On Monday's Late Nite show, Dave Letterman shows this very funny clip of a bored kid at the President's speech in New Orleans. The kid -- about 12 or 14 -- yawns, twiddle's his thumbs, cracks his neck -- basically anything a kid does to pass the time when bored stiff. Only he's on the podium 8 feet from the President of the United States. It's just hysterical. (See the mirrors below for the video clip)

Dave did something similar with NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani' son at Rudy's inaugural -- the boy who was about 7 at the time. It was also a very funny clip, and Dave ends up having him on the show. There were good natured laughs for everyone.

Now here's where things get really, really weird.

CNN runs the clip off of Letterman's show, but mentions "We are being told by the White House that THE KID WAS EDITED INTO THAT VIDEO." (see links for clip below). Letterman than says:

"That Ladies and Gentleman as sure as I am sitting here is an absolute out and out 100% lie. The Kid absolutely was there he absolutely did everything."

The White House called CNN and lied to them about this. But why? Why lie about something as irrelevant and inconsequential as some goofy bored kid? Its just plain stupid. (Give Dave credit for having fun with this). The big question: Why this almost unnatural compulsion to lie? I just don't get it . . .

UPDATE: April 1 2001, 10:35 pm
CNN now says the White House did not call.

Something smells here; Otherwise, how did a White House denial make it onto CNN? Someone at CNN inserted a piece of disinformation based upon something. Who did this and why? CNN should explain what actually happened.

Here are the updated news sources:

Bored Boy Behind President Gets Nationwide Attention
http://www.local6.com/news/2968435/detail.html

Boy Yawns, CNN Bumbles, Letterman Yelps
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40808-2004Mar31.html

NOTE: Several mirrors are carrying the clips, as Overspun's bandwidth is exhausted:

http://www.hippopotame.nl/index.asp?id=401

http://brendanl.net/video/gwbyouth/

http://www.projectsomewhere.com/asset/AmericasYouth.ram

http://www.xs4all.nl/~inikim/movie/AmericasYouth.ram
http://www.xs4all.nl/~inikim/movie/AmericasYouth2.ram

http://www.projectsomewhere.com/10052,02,2-0-Dubbya%20Invigorating%20America%27s%20Youth.html

Posted at 10:39 PM in Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Microsoft became the first big Internet company Friday to say that it would create a special search Web site just for Weblogs.

The company said MSN Blogbot will debut in the first half of the year, along with MSN Newsbot, a search site devoted to news.

The service will not index all blogs, just the ones that MSN determines provide the most useful information, a company official said.

Several Web sites are already dedicated to searching blogs, including www.daypop.com, www.blogdex.net, www.popdex.com and www.technorati.com. Google indexes and provides search results for blogs, as does Yahoo. But neither company separates blog listings from their regular search results.

In related news, Microsoft ramps up on search engine

Posted at 10:02 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Footnote TV annotates and references the sources in some of your favorite legal or politicla TV shows. Smartly written and scrupulously sourced, its tagline is "examining the issues behind your favorite TV shows."

• Footnote TV: The Daily Show w/Jon Stewart

• Footnote TV

Posted at 05:07 AM in Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An open plea to the good people at Typepad:

I have been getting deluged with Comment Spam. I've read elsewhere that many many other bloggers have also.

There are several ways to combat this:

• Grey list
Any IP Address which have been "Comment Banned" by 3 or more bloggers gets put onto a "Grey list." Not quite a Blacklist, it a Grey listed IP address precludes that entity from posting more than 1 comment every 3 hours. This is across the entire typepad network. That's right -- only 4 comments per day to all of the typepad blogs. ALL OF THEM.

• Blacklist
If a Greylisted IP addresses (including that firm or advertised message) is found to be using different IP addresses to post the same commercial spam, than they all get blacklisted. All of their IP addresses, and any associated accoutrements used to post comment spam -- name, email or web page -- gets blacklisted.

Posted at 03:23 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

US Soldiers adapt to life in Baghdad: Take one Counter Intel agent, one Army Ranger, one of Saddam's Palaces, add a miniramp and some skate boards, and this is what you get:

Palace Rooftop Fun

Posted at 11:38 AM in Humor, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Long story short: I had a big pain with an Amazon order fuck up. It was lost, they made good and shipped a new order, than 2 months later the original order shows up. Trying to return it was abominable without a customer service number -- which they make nearly impossible to find.

Here it is:

We do understand that there are times when you'll want or need to talk to someone on the phone. For your future reference, our phone numbers are:

U.S. and Canada: 1-800-201-7575
International: 1-206-266-2992

If you want to thank me, you can pick something off my Wish List

Posted at 09:53 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Okay, so you are in charge of Highway and Park maintenance for the state of Oregon.

