Irate Weirdos

Max: Out Of Nowhere

2010-02-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

I don't even want to look to see how long it has been since I have put anything more than a link or video up here.

I haven't had the urge to write much more than the occasional smart-ass quip for longer than I can remember and Twitter and Facebook are more convenient forums for such.

Right now my wife is working out with one of her friends. I have to keep telling myself not to stare at said friend's butt/cleavage.

My life has become so routine that it has become a little too easy to turn my brain off and ride alone the safe, predictable rut rather than exercise my imagination.

I may need to change that one of these days.

Max: Not Your Man

2010-02-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

Max: Obama Make Republicans His Bitches

2010-01-29T16:18:00.001-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Jericho: Global Warming, Common Sense & Canadian Alligators

2010-01-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine and I have been in some Liberal vs. Conservative debates over the last few months. She's a smart friend. Very smart. But, she's bought into a lot of the Conservative talking points. I know I can't win her over to my way of thinking. Once someone has made up their mind about something like that, you can't talk them out of it. But, I know that she is smart so I hold out a vain hope. She and I have come to quite a few points of agreement. One of those points being: both sides are lying. Somewhere in the middle, there is truth. There should be action taken. What actions and at what cost are still in debate. I don't think she nor I are extremists on these issues, if anything I am more extreme than she.

Today she forwarded the following video to me. It was sent to her from a relative of hers. I think the relative is more extreme in his thinking than she - or at least I hope so. The video was attached to an email titled "Finally Some Common Sense." I'll let you decide if he is right or not. I attach this video merely to allow you, constant reader, access to arguments from the other side of the aisle ... and so I can rip this nonsense apart below. IWDC is by no means fair nor balanced!

My most violent reaction to this video was directly after I watched it, the last part made me feel like the ads and commercials from the 40s with doctors saying that smoking tobacco was good for you and the key to a healthy life ...

This guy, this meteorologist, John Coleman, stopped being a good scientist about three minutes into this video. I'm not a professional scientist, but I know something about the scientific method. I know the dangers of messing with sample sizes - and he had the gall to suggest that others are manipulating data!

Too small of a sample size is as equally dangerous as too large of a sample. And a sample with no context is no sample at all. What am I talking about? I often play a little game with some of my friends called "Small Sample World" - in this game you judge the entire population of the planet by the sample size in the room or around the table at a restaurant. So, if I were to play this game right now, judging the entire population of the planet based on the sample of everyone currently sitting in my apartment (that would be just me), the entire human population of planet Earth, all nearly seven billion of us, would be morbidly obese, balding, glasses wearing Caucasian males who are galloping toward 40. Same can be said for too large of a sample. Take everyone on the planet, count only the physical characteristics that are most common and assume that those apply to everyone. You could then say that everyone on the planet has dark skin, black hair and brown eyes ... and we live in Asia.

I'm afraid Mr. Coleman did a lot of the same things in his little video - a video he seems to feel puts the issue to rest. If only it were that easy. Right away, Mr. Coleman sets the tone for this video. He says that Global Warming theorists have said that the the icecaps will melt and that the oceans will rise and that several islands will be lost. He dismisses it as "a frenzy" - as if it's science-fiction that never happened. Well, Mr. Coleman, a good scientist should be a good researcher, and if you did your research you would see that the oceans have risen and entire island nations are no more.

But, let's get back to sample sizes, especially those with no context. Mr. Coleman produces a temperature graph of a goodly chunk of Earth's recent history, showing the high rises and low falls of the planet's mean temperature. This is an undisputed fact. There have been periods on Earth of high and low temps. The Earth has seen very warm ages and ice-ages. This is presented so that we the viewers feel that our current warming trend is just business as usual. However, no real context is given to this point - other than the fact that these changes in temperature were not caused by man burning fossil fuels.

Ah, yes, but fossils are the key to this piece of info. For example, some 55 million years ago, alligators lived in Canada, well above the Artic circle. Fossils of those and many other warm weather animals can be found there - indicating that in one of the warmer periods of recent Earth history, the climate around here was much different. Of course, when I went to the University of Missouri, we studied geology with a focus on what we knew: Missouri. The last ice age brought glaciers down to the Missouri river (look at a map - that's about the middle of the continental U.S.) In warmer periods, Missouri was covered by an inland sea. So, yes, if you want to go sun bathing in Canada and buy sea-front property in the Ozarks, by all means, go buy a Hummer! The economy needs your uninformed spending!

Fossils and fossil fuels are also a point here. Mr. Coleman asks very early on "Doesn't CO2 help plants grow?" - it does indeed. And in the warmer periods of Earth's history, plants grew a lot! Especially smaller plants like micro algae. There are lots of images in the media of dead dinosaurs being crushed into crude oil, but, truly, most of our oil comes from micro plants. They are born, take in the CO2, build bodies, then die. Layer on layer of them for millions of years. A little pressure and heat and time and now we exploit that left over carbon, we find it as crude oil that we refine into gasoline and jet fuel. We find it as coal. Those little life forms lived off that CO2 in the atmosphere. But - that's the point. All of that CO2 has been sequestered underground for millions of years. Man wasn't around then. In fact, Man rose up only in the last million or so years. All of recorded human history has been since the last ice-age - a mere 10,000 years. Man didn't get around to burning fossil fuels until the last couple of hundred years. And, in that time, especially the last 100 years, we have burned away what took Mother Nature hundreds of millions of years to sequester. We have released all of that CO2 back into the atmosphere. Man showed up on a planet cooler than the one we live on now, we are setting ourselves up to achieve massive temperature increases. Will man survive in a world where Toronto is like Miami? This freakin' meteorologist doesn't know the answer - that's for damned sure!

So, that's what you get when you use a huge sample size with no context. What about a too small sample size? All you have to do is look at the end of this video. Yes, indeed 2009 was a quiet year for hurricanes. So, that's it? Crisis is over? 2005 was the most active year for hurricanes on record. Katrina isn't even the most powerful hurricane on record. The largest hurricane on record was Ike in 2008. But we're only talking Atlantic hurricanes. More hurricanes are now developing in the Pacific. But, hey, 2009 was quiet, 30 years of studying this are moot - let's call it off!

But it gets better. Mr. Coleman cites no temperature rises from the 40s to the mid-70s - the Industrial Boom. (PSST! Mr. Coleman? Yeah, in the mid-70s, there was an oil shortage, maybe you remember it? The shortage was basically cured by OPEC opening the taps and driving oil prices to unheard of lows. In the 80s and 90s, most families in the US bought a second or third car, public transportation dried up and the US decided that a family with three SUVs was desirable! The world has changed! The world is changing!)

This guy's logic takes more twists and turns than I can handle. Look, I'm not saying we have to get rid of cars, I'm just saying we have been using the sky for a dump and now it's time to clean up the mess before it bites us - and it's already biting us. Micro organisms made all the oil by absorbing CO2. How did they get it? They didn't fly out of the water, take a big breath and dive back in. They got it by absorbing it from the water. CO2 moves from the atmosphere to the ocean. Now, scientists are telling us that the CO2 levels are so high that the oceans are becoming acidic. This isn't just about climate change, this is environmental change. Why do we care about the oceans becoming acidic? Because it's bleaching coral and it's killing plankton - the basis for the ocean food chain. Take out the base of the ocean's food chain and eventually it will effect the top of the chain: us. Mr. Coleman keeps using phrases like "They say this will destroy civilization!" - again he says it like it's a ridiculous concept. Well, civilization might be able to withstand this, but I think if you start hurting the primary source of food for a good portion of the planet, i.e. the oceans, you are definitely going to disrupt civilization.

I don't even see why we're still arguing about this. I mean, I know why. Big Oil and other industries are putting out lots of money to make sure we are blinded, to make sure we are in doubt. However, a little simple logic clears everything right up. Mr. Coleman early in his, oh, let's call it a presentation, posses the question "Isn't CO2 a trace gas?" Yes, yes it is. And, in a bottle of water, you can have a trace of cyanide. A small trace will never be noticed by your system. But, just a few more parts per billion, a slightly larger trace of cyanide, will kill you with one sip.

The friend that forwarded me this video used to have tropical fish. As we have debated, I've wanted bring this up. Why would this matter? Well, those tropical fish were, in a word, a pain. You provide a tank and salt solution and food and light and heat. Raise or lower any of those factors and you have a tank of dead, expensive fish. Too much salt, too little salt. The pH is too high, too low, whatever - dead fish. Well, if the atmosphere is the water we all swim in - and it certainly is - how are we any different from those expensive, easy to kill fish? Drop in too much oxygen, you can easily kill a person. Too much CO2? You'll kill someone easy. I won't get into the statistics about asthma. Too hot, too cold - okay, humans with their technology can survive a lot better than the stupid fish, but, I think you get the idea.

China has nearly 2 billion people. They also have one of the largest coal reserves on the planet. They will need heat and power for themselves - guess what energy source they are likely to use?

