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November 30, 2009
Obama's House of Cards
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/11/30/1804/
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 30, 2009 at 5:18 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
7 stories Obama doesn't want told
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4486A8EE-18FE-70B2-A8143B2A4DFA6780
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 30, 2009 at 4:43 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
There's a Czar for that
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 30, 2009 at 1:22 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Men and women 'respond differently to danger'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8380429.stm
Men and women may respond differently to danger, a brain scan study suggests.
Men showed activity in areas which dealt with what action they should take to avoid or confront danger.
But the study, presented to the Radiological Society of North America, found more activity in the emotional centres of women's brains.
In essence, activity in this area primes the body to either run from danger, or confront it head on - the so-called "fight or flight response".
Researcher Dr Andrzej Urbanik said: "This might signal that when confronted with dangerous situations, men are more likely than women to take action."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 30, 2009 at 12:42 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Make her feel special this Christmas
Make the woman in your life feel special this year with a rotary clothesline. See, the nice thing about the rotating clothes line is that she doesn't have to carry the basket around to hang up the clothes. She can stand in one place and turn it. So, you know she's going to be happy when she spies this jewel under the tree. At least, that's what Hillier thinks.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 30, 2009 at 10:51 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 29, 2009
Gore Flees in Panic from Chicago Book Signing
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/12520
November 25, 2009 (LPAC)--Not since Henry Kissinger fled a team of LaRouche organizers, in the back of a delivery truck in New York City's Central Park in the early 1980s, has an obese fascist moved so fast to escape an angry crowd, as Al Gore did today in Chicago. Appearing at a bookstore in the downtown Loop, Gore was confronted by a team of demonstrators from a grass roots group called "We Are Change," as he was signing his latest fascist screed on the global warming swindle. Gore bolted from the bookstore, raced down an alley, jumped into a waiting car, and tried to speed off, with protesters chasing after him and banging on the car. Midwest LYM organizers, who were also on the scene to confront the global warming swindler, provided an eyewitness account of Fat Albert's flight of fear.
Make no mistake about it. This little encounter is typical of the kinds of things going on all over the country, as the fascists who brought you the near-destruction of the United States and an onrushing global Dark Age, are no longer walking the streets, smug in the belief that they are literally getting away with murder. The mass strike dynamic is playing out in thousands of ways, every day, and the recent revelations about the "smoking gun" emails from the East Anglia University global warming propaganda center, have made Al Gore's life a little more miserable.
As Percy Shelley wrote in "The Mask of Anarchy," "We are many, they are few."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 29, 2009 at 9:15 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Climategate: Time to postpone Copenhagen
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/11/28/climategate-time-to-postpone-copenhagen/
Things are "starting to unravel at the AGW seams," because, apparently, the "dog ate the homework" - more specifically the temperature data on which the whole global warming "can of worms" depends. Yes, three clichés in one sentence, yet somehow apropos for this unraveling fiasco that every day becomes more eye-rolling. Today's unraveling - intentionally saved, I am assuming, for the weekend - comes from the Timesonline:
"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based."
"It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 29, 2009 at 1:42 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 27, 2009
Man builds suit with wheels and goes down a highway at 60mph
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 27, 2009 at 10:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Happy Eid al-Adha!
Well, it looks like Best Buy got caught with their pants down. They refuse to print the words "Merry Christmas" and instead go with the generic "Happy Holidays", because they basically hate Christianity. But when the Muslims come to town, well it's all "Happy Eid al-Adha!"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 27, 2009 at 10:17 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Glimpse of Obamacare
If you want to know what Obamacare will be like, you don't have to look far:
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 27, 2009 at 12:03 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 26, 2009
Roving Black Gangs Attacking White People in Denver
Well, here's something you won't see on the national news because it doesn't fit into the stereotype that the media likes to portray. Roving gangs of blacks are attacking whites in Denver, specifically calling them out and attacking them, beating them until they broke their eye sockets. The police, of course, didn't even bother to tell white people what was going on, because it wasn't politically correct, of course. To Serve and Protect?
