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Friday, September 29, 2006

They Call That Working Longer?

OMG, what a bunch of spoiled, socialist babies most [all?] of Western Europe is. In the BBC NEWS Business section report, "VW workers agree to work longer", LONGER means 33 hours a week! Four hours longer than their former schedule of 29 hours a week.

I work more than 29 hours in three days! And they wonder why we thing they're all lazy. Sheesh.

On that note, I'm gonna leave work early now. ;)

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Jake's Anti-Protest Song

My very Californian friend Jake seems to have a knack for song writing. This is just one example:
Anti-Protest Song

You fuckin’ Hippies’ll be the death of us All!
You hate oil, but you drive to the mall.
Open your mouth and it’s another complaint
You sort your bottles and now you think you’re a saint.
All your half truths, your recycled lies need to end,
Who died this time and made progress a sin.
Eat your granola, and sleep safe tonight
Cus the one’s you despise are willing to fight.
He's actually way better than this, I am just totally entertained by it, cuz I don't like hippies.

Happy Birthday, Google

I lurv Google's little drawing thingies. They really kick it up a notch. Especially how the age is integrated into the logo.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

ACORN - A Bad Nut

Follow me on this, because it might get a little muddy...

This morning on my way back from a job walk in Greeley, I was listening to the Mike Rosen Show, as I normally do when I'm in the car between nine and noon. His guest in the ten o'clock hour was Mike Flinn from the Employment Policies Institute, and they were having a very good discussion on ACORN.

Now, I have never heard of ACORN before, but I'm sure that some of my more, "progressive" friends have. ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now [You can always tell the wackos by the "Now!" after everything, but I'm getting ahead of myself.], proports to be a community organization that is all about helping the poor, protecting the environment, raising voter awareness, etc, etc, etc. On the surface, that is all well and good. But when you rub off the shiny surface, a different picture is painted. That's what Mike Flinn from the EPI was there to talk about. His organization, in addition to doing employment related research and studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth, also does some research on other organizations that want to influence public policy. They researched ACORN and found some interesting details, which then cover in their paper, "The Real ACORN: Anti-Employee, Anti-Union, Big Business." It seems that "labor-" and "little guy-friendly" ACORN is not reaping what it sews. They do not get into the details of the family behind this organization (one a former member of Students for Democracy and the Weathermen) and its obviously shoddy (at best) business practices in the article there, but they did explore that topic on the show (listen to the mp3) and probably in their full study (read the 29 page pdf). There were some interesting allegations of fraud, money laundering, and vote tempering made, that I have not had time to explore further other than to find that ACORN is a registered non-profit in the state of Arkansas, where full financial disclosure is not required. I suppose this is how they manage to take federal money with one hand and commit fraud with the other. [Are they from New Orleans?]

This also got Mr Rosen on the the topic of the minimum wage, since the ACORN people want to raise it in Colorado (via an amendment to the Colorado constitution!) to 33% above the federal minimum and index it to inflation in perpetuity, i.e., forever, regardless of circumstances.

So once again, on the surface, a slightly higher minimum wage (liberals like to refer to this as the "living wage") sounds good, putting it in the constitution and indexing it to inflation is not the right way to do it. Plus, any minimum wage, especially an artificially high one, amounts to social welfare. And last time I checked, private business is not in the social welfare department. Businesses will pay what the market will bear or demand -- that 's the way a market works. In addition to that, only 0.7% of all hourly wage-earners are paid the minimum wage. This whole debacle only affects a little over 500,000 people in the whole nation. Incidentally, the EPI has some good studies on this as well.

Just remember this November, folks, that business and a market economy are what differentiates the U.S. from the rest of the Western world, and their double digit unemployment. (Our is 4.7%, a.k.a. "full" employment.)

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Friday, September 15, 2006

Ritterspeak

This is pretty high quality. Both amusing an very truthy.
Confused by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter's comments on the campaign trail?

Well, the Colorado Republican Party is happy to offer its very own guide to Ritterspeak.

• Col-o-rad-o (noun) - Denver.

• Dem-o-crat (noun) - 1. Doom- and-gloom, tax-hiking, big-spending, big-government liberal. 2. Bill Ritter.

• gun (noun) - 1. A very scary object. 2. Something that should be carried only by officers of the law. 3. Something that cannot be concealed.

• mar-riage (noun) - 1. Definition unclear. (adj.) 2. Definition subject to change.

• wild-life (noun) - An exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

• wa-ter (noun) - Substance Bill Ritter uses to make his lawn green.


--Rocky Mountain News September 12th
Needless to say, this was posted on Bob Beauprez's Facebook profile the other day. (Yes, the geniouses over at Facebook not only decided to stalkerize it, they decided to politicize it as well. Oi.)

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Facebook. A Place For Stalkers.

What the heck is Facebook thinking? First the wacky/creepy "news feed" and now opening the Facebook doors to anyone who would like to join? What about this seems like a good move?

Sure, Facebook only has 10 million members compared to the 109 million on MySpace, but no one is going to choose Facebook over MySpace if it is a MySpace-like experience that they want. They will simply sign up with the rest of the stalkers on MySpace.

Facebook has many limitations that I thought were put there for a reason, and it's these limitations that keep Facebook out of the "bad and scary" category with many people. Plus, there's that little bitty air of exclusivity in knowing that not just anyone can get on to Facebook.

Below is an AP article expanding on the debauchery:

Facebook Opens Its Pages
To All Internet Users

Associated Press
September 12, 2006 4:22 p.m.

Facebook.com, a popular social-networking Web site now restricted mostly to high school and college students, will soon throw its doors wide open and welcome millions of Internet users currently left standing at the gates.

