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August 24, 2003

Meet the Lonewacko!

Welcome from St. George, Utah. I'm taking a long road trip, and I might be coming to a town near you.

If you're a fellow blogger, let's get together and blog or something.

My current plan is to drive all the way to New England. I'll probably take the 70 to MO, head up to Chicago, and then work my way over to VT, NH, and perhaps ME. If you're on the route, let me know. Or, suggest an alternative route even.

Fun things we could do include:

- hiking
- mountain biking
- backpacking
- visiting confluences
- visiting state highpoints
- seeing the sights
- pretending to be Huell Howser and Luis
- smoking crack with truck stop prostitutes
- discussing why your political viewpoint is wrong, all wrong
- easy top-rope climbing
- taking photographs
- attending blog-worthy events in your area and blogging about same
- kayaking/canoeing/rafting in the Mighty Mississip
- etc. etc. etc.

P.S. I'm serious. This is not a joke. I am in St. George right now.

Depending on the thunderstorm situation, I might spend a day or two in Zion, then it's on to CO and points East.

Leave a comment or send an email to abuse at tolstoy.com It might take a day or two for a response.

P.P.S. The "wacko" in Lonewacko is ironic. I'm really quite normal.

Posted to BloggingAcrossAmerica at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

August 14, 2003

What really happened?

export EVENT=Northeast blackout

echo "While the rest of you are trying to figure out what really happened, I've already figured it out.

Obviously, Shrub wanted to drag attention away from $IRAQ_OR_SIMILAR, so that's why he and his neo-conmen cause this $EVENT.

Speaking of $DEROGATORY_BUSH_TERM(rand()%234), where was he when the $EVENT happened anyway? Perhaps he was $PRETZEL_OR_SIMILAR_EMBARRASING_SHRUB_MOMENT(rand()%32)."

Posted to Politics at 08:53 PM | Comments (1)

August 13, 2003

Winning friends and influencing people

What do you think of these statements?

"By populating the United States with millions of Canadians who are tied economically, politically and linguistically to Canada, we are able to exert enormous influence and pressure on U.S. policy and its dealings with Canada."

"By populating the United States with millions of French who are tied economically, politically and linguistically to France, we are able to exert enormous influence and pressure on U.S. policy and its dealings with France."

"By populating the United States with millions of members of the Chinese Communist Party who are tied economically, politically and linguistically to Communist China, we are able to exert enormous influence and pressure on U.S. policy and its dealings with Communist China."

All of those statements, were they to be made, are obvious threats to U.S. sovreignty.

Any one of them would hopefully cause U.S. politicians and the U.S. media to stand up, take notice of the issue, and do something about it.

Any U.S. citizen who supported those countries in their hypothetical efforts would rightly be called a traitor.

The statements above weren't made, however, this one was:

"By populating the United States with millions of Hispanics who are tied economically, politically and linguistically to Mexico, we are able to exert enormous influence and pressure on U.S. policy and its dealings with Mexico."

As discussed in this interview with Tom Tancredo, that statement was made by Juan Hernandez, head of Mexico's since disbanded Ministry of Mexicans Living in the United States.

Hernandez was the guy who said on Nightline "I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’"

At what point in time are the political and media elites going to wake up to the fact that this is a very real and present danger? I think statements like that are just about as explicit as threats get, yet some refuse to see there's a problem. Either that, or they're just on the other side.

In any case, reading the whole Tancredo interview is highly recommended. It also includes this disturbing news:

I [Tancredo] surreptitiously received a State Department memo from the U.S. Embassy in Managua [Nicaragua] that stated they required assistance in aiding Nicaragua in advancing a matricula-card program.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 01:11 AM | Comments (2)

August 12, 2003

"Recall Supporters Violently Attacked"

According to this:

All told, there were four attacks on our people [Recall Gray Davis supporters]... Our supporters were kicked, punched, beaten and tackled. There were several men attacked, a 20-year-old woman and then the “WAR” [Workers Against the Recall] thugs chased after and harassed, screamed at and terrorized a 7-year-old boy who was crying and shaking after watching his mother and father assaulted.

