Michio Kaku answers questions about the LHC

I know this is a bit late, but I found this on the drop.io

Michio Kaku answers questions about the LHC.

Ron Paul on the Bailout

can we please end the lying?

can we please end the lying?
Originally uploaded by Chris1051

I am no financial expert by any stretch but I would think that a dollar amount equivalent to what we have spent in Iraq in a single swoop to bailout some fat cat sleezeballs is a bad idea. Why do you have these jerkwads getting bailed out by us? Why do you get someone like McCain who is quick to do some finger wagging at the bailouts but says nothing about Carly Fiorina and her $42M severance package? and goes on to continue lying?

enough!

Wacky Sarah Palin Church - Take III

You can't help but laugh at this type of stuff. I saw this article and had to share.

Palin blessed to ward off 'witchcraft' in church ceremony

Published Date:  25 September 2008
By DAVID GUNN
US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is seen being blessed in church by a pastor praying for her protection from "witchcraft" in a video that appeared on YouTube.
The video shows Republican candidate Ms Palin standing before Kenyan bishop Thomas Muthee at the front of the Wasilla Assembly of God church, in Alaska, holding her hands open as he asked Jesus Christ to keep her safe from "every form of witchcraft"

I just have a question. I know they guy is African but what is up with his voice?

Cool + Discovery

 

While reading this article I went over to Google maps to have a look at the building. Let me just say that that is a really cool story and very interesting. But what is also weird is the little Google map man for street view looks like he has a party hat and balloons. What is going on? (click photo to embiggen)

Damage Control

 

Ouch! Looks like its spiraling out of control for McCain. Its kind of sad cause I like the guy. (I like him I don't like his policy) Here is video of David Letterman ripping him a new one. Ouch! (CBS may rip this off the web soon)

 

Quick morning post

Thanks to triple b for pointing me to this website. Its a bit of fun. But one of those posters really stood out above the rest and it made me laugh:

 

I still don't buy it

Hurricane Ike blew through and I noticed the blatant price gouging immediately on the evening of the 12th. That afternoon, I was enjoying gas (petrol - hereafter referred to as gas) at $3.499 per U.S. Gallon. I came home that night and stopped at a station and took this picture:

So the price had jumped $0.80 in a matter of hours. But still there was no shortage. Its been pretty much the same since this whole thing blew up sometime in 2005. Lies, counter-lies and misinformation. We see the price of oil jump to an incredible and record-breaking amount and then fall almost as quickly. It appears as if one of the driving factors for this is conflict in Iraq (both in 1991 and in 2003-present):

 

While the rest of the country including California was enjoying a decrease in gas prices due to oil going down to $100 a barrel, we here in the mid south were getting the highest prices in the country. Reports of $5 per gallon were not uncommon. I frequented nashvillegasprices.com for updates and insight. I see across the board how cities in this area have a spike after Ike and cities in Missouri and Texas have no such spike as demonstrated in the below graph comparison of Nashville and Austin:

 

I see recently people in Laredo enjoying gas at $2.959:

 

So as luck would have it -I thought the Ike gouging would be over with and we could all get back to our lives with the price bumpy- but ever increasing. I can deal with that. I realize that gas is never going to get below $2 a gallon again and I accept this.  I just went about my normal business on Thursday (18th) and then by Friday (19th) I was down to a 1/4 of a tank. I thought nothing was amiss as I walked to lunch. I figured I would fill up on the way home or that afternoon. With the power of hindsight, I now see that this was a very stupid mistake. Here it was 5 PM and I was going to be stranded. I realized that afternoon that there was no gas anywhere and the stations that did have gas were going to run out very quickly with lines of cars hundreds deep - the line extending on to the interstate. It took my boss - to drive home get the 1.5 gallons out of his gas can for his lawnmower and pour it into my truck's tank for me to get home. I drove 50-55mph on the interstate with my emergency flashers and no air con but I made it.

Then CNN wrongly reported it was because of people hoarding due to a rumor. The local news outlets followed suit. Finally admitting Monday that there actually was a shortage.  I don't buy any of this crap that there was a rumor. No one seems to be able to come up with any source of this rumor. Here's how I think it went down:

• Some stations started running dry. Those stations that had gas even limiting sales to $10, $20, $25.
• Less supply = more demand. The lines grew longer.