It would indeed be better if they, the Chinese, and if the rest of us didn't keep saying yes, we would like alternative fuels ... someday - but if we instead started using them now. We have the technology. Solar has never been cheaper or more effective. Wind is cheap, we just need the will and the infrastructure. The next time you buy a car - buy a hybrid, better - buy an electric vehicle if you can swing it. Are they expensive now? Sure. Convince the car companies that you want them and they will produce more of them and they will fall in price. They already are falling in price. Building a house or doing a major upgrade? Add solar - you will get a return on your investment. Maybe replacing your bulbs with florescent is good - I don't have the numbers. I like the ones around my place.

We could even lower the amount of CO2 currently floating around. Google the term "Bio-Diesel" and you will get a lot of information. But, what it boils down to is that we can make a diesel replacement out of any fat - corn oil, chicken grease, you name it. Now, we've talked a bit about micro algae in this post - those little guys are perfect for this. Vast swaths of American desert land could be converted to grow micro algae that could be turned into bio-diesel. That makes American jobs and uses the CO2 already in the air. Take the next step and sequester some of it. It would be a logical but politically difficult process to tell American oil producers that for every five barrels of oil products they sell, they have to produce one barrel of bio-diesel from micro algae. And for every 10 barrels of micro algae bio-diesel, they need to sequester one barrel. Down goes the CO2. It's the least Big Oil can do in the wake of record profits in a down economy! As we all switch to hybrids and hopefully electrics and add more solar and wind - we start lowering CO2 and we can do that right now!

In the end, I'm not going to base my opinions on any one person. I'm certainly not going to base my opinions on a "scientist" who has appeared on Fox News and who appears to be running a personal crusade to debunk this issue in the face of thousands of other scientists. It's Occam's Razor time - yet another scientific principal that I doubt is familiar to Mr. Coleman.

But, hey, what do I know? Let's forget it. Let's all light up a cig, have a couple of high balls and enjoy the good life. Mr. John Coleman said we can. We have no responsibility for this! It's not our problem if we bury our heads in the sand, right?

Jericho: Life in General

2009-12-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

Max: Simmons SDX - The Geekiest Drums Ever

2009-11-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

Max: What We're Not Supposed To Know About The New Copyright Treaty

2009-11-12T17:26:00.001-08:00

Jericho: Ray & The Future

2009-11-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

Ray Kurzweil predicts some of the future (Computers won't disappear in two months, sorry!)

I think it's worth a half hour of your time. If you need me, I'll be in the pool.

Max: My Kid Is Awesome

2009-10-23T13:50:00.001-07:00

Max: Michael Mannring Playing 3 Basses At One Time

2009-10-22T10:48:00.001-07:00

Max: A Little Focus

2009-10-19T10:24:00.001-07:00

Jericho: Why must it be this complex, Ladies?

2009-10-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

If you asked twenty men this question, you'd probably get twenty versions of "I'm Horny."

Jericho: The Toxicity Went Down to Georgia

2009-09-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

I know, those violins are just electric guitars played with bows on the shoulders of cute girls ... but, still ..... this may be the hottest thing I've ever seen!

I certainly banged my head! :)

Max: Glenn Beck - The Early Years

2009-09-22T18:15:00.001-07:00

Jericho: There are 25 more where these came from!

2009-09-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

Jericho: The State of Television

2009-09-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

Chuck Lorre is possibly one of the funniest men alive. He produced Dharma & Greg and is currently producing The Bing Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. At the end of these shows, Chuck has a "Vanity Card" - it flashes up briefly and the only way to read it is to record the show or watch it on DVD - or check out the archive I linked to back there ...

On a recent 2.5 Men (Originally Aired March 28th, 2008) Mr. Lorre ran the following Vanity Card. I think it paints a picture of our modern, American lives ...

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #199

Tonight's episode was about Charlie being drugged and imprisoned by his stalker, Rose. In addition, we did jokes about nasal spray being an effective aid for love-making, a young boy's desire to go to a strip bar, a mother cavalierly assuming that her son has some sort of third-world venereal disease, a Korean woman suffocating from the toxic fumes she inhales painting the toe nails of a "white she-bitch," stalking the British Royal Family, a woman holding a man's penis while he urinates, two men being interrupted while defecating, suppositories as a barbiturate delivery system, and finally, a hooker used to purposely transmit a viral infection. But the joke that we could not put in the show tonight, the one comic moment that CBS Broadcast Standards absolutely refused to bend on, was a harmless bit of word play which required the mention of a name-brand hard liquor. When I asked why, I was told it's against CBS corporate policy. I desperately wanted a drink.

Max: Men Who Stare At Goats

2009-08-28T14:39:00.001-07:00

I really like Jeff Bridges' The Dude meets R. Lee Ermey character.

Max: Newsweek on Health Care Hypocrisy

2009-08-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

[I]f you add the failure of employer-linked health care with Medicare, Medicaid, government employment, and the military, a huge chunk of Americans already have taxpayer-funded health care. It's a diverse lot. Rich old people and poor kids, university professors, congressmen, teachers, DMV clerks and their families. Pretty much everybody you see on CNBC yelling about socialism? Their parents and grandparents (if they're still living) get taxpayer-funded health insurance. Mine do. Charles Grassley, the septuagenarian Iowan who is doing his darnedest to torpedo meaningful health care form, has it. Arthur Laffer, the 69-year-old economist who went on television and suggested that Medicare isn't a government health care program, is eligible for Medicare. Dick Armey, who spent many years teaching at a state university and served several terms in Congress, has had taxpayer-funded health insurance for much of his adult life. Same for Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Democratic senators like Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson? Yes, yes, and yes.

More at Newsweek.com.

Max: A Bit Of Boosh

2009-08-20T17:40:00.001-07:00

Max: The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

2009-08-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

If the entering college class of 2013 had been more alert back in 1991 when most of them were born, they would now be experiencing a severe case of déjà vu. The headlines that year railed about government interventions, bailouts, bad loans, unemployment and greater regulation of the finance industry. The Tonight Show changed hosts for the first time in decades, and the nation asked “was Iraq worth a war?”

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Emeritus Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. It is used around the world as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation. It is widely reprinted and the Mindset List website at http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/ receives more than 300,000 hits annually.

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013.

Found via Charles Stross.

Max: Brits Speak Out About The "Horrors" of the NHS

2009-08-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin earlier this week condemned Obama's plans to introduce a public heath insurance scheme as an "evil" move that would result in "death panels" deciding who would live or die.

Her criticism has been echoed by fellow Republicans in direct attacks on Britain's NHS. In an article, Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said British healthcare was run by "Orwellian" bureaucrats who put a price tag on life.

...

The comments caused a storm of protest in the United Kingdom, with Prime Minister Brown wading into the argument via micro-blogging site Twitter, where a conversation chain, "#welovetheNHS", is generating huge online traffic.

...

Professor Stephen Hawking, author of "A Brief History of Time", also spoke out in favor of the British system, telling the Guardian newspaper that he owes his life to NHS treatment for the neuro-muscular dystrophy he has suffered from for 40 years.

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Via CNN.com

Max: Great Patience In The Face Of Pure Batshit Crazy

2009-08-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

If I were Sara, I would have punched my "friends" in the vadge after about 3 minutes.

Max: Toilet Jesus

2009-08-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Lacking anything better to do, Jesus has appeared on a Vegas toilet seat.

Max: Weeze of the Week

2009-07-30T12:43:00.001-07:00

Max: Beware Government Largess

2009-07-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Unless it comes from Republicans...

Jericho: Poly in Public

2009-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Wow. A very good article on Polyamory out at Newsweek. It's three pages and darned well written. There are also some embedded videos - ignore the Amway commercials and enjoy the videos, they're fun!

BTW, there is a link to "Family" in case you were looking for one. I live to serve!

Max: Space

2009-07-29T11:06:00.001-07:00

The Science Comedian discusses the importance of space travel in a video at Time.com.

Max: Guesswork - Charles Stross

2009-07-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

We're not going to see a Mac Netbook. There are two reasons for this. First (and most important, from Apple's point of view) it would slaughter their profit margin by cannibalizing Macbook and iMac sales from underneath. Second, Steve Jobs was right: running OS/X on a $500 computer is a ghastly experience. I've done it. I've taken an Asus Eee 1000 (with a 40Gb SSD and 2Gb of RAM) and squished OS/X 10.5.5 onto it. It worked, after a fashion. Two minute boot times are not going to go down well in the consumer marketplace; nor are dialog boxes chopped off at the bottom by the netbook-standard 1024x600 pixel screen. (Yes, they could in principle push out a compact laptop with a higher resolution screen — but that's going to drive the price up.) The real problem is that netbooks are built around a low-power CPU and cheap embedded video chipset that simply aren't up to providing the user experience Apple customers have gotten used to. OS/X on a netbook crawls like Vista.

On the other hand, there are Signs and Portents. In the past couple of years, Apple has purchased chip design house P. A. Semi, presumably for their ARM architecture expertise. Apple is serious about ARM development, and use the Cortex A8 in the new iPhone 3GS; they've also bootstrapped a huge developer community and application store for the new OSX-on-ARM platform that is the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

My bet is that what we're going to see is what you might call an iPod Touch HD. It'll have a 10" multi-touch screen, probably 1280x800 pixels (a standard Apple resolution, rather than the Netbook spec 1024x600). It will run a version of the iPhone OS — OSX ported to run on ARM hardware rather than Intel, with a different user interface. There may well be haptic feedback for the on-screen keyboard (as featured on MIDs like the Viliv S5) , or some species of "real" keyboard — either a clamshell like a netbook, or a slider like a high-end mobile phone. (My money is on the on-screen keyboard with haptic feedback — it makes for a cleaner design.) It'll almost certainly have a 3G data connection, and some sources have been touting an $800 price point; others suggest it'll be subsidized to $300 when sold with a monthly mobile data contract.