The link includes several still photos and video from Fox News. In the video, you can the end of the attacks, and it's a bit more than just a minor scuffle.

Note also that the WAR meeting was sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council. They're a private agency, however, recall supporters have claimed that some tax money might have been improperly used by Davis to fight the recall. See "Recall Organizers Accuse Davis Backers of Improper Use of Tax Money".

Posted to California at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

What's inside a "liberal?"

Dennis Prager has some of the answers in his rather scathing "What makes a liberal?" column.

Posted to Politics at 12:03 PM | Comments (2)

The Assembly Districts that matter

[UPDATE: Darn, darn, gosh golly gee, and darn.

The following analysis is all wrong. It's the candidates that rotate, not the wacky rearranged alphabet. So, until the complete list of candidates is announced, it's not possible to tell in which Assembly districts the popular candidates will appear at the top of the ballot. Ahnold may never appear at the top of the ballot, and may always be preceded by Arianna and Bustamante.

This rotation scheme is described here:

The resulting order of letters constitutes the alphabet to be used for determining the order of candidates' names on the upcoming statewide ballot; it applies throughout the name, not just for the first letter so that Adams could precede Aaron.

Names of candidates for offices voted on statewide rotate by Assembly district, starting with Assembly District 1 where the names appear as first determined by the random alphabet. In Assembly District 2, the candidate who appeared first in Assembly District 1 drops to the bottom and the other candidates move up one position and so on throughout the 80 districts...

I blame the liberal media for making me think it was alphabetical rotation.]

OK, they all matter in the CA recall. However, in some districts the top candidates will all be at the top of the ballot, and in others they'll all be at the bottom.

Arianna will be at the top in the 9th (either all of the city of Sacramento, or the south part of it), 35th (the big empty Santa Barbara county and the cities of Ventura and Santa "An American Family" Barbara), and 61st (Pomona, Ontario, and Chino in the Inland Empire) districts.

Bustamante will be at the top in the 10th (includes parts of Stockton and Lodi [not a good place to be stuck]. However, it also includes the largely empty Amador county and the Sacramento suburbs of Rancho Cordova and Rancho Murrieta), 36th (northern L.A. County between Lancaster and Apple Valley), and 62nd (Fontana, Rialto, and points east and south) districts. In those districts, Arianna will be at the bottom of the ballot. However, Ahnold will be just behind Bustamante.

In the 11th (northern part of the East Bay from Hercules to Concord to Pittsburg), 37th (Includes the largely empty northern Ventura and north western L.A. Counties. However, also includes conservative strongholds like Camarillo and Thousand Oaks), and 63rd (wackily starts in Rancho Cucamonga and Upland, then swings over to Redlands) districts, Ahnold will be at the top of the ballot, and Arianna and Bustamante will be at the bottom.

I might look at the demographic data later, but for now it seems like advantage Ahnold.

Lonewacko's assignment desk: someone compile a series of CA maps, one for each candidate. Show the counties where each will be at various ranges in the ballot (first page, second page, etc.) using different colors on the map. Produce a corresponding table with demographic data.

And, for those of you who say ballot position doesn't matter, recall that it was Californians who voted for Gray in the first place.

Posted to California at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2003

Ahnold on Prop. 187

California Insider reports that:

the Sacramento Bee leads with the story on Democrats rapping Arnold for having voted for Prop. 187 in 1994. That was the initiative that sought to end most public services to illlegal immigrants. Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres hit him on that, and for having former Gov. Pete Wilson as his campaign chairman. "There is a famous phrase in our community, and that is, 'Judge a person by the friends that he keeps,''' Torres said.

On a related subject, who are Art Torres' friends? This page has more information:

Art Torres, the Chairman of the California Democratic Party and the keynote speaker at the meeting, shouted to the audience "Power is not given to you. You have to take it...Remember 187 is the last gasp of White America in California!" [sound clip here] and "Que Viva La Causa!" (Long Live our Cause!) -- and then later exulted over how he could make such racist remarks with total impunity.

Let me know when the media looks into Torres' statements and associations.

