Tautology of the Skeptical Sinner

I don’t do Bleeding edge Technology. I always like to wait until things have been out for a while before forking over my hard earned dosh (Thats “bucks” in English slang, gentle American readers)

But after playing around with GH3 I decided I was ready to add it to the many wastes of time I currently have.

Love it. Feel like a nerd for playing it, but it’s allll good.

The timing has absolutely nothing to do with the GH3 contest we’re having at work to benefit the Susan Komer Breast Cancer fund… nope… none at all…

Anyway, no more time to post, I have two more days to practice my shredding!

Rock on Baby!

“Spies don’t get fired… they get burned”

I recently read a review of Burn Notice. A USA original series which is part action, part tongue in cheek that was getting some excellent ratings. Its second series season has just started, but guess where you can find season 1 in its entirety??!! You got it.

Check out the first 5 minutes and see if you likey

Go Hulu, it’s your birthday…

The show that we all love to rag on, yet can’t surf away from is now on demand at hulu

Let’s see how many “accidently” hit the link… you freaks!

I like to keep track of the blogs and sites I run across, this way I won’t forget later which site was useful/funny etc. etc. Occasionally I remember to share them.

Hair of the blog on the values of entering into discourse with service industry employees http://smellmyfinger.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/listen-i-heard-you/

I failed a geek test spectacularly over at the Taoist biker
http://taoistbiker.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/quick-dork-test/

The Generation Gap regenerates for Gen 2k over at A Tale Told by an Idiot
http://ianheath653.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/and-so-the-generation-gap-regenerates/

(And I potentially identify another one of Her Royal Majesty’s exports to The Colonies)

The “I Can’t believe it got through the Filter at Work” site of the week.
(And close contender for the most amount of smut and/or profanity in the smallest space - well done!)
http://emergingontheotherside.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/sugasm-139/trackback/

I found the above looking for the aforementioned ex-pats, not surfing for smut at work (I do that purely at home, thank you very much) on this search I also located:

http://calvininjax.wordpress.com/about/ Who I was obliged to type back a reply in a deep northern accent (Typing in accents is always a challenge)

and

http://bardsworld.wordpress.com/ Who reminded me of an old TV Show I hadn’t thought of in years called “The Crystal Maze“

I think it would be neat to have a little Ex-pat blogroll on the page, and through the magic of Wordpress. BING! Look Down and to the right… for my next trick…

Theres my one at Wordpress thats clean if bland, and there’s this one thats pretty.

Which would you prefer?

I was thinking about the tag line “Where only the Theme is black and white”.

You decide!

And what a finale it was. **spoilers** see it first!

The final two were Christina, a 23 year old Culinary Student from MO, and Petrozza a 47 year Catering Director from NC.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you can see it over at Hulu.com, because **spoilers** will follow.

Both were strong players, and throughout the show, both of them played fair with a minimal amount of strategizing… they just focused on cranking out good food, and aside from both of them feeling the stress early on, both had great attitudes.

I really felt it was too close to call going in, but I was leaning towards Petrozza  although Christina is very cute, and talented.

Ultimately, it was a cliff hanger to the end with neither Chef really pulling away. Both had handicaps, the AWFUL Jen was on Petrozza’s team… and had the nerve to ask Chef Ramsay for a letter of reference! Then proceded to sulk her way to the end of the show.

Christina had the unpredictable and frankly, somewhat unstable Matt. Matt can cook, and when he’s not getting yelled at can really deliver good results, but does not do well under pressure.

Petrozza ran out of 2 of his prepped appetizers, and Christina had two dishes sent back for being cold. Otherwise they both had a great dinner service.

Ultimately, the way Christina handled her staff and her willingness to adapt and learn was what won her the 4th Hells Kitchen.

Way to go Christina! Enjoy your new role at LAs London Restaurant

Theres a great interview with her here.

CAN’T WAIT TIL NEXT SEASON DAMMIT!!!

I came across two excellent opinion pieces.

One from the LA Times 
“The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America.
The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.”

And One from Matt Hutchens from the MPP
“For almost forty years, America has been engaged in a war which has cost us trillions of dollars and ruined the lives of millions of our citizens. We have been fighting against drugs in a street war across the country. The definition enemy combatant has changed through the course of this conflict, first encompassing only the smugglers and distributors, then growing to include users, and now reaching beyond our borders to the farmers in the developing world who produce the source crops. Today we are told that all these parties are contributing to the forces of Terror, and that the whole chain of enemy forces is complicit in a conspiracy against us. If this were true, though, wouldn’t we disarm our enemies by taking control of the economic forces that are the source of their power?”

Prohibition fails. Prohibition puts money in the hands of those who have no disregard for law, order, decency or justice. That money isn’t taxed, or accounted for. It’s laundered and used to buy guns. It’s used to corrupt law enforcement officers. It’s used to further spread the insidious influence of the drug gangs through violence, intimidation, with reckless disregard for the innocents who are unfortunate enough to get in the way.

Yet it isn’t drugs that create these monsters. It’s policy. Just like Mob violence over liquor gambling and prostitution has drastically waned since the laws regulating them have gotten less restrictive, the same effect will occur when politicians stop trying to “BE TOUGH ON CRIME” and start “Being SMART about crime”.

Billions of dollars a year are being wasted on fighting a war that just takes fathers away to prison, and puts dollars into the hands of crooks. The crooks eventually get taken down, and like the hydra, a dozen try to take the place of the severed head. After all, this is a simple matter of risk vs reward. The Risk is prison or death, the reward is riches - and when the ability to succeed in this bloody business is measured only by how willing to take that risk you are, it’s not surprising that those with nothing to lose are throwing their lives away on the chance that those riches can be theirs.

