Da house arouse...

Last week, the House of Representatives passed bill H.R. 6063, directing NASA to send a spacecraft to the Apophis asteroid and attach a tracking device to its surface. Apophis is on course to barely pass Earth in 2029. Very prudent move if you ask me. And it's NASA, not FEMA (thank God!) Now, how about that Social Security thingy...

Sharper Image (on Elm Street ..?)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Sharper Image is back!!! Only as a brand name (sans stores) so ya'll can still get a monogrammed mechanical tie rack in tasteful lime green and gold for your SOs.

Bill Don't Do Windows Anymore

Bill Gates has retired from Microsoft, yesterday was his last day. Bye, bye Bill, you lucky SOB, no more BSD for ya!

O Utah, Utah! wherefore art thou Utah?

Representative Chris Cannon, 6-term congressman, rated as one of the most conservative members of Congress, lost the Republican primaries in Utah (yep, where else…) to a guy who was selling himself as a bigger conservative, a former football player for the BYU (where else…) Jason Chaffetz. The campaign was apparently fascinating with Chaffetz accusing Cannon of not being conservative enough! Wow!!! In 2007 Chris Cannon scored 96 (out of 100) on the “issues” scale of The American Conservative Union. Considering that you have to be ideologically positively medieval to score over 50% (for comparison, Tom Tancredo of Colorado scored 99, Newt Gingrich 90, John McCain 83, Barack Obama 7, Ted Kennedy 2…) it was a true battle of “ultra vs. extreme.”

Do yourself a favor and have a laugh by visiting the web site of The American Conservative Union ( http://www.conservative.org/ ) It is a very interesting read, and especially enlightening are the ACU ratings sections “The Best and Brightest” (which includes such luminaries of thought as James Inhofe and Jon Kyl) and the “The Worst of the Worst” – with the usual suspects: Hillary C., Barbara Mikulski, etc.

Ho ho ho!

$140 oil.
Early Christmas at Exxon/Mobil!

Exxon Valdez

Punitive damages originally awarded by jury - 5 billion; cut in half by courts (giving approx. $75,000 for each of the 13,000 Alaskans affected by the spill); cut again today to $500 million by the US Supreme Court (to approx. $15,000 per person.) The verdict was 5:3 with Justice Alito abstaining due to the Exxon/Mobil stock ownership.

1200 miles of pristine Alaskan coastline went to hell in a basket when a drunken skipper of Exxon Valdez ran his boat aground.

Quote from the AP wire story, after New York Times (“Justices Cut Damages Award in Exxon Valdez Spill”): The commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments involved in the lawsuit have each received about $15,000 so far ''for having their lives and livelihood destroyed and haven't received a dime of emotional-distress damages,'' their Supreme Court lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, said when the court heard arguments in February.

Seven dirty words

1. Shit - The bird shit on the statue.
2. Piss - I have to piss like a race horse.
3. Fuck - Fuck you.
4. Cunt - She has a gorgeous cunt.
5. Cocksucker - Go to hell, you cocksucker.
6. Motherfucker - You are a motherfucker.
7. Tits - Hey, nice tits.

George Carlin, the comedian who did many times say the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, died yesterday.

Capital rip-off!

National Capital Barbecue Battle…what a rip! 10 bucks admission (with practically nothing in return unless one was willing to stand in a mile-long line to the Safeway’s sampling tent) and overpriced food! What happened to the merchants actually footing the bill (i.e. paying for the privilege of selling their stuff) which should be fairly easy considering the $10 (average) price of a barbecued whatever with fries…
I wonder where all these admission dollars go…

Still falling...

In Southern Maryland: last Monday - $4.03/gallon regular unleaded; Thursday - $3.99; Today $3.97 (!!!) A trend..?

Falling...

That's something new: I have seen a number of stations in Southern Maryland with lower prices than 3-4 days ago! Not by much, a cent or two, but still...

Good old times...

Walsenburg, Colorado - November 21, 2004

Wind between the ears

Los Angeles Times (Thursday, June 12 2008, Motorcycles and emissions: The surprising facts) writes about (…)the surprising level of emissions spewing from on-road motorcycles and scooters. In California, such bikes make up 3.6% of registered vehicles and 1% of vehicle miles traveled, yet they account for 10% of passenger vehicles' smog-forming emissions in the state. In fact, the average motorbike is about 10 times more polluting per mile than a passenger car, light truck or SUV, according to a California Air Resources Board comparison of emissions-compliant vehicles. Geez…Then the story goes on about some non-compliant Chinese imports (what, another Chinese POS??? Can’t be..!) with emissions levels as high as 10 times the CA requirements! Again, quoting the LA Times: Long story short: Motorcycles, even small ones, are more polluting than Hummers, but it's the best that can be done for now. If you want to make a difference, consider an electric two-wheeler for your next bike or a gas-powered model with fuel injection and a 3-way catalytic converter.

