McDonald’s – me encanta!

In the story in the Friday’s (May 30, 2008) New York Times (As Oil Prices Soar, Restaurant Grease Thefts Rise) Susan Saulny writes about more and more frequent theft of used restaurant grease from holding tanks and fryers! According to the author, when the price of used restaurant grease hit almost $2.5/gallon (Gad, that’s more than a gallon of gas a year ago…), the motley assortment of thieves – from petty criminals to environmentalists - took notice. And no, they don’t want fries with that!
As an aside, the price at the pump is today $3.95/gallon for regular unleaded in Southern Maryland. Now, where's the nearest greasy spoon...

Vive la République!

The people of Nepal have given Gyanendra, the (former as it is) King of Nepal and by all accounts a no-good thief and a homicidal despot, a fortnight to vacate the palace after abolishing the monarchy.

England next…?

Windows 7. Another dumb, ugly blonde..?

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have revealed a few bits and pieces of the successor to Windows Vista, for now called simply Windows 7. The demo (on May 27, 2008 at D6) was all about User Interface - “multi touch”, reworked task bar and visuals. Oh well… as much as I’d like to look at something aesthetically pleasing (not that the visuals in Windows 7 are thrilling, no: still the same dumbed-down UI attempting to please the aesthetically challenged public at all cost...) how about making the new kernel as close to 100% reliable as humanely possible first? How about making the work of application developers for Windows easier, eh? Making all Microsoft’s own software development tools compatible with Vista would be a good start: gee, when I’m loading Visual Studio, what does it exactly do for almost a minute of disk spinning and 100% CPU utilization before anything actually shows up on the screen???
More (much more...) on this topic to come.

Climbing...

Gas prices: regular unleaded (Bethesda, MD) $4.09/gallon; diesel: $5.29/gallon (!!!)Wow, and the price of crude oil actually dropped by $3 yesterday...
On a positive note, according to a story in the yesterday's New York Times, the Rockefeller family has ben exerting some pressure on Exxon/Mobil (the company origins go back to the John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil) to - finally!!! - get serious about global warming and start doing something about it. Wonderful idea, but perhaps Exxon/Mobil should pay up first in full for the Exxon Valdez disaster...

Volksmotorrad

According to the British site Auto Express, Volkswagen has teamed up with the Austrian company KTM to produce a motorcycle and maybe a trike. Gearing up for World War III..?

Climbing...

According to the yesterday's Washington Post, the average price per gallon has reached $3.83 in the District. Where they get these figures, I wonder… I have yet to see a gas station in the District charging less than $4/gallon for regular unleaded.

As for Exxon/Mobil – its president has taken to barbecuing free-range, ultra-organic chicken, raised at least 1000 miles away from the nearest oil rig or refinery, on his brand-spanking new gold-plated, diamond-encrusted BBQ set placed on top of a sculpted Carrara marble pedestal.

Phoenix landing headlines

(As seen on on-line editions on May 25, 2008, 10 PM Eastern)

Los Angeles Times: Probe reaches Mars surface
New York Times: NASA Spacecraft Appears to Have Landed on Mars
The Washington Post: U.S. Spacecraft Lands Successfully on Mars
Denver Post: Mars Lander touches down safely
Chicago Tribune: NASA spacecraft successfully lands on Mars
El Pais (Spain): La sonda 'Phoenix' aterriza con éxito en la superficie de Marte
Al Jazeera.net: Nasa's Phoenix craft lands on Mars
Vladivostok Times: China’s Vice Consul robbed in Khabarovsk

Russian communists and common sense

Reuters reports that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has deemed the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull “repulsive anti-Soviet propaganda”and wants it to be banned in Russia. Why? Because the movie may create a “false image of the Soviet Union in the eyes of the Russian youth” and because “using the specter of communism to scare citizenry is shameless”. Apparently in 1957 the Soviet KGB agents in the United States had no interest in crystal skulls… The party also describes the stars of the movie, Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchet, as “second rate actors” and “chain dogs of the CIA” and calls for preventing them from visiting Russia.