More at Charles Stross's blog.

Max: Spaced

2009-07-23T11:55:00.001-07:00

Let's see how much Jericho hates yet another of my fave shows.

Jericho: The Death of Biodiesel

2009-07-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

The long time readers of this blog know that Max and I are techno-buffs and futurists. I think it's a pretty easy call to make - we both are of the school that technology has the potential to make our lives better.

As most of you are aware, I'm out of work. The job market is pretty scary right now and I'm looking down a long, dark tunnel of unemployment. It could be a while before I find something.

The last few weeks I have been going over my options. I might be able to get some training paid for by the government. If you can cut through all the red tape and BS of not only the state & federal bureaucracy but also the bureaucracy of the school I want to attend.

If I can pull it off, that would be great - but do I want to go back into the IT industry? The last eight years qualifies as "once bitten" and I am surely "twice shy!"

There is starting my own business. This is never easy, but it's made harder by the state of the economy combined with my lack of experience. Further, I don't want to just make money. If I had the opportunity, I'd like to do something that actually made the world better. Making the world better and getting rich in the process would be excellent!

No! I never set the bar too high! Not ever!!

More than two years ago, I put up a post about Alternative Fuels and James Woolsey ... at about that point, gas was pretty expensive. So, I really started thinking about alt fuels and biodiesel. Time after time I've come back to thinking about biodiesel. How is it made? Could I make it? Could I sell it? Could I make a business out of it?

When I start dreaming, I instantly go big! Really big! I always have.

So, of course, I dive into the internet and start looking for anything I can find on biodiesel. I've learned this from Max. Max can research anything to death and I envy his search engine mad skillz. There's a lot of info out there, even early on. (Way more has shown up in the last two years!) Almost immediately, I'm onto something good about algae.

You see, we have to find alt fuels. We're going to run out of oil. Besides, oil is already expensive and not secure. Every time there's a mention of a war, the price of a barrel of oil doubles. Would people panic about oil if their transportation fuel of choice was grown in this country and shipped to the rest of the world? Nope!

So, in looking for alt fuels, people have gravitated to the original fuel: food. Corn is made into Ethanol. Soy and Palm oil are made into Biodiesel. (Actually, any fat can be made into Biodiesel.) There are problems with this. We have 6.6 billion people on the planet - talk of 9 billion before 2050. Food is not exactly plentiful in all regions. Food is plentiful here in the US - but many environmentalists are horrified by how it's grown. (For one, I think we have bigger problems!) Food prices have risen drastically the last decade. Partially from the rise in fuel costs. The other part - because we are turning food, like corn, into fuel. Environmentalists are concerned that larger and larger parts of forests are being burned and cultivated to grow trees for palm oil to be used in biodiesel. As you can see, this is problematic.

Now, what if there was a way to grow a substance that wasn't part of the food system? What if we could use non-arable land, that way we are not converting agricultural land into fuel land? What if the fuel made from this substance would be better for the environment than fuels currently on the market? Shouldn't someone research that?

They did. Your tax dollars paid for a DOE study into micro-algae. The study was aimed at sequestering CO2 emissions from coal fired electrical plants. The study was a success. They found micro-algae that were 50% oil; all they needed were sun, water, simple (read: cheap) nutrients and the CO2 from the plant. But, the study stopped there. No further study was done on what to do with the algae nor was there a further push to make this part of coal electrical plant operations to cut CO2 pollution. Carbon dioxide is a major green house gas and is contributing significantly to climate change.

So, we have a plant that is 50% oil. It wouldn't be hard to squeeze out that oil. Then you have vegetable oil - from which you could make biodiesel. The DOE study used open ponds as the current agricultural algae growers do, they figured 2000 gallons of algae per acre per month. If you have 100 acres, that's 200,000 gallons of biodiesel a month. When diesel fuel was nearly $5 a gallon and the Federal government had a program giving a biodiesel producer a $1 a gallon - all of the sudden this starts looking like serious money!

The best part is that this would be a short cycle CO2. In other words, when you burn gas or diesel or any other petro-chemical fuel, you are digging up carbon that is already in the ground and putting it back into the air. (And there are people that don't think this pollution will cause some kind of climate change ... global warming deniers. Think before you speak! Go sit with the holocaust deniers and the freaks that overestimate our government by thinking they could convincingly fake a moon landing!) But, with bio-diesel, you are pulling CO2 out of the air, then putting it back - you are not adding extra.

As I'm investigating this, I run across a company that produces a closed loop algae process.

Well, that was the beginning of the end for me! My dreams start getting huge. Before I know it, I'm looking at huge plots of land, hundreds of acres of desert in Texas, New Mexico and Nevada. Plus, this VAT product claims to get higher yields than open ponds, into the 100,000 gallon per acre per year range. Well, I'm gonna be rich! And helping the environment. And making the world a better place! I'm a god-damned hero and I haven't yet done anything!

I give myself a reality check and start trying to think smaller. Again, you can make biodiesel out of any fat. There are reasonably priced biodiesel processors out there. There are companies from whom one can buy yellow grease, the industry name for used vegetable oil - old fryer fat. I could purchase a few processors, get some WVO (waste vegetable oil) and get to work. At $5 a gallon, I could have made a lot of diesel and made a lot of money from it!

Now, the above represents my thought process, on and off as it was, for the last two years. I can go back through my email and find this biodiesel soaked trail that leads off into several dead-end paths. My life got busy and I put it onto the shelf next to all the other ideas and projects I have left undone.

I've come full circle. I'm back to thinking about these things. With unemployment dragging on and my responsibilities to my family limited really to myself, I have room for a lot of risk. But, as you will see, there is risk and then there is suicide.

Two years is a long time and a lot has changed. In that time, fuel prices have dropped quite a bit. The current national average price of a gallon of Diesel is $2.50. While this has happened, a great deal of people have jumped on the Biodiesel band-wagon and quite a few of them have gone out of business. Two years ago, soy bean oil was regarded as a by-product and it was quite cheap. Today, according to a study I read from a major university, a gallon of soy bean oil - just the oil, goes for about $2.50. That same study had a theoretical soy oil biodiesel plant producing a gallon of biodiesel for about $2.80. That's break even, no associated profit in that number.

I found a site that sells yellow grease. They are selling for $.41 cents a pound. There are eight pounds in a gallon, thus a gallon would be $3.28. They offered biodiesel as well at $6.00 a gallon.

So, the small scale, "make biodiesel at home for fun & profit" concept is pretty much out the window. I'm back to looking at 300 acres of land in Nevada for $80k and building green houses and trying to produce algae oil for as cheap as possible. Let someone else make the fuel - at this point if I can find a way to make algae at a dollar or so a gallon, I'll be rich.

Yeah! Sure.

Max: Kurt-rolled?

2009-07-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Max: LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

2009-07-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sexy!

Max: Argument Against Murder

2009-07-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

All human beings are mortal. We may someday find a way to extend human life so long that we might be as good as immortal. But as it stands, everybody alive is going to die. Why go to so much trouble to cause something that's going to eventually happen on it's own? Would you call the fire department to put out a guttering candle? Well, we're all guttering flames.

Jericho: United Breaks Guitars

2009-07-09T01:43:00.000-07:00

And the airline industry wonders why they have falling revenue? I have to pay an outrageous amount for a cramped seat next to a screaming baby. (If anyone notices I'm over-weight, they'll charge me double!) I have to wait three hours to check in my bag and three hours to get them, if they showed up at all. I have to get naked and unpack my bags and answer stupid questions just to get on the fucking plane. And, oh, yes! Let us not forget the baggage handlers. I have to pay extra to bring a bag these days but do they take extra care of it? Nope! The last time I flew, one of my bags looked as if it had been drug across the tarmac.

Please! Somebody! Build me some bullet trains, that way the airline industry will have some completion and maybe they will straighten up and fly right!

Here's someone with even bigger issues than I. This is pure incompetence - on the part of United. The song is actually really good. Find the whole story here.

Max: Thought 4 2day

2009-07-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

I don't understand anyone who accepts their own death as part of some greater plan. The way I see it, any plan that requires my death by definition has at least one major flaw and I am not dying for such a flawed plan.

Max: X-treme Sidecar

2009-06-26T16:13:00.001-07:00

X-treme sidecar

Max: Stoned Wallabies Make Crop Circles

2009-06-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Best headline ever.

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

More at the Beeb.

Jericho: The Problem is David

2009-06-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

Go have a look at this article from CNN.