Posted to California at 09:43 AM | Comments (1)

August 09, 2003

Maybe it really is a circus

Many of your questions about the upcoming California recall can be answered by viewing these pictures. They were shot earlier today at the Los Angeles County registrar's office in the last hour before the 5pm deadline to file. All told, 125 people have filed statewide, however some of those will probably be rejected due to problems with their application.

Those filing at the last minute at the registrar's office include:

- James Tsangares, a Republican candidate who wants to recall Arnold...

- former NFL linebacker (and current Reebok office linebacker) Terry Tate...

- public speaking expert Lynda Toth, who, as governor, would convene a large board of business and other leaders to help solve CA's problems...

- Ruben Paul Vega, who wants to bring Nevada-style gambling to CA. He exited the registrar's office as all the news people were leaving, and, despite trying to get one of them to interview him, none decided to do it.

One candidate who was unable to register was Jim Dimov, who wants to eliminate all taxes. Unfortunately, he was a few minutes late and wasn't allowed to register. However, he promises that he'll take the matter to court.

Other notable attendees included a Norwalk resident who had had his Terminator cup (that he got at Universal Studios) signed by Ahnold. eBay is one suggested future venue for the cup.

The owner of lautoexchange.com also dropped by, and expressed his support for Arnold. The one from Diff'rent Strokes, that is! He also promised to pay the car tax for the first 35 people who would buy cars from him.

Travel agency owner Tony Srivastan also threw his hat into to the ring.

Unfortunately, some candidates don't seem to be quite at the same leading edge as, say, Howard Dean.

My first candidate interview was with Sergio Myers. He seemed personable enough, however, his campaign manager interrupted our conversation:

"Excuse me, what's your interest?"
"I'm a blogger."
"A what?"
"I have my own web site."
"Well, thanks for your interest, and keep watching our campaign [now get lost]"

Well, no blogging votes for Sergio then. Unfortunately, he probably won't experience the wrath of the blogosphere, as he appears to be a Hollywood producer just doing it for the publicity.

On a more serious note, I also secured the financial disclosure documents for Simon, Ahnold, Arianna, and Larry Flynt. Flynt lists the heavy advertisers to his magazines, some of whom have quite interesting names.

Arianna's statement is quite thin, indicating only that her home and her business are worth more than $1 million.

Ahnold's statement includes various real estate and business ventures, trusts for Maria, and the like.

Simon's statement is about 1/2 inch thick, and I'm not going to even bother reading it.

Posted to California at 07:01 PM | Comments (3)

August 07, 2003

Heard in the comments at California Insider

California Insider enabled comments for one post, and it contains the following:

I am just one more Hispanic Democrat who plans on leaving the party. I have no real representation anymore. The democrats have abandoned me for illegals and other freeloaders...

Maybe those who support Cruz Bustamante will wise up as well. Especially if they weren't aware of his past membership in a racial separatist organization.

Posted to California at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

Let the Arnold smearing begin!

Here's a list of anti-Arnold smears, derived from a list at IndyMedia.

Posted to California at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2003

"A desperate governor makes rash promises"

The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin both have editorials opposing SB60, Gil Cedillo's bill (now supported by Governor Gumby Davis) to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens:

"Easing license rules a wrong move for state"

"Unlicensed aliens: A desperate governor makes rash promises"

(Via DailyPundit and CalBlog)

Posted to Immigration_dls at 04:53 PM | Comments (1)

That's not the kind of party I had in mind, Nanci

Older and bolder elder-cutie Nanci Pelosi wants to party on down with the Lonewacko. Maybe your daughter can come too, baby.

Yeah.

So, anyway, back to the real world. I was in the line at the drugstore just a bit ago. A late 30s Chinese lady was right behind me, real close like. She wasn't scowling, smiling, or showing much emotion beyond, let's say, quiet patience. I glanced her way, no reaction.