This is not the first bout of the Russians with American movies: in 1996 Duma, the Russian parliament, demanded the ban of another movie, Armageddon, in which a Soviet/Russian space station blows up due to a leaky pipe, because it “disparages the achievements of Russian and Soviet technology.”

Now, Comrades, be careful with that sickle, but use the hammer to drive some sense into your concrete heads, will you…

Senility

Remember Patrick J. (Pat) Buchanan? A “pundit” (note the quotes) and former presidential candidate from under the loony “let’s kick some Mexican butt!” flag? Well, now Mr. Buchanan has made a foray into European history (in response to the G.W Bush’s address to the Israeli Knesset) and has again managed to let out a giant intellectual fart, this time far louder and stinker than just about anything this side of “Mein Kampf.”

Here’s the link http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=993, dated May 20, 2008, and a quote:
“German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.
Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.”

Mr. Buchanan, what you have written is not only a repulsive lie (good Adolf - bad Poland, oh, and Danzig is better known as Gdańsk by the way…) but is also indicative of your total unfamiliarity with the history of Europe. Two strikes in one paragraph, Mr. Buchanan … What’s next, a documentary on “Polish concentration camps”, the treatise on Adolf Hitler, the friend of Jews, or a definitive tome on the history of alien abductions..? And ain’t that little quote from Pope (Alexander, not Benedict) you have so thoughtfully included in your musings “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” true..?

United Airlines and common sense

Yep, the second airline in the country will most likely start charging $15 for the first bag checked-in pretty soon. And that’s after announcing yet another increase in ticket prices.

Climbing...

Gas prices: regular unleaded (Waldorf, Maryland) $3.89/gallon; diesel $4.79/gallon (!!!)
Oil: $132/barrel (up a buck since yesterday, but lower than the $135/barrel on Thursday.)
Exxon/Mobil daily profits? Well, let’s just say that the President of Exxon/Mobil has recently switched from 10 to 100 dollar bills to light up his cigars…

2008 hurricane season predictions

The AP reported yesterday that the scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict 6 to 9 hurricanes forming this year in the Atlantic, two to five of them "major", and the total of 12 to 16 major storms forming during this year's hurricane season. There is only 60-70% chance that these predictions are true, according to the same scientists. Ah, to be a meteorologist! (Check back here in November.)

Climbing...

Gas prices: regular unleaded (Southern Maryland) $3.81/gallon
Oil: $131/barrel (off by almost two dollars since yesterday, but still over $4 increase this week.)
Exxon/Mobil daily profit: more than you make in a thousand lifetimes!

Are you feeling muzzled?

Alan Finder writes in the today’s issue of The New York Times (“At One University, Tobacco Money Is a Secret”) that Philip Morris USA has a contract with the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia (nota bene a public institution ) which in exchange for some, paltry it seems, research money “bars professors from publishing the results of their studies, or even talking about them, without Philip Morris’s permission”, allegedly with all intellectual property rights going to Phillip Morris USA (and/or its parent Altria Group.) I bet that the researches at the VCU are busy at work on a non-lethal, just-merely-fucking-dangerous cigarette, and have already concluded that lung cancer cannot be possibly caused by that smoking thing. Wissenschaft über alles!

American Airlines and common sense

American Airlines will start charging $15.00 for a checked bag! (Yeah, the first checked bag, and $25 for the second!!!) Reuters: American's $15 checked bag fee will not apply to international flights, some of its AAdvantage reward program members, or people with full-fare tickets. So if you are a poor schmo flying on a non-refundable ticket in the back of the bus next to a reeking toilet, you'll be stiffed with extra 15 dollars just for the pleasure of flying with a change of clothes. I wonder if they'll charge you another $15 "checked luggage locating fee" if they lose the bag. Phooeeeeeeeeeeeey!

Papal assassin has a death wish.

According to the wire services and Polish press, Ali Agca - assassin who on May 13, 1981 shot and wounded Pope John Paul II - apparently expressed a wish to become the citizen of Poland and move there after serving his current sentence (unrelated to the Pope assassination attempt) in Turkey.