed very well. Villa have won 3 straight road games in the league for the first time since 1998.
I expect Villa to be competing in the UEFA Cup for 2008-09, with a possible Champions League appearance in 2010-11.
Why not surreptitiously drop oil-eating bacteria into Middle Eastern oil wells?
Enviros would be happy due to reduced petroleum supplies.
Western oil companies (few, if any, of whom have any drilling interests in the MidEast) would be happy due to reduced supplies increasing prices for their oil.
Alternative energy interests would be happy (due to generally rising petroleum prices).
The only losers are the MidEastern oil states, and those who are dependent on specifically MidEastern oil extraction (including, for instance, Islamic terrorist groups).
A new wave in marriage is sweeping the Middle East: misyar ("visit") marriages, wherein "the woman gives up spousal rights and stays in her residence while the man visits her for sex.
How exactly (minus the vestigial woman-hating components that accompany the Sunni fatwas allowing this practice; the Shi'a have a practice that is essentially a marriage for a specified length of time which expires without divorce proceedings) is this that different from modern Western love/lust (though, admittedly, I've had as much direct experience with Western love/lust over the last few years than I've had with Middle Eastern or Eastern love/lust, which is to say none, but that's neither here nor there)?
It is, as Cavanaugh states, a symptom of organized religion's need (and thus the need of states dominated by such) to issue a blanket proscription, and then in certain defined situations, allow a total exception; these marriages (especially the Shi'ite version) appear to legalize prostitution ("I'll pay you $500 to marry me for tonight"). While entering into a misyar with the intention to divorce is proscripted, most of these marriages include provisions for instant divorce in the event of pregnancy, or even if news of the misyar gets out. The misyar is thus a license to bed-hop.
The parallels to Western societies that prohibited sex outside of marriage and their rampant teenage marriage rates (along with short marriages ending in either the death of one partner or divorce) should not go unnoted (so there!). That these marriages are especially popular with the student set underscores the parallel.
So to Ahmed and A'isha, keep on with that. Sexual liberation today, liberation from your theocratic oppressors tomorrow!
Just plugging recent (mostly from this season, but the last two weeks of play from last season are also factored in) results in the EPL into my power rating algorithm... (W-L-T records are for 2006)
[Y]ou are brilliant. BTW, take the 2.5 -114 at Pinny. And, if you wait for Oakland to win one more preseason game you may get Oakland Fan to bet that line down a little further. Of course, you have to remember that they are all cashing in their food stamps, so it may take awhile for them to bet this line down considering they are doing it $3 at a time.
{I'm sure that one of the few things the Patriot and Steeler fans in the JE circle can agree on is the characterization of the Raider fanbase...}
English Premier League soccer club Aston Villa (ASV.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it had agreed a 62.6 million pound ($119 million) cash takeover by a group led by U.S. billionaire Randy Lerner.
The 44-year-old Lerner, former chairman of credit card issuer MBNA and owner of the Cleveland Browns American football team, said he planned to get the team back on track. "It is my belief and the basis for my bid to acquire Aston Villa Football Club that it can compete at the highest level within the Premiership and in Europe," the American said in a statement.
I don't think this is either a Glazer or Abramovitch situation... AVFC don't have the assets to strip of Man Ure, and it doesn't seem like Lerner wants a Chelski-esque plaything where when he gets bored of losing money and winning championships, the club will be left in massive debt.
Doesn't this picture book (not work safe, unless your place of employment likes drawings of coitus) just make you want to get it on?
Really fascinating piece from radio programming consultant Guy Zapoleon (he seems to specialize in pop & takes credit for inventing Hot AC).
I must say that his explication of the cycle seems accurate. I find myself listening (the Levi of even a year ago would be absolutely ashamed to write this...) to Sirius Hits 1 a lot, and liking quite a few tracks.
I'm planning to start posting my sports handicapping here at
So if you're interested head on over to SlashCapper's journal.
Proudly posting content that's probably illegal in the State of Washington!
For those of you that haven't discovered the Cato Institute's Cato @ Liberty blog, here are a pair of highlights:
Glaeser and Ward are right. There is little principled difference between the Rs and Ds these days about the size and scope of government. On that score, the main disagreements now are about which favored groups get to feed at the government trough at the expense of the rest of us. By contrast, the really fundamental issues today, the issues that define ideological loyalties and drive voters to the polls, are cultural questions: abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, guns, immigration, nationalism. Church attendance is now a better predictor of voting patterns than income.
And so, whether Jonah likes it or not, libertarians are in the center of the American political debate as it is currently framed. In the red vs. blue culture wars, libertarians find themselves in the middle, along with that large, nonideological chunk of the electorate that is equally squeamish about the religious right and the countercultural left. This is a new and unaccustomed position for libertarians to be in, but I am coming to believe it represents a unique opportunity for us if we can figure out how to take advantage of it.
The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst
