"Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"
-- Louis Tully, Ghost Busters
Not that it ever went away. The catfood commission is the Zombie that has been clawing at the door since Obama was elected:
Senators from both parties on Tuesday put new pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to turn the power to trim entitlement benefits over to an independent commission.
Seven members of the Senate Budget Committee threatened during a Tuesday hearing to withhold their support for critical legislation to raise the debt ceiling if the bill calling for the creation of a bipartisan fiscal reform commission were not attached. Six others had previously made such threats, bringing the total to 13 senators drawing a hard line on the committee legislation.
"You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who said he hasn't ruled out offering the independent commission legislation as an amendment to the healthcare reform bill.
The panel, which has been championed by Conrad and ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H), would be tasked with stemming the unsustainable rise in debt.
Among its chief responsibilities would be closing the gap between tax revenue coming in and the larger cost of paying for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The Government Accountability Office recently reported the gap is on pace to reach an "unsustainable" $63 trillion in 2083.
You'll recall that during the transition period Obama was all for this commission (it was part of the Grand Bargain) and put it off until after health care reform was passed once people raised a fuss shortly after the inauguration:
McConnell said that when Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had previously spoken to Republicans, they struck a tone that indicated a willingness to work on Social Security. "That was the place that I hoped, based on what both he and the chief of staff had said earlier, we'd be able to move on a bipartisan basis. He kind of brushed over that issue" in his speech, said McConnell.
He said he has noticed a change in the administration's rhetoric over the last few weeks. "They seem to be kind of back-pedaling some," he said.
If you've been paying attention this past decade, it won't surprise
you to learn that the country's policy elites are in the midst of a
destructive, well-nigh unhinged discussion about the future of the
nation. But even by the degraded standards of the Washington
establishment, the growing panic over government debt is shocking.
First, the facts. Nearly the entire deficit for this year and those
projected into the near and medium terms are the result of three
things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts
and the recession. The solution to our fiscal situation is: end the
wars, allow the tax cuts to expire and restore robust growth. Our
long-term structural deficits will require us to control healthcare
inflation the way countries with single-payer systems do.
But right now we face a joblessness crisis that threatens to pitch us
into a long, ugly period of low growth, the kind of lost decade that
will cause tremendous misery, degrade the nation's human capital,
undermine an entire cohort of young workers for years and blow a hole
in the government's bank sheet. The best chance we have to stave off
this scenario is more government spending to nurse the economy back to
health. The economy may be alive, but that doesn't mean it's healthy.
There's a reason you keep taking antibiotics even after you start to
feel better.
</blockquote>
(<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/37534/deficits-mass-destruction"><i>More...</i></a>)
Prototype Goggles Make Sure You Never Lose Your Keys Again
from the where-did-I-put-my... dept
We've seen a whole bunch of different technology companies (and government agencies) experimenting with various projects that would allow people to wear a camera that would record everything they see and hear, as a sort of backup memory or backup brain. All of these projects are in the (completely) experimental stage, but some researchers in Japan may have come up with a nice little app to go along with them. It's a prototype system that supposedly can recognize the different objects you see. The current version requires you to go around and train the system (i.e., "this is my iPod... these are my keys... this is my mobile phone") and then it uses some recognition technologies to make a note every time you "see" one of those items. Then, if you happen to have lost something, you can just ask the system "where are my keys?" and it will play back the video of the last time you saw your keys. Depending on how well this works, it sounds quite cool. And, of course, the idea is to go much further, hitting "Terminator"-type levels of information display, including what kinds of flowers are you looking at and who is the person you're talking to. Sounds like a wonderful solution for people who can't remember anyone's name. Of course, like all the other projects of this nature, it doesn't sound likely that this will be hitting the market any time soon.
"No one likes to be interviewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for interviewers are courteous and gentle-mannered, even when they come to destroy." -- Mark Twain
Category: Kooks • Politics • Religion • Stupidity
It's easy. Bait your hook with stupid.
It's true, we're a sucker for that stuff, although it does have a downside. We'll come up, swallow the bait, follow the line to its source, devour the poor fool holding the pole, and then waddle off, all fat and smug. It's our nature, we can't help it.
So, for instance, an Indiana politician who is considered a potential presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, talks about atheism.
