Friday, September 30, 2005
Going out of town
I’ll be checking in from time to time, but I hope you guys are having a good time. I will definitely be hitting the Styx/REO Speedwagon concert Saturday night, so expect me to be both hoarse and deaf on Sunday morning.
Thank God for room service and in-house spa/sauna. 
Thursday, September 29, 2005
It’s tomorrow!
Woo-hoo!
For those of you who have seen the series ”Firefly”, you already know what I’m talking about, but… (ahem)
Serenity opens tomorrow! I’ve got the trailer! Go here (ad-based free server - feel free to use it yourself).
Getting giddy just thinking about it…
UPDATE: It’s today!
Andrew Sullivan has gone Idiotarian
Why would I say that?
Start here: “QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Why babble about brutality and get indignant about tortures? The masses want them. They need something that will give them a thrill of horror.” - Adolf Hitler.” That was posted on his website....here’s the link. Sullivan is comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.
Idiotarian Hint #1: Comparing Bush to Hitler. Sully’s gone bye-bye.
Quote #2: “But I will say this: there is a clear stench of corruption coming from the Republican power-structure in Washington.” That was here, and it mimics what Howard Dean, the editorial page of the Boston Globe, and the editors of The Nation have said. Sullivan is now hitting the Left’s talking points.
Oh, and the amount of times he said ‘torture’ this week so far: 40 Abu Ghraib: 10
Remember, no matter how much he says it, Sullivan hates Bush because of his traditional religiousity and his anti-gay marriage stance. His turn against Bush was very pointed, as I explain here. The torture at the prison (I wrote about it HERE) had a lot of homoerotic overtones, and that is why I believe Sully had such a huge problem.
Bush apologized, so did Rumsfeld, and people have been sent to jail over it. More people will be as well. But Sullivan’s desire to see this through has nothing to do with justice....and everything to do with hoping it injures the Religious Right.
For My East Coast readers
I had all kinds of bad jokes in mind for the title, but the story itself has nothing really to do with anything funny.
This skankho wants a perfectly healthy loving and friendly female Siamese cat put down KILLED just because she couldn’t be bothered to spend the time.
If any of you live near New Haven, CT (or know someone near there) who wants a cat, JimK has all the details. Plus a picture. Get in touch with him.
If I didn’t live out here on the West Coast, I’d probably take her.
Unfounded Hysterics
Dogs and cats living together....
As the world warms and ice-sheets and glaciers begin to melt, most of us worry about how the earth will respond and what kind of impact climate change will have. Will flooding become a regular feature, or is the land going to become parched? Are hurricanes and typhoons going to spring up in places they have never visited before? Is the rising sea level going to swallow some of the world’s most fertile farmland, along with millions of homes?
Will my son be able to pass his trig midterm? Will ghosts start to haunt me? Equally valid questions.
All of these are valid concerns…
Maybe to this “reporter”.
...but now it turns out that the impact of global warming could be worse than we first imagined. Ice sheets are mostly frozen water, but during the freezing process they can also incorporate organisms such as fungi, bacteria and viruses. Some scientists believe that climate change could unleash ancient illnesses as ice sheets drip away and bacteria and viruses defrost. Illnesses we thought we had eradicated, like polio, could reappear, while common viruses like human influenza could have a devastating effect if melting glaciers release a bygone strain to which we have no resistance. What is more, new species unknown to science may re-emerge. And it is not just humans who are at risk: animals, plants and marine creatures could also suffer as ancient microbes thaw out.
Someone want to point out to the author that we never eradicated polio? We merely discovered a vaccine for it. Heck, we haven’t even come up with a cure for the common cold, just merely preventative measures such as “avoid sick people” and “wash your hands if you happen to sneeze in them.”
One worrying scenario would be the creation of a super virus via the recombination of ancient and modern strains. “If only one or two genes from an ancient influenza virus were to interchange with the modern avian influenza, it could become contagious and generate a new pandemic,” says Shoham.
