Cheezburger of the Day

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I'm not a Big Fan of Bottled Water

It's not that I don't think it tastes better, it's just that it seems stupid to extrude a plastic bottle for a one-time delivery of some water to me. I thought we were supposed to be an environmentally conscious society. The whole thing seems like a colossal waste.

Obamacare - the Sequel

Approximate key quote - "The Administration is saying that it's premature for McDonald's to say they need to drop this plan."

How very true. McDonalds lives in it's own delusional fantasy land where they believe you have to make what's called a "profit" in order to "survive". These may seem like strange terms to you and I, as we completely believe in hyper-educated, Ivy League technocrats who know what's best for all of us, but I assure you, there are still ignorant, benighted places out there where people cling bitterly to the idea of the so-called "free market".

The sooner we move to single-payer health care, the better it will be for all of us. Oh, and we really ought to increase the Minimum Wage for those oppressed workers at McDonalds. I think $25 an hour ought to do the trick, don't you?

On Condors

Why is this man wearing a puppet on his hand?

This Is A Good Time To Start A Trade War

We've got them just where we want them! Attack the Chinese! Attack them!

China, the biggest foreign investor in U.S. government bonds, cut its holdings by about 10 percent to $846.7 billion in the 12 months ended July, according to the Treasury Department.

Uh oh. That doesn't sound good. Well, no worries, we can deal with this, right?

The U.S. will record a $1.3 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office said Aug. 19.

The estimated budget deficit for this fiscal year would be equivalent to 9.1 percent of gross domestic product, the CBO said. That would make it the second-largest shortfall in 65 years, exceeded only by the 9.9 percent in 2009.

Not to worry, we still have our secret weapon.

As long as we can buy paper and ink, we'll never be out of money!

Where Should You Store Your Cookbooks?

... in your car, of course! Since you haven't made a menu in advance and nothing has been taken out of the freezer to thaw, the best place for your cookbooks is in your car. That way when you leave work and it dawns on you that you need to make dinner, surprising you for the 12,983rd time in a row, you can pick out a recipe and buy the ingredients on the way home.

You're welcome.

Spanish Workers Strike; More Unicorn Milk Demanded

... at least I think that's what their demanding. They might as well. There's certainly no more Spanish money to give them.

Spanish workers disrupted broadcasts and transport in the first general strike in eight years as demonstrators were set to march through Brussels for a day of protest against spending cuts by European governments.

Austerity? Why all this austerity? We can't be out of money - we still have checks in our checkbooks!

The extra yield investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year bonds instead of German equivalents rose to 198 basis points today, compared with 193 basis points yesterday and a two-month low of 137 basis points on July 27. Moody’s Investors Service is due to complete a review of Spain’s credit rating tomorrow, the same day the 2011 budget goes to Parliament.

“A disappointing budget combined with an effective general strike and a rating review on 30 September could supply that catalyst” for investors to sell Spanish debt, said Robert Crossley, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup Inc. in London.

That anyone is waiting to sell Spanish bonds is amazing to me. How in the world do the bondholders think they're going to be paid?

They'll be paid in unicorn milk, of course!

Cheezburger of the Day

Stephen Colbert and Open Borders

Steve seems a bit uninformed. He might want to start reading the Borderland Beat. If he did, his hysterically funny TV show might feature graphics like this.

Gil Vicente Still Wets His Bed

Thanks to Andrew Klavan blogging over at Ricochet, we now know this bit of crucial info:

Brazilian artist Gil Vicente has manufactured some controversy over charcoal drawings that show him assassinating such horrors of humanity as George W. Bush, Pope Benedict XVI, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, Queen Elizabeth and...

Here's Gil offing the Pope:

Awesome stuff there, Gil. What did that take, about 45 minutes?
What a chicken. The guy picks a bunch of people he hasn't met - people whose daily lives are a total mystery to him. He doesn't really know whether he wants to shoot them or not because he doesn't know what it is they do all day. If he had any courage as an artist at all, he would have drawn himself shooting a handful of close acquaintances, neighbors or coworkers. At least then he could offer some concrete reasons why he wanted to kill them. Instead, he's suggesting the most juvenile of actions - if I kill the Pope, I can make the Catholic Church go away.

Grow a pair, Gilster. Draw yourself shooting the teenager who lives next door to you or maybe grumpy old Tia Consuela. Think globally, act locally, dude.

Atheist Proseltyzing

Megan McArdle, bless her, wrote a very short post in praise of G K Chesterton*. The result was a flood of abusive, sneering proselytizing by atheists in the comments. It was pretty standard stuff. Science is omniscient (or soon will be) and you dummies believe in "an incoherent sky father/son/ghost transmuted from Hebrew war gods and Greek mysticism." This led me to the following thought.

