The Economist endorses...

Barack? Really? REALLY? Hmmm....

They even have to say this:

" Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. "

And
"So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble"

REALLY?

They go on to say that because he's good at politicking he deserves the presidency... I see. What about his economic proposals???

 

 

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The Economist endorses

via The Economist: Democracy in America on 10/30/08

Wholeheartedly behind Barack Obama

THE ECONOMIST today endorses Barack Obama for president. As a review of our past endorsements shows, the newspaper's (and this blog's) favour should not have been taken for granted. When we have chosen to endorse, we have tilted for both Republicans and Democrats. And despite the largely disappointing general election campaign, we find a lot to admire in both candidates. John McCain in particular has shown courage in the past sticking to unpopular but sensible positions on things like free trade and immigration reform. But what happened in this campaign cannot be ignored, either. From our leader:The Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad

 

 

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Most Popular Political Video: Dear Mr. Obama

This is the most popular political video right now on YouTube:

Sowell: Taxing Times

Sowell explains it again:

 

 

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Sowell: Taxing Times

via National Review Online on 10/28/08

The power to tax is the power to destroy. Pity Obama doesn't get that.

 

 

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US Navy SEAL uniforms: Now with built-in tourniquets

Black Hawk has a new combat uniforms that include built-in tourniquets. Apparently the SEALs are using them now.

 

 

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US Navy SEAL uniforms: Now with built-in tourniquets

via The Register on 10/29/08

In-pant drawstring arterial clamp threads hit TWAT

Elite US special-forces troops have now been equipped with special uniforms featuring up to eight built-in drawstring tourniquet systems. Reports have it that thousands of the new anti-bloodloss trouserlegs and sleeves are already in use on the front lines in southwest Asia.…

 

 

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Festivities celebrate the completion of Katy Freeway

And yet traffic was still snarled Eastbound this morning. Neil and I noticed that the HOV (or managed lanes) weren't heavily used. Perhaps it will take more time for word to get out that it is finally opened.

Westbound traffic this morning was very expedient, as it has been for the past month. Even though the HOV lanes were open, the only siting Westbound was a Constable.

 

 

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Festivities celebrate the completion of Katy Freeway

via chron.com Houston & Texas News on 10/28/08

Some 400 supporters and road-building professionals Tuesday applauded the consummation of Texas' biggest freeway project — $2.8 billlion, 23 miles long and the first to have a tollway down the middle.

 

 

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Work?

Obama wants you to take the day off from work next week.  Don't worry about having to earn a living... he's got you covered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UFzkO5OhKY

Air Force Ad worth Watching

A buddy of mine who's an Air Force Combat Controller sent me this.  It's pretty funny:

 

Spreed Teaches You to Speed-Read the News [Webapps]

Just in case you're not absorbing information fast enough as it is, here's a way to be bombarded with even more news, faster.

 

 

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Spreed Teaches You to Speed-Read the News [Webapps]

via Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy on 10/24/08

Free speed-reading webapp Spreed:News lets you choose from a wide array of news sources and have their articles read to you in small clusters of words. Working from the principles that make for faster reading, you can scale the tool between 240 and 1500 words per minute, and set up an account to save your favorite sources—from Boing Boing to the New York Times and dozens more—for quick browsing. Spreed offers a tally of the seconds you've saved from word-by-word reading, and offers an iPhone-optimized interface for speed reading while on commutes or trips. Spreed is free to use, requires a sign-up to save your feeds. For tips on honing your speed reading, check the how-to article on the via link below.

Spreed:News [via Wired How-To Wiki]

 

 

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Celebrate International Caps Lock Day by Remapping the Key [International Ca...

I saw this article on Life Hacker today, international Caps Lock Day. Very funny.