Now, anyone who has read this blog for a while knows I am a fan and supporter of advanced scientific research, space travel, NASA and the effort to privatize space. So, when Buzz Aldrin puts up an opinion on CNN that echoes my own feelings, I feel buoyed! Going back to the Moon has its place. But, in truth, I think striving for Mars is a better use of public funds. Let the growing nations compete with private American corporations for the Moon. NASA has already been to the Moon. NASA should be breaking new ground, exploring new territory. NASA should aim for Mars.

However, in the comments, I find this:

David
updated Tue June 23, 2009

Go to Mars? Why bother? What's the point?

The moonlanding was just a feather in the US's cap, it was a fun goal to get the country fired up over. But when it's said and done what did we get out of it? Bragging rights, nothing but bragging rights.

Why not put our time, money and effort toward something that matters like curing cancer, or ending world hunger, or bringing about world peace?

Wow.

They say if one does not study history, one is doomed to repeat it. I say, if one does not study history, one is doomed to leave ignorant comments on the Internet!

That's the one and only shot I'm going to take at David. I'd like to stand on my chair and call him a few choice names, but, that would accomplish nothing and, frankly, I think I understand David and people like him. I'll bet David is younger than I am. I'll give David some marks for intelligence - his comment is well written with not too many grammatical errors. And, David is a good-hearted liberal - he wants to deal with immediate social issues directly. I think I'm starting to like David.

However, David has no grasp of the past. None. If David thinks the Space Race was a "fun goal" - he hasn't cracked a history book. David, allow me bring you and your generation up to speed. You've heard the term "Space Race", you have likely heard the term "Cold War". Both of these terms get batted around a lot, but, in truth, the Space Race was just another arm of the Cold War. And, the Cold War was indeed a WAR. Sure, there were no Russian tanks in France or bombs falling on Moscow, but it was a war. Brave men and women died fighting that war every day. The Apollo astronauts that died on the pad should have been treated as war heroes, because that's what they were in every definition of the term. The Davids of the modern world didn't build bomb shelters in their back yards, wondering if they would ever need to use them. They didn't have bomb drills, huddled in the basements of their schools and churches hoping to God that they would never have to do this for real. (I huddled. I cried. I prayed.) The Cold War held the two largest countries on the planet in mortal fear of the other.

You have to start with Sputnik. The Russians put the first artificial satellite in orbit. That seemingly useless metal ball that went "beep-beep-beep" represented a new front in the Cold War. If the Russians could put a ball into orbit, they could put a bomb into orbit, they could weaponize space and then no one was safe. There is more than one account of people sitting in their living rooms, listening to the "beep-beep-beep" on the radio and looking at the ceiling like the bombs were going to start falling right at that moment. People were scared, and, maybe, rightly so. The Russians were aggressive and they beat the Americans to the punch.

The race was on. The Russians were the first to put a man in orbit. That changed everything. The Americans lagged behind every step and people were getting more frightened by the moment. The Cuban Missile Crisis didn't make anything easier.

It could be argued that Kennedy set up the race for the Moon as "bread and circuses" politics with NASA in the center ring of the biggest circus of them all. But, I think the only ones that could think that are people who have the comfortable distance of time from the events of those days or those who live in the valley of ignorance. You see, the Moon was indeed a goal that would get people fired up. And that was the point. If people wanted to reach the Moon, they would spend money and take risks and do what it took to get there. A lot of research would be needed. New solutions to new problems would have to be found. And not just one solution, getting to the Moon wasn't just one puzzle. Thousands of problems would require thousands of solutions.

And that's the trick. People were scared of the Russians. They wanted to defeat them, to break them, to leave them behind us technologically. Thus, they were willing to spend gobs of money to achieve this goal, spending money on what amounted to pure research. And they did - solutions were found, thousands of them. But, those solutions, like any solution, didn't just apply to getting people to the Moon. No, those answers were answers to questions in many fields. The Apollo program advanced materials science, communications, health, earth sciences, etc., etc. Buzz was right, the computer on board the Apollo missions had less computing power that a modern calculator. Your cell phone has more power than the entire Apollo program vehicles combined. But, those computers didn't exist before Mercury and Apollo. If they had to take one of the earlier computers with them, the size and weight would have made it impossible. The work that went just into the computers that were used was probably worth the whole program and leads directly to the computer that you are reading this blog on right now. Hundreds of other inventions from digital readouts (like on your alarm clock) to Lycra (read the label on a bra!) all had to be created to get man into space and on the Moon.

The Mercury and Apollo programs were worth every penny. They advanced technology untold amounts. They also gave us something that maybe we were missing: a sense of adventure and hope for the future.

Now, it's obvious that David's hold on the past isn't too good. His grasp of the future is shaky as well. Allow me to point the way.

David asked what is the point of going to Mars? As Buzz said, it is a goal just beyond our grasp. They canceled the Apollo program due to lack of interest. The American people caught David-itis and began asking what's the point? We beat the Russians - why are we still doing this? The big picture eluded them and the politicians of the era went with the whim of the people when they should have had the balls to lead them to better things. The Davids won the day and lost their souls in the process. NASA talked at the time of going to Mars, and, in this writer's humble opinion, considering Wernher Von Braun was at the helm, I think they could have gone and done it and we'd be that much further ahead.

So, I ask that you keep the Apollo program in mind and ask the question again: Why go to Mars? I'm sure the answer is now obvious. Since it isn't easy to go to Mars, it will require a lot of research to get there. And, yes, that translates into a lot of dollars (it also translates into a lot of jobs, but, who needs those, right?) Since it will require a great deal of research to get to Mars, a great deal of problems will get solved. Those solutions will apply to many fields, not just space travel.

The modern Mars program will have a disadvantage that a Mars program in the 70s wouldn't have had: Public Relations. The public (as represented by David) and the media have long been critical of NASA and space programs in general. Either the programs were not grand enough when compared to Apollo (this being the result of funding cuts by Congress) or a mistake had been made that caused an error (often as the result of funding cuts by Congress) - NASA has been the butt of Tonight Show jokes for the last three decades.

Then, we lose seven astronauts in a tragic explosion that is replayed a billion times by the media and plastered on every newspaper for a month. So, instead of getting right back on the horse, NASA is forced to take nearly a decade to design a better O ring!

Public opinion is driving NASA to face their ultimate nemesis; Perfection. In the 70s, as we see in Mr. Aldrin's tale on the Moon landing, there was room for error. NASA didn't have to have everything 100% with no chance for error before even one tile was glued into place. So, now, not only will the program have to solve the issues of getting to Mars, they will have to do it perfectly. That will require many more solutions.

So, just maybe, those solutions will apply to curing diseases such as cancer. And, if you can grow food on Mars, you can grow it anywhere. Solving a problem for Mars, any problem, will solve it for Earth. (And, just for David, cancer is being cured. Many companies are working on it. There is money to be made, so research is happening. Many more people are surviving cancer than ever before. Oh, and world hunger would be easy to solve. The problem there is politics. You can't cure politics.)

So, in conclusion, I say: Let's go to Mars.

We can send David first!

(A little education from Wernher Von Braun, Disney and the Cold War!)

Max: Stephen King Killed John Lennon

2009-06-22T15:24:00.001-07:00

Max:What Happens if You Feed a Dog Chocolate While he Wears a Tin Foil Hat in the Microwave

2009-06-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Max: Old Jews Telling Jokes - Schmuck

2009-06-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Max: Geek Voodoo

2009-06-18T10:56:00.001-07:00

I actually managed to bring my lappy's optical drive back to life. Just as I was unduly depressed yesterday, I am now unduly proud of my 1337 $|<i11z.

Max: Back To The Dark Ages

2009-06-17T17:30:00.001-07:00

The DVD drive on my computer is dead. I wish I could convey how much this sucks. I've never had the bleeding edge, super-shiny technology I dream of. But I've managed to at least stay within a few parsecs of that lovely bleeding edge. Now, my main -- only, really -- computer has no optical drive. It functions other than that -- for now. At the moment I can arguably live without accessing CD's and DVD's on my computer. But the next time I find myself in need of a clean install, I'll be fucked.

Given that I'm too broke to afford penny candy, it's going to be a while, if ever, before I can afford a replacement. Assuming everything else on the computer holds up, it may have a year or so of decent performance, followed by a steady slide toward brickdom. Unless my financial situation improves, once my lappy is bricked I will be a geek without a computer.

Edit: Yes I am being excessively dramatic.

Max: The World Needs More Teachers Like This

2009-06-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Max: Futurama Even More Back Than Before

2009-06-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

In another case of an animated primetime series resurrected from the dead, 20th Century Fox TV plans to produce 26 new episodes of "Futurama." Comedy Central will begin airing the new episodes in mid-2010. Voice actors Billy West (who played Philip Fry), Katey Sagal (Leela) and John DiMaggio (Bender) have all signed on to return.

More at Variety.

Thanks to Hijinks Ensue for the good news.

Max: Manah Manah

2009-06-08T15:17:00.001-07:00

Max: Jazz Funk Boosh

2009-06-01T16:17:00.001-07:00

Watch The Hitcher in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Max: More Boosh

2009-06-01T15:54:00.001-07:00

Naboo and Bollo know how to go out.

Max: Ice Flow Nowhere To Go

2009-06-01T12:10:00.001-07:00

Max: Spaghetti 'oops

2009-06-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

I love The Mighty Boosh.

