I plan to make a long essay/diatribe soon on the subject of biomass ethanol. The Shub mentioned it in the SOTU.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
QOTD
I shouldn't be giving terrorists new ideas, but this quote was too funny to ignore:
Yesterday, during hearings on the State Department’s 2008 budget, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) slammed the U.S. military’s ban on gay servicemembers, saying the Pentagon “seems more afraid of gay people than they are [of] terrorists,” and that if the terrorists were smart, “they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”
Actually, I doubt that any terrorists read my blog. I'm not sure that anybody does.
Yesterday, during hearings on the State Department’s 2008 budget, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) slammed the U.S. military’s ban on gay servicemembers, saying the Pentagon “seems more afraid of gay people than they are [of] terrorists,” and that if the terrorists were smart, “they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”
Actually, I doubt that any terrorists read my blog. I'm not sure that anybody does.
News Written by Idiots
So I'm reading today's Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com, and in a lengthy article by Dafna Linzer on the dangers posed by Iran they cite ties to Al Queda. Their evidence? Iran has arrested and is holding two members of Al Queda. Hello? This proves that they have ties? I'll try to explain something for them: Al Queda members are Wahabbi's, a sect of Sunni Islam. Iran is predominantly Shia. They hate each other. This is why Iran ARRESTED them, not proof of close ties. If arresting members of Al Queda is proof of close ties, then the good ol' USA is as cozy as anybody.
Do they really pay people to write this crap? Oh, and the threat that the article warns of is that Iran might release the two.
Do they really pay people to write this crap? Oh, and the threat that the article warns of is that Iran might release the two.
More Popular than Bush
The latest CBS news poll puts Shrubs popularity at 28%. Here's a list of things that are more popular:
THINGS WITH AN APPROVAL RATING HIGHER THAN GEORGE W. BUSH
• Brussels Sprouts (51%)
• Coke Zero (41%)
• Hillary Duff (52%)
• Jennifer Love Hewitt (36%)
• Fruit Cake (40%)
• Kevin Federline (45%)
• Rosie O’Donnell on The View (46%)
• Crocheting (72%)
• Fishing (49%)
• Legalizing Prostitution (58%)
• The Dentist (45%)
• Hanson (53%)
• In-Laws (68%)
• The Name “Shiloh Nouvel Jolie Pitt” (29%)
• The Pussy Cat Dolls (56%)
• Ryan Seacrest (60%)
• The Barenaked Ladies (73%)
• The “Dude, You’re getting a Dell!” Guy (42%)
• The Backstreet Boys (66%)
• Nickelback (57%)
• Hootie & The Blowfish (84%)
• Stepping in Dog Shit (35%)
• Small Breasts (50%)
• Getting Kicked in the Balls (41%)
Saturday Morning
It's Saturday, so I can sleep as late as I want to. So at 5:00am I'm wide awake. Never happens on Mondays.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Please, go for it
I can only say that if you're a bored liberal you can always find a good laugh over at Redstate (no link), one of the wingnut blogs that spins to the point of stripping out. Some guy named Jeb finds his ideal ticket for '08:
"I dreamt, for one fleeting moment, about a Rumsfeld-Bolton ticket in 2008. Can you imagine how much Prozac the New York Times editors would consume if that dream came true? R-B in '08?"
Great Idea.
"I dreamt, for one fleeting moment, about a Rumsfeld-Bolton ticket in 2008. Can you imagine how much Prozac the New York Times editors would consume if that dream came true? R-B in '08?"
Great Idea.
Cool Tool
Everybody needs at least one swiss army knife, but this:
85 tools, 2.11 lbs. I'll put it on my wish list.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
I Agree
I was going to post something about this important topic ( at Mog, anyway)
but this was the best:
" I asked Mr. Bremer for a little cash to get me to the end of the month and that tight wad didn't give me a single ton. Not a ton."
Thanks to: Rob at,
Looky
When in doubt, show a preatty picture.
Pretend that you know what you're doing.
Enjoy the Astronomy Picture of the day. I find that they brighten my life.