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2009 at 11:37 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Calcio Storico
Calcio Storico is a game they've played in Florence, Italy since the sixteenteenth century. Basically, there aren't a lot of rules. Pretty much "smear the queer with the ball" which is what we used to play a lot of the time when we were bored.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2009 at 10:43 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
How to forge a concensus
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574559630382048494.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
...the furor over these documents[recently released private documents from UEA CRU] is not about tone, colloquialisms or even whether climatologists are nice people in private. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at in the first place, and how even now a single view is being enforced. In short, the impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2009 at 10:05 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
New Zealand's NIWA accused of CRU-style temperature faking
The New Zealand Government's chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn't there.
The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain's CRU climate research centre.
In New Zealand's case, the figures published on NIWA's [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:
The caption to the photo on the NiWA site reads: From NIWA's web site -- Figure 7: Mean annual temperature over New Zealand, from 1853 to 2008 inclusive, based on between 2 (from 1853) and 7 (from 1908) long-term station records. The blue and red bars show annual differences from the 1971 - 2000 average, the solid black line is a smoothed time series, and the dotted [straight] line is the linear trend over 1909 to 2008 (0.92°C/100 years).
But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2009 at 8:47 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
You've Won a New "Toy Yoda"!
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 26, 2009 at 7:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 25, 2009
Tom's Rhinoplasty - South Park: Episode 12, Year 1998
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103592
I was watching a South Park episode I recorded, and I thought it was pretty funny. Mr. Garrison was going to get a nose job and the doctor warned him as follows:
Tom: All righty then. Now I must warn you, Mr. Garrison, that there are risks. You could wind up a hideous, foul shadow of a creature, so terrifyingly ugly that you are forced to live in the sewers, only emerging at nighttime for scraps of food.
Mr. Garrison: I can live with that. [edit]
Tom: All righty then. Let's get started
After the surgery:
Tom: Mr Garrison. Mr Garrison.
Mr. Garrison: Where. Where am I?
Tom: The operation is over, Mr. Garrison.
Mr. Garrison: I...I feel weak. How do I look?
Tom:You look great.
Mr. Garrison: I feel kinda nauseous.
Tom: Yes, well that's to be expected. We did some major reconstruction, sawed through some bone, snapped some cartilage, all the blood and mucus just the sound of bone and sinew coming apart. [makes disgusting noises of bone and blood]
Mr. Garrison: Arrgh!
Tom: By the way, did you ever see that movie Contact?
Mr. Garrison: [throws up] Oh stop! That movie was terrible!
Tom: Well I'm sorry, Mr. Garrison. Why don't you get some rest? I'll check on you a little later.
Mr. Garrison: Waited through that entire movie to see the alien and it was her goddamn father!
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 25, 2009 at 10:03 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Happy Thanksgiving
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 25, 2009 at 12:29 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.
This is hilarious. I doubt that it's real, but it is funny. http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p.html
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 25, 2009 at 11:45 AM : Comments (2) | Permalink
November 24, 2009
Insane Optical Illusion
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 24, 2009 at 8:49 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
2009 Federal Budget Surplus/Deficit
Hope and Change!
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 24, 2009 at 4:38 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Climategate: 'They Are Criminals'
This is what they did -- these climate "scientists" on whose unsupported word the world's classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the "global warming" fraud -- for fraud is what we now know it to be -- tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world's four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant "global warming" for 15 years -- and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters -- for fraudsters are what we now know them to be -- have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset -- the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.
Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and "global warming" profiteers -- for that is what they are -- have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists -- they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 24, 2009 at 11:59 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 23, 2009
Acorn Fills a Dumpster
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/23/breaking-san-diego-acorn-document-dump-scandal/
On October 1st, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that an investigation had been opened into ACORN's activities in California, resulting from undercover videos showing employees seemingly offering to assist the undercover film makers with human smuggling, child prostitution and even tax advice to boot.
