Posts from — April 2008

Picture from a pro-Tibet rally in SF:

I’m going to go ahead and assume that the irony was not intentional.

(from Andrew Sullivan)

Attack ad on John McCain

(link)

The whole “Bittergate” “scandal” (info if you’re just tuning in) makes me too angry to write much about it. The statement wasn’t that people become religious or start hunting because they live in economically depressed rural areas, but that there is a tendency for them to vote on second amendment and religious issues. He was saying that they’re bittered by politics, not that they lead sour, depressing, meaningless lives. The amount of mock-outrage coming from millionaires about this is amazing.

I like how the WSJ editorial brings in the data, though:

In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were “very happy,” while 9% were “not too happy.” Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

and

[Gun owners] have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners

Most of these observations aren’t that meaningful. The high average salary of gun owners could just be because of the Dick Cheneys of the world. Median would be slightly more interesting. But in general, a statement like “People who own X earn more than people who don’t earn X” isn’t terribly surprising for most non-essential products.

If you want to vote for “someone you’d like to have a beer with” (or “someone with whom you’d like to have a beer”), here you go:

(Obama at Bethlehem Brew Works, with a Fegley’s ESB from the sampler.. that’s making me want to go back to Brew Works now)

According to Seen Through a Glass, Hillary is fond of “Blue Moon with an orange slice“.

Enough said.

(Note: this post is 1/3 kidding.)

Google Earth 4.3 came out this week… it has some nice eye candy that provides for a fun distraction.  This includes textured 3D buildings in some cities, adjustable sunlight (without all the waiting you have to do in real life!).  The new zooming interface is more spiderman-like, which I like, though it took a bit of time to figure out how to use.

(link)

The sunlight stuff is pretty cool when you are looking at natural scenes. Here’s a screenshot I took of Mount St. Helens at dawn:
(click for full size)

The 3D cities with textures look awesome, and they’re a lot of fun to explore if you have a good enough computer and connection. Here are a couple of screenshots I took of San Francisco and Boston:

Suddenly I have an urge to play SimCity…

Google’s LatLong blog has more info and screenshots of 3D buildings as well as some tips for navigating the 3D environment (like spiderman, of course).

During congressional hearings on the establishment of Fermilab, Director Robert Wilson was asked whether the lab’s research would contribute anything to the nation’s defense. “It has nothing to do directly with defending our country, except to make it worth defending,” Wilson said.

(source)

From the pile of things I’ve been meaning to mention…

Haikuvies summarizes movies in haiku form. Some of them are quite entertaining.

‘Tis but a flesh wound
the Black Knight claims victory
unburdened by limbs

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a useful article (with big graphs) on where your federal taxes go.

McCain’s promise to get rid of earmarks, while a good step, are quite miniscule in the grand scheme of things. The link above has the breakdown of the “everything else” block (consisting of veterans/federal retirees benefits, science and medical research, transportation infrastructure, education, etc).

I tried out muxtape tonight. It lets you define and share a playlist, basically. It’s really simple to use and well-made. HERE IS A BUNCH OF MUSIC that I chose. If you are inclined to listen to it, please let me know.. maybe I’ll try it again sometime. The songs I chose are of mixed genres, though most of them are relatively subdued (but not tiring).

This blog post has a succinct writeup of important things you should know about the Middle East. Even if you’re reasonably well-informed, odds are there’s something new there. A couple of things that I had forgotten:

• Arabs are Semites, as they speak a Semitic language
• Iranians are Shia Muslims, but they are not Arabs. They are Persians.

Also, an important thing to remember if you find yourself starting a war in the Middle East:

[Iraq is] mostly Shia (roughly 60%), but under Saddam the Shia were oppressed and the Sunni were in power despite being only 20% of the population.

As GWB said when he was told in 2003 that an invasion could cause a civil war between Sunni and Shia: “I thought they were all Muslims!”