Max: A Little Light Lituus Music

2009-06-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

Cutting-edge computer modelling software has enabled a long-lost, trumpet-like instrument to be recreated – allowing a work by Bach to be performed as the composer may have intended for the first time in nearly 300 years.

The software was originally developed by a University of Edinburgh PhD student, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with the aim of optimising the design of modern brass instruments.

Computer modelling is an emerging technology in instrument manufacture, but the new software offers unprecedented accuracy in terms of ensuring a brass instrument’s design delivers the required shape, pitch and tone.

More here.

Jericho: Headed for an ear-rrr ache!!!

2009-05-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

This post is just me whining! You've been warned!

This week has been goofy. Two of my friends asked me to watch their pets while they were out of town. So, twice a day, I've been heading over to their place, hanging out for two or three hours at a time (isn't unemployment fun!) coming home and doing it again a few hours later - all so their neurotic dog doesn't whiz on the furniture or commit suicide or something.

Now, as my reward, they have a HUGE TV, great sound system and like every cable channel they can afford! (Not to mention an XBox!) I haven't had actual cable TV since I moved into this apartment, about a month ago. So, I got a Law & Order fix, some Military channel (Wings!) and some other good stuff.

Get your mind out of the gutter. They're married - what use would they have for THOSE channels???

Today I'm flipping channels and ran across something I wasn't aware existed. There is a station called VH1 Classic - I guess it's supposed to be Classic Rock - but all of their shows seem to be "Heavy Metal" themed. I say "themed" because three old guys in bowling shirts and Mettalic sweatshirts sitting around talking music trivia like some freaking sports show isn't very "Metal" to me. (It's called "That Metal Show" - wow, even the title is a yawn.)

The first show I saw this morning, about 8 AM was called "Metal Mania". Oh boy. My first clue should have been the graphics for the program - all Day-Glo pinks and greens - also not very "Metal". But, when the first song came on - I got the joke: Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" ... yeah. This wasn't Metal - it was Butt Rock! This was followed up by Kiss with no make-up, a couple of other pretty boy hair-farmers, and finally Kip Winger! (Thus the title of this post! You didn't think I was going to explain that, did ya?)

I couldn't look away. Every time a commercial came on the Military channel show I was watching about how the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, out of sheer morbid curiosity I flipped back to see what other poof was ... "Rocking" "Out" - /air quotes.

Finally, the 9 o'clock hour struck. They opened with Quiet Riot. Better - well, not really, but at least there wasn't any leather clad asses shaking or 1980's "I'm too sexy to shave with a sharp razor" stubble. (Fucking Kip Winger!) Next was Scorpions; "Rock You Like a Hurricane". If you thought music videos made no sense, the 1980's European music videos might as well have been filmed on the planet Vulcan - just a sexier Vulcan - with lots of icy-cold, sexy but wholly unattainable blond chicks all crying because you hurt them!

This was followed up with Queensryche. Undoubtedly metal - and they didn't play "Silent Lucidity"! They played the other hit off that album, the title track "Empire". A kick ass song if ever there was. Then Iron Maiden and I had to go when The Cult came on.

Lesson Learned: don't watch "Metal Mania" until after 9 AM!

Max: Steve Cohen (D-TN) Spanks Robert Mueller (Dumb-FBI)

2009-05-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Max: Obama Goes Full On Bush

2009-05-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I expected I would eventually be disappointed by the Obama administration. I just didn't expect it would be this badly.

Max: Rocket Scientists - Pythagoras (Unbound)

2009-05-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

Max: Rawk!

2009-05-21T16:51:00.001-07:00

Max: Daily Show Interview With The Newt

2009-05-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Newt Gingrich - UNCUT

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

Jericho: Holy Hoppin' Hares, Batman!

2009-05-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

More funny videos like the "Superheroes in Cincinnati" at Heavy.com

http://www.worldsuperheroregistry.com/

Ummmm .... I'm at a total loss. Excelsior!

Max: Father's Day Is A Comin'

2009-05-14T17:02:00.001-07:00

Father's Day is a mere month and a week away. I know everyone is highly keen to shower me with material goods. Even though I am not much of a materialist, I care enough to make it easy to schwag me up. In that spirit, below are my many wishlists.

Amazon.com
Books - Comp Sci/Math
Books - Biography/Essays
Books - Fiction
Books - Food
Books - Graphic Novels
Books - Japan
Books - Music
Books - Reference/Other
Books - Religion/Philosophy
Books - Sci/Tech
Books - Society/Gov
Books - Writing/English
Clothes
DVD - Movies
DVD - Music
DVD - TV
Gift Card
Kitchen
Magazine Subscriptions
Music
Toys and Tools

Guitar Center
Max's Bass Desires

Stew Mac
Making A Solidbody Electric Guitar

Luthier's Mercantile
Build an Electric Guitar, Robbie O’Brier DVD

Birdsong Basses
Hy-5 Bass

Max: Some Thoughts on Miss California

2009-05-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

1) Beauty pageants are retarded and the fact that the news has spent more time covering this shit than the many Bushlike policies coming out of the Obama Administration leaves me with a strong desire to move to an off grid cabin the the woods.

2) Last November, a majority of Californians voted for a law that not only banned gay marriage but may end up nullifying existing marriages. It seems Ms. Prejean is an ideal representative for them.

Max: Groovin' Euro Bass Studs

2009-05-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

Max: Charlie Stross Contemplates The Future

2009-05-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

The class of gadgets that the iPhone leads — I want you to imagine the gadget class that is the PC today, in relation to the original Macintosh 128K back in 1984 — is something we don't really have a name for yet. Calling it a "smart phone" seems somehow inadequate. For one thing, we're used to our mobile phones being switched on, or off (at least, in standby mode). This gadget is never off — it is in constant communication with the internet. It knows where it is, and it knows which way up it is (it's orientation sensitive). It can see things you point it at, and it can show you pictures. (Oh, and it does the smartphone thing as well, when you want it to.)

Let me give you a handle on this device, the gadget, circa 2020, which has replaced our mobile phones. It's handheld, but about as powerful as a fully loaded workstation today. At it's heart is a multicore CPU delivering probably about the same performance as a quad-core Nehalem, but on under one percent of the power. It'll have several gigabytes of RAM and somewhere between 256Gb and 2Tb of Flash SSD storage. It'll be coupled to a very smart radio chipset: probably a true software-directed radio stack, where encoding and decoding is basically done in real time by a very fast digital signal processor, and it can switch radio protocols entirely in software. It'll be a GPS and digital terrestrial radio receiver and digital TV receiver as well as doing 802.whatever and whatever 4G standard emerges as victor in the upcoming war for WWAN preeminance.

More here.

Max: The Mighty Boosh

2009-05-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

A bit of awesomeness from across the pond.

Jericho Returns ...

2009-05-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

Howdy, all! I'm in my new place. I didn't have Internet for a while. I was able to snag an open wireless connection for the first day I was here, thought I had it made - could never get the connection to work again. Now, I have Internet, but I can't get my Mac to connect. Not sure what's wrong. Working from the laptop kinda sucks.

I'm about half way unpacked. There is a part of me that feels if I haven't needed something out of one of my packed boxes yet - then I never will. I'm sure this isn't true. However, several boxes are destined to remain packed and stashed in a closet. I just don't have the room for junk in this place that I had in the last.

The job search is slow. Mostly because I'm bad at looking for work. I'm kinda living in a state of denial right now - enjoying the lack of stress and not worrying (much) about work. After ten years of stressful jobs - it's nice to have an extended vacation. I'm positive this delusion won't last long. I've watched every episode of Red Dwarf, so, after that I'm left with little to do - once I get truly bored, I'll look for a job all the harder.

Well, that's it for the moment. I need to call the previous apartment complex and yell at them for some charges they are trying to lay on us. Wish me luck!

Max: Also MIA

2009-04-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

On week ago, someone cut open my wife and found a baby.

Since then, the Mrs. and I have spent every moment either feeding the kid, changing her diapers and (rarely) sleeping. Perhaps in a few months I might recover enough brain matter to write something that might be of interest to our many fans.

Jericho: On Hiatus

2009-04-24T13:14:00.001-07:00

So, my life is changing a whole lot right now.

As I have previously mentioned, my wife and I are divorcing. The first thing on our list is separating our homes. She and I are moving to new apartments this weekend.

As most of my friends know, I lost my job last week.

So, I'll be in a new place, by myself, soon to be divorced and I'm out of work.

I'm reminded of the scene in City Slickers where Billy Crystal tells another character that his life is "a do-over". A friend said that I'm starting with a clean slate and can rebuild again.

That's a very positive way to look at a man who suddenly has next to nothing and not a lot of prospects.

However, as long time friends and readers know, I'm not a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy - I'm a the-fucking-glass-is-empty-what's-wrong-with-you-people kind of guy. I've spent the last two days killing myself moving my stuff and talking to myself. I think I'm well on my way to living on the streets talking to pigeons.

Either way, I'll be packing up the computer here in a little while. I don't have internet access set up at my new place and with my lack of income, I might wait a bit before I do. So, this could be my last entry for a while.