Shockingly, we now learn that the ACORN office in National City (San Diego County) engaged in a massive document dump on the evening of October 9th, containing thousands upon thousands of sensitive documents, just days prior to the Attorney General's visit.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 23, 2009 at 6:17 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
WSJ Pictures of the Week
http://blogs.wsj.com/photojournal/2009/11/20/pictures-of-the-week-nov-14-20/
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 23, 2009 at 6:12 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662822,00.html
When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 23, 2009 at 6:04 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/national_geographics_internati.html
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 23, 2009 at 3:47 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 22, 2009
Exhausting the World's Oil Supplies
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112002619.html
Since [1901], America has exhausted its hydrocarbon supplies. Repeatedly.
In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said that U.S. oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. In 1939, the Interior Department said that the world had 13 years' worth of petroleum reserves. Then a global war was fought, and the postwar boom was fueled. In 1951 Interior reported that the world had . . . 13 years of reserves. In 1970, the world's proven oil reserves were an estimated 612 billion barrels. By 2006, more than 767 billion barrels had been pumped, and proven reserves were 1.2 trillion barrels. In 1977, scold in chief Jimmy Carter predicted that mankind "could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade." Since then the world has consumed three times more oil than was then in the world's proven reserves.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 10:22 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Planet 51
I took Jen and Allie to see the movie Planet 51 today. It was pretty intensely lame. Just watered-down milquetoast xenophobic "can't we all get along" drivel. Actually, Hollywood must love producing movies of aliens with computer animation. It allows them to show the raceless future that they dream of where everyone's some color of chocolate and we're all holding hands and singing "kumbaya". Half of the aliens had dread-locks and big lips, so they're not missing a single chance to show you what they want your future to look like. I have to quit going to these movies.
Plus the animation was done by the Spanish firm Ilion Animation, not Pixar, and it shows.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 9:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
MSNBC Turns on Obama
Even the pinko commie Chris Mathews at MSNBC has turned on Obama, comparing the failed current president to uber-failure former human-being Jimmy Carter. Ha ha ha. Now if we can just find our new Ronald Reagan.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 9:54 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Retired Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball on the hacked CRU emails
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/0000000000000535
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 9:30 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
And guess what this liberal will be all about? Socializing...
Maxine Waters (D-umb@ss-California) raises the age-old scepter of nationalizing everything that her communist party hasn't nationalized yet.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 7:26 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Obama/China Skit from SNL
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/china-cold-open/1178451/
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 22, 2009 at 10:01 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 21, 2009
Burkha Barbie
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2009 at 7:41 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Your New Overlords - Welcome Them
I got to be honest with you. When I see this thing, I get the feeling that, when the sh1t hits the fan, this things not gonna be on my side. I'm going to aim for the knees.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2009 at 6:32 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
Who is FOIA?
I've been following with glee the mayhem unleashed by the seemingly innocuous act of posting 63 Megs of emails and documents that the Global Warming Fanatics didn't want us to see. The post was made under the generic/anonymous name of "FOIA" (Freedom of Information Act), at almost the same time that Steve McIntyre's appeal for his FOIA Request was settled unfavorably. Someone wanted the truth to get out.
Currently, I've seen a lot of talk about the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) was hacked. Although this is possible, the more probable scenario is that this was posted by someone inside the organization in the IT department. You can bet your sweet @ss that the CRU at UEA is going to be filing suit in federal courts (in the U.S. and the U.K.) to get access to the web server logs showing the IP address that the post came from, although I think it's a fairly safe bet that, whoever posted this would be smart enough to go through several proxies to make sure they're pretty much untraceable.