The line was moving slow, and I noticed that she was looking at a tabloid on a rack, featuring Laura Flynn Boyle in a bathing suit. The caption was something like "LFB is Wasting Away!" I glanced at it and said to the Chinese lady something like, "she's not so thin." Then, I picked up a copy of the tabloid, and said, "actually, she is thin." The Chinese lady just kept looking into space with the same patient expression, not acknoweldging me in the least. Then I said, "some creative Photoshopping there I guess" or similar. Same blank expression without acknowledging the presence of #1 Alpha Male Lonewacko.

Was she completely stoopid? Didn't speak a word of English? Shy? Scared of my Albert Goresque Alpha Maleness? Deaf? I mean, at the very least I would have expected a look of revulsion or something, right?

Posted to WackyHumor at 04:12 PM | Comments (1)

August 05, 2003

Ted Bundy, still sizzling after all these years

Wouldn't it be instructive if someone put the above picture of mass murderer Ted Bundy on, say, pickthehottie.com? (Current score: 1 win, 0 losses.)

Wouldn't it also be instructive if someone had also put that same picture on hotornot.com a couple years back?

Quoting from this (pre-blog) USENET post:

After 303 votes, he got a 6.1 rating. It probably could have been higher because I changed to a better photo midway, but a) they kept the first photo's dimensions so it's scaled and b) they make the voting inactive after a certain number of votes.

Despite being shown handcuffed and in a prison jumpsuit, he got almost 50 votes of 7 or higher:

1: 55
2: 57
3: 60
4: 26
5: 37
6: 23
7: 22
8: 12
9: 9
10: 2

Like I said, ol' Ted is still sizzling away.

Posted to WackyHumor at 11:28 PM | Comments (10)

I'm mo-blogging

I'm currently at the Apple Store in the Glendale Galleria, blogging off a notebook and using their free connection. Mo' mo-blogging at a later date.

UPDATE: Now I'm sitting on a bench outside the Apple Store mo-blogging. Whee!

Posted to Bloggage at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)

Don't let 'em get you down, Glenn

Insty and UCLA professor Mark A. R. Kleiman are having a BlogFight. Now, I've dissed Glenn several times, despite being linked to from him a few times. Mostly that's because of his Pollyannaish support for "immigration" in the abstract, despite obviously knowing or caring little what's going on here in our fair state.

Perhaps said dissing explains why he hasn't linked to me in about three months or so.

Back to the soap opera: about five months back, the blogger I refer to as "Hatrios" went to the trouble of creating a post in which he lied about and misinterpreted a comment I had made and attempted to smear me. In a way, someone as linked-to as Hatrios even mentioning one could be considered a good thing. As for the other 99%, well, no one likes to be libelled and be the recipient of yet another "liberal" ad hominem attack.

After the smear, I contacted a few "liberal" bloggers and one conservative blogger, asking them to denounce Hatrios. The conservative blogger supported me, but didn't publicly denounce Hatrios. But, then again, he frequently denounces Hatrios and his Hatriolytes. One of the "liberals" promised to look into it, but never did. Another of the "liberals" suggested that he would denounce Hatrios if I gave him a permalink. Sorry, no more communication for you.

That brings us to the final "liberal." I had met him at a blogging party a few months before the Hatrios incident, and he seemed like a decent person despite being a "liberal." However, that "liberal" not only refused to denounce Hatrios, he agreed with his smear. That last "liberal" is a schmuck.

UPDATE: I wish to categorically deny that Mark A. R. Kleiman is the "last liberal" referred to above as a schmuck. In fact, I once met Prof. Kleiman at a bloggers' party, and he seemed like a decent person.

Posted to Bloggage at 10:56 AM | Comments (4)

August 03, 2003

"City ends plan to let white teacher instruct black history"

From this:

An Ohio school district has scrapped its plan to assign a certified white teacher for a combined black-history and U.S.-government course because a black instructor was not certified to teach government, The Washington Times has learned.
"The black teacher is going to teach the course, and he will also teach government under an alternative certificate which our district can secure for him," Oberlin School Superintendent Beverly Reep told The Times.

Likewise, can we finally put an end to black teachers teaching white history? Nothing is more annoying and disconcerting than listening to a Teacher of Color trying to teach about Ancient Greece or Rome. Let's be frank: they just can't relate to our white history.

