Things I'm thankful for:

A son, a daughter, a wife,
my country, my freedom, my life.

Be thankful you've been given permission

Let them eat pie!

Nacho Double Down

Fail? Or perhaps a great last second improv due to a lack of double down wraps?

Aside - the original is better than the grilled.

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Over- thinking it (UPDATED!)

Is there any reason for these faces to be mirrored?

UPDATE! Looks like the same mistake was included in the iPhone pics released months ago:

I have not used this feature but maybe it really works this way?

Obama is ...

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shopping list

Garry,

Buy a gun, and buy this book. In either order.

Spotted in a restroom in Charlotte North Carolina

And submitted without comment.









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Balloon Animals

I've been making balloon animals for my kids, and here's the first one that wasn't a snake, worm, or three-wing butterfly.



(tiger)

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I fixed it

Drudge is highlighting the Cyber Command logo today.

But there is nothing "cyber" or "internety" about it.

Here's a thought:

Much better.

What I'm reading right now.

Happy 4th of July!

U.S.S. Yorktown, Charleston, South Carolina.

Heinlein's List

Okay Garry, shall we set to work on Heinlein's List? I'll put off the "die gallantly" for awhile (hopefully a very very long while), but what about the others? We've both changed diapers. What shall we plan to invade? And then we've got to butcher a hog? This would make for an interesting book . . .

Chicago

I was in Chicago for work on Wednesday; this shot was taken by a friend after dinner after the Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup in almost 50 years. Building at lower left says "HAWKS," building in the middle has Stanley, building at lower right says "LET'S GO HAWKS." It was a fun night to be in town.

I also had a great time at one of the funnest museums in the country--Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Got up close to a U-boat, a Mercury and an Apollo capsule, and some big ole locomotives, etc.

More cars

These cars are all from “The Art of the Automobile” at the Atlanta High Museum (on loan from MOMA I believe). These were taken on my iPhone so please forgive the quality.




Porsche Speedster




Pierce Arrow




Duesenberg




Mercedes (this was my wife’s favorite)




Alfa Romeo




Remainder of a Porsche prototype




Bugatti with original ostrich skin seats




Aston Martin




Jaguar




Ferrari




Porsche




The first Corvette Stingray

There were a few more, but these were the highlights.

Been away for a while.

I apologize. Some new posts will be added tonight.

Saw a few cars yesterday

Went to the High Museum to see the Art of The Automobile exhibit.



An early Alfa Romeo; one of my favorites on display (Please forgive the iphone quality pic. It's all I had on me). Something about the word Superleggera makes me want to drop everything and race cars.

More to follow when I get some time to post.

Go see it

Good stuff. Been a while since we went to opening night of a summer blockbuster, but it was worth the crowd.

Funny

A couple of funny pics:







Got to be a heavy iPhone/iPad user to get that one.

Plus this:







I never got into the Star Trek versus Star Wars conflict. I always appreciated both.

h/t - Lileks's new site: lint

Quoted for truth

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”

Thomas Jefferson, who accomplished a few things. If only I had one-one hundredth of his drive.

I wonder what's on tv right now...

A glimpse of the future

This sounds awesome. And scary.

-- Posted From My iPad

this is really cool

Posters for episodes of LOST (seasons 1-4, hopefully more to follow).

The finale of Season 3 (shown below) was my favorite episode.








“We have to go back!”

h/t - Lileks

-- Posted From My iPad

The Greater Good (1)

With a little bit of work this will hopefully become a recurring series - hence the (1).

A state assemblyman in New York wants to force all New Yorkers to become organ donors. Force, as in at the barrel of a gun (all laws are such).

Here's a better idea: incentivize organ donation! Offer tax credits, cash payments, whatever, to those that choose to be donors.

You can't tell me that wouldn't increase the availability of viable organs. And piss off fewer people.

-- Posted From My iPad

Calvin on Ritalin

Not sure how old this is, but it's relatively new to me; the more I consider it the sadder it makes me.




My son (or daughter) better be bouncing off the walls crazy before anyone thinks of suggesting Ritalin.

h/t - wherever I found it. Sorry.

-- Posted From My iPad

Congratulations Paul!

Infographic of the week

h/t: Laughing Squid

-- Posted From My iPad

Gone

"Waste makes me angry. And that's all this is...sheer waste!"

Rhett Butler

(it's movie night)

iPad

I'm loving my new iPad. It has been a while since a gadget has grabbed my attention so fully (the iPhone notwithstanding...I've only had it four months). I really haven't been into computers and gadgets over the years but this thing makes me want to learn to program.

The best thing about the iPad is the inspiration it provides. You feel like you're working with a computer from the future. Using your fingers instead of a mouse is just...cool (and surprisingly not a hassle). The onscreen keyboard takes some getting used to but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. I'm writing this post on it now.

My only complaint so far is the obstacles Apple puts in your way. The primary way to get files on and off the iPad is through itunes, which can be a pain. It makes the iPad less of a computer and more of a peripheral. Some apps such as Airshare and various online storage sites are useful for working around this but why not make it more direct (use that camera connection kit to connect a usb flashdrive)? Importing and exporting via email works also but is not always convenient. In short, the file management and storage will keep it from being your primary computer. It really can be inconvenient.