I’m not a drug user myself, and I really have no desire to be able to purchase narcotics legally. But the simple math is this- the cost of this war is too high. In blood and Tax dollars. Legalize it, regulate it, and tax it - then just like taxes from Alcohol, educate and rehabilitate excessive abusers.

We don’t have the money to burn on this morality crusade. Lets stop spending money on protecting us from us.

Reuters are reporting the New York Post has sources that state Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Multinational super conglomerate conglamarate conglamorous Corporation General Electric (NYSE:GE) has 6 months to shape up or ship out.

Jeff’s come under a lot of heat for two major reasons. One: GE’s stock has been flat since Immelt took over from infamous CEO Jack “Neutron Jack” Welch and Two: Slipping up on an earnings estimate that was “in the bag”.

How does Jeff attempt to redeem himself? 1st: Spin off or Sell the GE Appliance Unit, a division that has consistently provided profit for the corporate coffers and also provides the most visible exposure of the GE Meatball Logo. (Which I pointed out in an earlier post, is the perfect size to advertise on the moon) and 2nd: Buy the Weather Channel, obviously a sound business move, because, let’s face it, there will always be weather.

Life can be rough on a CEO, and despite him earning $14m last year, I do sympathize with the guy - after all, he bought a big chunk of GE stock himself. Right before it had its biggest one day slump in 20 years (the 1987 crash being the previous)

Sometimes you just can’t please Wall Street.

What wacky, job-saving idea will Jeff come up with next? General Motors is priced to sell, why not buy them? Make electric cars. General Electric Motors - has a nice ring. Either that or rename the brand from General Electric to Specific Electric - that way it won’t readily identify as a cross industry super corporation.

Needless to say, the next six months are going to be tough on Jeff.

Both, apparently, found this story on Rush Limbaugh’s site.

“Just yesterday — this is not anything that hasn’t happened before but it just continued to happen. Just yesterday, we learned that owners of land will not be able to develop it in Montana because of a grouse, a grouse population.  The ultimate aim is to get the grouse put on the endangered species list so the owners of that property can’t do diddly-squat with it.  There’s oil underneath that land, and there’s an opportunity for developers to make residential areas out of it or what have you.  So there are people active in this country, doing everything they can to destroy the country’s ability to grow, to remain prosperous, and to remain a superpower.”

For those of you, like me, who prefer their news without frothing, the Denver Post has a more complete story here: http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_9589531

Short summary: The departing Bush administration are trying to open up more oil drilling sites in Montana, Colorado and Utah. Many of these sites are home to dwindling populations of native species, and as such, development of this land has environmentalists deeply troubled.

What it comes down to is we either break our dependence on oil or we break a few eggs to continue sating our need for gasoline. It truly is a shame that these lands are protected by innocent animals, and not some native human population we have no problem displacing. Or invading.

Mankind has been devouring this world since the dawn of time, if environmentalists are correct, and believe that mankind needs to stop doing irreperable harm to the ecology to avoid long-term, unforseen and devastating results, then we can’t just draw circles on the map and say “ok this part’s protected”.

The population of the U.S. is growing, and will continue to grow exponentially. Short of a pandemic that only affects the human population, we’re going to continue to adversely impact nature. Species will continue to become extinct and greed, sloth and indifference will speed up that process.

In the meantime, however, expending energy time and funding on trying to save every single piece of flora and fauna is going to be a) insanely futile b) insanely expensive. Does this world really miss the Dodo? The same liberal minds who support ecologically sound policy, are also thinking people who for the most part support the theory of evolution. (If not, they can just pray for a divine solution and peacefully go about their day). Nature will adapt as it always has.

We need a compromise. We can’t go willy nilly wiping out everything that stands in our way of a quick buck, but we also can’t realistically save everything specie on the planet, unless we cut population growth to zero. Immediately. (By the way, I’m a huge supporter of zero population growth - I just don’t see it happening any time soon)

So do we really need to protect ALL of these endagered species? Or should we give them a timetable to adapt or die?

And will the earth really miss the Sage Grouse? The Tambalacoque seems to be getting by just fine without the Dodo.

Responsible. Sane. Measured.

Sadly, the only ones getting the money to make noise about one view point or the other are extremists.

Initially I found it at http://www.emaxhealth.com/24/23009.html

But it was sourced from http://jaxconservativeradical.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-way-to-fund-medicare.html

emaxhealth haven’t approved my reply yet (Shock) but I visited the Jax and shared my opinion on his epiphany.

He writes:

“I have an idea where the Congress can discover some of the money needed to keep funding the medicare program at it’s present level.
Congress spends the following amounts of your tax dollars supporting America’s own genocide, abortion!
In 2003, Planned Parenthood Federation of America extinguished the lives of 244,628 unborn babies — making the organization more deadly than leukemia, brain cancer, skin cancer, diabetes, car accidents, Alzheimer’s disease, and HIV/AIDS combined.”

He also quotes some impressive dollar amounts that the US Government have paid to planned parenthood

“2003-2004 … $ 35.2 million in tax money
2002-2003 … $ 36.6 million in tax money
2001-2002 … $ 12.2 million in tax money
2000-2001 … $ 38.9 million in tax money
1999-2000 .. $ 59.5 million in tax money
1998-1999 … $125.8 million in tax money
1997-1998 … $ 42.1 million in tax money”

Source: JaxConsertive - I haven’t attempted to verify the information, it’s moot as far as I’m concerned. Here is my reply:

“And if these operations were paid for by the government, meaning that the women undergoing the procedure were unable to, the tax payers would no doubt have carry the cost of those unwanted children over a course of 18 years.