It's a Soul Train Saturday

Ice-skating bear kills circus director

Not much to add to that headline.

Sci Fi idea

Faster-than-light travel, wormholes, transporters, putting people in stasis so a trip only feels like a few days or hours: all that stuff doesn't work to get people moving long distances across space. The fastest we can actually get people going with rockets and ship-bound propulsion is not very fast, only a small fraction of light speed. Instead, the only way to get ships going fast (that is, close to light speed, which at an interplanetary scale is still pretty slow) is to create massive rings around stars that use photosynthetic energy to rapidly accelerate a ship, then release it to wherever it is supposed to go; gravity will be the brake at wherever it is going. Because people are going to be on these things for years, they've got to be big, which means the accelerators have to be big and thus difficult and time-consuming to build.

It takes months or years to get from one habitable planet to one of these star-bound accelerators, and then years from one solar system to another. So communication is slow, and actual contact is even slower. Wars revolve around controlling these accelerators, because that's what lets you get to other solar systems, but it takes months to make any kind of move even on these relatively nearby targets. So wars are long, Hundred Years War long, and people are in the midst of wars whose origins are older than anyone alive, which nobody can really remember.

Best Vita and Acknowledgements Ever.

Fulltext.

Vita

Sean Andrew O'Neill was born. After being born, he grew and grew and grew, until one day, he stopped growing. Along the way, he befriended a green iguana. He has a mother, a father, a brother and a girlfriend.

Acknowledgments

Many are those whom I would like to acknowledge in this section. In fact, it would be more prudent to try to list those which I would not like to acknowledge. However, I am a traditionalist and as such will adhere to the custom of naming those to be recognized.

To start, my family must be thanked. My mother and father, Mary DeStefano and Timothy O'Neill, and my brother, Padraic O'Neill, for all of their love, support, and time wasted putting up with and entertaining me. I would also like to thank all of my extended family, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins. I would especially like to thank my Uncle Larkin for convincing me that the empty set is indeed in the power set of any set.

Many of the professors at Ohio University are deserving of a hearty thanks. Some of those are Dr. Todd Eisworth, Dr. Kaufman, and Dr. Arhangel'skii. I would also like the thank the faculty and sta in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics here at Auburn. Especially my comittee members and my advisor, Dr. Smith, for any ideas they have contributed to this thesis and all their other efforts in helping me achieve my degree. Further, any students of mine here at Auburn should also consider themselves thanked.

The employees of Little Italy Pizzeria.

301D

My friends, past, present, and future, must all must be thanked for participating in and/or putting up with my antics.

Finally, Christi Morrow is very deserving of acknowledgment. Thank you for putting up with the distance and being loving and understanding these recent years. Please note that this is only a partial list. Add yourself if you feel that you are deserving.

I have left you space:

three straight football posts

This is good. Excerpt:

As I continue to watch Michigan’s quarterback run the read option against the Gophers, I now find myself wondering if this play is authentically simple or quietly complex. The read option is a combination of three rudimentary elements of football: spreading the field, running a back off tackle, and the quarterback keeper. It would be an easy play to teach and a safe play to run, even for junior high kids. But it’s still new. It didn’t really exist in the 1970s and ’80s, and when I first saw it employed in the late ’90s, it seemed like an idiotic innovation. It seemed like a way to get your quarterback killed without taking advantage of your tailback. I had always believed teams could not succeed by running the ball out of the shotgun formation. I thought it would never happen. But I was wrong. And I suspect the reason I was wrong was not because I didn’t understand what was happening on this specific play; I suspect it was because I felt like I already understood football. I had played football and written about football and watched it exhaustively for twenty years, so I thought I knew certain inalienable truths about the game. And I was wrong. What I knew were the assumed truths, which are not the same thing. I had brainwashed myself. I was unwilling to admit that my traditional, conservative football values were imaginary and symbolic. They belonged to a game I wasn’t actually watching but was still trying to see.