The house of cards collapsed. It just shows how dependent we are on this petroleum. Made from dead dinosaurs and plants. America's heroin. Oil. We live every day and the cogs of industry and society survive by hanging on a single thread.  We can see what happens when that thread breaks. Chaos and anarchy on an apocalyptic scale. This begs the question. When this happened in the 1970's, Why didn't we look at alternatives THEN?!?!  Why are we only just now, in 2008 coming out with cars like the Chevy Volt? Why do we still sell brand new cars that get 7 mpg? What year do we live in? Why are we still pouring petroleum based fuels into our vehicles in the year 2008? A fuel that took millions of years to come into existence. A fuel where 2/3 or more is wasted in heat and only 1/3 is actually used to chuck the car down the road.  We have cars that can run on air. We need to find out Who killed the electric car, try them and make them bust rocks for the rest of their lives. We need to ask questions like "Why do these bastards make RECORD PROFITS and still try and downplay their right to print money.

Here's an idea. STOP giving these crooks tax breaks! Is McCain going to do this? No.

Trying out Windows Live Writer

Ok I was convinced by a few people to download and install this software. I had to sift through the usual "make windows live my default search engine" crap. And also had to selectively choose which components of this program I should use. I of course only am using it to create content for the blog, which is neglected. I don't even really take blogging seriously anyway, but with this I may. It may be (so I have heard) a better editor than the tried and tested firefox, notepad, windows explorer.

Ok lets just go down the list here. The first tool I see in the UI on the right is "Insert Hyperlink". It may be a surprise but I am subscribed to the AFA's email newsletter - to see how bigoted and narrow-minded these people are, and also to have a laugh. Well a nervous laugh. I came across this bit of hilarity. Its a "voters guide" filled with misinformation and misguiding lies about Obama.

Not that we really care, as people who are subscribed to AFA's nonsense legitimately are a shoe-in vote for the right anyway. It is slightly annoying when you see lies and misinformation but for what its worth, the AFA are crackpot homophobic bigots, Who propagate hate speech, so I am not too worried.

Using the other features of this editing tool. I am going to drop a map of where the Westboro Baptist Church is:

Meanwhile you have people who claim that in order to be moral you need the bible. Yet we later find out that they are either closet gays, or run kiddie pr0n operations.

Technorati Tags: religious,nutbags,Christians,hate,hate-speech,AFA,homophobic,bigots,Obama,hypocrisy

So there it is my first attempt at Windows Live Writer. Lets hope that this thing will be worth keeping and not become a piece of bloated useless software.

We are hurting

New Ad

Today is...

In the court of the Pirate King
Originally uploaded by Sibley!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Just keeping you informed.

"an authentic historical rendering of the Holy Land and the Bible"

Spit-take of the morning. This is what the mayor of the town of Lebanon, TN said as he was describing the Bible Theme Park.

They stressed the $175 million park will be non-denominational

Mayor Don Fox said, "So this is not a religious park per se, this is an authentic historical rendering of the Holy Land and the Bible."

So these asshats are more worried that Baptists and other breakaway churches are going to be offended by it than the people who live here who are non-Christians. I find it incredibly hilarious that he says its "an authentic historical rendering of the Holy Land and the Bible" and the news site shows example renderings of what the park plans - a photo of the parting of the Red Sea. This is beyond ludicrous.



The mayor is probably a young Earth Creationist who doesn't believe in dinosaurs and actually believes the Red Sea was parted! Actually believes that the flood happened.

Hopefully the town of Lebanon will have elected some more rational people to their city council, people who don't believe in the talking snake. Council members who at least will vote for the people instead of voting because they believe in an invisible man in the sky who sent a pillar of fire to separate the Red Sea.

The God Industry looks to spend $175M

The God Industry - is looking to spend $175,000,000 on a bible land theme park. Its going to be in my neck of the woods. Why anyone would want to take their kids to see a tortured and bloody Jesus is beyond me.

This kills me:

They stressed the $175 million park will be non-denominational

Mayor Don Fox said, "So this is not a religious park per se, this is an authentic historical rendering of the Holy Land and the Bible."

I think the town of Lebanon - is only looking forward to the infusion of cash from the park.

So we can't spend the $175M on charity - the "good things" that Christians are always so quick to brag about? How many hospitals in Africa can you build for $175M? How many bloody Jesuses can you have for $175M? Only one you say??

hmmmmm

ShoZu test

OK.

I just now (2008-09-17, 10:34 CDT) took a photo of a drawing I did. Cause I have been frustrated with the ShoZu service.



I sent it to both Twitpic & ShoZu and on checking my flickr...uuhhh Nope still hasn't uploaded.