An 8 ton whale washed up and the beach, dead. It begins to stink.

What is your solution?

Dynamite, you say?

WRONG ANSWER

This is hysterically funny . . .

Posted at 06:16 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A site full of all things nostalgiac, going back to the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Posted at 06:46 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

B.A.R.R.Y.: Biomechanical Android Responsible for Repair and Yelling

What is your Cyborg Name?

Posted at 06:38 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

via Peterthink

Posted at 05:25 AM in Design | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Old Navy via Wonkette

Posted at 12:07 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has released a report and database that identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq uttered by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq:

President George W. Bush,
Vice President Richard Cheney,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
Secretary of State Colin Powell,
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

   Covering 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq, "Iraq on the Record" can be searched by any combination of speaker, subject, keyword, or date.

If the commission Bush begrudgingly appointed to study the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs is going to investigate whether Bush abused the intelligence, this website would be of tremendous value to it. ... But Waxman's report practically makes it unnecessary for the commissioners to worry if Bush falsely characterized the prewar intelligence. Why wrangle over who said what, when we can go review administration official's own statements verbatim?

The PDF for this is here:
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf

Posted at 05:59 AM in Politics, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I have a very liberal comments policy: Its preferred that you use a real name and email addresss, though I do not make it mandatory.

If I suspect you are a spammer -- i.e., irrelevant comments with a commercial address -- the comments get deleted and the IP address gets blocked.

To make this process less arduous, I am requesting a universal black list from typepad.

Posted at 05:50 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Once again, the brilliant Tom Toles

Posted at 05:00 AM in Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

40 things every drunkard should do before he dies
http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/01-04/01-04-40-things.htm

If you manage all forty before you take a barstool at St. Gabriel’s Pearly Gate Lounge, you may feel secure in the fact that you’ve lived a rich and full life, even if only the boys and girls down at happy hour think so. And when you do belly up to that big open bar in the sky and the bartender asks: “What sort of life did you lead?” you can look him right in the eye and say, “Gabe, baby, I’m glad this is eternity, because I’ve got a helluva lot of stories to tell.

Posted at 11:34 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There was a PBS frontline special almost two years ago on FBI agent John O'Neill & 9/11. It was titled “The Man Who Knew” (about 9/11) and it aired on October 3, 2002.

PBS includes an extensive interview with the man presently in the news -- Counter-Terrorism expert Richard Clarke. The Clarke interview was conducted on March 20, 2002.

If you have any questions about Clarke's beliefs, motivations or qualifications, go read the entire 2002 interview (its rather lengthy).

Here are some excerpts:

How was [O'Neill]'s view of the potential terrorist threat domestically different than a lot of other folks at the FBI or elsewhere?

Well, I would go around the country to FBI offices and ask, "Is there an Al Qaeda presence in Chicago, in San Francisco, in Boston?" And typically the reaction I would get is, "What's Al Qaeda?"

But not with John. John knew what Al Qaeda was. He was among the first people to see the bin Laden threat. He believed there was a bin Laden network in the United States even if he couldn't prove it. So he was constantly trying to prove it, because of what he understood about the Al Qaeda network and the rest of the world, he said, "It's inconceivable that they're not here."

What did he understand that nobody else understood?

I think he understood, first of all, that Al Qaeda wasn't a nuisance -- that what Al Qaeda said in its documents and bin Laden's speeches was the truth. He said to me once, "You know, it's like Mein Kampf. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf when Hitler was just a jerk. No one took him seriously, so no one read the book, or if they read the book, they didn't believe he would try to do what was in the book. [John] said, "Bin Laden's just like this. When you read what this guy says he's going to do, he's serious. He is going to try to do it in the Middle East, and there are a lot of people who support him. A lot of people are giving this guy money. We have to take him seriously, because what he says he's going to do is to go to war with the United States."

Let's talk about connecting the dots, which he seemed to be very good at. Explain the inability or the ability of some to connect those dots early on.

I think if you ask most terrorism experts in the mid-1990s, "Name the major terrorist organizations that might be a threat to the United States," they would have said Hezbollah, which had a relationship with Iran. They would have said Hamas, which is a Palestinian group. Most people would not have said Al Qaeda. Most people wouldn't have known that there was an Al Qaeda.

If you ask them, "Well, what about this man bin Laden?" most people in the mid-1990s would have said, "Ah, yes, the terrorist financier." What O'Neill said was, "No, this man is not a financier. Yes, he's got some of his own money, and he's very good at raising money from other people. But that's not all he's about. The money is money for a purpose. The purpose is building a worldwide terrorist network based out of Afghanistan, initially based out of Sudan, but then moved to Afghanistan. A worldwide terrorist network, the point of which is going after the United States, after governments friendly to the United States, particularly in the Arab world." So O'Neill did see early on that this was more than just another terrorist group. It was a serious threat it was in the process of building.