Officiating

I'm not surprised that Steward Mandel sounds like an obnoxious tool in the latest College Football Mailbag at SI. But:

I've watched the videos, and they were obviously bad calls. You know what else they were? The type of bad calls that take place in almost every single football game.

[...]

I hate to break it to you, people, but bad calls are like airline delays -- they're going to happen.

You know what else is going to happen? Car accidents. Adultery. Irritating, under-qualified sports writers. But that doesn't mean that they're acceptable, or people should just ignore them, or act like they don't matter. Bad calls, especially in close games, devalue the sport and the efforts of those involved. They should be fixed, not brushed off by chubby idiots.

Minnesota mascot serious about mockery

your calenders are dangerously undermarked.

New Russian Circles today. No words, all histrionics.

Exactly as awesome as it sounds

Bullets at one million frames per second



My favorite part is the ice.

If the Mountain West were a literary genre, it would be the one that everybody predicted before the season

Yep, that's about what it should look like. No funny business here. If the ACC ends like Newhart, the Mountain West ends however Two and a Half Men will end.

If the ACC were a literary genre, it would be Mexican magical realism

Played today, the ACC title game would be Boston College (who has been overall outscored by ten points in the league for the year) and Virginia (who has a better record against the Atlantic Coast Conference than against the Colonial Athletic Conference). This will change next week, when a zebra blocks a field goal to lift Georgia Tech over Virginia, and BC has to forfeit their last forty wins due to improperly labeled import beer. In week twelve, Ralph Friedgen wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette, and the whole season will turn out to have been a dream.

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #10 Peanut Butter Jelly Time

We took a little break because I forgot. Anyway, back to 3E's list of things on the internet. Not a lot to say about this entry. It's iconic as all get-out.



Then you get internet media references to regular media references to internet media.



It's peanut butter jelly time all the way down.

This video also gets bonus points because, come on, it's always peanut butter jelly time.

Antibacterial soap

For starters, there is little proof that the antibacterial soap you buy at the drug store actually kills the most-dreaded microbes: S. aureus (staph) and E. coli. Plus, living in a disinfected bubble can actually be bad for your health and the environment. Many experts believe that too much sanitization weakens the immune system and may create lethal superbugs that are antibiotic resistant. If that's not enough, the bacteria-killing chemicals go down the drain and into our waterways, harming wildlife and potentially ending up back in our bodies where they can present health risks.

Although you have likely heard at least some of this before, you probably still reach for the antibacterial soap to clean your bathroom and wash your hands. The psychological draw is undeniable. In fact, scientists' warnings have not dampened the burgeoning market. Antibacterial products are a one billion dollar industry and make up nearly 80 percent of all liquid soaps. In 2003, there were fewer than 200 antibacterial products on the market; currently there are over 3,000.

The biggest--and most publicized--concern is whether antibacterial products, like the overuse of antibiotics, will eventually create more of the untreatable bacteria we fear. By creating a hostile environment, antibacterial agents promote strains of bacteria with certain mutations that allow them to survive. These superbugs are also more likely to be immune to antibiotics. The most commonly used antimicrobial in soaps--triclosa--has already shown resistance to S. aureous.

Antibacterial soaps: Unnecessary risks, no benefits

Old things

The oldest living things

Na na na na na na na

The longest poem in the world

And it's always getting longer.

Doomguy would be a good Halloween costume

Spiderman

Spiderman

broads hit they knees when they greet me

It's a Soul Train Saturday

Shaq is funny

yes it just keeps droning on like that and no there aren't any words.

Watch the whole thing, I dare you.

3E presents: Snatchphrase Friday

You want to be the coolest cat on the block? You've got to have a snatchphrase! With the weekend coming up, 3E is here to help.The next time anyone answers a question, you get right up in their stupid, mouthbreathing face and hit them with:

"Is that your... FINAL ANSWER?"

Classic!*

Be the lamest coolest guy around this Friday, 'cause it's Snatchphrase Friday.








*not.

an exhibition, sheer precision

Google maps is the best (true that)

Google owns a lot of stuff, and it looks like a subway map.