Oh, wait...

Even I have to admit that comment was unfair and snarky. There is a huge difference between a Person of Pallor teaching about black history and a Person of Color teaching about white history. The History of People of Color is a history of oppression. Why should Students of Color be forced to listen to an White Pale Pallid Oppressor of Pallor tell them about their Oppression at the hands of that selfsame White Devil Oppressor?

Wait, that last comment was snarky as well, and just shows that I as an Oppressor of Pallor don't understand the Trials and Tribulations that I have put Persons of Color through. For which I am deeply, deeply sorry.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

What part of "illegal alien" doesn't the L.A. Times understand?

The Sunday L.A. Times has an editorial ("Maywood's Mean Money Machine") which purports to be about the attempts of a small L.A. suburb to increase revenues by impounding cars at a traffic checkpoint. However, it soon turns into a pro-illegal-immigration essay. The editorial's author, Frank del Olmo, promises Part Two of the editorial on Monday. However, through the miracle of the Internet, I'm going to give you Part Two today.

Firstly, let's examine Part One of the editorial. About half of it is about Maywood's attempts to increase revenues through the rush-hour checkpoint. However, the other half concerns our protagonist, Flor Cervantes, who "[falls] victim" to the checkpoint and gets her car taken away because she doesn't have a driver's license. You see, Ms. Cervantes is an illegal alien, and doesn't have a driver's license. In a perfect world (as opposed to the L.A. Times' Bizarroworld), everyone would recognize that Ms. Cervantes shouldn't be here in the first place. That's why we call her an "illegal alien." I don't support taking her car away just because she's here illegally. However, whether she's got a job, house, home, family, pets, children, whatever here, she shouldn't be here in the first place, and we should recognize that and at the very least encourage her to go home.

In the editorial, Flor is truly presented as a victim. Using language that an NLP practitioner would envy ("Any working mother can envision herself [in this situation]...") Ms. Cervantes is presented as a hard-working mother of kids, just taking a shortcut in order to get home as soon as possible. She's an "immigrant," not an illegal alien. Just a hard-working mom. Someone most people can envision and even identify with, right? (Perhaps the L.A. Times could even provide a MIDI loop of violins to accompany their editorial).

Frank del Olmo could certainly have concentrated on Maywood's checkpoint. He could certainly have found a (real, as opposed to quasi-) citizen who had been affected by the checkpoint. He could have discussed whether there are legal problems with the checkpoint, or a safety issue with holding it at rush-hour. He even makes a slight attempt at some real reporting, making a phone call to the tow company involved.

But, apparently none of that is what del Olmo and the L.A. Times were after.

Instead, he wants to turn this checkpoint into - wait for it - a call for either a) driver's licenses for illegal aliens, or b) a full amnesty. (Along the way, for good measure, he complains about a traffic sign being only in English.)

Certainly there are problems with this checkpoint. And, there are legal solutions. For instance, challenging it in court. Or, even easier, just boycotting Maywood businesses. Apparently, however, that was too straightforward for the L.A. Times.

Instead, we're implicitly presented with a Rube Goldbergian solution. If the cars of illegal aliens are seized, why don't we just ignore federal laws and help those illegal aliens avoid the federal laws and implicitly change their status so they aren't illegal aliens? Certainly, that would be a way to avoid poor, sympathetic illegal alien working mothers from having their cars impounded, no?

So, looking in my crystal ball, I'm going to guess that tomorrow's editorial will be all about illegal immigration. It will most likely contain several attempts to blow smoke up our collective asses. Frank del Olmo will support the "regularization" and further importation of millions of poeple, all of whom quite coincidentally are of the same ethnic group as he is. And, also quite coincidentally, most of whom would be customers for the L.A. Times' sister rag La Opinion. Tomorrow's editorial will most likely feature several specious and misleading statements, such as that old chestnut: "they take jobs that (real, as opposed to quasi-) Americans won't do." Lord knows, no American citizens have ever worked in fast-food restaurants or upholstery businesses.

Hey, maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe del Olmo and the L.A. Times will report on this issue like an unbiased, real newspaper would.