People who reject the idea of a God — who think that we're just accidental protoplasm — have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications — which not all such folks have thought through — because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.
And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists — Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth — because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.
Last week, the nation witnessed an act of good governance when the Obama administration put the full-court press on oil giant BP to set aside $20 billion in assets to compensate the thousands of Americans whose livelihoods -- and in some cases, lives -- are being devastated by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. It was an example of exactly what government is supposed to do; whatever it can, within the limits of the law, to protect its citizens' interests.
Team Obama was shrewd to get a fund set up now, with the nation's outrage focused on the calamity, rather than allow the company's army of lawyers to drag a settlement through the courts for years. The agreement, entered into voluntarily by BP, ensures that the firm can't escape legal judgments by paying out all of its current profits as shareholder dividends and then claiming insolvency.
A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way:
Sunday I spent the day with Nivagi. She woke me up pleasantly in the morning wearing cute pigtails, and after breakfast we hung out with Ke and took a nice long nap. When we awoke we relaxed and played on our laptops, eventually ordering pizza so we wouldn't have to bother venturing out again. I had a great weekend with Nivagi, and I'm definitely glad we set aside some unscheduled time to just hang out and relax. We both needed it, individually and as a couple.
Monday I didn't have to work since I have a Tuesday through Saturday shift this week, so I spent all day hanging out at Nivagi's while she was at work and Ke was asleep. When Jero got home I went over to her house and we went out for dinner. We decided we're not going to make Mondays default MUX days anymore, but since we were too tired to do anything else we wound up MUXing anyway. I got in a little bit of personal role-playing and set things up for a bigger event Thursday.
Tuesday was a horrible day. Through a misunderstanding I caused Stsm much distress, and in trying to fix it I got Nivagi upset as well. Since I was stuck at work answering calls, I couldn't get anything resolved until after I escaped at 6. Stsm and I had plans with Mika after work, but she'd had an equally bad day and so we decided to reschedule. I called Nivagi to calm her down, and then hung out with Mira until Stsm arrived. Mira headed out, and Stsm and I talked and then went to dinner at Denny's. When we got back we played on our laptops until late, and then watched Family Guy before bed.
Wednesday I was depressed due to lingering stress from the day before. I'd planned to go to derby practice, but I'd forgotten that I'd promised to give my sister a ride to airport, so I did that instead. Afterward I picked up Jero for ice-cream. We sat outside, enjoying the nice weather until I felt better. When I got to Ke and Nivagi's, they jumped into my car and we went to get Chinese food at On Time. Afterward Ke cleaned and then we all snuggled 'til Nivagi and I passed out and Ke got back up for the rest of the night.
Last night when I got off work I went home and hung out with Mira and Mika until they went downstairs to swim. I got onto the MUX and ran a short TP meeting before running a climactic battle between evil Shattered Glass Optimus Prime and heroic Megatron on top of Sherman Dam. Megatron's player is expecting a baby and is therefore seldom on after dark, so I was happy for the opportunity to role-play with him. Nivagi came by after work and I snuggled with her when I finally logged off the MUX.
Tonight after work I'm going to InCon with Mika and Mira. I know we're attending a Subgenius Devival and a midnight showing of Repo! The Genetic Opera. Other than that, I'm not sure what we're doing, but I'm sure it'll be fun. I probably shouldn't stay up for a midnight showing when I have work the next day, but ah, well. It's too bad I have to work today or I'd be tempted to try to put together a Graverobber costume. Maybe I'll do that for the cosplay Halloween party if I don't come up with anything better. Otherwise I might wound up dressed as Abraham Lincoln if Stsm has her way. ;)
Tomorrow I have to work, which is going to suck since there are several events going on downtown that are going to prevent me from getting to my parking garage. Trmo was considering meeting me for lunch, but with everything going on I no longer think that might be a good idea. After work I'm running to the Circle City Socialites bout against Bloomington's Code Blue Assassins – Jero's old team. I'll be late because of my work schedule, but it should still be fun. Sunday I'm driving down to Evansville to hang out with Ursula Sunday night and to see my mom on Monday since I have the day off the for holiday. Monday night I'll drive back.
Have a good Independence Weekend, everyone! (Well, at least, my American friends…)
--
"This is so embarrassing. We had never done that before, and now she's in the hospital, and my cat's dead."