The reason I think it's an inside person as opposed to a hacker is that, plain and simple,it's more likely to have been an inside person. Consider the following - every organization has to have an IT department, it's a necessary evil. So, you have a group of people that run your email server, and your network. This is not one or two people. My guess is we're talking about a fairly large IT staff. It's public sector, after all. So, I'm guessing that there's probably at least 30 people inside the org that have acess to all network files and emails. Any of these people could easily take out 60 megs of data on a thumb drive. They could easily take out 30 gigs of data out the door on a CF card. Then, you run some software to spoof your Mac Address and go war driving until you fine an open Linksys network with no WEP/WPA. Some noob that broadcasts the default LINKSYS SSID with no encryption and no password required. Then, you daisy chain about six proxy servers together behind PimpMyIP and post the files anonymously.
This is a fairly simple scenario. The scenario that's much less likely is what they're all claiming...that they were hacked. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it's much less likely. The reason is that the hackers really have no idea what data is inside of that CRU EAU organization. So, they'd have to hack in, hoping to find something, find it all, get out, and not leave any tracks. And, all of this happened within a day or so of the results of the FOIA appeal being denied. It's just not that likely, IMHO.
Whereas, someone on the inside would have seen the emails over the years. Would have been smouldering over the flagrant violations of ethics. Would have had a front-row seat to watch the devout followers of Global Warming religion. And then, when the FOIA appeal was denied, all they had to do was walk out with a CF card. (They could have easily opened a VPN over an RDP tunnel and uploaded them from within the ogranization, but I doubt they would have done this just to be belt-and-suspenders safe.) The best way is to copy them onto a CF card and walk out the door. There can be no way of tracing that unless you catch them with the CF card in their hands and take it away from them and read it. Short of this, there's no way to track it. Period. End of story.
Update: This guy appears to agree with me that the anonymous FOIA is an insider at CRU.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2009 at 3:48 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Mike's Nature Trick
Oh, this just keeps getting better. The Global Alarmists are hating life now. Their big well constructed lie is getting the public vetting it always deserved but never received. I haven't been this happy since my old boss Don Jenkins got arrested from soliciting a 14 year old boy for sex in a motel room.
Phil Jones [P.Jones@uea.ac.uk] says:
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline".
Climate Audit has a fairly detailed explanation of Mike's Nature Trick. Guffaw!
The Climate Audit Mirror site (set up because the original Climate Audit site is just getting slammed).
Apparently, Steve McIntyre had filed a Freedom of Information Request to see the "current station data" from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He was turned down and appealed the decision in late July, 2009. On Nov 18, 2009 he received a a letter from Jonathan Colam-French, Director of Information Services of at the University of East Anglia (UEA) turning down his appeal. The next day, the mysterious post appeared with links to FOIA.zip file with about 63 Megs of data. Oh heads are gonna roll on this one, baby!
Here's a link to
Lots more information at the following links:
Jeff Id: The Air Vent
Steve McIntyre: Climate Audit
Steve McIntyre: Climate Audit (Wordpress Mirror Site)
Anthony Watts: Watts Up With That?
Update: The emails are posted here in a searchable format.
Continue reading "Mike's Nature Trick"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2009 at 11:24 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Tax Cheat Geithner Urged to Step Down During House Hearing
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2009 at 1:33 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 20, 2009
Somebody Pinch Me...
Well, it looks like the chickens have finally come home to roost. In case you missed it, someone hacked into Britain's Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The hacker copied thousands of emails and documents and then posted it all on a Russian server. (You can download the files for yourself from this link.)
This preface was sent by the hacker on 17 November to various sites [from CA]:
"We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.
This is a limited time offer, download now:"
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fftp.tomcity.ru%2Fincoming%2Ffree%2FFOI2009.zip
The emails and documents are proving what most rational people already knew - namely that global warming is a fraud - a hoax perpetrated on everyone dumb enough to listen to these pinko commie liars. To wit:
Kevin Trenberth [trenbert@ucar.edu] whines that the computer models are predicting global warming that isn't occurring. A rational person would say "there is no warming, our models are wrong". But no, a true believer ignores the observed temperatures when they know that there MUST be global warming:
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."