I took a lot last week at Italian Market and they only just now uploaded to Flickr via ShoZu. A week late. So this is a test for ShoZu. Seeing how long its going to take for it to upload to flickr. But for now, the emoticon is

>:-(

More wackiness

An update to the story of Sarah Palin's Wacky wacky world of hilarious-yet-at-the-same-time scary church.

I got this!

(hat tip: Ginger)

$5 gas

The price has gone up more than a dollar in 24 hours.

map by gasbuddy

Gas Prices Jump Overnight In Midstate

Posted: Sep 12, 2008 05:53 PM

WINCHESTER, Tenn. - Hurricane Ike is expected to make landfall along the Gulf Coast early on Saturday morning.

On Friday, it bore down on oil refineries and caused spikes in gas prices in parts of the United States.

Consumers in Middle Tennessee are finding some stations selling gas for more than $5 a gallon.

Steve Heath, a station owner in Winchester, said that he isn't committing price gouging. He said he is paying high prices himself because of the speculator market. He said the price spike is influenced by tensions surrounding the storm's impact on the refineries.

Drivers were in disbelief when they arrived to gas up at Heath Oil and Tire Friday because prices jumped overnight from under $4 a gallon to $5.29.

Nearby stations sold gasoline at normal prices, but some ran out of gasoline.

"I don't know how person is going to survive this," Heath said. "This caught a lot of people off guard."

"I was like, ‘You've got to be kidding me,'" said one motorist.

"I've been fussed at this morning over the price and whatnot and there are some options out here," said another station owner. "People have been able to receive fuel for less than what we paid or already had some. As you should expect that got it cheaper and all. Like I say, I am just hoping for my community right now that this price doesn't stay like this. And we can react in the opposite way."

A spokesperson for the American Automobile Association said it is likely that consumers may have to pay more than $5 gasoline in the near future and witness shortages and outages over the next two weeks.

To report suspected gas gouging, call the Division of Consumer Affairs at 1-800-342-8385.

If this isn't the truth...

If this isn't the truth...
Originally uploaded by s t e p h e r

Incredibly powerful!

Absolutely DISGRACEFUL

I have pledged to try and keep the swear words down to a minimum on this blog. But reading stories like this make that quite difficult!

As usual the damn mainstream media are sweeping this under the rug - whilst focusing on sensationalism bullshit! Is Britney pregnant again?

US government staff 'had sex and drugs with energy firm employees'
Staff of a US government agency that oversees oil drilling on federal land are alleged to have had sex and shared illegal drugs with employees of the energy companies they were policing, according to an official report.


By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 9:31AM BST 12 Sep 2008
Department of the Interior's inspector general Earl Devaney
Earl Devaney's report said nearly one-third of the MMS staff received gifts from energy companies Photo: Bloomberg News

The 19 former and current workers at the Minerals Management Service broke government rules and created a "culture of ethical failure", accepting a "wide array of gifts and gratuities" including skiing and golf trips from oil and gas companies, according to the US Interior Department's inspector general.

Earl Devaney said the staff, some of whom are accused of rigging contracts and working part-time as private oil consultants, did not even show any remorse when confronted with their activities.

The oil companies named in his report to Congress included a US arm of Royal Dutch Shell. The company said it would be premature to comment on the report until it could review its content.

The alleged "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" was discovered at the Denver and Washington offices of the MMS, which last year collected more than $11 billion in royalties from oil and gas companies.

The staff concerned were involved between 2002 and 2006 in a programme that collects and sells oil and gas passed on by the energy companies as a royalty-in-kind.

Some allegedly drank so much at oil industry functions that, rather than drive, they were put up for the night by the energy companies.

Workers also used cocaine and marijuana with industry contacts, as well as having sex with them even though "sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length", said Mr Devaney.

He said one supervisor engaged in illegal drug use and had sex with subordinates. Several staff admitted to illegal drug use and "illicit sexual encounters", he added.

Mr Devaney said many of the employees did not believe federal government ethics standards and department policies applied to them because of their "unique" role.

"Employees said they felt that in order to effectively perform their official duties, they needed to interact in social settings with industry representatives to obtain "market intelligence," he said.

The report coincided with Congress considering legislation to expand offshore oil drilling, a priority of the Bush administration which is being fought by environmental campaigners.

"It just underlies the fact that we shouldn't be putting the future of our coasts and beaches in the hands of people who obviously care nothing about the public," said Anna Aurilio, Washington office director for Environment America.