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Friday, April 30, 2010

Han Solo likes to fly and to hell with the carbon footprint

While defending his seemingly conflicting status of promoting environmental awareness while personally owning 7 private planes, Harrison Ford responded to his critics with a deflection:

I’ll start walking everywhere when they start walking everywhere.

Where was the follow up question? That would be “OK Mr. Ford, we all fly commercial or drive instead right now. How bout you start with that?”

Personally I think if he earns the paycheck, let him have his planes. Just be honest about it, eh Harrison? Just say “Because they are fun and I like ‘em!” and be done with it.

<HT: Perfunction>

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Un-Happy Meals

Some busy body in Santa Clara County suggested banning Happy Meal toys 

the proposal would forbid the inclusion of a toy in any restaurant meal that has more than 485 calories, more than 600 mg of salt or high amounts of sugar or fat. In the case of McDonald's, the limits would include all of the chain's Happy Meals — even those that include apple sticks instead of French fries.

[my emphasis]

I wonder what the environmentalists would think because the inevitable result (should this pass) would be for the “dozen fast-food restaurants within the jurisdiction of the board” to receive their evil corporate meal packages from the distributor and then extract the plastic toy and throw it into the garbage,  unused. Then again, on the bright side it would “create or save” one job for the guy who gets to sit and sift the fun out of each Happy Meal before they are handed out.

<HT: GorTechie>

Friday, April 23, 2010

Hitler parody on removing Hitler parodies

Oh the irony! Of course you didn’t have to be the Amazing Karnak to predict this one. Here it is (until it gets removed!)


and no this isn’t a free speech issue per se – Google has the right to remove whatever they want from their services. It is however a copyright issue but the movie company complaining about it doesn’t really have a leg to stand on though.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Always with the new money

The treasury keeps changing the look of our money every few years to help prevent counterfeiting, but I have to wonder if it doesn't cause more potential problems just due to the fact that, now, no one blinks twice when provided another new note.

How many cashiers would fall for "Oh that? That is the new five dollar bill. Haven't you seen it? Yeah I thought Steve Jobs was an odd choice too."

That is assuming the cashier actually looks at the money in the first place

Friday, April 16, 2010

How to know when to cut a program?

When the results look like this 

Closing the Dept of Education would save $78 Billion annually and likely not have any significant effect on “the children”

Separated at birth

A nifty little application called Tagxedo takes web pages and builds a tag cloud form their contents. While Borepatch and the Gormogons are reveling in navel gazing with “What does my page look like?” I looked through the gallery. It has some interesting items like Lincoln, Obama, and Bruce Lee but it was this one which caught me eye

image

which I immediately took for Lenin. Turns out it is Steve Jobs – but if you have ever discussed the iPhone’s policy on openness its easy to make that mistake.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Oh to live in Europe

Where in Denmark the biggest concern the workers have is losing their free beer. The Carlsberg brewery’s staff is going on strike over a ban on drinking at work

A few hundred warehouse workers and drivers at Danish brewer Carlsberg halted work for a second day on Thursday to protest a company decision to limit beer drinking at work to lunch breaks.

"There has been free beer, water and soft drinks everywhere," he said. "Yesterday, beers were removed from all refrigerators. The only place you can get a beer in future is in the canteen, at lunch."

The horror! Of course there is also an inequity at work here. The breweries drivers still get to have up to 3 beers outside of lunch hours. No fair!

I’ve worked several places that had policy shifts around alcohol in the workplace and nobody went on strike. Of course they could fire my ass anytime they felt like it anyway. But then I can always quit whenever I felt like it too. Just pay me my check. If I really need free beer as compensation, I’ll make sure to ask about it during the next job interview.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Its like getting married

You gotta love this blatant in-your-face rationalization

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz on Hardball tonight when asked about the “What gives you the right to force me to have health care?” question

We did not require, in this legislation, Americans to have health care. What we did was we established a different treatment via your tax return.

if you choose not to have health care … you need to understand you are going to be treated differently on your tax return

So she claims that Its just like deciding to get married or have children she says. In fact, the only way her rationalization makes sense is if we consider instead that they just levied a brand new health tax on everyone and are giving us a deduction if we buy health insurance. Now I can bend my mind around and see that, but then it throws up the “no new taxes” lie and is still not the way the legislation is worded.

Its not about race!

Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race! Its not about race!

there. I feel a little better. sitting in a hotel room for a week with nothing to watch but cable news networks is not healthy.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

All Americans treated the same?

 Apparently not

The Obama administration has authorized operations to capture or kill a U.S.-born Muslim cleric based in Yemen, who is described by a key lawmaker as Americas's top terrorist threat, officials said on Tuesday.

Is anyone else severely disturbed by this? The administration has now authorized the killing of American citizens. I don’t care if they are deemed a threat. This is a really bright line to cross. Regardless of the debate on whether foreign terrorists/enemy combatants should receive Geneva Convention considerations or should get US Constitutional rights, I think we all know damn well that ALL American citizens should get the Constitutional rights that are specifically designed to protect them from the US federal government! Even traitors get a trial.

The Constitution is the American people’s contract with the government – and what happens when one party to a contract decides not to honor it anymore?

Thursday, April 1, 2010

On Capsizing Islands

In the category of “How the hell did this guy get elected?”

Hank Johnson of Georgia quizzes the Admiral on whether adding an additional 5000 marines to Guam will cause the island to capsize. (In fairness to the Representative from Georgia, it is actually more like 25000 people when you include the marines families.)

 

at 1:16 in the video:

My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize

Now saying this is one thing but I have to wonder about his staff. Did they prepare him for it? Did anyone on his staff realize that he thinks that islands float or do they all agree that it is a serious concern.

and remember, this guy was elected.