King Fahd of Saudi Arabia Clinically Dead?

So says this story

Whee! It's just getting more fun in the middle east!

Brilliance from Samizdata

Replace House of Commons with Congress, this quote can apply to US...

DeLay is evil!!

He smoked a Cuban cigar in Jerusalem, which according to this Time article is against the law. Makes me a lawbreaker, too, I guess, since I've smoked Cubans while in Tokyo.

Oh..and on the Ethics Committee thing - the Dems are damn scared of the can of worms that they've opened with this rule change that allows the ethics investigation of DeLay to continue. Nancy Pelosi (minority whip) has some problems, along with Bob Filner (from California). Apparently Bob's wife's company got $150K for consulting on Filner's re-election campaigns.

Think twice about traveling to Australia

A baggage handler might put marijuana in your suitcase for you, which isn't so hot, especially if you are flying to a place that has the death penalty for transporting drugs.

Thomas PM Barnett's book

Thomas PM Barnett, author of the Pentagon's New Map (see the link on the side), has his new book, Blueprint for Action on pre-sale at Amazon. I've already clicked on the "Pre-order this item today" button.

Hate the UN Yet?

No? Ok....now throwthis onto the pile of reasons to hate the UN. Or just flat out get rid of it....

Clash breaks out in Beiruit

This blog is covering the changes in Beiruit. A clash between demonstrators and the military/police broke out after a minor skirmish between a demonstrator and a bodyguard for one of the Lebanese MPs.

The iPod sucks

Virginia Postrel, author of "The Future and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style" blogs on the problems with the iPod.

Her stuff is good reading...her blog and books, that is.

American Taliban in Alabama

What's next, book burnings? It's insanity like this that will cost the Republicans the election in 06 and 2008. The more mainstream people that vote Republican for a variety of reasons won't want to keep assholes like this in power.

WWE mixes it up with kickboxer

This story has a WWE star mixing it up with a kickboxer in a British hotel. WWE wins.

Wierd Music Tastes

Ok, my wacky music tastes are nothing new. I like stuff from jazz (guys like Pat Metheny, Art Blakey, MJQ) to speed metal, to rock, whatever else...but..
Last week I was flippin thru the channels and was watching CMT's Top 20 Country Music Bandsof all time. I recognized a bunch of the bands, even though I'm not a real country nut. (note that the list on the website has 18, they left 2 off, I have no idea why). Anyway, I rediscovered bluegrass, which I kind of liked anyway. So, I bought the latest CD from the Del Mccoury Band (new bluegrass) and one from Flatt & Scruggs, the band that did the theme song (actually, the song was the origin for the show) of the Beverly Hillbillies and they did the theme for Petticoat Junction.

I dig the CDs. Man, I'm strange.

John Wayne

Not only did John Wayne play baddasses in the movies, he was one in real life


The evening before a shoot he was trying to get some sleep in a Las Vegas hotel. The suite directly below his was that of Frank Sinatra (never a good friend of Wayne), who was having a party. The noise kept Wayne awake, and each time he made a complaining phone call it quieted temporarily but each time eventually grew louder. Wayne at last appeared at Sinatra's door and told Frank to stop the noise. A Sinatra bodyguard of Wayne's size approached saying, "Nobody talks to Mr. Sinatra that way." Wayne looked at the man, turned as though to leave, then backhanded the bodyguard, who fell to the floor, where Wayne knocked him out by crashing a chair on top of him. The party noise stopped.

The Pasty Cam

The Pasty Cam from Pasty Central in dah UP has views of the UP going back a couple of years. The link goes to this week's pics from the UP.

I'm an Arbitron house now

I'll be doing the Arbitron log book for radio listening soon (as soon as they get it to me). Since I only really listen to the radio on the way to & from work, they won't get much data from me...or is that useful to them?

The Beeb objective?

Think again. Ah well, at least in the US, all of our media is just bent one way or the other without our government extracting a tax of UKP140 per TV set to pay for it.

