February 29, 2008

Do You Have Scott's Number?





Reprised from today's Ark via Pet Monologues.

Posted by Steve on February 29, 2008

Friday Ark #180

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • the Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 29, 2008 | Comments (7)

February 28, 2008

Odonates, Spiders, Slug Sex and More

Get a head start on the Ark.

Go visit the 30th edition of the Carnival of the Spineless!

Now!

Posted by Steve on February 28, 2008

Last Thoughts....

...that have NEVER been uttered on a deathbed?

Posted by Steve on February 28, 2008

February 27, 2008

Where Does obama Stand on the Issues

Matt Gonzalez does the research for you. You make your own decision.

Via Talkleft where there is a lengthy comment thread.

Posted by Steve on February 27, 2008

William Buckley, RIP

I did not often agree with Buckley but found both his discourse and writings enjoyable and sometimes challenging.

May he rest in peace and condolences to his family.

Via Terry Teachout.

Update 2/28): Here is a good reason not to agree with him.

Posted by Steve on February 27, 2008

February 26, 2008

Misplaced Snark

Left i on the News provides some information and links on the growing food crisis driven greatly by government driven biofuel programs and then snarks:

Although you won't find it in the article linked above, last night's BBC World did mention the figure of "billions" of people who may be in serious trouble because of this crisis. Like so many other problems, this is one that capitalism - production for profit rather than need - can never solve.

Well, yes, like so many other problems something other than the government/corporate symbiosis that constitutes modern capitalism might solve a problem created by misguided government incentives.

Posted by Steve on February 26, 2008

A Cost of obama

If you are typical mid-level lawyer living in New York City an obama victory in November may cost you the equivalent of a $34,000/year pay cut.

I suspect most folks will have little sympathy fsomeone who grosses around $280,000/year.

Nevertheless, everyone should include an analysis similer to that in the linked article in making their own decisions about who to vote for. Do you come out ahead or behind on a straight tax basis? What will be the financial impact on you of other economic and social policies? Do you value the things that the taxes will be used for? If you come out ahead is it because you earned it or because the difference is coming out of someone else's pocket? How do you fell about that?

Of course, it may well be worth a $34,000 pay cut to many folks in this category to assure a discontinuance of some of the presidential policies of the past 7 years.

Posted by Steve on February 26, 2008

February 25, 2008

Come On, Let's Stop the Campaigning Now!

The 2008 election results are in:


Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Via Allan.

Posted by Steve on February 25, 2008

Roads That Would Make My Grandma Squeal

When I was younger the roads into many of Oregon's high mountain lakes were not paved. In fact they were often little more than a skinny single lane hanging over the edge of a cliff.

Grandma always went on our fishing trips to these lakes and, led by Grandpa, we gauged the danger of the road by the frequency and length of Grandma's squeals.

Dark Roasted Blend has a fascinating series on the World's Most Dangerous Roads.

This, for example, would have definitely rated a 10 on the squeal-o-meter:

Dangerous1014960488_b3a2e7d26d.jpg

Check out the rest of the series. There are "better" ones than the above!

Posted by Steve on February 25, 2008

February 24, 2008

Is It Going To Be dear leader obama?

It appears that some dems are thinking that is the way it should be:

3. What Obama Meant. Any review of Obama statements or past votes is subject to an explanation by Obama of what he REALLY meant. Any criticism of Obama's statements which do not take into account Obama's clarifications and explanations of what he REALLY meant are unfair personal attacks and the attacker is a "liar" who will say and do anything to get elected.

4. Obama's attacks are always fair and merited. Any suggestion otherwise is, at the least, vaguely racist.

As an independent I'm looking forward to new blood, most likely obama but perhaps mccain, to pick on from time to time when they become, as Garrison would say, the current occupant.

There is no excuse for not engaging in this exercise when they are pretenders to the throne as well.

Posted by Steve on February 24, 2008

So, You Want to Fly A Big Plane do You?

Check out the Airbus A380's cockpit:

A380_2286075357_139bcb2016_o.jpg

Click on the image to go to a full 360 degree view.

The folks who created this have more interesting stuff in their portfolio. Never mind that the descriptions are in French; just check'm out!

Via haha.nu which also has a link to the Airbus Corporate Jet.

Posted by Steve on February 24, 2008

February 23, 2008

All You Need is Change

Change, we are going to change things! This idea has been the recent mantra of the 2008 election.

Mark Morford nails the truth of this:

No, not the bland politicalspeak Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton brand of broad sloganeering bumper-sticker change, the kind where part of your naive perky innocent unicorns-in-the-sky self really wants to believe it's all going to be hopeful and good and radically different, but yet you kind of know, deep down, when you peel back the masks and the rhetoric and the spin, that when all is said and done, pretty much the exact same jackals and demons and CEOs will run the bleak global circus, same as it ever was.
The only change we will get from clinton, obama or mccain is in the details of how the voters are bribed.

