Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 8)

Hey, it’s Daily Kos, so here’s your saltshaker to go with it. Still, it’s really scary stuff:

Chinese Lose Faith in Dollar — take the time to read the posts after this entry; they’re all rather good.

Seymour Hersh: “We’ve Been Taken Over by a Cult”

Soldiers returning from Iraq have to pay for meals at Walter Reed

Failed Bush world leadership

Dollar Dump: Central Banks Shun US Assets

Here’s one specifically about Norquist.

I’m hesitant to yank my stocks, but I’m currently rethinking whether or not to put my tax return money into my IRA for my annual contribution as usual, or stuff it into my proverbial mattress.

Thoughts? Dan, Virus, Jason, you wanna weigh in on these?

Strange Bedfellows, indeed.

Via Tishalro, via Slate.

Hey, I’ll take an energy revolution darn near any way it comes. Growing and/or reprocessing our own oil can only benefit America; it’s not really isolationism, in this case — it’s self-sufficiency: the more of our own needs we can produce at home, the better off we’ll be. See this article where the Engineering students at U of M recycled some of the 11,000 gallons of waste fat produced by the dining halls each year — and turned it into biodiesel to run the busses that run in unending circles between central and north campuses.

To me, this epitomises “Conservatism”: It’s about conserving what you have so that you don’t have to buy new stuff. Being self-sufficient so you don’t have to be dependent on — or worse, beholden to — other people. Making do with what you have, and making what you have work for you. I was raised in a very conservative, self-sufficient household, and I simply cannot understand why Republicans have largely tossed this technology aside as happy-hippy crunchy-granola pie-in-the-sky spotted-owl claptrap. It’s not. It’s science, business and common sense all rolled into one.

It also astounds me how GM and Chrysler are still totally caught flatfooted on the whole hybrid thing. How ridiculous it is that we have to buy overseas to get an efficient car. I live in Michigan, home of the Motor City, and this depresses the everliving crap out of me. At least Ford is making some progress — the Ford Dealership where I bought my used VW was in a very, very red part of the state; very rural and very Christian, and not precisely the types you’d figure on being environmentalists… and yet all the guys in the Used Car Shack were really impressed by the new Hybrid Escape.

I’m still a little unsure about brand-new technology; never buy a car on its first model year and all that. Plus, the only Prius/Escape/Insight I could afford is one that’s 4-5 years old — which means those big ‘spensive battery packs are about to need replacing. That’s why I picked my bean-burner.

Also, for the record, the VeeDub starts like a champ in -10F weather. She doesn’t like it much, but she turns over on the first crank. Twenty seconds later and the idle’s straightened out and ready to go. That’s using b20; I can’t wait until the weather’s 40F overnight so I can run 100% biodiesel.

Oh, and the car’s name is “Silverbean.” I finally decided.

This is a personal, non-professional blog entry that pretty much sums up what I personally believe happened in Iraq. There were a zillion other reasons — including the PNAC’s desire to see the US as a kind of “benevolent” pseudo-empire, Halliburton wanted to make a crapload of money, and the self-admitted fact that Bush 43 wanted to avenge his Daddy’s almost-assassins. It must made “sense”.

For the record, I may be a pacifist, but I do believe that there are moments in history when one must take up arms against an enemy. I do not believe that the war in Iraq was one of those times.

For the record, I have no problem whatsoever with our servicemen and women; quite the opposite in fact. I have the greatest respect for anyone who is willing to lay down their life for their country, who is willing to make the greatest sacrifice of all. I have so much respect for these soldiers that I become morally enraged when I see people taking advantage of them: when a pack of chickenhawks throw our brightest and best, our youth, our armed services into the meatgrinder of war, taking literal hundreds of thousands of civilians with them, all for money. Not even for our continuing economic survival — just so the rich can get even richer, and so that we don’t actually have to do any belt-tightening — just so that we can continue to live our extravagant lifestyles, unfettered by things like, oh, I don’t know, humanity for our fellow man. This completely outrages me.