Stars are stupid

It takes no brains to recite some insipid lines in front of a camera. Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz visit places with infant mortality rates 15x that of the US's and proclaim that they "like it".
story here.

Better to be silent and let the world think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt

Reason Magazine has a story and then the commentary ridicules these celebs mercilessly.

Providence, RI gets a sub

Now, Providence, RI is getting a Juliette class sub. story here.

I guess when Kruschev said "We will bury you" he meant that we'd be buried in Soviet submarine museums.

The Soviets come to San Diego

A cold war-era Soviet Foxtrot class submarine has found its way to the San Diego Maritime museum. It'll be open Memorial Day weekend. Story here

Happy Birthday Lenin

Oh yeah, it's earth day, too. Coincidence? I think not.

Iran and freedom of the press

Iran shuts down the Tehran branch of Al-Jazeera after they cover clashes between ethnic Arabs and Iranian security forces. There's 2 interesting things in this:
1: Al-Jazeera reporting the truth in Iran?? (enough so to get shutdown)
2: There are clashes going on in Iran where people are dying.

Riding coasters in Vegas

I don't ride rollercoasters anymore, but this story about a stuck coaster in Vegas at the Strat is just hilarious. The payoff is the last paragraph.

OMFG Bread is teh evil!!111!!!

More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

This and more shocking stats on bread and it's users.

It's time to take action against bread!

Religious nutjobs around the world

Wow...the American Taliban is agreeing with other religious nutjobs on fighting a vaccine for cervical cancer

Just wow.

The USPS and identity theft

This is the second mail carrier arrested in San Diego for mail theft this year (for purposes of identity theft). If we can't trust the post office to mail our credit cards to us....who can we trust now?

"Are you going to shoot me now?" BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

A pacifist asked that question during a home invasion robbery. The answer came from the barrel of a gun

Why GM is in the tank

Ignoring the issue of them having way too many American brands (Buick, Pontiac, Chevy, GMC, and probably others that I'm forgetting), they are the kiss of death. Here's a conversation I overheard on Friday at a restaurant, the lady is L, her companion is C (they were at a table of 6 or 7 people).
L: I drove a Saab today, I really liked it!
C: Really?
L: Yes, I did. But they are General Motors, aren't they?
C: Yup.
L: I guess it's OK, though, because Saab, is like, different people, right?

So, GM has made Saab guilty by association. Saab has always had a rep for building great cars (though a bit quirky).

While I was in Seattle seeing Noreen, I had a Pontiac Grand Prix as my rental car. It was an OK car, but nothing I'd get excited about. If a buyer has $25K to buy a new car, which one do you think they will buy?
1: Pontiac Grand Prix, with GM's reputation for reliability issues, horrid re-sale value, etc.
2: Honda Accord. Honda has a great reputation for reliability and resale value.
3: Toyota Camry. See Honda's comments.

All 3 are about the same size and perform more or less the same. If you go berzerk on the Honda Accord and get the top of the line model with a 3.0L V-6 (the GP has a 3.8L V6), you get the same gas mileage (21/30) and all of the goodies, you're at 29K.
(And for this discussion, we're only talking new cars at the $25K price-point. Add in CPO cars from BMW, Benz, Inifniti and Lexus and the Pontiac GP shrinks into the distance as a car purchased for rentalcar fleets)

The excitement 2

The police were still at my complex at 6:30 am taking measurements!

Noreen is in Cuba

She just called me (as in 10 min ago) from Cuba. She's there now, doing a little bit more training. Gitmo's time is currently the same as EDT - (so if it's 5AM in San Diego, it's 8am in Gitmo), but they don't fall back for daylight savings time. They flew on a charter flight to Florida where they stopped briefly for gas and a crew change then down to Gitmo. She's in temporary housing right now and it's a rathole.