When did they recognize that?

By the time 1998 the embassy bombings occurred, I think everyone in the Clinton Cabinet would have said that Al Qaeda is a serious threat. In fact, if you look in retrospect at what the Clinton administration did after those embassy bombings through to the end of that administration -- since now most of it is public knowledge, lot of it was highly classified at the time -- if 9/11 had not happened, most Americans looking at what the Clinton administration did about bin Laden would have said, "What an overreaction. Why were they so preoccupied with bin Laden?"

There was an enormous amount of activity that was carried on if you look at the predicate, prior to the attack on the Cole destroyer in October 2000. The predicate was Americans killed at two embassies in Africa. Yet there was this massive program that was initiated to go after bin Laden. It didn't succeed, but it tried very hard. It did prevent some attacks, and it delayed others. But looked at in vacuum, the Clinton administration activities, 1998 to the end of the administration against bin Laden -- if you look at that without knowing in advance that 9/11 is going to happen, if you can separate that in your mind, the Clinton administration activities against bin Laden were massive.
So the frustration that a lot of us had, that people weren't paying enough attention, largely ended with the 1998 embassy bombings.

Some also say that due to the Lewinsky scandal, more action perhaps was never undertaken. In your eyes?

The interagency group on which I sat and John O'Neill sat -- we never asked for a particular action to be authorized and were refused. We were never refused. Any time we took a proposal to higher authority, with one or two exceptions, it was approved....

You tried to convince him, it has been written, to take your job. Can you tell me a little bit about that what happened?

Shortly after the Bush administration came into office, we were asked to think about how we organized the White House for a number of issues, including cybersecurity, computer security, homeland security, and counterterrorism. I was asked for my advice, and I proposed that the counterterrorism responsibility be broken off be a separate job, and that the cybersecurity job be broken off as a separate job. I said I had done counterterrorism for about a decade, and I wanted to start working on cybersecurity, which I think is terribly important. That was later approved by the president.

So the question came, "Well, who would you recommend to do the terrorism job?" I came up with four or five names. The first name that came to mind was John O'Neill, because he had the right combination of talents. He had an incredible drive. He never took his eye off the ball. He was never satisfied with halfway measures when it meant saving American lives. He would never let people think about this as just another job. He knew the bureaucracy, and he knew how to make things happen. He was incredibly intelligent. I thought he had all the right sets of skills to do the job at the White House.

But he was not terribly excited about that. I think he either wanted to come to work in headquarters of the FBI again, or he wanted to get out and start making a decent living. He chose to do the latter, I guess, and I respect that. Government servants frequently don't get paid what they get paid on the outside. You can only ask them to sacrifice for so long, because they're not just sacrificing for themselves, they're sacrificing for their families.

Let me ask you about a couple of events. In 1997, he gives the Chicago speech where he says, "We should expect an attack." He's talking in that same period of time about, or a little after, of cells within the country. How common was this belief at FBI and NSA?

In 1997, I think there were only a handful of us who knew that there were Al Qaeda cells in the United States. When my boss, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, would ask the FBI in a formal meeting, "Is there an Al Qaeda presence in the United States?" their formal answer would be, "We don't know of one, and we don't think there is one." But if you asked O'Neill, or you had asked me, a few others, including some people in the CIA, the answer would have been, "We can't prove it yet, but we see the smoke, and where there's smoke, there's fire." Sure, there were cells. We weren't able to prove it at the time.

But what John O'Neill was trying to do was to get a momentum going in the FBI to look seriously for those cells, to look for the connections which, frankly, most FBI offices were not doing. It was not one of the priorities in most FBI field offices.

A lot of people looked at Sept. 11, and said "Massive intelligence failure. Haven't seen an intelligence failure like this since Pearl Harbor." What's your opinion on that allegation?

I think it's a cheap shot. I think when people say, no matter what event it is, they say, "Oh, it was an intelligence failure," they frequently don't know what the intelligence community said prior to the event. In June 2001, the intelligence community issued a warning that a major Al Qaeda terrorist attack would take place in the next many weeks. They said they were unable to find out exactly where it might take place. They said they thought it might take place in Saudi Arabia.

We asked, "Could it take place in the United States?" They said, "We can't rule that out." So in my office in the White House complex, the CIA sat and briefed the domestic U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, Immigration, Federal Aviation, Coast Guard, and Customs. The FBI was there as well, agreeing with the CIA, and told them that we were entering a period when there was a very high probability of a major terrorist attack. Now I don't think that's an intelligence failure. It may be a failure of other parts of the government, but I don't think that was an intelligence failure. . . So I think a lot of the FBI leadership, for the first time, realized that O'Neill was right -- that there probably were Al Qaeda people in the United States. They realized that only after they looked at the results of the investigation of the millennium bombing plot. So by February 2000, I think senior people in the FBI were saying there probably is a network here in the United States, and we have to change the way the FBI goes about finding that network.