None of them will do anything to change the fundamental system of privilege and corporate welfare that creates the conditions for massive income disparity and corporate rapaciousness in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. There will always be income disparity in a healthy economy but in a healthy economy it will truly be the result of individual capabilities, effort and creativity not earmarks, subsidies or direct and indirect wealth transfers.

Posted by Steve on February 23, 2008

February 22, 2008

Friday Ark #179

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • the Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 22, 2008 | Comments (6)

February 21, 2008

Is It Really Free Trade?

Free trade, free trade, all aboard for free trade.

The Canadian and Columbian governments are close to executing a free trade agreement:

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier concluded an official visit to Bogota Tuesday, saying a Canada-Colombia free trade pact was imminent and praising its peace efforts in a statement.

"Discussions on a free trade agreement with Colombia are ongoing and Canada remains committed to concluding the negotiations in the near future," Bernier said.

But will it really be a free trade agreement?

That would require that any individuals or groups of individuals in the two countries can voluntarily exchange goods and services without government restrictions in forms such as taxes, tariffs, prohibitions, etc.

Columbia is the world's leading cocoa cultivator. Will there be unrestricted trade in cocoa related products?

The only role that the respective governments might have to play in a truly free trade environment is to provide a dispute resolution process (judicial system) and to provide police services in cases of fraud, theft or violence that the involved parties can not resolve amongst themselves without resort to violence.

That these agreements may make some steps in this direction can be a good thing. To the extent they serve to maintain the current state enforced corporate welfare system, well..., they are not so good.

Via Poliblog.

Posted by Steve on February 21, 2008

Spilled Any Hot Coffee Lately?

Memorializing Stella Liebeck here are the 2007 True Stella Awards :

The 2007 True Stella Awards

Issued February 2008

(Click here to confirm these are legitimate.)

#3: Sentry Insurance Company. The company provided worker's compensation insurance for a Wisconsin "Meals on Wheels" program. Delivering a meal, a MoW volunteer (who was allegedly not even wearing boots) slipped and fell on a participant's driveway that had been cleared of snow, and Sentry had to pay to care for her resulting injuries. Sentry wanted its money back, so it sued the 81-year-old homeowner getting the Meals on Wheels service. It could have simply filed for "subrogation" from her homeowner's insurance company, but by naming her in the action, it dragged an old lady into court, reinforcing the image of insurance companies as concerned only about the bottom line, not "protecting" policyholders from loss.

#2: The family of Robert Hornbeck. Hornbeck volunteered for the Army and served a stint in Iraq. After getting home, he got drunk, wandered into a hotel's service area (passing "DANGER" warning signs), crawled into an air conditioning unit, and was severely cut when the machinery activated. Unable to care for himself due to his drunkenness, he bled to death. A tragedy, to be sure, but one solely caused by a supposedly responsible adult with military training. Despite his irresponsible behavior -- and his perhaps criminal trespassing -- Hornbeck's family sued the hotel for $10 million, as if it's reasonably foreseeable that some drunk fool would ignore warning signs and climb into its heavy duty machinery to sleep off his bender.

But those pale compared to...

The winner of the 2007 True Stella Award: Roy L. Pearson Jr. The 57-year-old Administrative Law Judge from Washington DC claims that a dry cleaner lost a pair of his pants, so he sued the mom-and-pop business for $65,462,500. That's right: more than $65 million for one pair of pants. Representing himself, Judge Pearson cried in court over the loss of his pants, whining that there certainly isn't a more compelling case in the District archives. But the Superior Court judge wasn't moved: he called the case "vexatious litigation", scolded Judge Pearson for his "bad faith", and awarded damages to the dry cleaners. But Pearson didn't take no for an answer: he's appealing the decision. And he has plenty of time on his hands, since he was dismissed from his job. Last we heard, Pearson's appeal is still pending.

©2007 by Randy Cassingham, StellaAwards.com. Reprinted with permission.

Posted by Steve on February 21, 2008

February 20, 2008

Arthur Gives You...

...what you want:

Here's what most of you are used to, and what you appear to prefer. Since arguments, reasons, history and similar kinds of crap bore you, I've eliminated them. I'm learning!

While you are over there getting your fill read a few of his other posts as well.

Posted by Steve on February 20, 2008

A Spectacular Month For w

The latest poll results from the American Research Group:

  • January 2008: w's job approval rating: 34%
  • February 2008: w's job approval rating: 19%
Can he make it into negative numbers by April?

It will be interesting to see what the other polls show.

Via TPM Cafe.