The move will allow existing users to invite their now-ineligible friends, but it also risks changing the tone of a community where trust and privacy are key. Just last week, users revolted when Facebook introduced a feature that allows easier tracking of changes their friends make to personal profile pages.

The change in eligibility will come soon, although Facebook officials were still deciding exactly when.

To join Facebook, a user now must prove membership in an existing network using an email address from a college, a high school or selected companies and organizations. That has largely limited membership to students, along with some faculty and alumni.

As a result, Facebook has fewer than 10 million registered users, compared with some 109 million at News Corp.'s MySpace, which has an open-door policy.

With the change, a user can simply join a regional network -- such as one for their country, state, metropolitan area or city. No authentication will be performed.

But unlike the case with MySpace and other open community sites, users will be restricted in how much they can learn about others -- the way Harvard students can't automatically view a Stanford user's full profile page, which may include photos, contact information and other personal details. Users will have to agree to grant access, and they may give some users the ability to view only portions of their profiles.

Started by three Harvard sophomores in February 2004 as an online directory for college campuses, Facebook expanded to high schools last September and to selected companies and organizations earlier this year. Those users have been eligible to join regional networks as well when they graduate or move, and it is those networks that will be expanding soon.

Chris Hughes, co-founder of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, said everyone around the world will be covered by one of some 500 regional networks, although some regions may cover one or more countries. U.S. regions, he said, are likely to be geographically smaller.

Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said users will be restricted in how often they can switch to discourage impostures and pranksters.

Copyright © 2006 Associated Press

WTF.

Stuck on Stupid!

Rush Limbaugh often uses this phrase on his radio show, but have you ever wondered what "stuck on stupid" really meant?

Well, here is an example:

The grinning idiot clinging to Je$$e Jack$on is Cindy Sheehan... The sob sister protesting the war at President Bush's ranch who lost her son in the war. The same son she gave up in her divorce when he was 7 years old. She never had anything to do with that son after the divorce and he was raised by his father and stepmother. She never saw him after he was 7 years old, but our mainstream press never tells anyone that.

And by the way, if you wonder why she has so much free time... She is going through another divorce right now and guess what? She is giving up custody of another son.

As Forrest Gump once wisely proclaimed, "Stupid is as stupid does."

(Most of the above was stolen from an email that I recieved, so I cannot confirm the truthiness of it, but the picture says it all, even if the rest is made up.)

Monday, September 11, 2006

Never forget

September 11, 2001

On this day, we saw evil.

Remember the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Flight 93.
And remember why we are fighting against evil.

Never Forget.

God Bless America

Friday, September 08, 2006

Go Rams!!!

I just got one thing to say...

GO RAMMIES!!!!

Beat CU!

Boy, am I gonna look dumb if we loose! But that ain't gonna happen! ;)

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

A *real* immigration plan

I think that the vast majority of Americans would agree that illegal immigration is a big problem and that something desperately needs to be done. Just how big of a problem it is and what should be done about it will differ depending on your location, politics, and even your line of work.

Congress has "tried" to work on this problem in the recent past to no avail. The House will figure something out, then the Senate won't like it, then the Senate will come up with something that the House scoffs at, softies call for amnesty, while hard liners call for mass-deportation. But basically, no one has any practical ideas that have any chance of success and no one seems to be able to compromise.

But U.S. Congressman Mike Pence from the 6th District of Indiana may have a solution. He and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison have authored the Hutchison-Pence No Amnesty Immigration Reform plan. This is a real compromise. It will leave both sides wanting something a little different, but I feel that it could get the job done.

Here are the three main steps:
First - Secure the borders
Second - Good neighbor S.A.F.E. Visa and Ellis Island Centers
Third - Verification and enforcement

The part that I like is that the certification (Ellis Island Centers) will be run by private (i.e.: efficient) businesses. But we shall see. My fear is that congress will get all pansy again and not pursue this before the elections. Maybe they will get to it before the end of the year.

How did they do it before?

Apparently, football used to be played a lot more like rugby is still played. 100 Years Ago today, Football's First Forward Pass was executed by St. Louis University when the coach was frustrated by his teams inability to move the ball. Of course, the first "projectile pass" was dropped by the reciever, but subsequent attempts must have worked better, since they won the game.

So what did they do before? Only hand-offs and laterals? Foward passing was actually against the rules until 1905 when it was prompted to be legalized by the deaths of several players(!) when things got a little too involved. Dang.

'The Path to 9/11'

This is going to be an event for the Tivo.

ABC (yes, ABC) has recently spent $40 Million to make a mini-series/docudrama entiteled "The Path to 9/11" that will air 10 and 11 of September without commercial interuption. This should be five hours of quality, pro-America programing that is such a rarity on today's mainstream media.

Read the well written review at FrontPage magazine.com of ABC's 'The Path to 9/11' by Govindini Murty.

Friday, September 01, 2006

That crazy fluid flow

This article in the July edition of the journal "Nature," Van Gogh painted perfect turbulence - The disturbed artist intuited the deep forms of fluid flow, could have just as easily been called "crazy guy interprets impossibly hard fluid dynamics." Or something to that effect. Maybe "get crazy, pass fluids!" (As in 'fluids' the engineering class, not actually the bodily passing of fluids. Eew.)

The point is, that it's pretty crazy that Van Gogh's crazy swirly paterns that made up a good portion of his famous works are rediculously accurate models of fluid flow. Even crazier, is the fact that this only worked when he was, well, crazy. His paintings done while he was medicated lack the detail and accuracy of his unmedicated works. Ah, absinth.

(Okay, just rechecked the link... Nature now wants you to pay $3 to read it... so screw them. Go to the Baylor College reprint instead.)