Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
arrogance and idiocy
just heard the best commentating line from tonights world series mlb game 4, in houston.
get this one: " this game is being broadcast in 246 countries or territories, so it really is a world series"
that's great, except that only the american league and national teams can compete......hardly a 'world series'
i know of no other country that competes in sports that are played in other countries and calls it's home championships 'world series'.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
and on this day..
rosa parks dies. . americans across the country should be proud of you.
throws the disgusting failure of the federal government in response to katrina for new orleans's poorest even more poignent.
2000 dead american soldiers. how disturbing to hear bush say he won't quit till he's beaten the terrorists. better get used to a very long, costly and damaging few years. then perhaps the war will end, as america realises that you can't beat terrorists, no matter how much you say you can and will. they've already proved that.
and on a good note, how about the staggering successes of the two martian rovers, spirit and opportunity? it's good to have something this country can be proud about.
Monday, October 24, 2005
will brad lidge need counselling?
Friday, October 21, 2005
end of an era
had very good support from the crew last night at gazuza. made up for the very loud and obnoxious crowd doing a company happy hour earlier on that was too tight to tip the bar staff ($10 on a $109 tab, and they were all drinking mohitos, which is a drink that takes a lot of effort to make). cheap.
we're off to red with its banging sound system tonight for the last time.
i don't want to imagine how bad that space will become when they turn it into a hip-hop/eighties, etc. venue
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
think hurricane wilma's bad?
how about the solar system's biggest storm. the great red spot on jupiter.
it's as big as 3 earths! and winds blow counterclockwise around this disturbance at about 250 miles per hour. hurricanes on earth rarely generate winds over 180 miles an hour...
not bad for a planet that is so big it could swallow every other planet in the solar system, yet you can't stand on it's surface (not that you'ld want to). it doesn't have one.
leading by (bad) example
o.k. so you're an iraqi and you're country is being led to democracy by america -
a few things to ponder:
1. bush telling republicans that one reason they should support harriet miers for the u.s. supreme court was because of "her religion." she is described as a devout evangelical christian.
2.how would americans feel if they picked up their newspapers next week and read that the president of iraq justified the appointment of an iraqi supreme court justice by telling iraqis: 'don't pay attention to his lack of legal expertise. pay attention to the fact that he is a muslim fundamentalist and prays at a saudi-funded wahhabi mosque.' is that the iraq bush sent america's sons to build and to die for?
3.how about the bush team trying to defend its right to use torture in iraq and afghanistan. while america and iraq can feel heartened by the fact that the senate voted 90 to 9 to ban u.s. torture of military prisoners, citizens of both countries might be depressed by reports that the white house might veto the bill because of that amendment, which would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of p.o.w.'s.
virtually every extended family in iraq has someone who has been tortured or killed in a baathist prison. yet, already, more than 100 prisoners of war have died in u.s. custody. how is that possible from the 'greatest democracy' in the world? there must be no place for torture in the future iraq.
democracy laced with hypocrisy doesn't a respected nation make...
Monday, October 17, 2005
are you ready for some curry..
Sunday, October 16, 2005
when umpires decide baseball games
i sell-out
Apple sued by Eminem over iTunes ad song
proof that apple has at last attained microsoft status. think different? eminem's different?
how about big companies actually featuring no-names?
how about the obnoxious mcdonald's ad featuring the new, modern 'cool hippie.....being in a mcdonald's ad is not cool.
take the never-off-the-nfl-air visa ad, featuring tom brady and his offensive line - hm, no charlie weiss this year, eh? guess visa didn't know that.
but the best of nfl sunday award goes to the car companies, suddenly extolling the virtues of fuel economy. this from a country whose politicians, automakers, the oil industry and their powerful lobbyists, have made it their business not to focus on economy, or the world's energy issues. anybody remember the kyoto treaty?.
now they've caught a cold and are losing sales to the japanese (whose mainstay vehicles are actually fuel-conscious passenger cars, as opposed to trucks).
want to be a leader? try being the first, not the last to champion the cause of responsibility when it comes to oil.
the chevy truck ad with the line 'lead, follow, or be road kill' says it all...a company that has spent $40 million advertising the vastly fuel-inefficient silverado.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
flat earth society
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
wet, wet, wet
just got back from boston. only time i've seen the sun is when the air tran plane rose above the cloud cover coming back to bwi airport this morning.
went to boston airport early yesterday to try and get an earlier flight5 back, but instead theay cancelled a lot of flights due to the radar going out. we were among the lucky ones to get a hotel room. many, many others had to sleep at the terminal.
it wasn't all bad though, the angels beat the yankees...and pittsburgh defeated san diego, although that was a very nasty looking knee tackle on young big ben.