I missed the excitement

I came home around 9:15 or so to find the road that I take (Euclid) towards my complex blocked off by a couple of cop cars. I saw that a road sign was knocked down in the intersection and figured it was a bad accident. I cut through a strip mall to get to the street my gate is on and there were 5 or 6 more cop cars there. As I came into the complex, an ambulance and fire truck passed me and I saw about 5 more cop cars in the complex. It turns out that there was a pursuit that ended on a street next to our complex. The guy bailed out and ran up a hill, jumped the fence into our complex and was caught near the pool. I missed it by about 10 min or so, my neighbors said.

What I gathered was mostly correct! Though I didn't know about the shooting part. The Urinal-Buffoon has the story.

McDonald's in Hong Kong

In honor of McD's 50th, I present to you the prices for McD's combos in Hong Kong

The BigMac meal is HK$22 - US$2.81
(US$1=HK$7.80)

All your currency conversion needs here

I remember being astounded at how cheap McD's was in Hong Kong (and food, overall). The most expensive places (excluding high end) were places that were American or British themed pubs/bars.

American Taliban hates a mountain name

The right wing nutjobs are at it again, this time, one of their numbers has their panties in a bundle over Mt Diablo, or rather, the name.

My 2nd favorite character from "Homicide"

My 2nd fav. character from the show Homicide, Det. John Munch played stunningly by Richard Belzer, is in his sixth show tonight!

My fav. character is Det. Frank Pembelton.

Random facts

Total Worldwide banana production: 65 MILLION TONS (only about 20% of that number is exports - Brazil and India barely factor into banana exports and Uganda's total banana production is consumed internally.
American consumption of bananas: 3.8 million tons
American Per Capita consumption: nearly 26lb
World wide per capita consumption: 20 lb

(that's a lot of bananas!)

I only mention this wackiness because Good Eats on FoodTV was on "bananas" and I thought that one of their numbers on banana stats was high...it was. (they claimed that Americans consume 75lb/yr, which seemed high)

Who cares more?

2 choices:
1: My employer. Today, I got in the mail, a generic-as-all-hell "Dear Fellow Employee...thank you for 5 years service" bla bla bla.
2: Narita Airport (in Japan). Today, I got in the mail, an envelope filled with random gifts (and a generic thank you letter) for doing a survey. It had some nice postcards, a little box of crayons, Narita Airport badge holder (neck cord), Narita Airport pen, and a decent sized folding, nylon Narita Airport shopping bag.

Americans won't take much of the American Taliban

he decline of the Left as a political force in America coincided precisely with its shift from a politics of individual freedom to that of tut-tutting politically-correct nanny-statism. I suspect that if the religious Right decides to emulate the Left in this regard, its influence will evaporate in similar fashion.

A great article from Glenn Harlan, one of the guys I like to read.

Hate the UN Yet?

No? OK, how about a resolution that calls for combating the defamation of Islam. I'd say that the Muslims themselves (like the Saudis and the Palestinians) are doing a damn fine job of it on their own.

Screw the UN.

Die-in at Oho Univ.

1 Marine vs 20 protestors. Guess who wins?

Why cars are built in Ontario

This Newsweek story says why more cars are built in Ontario than in Michigan:

An American worker costs them more than $6,500 in health care per year. In Canada, which has a government-funded and -run health-care system, the cost to the employer per worker is just $800.

This ignores the fact that workers in Ontario pay insanely high taxes and that the auto companies negotiated themselves into this blackhole with the unions, just like they did with their pension issues.

A stop for your next Vegas trip

Learn about the Nevada Test Site where they exploded nukes!

Death to the DVD/CD sales model!

In three clicks, Rhapsody may have enticed a Britney Spears fan to try an album that can hardly be found in a record store.

Instead of fighting the trend, the entertainment companies need to get behind it and harness it. The story of the long tail. Nah...that would make sense.

No, I didn't feel it

We had a 3.9 quake at 4am today about 18-20mi from home. I didn't feel it and I don't remember the cats going nuts, either.

Is it worth it to screw with the customer?

Not with the power of the internet and a popular, well-read website. Check out Maddox's Rant on Orbitz. At the bottom, his hit counter shows well over 800,000 hits on this page.

PS: I use cheaptickets.com and United's website for doing travel booking.