Learn stuff here.

ahhhhhhh

scary animals (Cracked)

Idea for operating the BCS poll

1. Nominate 200 sportswriters/media members and 200 former players/coaches to be voters. 40 of each will be selected, for a total voting body of 80. To narrow down to 40 of each, there will be an auction system, with each nominee bidding for a spot. Voters may be paid an amount per week for their ballots that will encourage careful consideration -- say, $1000 -- and may bid up to the amount equal to the number of ballots for the season multiplied by the weekly pay rate. If the number of nominees bidding the maximum amount exceeds the number of voter slots available, then voters will be chosen from among the highest bidders by random. Voters may not serve more than one out of every five years.

2. By noon the Monday before the season begins and every Tuesday after games are played, each voter will turn in a ballot of 40 teams ranked in order. For the purposes of determining payment, each team after #40 in the overall rankings will be considered unranked.

3. If two teams ranked by a voter play, and a lower ranked team wins, or if an unranked team beats a ranked team, then that voter forfeits payment for the week in which the ballot was submitted. The voters who ranked the winning teams higher will collect the payments lost by the voters who ranked incorrectly.

If multiple ranked teams play each other, voters will receive proportional payments based on how they did compared to each other. For example, if hypothetically there were ten games in a particular week, and each voter was paid $1000 per week, then each game would be worth $100; if only one voter ranked correctly for a particular game, then that voter would collect one-tenth of the weekly payments from every other voter -- $1000 dollars, in addition to any other correctly chosen games.

4. The final rankings before bowl selections are worth triple the usually weekly payments.

Take that, Premier League!

“Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business.” Well, football may not spend billions of pounds actively seeking out stupidity, piping, refining and selling it, but as Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski demonstrate over and over again in Why England Lose, it is certainly swimming in the stuff.

The profound stupidity of football soccer

this just in

We don't have enough Tom T. Hall here

It better start rocking or I'll really give 'em something to cry about

Something for all of 3E.



I miss Beavis & Butthead

actual student work

Oh awesome. Every other sports intro in America sucks.



Found here.

Little Wheel

It's about robots.

Crash test wars

Hmm

oh, man.

CollegeHumor

I'm not a weirdo.

Fourth downs

Here’s a thought exercise for you. Imagine that for decades no one ever thought of the punt. Teams knew nothing else than to run or pass on 4th down. And then one day it’s invented. Some guy comes up to a coach and says, “Kick the ball on every 4th down and the other team gets possession 37 yards further down the field.” The coach would think he was crazy: “Wait, you want me to give up one quarter of my opportunities for a first down on every series…just for 35 yards of field position? Do you realize how much that’s going to kill our chances of scoring?”

And that coach would be absolutely right. It’s funny how boxed in our thinking can be. Except for the most desperate of circumstances or with inches to go just outside of field-goal range, today’s N.F.L. coaches will choose to punt.

Every single serious study of 4th-down decisions has found that, in most situations, teams would be better off by going for the conversion attempt rather than kicking. I’ve recently completed a study of 4th-down decisions that confirms what some fans already know, that it pays to be more aggressive. Those short on time might want to skip ahead to the bottom line.

More

Ukraine does got talent!

Barack Obama smiling

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile

let's never be apart again

rhode hard and put away wet.

pwnd

why?

Ohio is a piano

Exactly as it sounds.

whar we at

Well, there's whar we at.

1. Chelsea - So far, so perfect. However, the annoying habit of conceding the first goal (all three of their goals allowed have been openers) could come back to bite them. And by that I mean they maybe don't win a game at some point. Still looking like a good bet for the title, as long as the African exodus to the Cup of Nations that will occur around the new year doesn't fuck them up.

2. Manchester United - Apparently nobody wins at Burnley, so the loss is excused. Have looked really shaky at times, but nigh-unbeatable at others.

3. Liverpool - Lucas Leiva is no Xabi Alonso, you can put that on my tombstone. Pizza. And write it in jalapenos. That would be delicious.