Friday, October 07, 2005
off to boston
it's nearly 7am (ugh!) here in dc and we're getting ready to leave for boston.
emily (rebecca's friend) and winston are getting married. there's uncertainty whether they have turntables for the sound system, so i'm not taking records.
we will try to watch the game in a bar near fenway park in boston tonight. come on red sox!
Thursday, October 06, 2005
did you know..
the density of a neutron star is quoted as about a billion tons per teaspoonful.....
that means crushing gravity ensures that the star is a near-perfect sphere, compressing all matter so that a sand-grain-sized scoop of neutron star material would weigh as much as a cruise ship on earth.
the 100 million degree temperature would also ensure you'ld be vaporised instantly.
new york times - creationists and grand canyon
the grand canyon. geology's grandest statement. or so you'ld think...
does there exist a more whacko group of individuals that no matter what evidence was presented before them, would refuse to accept anything that counters their cherished beliefs?
maybe the international flat earth society....100 years ago, they used to lock up looney people.
how about: geocentrists accept a spherical earth but deny that the sun is the center of the solar system or that the earth moves.....!
tom vail - "then i met the lord. now i have a different view of the canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.” would have us believe that the grand canyon was carved 4,500 years ago by the great flood described in genesis as god's punishment for humanity's sin. - hm. that doesn't strike me as god being someone i'd like to meet.
let me get this right. you created us, then gave us free will, so we'd worship you. that didn't go too well, so you destroyed every living being on the planet with a great flood, apart from someone who could build a boat and some animals. why didn't you get rid of mosquitos when you had the chance? i'm sure the 2 million dying of malaria each year would have appreciated it...
punishment. repent. sin. can't get rid of sin, so just keep on punishing us. that does not strike me as being particularly magnanimous........or great, wise, or wonderful. or clever. when i kick the bucket, and should i find myself face to face with my creator, i'm going to have a fair bit to say myself! and it's not going to be of the 'bow your head and hear your fate' variety of polite acceptance!
i'll take my chances with the scientific community that looks to healthy scepticism when confronted with information, and how best to disseminate it, using intelligence, technology, and a willingness from it's members to replace a theory when it fails to stand up to critical examination and observation. even if they get something wrong, you can't argue with the logic they employ.
and more worrying, let's face it; do i really want to die only to find myself in heaven for eternity surrounded by a bunch of christian conservatives, singing hymns and full-on whackos for company?
given that the vast majority of creationists voted for bush, i have to believe they have no one's interests or agendas at heart except their own.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
florida's new "stand your ground" law
people travelling to florida for the very first time from non-gun cultures really must applaud the hard-lobbying nra for getting this bill of madness passed into law on saturday.
how about this from marrion hammer, a former president of the national rifle association: "they can't any more tell you that you can't have a firearm in your vehicle," ms. hammer said of private businesses, "than they can tell you that you can't have an umbrella or a pair of sunglasses."
yes. i'm very, very concerned about travelling to florida for next year's winter music conference, and the possibilty of getting into a confrontation with some drunk prick in a bar, who in an act of desperate self-preservation, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of sunglasses he earlier stole that day from a vehicle parked at his place of work.......
weight for it
Sunday, October 02, 2005
spruce knob and mars
on the left, my very first (totally unprocessed) image of mars. on the right about 5 mins with paint shop pro (which i just downloaded).
it took me about two hours of not knowing what i was doing, and experimenting with different settings in the cold, damp, and very dark skies of spruce knob in west virginia to get this shot.
imaging is a lot more involved than visual observing. my hat goes off to all those amatuers that capture truly spectacular images.
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