Also — does it bother anyone other than me to know that out of Bush’s entire warmongering cadre (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rove, Libbey, Bush) the only one to ever actually see combat is Powell?

Have I mentioned how much I love Alton Brown?

Alton’s reaction to Supersize Me:

“We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. We hand our lives over to big companies and then drag them to court when the deal goes bad. This is insanity.

Feed yourselves.

Feed your loved ones.

And for God’s sake feed your children.

Don’t trust anyone else to do it…not anyone. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out to dinner every now and then…that is after all one of the great joys of life…but it isn’t life itself and that’s what I’m talking about.

Is MacDonalds food bad for you? What do you think? Does that mean you shouldn’t eat it? No, it just means you shouldn’t live on it or anything else made by someone you wouldn’t hug. “

I got a new car! W00!

It’s really super nice. It’s by far and away the nicest car I’ve ever owned, and cost me more than the last three cars I’ve owned put together. Granted, that figure amounts to well under $10,000, but that’s not the point. I’ve always been of the beater-car mentality: buy some hooptie for $2000 in cash and drive it till the wheels fell off. This has played out with the other five cars I’ve owned, and the most I’ve ever paid for one was $3700 for this last Honda Civic.

It’s a 2001 VW Golf TDI, and I’m already in love with it. I got it for a song from a dealership in Charlotte, and I knew from the second I saw the ad that they had no idea what was parked in their lot. The bluebook for the car was $1500 more than their asking price, even with the 90K miles on the car. When I told them it got 50mpg, everyone in the showroom looked at me as though I were from Venus. Let me type that again, so no one misses it: This thing gets fifty miles to the gallon. Five-oh. I even got new brakes out of the deal. The salespeople were kind, prompt, professional and decidedly un-slimy, which made me very very happy. I was even able to put down 1/3 of the value as a down payment because I got such a nice asking price for the Civic. On Tuesday, I take it to the resident Kzoo VW Guru for a thorough onceover, and then I start my Grand Experiment: I’m gonna run this sucker on BioDiesel.

I had to get an older TDI because VW’s warranty won’t cover any damages created by BiodDiesel. There’s not likely to be any, but if I got some bad BioDiesel, the warranty wouldn’t cover the engine, as it’s not an “Approved fuel”. So why get a really expensive car? This one was worth the risk.

Dig this: My family are farmers. They grow soybeans. There’s a local gas station in Manchester that sells 100% BioDiesel (b100). I buy my fuel from them, I help support local farmers, cause less pollution, get fifty miles to the gallon and get to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Is there a downside to this?

I can’t find one, other than the fact that I’ll have to buy my fuel in advance and keep it in 5-gallon jugs till I can get back to Manchester for more. Sooner or later, with all the farmers around Kalamazoo, they’ll open up a b100 pump around here — right now the best they have is b20, which ain’t good enough for me, as it’s still 80% “DinoDiesel”.

So here’s to putting my money where my mouth is! I’m against the war, so I’m sending out a clear message: We can grow our own oil and reduce the need to kill people over resources. Down with big oil! Up with farmers!

Now if only American car companies would build a car as awesome as the VW TDI. It sucks that I had to buy a foreign car to get one that works this good and gets mileage this good, but hey, that’s capitalism for you.I ain’t buyin’ an American car until the Big 3 can make one as good as a VW or a Honda. The minute they do, I’m on it like… um… white on rice.

On to the pictures!

Dude, this car is spotless inside. Looks like it just rolled off the factory floor. And the instrument panel lights up blue.

Here’s some leftover pictures from the day after Christmas. Our niece Katie has very fine hair, and the snowy winter day was very dry. By the end of the day, we were wondering if we could stick Katie to the ceiling if we rubbed her with the couch cushions.

(“Shock-headed Peter”, or Struwwelpeter, is an infamous German book of cautionary tales for bad, bad children, not unlike the Gashlycrumb Tinies. It was recently made into a highly successful — and pleasantly disturbing — stage production.)

Donations in Will’s honor may be made to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund or the American Cancer Society.

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”.