Author: vogelein (Page 18 of 19)

So some dude over at the Ayn Rand Institute is claiming that the US should not help tsunami victims. Now I’m all for bootstrapping, and not taking or giving unnecessary charity, because I agree, it does weaken a person’s character and ability to receive everything in their lives without having to work for it.

But Lord God Almighty, I sure hope that if, in the course of twenty minutes, my house, livelihood, children and posessions were entirely obliterated, someone would at least give me food to eat and clothes to wear and possibly a loan to rebuild my house until I could get on my feet.

I can usually appreciate the objectivist viewpoint, but to quote my buddy Becky, this guy is a bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling.

Y’know, I keep hearing people say that they read my blog frequently, but I get about one comment every two weeks. Not that that’s a bad thing; it keeps me from having to wade through and delete spam. The bad news is that I don’t know who’s reading.

Lurkers, sound off, wouldja?

So there’s this underground DJ practice called “Mashups” wherein you take two songs — or three or four or six — and smash them all together to make a new song. Not only does it work, it often works so well that you go “Holy crap! Why haven’t those songs always been fused together?”

Here are some of my favorite Mashup links:

Boston Mash-up Project

DJ Earworm (click through all the Mashup links for some real treats)

CCC’s Mashups Galore — listen to the Radio CCC — it’s a 40-minute masterpiece and a wonder to behold. The “Isn’t She Lovely” vs “The Way You Make Me Feel” bit is particularly inspired.

Owner of a Lovely Butt – Yes meets Sir Mix A Lot

I have to say that “Let Jolene Enjoy the Music in Silence” is my favorite, but “Owner of a Lovely Butt” is completely inspired.

Know of any other good mashups? Post ’em here. I’m looking for esoteric, not modern — the weirder the better, provided it works — like Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner smashed with Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations”, or Ben E King’s “Stand by me” fused with the Police’s “Every Breath You Take”.

Paul announced to me last night that we’re debt free.

Woo Hoo!

Well, except for the mortgage. But, well, you know. We only have one mortgage, and it’s small. And we’re on the 13-month plan, and we tuck a little extra in each check. So we’ll probably finish way early anyways.

And not to be one to rest on my laurels, I just went out today to look for a new-to-me car. I found one that’s an amazing deal, just plain amazing. I’ve already got a buyer lined up for my car, which means the transaction itself should be pretty small.

The car’s in that zone where everything is working really well, but the car is 14 years old. So — sell it while everything still works and get a decent amount for it, or wait until the transmission konks out or the steering gives out or the head gasket fails and I get stuck with the choice of paying a couple thousand in repairs or starting over from scratch. It’s a proactive move — I hate spending money on cars, but this is forestalling disaster of sorts.

But, like I said. We’re debt free. Wedding’s paid off, no more credit cards, and for the moment, we both own our cars. Wa – diddly – hoo.

Happy new year to you all, and I hope that 2005 is better for all of y’all than this year’s been.

Much love.

So, the Bush Administration’s initial pledge to the Tsunami Relief fund was $15 million. After some arm-twisting and “public embarrassment” from the UN, the number was ratcheted up to a whopping $35 million, with promises that the figure marked “only the beginning” of US aid, though no firm amount was disclosed. Just to put this into perspective, we spend $35 million in a day or two over in Iraq, blowing up people. In reference to the amount, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said, “We just spent it… We’ll be talking to the (White House) budget office … (about) what to do at this point.”

Also, we’re about to head into an inauguration, the festivities for which are rumored to cost $40 million.

Let me rephrase all this for clarity’s sake: The Bush Administration’s idea of a pledge to aid a tragedy that left five million homeless and well over a hundred thousand dead is five million dollars less than what it’s going to spend on a self-congratulatory party.

Think how much armor that $40 million could buy our troops. Think what else it could be spent on.

It should also be noted that Roosevelt, during WW2, took great pains to ensure that his inagurations should be understated affairs, because the country was at war, and the troops needed the money more than he needed a big party.

Oh, and for the first 96 hours after the tragedy, Bush himself made no public statement, and was reported to be “riding his bike and clearing brush” at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Priorities, indeed.

Okay, people. Holiday’s over, reality’s back, and boy is she pissed.

Here are some excellent places to donate some money to the three or four million people who just got the Christmas gift of homelessness and loss of livelihood and family members:

Oxfam

Red Cross, by way of Amazon.com

Doctors without Borders / Medicines sans Frontiers

UN World Food Programme

World Health Organization (WHO)

UNICEF

Donate like you’d want others to give to you if your house burned down and took your family with it. There are eighty thousand dead, with the toll liable to rise. The worlds’ nations probably won’t be able to foot the bill for this, and private donations are going to need to make up the loss.

Please give.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22aid.html

In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.

With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.

As a result, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves through improvements in farming, education and health.

More, much more, at the link. Millions of hungry people around the world, in places like Malawi and Tadjikistan, will be affected by this.

Merry Christmas, from the Bush Administration.

I’m trying to steer my life toward more organic foods, and to stop giving my money to big food conglomerates — tobacco companies seem to own everything these days, from Grape-nuts to Jif peanut butter and Ritz crackers!

I’ve been doing some research, and by happy accident, came across King Arthur Flour, available in most grocery stores. The flour’s wonderful (Did all of my Christmas baking with it and had great results), the company is employee-owned and operated, and here’s a quote from the company regarding Genetically Modified Wheat:

November 2003 — “With the many unknown factors surrounding GMO wheat, including potential effect on the global food chain, financial impact on the United States farmers and consumers, impact on the global food chain, and other concerns; and based on input from our customers and employees, King Arthur flour does not support the introduction of GMO wheat, nor its use in King Arthur flours… Using GMO wheat as the basis for King Arthur Flours would run counter to our centuries-old commitment to natural quality, and thus we don’t endorse that option.” — King Arthur Flour, company position statement.

So there ya go. King Arthur Flour. Paul razzed me (yeah, I deserve it) about bringing home food with a knight and horsie on the front, but hey, it works.

EDIT: From K in CT:

Have you requested their catalogue yet? Lots of fun baking things

and recipes. They have some really good cookbooks too.

A word to the wise-their all purpose flour is a “harder” flour than

most. That is it has a higher protein and therefore gluten content,

so if you are making cakes or pastries, a cake flour is generally

better. We’ve used KA for years. If you need to do a lot of baking

at some point, it may be useful to know that Costco carries large

bags of KA all purpose.

Until I can get round to revamping my self-publishers page, here’s a link I don’t want to lose:

John Scalzi’s Utterly Useless Writing Advice

If you are thinking of doing any writing — comic, freelance, journalistic or otherwise, please read this.

Curse you, Mythbusters. Now I have two reasons to watch teevee. Thank goodness Paul taught me how to program the vcr. Now I can see two hours a week of pleasantly concentrated, geek-infested insanity and not have to spin ’round the channels for twenty minutes just looking for something good enough to waste twenty minutes watching.

If only the blasted season one DVDs weren’t the exhorbitant price of $99.