So, my bike-riding friends, we are killing the environment for a few Shekels saved on gas (and that wind between the ears in the hair…)

US Airways and common sense

US Airways has joined the club and on July 9 will start charging the flying public for the first bag checked, not only on domestic flights but also to and from Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. Blaaaaaaaaaah!!! The funniest part is the way they rationalize it: on the US Airways web site, under Changing the way we do business these masters of business acumen write: We're transforming our business by initiating a 'pay-for-what-you-use' model for items like baggage and beverages. Oh, the first bag will cost ya 15 bucks.

Why am I titling these posts such-and-such and common sense? Well, because most people travel with luggage! (I'm almost certain that according to the "research" done by the airline industry, I'm dead wrong and most people fly without any luggage, barefoot, stark naked, and are ecstatic about being nickel-and-dimed for everything...)

United Airlines and common sense (or lack thereof)

Yep, my fellow travelers, United Airlines, is starting nickel-and-diming you fifteen dollars (that’s 300 nickels or 150 dimes) for the privilege of checking the first bag. Another first for United (they were first to charge twenty-five bucks to check the second bag.) They actually beat American Airlines in collecting the fee, even though American beat them to the announcement.

Oh well, I just got email from United with details: the $15 fee for the first bag is in effect for tickets purchased on or after June 13 with travel date on or after August 18 2008. You will be exempt from the first and second checked bag service fees if you are:

• traveling in United First® or United Business®
• traveling on the same reservation as a Global ServicesSM, Mileage Plus® 1K®, Premier Executive®, Premier® or Premier Associate® member or Star Alliance® Gold or Silver member
• military personnel traveling on orders

This fee applies to travel within the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada.

Allāhu Akbar

In today’s New York Times ( Surgery Offers Muslim Women Illusion of Virginity) Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet write that more and more women, chiefly Muslim women, in Europe undergo “hymen restoration surgery” to create the illusion of virginity (hopefully only for the chaps who marry them…)

The story has of course a more serious side (cultural hypocrisy and functional enslavement of women in some cultures) and I’m not going to comment on that – feel free to draw your own conclusions, but take one hypothetically hypocritical hymenoplasty, throw in tummy tuck, rhinoplasty, fake boobs, and...

Blast from the past

Los Angeles circa 1998.

Gimme an F....

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the US has reached $4.005 per gallon today, up from $3.67 a month ago and $3.10 a year ago according to the survey conducted by AAA (American Automobile Association), says Reuters.

WTF²

The oil has since moved up to a tad below $139/barrel. According to The Washington Post all this shit costs the US economy 1.5 billion dollars a day! Think about it - the fortune of one Bill Gates every month or so..!

WTF..?

Reuters reports that the oil is up (again) by $9 at a record high of over $137 a barrel and warns that according to a Morgan Stanley forecast it would be $150 by July 4. Time to invest in the manufacturers of walking shoes and bicycle tires: too bad that all are located in China...

Do you smell a rat?

The price of crude oil has fallen, yet the gas price at the pump keeps rising. Regular unleaded is almost $4/gallon in Southern Maryland. Hmm… The Exxon/Mobil explanation: we need to increase gas prices because of the rising cost of fuel.

Same old, same old…

In the old bad days of the Stalin’s dictatorship in the Soviet Union, it was quite normal to erase the opponents of the Supreme Leader (or the enemies of the Party and the people as they were called then) from official pictures, edit them out of film clips and make them vanish, often literally, without a trace. The process is well documented in a very interesting book The Commissar Vanishes by David King. Well, guess what, nothing ever changes in Russia: Clifford J. Levy writes in the Tuesday’s (June 2, 2008) issue of the New York Times (KREMLIN RULES. It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV) about the practice of “vanishing” people who beg to differ with the current rulers of Russia by (more or less skillfully) erasing them from the existing footage of TV shows and public appearances. The old is coming back…

Sharper Image 1977-2008. RIP

The Sharper Image, mall (mostly) based purveyor of pseudo-elegant, useless crap, and the folk-culture epitome of bad taste (who on Earth would want to be caught dead with anything bearing the Sharper Image brand name..?) is finally being liquidated. No more Ionic Breeze air ionizers (that actually could kill you and make your children – both male and female - grow multiple penises), no more Ginsu nose hair trimmer, and no more Oversized Deluxe Zero-Gravity Recliner. I would shed a crocodile tear or two, but...

No Pope for you!

According to La Reppublica (the largest circulation newspaper in Italy) Pope Benedict XVI will not grant audiences to any of the heads of state coming next week to Rome for the summit of FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) to avoid a potentially “embarrassing “meeting with the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who apparently expressed the wish to meet His Holiness while in Rome. Asking What would Jesus do? is of course cracking an easy joke, but, seriously, what can be spiritually wrong with meeting the Iranian President (who does sound a bit lulu at times, but still…) ..?

Боже, Царя храни!

Vladimir Putin, former President and the current Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in an interview for the French paper Le Monde stated (in a nutshell) that he'll cling to power as long as possible. Then called for more power for Russia and less power for everybody else, and mentioned that Siberia still needs a lot of people.