Yay!
Sweaterman is here to save the...well, I'm not sure if he's here to save anything. But I'm damned glad that he's agreed. Sweaterman is a witty and smart fellow, so he should be a good counterbalance. I mean, my last draft read something like this:
Astronaut drives accross country in diaper to kill sexual rival with pepper spray AND I CAN"T FIND ANYTHING FUNNY TO SAY? AM I THAT LAME?
Astronaut drives accross country in diaper to kill sexual rival with pepper spray AND I CAN"T FIND ANYTHING FUNNY TO SAY? AM I THAT LAME?
Here I Come To Save the Day!
SweaterMan here, one of the contributors uncle scott has graciously invited to throw my occasional musings and/or rants upon his blog.
I'm pretty eclectic in my tastes, so I can't swear as to what I will post about most often, but it'll probably focus in on politics, computers, space and/or aeorspace, legal issues (although IANAL), and cooking. If'n I get smartified enough with Blogger, I may try to post up some pix if I take any worth a damn. Ironic humor and vicious snark will also feature highly. And, while I realize that writing for a blog is hard work, and I'll try to keep my mother's advice about bad language, but being I'm a card-carrying member of the "Society of Librarians that say Motherfucker", which can be found on-line at http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo/, I urge everyone to not be offended by my occasional potty mouth.
That said, I'm glad to be here and I'll do my best to pop in a few times each week. Tip your bartenders and try the veal.
I'm pretty eclectic in my tastes, so I can't swear as to what I will post about most often, but it'll probably focus in on politics, computers, space and/or aeorspace, legal issues (although IANAL), and cooking. If'n I get smartified enough with Blogger, I may try to post up some pix if I take any worth a damn. Ironic humor and vicious snark will also feature highly. And, while I realize that writing for a blog is hard work, and I'll try to keep my mother's advice about bad language, but being I'm a card-carrying member of the "Society of Librarians that say Motherfucker", which can be found on-line at http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo/, I urge everyone to not be offended by my occasional potty mouth.
That said, I'm glad to be here and I'll do my best to pop in a few times each week. Tip your bartenders and try the veal.
Reality vs. Rhetoric
During the SOTU, our glorious leader called for an increase in funding for alternative fuels research. Great, right? So the actual budget proposal comes out with this little gem:
Weeks after pledging major investments in renewable energy, President George W. Bush is calling for cuts at Colorado's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, drawing complaints Monday from two of the state's Democratic lawmakers.
A centerpiece of Bush's State of the Union speech this year was a 20 percent cut in gasoline use by 2017 made possible in part by increasing the use of renewable fuels.
Colorado's Democratic lawmakers criticized Bush's proposed budget, delivered to Congress on Monday, for increasing spending on fossil fuel and nuclear development while cutting the Energy Department's renewable research lab by 3 percent.
Bush's proposed budget would decrease funding for the Golden, Colo., lab to $181.5 million from $187.5 million, they said. The lab does the nation's primary research on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
So, we'll increase our research by cutting $6 million from the research budget.
Weeks after pledging major investments in renewable energy, President George W. Bush is calling for cuts at Colorado's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, drawing complaints Monday from two of the state's Democratic lawmakers.
A centerpiece of Bush's State of the Union speech this year was a 20 percent cut in gasoline use by 2017 made possible in part by increasing the use of renewable fuels.
Colorado's Democratic lawmakers criticized Bush's proposed budget, delivered to Congress on Monday, for increasing spending on fossil fuel and nuclear development while cutting the Energy Department's renewable research lab by 3 percent.
Bush's proposed budget would decrease funding for the Golden, Colo., lab to $181.5 million from $187.5 million, they said. The lab does the nation's primary research on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
So, we'll increase our research by cutting $6 million from the research budget.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
The Five Axioms of Sustainability
I found this via Monkeyfister, and I'm very impressed with the clarity with which Richard Heinberg lays out the five points of sustainable reality:
1. (Tainters Axiom) Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse.
Exception: A society can avoid collapse by finding replacement resources.