(said a name-withheld New York City man in January, after he and
a neighbor decided to have sex but then accidentally ignited a comforter with a candle, starting a major fire in his apartment)
The short answer is that our brains are programmed to see the world in three dimensions instead of two. There are more details at Discover magazine, as well as a gallery of colorful optical illusions. For example, these two Rubik's cubes do NOT have the same colors. The "blue" squares in the left picture and the "yellow" squares in the right picture are gray.
I so needed a laugh today. And then I came across a USA Today article from a couple days back called "Next 'Transformers' is due for a switch," which had me snorting with derision all the way through. You can almost hear writer Anthony Breznican snickering in places. Listen:
Last Sunday I had a long talk with Ke that cleared up a lot of things
that had been bothering me, and then all of us took advantage of yummy
sammiches at 2 Bear's [sic] Café. We were planning to camp through
Sunday night, but since a torrent of rain was expected on Monday we
decided to pack up and leave early. I drove Jero home and helped her
get settled in before heading home myself. Mira and I decided to
watch Doctor
Who but wound up talking until 3 AM instead.
Last Monday afternoon Ke and Nivagi met up with Mira and me and we all
went out to Le Peep for brunch. After Ke and Nivagi headed home I
hung out with Mira until around 3 PM and then went to Jero's. I got
onto the MUX while Jero grilled steaks and veggies for dinner, and
then paused while we ate. On the MUX I got to run a climactic battle
between Shattered Glass Deathsaurus and Jetfire, and a Memorial Day
scene with the main-universe Witwickys. Geeky fun.
Last Tuesday I had the day off since Monday was a holiday and I had to
work Saturday (boo). I hung out at Jero's during the day and tried to
catch up on the Internets before derby practice. I had fun
scrimmaging at practice even though I fell and hurt my tailbone.
After practice I headed home to Mira. We were supposed to role-play,
but we wound up talking until 1 or 2 in the morning again instead. We
apparently need to reschedule role-play when there's less going on
that we need to discuss!
Last Wednesday I went to the chiropractor and then returned to work
after a week and a half off. I spent the first half of the day just
catching up on emails, training, and work IMs. Once I opened for
calls it got stressful, but at last I escaped and headed north for
derby practice. I had fun but fell on my tailbone again while trying
to walk on my toe-stops. When I got home I showered and Stsm came
over. She showed me the outfit she bought for my birthday (woo!) and
then we had story time, finally finishing Book 1 of Lost
Girls. B)
Thursday was my birthday. After work I skipped derby practice and
went out to dinner with Jero, Ke, Mars, Mira, and Stsm. Mars
originally couldn't make it, so his presence was a nice surprise.
After we ate I went home to meet her at my apartment to meet Nivagi,
who had to work late. We were both sleepy, so she played on her iPod
while I answered a ton of sweet birthday messages. When it was time
for bed I cuddled up with her and had a very pleasant wrap-up for my
birthday. >B)
Friday night I went to Ke's after work and almost got eaten by her
since she was hungry and I
Am Legend was on. Before completely resorting to cannibalism
Ke suggested we go to Euphoria, which wound up being very interesting
and tasty, even if they were out of Ke and Nivagi's first choice for
sandwiches. I had to get up early for work on the morning, so I
couldn't stay up too late. Therefore after getting everything ready
for the next day, Ke and I spent a quiet evening in and went to bed
early.
Saturday after work I got to attend an awesome party. Our friend Tojo
was celebrating his birthday and he kindly let me horn in on his
celebration. I met my girlfriends Jero, Ke, Mira, Nivagi, and Stsm
there, and also got to hang out with co-host Mika while I was there,
which was wonderful. I actually broke out of my shyness long enough
to meet new people, and had such a great time that I'm still in a good
mood. Hope everyone else is having as nice a week as I am!
"Good things come to those who wait, but only things left behind by
those who hustle."
— Abraham Lincoln
<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/05/robin_hood_script_russell_crow.html">How
Robin Hood Nearly Destroyed the Russell-Ridley Relationship</a>
--
"Good things come to those who wait, but only things left behind by
those who hustle."