We'll soon see.

(LAT link via Hit & Run)

For the truth about driver's licenses for illegal aliens, see this post.

One of the LAT's ombudsmen recently asked me why I referred to a couple of their articles as "pro-illegal-immigration." I didn't respond about those particular articles, but perhaps this editorial will serve as the example they were seeking.

This post also violates my recent "less snarky, more smooth" rule. Oh well.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 09:07 PM | Comments (10)

I just type what Matt tells me to

According to Drudge: "[Joe "Gray" Davis] would file a legal challenge on Monday to the Oct. 7 recall election that if successful would delay the vote until March and would allow Davis to run as a replacement to himself..."

Full story here.

Posted to California at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2003

NRO, Congressman validate this blog's existence

You'll recall that 10 days ago I discussed the Angry Clam's post about the "conservatives are crazy" academic study.

You, my blogees, will recall that I spent a couple hours of my precious time hunting down the various bosses of the paper's authors, and suggested that they be contacted about the paper.

Remember how, in the "UPDATE 2" section of that post I discussed how this paper was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, and even provided email and web addresses for those fine institutions?

Well, here's what Byron York of NRO had to say in their Friday edition:

Congressional investigators have found that the study was financed by $1.2 million in federal funds. According to the House Republican Study Committee [warning: PDF file], Kruglanski received National Institute of Mental Health grants totaling $976,762, Glaser received National Institute of Mental Health grants totaling $48,464, and Jost and Kruglanski together received an estimated $213,800 from the National Science Foundation...

In an interview with National Review Online, Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney, who looked into the study and its funding, called the project "outrageous."

"Taxpayers shouldn't be required to pay for these things," Feeney said. "If private universities, privately funded, want to study ridiculous hypotheses for political agendas, they have a right to do so, but when you are basically confiscating money from taxpayers to fund left-wing rhetoric and dress it up as scientific study, I think you have a real problem with credibility."

Here's your take-away: you don't need NRO. You don't need the high-falutin' House Republican Study Committee. All you need is the Lonewacko Blog. We've got you covered.

Oh, and Byron York/Congress, take note of the following. This is how we do things 'round here:

(NRO link via California Insider)

I'm not suggesting that Byron York or the congressman came to this blog and my post set their investigation into motion, nor am I suggesting that they did that and intentionally avoided giving me my props. I'm just being wacky about the props part of things.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 08:12 PM | Comments (2)

My amicus brief in Dell v. Gateway

OK, I'll try to make this as quick as possible. About 10 days ago I ordered a refurbished Dell Inspiron 600m notebook. It had a 1.3MHz Pentium M, 384Megs of RAM, a 14" screen, a CDRW, and the other standard stuff.

It took Dell 24 hours to email me confirmation of my order. In order to push the order through, I called them to arrange payment arrangements. Due to a daily limit on the credit card I used, I wanted to split the payment into two payments on successive days.

After about a dozen calls, shuttling back and forth between their esales and customer service departments, I eventually reached someone who helped me out. For a reason I won't go into, Dell ended up cancelling the order. It wasn't because the card declined, it was just concerning information I provided them. OK, so that I can understand, and even accept partial blame for. They're trying to protect me. However, what I'm bothered about is a) they didn't inform me that the order had been cancelled, and b) they didn't tell me they needed that information to process the order.

And, most importantly of all, they had put my order back in the bin. So, the computer I had selected was no longer available. When I asked them whether they could give me the same or a better system for the same or a better price, I was informed that I had to go back to their web site and go through the whole procedure again. I mean, if I wanted to make a sale, I would have said: "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, here, let me make you a satisfied customer." But, they told me I had to go through all their crap again.

I've got a better solution, and it's right here.

So, I noticed that Gateway had a special on their 400SP Plus for $800. It's certainly not as good as the Dell: 2.2Ghz Celeron, 256Megs RAM, a 15" screen. Great! I said as I received the printout with the quote from the Gateway store in Manhattan Beach. Oh No! I said as they informed me that they had none in stock.