Posted by Steve on February 20, 2008

February 19, 2008

Subprime Social Security

There are a lot of things one could pick at in Froma Harrop's recent column comparing proposals for private social security accounts to problems with some subprime mortgages. However, this in particular caught my eye:

If the folks now approaching retirement saw their private Social Security accounts suddenly lose 10 percent of their value — as have many conservative stock portfolios — we'd be hearing demands for a Social Security bailout on top of a mortgage bailout.
Well, their government managed "trust fund" has incurred a 10% loss over the past couple years. Froma, perhaps you should lead the bailout demands.

Oh, the us government is over 9 trillion dollars in debt and still spending so there is no money available for a bailout.

Posted by Steve on February 19, 2008

February 18, 2008

Welcome to Carton World



box
by sabotage

Via haha.nu

Posted by Steve on February 18, 2008

Presidential Skritch'n

Bound to be better than any past, present or future*....go skritch'm:

*At least until the cephalopods start running for office!

Posted by Steve on February 18, 2008

February 15, 2008

Friday Ark #178

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Birds

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • Tetrapod Zoology: Ankylosaur week, day 6 ~ Silvisaurus, Silvisaurus condrayi

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • the Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 15, 2008 | Comments (6)

February 11, 2008

The Future is Fast....

Greg Reinacker notes:

…and the future is really blazin’ fast connections.

We used to have 4 T1’s ganged together somehow in our office, giving us around 6 Mb/sec. Shared by 75 people, and responsible for not only internet but also telephone traffic, you can imagine it wasn’t exactly fast.

At home I have a Comcast cable modem, and I get something like 8 Mb/sec, which until today I thought was pretty fast.

But this morning, when I got to the office, our IT folks had completed our office network cutover to a 100 Mb/sec fiber connection to the internet…and oh. my. gosh.

He is right. Once you've seen really high speed access, real broadband, those reasonably useful cable connections are clearly not that fast.

The baseline that we should be looking at for home connections is the 100 Mbps Greg now has in his office. You are not going to use it at that rate continuously anytime soon but it will help bring the Internet much closer to a real time interactive multimedia environment.

Bandwidth intensive businesses as well as many academic and research institutions now have 1 or more 10 Gigabit/sec connections.

If your workstation is optimized to take advantage of these high speed connections, and most are not, you will get some truly blazing download speeds.

Posted by Steve on February 11, 2008

Monday Kitty Skritch'n

You know what to do:

For a slightly different portrayal of pets and animals check out Caw to Art #8.

Enjoy!

Posted by Steve on February 11, 2008

February 8, 2008

Friday Ark #177

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Birds

Invertebrates

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • the Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 8, 2008 | Comments (6)

February 7, 2008

Winter Bird Gathering

The Winter Doldrum Edition of I and the Bird is up at Biological Ramblings.

Fly in and help warm'em up!

Posted by Steve on February 7, 2008

February 5, 2008

The Winners Represent Minorities

Sandy Levinson asks:

But isn't it a bit odd that the candidate for one of the major parties might well not represent a majority of his party, especially in the states where he will inevitably have to concentrate his fall campaign?
Not really.

I suspect that a detailed analysis will show that in many, if not most, primaries the winning candidate does not represent a majority of her party. First, the actual voters split. Second, significant percentages of the eligible voters do not vote,

It is even more the case in general elections. Has a president ever won a majority of those eligible to vote? Or a majority of the population that would be eligible to vote if they registered?

The winners are all flawed in this respect.

I do agree with Levinson that the electoral college should go and that allocating delegates proportionately in primaries would be much better than the winner take all approach of some states. Of course, the parties are not about democratic proportionality or majority rule. They are simply about winning the spoils which I am sure is one of the things driving the ridiculously arcane delegate selection processes in many states, for example California and Washington.

Oh, those two parties we seem to be stuck with really are a pain. While it is highly unlikely that they would ever agree it sure seems that we would have a much healthier political system if our election processes were not structured in such a way that pretty much guarantees a two party system.

Posted by Steve on February 5, 2008

February 4, 2008

A Long Dead Magazine Resurrected

The Industry Standard used to be a regular read back in the day when I subscribed to lots of dead-tree media. I welcome them back:

An icon of the dot-com era is making a comeback of sorts. The Industry Standard launched Monday in a new online-only format, with news and analysis on the Internet economy and a social networking twist.
Unfortunately, they must still be well embedded in the dot-com era as I haven't been able to find any RSS feeds.

Perhaps they think we still use bookmarks as a way to navigate back to a site daily...

Update (2/7): The feeds are there at the bottom of the right sidebar. I'd swear I looked there and didn't see them. Thanks for the pointer Alison.

Posted by Steve on February 4, 2008 | Comments (1)

February 1, 2008

Friday Ark #176

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 1, 2008 | Comments (5)