Also, the software is still lacking. The iWork suite helps but better compatibility with MS Office would be great. Im sure this will be fixed in short order. The app store created a gold rush for mobile phone software development, and iPad specific apps are just getting started. I imagine in a year this thing will be a serious threat to laptops.

There are more drawbacks to be sure, but there are with any device. For the first gen, there is a lot to love.

PS...I gave my three year old my iPhone the other night, and we played Battleship over Bluetooth (I used the iPad). We are living in The Future.

Not much new today

-- Post From My iPad

Real Members of Congress

This is my congressman. No, really. Watch out, Guam.

The joy of sausage

Bacon gets plenty of praise, but let us not forget the joys of sausage. We had a delicious "breakfast for dinner" tonight with creamy scrambled eggs, from-scratch pancakes, savory sausage and plenty of syrup. Ahh, sausage.

Stupid humans

This post is not intended to disparage Mr. Lovelock, but damn...he sure seems to be disparaging me:

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a [sic] situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

Think we've accomplished anything meaningful in 90 years?

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Won't affect him. He won't be around much longer. (Plus Friedman's got his back!)

He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

"That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion," he said.

Does he mean actual evidence? Even so, it wouldn't be proof of anthropomorphic global warming.

Ending on a good note, I'll give him credit for this bit:

Lovelock. . .added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails – "I felt reluctant to pry" – but that their reported content had left him feeling "utterly disgusted".

"Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards."

Their actions might be called stupid. Perhaps the scientific method is too complex for mere humans?

(alternate close: this interview left me feeling utterly disgusted)

Tech Austerity

I want to buy a new camera before the baby's born, and a new computer to load all the pics and video to. (the new tv, sound, game, and video system is still on the list, too) But the stuff I've got now is working just fine, so it's hard to justify the expense when I feel uncertain about the medium and long-term health of the economy (short term seems fine, by which I mean the next couple of months), and I have a lot of other demands on the family purse. Plus, with consumer tech, waiting rewards you with lower prices and/or better stuff, but at the expense of all the time you could've been using the new gear but weren't. For now, I think I'll wait, but I can hardly complain--the stuff I've already got is more than I'm really putting to use anyways. I think I'll just pass the interim with a tech wish list (not to be confused with my "I hope Tech loses every game" list), and get back to spending money on the family and the house-

Statist racism

Okay, so all the hullabaloo and histrionics of the last week regarding violent response to the passage of Obamacare has been tiresome, if not trite, and hypocritical. The cries of violence and racism from the Left seem to be more about projection than anything else, which leads to this week's Ayn Rand quote:

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." -Ayn Rand.

(h/t Chase)

Upgrade

I'm upgrading my old HP laptop to Ubuntu 9.10 right now.

Ubuntu has breathed new life into my PC. XP was getting unusable, and my hardware is too old for Vista or 7.

Of course my iPad will be here in 7 days, so this laptop will likely be forgotten...


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Obama wants

moms to go back to school. With Captain Caveman. Seems appropriate.

BRICK

BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK
BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK BRICK

BRICK

Here's some more fake violence: Everytime I type "brick" in ALL CAPS, I'm imagining throwing a brick at the large plate glass window of some dusty district office of healthcare/energy/education/taxation/trans fats and sodium control. BRICK. BRICK!! It's like that game Paperboy; I'm on the bicycle, chucking bricks at the bureaucrats. BRICK!

Okay, maybe I need a better hobby.

Health care reform, finally.

It's been another salient week for Animal Farm/1984. All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others (what is increased government control but a way for a decreased number of people making decisions for the rest of us?). And words like "health care" and "reform" are growing more Orwellian by the hour. Condoning violence against GWBush gets pushed down the memory hole, and indictments of fake hate and racism on the part of the Tea Party get bandied about with abandon. The Obama plan seems to be part "two minutes hate" and part hoping that we'll all embrace Big Brother and get on with it. Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever. Imagine you liking it.

Here's where I'm at with it. Let's all think what we will and say what we want. Live and let live. You're free to think it's a good idea to spend someone else's money constraining someone else's choices (when did liberals fall in love with the government they were always so mad at? Oh, just mad that they weren't the ones in control? Makes sense now). You may think about control, and talk about it, too. But don't try to control me. I am free. Don't tread on me.

I'm not sure if I only admire Bill Whittle,

or if I want to be him:

A final thought on this darkish day: much is said about the “inevitability” of these kinds of legislation, that once enacted they are impossible to repeal or roll back.

This kind of thinking is self-fulfilling defeatism and has to stop. ANY law enacted can be repealed. We repealed a constitutional amendment, for God’s sake. From now on we must change our message from one of limiting government growth and spending and regulation to one of reducing it.

Not just limiting government. Reducing it. At every level.

Sounds familiar:

That government is best which governs least - Thomas Paine

Where do these people get their stock photography?

Anybody think this dude is going back to school?

