Sunday, January 04, 2009

Is It Just Me...

Or is TV suckier than ever?

I have about 200 channels, nothing on.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

New Year

Let's hope 2009 isn't as the kids say "as crappy" as 2008.

Monday, December 29, 2008

How Shocking!

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study being released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for nonpledgers.


Next we will hear water is wet, and popes defecate in the woods.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Deja Voodoo

Going back through my archives for inspiration, I came across this post from April 2007 regarding "The Bush Boom". The economy was producing a great deal of sub $10 an hour jobs. Sadly, this "economic miracle" has ended.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Fake News Headlines

How normal will life be for the Obama girls?
The public is fascinated by famous tweens Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7


This is from a crappy AP article. Maybe I hang around with the wrong people, but the Obama daughters have rarely if at all come up in conversation. This appears to be an excuse to be stalkerish against very young children.

Apparently though, "the people" have spoken.

Shaved Ice With Sprinkles

Now...

After the park visit, the Obama group was joined by the press pool — which arrived at the park about an hour after the Obamas but was not allowed in — as they stopped for a sandwich and shaved ice. The reporters refused an offer from Obama to buy them some shaved ice.

HONOLULU (CNN) – Many Republicans already believe President-elect Barack Obama has gotten a free ride from the national media, so they may not be happy to learn the incoming Commander-in-Chief offered to buy a round of drinks for reporters covering his working vacation on the sands of Hawaii's beaches and the greens of its lush golf courses.


Then...
McCain works his 'base' at a barbecue
There are worse ways to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon than swinging lazily back and forth on a tire swing strung up under a massive sycamore tree in a quiet Arizona canyon, the sound of a gushing stream nearby. Almost grazing the ground and hung on rope that looked to have been tied and retied again over the years, the swing belonged to John McCain, who stood several dozen yards away, carefully monitoring giant slabs of pork ribs on a smoking grill.

It was an idyllic scene, and one that might have made the Democratic contenders envious. As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fight it out for their party's presidential nomination, campaigning well into the night, McCain has been lying low. On Friday the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee took a break from the campaign trail in Texas and flew to his weekend cabin outside Sedona, Ariz., about two hours north of Phoenix.

On Sunday afternoon McCain fired up the grill again, inviting nearly 40 reporters to his spread in Page Springs, about 15 minutes outside Sedona, for an on-the-record barbecue.


Sigh...

We Are Doomed

A U.S. government intelligence agency thinks robots may be so capable by 2025 that questions such as "Would you like fries with that?" may be uttered by a smiling machine at the order counter.

In a report titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" that was released last week, the National Intelligence Council offered its long-range strategic thinking about the military and economic challenges the U.S. will face from other countries over the next 17 years, as well as the environmental challenges ahead. The report also looks at technologies, and it includes some sweeping ideas about the future.


In other words we are truly fucked. This continues to be one of the unreported stories of the past decade. Robotics are going to advance to the point that menial labor is going to be more efficiently done by machines. What this does to a generation of unskilled and low skilled laborers and teen-agers is not ever discussed.

We yammer away at the potential in 50 years of Social Security needing a few bucks, this not so much. Think about RFID tags on every part used to construct a home, and an instruction set designed for efficiency by a super-computer. Picture what that is going to do to construction workers.

Human jobs in housekeeping, gardening, construction, road repair, low end retail, fast food can all be chopped away. Don't bother saying that Jimmy the french fry cook can "retrain" to design robot CPUs. He is verily doomed.

The News

Remember that story from a few days ago about the guy dressed up as Santa who mowed down his ex in-laws?

The news teased that story with a new lead that he "may wanted to have ruined their Christmas, police believe".

What gave them that crazy idea?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Then and Now

April 2, 2008
McCain medical records to be released in May
Posted: 03:00 PM ET

(CNN) — The McCain campaign said Wednesday the Arizona senator's medical records will no longer be released by April 15. They now say the new timetable is "sometime in May."

UPDATE: The McCain campaign tells CNN the reason for the delay is because they want to gather all his doctors for a press conference to answer reporters' questions and May is the soonest that can be done.


The only delay is to get the doctors all together. They work hard. Shit happens.

May 22, 2008

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain will give select members of the media a three-hour glimpse at his medical records Friday.

McCain has told reporters not to expect surprises, and that doctors told him everything is fine.