4. Manchester City - They might actually break the top four after all.

5. Aston Villa - Who loses at home to Wigan? Losers, that's who.

6. Tottenham Hotspur - Oh, you tease. Might be the fourth or fifth best team but will flop around enough to slip into mid table.

7. Arsenal - Fags.

8. Sunderland - They're not really this good. But they shouldn't slip much lower.

9. Burnley - Adorable, simply adorable. Still might get relegated if they can't keep winning these ridiculously unwinnable home games.

10. Stoke City - Hacking, long-balling, and homefieldadvantaging their way to another season of safety. Not pretty, but neither was that ugly guy who always got shit done. Whatever his name was.

11. Birmingham City - YOU DON'T JUST WALK INTO LEGION FIELD AND PUSH B'HAM AROUND.

12. Wolverhampton Wanderers - I thought they would be safe and the results look pretty good so far, but I wouldn't hold out much hope, Black Country hicks.

13. Everton - They'll pick it up.

14. Fulham - Dittoz

15. Wigan Athletic - Probably going to hover about here.

16. West Ham - Can't be this bad.

17. Bolton Wanderers - Might be this bad.

18. Blackburn Rovers - Big Sam is a good manager. They'll be safe but not too safe.

19. Hull City - They're not good.

20. Portsmouth - If the last minute signings can figure out how to not suck, they might actually not finish 20th.

I'm already chief of my tribe.

omg

why yes I would like to watch a grizzly bear in Montana learn how to swim

awesome

I hope I get to shut a guy down this hard some day.

Splitter 2

A very fun physics-engine-type game here.

I couldn't beat levels 18 or 31 on my own.

This totally happened yesterday.

Lee Ziemba trips walking up the stairs in front of the library, his wallet drops out of his pants. He doesn't notice.

Me: You dropped your wallet, dude.

I pick up his wallet and the approximately 25 dollars that fell out. I hand it to him.

Lee Ziemba: Thanks, man.

Websites launching

Google looked good, if a little silly with the font.


Remember when it was "The Facebook"?


How 20 popular websites looked when they launched

no comment

3E Presents: Catchphrase Friday

You want to be the coolest cat on the block? You've got to have a catchphrase! With the weekend coming up, 3E is here to help. Whenever somebody offers you a drink, or asks if you're ready for an appetizer, just ask for a little extra:

"Yeah, load it up with some of that Tijuana Iguana."

and, optionally:

"Cause that shit makes you change colors, you know what I'm saying?"

Be the coolest guy around this Friday, 'cause it's Catchphrase Friday.

Grad School Nonfiction

The mountain was steep, but Spiderman was up to the task. Scrambling nimbly over rock and thorn, the web-slinger slowly approached the peak. But what's this? Herpes! Bummer, thought Spiderman. That shit doesn't go away. No sense in delaying the inevitable being the primary thought in his mind, Spidey plowed on through. Oh man, that itches and burns. But got to get to the top of this mountain! I've got to save the princess! Upon reaching the peak, he saved the princess. Spidey's not one to kiss and tell but rumor is she's got the Herp too! Oh, that Spiderman. Is there anything he won't fuck? Later that day, Spiderman went to Kroger. He needed some coldbeers for the weekend's festivities. A crawfish boil is just the thing to put my mind at ease, he thought. So he bought some crawfish too. Also spices. On his way home Spiderman noticed his hair doing something weird in the back kinda flippin out probably the rain he thought. Back on the mountain Spiderman has to save another princess! Oh man these stupid twats always getting captured by the mountain. Dutifully Spidey saved her stupid ass and gave her Herpes too. Later on at the crawfish boil Spiderman ate crawfish by himself. I'm so lonely, he yelled into the indifferent night sky. Spiderman is a bit of a messy eater and several crawfish shells were left laying around in his apartment floor. Little did the S-Man realize that the roaches would learn to use them as exoskeletons! Now, he's got a real situation on his hands! At this point Spiderman realized that he hadn't been playing music on his computer while he wrote some things and he turned it on. What a forgetful freddy I am, he laughed to himself. Other thoughts inside his head: I wonder how long this will be on a blog if I were to write it there. NOT ANOTHER PRINCESS! Yes, another princess, Spidey! Back up the mountain. What a day! Ready for it all to be over, Spiderman drove to the lake, tied cinder blocks to his feet, climbed over the railing on the pier, and shot himself in the head as he fell into the water. Not even he could fuck that up! At the bottom of the lake a big ol' catfish began to eat Spiderman's flesh. Circle of life, thought the catfish. What the catfish didn't realize was that by eating Spiderman's flesh, he took on his powers (and his Herpes)! Attention Catfish Spiderman: Only you can defeat the roaches with crawfish exoskeletons who live on the top of Herpes Mountain. Catfish Spiderman always answers the call. The battle raged day and night. For three weeks, the sky was gray with fright and the ground ran red with blood. But you know how this has to end. Catfish Spiderman standing exhausted and near death atop a pile of ruined crawfish carapaces, his broadsword wet with their shimmering blood. He raises it into the air and howls a cry of victory so loud that it's just really fucking loud. And then lightning strikes the sword! Catfish Spidey explodes and the hungry wolves devour his flesh. Fortunately, being an osmotic process, the powers of Catfish Spiderman don't transfer to the mean wolves. But the Herpes did! Jokes on you, you fuckin wolves!