The June-July warnings. A lot of things happened at that point. Do we think now that Sept. 11 was in fact what was being talked about?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Because one of the things that surprises a lot of the public, I think, is that immediately after Sept. 11, the administration knew exactly who had done it. Was that why?

No. On the day of Sept. 11, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind. CIA and FBI were asked, "See if it's Hezbollah. See if it's Hamas. Don't assume it's Al Qaeda. Don't just assume it's Al Qaeda." Frankly, there was absolutely not a shred of evidence that it was anybody else. The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.

Somebody's quoted as saying that they walked into your office and almost immediately afterwards, the first words out of your mouth was "Al Qaeda."

Well, I assumed it was Al Qaeda. No one else had the intention of doing that. No one else that I knew of had the capability of doing that. So yes, as soon as it happened, I assumed it was Al Qaeda.

In January 2001, you wrote a memo where you basically stated there are more attacks coming, [that] Al Qaeda cells are here. What was that memo? What was the reason for it looking back at it now? How right did you get it?

I think the intelligence community, the FBI, were unanimous, certainly throughout the year 2000 into 2001, that there was in fact a very widespread Al Qaeda network around the world in probably between 50-60 countries -- that they had trained thousands, perhaps over 10,000 terrorists at the camps in Afghanistan; that we didn't really know who those people were. We didn't have names for very many of them, and we didn't know where they were; but since bin Laden kept saying the United States was the target, the United States was the enemy, that we had to expect an increasing rate of sophistication of attacks by this large Al Qaeda network against the United States.

As John O'Neill kept saying, there was no reason to think they're always going to go after us in Saudi Arabia or Africa or Yemen. They tried to go after us, O'Neill would say, in 1993, in the first World Trade Center attack. O'Neill was convinced, in retrospect -- and it took the FBI others a long time to realize it, many years actually -- but O'Neill was convinced by the year 2000, certainly probably earlier than that, that the 1993 attack was in fact a bin Laden-led attack. We hadn't heard the phrase Al Qaeda at the time.
We now know, going back through historical documents, that there was an Al Qaeda [back then]. It had just been formed, just been given that name. It was small. But O'Neill would say the attack of 1993 was Al Qaeda. The attempted attack at the millennium in the United States was Al Qaeda.

Posted at 11:27 AM in Politics, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Keep Your Social Security Number Safe

Privacy advocates warn consumers to guard their Social Security Number carefully since it can be used by thieves to steal identities. Unfortunately, our Social Security Numbers are readily available and can often be found in our wallets and mailboxes.

75 percent of those who responded to a recent Consumer Union online survey reported that their Social Security Number appears on their health insurance cards, which they usually keep in their wallets. Some health insurance companies have stopped using Social Security Numbers for identification purposes, but most still use them. That leaves too many of us easy targets for identity theft.

ACT NOW to prevent identity theft. Send a letter to the nation's largest health insurance companies: Blue Cross Blue Shield, CIGNA, and United Health Care. Tell them to stop using Social Security Numbers on their health insurance cards.

Financial Privacy Now via Consumers Union

Posted at 05:48 AM in Finance | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Some 3000 pounds of explosives was loaded into the columns of Veterans Stadium. All went as planned. It was detonated at 7 a-m and now what was once a state-of-the-art facility is no more than a pile of concrete. It took about 62 seconds.

A large area around the sports complex in South Philadelphia is closed off for the implosion, and airspace above the stadium is restricted to a 15-hundred-foot elevation for a quarter-mile radius.

Crowds gathered a few blocks away to view the implosion, and pre-blast events got under way about 6:40 a-m with various city V-I-Ps taking part.

Gone, via boing boing

Posted at 06:06 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Here's an impressive collection from someone who has way too much time on their hands:

"For those of you wondering about all this stuff, these are book covers and movie posters, mostly from the '50s and '60s, which I find humorous. Some are from science fiction movies that actually good, such as Blade Runner and Metropolis, and some are from movies that aren't, and some are from books that obviously aren't. They are all real."

OK. His hand washing obsession is your gain -- go have a gander . . .

Posted at 05:25 AM in Art & Design, Books, SciFi | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fascinating site: Fundrace.

This tool relies on data culled from the FEC. You can view all the political donations made in neighbors, by a City map, by a name, by National map, or by party or candidate.

Fascinating stuff. In my zip code (11548), here on the tony North Shore of Long Island, there are no contributions to President Bush. That was rather surprising, since the data base pulls up adjacent (and even tonier) Roslyn, and toniest of all Brookville.