Priceless. I know there is global warming. The fact that we don't see it means our observing system is wrong. These are our scientists? Classic. A dream come true.
This from Phil Jones[P.Jones@uea.ac.uk]:
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline".
Guffaw. They're caught deliberately manipulating the temperatures to hide the true temperature declines over the last 10 years. Ha ha ha ha. Suck it tree-huggers. I knew y'all were lying and now the whole world knows. I want heads to roll. I want the truth to come out about climate change you freaking liars. You aren't scientists. You're members of a cult. You're no better than pathetic freaks like the scientologists. You have a different set of beliefs, but you're certainly not scientists. Not even close. Haw Haw Haw!
From Tom Wigley[wigley@cgd.ucar.edu]:
"Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted."
Classic. Like, if he doesn't believe in our Global Warming religion, then we'll have him excommunicated. If there's one thing the scientific community can't stand, it's skeptics that actually want to see proof. Har Har Har. The entire scientific community has been hijacked by a cult of global alarmist chicken little's. Ah hahahaha. I love it. Suck it tree-huggers. Your secret is out. You are all pathetic liars.
Update: I have posted every email address from all of the thousands of intercepted emails in the extended entry. Why not take a second to send a few emails and let these lying tree-huggers know what you think about their Global Warming religion?
Update 2: Michelle Malkin is calling it the Global Warming Scandal of the Century.
Update 3: I have added the email address for the three quotes above. I went ahead and sent these three an email. I think you should too. Let them know what you think about Global Warming and the fraud they've been shoving down our throats up until this horribly unfortunate incident exposed their little charade.
Continue reading "Somebody Pinch Me..."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 20, 2009 at 10:45 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
Broken Lenses
I broke every lens I had on the trip to Mexico, unfortunately. I returned 2 of the 3 to Canon for repair today. I'm going to ship the other one next week (separately) because I'm hoping I can get them to fix it under warranty. This is getting expensive. :(
My Canon camera service history.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 20, 2009 at 8:55 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Klan Rally at Ole Miss on Saturday
First, they took away the Rebel Flag, which used to be the official school flag. Now, they're taking away the freaking fight song. Where will it end?
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 20, 2009 at 3:12 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
November 19, 2009
Palin/Beck 2012
If the U.S. still exists as a country in 2012, then Palin/Beck may be just the ticket to pull us back from the brink of communism.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/Palin-Beck-2012
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 19, 2009 at 11:09 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
What's Wrong with Wes Anderson?
http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-19/film-tv/what-39-s-wrong-with-wes-anderson/
I found this article today about Wes Anderson. Apparently, he has a new movie coming out.
Recently, I had someone ask me, "Who is Owen Wilson>" and I was like..."Are you serious? You don't know who Owen and Luke Wilson are? You don't know who Wes Anderson is?"
If you haven't seen 'Bottle Rocket' and 'Rushmore' and 'The Royal Tenenbaums', then you have to see these movies. They're awesome.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 19, 2009 at 10:45 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Boy Finds His Own ET
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 19, 2009 at 8:12 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Tuition Hikes Cause Civil Unrest at UCLA
Come to think of it, I haven't seen civil unrest like this since Carter was in office. Hmmmm.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 19, 2009 at 10:30 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
1991 Beard and Mustache Competition
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 19, 2009 at 9:18 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 18, 2009
WWII in HD
Of course, I've been watching WWII in HD on the History Channel. I love to watch it, but I don't like seeing the bodies because I'm pretty squeamish and always have been. So, I close my eyes a lot. I certainly don't like looking at the dead and the dying in color in high def.