The Man is keepin a brutha down

Or is it just steroids? We report...you decide

Sheesh

Lefty loony-ness

Sweet Jesus, the lefty nutjobs in Berkely are going to allow......

firefighters to change lightbulbs in the firehouse

What is the world coming to?
story

This is only worthy of mention because there was actually a rule that they couldn't do it in the first place, apparently. They were probably protecting the jobs of the union thugs in the facilities dept. by not allowing it in the first place.

Some are more equal than others

A unversity that is trying to ban an "affirmative action" bake sale let a "pay equity" bake sale run by a feminist organization take place. Isn't political correctness fun?

Tom Delay in deep doodoo

I'm too lazy to link all of the various stories that will come out tomorrow on Tom Delay, one of the head Republican American Taliban, but it warms my heart to see this turd in deep doodoo. Can a turd be in deep doodoo?

The UN

Remind me why we trust the UN when it comes to human rights when 6 of the countries on the UNHRC are listed as human rights violators as listed by the UN.

USS North Carolina

This is the war diary from the USS North Carolina, starting from May 42 to the end of the war. It's a long read, some of it kind of tedious, but includes nifty gems like this from 18Dec44:
1550 Typhoon center passed 30NM northeast of ship. Winds exceeding 100kts, seas 70-feet. Destroyers SPENCE, MONAGHAN and HULL lost during storm and seven other ships heavily damaged

Breakfast and getting home

Yesterday I decided I wanted a big breakfast (I'd been eating a bagel at a coffee shop in downtown Tacoma), so I went down to a Denny's knockoff. The restaurant was 2/3 full, and I was seated quickly. And then I sat and waited, reading my paper. And waited. I decided that I was going to wait about another minute before I left and like magic, someone showed up to take my bring me coffee. My waitress showed up a minute or 2 later to take my order. And I waited. And I waited some more. After about 15-20 min, I gave up and tossed $2 on the table to cover my coffee and left. Then I went to IHOP and the knucklehead kid at the podium couldn't even spell Andrew and told me it would be 15 min before I got seated. I knew he was full was of crap, so I left and went to Denny's.

So, while I was waiting for my flight in Seattle (to LAX), they called my name. I figured I was getting bumped since it was obvious the flight was full. Well, I got bumped to 1st class! This time, first class was actually worth something. Besides the drinks being served in real glasses, they served warm mixed nuts (in little china dishes). And we got lunch, real food, served on real china. 9did I mention that they came around and put down cloth napkins as mini-tablecloths for the our tray table?) The choices were turkey cobb salad and a chicken wrap, I had the chicken wrap and it was good. Then, after they'd picked up the trays, they came around with...warm cookies and milk. Yes, the cookies were on china plates and the milk was in glasses. The cookie was great.
My flight from LAX to San Diego was delayed about 35min. But, I'm home.

Tacoma 2

I forgot to post that I went to the Washington St. Historical museum yesterday. It was pretty cool and was overrun with schoolkids. I thought about buying a blanket
(Indian pattern), they were all by Pendleton - the size I would have purchased was $200, so I didn't buy it.

Not too much going on today, though we'll probably go see the flick Sin City tonite.

Tacoma

I walked around Tacoma a little bit yesterday. I noticed that they'd specifically preserved some buildings...

Today, I walked more and got a gander at how much they have done to preserve & resuse the buildings they have. For example, the old Union Station is now the US Federal Courthouse. (I didn't go inside). Univ of Washington-Tacoma has taken over a bunch of old buildings in what was the old railyards. They have even preserved the names of the buildings instead of naming them after some irrelevant person - so, one building is the West Coast Grocery Co bldg. It's very cool. I had lunch at a brewery restaurant (Hanson), named after the furniture company that appears to have been in the building when it was built (I guess in the early 1900s, maybe as late as 1920). The floor is old wood, the roof beams are all wood 2x12s and there are these huge (24x24?) wood pillars. They make some great beer in there too :)

Goin out tonite with Noreen's grandparents again.

That's it from here!