Limit to the exception: In a finite world, the number of possible replacements is also finite.
...
2. (Bartlett’s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.
...
3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment.
...
4. To be sustainable, the use of non-renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion.
The rate of depletion is defined as the amount being extracted and used during a specified time interval (usually a year) as a percentage of the amount left to extract.
...
5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the environment from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to biosphere functions.
In cases where pollution from the extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources that has proceeded at expanding rates for some time threatens the viability of ecosystems, reduction in the rates of extraction and consumption of those resources may need to occur at a rate greater than the rate of depletion.
OK, I realize that this is a much more serious post that any I have previously put up. But I do plan on writing more on alternative energy, a major interest of mine, in the future. This was the best short description of enviormental philosophy that I have read recently. Your thoughts? (that's what the comment function is FOR, people).
1. (Tainters Axiom) Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse.
Exception: A society can avoid collapse by finding replacement resources.
Limit to the exception: In a finite world, the number of possible replacements is also finite.
...
2. (Bartlett’s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.
...
3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment.
...
4. To be sustainable, the use of non-renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion.
The rate of depletion is defined as the amount being extracted and used during a specified time interval (usually a year) as a percentage of the amount left to extract.
...
5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the environment from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to biosphere functions.
In cases where pollution from the extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources that has proceeded at expanding rates for some time threatens the viability of ecosystems, reduction in the rates of extraction and consumption of those resources may need to occur at a rate greater than the rate of depletion.
OK, I realize that this is a much more serious post that any I have previously put up. But I do plan on writing more on alternative energy, a major interest of mine, in the future. This was the best short description of enviormental philosophy that I have read recently. Your thoughts? (that's what the comment function is FOR, people).
electron microscope photos
A lovely collection of electron microscopic photos of beers can be found here: http://molecularexpressions.com/beershots/index.html
please feel free to spend hours with these. The pic above is Jamaican Dragon Stout.
Monday, February 5, 2007
One new poster
I'm your uncle Scott, and I will tell you many wise things. OK that's total bullshit. I'm testing how to make guest posting work.
A serious lack of wisdom
I'm beginning to think that I'm not as smart as I think I am. Don't get me wrong-I'm no fool. But a lot of really foolish people are making a lot of money as pundits explaining the war in Iraq. I knew, and Sweater Man knew, all we needed to know prior to invading Iraq. All our knowledge can be summed up in two words: BAD IDEA. Or in three words: REALLY BAD IDEA. Having invaded, we chose to ignore the history of the people we "liberated".
All societies resist outsiders telling them how they should live. Iraq had a very highly eduacated population, but they all left the country.
All societies resist outsiders telling them how they should live. Iraq had a very highly eduacated population, but they all left the country.Robin's blog
Robin is a really great kid who happens to have one of my closest freinds as her father. I link to her because she's off on an adventure that I can only envy.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
adding guest bloggers
I've invited a couple of other people to guest blog here. Hopefully they will show up soon, if only to prove that I do have freinds.
Bowl Party
Time to go to Mogollon for a party to coincide with some football game. You're all invited. Well, that is assuming that you actually exist. I have no evidence that anybody is actually reading this, but should you exist you should come to the Mog for a beer. Nonexistant beings tend to get lousy service.
Bowl to Baghdad
This year the Super Bowl will be broadcast live throughout Iraq. I have to wonder if this sends a good image or not. Assuming that Iraqis have electricity to turn on their televisions, what are they going to think of our annual extravaganza? Hell, I don't know what to make of such a ridiculous indulgance and I've been watching it all my life. Almost all of America will focus on a bunch of very large men slamming into each other so that corporations can attempt to sell a bunch of worthless crap that no one really needs. (I may be wrong about this, but I've never found any real food at a McBurger and Budwieser has never made an actual beer). I have no idea what Iraqis will think about the broadcast, but I imagine there will be a lot of WTF?, they call themselves the greatest civilization while they create this? As an American, I will be partying like a good consumer. But I'll never fully understand why.