To cut a long story short, the 400 SP Plus has been discontinued by Gateway, and only their Glendale store had something similar in stock. However, it was $100 more. The only difference is it had 512Megs of RAM. Note that that extra 256Megs of RAM is available elsewhere for $50.

So, why should I spend an extra $50 (plus CA tax)? Plus Gateway charges a 15% restocking fee whereas with Dell all you need to do is pay shipping to return something. On the other hand, Gateway has stores across this great land, which might make servicing the thing (knock on plastic) easier.

So, I got the Gateway. I only saved $200 off the Dell, I got a system with a larger screen, more RAM, but with a worse processor.

But, at least I can say: "Dude, I won't be getting a Dell."

Special, fair-use parodical witticisms just for search engines: "dude, I am not getting a dell" "dude, I'm not getting a dell" "dude, I will not be getting a dell"

Posted to Miscellania at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)

Conservatism Kills!

From this Nature article of 9/20/02:

A nation's suicide rate increases under right-wing governments according two studies that have looked at Australia and Britain over the past century.

Alienation and isolation may run higher in societies driven by competitive market forces, suggest the teams behind the findings. Left-wing rule, focusing more on equality, might put people under less pressure...

In total, there were 35,000 extra British suicides under the Conservatives. "One for every day of the century, or two for every day that the Conservatives ruled," Shaw points out...

"However," Cooper adds, "political parties now are not so distinct." He predicts that with the political gulf between parties narrowing, the suicide gap "will close quite dramatically in the next 50 years".

These studies just confirm what I already knew. And, most likely that goes for the researchers as well.

See this post for another study that found what they wanted to find.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

I'm the one standing

In response to the event "Bare Witness" which took place in Great Britain this past June 29th where 30 demonstrators gathered fully naked to form the words: "No GM", more than 300 naked Raelians had gathered to form the words "I love GM" during their Annual Sensual Meditation Seminars. This demonstration took place on Monday July 14th at 2PM at UFOland - 1382 Rg 7 - VALCOURT.

Posted to WackyHumor at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2003

More nonsense from Slate

The Slate article "Would You Like Fries With That Endive?" reviews the salads offered by various fast food restaurants:

The thinking seems to be that salads offer at least two incentives that haven't been traditionally associated with fast food: Classiness ("What's next—valet parking?" McDonald's asked in a recent billboard) and healthiness. "These are the anti-burger," the chains' ads seem to whisper. "Eat them, America, and live long and be well." ("And if you want to quit suing us, that'd be OK, too.")

Let's ignore for the moment that the last point is very similar to that I offered away back on May 26 in my McDonald's new "Please don't sue us" menu post.

No, let's instead concentrate on things like this:

[With a] Jack in the Box['s] Chicken Club [salad with] salty bacon-ranch dressing, and you end up with a staggering 65 fat grams—equal to the FDA's daily limit and perilously close to the chain's Ultimate cheeseburger (which has 66).

Well, duh. Most of the chains listed also offer low calorie dressings. Unfortunately, most of them are Italian and a bit too vinegary. But, if you can live with that, they'll bring the fat and calories down sharply. Most of the salads reviewed are high fat in their "stock" versions. However, if you use the lower calorie dressings, avoid the "crunchy" chicken, and throw away fried things like crispy strips, their fat and calorie counts go down to a reasonable level.

Given this article, can we trust anything else from Slate?

Posted to Miscellania at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)


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Permanent Features

My trip to Alpine County What not to do, again (September 1-2, 2002)

Boston Market Cornbread Temperatures Please help contribute to this important study (August 28, 2002)

Did The Gap Put Celebrities at Risk? An Open Web Letter to The Gap (May 20, 2002)

Humphreys Peak Arizona's highest point (May 19, 2001)

Go Heavy, Go Slow, Get Lost Bay Area highpoints (December 14, 2000)

Hubris in New England The highpoints of RI, CT, and MA (October 8, 2000)

Let's go to Utah Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon (August 14, 2000)

Your host, climbing Monkey Face (5.14d)

Your host's arm (circled)

Your host's hopelessly outdated conditioning progress

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