That is how it works in America.

(h/t Jim Treacher)

Just WOW

I guess this makes me hateful.

Courtesy of Brutally Honest (and on deeper down the rabbit hole). H/t to Matteo.

I'm waiting for the prop bets

Big hedge fund manager believes America is on the decline thanks to the passage of our "healthcare" bill:

The passage of the health care law shows that the US empire is declining because it illustrates the fact that people expect the state to take care of them, David Murrin, the co-founder of Emergent Asset Management hedge fund manager, told CNBC.

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama signed into law health care legislation that expands health coverage for the poor, imposes new taxes on the rich and forbids insurance practices such as refusing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

In their expansionary phase, empires force people to go out, seek risks and fend for themselves, Murrin said, reminding of the dismantling of the British empire after the war, when the National Health Service, which ensures universal health coverage in Britain, was created.

"This (empire decline) is actually a dead-set course that societies get into and it will happen very quickly I'm afraid," he told "Squawk Box Europe."

"As you start to build a system it becomes cohesive because of its success… the fractures in the American system I think are more apparent than ever," Murrin added.

The man has a point. While most people do not like the healthcare bill, there are many that do, and many of those that don't believe it doesn't go far enough.

We have gotten comfortable.

Perhaps we need a new challenge. What about South America? The moon? Mars?

I'm not quite ready to bet we're going down just yet - what up and coming scrapper is going to overtake us?

Murrin is betting on China. I'm not so sure (how do you say bubble in Mandarin?). But they are as good a bet as anybody.

I hate this picture

Drudge has been running it for a few days, and it certainly suits our situation, but man it makes me sick.

Wisdom of Crowds

At first I thought this was just funny, but it looks like Ray Stevens is still working these days.

Unhappy Hipsters

Poking a little fun at the vain.

Throw a rock at government...

Looks like someone took your idea to heart, Paul.



Full disclosure: wasn't me.

With help like this, who needs harm?

"You're here to represent your constituencies, and if you think your constituencies honestly shouldn't be helped, you shouldn't vote for this." -President Obama, earlier today.

Contact Congressman, check!

I did a first today. Found out who my congressional representative is, and then contacted him. Mr. Hank Johnson looks like a sure "yes" vote, but I sent him a short email anyways regarding my objections to the bill.

reparations

Pass nationalized healthcare. Require everyone to purchase health insurance. Force them to pay, which forces them to work. Which is slavery. And the chain is complete.

steal my idea

I want someone to start a website called throwarockatthegovernment.com. For a small fee, you can purchase rock throwing credits, and, you know, throw a rock at the government or something.

finding out what ails me

I'm reading the news too much, and finding it (almost) all to be too frustrating. This is why I want a more limited government: I want there to be fewer things that so few people (congresspeople, etc) can do to make me so aggravated. I might still find politics interesting, but I sure wish they weren't so important. I want to be left to my own life and my own decisions, and not be under the shadow, or thumb, of people who call their greed generosity and their lust for power benevolence.

I want to go throw a rock at something.

(thought crime)

Massa didn't grope me

But I still seem to have killed the blog. Where'd Garry go?

Local politics

I watched part of a DeKalb County budget meeting. You should have no trouble guessing how exciting it was. But apparently nobody likes taxes.

My letter to NBC

I just sent my two cents to NBC:

Dear NBC,

Your coverage of Nodar Kumaritashvili's death was shameful. I agree that the story of his tragic accident was newsworthy, and I appreciated the tributes that were paid to him throughout the Opening Ceremonies. However, there was absolutely no need to show the actual impact, or his bloodied face. Your coverage was cheap and grotesque. Please do not rebroadcast the footage of Mr. Kumaritashvili's tragic death. Let the Olympics be a celebration of human spirit, even if that celebration is sometimes somber.

Snow!

We (Atlanta) never get snow like this.







Anything at your place, Paul?

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The Bleat PSA

James Lileks puts thoughts into prose perfectly:

Pounded flat as a tin sheet tonight, and short with my daughter, which always gives me pangs of instant regret. Never, ever take out your mood on your family. It’s the easiest thing to do and the least forgivable; they’re the ones to whom you owe your best self. The fact that they’re closest obligates you to be extra careful.

I confess I can't really decipher the source of his troubles the last few days, but this passage has stuck with me. Your family deserves your best.

WTC

Incredible aerial photos just released.




Click on the photo to go to the story.

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Another decision chart

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Healthcare reform: SOLVED

We're constantly told that 45,000 people a year die due to no health insurance.

The answer is easier than you may think.





I'm estimating we can buy enough aspirin to cover this plague for well under 1 million.

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Decisions

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The natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations

Post title courtesy of Michael Chrichton.

Tumblr

Paul, take a look at Tumblr. I'm thinking of moving the blog over there for those once a month posts. Looks a little cooler than blogger.


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Incredible

Vodkapundit reports on the emergence of a Tea Party Candidate.

http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/2010/01/11/dont-start-the-revolution-without-me/


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Happy New Year!

My New Year's resolution? Post more often!

I think I'll start tomorrow!


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