Interesting tool.

UPDATE: 11:10am

Whoops. spoke to soon: In zip code 11771, which includes Upper Brookville and Oyster Bay, W has lots of supporters.

Here's what else you can find with this tool: I see James L Dolan, the President/CEO of Cablevision Systems -- the company that provides me with this fat pipe -- and his wife, gave to $2,000 each to Joe Lieberman (James and the Missus live at 125 Cove Neck Rd, Oyster Bay, NY 11771, according to the site)

Meanwhile, his dad, Charles F. Dolan, who is Chairman of Cablevision Systems, and his wife Helen A. Dolan each gave George W. Bush $2,000 (they live at 119 Cove Neck Road in Oyster Bay).

Don't worry about political discord in the family, apprently, James L. Dolan gave George W. Bush $2,000 also, thereby covering all bases.

This is fun! Who else gave?

Sanjay Kumar, President of Computer Associates (and wife Sylvia) gave George W. Bush $2,000 each.

UPDATE 2: 11:50am

Here's a stunner: Mill Neck (11765) one of the absolutely most magnificent and expensive stretches of land on Lawn Gyland, has no W donors. Or Howard Dean or John Kerry donors. In fact, this wealthy enclave apparently has no political donors whatsoever. (Go figure).

Meanwhile, over in Locust Valley, I see Richard Grosse (Chairman of the, New York Stock Exchange), and wife Lorraine, gave George W. Bush $2,000 (They reside at 231 Piping Road).

Posted at 10:57 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fark had declared a "Google logo day" a few weeks ago; There are 100s of examples at the link above -- here are 2 of my favorites:

Via Fark

Posted at 06:56 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A professional acquantance writes a morning commentary, anonymously. This is one of the great tragedies of financial literature, because this particular author is: 1) astute; 2) talented; 3) F'n hysterical. What follows is their take on the recent CPI data:

"Here you go. This is excerpted straight from the horse’s mouth. Any italics or underscoring are mine:

“The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change in prices over time of goods and services purchased by households . . .

The CPI is based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, and fuels, transportation fares, charges for doctors' and dentists' services, drugs, and other goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living . . .

Prices are collected in 87 urban areas across the country from about 50,000 housing units and approximately 23,000 retail establishments-department stores, supermarkets, hospitals, filling stations, and other types of stores and service establishments . . .

Prices of fuels and a few other items are obtained every month in all 87 locations . . .

Prices of most goods and services are obtained by personal visits or telephone calls of the Bureau's trained representatives . . .”

Is that right? Trained representatives can just phone around for prices? That opens up a whole Pandora’s box, doesn’t it? How about this scenario:

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

“Yo. Bay Ridge Deli. Paulie speakin’”.

“Good morning. This is Ms. Dolfuss of the Bureau of Labor Statistics calling. I wonder if I might trouble you for a few prices for our survey.”

“Any-ting for you, Doll-Face.”

“May I please have the price of an 8 oz. package of Jell-O?”

“Jell-O? Jell-O in dis neighborhood? Whatsa’ matta’ wi-choo? We got Tira Misu, Spumoni, Tortoni, Cannoli, da whole nine yards. But Jell-O? Fuhgeddaboudid. Sorry, I just can’t help you out on dessert. But I got a load of vinegar peppers comin’ in tonight from Jersey. I can give you a good price. How many you want?”

“Okay. Great. 8 oz. Jell-O, forty-nine cents. My next item is the amount of rent you pay each month for your premises.”

“Amount of rent we pay here? Lady, you gotta’ be kiddin’ me. The landlord is in to the local shy operation for 50 large. Haven’t seen him in two years. Yeah, we pay rent alright. Any-ting else I can help you wit?”

“Okay. Great. Rent on 1200 sq. feet of commercial store front, $1,800 per month. My next item is the price of a 28 oz. can of tomatoes.”

“Tomatoes? We got hot and cold runnin’ tomatoes. You talkin’ crushed, pureed, whole, plum, sliced, diced, bada-bing, we got ‘em all. I got some nice San Marzanos, if you’re interested. Could cut you a sweet deal if you take, say, 10 cases. Cash on the dash.”

“Thank you, no, I just need the price of a single can.”

“A single can? Hang on. I gotta’ ask Ralphie about dat . . . Yeah, okay, Doll-Face, Ralphie says to tell you we ain’t never sold a single can of tomatoes in the whole 42 years we been runnin’ this shop. Whadda’ ya’ gonna’ do wit a single can of tomatoes? Make gravy for some fleas?”

“Okay. Great. 28 oz. can tomatoes, one dollar and nineteen cents. My next item is American cheese. Can you price a 4 oz. portion?”