— Abraham Lincoln
This past Saturday I was in Fort Wayne for the first-ever men's flat-track tournament, part of an all-day contest featuring five women's teams, six men's teams, and two junior teams. Our team, the Race City Rebels, didn’t win (in fact, we came in dead-last), but it was my first public bout (not counting the 15-minute intraleague Rookie Rumble demo) and in spite of my nervousness I had a great time. The event was like a big convention for players and fans, making me really want to go to the actual Roller Con.
Saturday morning Jero and I got up very early in spite of little sleep and skipped our breakfast plans, just grabbing fruit and snacks on the go. Bench coach LMB cautioned me that she was going to put me in a “very light” rotation that day, which was just fine with me. We started with two round-robin games to establish our initial position in the tournament, and in the first game I didn’t skate at all – LMB was going to put me in, but we had a player in the box so I got pulled.
I was fine with not skating in the first bout – I was nervous, and it was cool just to be on the sidelines observing how things worked up close. I’d geared and warmed up with the rest of my team, and even practiced sliding into the penalty box, since I’d never been – something that turned out to be good preparation for later. ;) In the second bout I skated once, and it was over before I knew it, but hey – I skated in public against another team, and didn’t humiliate myself, so yay me.
Unfortunately my team was in the bottom two ranks out of six, and we’d injured or lost a lot of players. We have a short roster anyway, so we feared there would be no way we could skate in an hour-long bout with not even enough players to field two full squads. We asked to play just a 30-minute bout next, and prepared to forfeit if not. None of us wanted to have to just give up due to lack of players, but staring down the barrel of a sudden super-heavy rotation, I was secretly almost relieved at the idea.
I’d considered buying new wheels to replace the crappy ones I’d had with me (I’d left my new ones at home), but I abandoned that idea once it looked like we weren’t going to play again that day. I left the prep area and went with Jero to watch the junior roller derby teams play. I resigned myself to the tiny baby-step I’d taken to becoming a real derby player, and relaxed to watch other teams play for the rest of the day. I sat next to Jero and enjoyed just being a spectator.
Twenty minutes before our team had been scheduled to play, Anya suddenly appeared at my side and said, “Suit up. You’re playing.” The awesome Twin City Terrors, who had come to Spring Roll to skate, dammit, asked what our problem was, and when we told them we didn’t have enough skaters, they generously lent us two of theirs. With no time to stress about it, I quickly got my gear back on and warmed up. We were back in business!
I had a great time playing against the Twin City Terrors. I’m not used to playing with and against players I don’t know from practice, and so it was a great chance to see firsthand other styles of play. The players that joined us were super-nice, and the rest of our opponents were fun to play against – they hit hard, skated well, and were good sports even as they beat us. They all skated better than I, but I didn’t feel completely shut down, so it was still fun to do my best and help where I could.
I got two jammer take-outs – derby glory! One of them was illegal, however, and I got my first trip to the penalty box. Jero got lots of pictures, and my braid got mocked by the announcers on nationally-streamed live boutcast. Not exactly fame from my mad derby skills, but it’s a start. I took one more trip to the box, but otherwise skated quite a bit. I quickly got into scrimmage headspace, and just told LMB to send me in again every chance I got. It was great.
I got positive feedback from Rebels coach Dexter – he said he could see what I was trying to do out there, and that sometimes I was even able to do it. Even though I wasn’t able to execute everything I tried, he said that would come with time as I increased by basic skate speed and skill, and that he anticipated that once I’d gotten more experience on the track, that Bignplenty and I will be amazing together as the two large guys on our team (especially against the teams of giants we’ve been facing).
After the bout I spent the rest of the tournament with Jero and some of my teammates watching other teams play and cheering on Jero’s old league, the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls. We got snacks and watched the 'Ref Jam' as well as the final championship games for both the men’s and women’s teams. Both bouts were splendid to watch. The men’s tournament was determined by one point in the last jam, and we’re going to play the nominal second-place winner soon which should be interesting.
After the game day was over we joined our league at a massive after-party. Jero and I hung out with her BHRG teammates as long as we could, and then after they left we waded into the main area to watch people jam skate and get crazy in a huge crowd of drunken derby revelers. It was a great mix of male and female skaters as well as our fans, and Jero and I had a splendid time. By the time we went to bed, we only got about three hours of sleep, but exhausted or no, it was worth it. Spring Roll rocked.
We're number 6! (out of 6... d'oh!):
2010 Spring Roll Recap