But I like that we fought and won and we aren't all speaking German or Japanese. And of course, I like to see all the vehicles rolling around and all the guns. I'm just drooling watching all the jeeps and tanks and dukw's and weasels.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 18, 2009 at 11:22 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Blacks terrorize twin cities
This kind of nonsense doesn't happen in places where people are armed. Normally, you see this in Europe. But since they've disarmed everyone in the cities, now we'll see this more of this. A few bullets would put an end it this nonsense.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 18, 2009 at 10:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Dean of Harvard Medical School destroys Obamacare
The dean of Harvard Med has thrown a haymaker at Obamacare in today's WSJ - Health 'Debate' Deserves a Failing Grade: In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care's dysfunctional delivery system.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 18, 2009 at 7:55 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Dakar 2010
For 2010, the Dakar Rally is from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Antofagasta, Chile, and back.
http://www.dakar.com/2010/DAK/presentation/us/r3_5-le-parcours.html. But I have to admit, I'm not in a great rush to return to the Atacama Desert.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 18, 2009 at 8:57 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 17, 2009
Pray For Obama
http://www.cafepress.com/psalm109_8
Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8 - "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 17, 2009 at 8:35 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Translating Igor's Website
Finally, I figured out how to translate Igor's website. (Igor is a guy I met on the road and traveled with for a few days through Baja California.) His web page (www.mototour.cz) is written in Czech, and I couldn't figure it out, but finally got this link to work.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 17, 2009 at 6:32 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 16, 2009
Local Man Claims Responsibility For Own Problems
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=4309
"In an odd exposé that has left the worlds of politics and academia abuzz, a local homeless person revealed yesterday that he only blamed himself for his failures. The incident occurred near the dumpster behind the Shop Rite store in Brooklyn, when Willard Kookish, formerly of 435 Subprime Lane in Nutly, NJ, casually told a reporter that "my problems are my own fault." The veteran New York Times reporter Ken McLiar, who has been searching area dumpsters for a 3,785-part series on people who are homeless due to the evils of American capitalism, admits he was astonished by Mr. Kookish's bizarre confession. When asked to elaborate, Mr. Kookish went on to say, "I went through college drinking and smoking dope and never learned anything. I've had many job opportunities but didn't bother to show up. My family left me a nice house to live in but I took out home equity loans on it and spent the money on hookers and gambling. When the housing boom collapsed I lost everything. I made bad decisions and here I am bearing the consequences."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 16, 2009 at 7:00 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Lotus Elise racing at Bathurst, Australia
This guy has kahunas. The car he's driving is a Lotus Elise. I know this because I saw one out in La Jolla this summer and I was curious enough to look it up.
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Posted by Rob Kiser on November 16, 2009 at 5:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Pitcher Throws No-Hitter High on LSD
I heard long ago that some guy in the majors had thrown a no-hitter while high on LSD, but this is the first time I've ever heard the story told in the first person. Turns out that Dock Ellis passed away in December of 2008. May he rest in peace.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 16, 2009 at 3:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 15, 2009
Happy Birthday Jennifer!
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Posted by Rob Kiser on November 15, 2009 at 12:26 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 13, 2009
My Childhood in Slow Motion
This is pretty much all I remember doing as a child...blowing up, burning, and basically destroying toy cars, trucks, trains, boats, etc. We'd burn them with fingernail polish remover. Blow them up with fire crackers. Shoot them with bb guns. Pretty much Road Runner type of destruction. Why? I can't really say, but it was fun.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 13, 2009 at 7:58 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 12, 2009
The Mandelbrot Set Revisited
One of the earliest computer programs I wrote was a BASIC program on a TRS-80 Color Computer to graph out the Mandelbrot set in two dimensions. This would have been in probably 1982 or 1983, so it was over a quarter of a century ago. Now some people are trying to extend the two dimensional equations into three dimensions and they're getting some pretty cool results.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 12, 2009 at 10:47 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Group Photo
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Continue reading "The Group Photo"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 12, 2009 at 4:29 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
November 10, 2009
Postcards from Nowhere: North Carolina
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Jennifer and I have recently returned from her great-grandmother's 90th birthday party. We both had a great time. We ran into a lot of people I've not seen in 20 years. I didn't even recognize Scott Sutton when I saw him at first. Not because he's changed that much, just because I'm an idiot I think.