“American cheese? Next thing you’ll want me to price is Wonder Bread! Don’t forget the Miracle Whip. Wanna’ Scooter-Pie to go wit dat sang-wich? Look, lady, I got provolone. I got semolina bread. American cheese? Yeah, I got your American cheese, right here, baby. Ralphie says he’s got some salsicce, special for you, too.”

“Great. American cheese. 4 oz. portion, one dollar and thirty-four cents. Thank you very much for your time in participating in this CPI survey. May I include you in next month’s poll?”

“No problem. You mean this was a CPI survey? Why didn’t you say so in the first place? CPI’s playin’ LSU next weekend, ain’t they? Ya’ wouldn’t happen to know the over/under, would ya’?”

Click.

And there you have it. A typical phone survey, dialing for prices in the metropolitan area, brought to you by a trained, government representative.

Bada-bing

Posted at 10:01 AM in Finance, Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

As every member of an office pool knows, this week is dedicated to filling in the perfect N.C.A.A. tournament bracket. No matter how casual a college basketball fan, everyone can enjoy a debate about how a sixth-seeded team will fare against an 11th-seeded team that has the home advantage.

With that in mind, and with eight months until the presidential election, the presidential tournament committee has extended invitations to the following issues and candidates, with contests to begin as soon as possible, and to be completed by Nov. 2.

click for larger graphic

Source:
March Madness: Presidential Edition
MATTHEW HENSHON
NYTimes, March 18, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/opinion/18HENS.html

Graphic:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/03/17/nyregion/20040318_nyregion_hens.html

Posted at 06:00 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Steve Alexander's photo log, Temporary Temples Image Library, is fillled with spectacular views of crop circulars.

Beautiful designs and photos.

Source:
Temporary Temples

Posted at 05:41 AM in Art & Design | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

This is a very, very funny R rated advert from the BBC's Channel Four International. They asked a large number of US and UK film and TV stars what the favorite swear words were -- and to say them out loud (and they do).

What follows is a 2 minute commercial of famous faces saying, amongst other things, wanker and bugger -- it is England, after all -- and an awful lot of other swear words.

It's kinda surprsing to hear people you see on US broadcast TV, where cursing is not allowed, saying "Fuck." Alot. It seems that's one of the favorites. Also, a surprising number of women now seem to enjoy using the word "Cunt" rather indiscriminately.

Its rude, hilarious, and very effective puncturing of the puritanical sanctimony at the FCC lately . . .

About BBC 4


via adrants

Posted at 05:47 AM in Current Affairs, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Posted at 05:09 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Memefirst has the right take on this:

"At least I hope it's Planet X; if the mystery object in our solar system that NASA is planning to announce Monday turns out to be a mini black hole, then we're all fucked.

What is Planet X? It was the planet they were looking for when they discovered Pluto in 1930. Uranus's and Neptune's orbits were showing wobbles that could be explained by the gravitational pull of an extra planet. The problem with Pluto, however, is that it is far too small to explain these orbital anomalies. Something sofar undiscovered causes them.

A remote possibility: It's Nemesis, the Sun's hypothesized companion brown dwarf that every 30 million years swoops in on a highly elliptical orbit and spells the end of life as we know it on earth. Last time it would have done this it caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and that was 30 million years ago just about... now.

I'll settle for a monolith orbiting Jupiter."

Posted at 06:04 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Why is this political ad on a Taxpayer funded Government Website?

Whether you are Left or Right, you certainly should not be happy about taxpayer funded government websites pimping for one candidate or another.

"That black stuff is hurting us."
-Sen. John Kerry on oil (Greenwire)

Washington, DC - Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry is quoted in today’s edition of Greenwire as saying, “that black stuff is hurting us,” with regard to oil. Members of the House Committee on Resources found the Senator’s comment absurd. “John Kerry is dead wrong,” Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) said. “Oil doesn’t hurt Americans; John Kerry’s anti-energy policies hurt Americans. In fact, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric and bad policy that has led to the outsourcing of good American energy jobs."

- READ MORE

What's up with Gasoline Prices? -Courtesy Energy Information Administration What are the components of the retail price of gasoline? Why do gasoline prices fluctuate? Why do gasoline prices differ according to region? Click here

I'm sorry, but this has no business being on a taxpayer funded website . . .

UPDATE: 3/15/04 07:27pm
Oh, and its not just Congressional Republicans wasting taxpayer money politicking. The Democrats do it also, wasting resources on this crapola:

• caught on film  
  http://www.house.gov/appropriations_democrats/caughtonfilm.htm
• All Hat  
 http://www.house.gov/appropriations_democrats/ALLHAT.htm
• Shameless
http://www.house.gov/appropriations_democrats/bushshameless.pdf

This isn't governing, these are political ads. Neither side should be pissing aawy taxpayer money doing this junk . . .

