From the mouth of a child...

Watch. Listen.

Prelude to the Road Warrior scenario

There's an interesting post over at boingboing entitled "How are you coping with collapse-anxiety?" We live in interesting times (like the old Chinese curse says) and it is an anxiety-ridden moment in history. How did we get here? Did the military-industrial complex spiral out of control, much too large for any one person, group, or country to manage? Or was it simply the bad policies of George Bush post-9/11, when he took an enormous amount of political momentum and used it to run the country into the ground, looting the treasury for his buddies on the way out the door?

Sorry if I sound cynical. Hopefully Mr. Obama can use his political momentum to take us in the other direction, but the critical mass of extremism in Washington looks to be a serious impediment to real progress.

Does Visual Studio rot the mind?

If you're not a programmer, stop reading now.

Everyone who's still with me, this article, while a little dated, is a fascinating read. The premise is how some tools dictate how you approach a problem (like the old adage "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"). Taken a step further, if you learn to think a certain way because you've been using a certain tool for a long time, it can change your way of thinking so that you can't see other ways of tackling the problem. And that's dangerous.

State of the Union

"The New Hampshire state legislature took an unbelievably bold step Monday by introducing a resolution to declare certain actions by the federal government ... totally void and warning that certain future acts will be viewed as a 'breach of peace' with the states themselves that risks 'nullifying the Constitution.'" link (via digg).

As for the latest bailout: Let the Wall St. "Talent" Walk.

Evidently the universe may be a hologram

Evidently the universe may be a hologram. Huh. And I thought we were living in the Matrix (or is it the same thing)?

The myth of "clean coal"

The disingenuously-named American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity spent $45 million last year touting "clean coal," while in just nine months, coal and energy companies spent $125 million lobbying against federal regulations promoting clean energy. Something doesn't pass the smell test. More....

Would big pharmaceutical companies choose profits over human lives?

A scientist believed he'd found a possible cure for Diabetes and asked pharmaceutical companies to sponsor clinical trials. From the article:

One example is Weissman’s mid-’90s research on type I diabetes, in which he demonstrated the ability to fully cure type I diabetes in mice using stem cells ... Weissman implied that the pharmaceutical companies had put profit over principle, preferring to keep diabetes sufferers dependent on costly insulin than to cure them once and for all.

Via digg.

Fascinating Adobe Illustrator demo

Via boingboing.

Notes From the Chairman, in the High Life

Reading Bono's guest column for the New York times entitled Notes from the Chairman. Am struck by Bono's observation on listening to two versions of My Way: one, recorded when Sinatra was a younger man, full of bravado, the spit and vinegar of youth, "embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere." And then the version recorded when Sinatra was much older, now a song of defeat, and the duality this implies.

It made me remember Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life Again, a song brimming with optimism. A few years back, Warren Zevon did a cover of High Life on his Life'll Kill Ya album. Zevon turned this wildly optimistic song into a moving dirge by a defeated man. I'm still amazed that this song can go through these extremes, from optimism to defeat without changing a lyric. That's the brilliance of these artists, bringing that duality to the song.

Geek proof

This may prove that I'm a geek, but I found this hilarious.

American Banking's Shameful Double Standard

Says it all. What is the recourse of the average taxpayer against blatant corruption and theft by government and the banking industry?

Banks won't disclose how they're spending bailout money

Here's my favorite quote:

Heine, the New York Mellon Corp. spokesman who said he wouldn't share spending specifics, added: "I just would prefer if you wouldn't say that we're not going to discuss those details."

Link

Drug firms block cheap medicine

As if we needed yet another reason to despise big business, drug companies use various legal (though maybe not ethical) measures to keep profits high by preventing the introduction of generics in Europe. At least the European Commission sounds like they're willing to go after them if they break the law in the process; in the U.S., we just shovel more money at them through Medicare Part D and call it progress.

Cars Sliding Down Icy Hill

Winter is here. Sigh.

Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

Think about that headline for a moment. Remember we're a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Not for the rich. Not for the politicians. For the people. The Federal Reserve has no right to withhold how they gave away two trillion dollars. Outrage, anyone?

Proof of time travel?

A Swiss watch is found in a 400-year-old tomb. Reality is weird sometimes.

EPA makes it harder to build coal plants

The Environmental Protection Agency has blocked a coal plant in Utah, starting a rulemaking process that will likely result in greater carbon dioxide emission regulations. Hopefully, this will help prevent the environmental disaster that was proposed for construction outside Frackville. While the mislabeled "coal to clean fuel" plant has been dying a slow death for many years, hopefully increased regulation of CO2 emissions will kill the thing once and for all.

Strange Portal Connects Earth to Sun

No, really. Every eight minutes, magnetic portals open up and connect the Earth to the sun. Weird.

Alice Cooper - House of Blues, Atlantic City - Nov. 1, 2008

Great show, as always. While the setlist hasn't varied much in the past few years, Alice is still a fantastic performer (at age 60, no less).

While we waited to enter the House of Blues, we were, of course, searched. The huge guy in front of us was told he couldn't enter with the chain attached to his wallet, so he tore it off and handed it to the woman. Heh. While they searched people thoroughly, they didn't bother to take our tickets, and everyone just shuffled in. Weird.

Opening act was Z02 out of Brooklyn, NY. Their sound was alright, though they were much too, I don't know, Hannah Montana-ish to be opening for Alice Cooper. They didn't even start playing until 45 minutes after the doors opened, so we knew it was going to be a long night. And then the drunk woman next to me spilled her beer on the back of my pants. Sigh. I always seem to get stuck next to idiots.

Alice made it worthwhile, though, and even played two songs off the new album (Along Came A Spider), along with a number of hits. Setlist (I think this is correct):

• It's Hot Tonight
• No More Mr. Nice Guy
• Under My Wheels
• I'm Eighteen
• Is It My Body?
• Woman Of Mass Distraction
• Lost In America
• Feed My Frankenstein
• Be My Lover
• (In Touch With Your) Feminine Side
• Dirty Diamonds
• Vengeance Is Mine
• Halo Of Flies
• Welcome To My Nightmare
• Cold Ethyl
• Only Women Bleed
• Steven
• Dead Babies
• Ballad Of Dwight Fry
• Devils Food/I Love The Dead
• School's Out

Encore:

• Billion Dollar Babies
• Poison
• Elected

Fascist America?

Think about how reality has changed in the last seven years. Our civil liberties are quietly eroded, under the guise of keeping us safe from the invisible terrorist threat, while we're happily distracted by Britney and Paris. This is getting past tinfoil hat territory; the collapse of America is actually happening while we look the other way. This article, written over a year ago, is chilling in its implications.