Cheese or font?

It's harder than it sounds.

This is a good idea

Victor: Street signs. Look for street signs.

Me: Haven’t seen any. Feels like I’m on a highway now. Ask me what my great idea is.

Victor: No.

Me: GPS for Stupid People.

Victor: *

Me: I’m totally serious. Because I’m no good with directions but I’m really good with landmarks so if you tell me to go “North on Main” I’m fucked but if you say “Turn at that Burger King that burned down last year” I totally know what to do so we should build a GPS system that does that.

Victor: *sigh*

Me: And here’s the genius part: we make it able to learn so it adapts to you personally. So like if I say “Huh. There’s a homeless guy masturbating” it’ll put that in it’s data-banks and then when I want to go somewhere later, instead of just naming random streets it’s all “You know where that homeless guy was masturbating? We’re going there. Turn left at that Sonic you like. Turn right at the burrito place you took Sarah to that time she was dressed all slutty. Yield at the place you gave that guy a hand job.”

the rest

Crowds

Crowd plus emergency equals mass panic, or so urban myths and Hollywood films would have us believe. The reality, recognised by social psychology for some time, is that people in crowds often behave in remarkably cooperative and selfless ways. A new study by John Drury and colleagues suggests that this kind of collaborative behaviour emerges when people in a crowd acquire a shared identity. And contrary to the "mass panic" perspective, an emergency can be the very catalyst that brings people together.

If you've ever been on an underground train that gets stranded mid-tunnel, or on an aeroplane that's overstayed its welcome on a runway, you might have glimpsed a mild version of this feeling of a shared fate. With the temperature rising and information lacking, you and your fellow passengers stop feeling like strangers and start to feel united in your predicament.

Emergencies inspire crowd cooperation, not panic

Don't read the subtitles. Just let it wash over you, unthinking

Just throwing this out there

There are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people who, if they had been head coach of the University of Virginia football team since the 2001 season, would have that program in a better place right now than Al Groh does. In addition to virtually all living and retired head coaches from the formerly 1-A college level, there are dozens of lower-level college coaches and hundreds of high school coaches who could do a better job. There are dozens or hundreds of professional coaches, semi-professional coaches, and still active players who could do a better job. There are thousands of coaches in other sports, sports fans, middle managers, gym teachers, advertising executives, and others who could have learned enough in nine years of coaching to be a better coach, today, than Al Groh is.

I love Road House.

mash up!

Democracy

See more here.

49 points!

offensive touchdowns last night: six
total offensive touchdowns in eight SEC games last year: seven

weekend menu: retrospect

after 5 hours of eating, it still looked like this(but less sideways):

Super Mario Text Generator

(click the picture if it doesn't change)


Here

Eating my peppers

What sort of creature eats hot peppers straight off the plant? Some sort of angry, spicy caterpillar? Why would they do that to me?