Posted at 02:55 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Water powered Fuel Cell Toy Car by Daido Metal

Japan's Daido Metal, a manufacturer of bearing metals, has developed a fuel cell toy car that uses water as its source of hydrogen.

The Daido Metal toy car is using hydrogen created from the electrolysis of pure water. The car is 19cm long, 10cm wide and 8.5cm high, and weighs 350g with a full tank of water.

More details at Japan's Nikkei Net.

The Fuel Cell Toy Car will sell for 20,000 yen.

Posted at 07:05 AM in Design, Science | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics - the Higgs boson - may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak. Peter Renton, of the University of Oxford, says the particle may have been detected by researchers at an atom-smashing facility in Switzerland.

The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter.

"There's certainly evidence for something, whether it's the Higgs boson is questionable," Dr Renton, a particle physicist at Oxford, told BBC News Online. "It's compatible with the Higgs boson certainly, but only a direct observation would show that."

Source
'God particle' may have been seen
Paul Rincon
BBC News Online, 10 March, 2004, 18:02 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3546973.stm

Posted at 06:23 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My New Favorite Radio Station:

The way cool BBC streaming music radio station. Kicks the ass of bullshit U.S. corporate Top40 crap radio:

• Bob Harris (4pm to 7pm UK) is a "legendary radio presenter, whose musical taste is as wide as it is deep. Three hours of somethings you might expect, but an awful lot of things you won't." Great stuff. (Check out his interview with the Pretender's Chrissie Hynde, who I adore).

• Chris Hawkins show was also worth hearing: Its on from 1 to 4 (UK time) -- and is called "Songs That Saved Your Life." Check it out.

Since London is 5 hours ahead of NY, its a more upbeat R&R show than you might hear locally. Yeah, there's that, and -- Oh Yes -- the music doesn't suck.

I have been beating the subject of Radio Consolidation in the US for some time.

Now, it matters less for for me personally, as I am becoming a "radio Londoner." At least, for a few hours a week . . .

This launches the player:

via linkfilter

Posted at 07:54 AM in Music | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Matthew Stoller, of the Blogging of the President, had a terrific reply to the last post, Last of the Independents. It was so well done -- interesting and thoughtful -- we decided to put it up as a a guest post:

"You got me going on this topic. It's a very complicated question; I would boil the issue down to television, its attack on group cohesion, and resulting resentment. 
 
The Last of the Independents is an interesting problem, but it's not just a political partisan issue.  You know how bands don't like being constrained by one genre, or people don't like being labeled as 'punks', or Elks and Masons and societies like that don't make any sense?  That's the same overall cultural rejection of traditional group labels, because their institutional values are stuck in the past. Essentially, marketing over the past fifty years has been about slicing people into demographic groups and hassling them according to what they are most likely to buy or consume. This is both economic - shampoo, soap, etc - and political.  The communications infrastructure, which is largely one-way, has produced a situation where people are grouped into imperfect cultural channels and then served according to those channels, and they pretty much can't talk back.  Part of this is because of TV, part is because of the isolation from different walks of society produced by suburbia.
 
The political consequence of a broadcast infrastructure has been to move power from city machines which, while corrupt, were relevant to local citizens, towards political consultants and media pundits, who then slice and dice votes according to hot button issues and fear.  The political response is cynicism, apathy, and a rejection of labels.  Who wanted to be a Democrat if it meant being manipulated by George Stephanopoulos? Likewise with the Republicans and Lee Atwater.  Because parties ceased to be social institutions, but just become clearinghouses for whatever kinds of issues you personally care about, the incentive to be a Democrat or a Republican declines (what's in it for you?), and the incentive to be an Independent goes up.  On a cultural level, the response to this communications infrastructure has been towards expressions of authenticity (like Rock, Hiphop, punk, etc) that are quickly coopted by a consumer system.  Look at the quick destruction of grunge, or all the bling bling nonsense around rap that is a beautiful art form expressing authentic emotions. 
 
Anyway, back to politics. You've seen three responses to the devolution of power away from individuals and towards media centers. One, people don't vote. Two, those who vote tend to become Independents.  Three, those who remain in the parties harden their stances on issues, because it is only through working through special interest groups and the media power they command that the parties can deliver value to you.
 