Another thing to worry about is where Oliver Willis is going to go on his first date with an up and coming supermodel, which is, lets face it, just as likely to happen as a recombinant supervirus causing an extinction level event.
Not all scientists are convinced by these viral discoveries, and some argue that they are more likely to have arrived in the ice via contamination during the drilling process....Rogers and his colleagues think that these icy holidays may even be a deliberate part of viral evolution. Equally, the same argument could mean that it is harder for a virus to slot back into the world once it has been defrosted. “Evolutionary change over time may mean that an emerging ancient virus finds it difficult to adopt a niche,” says Shoham....
So how much of a risk do these frozen viruses really represent? Without having any definite evidence that viruses are able to complete the full freeze-thaw cycle and go on to re-infect, it is hard to say. Some scientists are not too concerned, while others think it is worth looking into.
“Sorry to have wasted your time...” (Via Free Will)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
You think you’re a conservative?
Run this simulation I found via Instapundit at The Chicago Boyz.
My first time through, I cut a whopping $15 billion....oh, the agony! Next time, I took a longer look, and cut $201 billion. Here’s what I ended up with:
Budget Totals
Old budget was $3748.1268 billion
($2673 billion in spending, $1075.1268 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).
New budget is $3444.43 billion
($2472.7 billion in spending, $971.73 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).
You have cut the deficit by $303.7 billion.
Your new deficit is $97.3 billion.
The price of the Iraqi Reconstruction is $105 Billion.....take that out alone, and hold the line on military spending (I increased it by 10% across the board), and my budget runs a surplus.
Try it, and put your first and second try-numbers in the comments.
Again...the amount I reduced the budget were $15 Billion and $300 billion, respectively.
Here’s mine….
| You are a Social Moderate (50% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (66% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test |
You think I’m gonna let Kevin get away with that?
| You are a Social Moderate (55% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (63% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test |
Just What Everyone Needs To Know…
Another quiz!
| You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (83% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test |
(Via Dean’s World)
You Can’t Have It Both Ways
Andrew Sullivan says this about the New York Times in the first entry into his blog (at 2:58 EDT):
“UP IN SMOKE: This story yesterday in the New York Yimes, hammering a memo once written by John Roberts on libel, is right about everything, except that Roberts didn’t write the memo at all. It makes Stanley and Krugman look almost as accurate as, say, your average blogger.”
Then, in the second entry:
The Times is WRONG when it says something that Sullivan disagrees with, but it is RIGHT when it agrees with his world view.
Heh.
A bad night
As my regulars might remember, I am afflicted with Fibromyalgia. The major symptoms include undifferentiated pain (including, but not limited to, shooting pains, stabbing pains, burning pains, throbbing pains, sensations of having toes chewed off by wild animals, sensations of having soles of feet feel as though they had just been dipped in boiling tar, and sensations of having mild to moderate surgery sans anaesthesia), migraines, muscle cramps and tics, occasional loss of motor sensation, parasthesia and insomnia. Those sensations are often fairly mild but can sometimes flare up into a fucking nightmare of long periods of time where your whole body is just one big THROB of pain, exactly matching your heartbeat.
Well, fellow nightowls, this is one such night. I was quietly enjoying the season premiere of Boston Legal (I tolerate Bill “The Jackass” Shatner for the sake of James Spader - who looks like the kind of guy who would be cool to hang out with, and the wife loves him), when I felt my leg starting to flare up just about the time I start getting sleepy. When I get sleepy, I need to either go to bed right away, or I’ll be up for hours. So I started making the last few preparations for going to bed - buttoning up the computer, checking the door locks, that sort of thing, and in the middle of this, my leg REALLY lights up.
What I mean is that I can close my eyes and trace the entire length of the sciatic nerve, which is (IIRC) the major nerve that runs all the way down to the tips of your toes (specifically, the 3rd and 4th - the “middle” and “ring” toes, if that makes any sense). I can trace that nerve path exactly as I sit here and type it, because the closest thing I can think of to describe the sensation is to imagine that you have just had quick surgery (no painkillers involved, not so much as an aspirin), just deep enough to expose that nerve to the air.