Fortunately, hot pepper plants produce way more than a single family can eat, so we've got plenty of extras. But it's still vexing. Vexing, I tell you.

"Go run for mayor somewhere else"

I wish somebody in Congress had done that during Obama's healthcare speech. That would have been awesome.

Mayor Konop handled that about as well as possible, I think.

The Offspring

I used to be into punk, and man, when Smash came out, my brother bought it, and I was so into The Offspring. Then a few years later, Americana came out. Then I learned about disappointment, although I got over it pretty quick and even kind of like "The Kids Aren't Alright."

Getting greener.

He's still got it

Marriage chart

I would watch a Muppets remake of The Royal Tenenbaums

Obama's speech to the kiddies

I don't really get the vehement opposition, but I too am opposed to Barack Obama's planned speech to The Children today. I cannot seriously believe that the President of the United States has nothing better to do than tell a bunch of nosepickers to try hard in school and eat their vegetables.

This is just another bogus public relations stunt. Presidents before did them, presidents after will do them, and this president does them. If I had a school-age child, I certainly wouldn't pull them out of school or anything like that, but we would make fun of the address together at the dinner table tonight.

Cincinnati is weird

James Orr put an immediate halt to his criminal trial Wednesday when he squeezed the contents of his colostomy bag onto the table in front of him and ate it.

news.cincinnati.com

He looks like he would.

USA Map

Can you do that?

really, it's a push.

In these tough times, keep in mind that good things do happen.

bloomsville, daddio

Canabalt

Play it, players. Plus: very easy to learn the controls.

This song came on the old Dell desktop I no longer own

Tha Captainz Weekend Menu: Week 1

Wait, what?

We have two pizza themed bowl games now? Even I think that's a bit much.

I thought Little Caesars was out of business for something like a decade, although I was wrong (and now there's proof!).

Toe Meets Leather

Gather yourself and take one last deep breath.

Footballpocalypse: South Carolina at NC State

Do you like interceptions? We here at 3E sure do. That's why we'll have our telly's locked on tonight's opener. We can only hope for more of the same and even with only one of these fairlyawful quarterbacks likely to play, it's still a hope you can count on:

Norm on Conan

Movies I Desperately Need.

Whenever you say "house," say it like this guy.

Yeti lives in Poland

Does "Polish Yeti Caught Spying On Bikini Girl" sound like a rejected USA Up All Night feature?

horrorshow

3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #11 Falling Sand Game

Here, although there are a whole bunch of different kinds. There's also a forum. A very zen entry, I think, that is my favorite example of a pointless timewaster -- at least, pointless besides the enjoyment of it (and isn't that why we're all here?). It's very relaxing but also very addictive.

I like to create a never-ending cycle of fire/plant. But others may have a different approach.

kitty nom nom

Women in foreign places

Here is what happened to her in Kabul—and it’s essential to remember this occurred decades before the Taliban made life for women completely intolerable. Chesler’s American passport was confiscated at the airport: she never saw it again. Her young “bohemian” husband became, as she notes, “another person”: cold and distant, a sometime defender of polygamy (his father, to Chesler’s surprise, had three wives) and champion of the veil. Chesler quickly discovered that “Afghans mistrusted foreign wives”—and her walks around the city, invariably barefaced and without the long coat or gloves urged on her by her in-laws, made her the target of lewd advances and crude insults. When she fled to the American embassy, “the Marines would bring me back home every time,” she recalls. “I was the wife of a foreign national. I had lost my citizenship.”

Her in-laws were deeply unhappy with their son’s decision to bring home an American bride. She lived in perpetual fear that she might become, as her husband intended her to be, pregnant. That would have been the end of the narrative, for, as Chesler points out: “You’re then going to be trapped in the country you’re in forever because you’re carrying Muslim property. The child.”