 

 

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Celebrate International Caps Lock Day by Remapping the Key [International Caps Lock Day]

via Lifehacker by Jackson West on 10/22/08

Today, October 22nd, is International Caps Lock Day, so share with us a moment of silence to reflect on screaming emails and ponder the mysteries of the most useless key on your keyboard. The Hack a Day blog offers a quick way to disable the key for Mac OS X users, and suggest fKeys to remap it into something useful. For Windows users, try reader-submitted script Handicapslock to make it less annoying, or turn it into a browser-triggering hotkey with TabsLock. Image by Mike on Maui.

 

 

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Common Craft on Phishing

The folks over at Common Craft have a new video on phishing scams.  If you don't know what a phishing scam is, you should watch the video:

Finance: Credit Crisis Explained as an Antarctic Expedition

The following video is an explanation of the current credit crisis explaned using an Antartic expedition as a metaphor.

The Caffeine Curve

I came across this curve and thought it was worth sharing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/9938521/

Dear Abby

This was in the Dear Abby column this morning.  I thought it was brilliant.  ;-)

Dear Abby:

A few weeks ago, I returned home after mowing the lawn at my mother's place. I left the lawnmower and a 5-gallon can of gas in the bed of my truck and went into the house. When I returned, the gas can was missing.

I bought another can, filled it with gas and added 2 pounds of sugar. Again, I parked my truck in the same spot with the gas can visible. An hour later, it too had disappeared.

A short while later, I noticed a neighbor's son and his friends pushing his car up the street. They said they had "engine problems." My wife thinks that I should offer to pay for this lad's engine repairs. What do you think?

"A-GASSED" in Illinois

Dear "A-Gassed":

I disagree with your wife. What if this was just a coincidence? I'm sure whoever stole your gas got an expensive lesson. Let's hope it also saved them from a life of crime.

That's what i am talking about! [joke]

This is pretty funny!

No Socialism, Please

We all know that Obama's economic plan is more socialistic than any other presidential candidate in the history of the U.S.  Now it appears he's finally admitted what it is he intends to do with our tax money. 

Consider this, if at the end of the year you pay more in taxes than you get back, or in other words the government actually KEEPS your tax money, then you're part of only 50% Americans who actually fund the government.  The other half of Americans may file, but they get their money back at the end of the year. 

Apparently Obama's not happy with that.  He'd like those of us paying to pay MORE.  If you read his tax plan, he outlines a welfare policy titled 'tax cuts'.  Basically his administration would cut 'tax refund' checks to folks who didn't owe anything to the government in the first place. 

Using the term 'tax refund' to obscure a welfare policy is rather clever.  It's the ultimate 'Robin Hood' adventure.  Except that those he'll be taking money from are hard working American's trying to achieve the American dream. 

OBAMA FIRES A 'ROBIN HOOD' WARNING SHOT

By CHARLES HURT Bureau Chief
IT'S A LEAK! Barack Obama tells Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher he intends to "spread the wealth around."


Last updated: 6:04 am
October 15, 2008
Posted: 3:37 am
October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - You won't find it in his campaign ads, but Barack Obama let slip his plans to become a modern-day Robin Hood in the White House, confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.

Conservatives yesterday ripped Obama after he was caught on video telling an Ohio plumber that he intends to take the profits of small-business owners and "spread the wealth around" to those with lesser incomes.

The fracas over Obama's tax plan broke out Sunday outside Toledo when Joe Wurzelbacher approached the candidate.

Wurzelbacher said he planned to become the owner of a small plumbing business that will take in more than the $250,000 amount at which Obama plans to begin raising tax rates.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the blue-collar worker asked.

After Obama responded that it would, Wurzelbacher continued: "I've worked hard . . . I work 10 to 12 hours a day and I'm buying this company and I'm going to continue working that way. I'm getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American Dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama told him. "I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too.

Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.

"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Critics said Obama let the cat out of the bag.

"It's clear that his main goal is redistribution of wealth, not growth," said Andy Roth with the anti-tax group Club for Growth. "He's perfectly happy to destroy wealth as long as he can redistribute it."

Obama has been meticulous, Roth said, to conceal the "socialistic" nature of his tax plans. "But every once in a while, he lets it slip," he said.

Republican candidate John McCain yesterday charged that Obama's comment was telling.