Now, any of you who have enjoyed that oh so blissful sensations of having a tooth nerve esposed to air can start to sympathize. But I’m not quite finished.
Having exposed the nerve to air, they have then sprayed lighter fluid into the channel thus created and set the damn thing on fire.
My only consolation is that no matter how bad it actually is, none of it is actually happening like that. Don’t get me wrong, the pain is very real. VERY real. But it isn’t because anyone is actually harming me in the fashion that my hyperactive pain receptors are reporting they are. The biological version of the Boy Nerve Cell That Cried ”Wolf Ouch!”, if you will.
That, and the wish/hope that they may soon find a cure. The logical first step would probably involve coming up with a specific way to test for Fibromyalgia, since that is the kind of diagnosis that can currently only be made by excluding all other causes. Which takes a long time. (Seven years in my case.) But I’m not a doctor.
I’m just sitting up at my computer at 1:22am… Ouch.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Guess who made it onto The Starkcast?
Well, besides a whole lot of other people, I have two whole minutes on the Big 20th Episode - or, to be more accurate, the “Super Extra Mega Special Very Long All Listener Feedback Gangbang Extravaganza!”
I tell a joke and find out that I’m more profound than I thought.
If you’re not listening to the Starkcast every week, then… I guess you’re not listening. But you’re missing out on some of the funnier vulgarities.
From about 27:00 to about 29:00, so go and listen. You should listen every week, like all the cool kids do…
Category: Heroes | Humor/Entertainment | Weirdness |
Monday, September 26, 2005
Life’s little moments
If you live here in SoCal, you might have seen a new Pizza Hut commercial where, if you buy one pizza at regular price, they are offering an additional pan pizza for a quarter. As in 25 cents. One-fourth of a dollar. We were up for some nosh, and decided to order some pizza, and take advantage of their deal.
I think I may have mentioned that my wife’s mother (everybody calls her “Nana") is living with us. Sweet lady, love her immensely. Anyhow, she offers to chip in for half. Very generous of her. Not necessary, but very generous.
Pizza comes, I’m digging for bills, and Nana reaches into her purse, digs for a moment and pulls out…
...
...
A quarter.
I may have mentioned that I love her. Immensely.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Some great memories
I ran across this list while flipping through Fark, but it certainly brings back a whole lot of fond memories.
I present Boston.com’s list of the Top 50 Sci-Fi shows.
(I present the list below the fold for anyone who doesn’t have the time to flip through all 50 pages.)
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Oh yeah, they’re real
I’d like to point out that I would never be fortunate enough to be in the audience of this show.
Supermodel Tyra Banks underwent a sonogram on her own television show to quell rumors that she had breast implants.
But first she ordered all the men out of the audience, a spokeswoman for her program said on Wednesday.
Banks, 31, told the audience for her syndicated talk show on Tuesday that she was tired of rumors that her breasts were fake.
“It’s something that’s followed me forever and today I’m going to finally admit once and for all the truth about my breasts,” the Victoria’s Secret model said as she removed her push-up bra from underneath a T-shirt.
She took a break and returned wearing a bathrobe and accompanied by plastic surgeon Garth Fischer.
He and an assistant performed a sonogram in front of the audience that was broadcast with certain part of Banks’ anatomy blacked out.
Fischer said, “I’ve performed approximately 8,000 breast implant surgeries, I’ve examined you, I’ve reviewed your sonogram ... and Tyra Banks has natural breasts.”
Banks added, “By no means am I against plastic surgery, by no means am I saying that breast implants are a bad thing, but it’s just not a choice that I made ... it’s something that a lot of people think I have and that is so frustrating to me.”
Taking this as a sign, I’m now going to open a business where women can walk in and have their breasts examined in order to prove that they’re real.