My Catholic faith has made a very positive difference in my life. It's made me more charitable and understanding to others around me. I find it fascinating that the atheists in this comment thread are trying to talk me out of that influence in my life.

When you get down to it, why work so hard to convince people that listening to a priest tell them to be good for an hour a week is stupid and wrong?

* - Memo to self: read some Chesterton. People keep recommending it.

Can You Use a Live Crab as a Timer?

When I was at the tidepools on Friday, I set up my little Kodak Zi8 to capture some crabs scuttling about on the rocks. I was big and the crabs were small, so they wisely hid from me, wedging themselves into various nooks and crannies in the rocks. Once the little camera was on its tripod and had started filming, I backed off about 20 yards - more than out of sight of the myopic little crustaceans.

Over time, the crabs came out of their hiding spaces to feed on the algae and weeds on the rocks.

That made me wonder if you could use a crab as a timer. Inside the crab there are chemical processes that move the crab from anxiety to relaxation. When they saw the big monster right in front of them, their bodies must have released crab adrenaline (Crabdrenaline?) which triggered their flight into the rocks. Once the threat left, it took their bodies some time to consume those chemicals to the point where they felt comfortable enough to come out and feed. Those chemical processes take a certain amount of time and could be used as a crude timer.

Smaller crabs emerged sooner than the larger ones. This indicates to me that you might be able to construct a relatively sophisticated countdown timer using a group of crabs of differing sizes.

Next time I go, I'm going to bring a ruler with me so when I video the crabs, I can have the ruler in the shot to use as a reference measure for the crabs. Since it's a chemical process and crabs are cold-blooded, the ambient temperature will matter as well - chemical processes are slower at cooler temperatures.

I wonder if I can get my daughter interested in this as a science fair experiment. Hmmmm....

The Oceans of Venus

More from my video expedition yesterday. This one can be viewed in hi-def, too.

Slow Motion Waves

Yesterday, I took my Kodak Zi8 down to the Point Loma tidepools to try to capture some wildlife videos. Those were less than successful, but more about that in another post. I was able to set the little camera up on its flexible tripod and capture some (very tiny) waves hitting the cliffs. Knowing I would want to do some time alterations later, I used the 720p, 60 frames per second setting. Here's what I ended up with, after playing with it for a bit in Premiere CS5. I uploaded it in 720p, so I recommend that setting on the embedded YouTube player. It makes a big difference.

A few observations:

• Normal speed makes the waves look pathetic and puny, which they were. Half speed gives them a bit of majesty. Quarter speed looks weird.


• I tried allowing the sound to retain its original pitch, but that didn't work out at all. At a quarter speed it echoed terribly. Allowing the sound to go down in pitch as I changed the speed of the video adds to the feeling of majesty.


• In another video, I shot some waves at 1080p, 30 frames a second. Reducing those down to quarter speed gave me obvious time artifacts. The Zi8's 60 frames per second mode is a godsend for doing slow motion.


• I wish I'd had bigger waves.

The Zi8's small size and the flexible mini-tripod I bought for it make it an ideal tool for capturing nature videos. I've got a 32GB memory card for it, so the only limitation now is battery life and I never came close to running out of that yesterday.

More videos to come in the future.

Pure Awesomeness

Loretta Sanchez Is Clearly a Member of the Tea Party

Oh, sure, she's a registered Democrat running as a Democrat with the support of the Democratic Party, espousing leftist ideas, but please, people, open your eyes and ears! Just listen to this:

She just has to be a part of that racist Tea Party movement! She probably listens to Glenn Beck in secret, too.

I'll Admit It, I Only Got To About 1:30 Before I Stopped Watching

I have no idea what this was supposed to do other than make lots of people hate Stephen Colbert. There's a different audience here than there is for his Comedy Central show. This one is much broader. Colbert just spent about 5 minutes on national TV calling most of America morons. I don't know who does his publicity and booking, but they ought to be fired immediately.

A Simple Question

If you had a prehensile tail, would you try carrying three things at once and then opening a door?

A Little Bit on Christine O'Donnell

... can be found over at Secular Apostate's blog. As always, it's a great read. Here's a tidbit.

As a businessman, if these two applicants were my only two choices for a job that must be filled during a severe business crisis caused by overspending and excessive debt, I’d hire O’Donnell. It’s a no-brainer, really. Why in Heaven’s name would I hire a guy whose most recent executive experience yielded precisely the result, in spades, I need to avoid in the future?

I had no idea O'Donnell's opponent had such a dreadful fiscal record.

I Just Switched to Chrome

... and so far I like it a lot.

Good Lord, am I becoming a Google fanboy? First Blogger, then Google Docs, then my Droid and now this!