When her mother-in-law quietly stopped boiling her drinking water, Chesler developed hepatitis. She weighed 90 pounds on her arrival back in New York City. Her father-in-law, delighted to be rid of her, paid for her ticket home. Because of her experience, the occasional young American woman who is thinking of marrying a Muslim with an urge to return to his own country visits Chesler for advice. And she tells them what she knows: “This man you love will change overnight before your eyes. You will live but you will wish you were dead.”

Twice Branded: Western Women in Muslim Land

what's that jerking? oh, it's my knee!

So, this just happened. Here's how (between hearty gulps of MGD) Tha Captain reacted.

• How on earth did the English teams avoid all three of Real Madrid, Internazionale, and Juventus? Chicanery.
• Speaking of the English teams, Manchester United and Arsenal should sashay to the knockout stages. Liverpool and Chelsea have a eurotrash discoteque fight on their hands.
  
• Group G: baby soft.
• Most interesting games: Milan v Real Madrid and Barcelona v Inter because they're all huge teams. Bayern v Maccabi Haifa because it's always a cracker when Germans and Jews get together.
  
• I don't know how else they would do it, but going by UEFA coefficients makes for an uneven draw. Sevilla is a 1 seed but Real Madrid is a 2 and Wolfsburg is a 4? Nonsense. Alkmaar is a 2 but Fiorentina and Atletico are 3's? Infuriating!
  
• In depth prevues, coming soon, blogfans!

The future of news

I thought this song was called "You Got What I Need"

Hump day etc

Ted Kennedy

I kind of noticed it with Michael Jackson: is it weird how the media is heaping unqualified praise on controversial people who are recently deceased, as they're doing with Ted Kennedy right now? People are calling him the most effective senator or the most influential Kennedy (or more: see here, especially the kind of creepy comments) without mentioning, at least that I've seen, the numerous problems with the legislation he supported.

I think this kind of postmortem celebration started with Ronald Reagan, but maybe it goes back farther; someone needs to write an article about that.

it's like my soul drew this itself.

www.toothpastefordinner.com

Tortoise Tuesday

Lonesome George (Spanish: Solitario Jorge) is the last known individual of the Pinta Island Tortoise, subspecies Geochelone nigra abingdoni, one of eleven subspecies of Galápagos tortoise native to the Galápagos Islands. He has been labelled the rarest creature in the world, and is a potent symbol for conservation efforts in the Galápagos and internationally. It is thought that he was named after a character played by American actor George Gobel.

George was first seen on the island of Pinta on 1 December 1971 by American snail biologist Joseph Vagvolgyi. The island's vegetation had been decimated by introduced feral goats, and the indigenous G. n. abingdoni population had been reduced to a single individual. Relocated for his safety to the Charles Darwin Research Station, George was penned with two females of a different subspecies, Geochelone nigra becki from Wolf Island, in the hope that his genotype would be retained in the resulting progeny. Any offspring successfully hatched from George and his consorts would be intergrades, not purebreds of the Pinta subspecies.

George is estimated to be 60–90 years of age, and is in good health. A prolonged effort to exterminate goats introduced to Pinta is now complete and the vegetation of the island is starting to return to its former state.

Lonesome George

Health care

I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic, and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed.

Like every grieving family member, I looked for someone to blame for my father’s death. But my dad’s doctors weren’t incompetent—on the contrary, his hospital physicians were smart, thoughtful, and hard-working. Nor is he dead because of indifferent nursing—without exception, his nurses were dedicated and compassionate. Nor from financial limitations—he was a Medicare patient, and the issue of expense was never once raised. There were no greedy pharmaceutical companies, evil health insurers, or other popular villains in his particular tragedy.

Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our nation’s health-care crisis. All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and discourage transparent competition based on price or quality. That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value.

How American Health Care Killed My Father

Dogs

3e Movie Reviews: District 9

What's most important to keep in mind about this movie is that the elevation of Johannesburg is 5,751 feet! There's your Rocky Mountain High, bitch!

Also too, there's something about black people.

So to summarize, the aliens learned a little something about themselves and finally achieved all their goals through hard work and their advanced endocrine systems.

The Chiefs

Pam and Angela get high marks.

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