Good luck, have fun and give a bum a buck - that bum could be me!

Max: 420 Science

2009-04-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Max: Unsure If You're Canadian?

2009-04-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Find the answers you seek here.

Jericho: Divingle?

2009-04-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll cop to it, too much of my life is online.

I have the little blog here, I have other blogs, I have email accounts on Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo. I have an LJ, a MySpace, a FaceBook, a Twitter and so many others I can't keep track of it so that's why I have an account on Spock!

Just about all of these have a profile of some sort. Name, Location, Sex, Likes, Dislikes and Marital Status.

Marital Status.

I haven't started changing any of this info yet. I'm still married, we haven't even started paper work yet. We won't be "Separated" until the end of the month.

But that's not really the thing that I'm thinking about right now. I've been Single. I've been Married. I "get" why you would want to advertise these facts, why those profile-bits are important to who you are and why you would want other people to know these facts about you. They form important points of who you are.

However, I'm not sure about the "Divorced" marital status option. Almost every profile I have ever run across lists this option. I never paid much attention to it before, but I'm seeing it everywhere now.

What image are you advertising by saying you are "Divorced"? Are you telling people:

"I'm a failure at marriage!"
"Once bitten, twice as excited!"
"I'm a severe serial monogamist!"
"Desperate, lonely and abandoned!"
"I did it once, you can get me to do it again!"
"Someone made the mistake of marrying me, you can to!"
"She was a total bitch and I'm totally innocent of blame!"
"Poor communication and alcohol are not just a choice, they are a lifestyle!"

Then there is also a question of time. A Divorced person is Single. But, how long do you go before you stop identifying as Divorced and go back to just being Single? Are you Divorced forever? If you were married for six weeks, are you Divorced for the next sixty years? Or, is this all personal choice? Are you allowed to identify as Single or Divorced depending on the message you are trying to send? Is there a caché to being Divorced?

Am I just over thinking this?

Max: Mark King is God

2009-04-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

Jericho: I wish I could write this stuff!

2009-04-07T09:17:00.001-07:00

Do you think this guy escaped Canada? Do you think he was fleeing all the socialism?

Max: Vt. Legislature Legalizes Gay Marriage

2009-04-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

Vermont Legislature Legalizes Gay Marriage - Local News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh

A ten-year battle to grant same sex couples the legal right to marry culminated in a dramatic political showdown Tuesday at the Statehouse with the house voting to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of the gay marriage bill.

The House voted 100-49 to override the veto Tuesday. The vote tally was greeted by rousing applause in the House chamber.

For those keeping score, Vermont is the first state to legalize gay marriage through legislation rather than adjudication.

Max: Bart Ehrman, the Un-Dawkins

2009-04-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

The old subversive line goes, "The last Christian died on the cross." But it would be more historically accurate to say that Jesus was not a Christian at all, but a Jewish apocalyptic prophet. It was only with his followers that "Christianity" came into existence. Ironically, Jesus preached a profoundly Jewish religion: It was the later Christians (including John and Paul) who turned Christianity into the virulently anti-Semitic religion it was to become.

...

[Biblical Scholar Bart] Ehrman is hard to categorize. He's a bomb-throwing moderate, a non-dogmatic rationalist. Unlike outspoken critics of religion such as Sam Harris, he does not regard organized religion as dangerous, nor does he claim that any rational person of intellectual integrity must embrace the same conclusions he does. He insists that he is not out to convert anyone, and has nothing but respect for his fellow scholars who know the same historical things he does about the Bible, yet continue to be devout Christians.

More at Salon.com.

Max: Same Sex Marriage Legal In Iowa

2009-04-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge’s 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.

The ruling, viewed nationally and at home as a victory for the gay rights movement and a setback for social conservatives, means Iowa’s 5,800 gay couples can legally marry in Iowa beginning April 24.

There are no residency rules for marriage in Iowa, so the rule would apply to any couple who wanted to travel to Iowa.

Max: Stephen Colbert on Crazy McWhackwhack

2009-04-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The 10/31 Project

comedycentral.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Jericho (Channeled by Max): "Being Jericho" Updated

2009-03-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

Click here to find out why Jericho is so irate.

Max: Sen Jim Webb (D-VA) Takes On American Injustice System

2009-03-31T12:35:00.000-07:00

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice.

...

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the
sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 1,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues.

I want to emphasize to my colleagues and to others that the issues that we face with
respect to criminal justice are not overall racial issues. In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us.

You can read his entire speech here (PDF).

Jericho: End the War on Drugs!

2009-03-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

"How many prison cells are filled with drug offenders? And how many corrections officers does it take to guard them? How much food do these convicts consume?

"And when they get out, how many parole and probation officers does it take to supervise their release? And how many ex-offenders turn right around and do it again?

"So how's this war on drugs going?"

Click here to read the rest - go Jim!

Max: Donations Go To Pot

2009-03-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

Marijuana backers aren't laughing about President Obama's flippant dismissal of a pot-related question during Thursday's online town hall meeting — and the country's leading marijuana advocacy group, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has seen its donations quadruple over the last 24 hours.

Max: The Wit And Wisdom of Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)

2009-03-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Max: The Geeks Are In Control, Beyotch!

2009-03-24T10:17:00.001-07:00

see more Political Pictures

Max: End The Drug War

2009-03-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence - CNN.com

Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.

Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this 'war on drugs.'

The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

I have my doubts that even this will cause people to lose faith in the Drug War religion, but here's hoping.

Max: Bad Astronomy

2009-03-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

The always entertaining and enlightening blog of scholar, writer, alpha-geek and JREF President Dr. Phil Plait can be found here. Go there.

Jericho: Blow-Outs

2009-03-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

Today started off very well. I woke up around 10. I'm not used to sleeping nearly that late any more - even on weekends. But, I guess I needed the sleep and I felt pretty good.

I walked out of the bedroom to the sounds of people lifting boxes and toting bales. We've had a roommate for about six months and today Steph was helping him move out. I was hoping they would be quick and that I would get to spend the day alone playing WoW. This was just a dream and I knew it. I knew that I would get sucked into helping.

Sure enough, I was lifting and toting in no time. Sigh! Oh well. If I helped it would be over sooner, right? I didn't even bother with eating, this will be quick - right???

Steph and the roommate rented a truck. We put his junk in the truck. It barely filled the thing. Apparently, when Steph went to pick up the truck, their computers were down, so they gave her a much larger truck than had been reserved. This would have been great - except the roommate didn't need the extra space. We could have held a rock concert in the back of this truck and still had room for his stuff!

I got in the truck with Steph, we were heading off to drop the roommate's stuff at a storage place. About ten miles down the road, something smacked into the driver-side window. No broken glass, no foul - we drove on.

A few minutes later, the lady in the car next to us was pantomiming her heart out. Apparently, we had blown out a tire! The ride in the truck was so rough, we hadn't noticed we were grinding the tire into bits. When we slowed down, we could definitely tell. Whoops!

While Steph was calling the rental company's roadside assistance, I got out and snapped the picture. The tire was pretty gone. My bet is that a piece of the tire, or whatever destroyed the tire, was what popped up and hit the driver's side window. Steph waited on hold forever. Finally she got through. The lady told her she needed to make some calls and would call Steph back. We called the roommate, he was on his way to sign the paperwork at the storage place. Fifteen or so minutes passed, the lady called us back and said we needed to call a local place to get someone to come to us. Great. Steph made the call, they answered right away and said the guy who would fix the tire was on his way. It could be a while, since it was a Sunday. Super!

Steph calls the roommate and tells him that we are going to be waiting a while. Could he bring us back a bag of burgers after he is done with the paperwork? He agreed. All that was left was for us to sit and wait. It might be an hour, it might be an hour and a half - no one was sure. We sat and talked and talked and sat. At one point, Steph reaches into her shirt, and then nearly pops herself in the face with her own hand. I look over at her, wondering if the boredom was getting to her. A look of shock and unbelieving consumes her face as she struggled with something under her shirt. I asked what was wrong and she shows me the contents of her hand - a broken zipper, the one in the picture. (Okay, that zipper isn't just broken, it's destroyed!) You see, Steph was wearing a sports bra. I've seen her do this a thousand times; she'll tug on the zipper because it's started to come open. Only this time, the zipper self destructed and rendered her front closure bra useless. We had a good chuckle as she tried to figure out how to keep her boobs in her Blunder Bra. Finally, she called the roommate and told him to forget the burgers, come pick her up so she could go buy a new bra!

The roommate showed up and Steph and he left me to wait for the guy. I waited a while longer, wondering what the hell could go wrong with our day next? What other misadventures might await? I also wondered if I was going to end up as a statistic - a gruesome piece on local news. You see, we parked in the weird shoulder between the highway and an off ramp, apparently, this is called a gore point (Is that not a lovely term or what? So glad I didn't know this fact while I was sitting there!) People were whipping past us at 60+ MPH, shaking the truck. But, worse, people kept diving into the off ramp, nearly missing the truck. A few had the audacity to HONK at the truck - as if it was our fault that they decided it was better to risk their lives with a stupid stunt than to drive on and come back and perform the maneuver safely. And people look at me funny when I say that drivers should be tested regularly and that we should work to remove humans from controlling vehicles. Sheesh!