"This explains how Senator Obama can promise an income-tax cut for millions who aren't even paying income taxes right now," he said in Pennsylvania.

"My plan isn't intended to force small businesses to cut jobs to pay higher taxes so we can 'spread the wealth around.' My plan is intended to create jobs and increase the wealth of all Americans."

Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS poll last night showed Obama moving into a commanding 53-39 percent lead.

He made a funny

I thought this post was funny. 

Renowned economist Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Economics yesterday.  Today there was a joke post about him on a widely read (left wing) blog... Krugman linked to it from his blog site on the NY Times webiste.  It's pretty funny.

It reminded me of the kind of joke I might play on Justin.  :)

Krugman Could Turn into Massive Douchebag, Colleagues Fear

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/krugman-could-turn-into-m_b_134477.html

One day after the Nobel committee announced that Paul Krugman had won the 2008 Nobel Prize for economics, colleagues of Mr. Krugman voiced concerns that winning the coveted award could turn him into an egregious douchebag.

At The New York Times, where Mr. Krugman is an op-ed page columnist, and at Princeton University, where he is a professor of economics, co-workers of the newly-minted Nobel laureate were reportedly bracing for the worst.

"I think it's safe to say that Paul had pretty high self-esteem before the Nobel thing went down," said one of Mr. Krugman's Princeton associates, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But now he's walking around like he's Jay-Z or something."

The first ominous sign, according to the associate, came at a meeting of the economics department this morning, when Mr. Krugman showed up with a coffee mug reading, "No. 1 Economist."

While his colleagues discussed the current global financial crisis, Mr. Krugman "couldn't be bothered" and spent the meeting texting Matt Damon instead.

At one point, one of his fellow economists asked him a question about credit default swaps, to which Mr. Krugman reportedly snapped, "Credit default swaps can suck my ass -- I'm Paul Fucking Krugman!"

Mr. Krugman could not be reached for comment and instead referred all questions to his publicist, Sherri Hefstein, whom he hired minutes after winning the Nobel.

According to Ms. Hefstein, Mr. Krugman plans to spend the next few months "building his brand" and will be adapting his book, International Economics: Theory and Policy, into a feature film to star George Clooney.

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.

Trip home from Buna

Mike went out with me to the dear lease on Saturday in Buna to assemble my feeder and stand.   We decided to take the back roads home to Houston.  Although I had taken this route before I couldn’t quite remember the roads I needed to take, but I knew the direction and the key towns that we needed to pass through.  I was messing with the cigarette lighter in my truck when I was supposed to make the left veer in Kountze towards Sour Lake/Saratoga.  Instead we ended up heading North.  In our thick-headedness we decided that to turn around would be to admit a mistake, so we decided that we would find another highway that would take us back West.  All told we added an hour and 60 miles to our trip.  Below are the maps of how were supposed to go and how we actually travelled.

 

Interestingly, though, in Warren, Texas we filled up the Tundra for $2.809 a gallon.  In Houston that same day I had paid $3.21 a gallon.  I justified the divergence with the 40¢ a gallon I saved.  ;-)

 

 

 

This is the route we SHOULD have taken:

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Rogers+Rd&daddr=W+Avenue+N%2FTX-327+to:TX-327+to:S+Pine+St%2FTX-69%2FUS-287+to:770%2FTX-105+to:770+to:N+Cleveland+St%2FTX-321+to:US-90+W+to:E+Beltway+8+S%2FE+Sam+Houston+Tollway+S+to:29.730754,-95.407333&hl=en&geocode=FVhV0AEdr4tl-g%3BFfoHzwEdAORi-g%3BFZT6zgEd3Ghh-g%3BFSBzzwEdhORg-g%3BFYqSzQEdKGhc-g%3BFZNqygEdHXRb-g%3BFZpxygEdVhZY-g%3BFTY4xwEdFLxT-g%3BFTJMxgEdHgxU-g%3B&mra=mi&mrcr=8&mrsp=9&sz=12&sll=29.769742,-95.29026&sspn=0.266424,0.513268&ie=UTF8&ll=29.966832,-94.809265&spn=2.127106,4.10614&z=9