It was good to catch up with everyone. Jennifer was floored by the experience. She told me she thought that she had already met all of her relatives. So, this trip was an eye-opener for her. Hopefully we won't wait another 20 years before our return. No excuse in that, really.
These photos were taken in November of 2009 in the towns of Winston-Salem, Clemmons, Greensboro, and Raleigh North Carolina. The images were all captured on one of the following:
- Canon EOS 50D with a Canon L-series image-stabilized, ultra-sonic telescopic zoom lens (EF 100-400mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM) with an ET-83C hood.
- Canon EOS 40D with an image-stabilized, ultra-sonic telescopic zoom lens (EF-S 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM).
Note: All of my lenses are broken at this point, and I'm sending them back to Canon in the morning. More frustrating than I can say.
The images are compiled into a 20 Meg (3:55) Adobe Flash slideshow(ambulance.swf) that you should be able to open and view with any browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.). To view the slideshow, just click on the photo above. If you want to view the slideshow as a Windows executable, you can play this version (ambulance.exe), and it allows you to play, pause, skip forward, backwards, etc.
Image post-processing was done in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended. The slideshow was created using Imagematics Stillmotion Pro.
The soundtrack is Mr. Ambulance Driver by The Flaming Lips. I chose this song because it was in the movie Wedding Crashers and I thought it sounded pretty cool.
Lyrics in the extended entry.
Click here to view the other slideshows.
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: North Carolina"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 10, 2009 at 9:59 PM : Comments (7) | Permalink
November 9, 2009
U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Against Pakistan
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 9, 2009 at 9:04 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 6, 2009
Oh My God!
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 6, 2009 at 12:55 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Abandoned Places Around the World
Cool photos from abandoned places around the world.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 6, 2009 at 12:12 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 5, 2009
Return From Windy Peak
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I drove up to Windy Peak and picked up Jennifer this afternoon. Jefferson County has some deal where the take the kids up into the hills for a week when they're in the sixth grade and it's sort of like being at camp, but you're still at school. They teach the kids all about the evils of Global Warming and Capitalism and practice their Obama chants. It ends tomorrow (Friday), but I had planned on picking up Jen at about 5:00 today all along, as we're flying to NC tomorrow for her great-grand mother's 90th birthday party.
I was surprised yesterday, however, when Jennifer called me from the clinic saying her stomach hurt. So I ended up on the phone with the nurse wanabee and was trying to sort out what was going on. She seemed to think that Jennifer was just faking it so that I'd come pick her up sooner because she was homesick. And I was like "Well maybe I should come get her sooner than I'd planned". And the nurse is like "Well, we don't do that. I've never allowed a kid to go home early because they were homesick."
I despise these malignant bureaucratic warts more than words can say and I was like "I'm not asking for your permission to come pick up my daughter, because I certainly don't need it. If I want to bring her home, I will. It's my decision. Not yours."
I love the bureaucrats. They think that they own your children. I seriously think that it's time for a revolution. I'm talking about wiping the slate clean. Disbanding the federal government.
And we could do it without firing a shot. All we have to do is 1) get a balanced budget amendment passed and 2) repeal all forms of governmental funding. I'm talking about repealing Income Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax, you name it. Then we could begin dismantling the Public School System, Welfare, Social Security, Medicare. We'll send all the parasites on the public payroll home. Kick them off the teat of the socialist public sector and find out if they are capable of providing value to our society.
We'll raise a new flag, call it "America - Take 2", and go back to the original constitution. If we flushed 230 years of "stare decisis" down the commode, it wouldn't bother me one bit.
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Posted by Rob Kiser on November 5, 2009 at 11:08 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Phone Call to 911
Guy calls 911 to report his weed stolen, but doesn't know have a phone and doesn't know his own address.