The guy showed up a little later. The guy's name was Dale. And, my friends, Dale was a bad ass! He got the tire off in record time - he was totally true to the NASCAR baseball cap he was wearing. Then, he went to work on the tire, removing it from the hub. I've seen this done in service shops with a big device that spins the tire around - but not Dale! No, he went to town with a pick-axe that looked more like a mining or farming implement. Four over-head swings and the tire and hub are separate components. The new tire was fit on top of the hub and Dale attacked it with the two bars pictured - it snapped over the hub with practiced ease. Dale had the tire back on the truck, aired up and paperwork done in about ten minutes. All I could do was tip him and wave to him as he drove into the sunset. High Ho, Silver!

Steph and the roommate showed back up. It was about 1 PM by this point. We decided to get the truck unloaded then get food. Probably not a smart move for two diabetics, but we were all pretty frustrated.

We got to the storage place and began unloading. After the first load, I was on the elevator back down to the truck with the roommate. You see, I hadn't had my, um, daily constitutional, yet. Max can attest to my power to produce gas - but when I was around him, they were loud and sloppy sounding but with little smell since they were the result of CO2 from WAY too much soda. However, I passed gas in the elevator and it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever produced! It made the roommate nearly gag. The extra time in my system had had a serious effect! Needless to say (as most of this paragraph is) I immediately made use of the storage place's hygienic facilities.

Lunch was had and our day's misadventures were mostly at an end. I am left to wonder ... who is Dale saving now?

Jericho: Go Spend Money!

2009-03-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing people lament "Where's my bailout?"

CNN and other sites seem to be running story after story about how to become a hermit and live on boiled wall paper and spend no money.

Folks, listen up! No one cares about you.

That's right. You are a faceless voter and consumer. You are just a number. Obama doesn't know who you are. No one at AIG knows who you are. You are just a walking wallet who once every four years is of interest to the politicians. The rest of the time, they couldn't care less about you.

As an individual, you are powerless. In vast numbers, we are unstoppable.

We've proven this. We the people, much to the surprise of the Religious Reich, elected a President who can speak in full sentences and knows that there is more to life than war and lining the pockets of his friends. And, in case you haven't noticed, he's Black. It shouldn't have been possible, but we did it. It wasn't done with (just) large campaign contributions. Most of the money that elected Obama came from small time contributors, giving $5 and $10 bucks.

In vast numbers, we are unstoppable.

People are scared right now. We've seen huge companies crumble under their own weight. This effects a key economic predictor: Consumer Confidence. When massive manufacturers and huge banks disappear from the landscape, when our 401ks become 201ks, Joe the Plumber and Bob the Builder and Hank the Sex Worker start looking at their finances. The first inclination is to run away and hide. Previously, most of us would have shoved our money in the bank and left it there to gain a 0.0001 percentage point of interest. But, when you aren't sure from day to day who your bank actually might be - well, let's just say all of this can shake up consumer confidence.

But, I want you to think about this phrase: "Consumer Confidence" - it's as simple of a thing as it sounds. If the consumers feel threatened, they stop spending. If they stop spending, many businesses change their attitudes. They produce fewer products, close shops that were risky and raise prices to keep their numbers up or drop prices to keep moving product. Closing doors means fewer jobs and price instability confuses people, both of these lower consumer confidence and the cycle repeats.

We've been going through a long term Consumer Confidence trough since 9/11. We had some short term improvements until this recent financial run and we are now in territory that your grandparents and great-grandparents would recognize. People keep using words like "Recession" and then whisper the word "Depression" - don't be fooled, this is a Depression.

However, are you on a soup line? No, neither am I. Sure, there are lots of people out of work, more than usual. But it isn't 50% unemployment, it's not even 10% nationally. There are already indications of improvement - something I predicted would happen not long after Obama took office and here we are.

It comes down to this: no one is going to bail you out. All of the business world is looking at the lot of us, waiting for us to react. If we keep hoarding our money and learning tips on how to live on ramen and shop with coupons, this Depression will move into Great Depression territory.

However, if you, like me, are tired of feeling powerless - do something about it. "What do I do?" you ask? Simple. Prove your own Consumer Confidence ...

Go Buy Something!

That's right. Tonight, look at your finances. Really look. Make sure your bills are paid and that you can eat between now and next paycheck. If there is anything left, figure 20% of it and ... go spend it!

"I'm broke" you say. Fine, you're exempt. But, make sure you are broke. Seriously. Do you have room on your credit card? Spend some of it. Do you have some emergency funds socked away? This is an emergency - spend some of it.

You have all kinds of excuses. The weekend is coming - go have fun! Buy some food and drink at a local pub. Take the coin jar to a Coin Star and then head for the casino! Spring is around the corner - hit some of the smaller, funky clothing shops that you always mean to check out and buy a new wardrobe. Sure, you could go to the big box stores, but a $50 sale in a small store will do more for the economy than $50 at Sears or Amazon. Let's practice a little "trickle up" economics!

Yeah, I'm probably saying things in direct opposition to what the "experts" are saying. Do you feel the experts are getting us out of this situation? I sure don't! The big thinkers out there rely on we dumb-ass consumers to part with our hard earned cash. Guess what? Those big thinkers work for your employer. When I part with my cash, some of it ends up in your paycheck. If there are six degrees to Kevin Bacon, I bet I can make it from my wallet to your wallet in less than ten degrees.

If the sales go up, the Consumer Confidence indicator changes and that forces businesses to react accordingly. It really is just that simple. In vast numbers, we are unstoppable and if you want to keep your job, you need to invest in your own future. Don't buy ramen, buy steak, prepared in a little restaurant near your home. Do it. I give you permission to go have a little fun.

Trust me, if you don't do this, we'll all regret it. Spread the idea around. Invite your friends out to spend money. Talk it up in your blogs. Twitter it. Get the idea out there. I need a new job and I need you people to improve the economy so that I can get one.

And, if there is any doubt, I have already put my money where my mouth is. I put a down payment on a couch for my new apartment. Sure, I could use the beat up one we have. But, instead, I'm buying a new cool one, totally on credit. It's a completely stupid idea that is the best thing in the world for the economy.

Unstoppable!

Max: Faux News Eats Its Own

2009-03-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

Of course, from what I have seen Shep Smith is probably the closest thing Faux News has to a rational voice.

Jericho: "Being Jericho" Redux

2009-03-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

I guess we're pretty much out of the closet about this: Steph and I are getting divorced. Most of the six readers of this blog already know that. Heck, a third of those readers are the ones getting divorced!

I don't feel like going into the details - too close to the subject matter right now. Let's just say that it's amicable and a fact of my life.

So, a whole lot of stuff is going to change. Steph and I already have separate apartments that we'll soon be moving into. Neither of us have lived alone in nearly a decade. We're in the process of moving money and loans and debt. The good news is since we don't own anything or have any kids, there's nothing to divide up, other than our considerable debt.

There was a dust up over who got the William Hung CD. I bought it for her as a joke. She didn't want it. I told her I'll mail it back to her with an envelope of anthrax if it ended up in my stuff. We compromised. Each of us is burdened with half of the disc. We ran it through the food processor so it could be evenly divided.

So, we're packing and doing all the things that need to get done. Once all the practical matters are out of the way and we're in our own places, we'll worry about the paperwork. It took one signature on one piece of paper to get married. Looks like it takes a lot more than that to get un-married.

The big things are important and need to get done, it's the little things that drive the message home. I don't wear much jewelery, so what the hell am I going to do with my wedding ring? I have reminders on all my email accounts that have calendars for important dates like birthdays, anniversaries and Valentines day - I bet those are going to come back to haunt me for years until I get around to deleting them all.

And, last and most certainly least ... Being Jericho.

For those of you that don't know (and judging by the hit counter, no one knows) there is a link on the left over there somewhere marked "Being Jericho". It's something I started up seven or so years ago. I was feeling some nostalgia for the old "Make Your Own Adventure" books and had recently seen "Being John Malkovich". I put the two ideas together and tried to come up with a funny choose-your-own-path concept that distilled my life. Of course I took license here and there, but, in 2005 when I put it up, it was pretty close to what it's like to be me.

My plan was to expand it and add all kinds of funny and weird stuff to it. Yeah - I have no follow through. I added one little bit to it in 2007 and that's been it.

I looked at it today. Wow. If I were to write this thing today to reflect my life, it would be completely different. I thought maybe I could just rewrite all the stuff that would change because of the divorce, but there's so much of it I might as well just begin fresh. Hell, one of the driving factors to the story, if you can call it that, is Steph:

Stephanie, your wife, is already up and around. You can hear her playing with the cats in the other room. She is much more of a morning person than you will ever be. Half the reason that you actually go to work is that you love your wife and you don't want to disappoint her.

Lots of other stuff has changed as well. One spot mentioned four cats, we haven't had four cats in years. Further, I won't have any cats in a few weeks and they are the catalyst in several spots early on. My job has degraded so much that the later parts of the "story" ring fairly false as well.