 

 

 

This is the actual route we took:

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Rogers+Rd&daddr=W+Avenue+N%2FTX-327+to:TX-327+to:S+Pine+St%2FTX-69%2FUS-287+to:US-287%2FUS-69+to:W+Bluff+St%2FUS-190+to:W+Church+St%2FUS-190+to:29.732245,-95.399437&hl=en&geocode=FVhV0AEdr4tl-g%3BFfoHzwEdAORi-g%3BFZT6zgEd3Ghh-g%3BFfJpzwEdcudg-g%3BFeAY0wEdUnxf-g%3BFSyY1QEd2EZf-g%3BFfah1AEdkB5X-g%3B&mra=mi&mrcr=6&mrsp=7&sz=12&sll=29.846898,-95.257301&sspn=0.266219,0.526657&ie=UTF8&ll=30.308874,-94.397278&spn=2.119748,4.10614&z=9

 

 

 

 

Socialism's Bad for Industry

The Daily Telegraph has an article outlining Hugo Chavez's destructive force on PDVSA, the state owned oil company of Venezuela.  In fact, PDVSA has it's hand in so many other industries, such as growing food and building furniture, that it's production of oil has actually declined.

The article goes on to explain that the U.S. is the only country that pays full price for Venezuela's oil and analysts believe that if oil drops below $80 a barrel Venezuela could be in for some cash flow issues (due to the size of their subsidies).

The article:

Venezuela's oil output slumps under Hugo Chavez
Venezuela's daily oil production has fallen by a quarter since President Hugo Chavez won power, depriving his "Bolivarian Revolution" of much of the benefit of the global boom in oil prices.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/3183417/Venezuelas-oil-output-slumps-under-Hugo-Chavez.html

http://snipurl.com/4bclz

YouTube - Burning Down the House - What Caused Our Economic Crisis

This is a fascinating video.

Gmail Goggles

Check out the new Gmail Goggles from Google:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sending-mail-you-later.html

The idea is that you set parameters for hours and days you're most likely to be intoxicated and Gmail asks you a series of math questions that you must answer correctly before it will let you send an email.  This is to keep you from sending regrettable emails.

Craiglist Bank Robbery

Here's a fascinating story of a criminal using the internet to dupe unsuspecting naifs into providing cover for a bank robbery.

Thomas Crown blagger recruits decoy dupes on internet 

Identi-dress Craigslist flashmob caper foils plods

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 3rd October 2008 09:46 GMT

A crafty bank robber in America made a Thomas Crown style escape from the scene of his crime by recruiting a crowd of unsuspecting identically-dressed accomplices on the internet.

King5.com reports that the well-organised villain struck as an armoured van was picking up cash from the a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Washington. Wearing a dust mask, safety goggles, dayglo vest and a blue shirt, he pepper-sprayed a security guard and grabbed a bag of cash before fleeing briskly.

Responding plods were hampered in their pursuit by the fact that a dozen other dayglo-vested, masked, goggled and blue-shirted men had congregated in the vicinity - just as the legion of bowler-hatted suits assembled in New York's Metropolitan museum in the latestThomas Crown film fatally embugger the authorities' efforts to bracelet the eponymous billionaire blagger.

In this case, it appears that the anonymous miscreant recruited his unsuspecting dupes on Craigslist.

King5.com quotes one of them, named "Mike", as saying "I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour."

The ad purported to be hiring workers for a road maintenance job. After responding, Mike was emailed instructions to turn up at the bank wearing vest, goggles, mask "and, if possible, a blue shirt," he said.

The cheeky crook made good his escape under cover of the unsuspecting wouldbe road crew flashmob, and apparently exited the town by water - floating down the Skykomish River in an inner tube stashed earlier by a creek.

Monroe cops probing the caper confess themselves baffled, and have called in federal assistance to help them backtrace the Craigslist ad and emails. ®