In other words, being a Democrat didn't used to mean buying into Al Sharpton's nonsense or hating the free market (in fact, it was the Hoover businessmen who hated free trade and competition, whereas the New Deal liberals were often trying to force less oligopolistic systems), but being part of a social group that bought into a basic notion that government can and should help people, and if it does not, our republic cannot survive.  This harkens back to promoting the general welfare, and all that.  There was also the notion that being a Democrat meant protecting a white supremacist Southern culture, which obviously got transitioned out of the party during the civil rights movement.  Being a Republican didn't use to mean tax cuts, war, corporate subsidies and hating gay people - it used to be about being part of a social group that bought into a basic notion that government should try to stay out of the way, that civil rights were generally a good thing, and that personal responsibility was important.   But really, in neither case were specific policies important - politics was local and social, and calling yourself a Democrat or Republican didn't mean that you supported policy X or Y.
 
The key insight here is that parties aren't about specific issues, and they never have been. They are social institutions within which are competing groups that share some overlap in basic cohesion of philosophy, but also institutions that made a deal with their members that they were going to help them out with their daily lives by providing a social network and political help. As this deal fell apart, you've seen an increasing amount of stridency in the core of both parties, because through stridency comes media power.  This is often taken to be extremism, but it is not. Only the Republican party has moved to the extremes; the Democrats have just become fantastically incompetent and micro-issue based.
 
This trend of the political system (and most of our institutional systems, actually - look at how terrible health care is nowadays) away from relevance to individual people has been a long road, and it's far advanced.  Even though 80 or 90 percent of the public buys into global warming, somehow, that problem isn't being addressed.  That's how little relevance our political system has to the citizenry that ostensibly run it. And look at Albany or Massachusetts, if you need another bipartisan example of the problem.
 
Fortunately, this trend is reversing, because the internet has allowed for individuals to reclaim their voice and pushed our communication systems back to two-way or multi-way operational status. Rather than pundits judging whether someone did a good job on a Sunday morning talk show, the candidate can see the donations coming in - or not.  This is a direct attack on the power of the media elite, and a move to vest power in the hands of those to whom that candidate is most relevant.  A party of the middle class cannot be financed by the rich, but up until now, that's what both parties have pretended to be.  You're now seeing, slowly, the reorganization of the parties to be of greater relevance to their constituency bases, and not on the isssues, but in terms of structure.  It's a slow process, because people like Spitzer will succeed and have the political base to truly govern only when the parties have figured out that they are not just vessels for fundraising and wonkery, but are also institutions that should seek to define a governing philosophy and live by it.
 
At any rate, what you're basically saying, in describing your politics, is that you like people who are open and honest about their philosophy, and who respect disagreements. You don't like the dogmatic approach of the dishonest paranoid right or the dishonest dovish anti-free trade far left, and tend to respect empirically driven results. You recognize the value of the free market, and you want the government to handle cases of market failure, though your standards in terms of when the government should step in are relatively high. You want the government to promote economic stability and human rights abroad, with military force even, and have a sense of moral duty in foreign and domestic policy, tempered by pragmatic recognition of realistic limits on our power.
 
There's a lot of coherence there. As far as I can tell, you seem to be a Robert Rubin Democrat. It's not that you're not a party man, it's that the no party has been able to convince you that you belong there. 
 
As for me, well, I basically buy into a pragmatic model of liberal governance. If there's a problem, find a solution that looks likely to work without too many adverse consequences, try it, and if it doesn't work, get rid of it. I'm offended by the right's attack on science, empiricism, civil rights, and their whole plan to roll back the enlightenment with self-serving ideological drivel.  I was pro-war for the same reason I was pro-war in Kosovo, although it was quickly apparent that the administration in Iraq is not going that well, and that I never should have trusted these guys to carry out nation-building in Iraq when they did it on the cheap in Afghanistan. 
 
Anyway, that's probably more than you wanted.  There's a lot more at the Blogging of the President at http://www.bopnews.com."

Good stuff. Thank you, Matt.

Posted at 07:19 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

I often write about the intersection of politics and economics. What happens in D.C., after all, impacts the markets. But what never ceases to amaze me is how anytime someone disagrees with me, I am immediately labelled as the opposite of whatever their affiliation is.

Why is that? Have we become so intellectually bankrupt that any differing point of view is immediately labelled, discounted, ignored? Is it mere laziness? What happened to the concept of intellectual honesty -- Doesn't anyone have an open mind anymore?

I have no party affiliation, I am not a "joiner." No one wants to believe someone can have an independent viewpoint.

I am skeptical by nature, cynical by experience, a curmudgeon by disposition. I send left of center news articles to friends who are Democrats, and right of center news articles to friends who are Republicans.

For fun, sometimes I switch it up.

I tend to vote against people rather than for them (although to maintain my objectivity, I do not vote in Presidential elections). I didn't like Clinton, didn't care for Gore, am totally unimpressed with Bush. (Recall the scene in the 1977 movie Annie Hall, where Diane Keaton is inspecting all of the Woody's political buttons: "Impeach Fo