Eventually, he admits that he's high and someone stole his personal stash of marijuana.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 5, 2009 at 11:45 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
What Really Happened in Copenhagen...
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 5, 2009 at 9:06 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 4, 2009
Priorities
Melanie Dunn, a 23-year-old single mother of 3 living in public housing left her 2-year-old and 3-year-old son home alone in Memphis. The dwelling caught on fire while the two boys were home alone.
Marilyn Wilson, the sister of the boys' mother Melanie Dunn, said she and Dunn left the boys home alone to go shopping. They were gone about an hour when they got a call about the fire.
Wilson sain Dunn doesn't leave the children home alone "all the time".
"Some kind of way they sot something on fire. I don't know how it happened," Wilson said, "becuz we weren't there."
Wilson, said she had no regrets about leaving the children home alone. "No. I really don't you know...because...I mean...if dey hadda been dere by deirselfs...but i dunno how de house got caught on fire. I dono if de boys sot it on fire. Or somebody thowed something in there to set it on fire. I really need to get in there and see did my purse burnt up. Cause I had my food stamp card and everything in there."
Both children have since died. The DA has declined to file charges against the mother.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2009 at 6:57 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Runaway Toyotas
Lots of people are reporting that their Toyotas are accelerating out of control. About a month ago, Toyota recalled 3.8 million vehicles in an attempt to address the issue. Now, a woman in Denver is saying that her vehicle accelerated out of control, but the problem was not related to the floormat issue. Of course, since it's a woman driver, I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2009 at 11:54 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 3, 2009
Something that still bothers me...
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San Diego was just so beautiful that words can't describe it. Nothing does it justice. If you've followed this erratic, pedantic, delusional website for any length of time then you've no doubt seen some of the photos from San Diego, including many of the flowers I encountered there.
Now, keep in mind that I'm not concerned so much with whether or not the flowers are indigenous species, or non-native weeds. When I stumbled into San Diego back in April, I began, by necessity, a crash course in the taxonomy of the flora because I just had no words to describe what I was seeing.
I'd drive around town, and stop to interrogate anyone I saw gardening, assuming, right or wrong, that they must have some information which would help me on my Quixotean quest for enlightenment.
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The thing that has sort of bothered me for some time is that I never was clear as to the taxonomy of the brilliant red flowers that I see at the San Diego International Airport/Lindbergh Field. And it's not like you wouldn't notice them. They bloom pretty much all year long and there's an 8 foot high wall of them when you walk out of the airport from Terminal 1 or Terminal 2 (I never flew out of the Commuter Terminal.)
As I began to get a handle on the plants blooming around me, I initially assumed the flowers were from the Red Bottle-Brush Tree (Callistemon citrinus) of the family Myrtaceae, which is native to Australia.
However, as time went on, I began to notice that the flowers, although similar, were not exactly shaped like the flowers of the red bottle-brush tree. They actually looked like similar to the flowers of the Melaleuca nesophila, of the same family (Myrtaceae).
So, tonight, I did some digging around and, at first, I thought that maybe what I'm seeing at the airport is an espaliered version of the Red Bottle-Brush tree. But then, upon further investigation, I now believe that what I'm seeing is of the genus Metrosideros - possibly (Metrosideros polymorpha or Metrosideros macropus).
Update: This flower is the Red Powderpuff.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 3, 2009 at 5:44 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Hope and Change
Obama Speaks! First, he calls for a "world without nuclear weapons." Now, he states that "corruption must end in Afghanistan."
Well, thank God we've got a pragmatist in the White House, not some an idealistic Pollyanna Nobel Peacenik. Cough Cough. Jimmy Carter. Cough Cough..
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 3, 2009 at 2:52 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 2, 2009
Opening Statement by Representative Mike Rogers (R - MI)
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 2, 2009 at 10:23 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 1, 2009
Ron Paul vs. Michael Moore
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 1, 2009 at 7:30 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Gun Control
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 1, 2009 at 5:57 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink