Have at it.
Archives for 2009
Tom Coburn Is Exactly Like Martin Luther King
…in that people criticized MLK too.
That’s some quality hoekstroika right there.
Tom Coburn Is Exactly Like Martin Luther KingPost + Comments (11)
Give ’em enough thread
I thought I’d sneak a nice catch-all open threader in before John drops the dreaded “CBS Sunday Morning” open thread on us.
Here’s a question I’d like someone to answer for me: When people say there are no atheists in foxholes does that mean that no atheist would get into a foxhole in the first place or that the experience of being in a foxhole would make you turn religious?
And in keeping with a recent theme, here’s one of my favorite 70s videos.
Coke’s a hell of a drug.
Open Thread
IMO several problems make me question the brackets that Gamespot ran here. First of all, they ran Snake against Gordon Freeman way too early. That matchup is clearly final four material at least. Master Chief’s freak upset in the first round makes me question the entire competition, and Jack Carver had way more personality than some of the one-hit wonders who made the cut. Parappa? Seriously?
Also, your favorite game system sucks. Also.
Since this site never has enough nerds arguing.
***Update***
We don’t bow to peer pressure around here, so you don’t get Tunch until the next time John logs in.
Meet Whiskey. There will not be many Whiskey photos because the E-P1 is not exactly a fast camera and this hypercaffeinated teenager of a setter can’t sit still for two consecutive seconds.
Technical details: photographer held a medium sized pine cone over his head and acted like he might throw it. This worked just long enough for the E-P1 to find its focus. Whiskey then gave up on the pine cone and resumed barking and running in circles.
Netbooks
The superlight sub-notebook computer format has interested me since at least the mid-90’s, but for the most part tiny, portable computers seemed like a half thought-through niche product. Starting about a year ago, it appears that Asus and now pretty much everyone have hit on a winning formula that deservedly opened a huge new segment of the computer market.
Like most professional scientists Dr. Mrs. Dr. F and I usually arrange our talks at the last minute, often on the plane on the way to a conference. Given the bulk of most laptops and their life support systems, it is hard to ignore the appeal of a super-battery life computer the size of a day planner. Too bad for me, when I walked into Best Buy today they had just cleaned out their PC shelves to make room for new models that run Windows 7. For travel reasons we need one of these things pretty soon, so I am turning to you guys for help.
Has anyone tried Windows 7? I could wait until Monday and buy a new model, but past experience makes me skeptical. I had the dubious pleasure of managing digital microscopes separately controlled by Windows ME and Vista , the two biggest mistakes in the history of operating system rollouts and I fucking dare you to convince me otherwise. Plus I’m still coping with post-clippy stress syndrome. I like the idea of a portable computer running a minimal necessary OS*. Should I find an XP-powered netbook online and hope that it ships in time? Maybe you guys can convince me that Win 7 will not crash and burn like Windows f*cking ME.
If you have a netbook and want to let others know how great it is, or if you want to warn others away, feel free to share. Any and all advice will be appreciated.
(*) One other baffling point – as I recall Windows XP is just a prettier and memory-intensive graphics upgrade of Windows 2000. So why not ship netbooks with Win2K? That should free up the minimal processor and the RAM to work on computing tasks rather than unnecessary microsoft crapware. Apparently I don’t know anything about computers.
Too rich for my blood
No More Mister Nice Guy blog outlines what may well be the worst article ever to appear in the New York Times, an extended whine by Paul Sullivan about all the angry email he got for his piece “A Thousand Violins, Playing Just For the Rich People“. Here’s a sample:
“That’s so stupid that you ought to be slapped for it,” one woman wrote. My favorite began: “Bowties and Reaganomics are for losers. You can cry for the rich all you want, the rest of us will be happy to see them get taxed.”
The vehemence in these e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than they did. And why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.
Sullivan goes on to suggest mass psychotherapy for everyone who didn’t like the piece, because, you see, if you don’t like reading about the travails of the ultra-wealthy, that means you have an unhealthy level of anger towards rich people.
Personally, I don’t resent rich people at all. Maybe I should, but I don’t. What I do resent is the New York Times wasting space discussing the economic “problems” of the rich when there are people out there who have real economic problems. I am not one of those people, by the grace of God, but you know the drill: 45 million without health insurance, 10% unemployment, wave after wave of foreclosures. Those are real economic problems. A 30% dip in your hundred million dollar trust fund is not.
If there were some terrible disease that was only affecting rich people and Paul Sullivan asked us to feel sorry for them, I would do so. In fact, I’m willing to admit right now that there may be all kinds of psychological problems that afflict the rich disproportionately and, if so, I have sympathy for those afflicted.
But Sullivan is not asking us to feel sorry for the rich because of any of those things, he’s asking us to feel sorry for the rich because they aren’t quite as rich as they used to be. And, that my friends, is total bullshit.
It’s one thing for Sullivan to write some sob piece about the rich because one of his editors told him to do so. That’s understandable. But when you write an entire column whining about the email you got and accusing your readers of psychological problems, you’re an asshole. It’s that simple.
There are days when I wish the New York Times would hurry up and go bankrupt.
I don’t normally like to make things this personal, but this picture of the reporter is worth at least a thousand words.