I realize that "Being Jericho" is a meaningless, worthless waste of time - but when I wrote it I set out to have a fun if fictional, fairly accurate distillation of my life. In a few weeks, "Being Jericho" will be a very different game.

Jericho: Altar Boy

2009-03-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

I spend far more time thinking about exercise than actually doing any.

Today, I thought about doing push-ups. In my current, unbelievably fat and out of shape state, I have very little upper body strength - especially not for my size. Adding some bulk to my arms would be a good, healthy pursuit. Cheap one, too. No need for equipment or gym memberships to do push ups. However, I'm so out of shape that just getting onto the floor in a push-up position would be a workout for me!

I was trying to decide which would be less painful; starting with "girl push-ups", as in, doing push-ups while on my knees and as I lose weight working up to normal "military" push-ups, or just starting with a normal push-up. Both have advantages and disadvantages. With the multitude of problems I have with my feet, contorting them and putting the stresses on them that would be required in pushing-up a 500 pound body might be too much to ask. However, putting those stresses on my knees does not sound any better.

I remembered that at one time in my life, I had very few issues with my knees. In fact, I was quite good at kneeling. I was an altar boy for three or four years in grade school. I was quite used to kneeling and genuflecting - constantly and for hours at a time. I frequently did two or more masses in a row. I often did double shifts (did two week day masses for a full week) and then would do a funeral after mass. There are a couple instances where altar boys were called upon to sit (read: kneel) in vigil. I could go for hours and only be bored, but not in pain.

Sure, I was young and weighed about a third of what I weigh now - I had a little extra weight when I was a kid. But, the body also does some amazing things to protect itself. At some point I noticed that I had developed ... nodules ... on my knees. I had some kind of fat or calcium deposit that added cushion to my knees. The little nodules faded as I went through high school & college. But, in grade school I was a kneeling machine! Too bad those days are gone. I tried to genuflect earlier, something I used to be able to do without a thought to my body. My toes still hurt, I nearly fell on my face and the whole process sounded like my body was making pop corn!

Somewhere in all this remembering, I came back to that 14 year old kid, in his cassock, leading processions and helping the priests conduct their twice daily miracles. Crazy kid. Here he was, 14, starting to feel like a man, being filled with some of the "Christian Warrior" doctrine of the Catholic Church and ... playing Dungeons & Dragons.

I was a big kid, getting close to six foot. In a procession, they usually had three altar boys, the tall one went in the middle. Typically, I cleared the other boys by a clear foot. The shorter boys typically carried a processional candle. I got to carry the processional cross. This thing was huge! It was about eight or nine foot long. It was a pretty serious gauge of brass pipe. The top had a cross bar of the same brass pipe - ours was much like the one pictured above, without as large of a cross bar. But, instead of a crucified Christ, there was a disk with the IHS inscription, something like the one pictured below. Total thing probably came in at some 20 to 25 pounds of brass.

So, there I was, this young holy warrior, clad in the armor of my faith, marching forward, armed with a weapon of the brightest metal, ready to stand forth and defend the Lord God Almighty!

In actuality I was a dipshit geek with a thing for playing D&D and a fascination with polearms. That freeking crucifix felt ... good ... in my hands. If some idiot had ever tried to pull some political statement by shooting up a church, I was just young enough and thought myself just that immortal (and I was just that stupid) that I probably would have arced that holy symbol cum mace into his head. It would have taken nothing to bring down Yahweh's wrath and 15 pounds of brass into the top of a cranium or sweep the staff across a chin and then repeatedly butt thump the poor bastard until there wouldn't have been much left to identify.

Luckily, none of this ever happened. Lucky for me, as I probably would have dropped the crucifix and soiled my cassock. Instead, I spent a great deal of time being overly dramatic with this rather showy piece of holy accoutrement. Being an altar boy meant nearly constant genuflecting. You were the priest's gofer, so you were off running to get this or that, fill this, put that away, light this, extinguish that, etc. Every time you moved across the center of the altar, you were supposed to genuflect in front of the tabernacle. At certain times of the year, this meant a two kneed genuflect. (The Catholics have a real thing for kneeling and genuflecting!)

About the only times one could get out of doing this were when you were in pain or if you had something large in your hands that would make it difficult to genuflect, say a nine foot long processional cross, then a simple bow would do. But! I was an overly dramatic kneeling machine with a holy weapon in my hands. Just because I could, I'd whip that cross around, genuflect and hold that cross out like some glam rocker presenting his axe to a clamoring crowd. It was ridiculous. I'm sure I was a riot to anyone that saw me. I was very serious about these things, I did them well because I could, maybe more "well" than they should have been done.

I wish there were pictures or video, I'm sure it would have been a hoot to see me. I just wish I still had those knees! What a waste!

MAX: THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN BY GOD FOR SINNERS

2009-03-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!!

Max: Lex Luthor On The Lexcorp Bailout

2009-03-11T14:20:00.001-07:00

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos

Max: Mystery Team

2009-03-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

This may be the greatest movie ever made.

Max: The Squeaky Wheel

2009-03-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Saint Louis Beacon - MoDOT shuffles money for the St. Louis area

The St. Louis area may have gotten another road project to be paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (economic stimulus package) while funding for two other projects will be reduced from original estimates.

The Missouri Department of Transportation this afternoon released an 'updated' lists of projects the agency is considering for stimulus package funding and will review it for the public at a briefing at 6 p.m. today at the agency's District 6 office, 1590 Woodlake Drive in Chesterfield.

On the new list are three projects not mentioned in MoDOT's 'provisional' list unveiled at a recent East-West Gateway Council of Governments meeting. At that meeting St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay complained that the $5 million the agency was allotting to work in the city of St. Louis was not enough especially, he said, because the federal government has said economically distressed areas should be given priority in assigning the stimulus funds.

Jericho: Cities at Sea

2009-03-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

I was about 20 when I first heard the word "Arcology". I loved the concept. A single building that could hold a whole city - building upwards instead of outwards. Less destruction to the ecology with all the living space. A beautiful concept that has yet to be realized.

I started tossing around the idea with Max a little later. What if we built an arco - out in the middle of the Atlantic? Right at the equator. If you built it right, it would withstand the hurricanes. You could use the technology used in oil rigs, or, find a high spot and build it upwards. The government could be anything we wanted. It would be completely tolerant. You'd want it at the equator to be a good location for a space port and an orbital elevator. Lots of economic opportunities there. Make drugs, gambling and prostitution legal - the tourists would come from all over.

Looks like some smart people in San Fran are looking into this - in the very short term. I hope they can pull it off. I think it would be an excellent way to live.

After CNN appearance, Slay clarifies stance on stimulus | Political Fix | STLtoday

2009-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

After CNN appearance, Slay clarifies stance on stimulus | STLtoday

ST. LOUIS — Mayor Francis Slay must have heard from more than a few folks after going on national television criticizing Missouri’s use of federal stimulus money.

Slay appeared on a special segment of CNN earlier this week, questioning why the first project in Missouri was a relatively out-of-the-way bridge over the Osage River south of Jefferson City.

Max: Losing My E String, er, Religion

2009-03-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

Max: Church Says 9 YO Rape Victim Should Have The Decency To Shut Up And Die

2009-03-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

BBC NEWS | Americas | Rape row sparks excommunications

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

Max: MO Screwing St. Louis?

2009-03-05T14:37:00.001-08:00

Max: Good Day

2009-03-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I am getting better at being positive or if today is just a particularly good day.

It started off with some great news. Laura's OB/GYN told her that she is doing way better than he expected, so much better that she no longer has to spend all day in bed. She still has to take it easy, but for a few hours a day she can actually get up and even leave the house. That is a major relief for both of us. Also, once Laura hits 36 weeks Iris will be cooked enough that Laura will be pretty much free to do as she pleases, going into labor will actually be a good thing.

From there the day could only go downhill. But, the hill was not steep.

For the first time in what seems like weeks, no friends or family were in the house when my shower time rolled around. I like to leave the bathroom door open to get ventilation, and I have gotten out of the habit of using a robe as until recently only Laura and the dogs would see me in my glory. After days of overly steamy showers and actually having to cover my shame for the journey from the bathroom to the bedroom, today was a welcome return to routine.

This week I have been working a later than usual schedule. That has been pretty nice, but parking spots were harder that usual to come by Monday and Tuesday because I wasn't arriving as everyone else was leaving for lunch. Today, however, I managed to find one of the better parking spaces unoccupied. Not a major victory, but a victory none the less.

Call volume was about average and mostly dealing with the same boring crap. But that didn't bug me. I was, and am, in too good of a mood to let them get to me like they used to.

There are other little things that make me happy. I have the latest Futurama on my computer. And I have my computer at work; usually I only being it on Friday and the weekends because it never slows down enough to use it. I have had some interesting Twitter conversations. And, fanboy that I am, I am way more please than I should be that I got to help Scott Kurtz with a minor issue with Tweetdeck. I even got a nice little Thank You tweet that were it not online but rather on a part of my body that I normally wash I would never wash it again.

Good day.

Max: What's That Smell?

2009-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Jericho: Why can't I work ...

2009-02-27T14:28:00.001-08:00

... HERE???