Longtown Poultry Auction

A sale of poultry and poultry equipment is put up for auction a couple of times each year at the Longtown Auction. There was one such auction this morning. My pal Isobel and I had made plans to attend today's auction. Isobel (Izzy) picked me up just at 9.00 this morning and she drove us the 12 miles or so to Longtown and the famous auction mart.Izzy was glad to have a little break from the sheep as sheep farmers are in the middle of lambing season at the moment. Izzy and her husband have been up to their elbows in sheep at all hours during the past few weeks ensuring that the latest crop of lambs come into the world safely.I have only ever been to one other poultry auction here and that was over 10 years ago. I must say that these auctions are certainly growing in popularity! It was very crowded!All the poultry enthusiasts come down from the hills!There are signs requiring people to wash their footwear. This is for foot and mouth disease prevention.Here are the pens that hold larger animals (sheep and cattle) during other auctions on other days.Izzy and I got there just before the auction was to start and we found that we couldn't get inside to view the pens very easily. I'm glad we were not there to bid on anything because in addition to the crowds viewing the stock, there was a huge queue to register for an auction number and to buy a catalogue.There were two auction rings used today for selling. One smaller auction ring was selling caged birds (canaries, budgies etc.) and poultry supplies while the main ring was being used to auction off eggs for hatching and the hundreds of ducks, geese, pheasants, quail, peacocks, turkeys and of course chickens!We began our visit by looking at the equipment - not so crowded in this area -I got some ideas for nest boxes I realize that I didn't get any photos of the huge crowds. Judging by my photos of the empty livestock pens, the place looks positively deserted. The mart was actually heaving with people. We had to walk sideways (excuse me . . . .pardon me . . . . can I slip by . . . ) the entire time we were in the big hall.Here are some examples of the fine poultry up for auction today:Buff SussexSpeckled Sussex - these were gorgeous and my photo doesn't do them justice -Maran - lay beautiful dark brown eggsBuff OrpingtonQuailGolden PheasantThe following video clip from my camera gives you some idea of the noise levels we experienced today.Though neither Isobel or I bought anything, it was great fun to look, people watch and foster outlandish and impractical ideas about raising more poultry than either of us need. If we bought an incubator and more wire mesh . . . .The few chickens that I keep at the moment keep us well supplied with enough eggs for our family and a few surplus for our neighbours. I like my hybrid layers. They do a spectacular job. The three pure breed hens are nice as well and they lay beautiful dark brown designer eggs when they feel like it. In my opinion these eggs do not show up often enough to justify the hens' space in my coop. I toy with the idea of turning these less productive chickens into soup, but the thought of all that plucking and cleaning keeps the poor layers from the chopping block. A more industrious and frugal poultry owner would have done away with them a long time ago but my idleness and (if I'm honest) mild sentimentality allows them to live on.Perhaps this summer, I will get my act together with regard to these chickens. The non-productive ones could be culled and fresh birds will be brought in. I could then justify the expense of some fancy nest boxes . . . I could get nest boxes at the next poultry auction.

Fossils and Dinosaurs Lesson Plan

We will be doing this lesson as a group activity with some of our friends from girl scouts. Discover (Introduction):Do a role-play of the rock cycle. Tell students that they are going to pretend to be a rock, but they will change through a long, long period of time. Have them start the role-play by sitting along the top of a small hill (a dry ditch bank will work well). Have them close their eyes and listen carefully until there is an action part to act out. Read or paraphrase the following story:Imagine you are a rock about the size of an apple. You live on a warm hillside above a huge valley. The river roars far down below, but up here it sounds like a small “shhhhh….” In the winter you are worried about a crack right behind you. Water fills the crack on warm days, and during the cold nights, it freezes and expands the crack, inching you closer and closer to the edge. (students inch toward downhill). One warm spring, the mud around you is soft and wet from the rains, The ground suddenly begins to shake from a small earthquake (students shake), and you slowly start tipping over and rolling down the hill! (students act out as you read). On the roll down hill you get dizzy and two of your sharp corners break off (ouch!). You roll all the way down the hill and splash into the river. The river is fast! It starts carrying you downstream, bouncing you on the bottom, breaking off more of your corners until you are round – a perfect river rock (students roll into a ball). Rolling along the bottom, you get smaller and smaller -- until you are just a moving ooze of sand. One day the river suddenly stops and the water tastes salty. You are in the ocean! Finally you can rest, and you do – for thousands of years. While you are resting, the other sand-people, like you, start resting too – on top of you (students layer over each other – 2 or 3 deep). You feel like you are getting squashed and you stick together with your friends and become one rock (a sandstone) again. But you keep sinking and sinking because more sand is layering over you, and you change again into another rock – a really squashed one! You get pushed down so far into the earth that it gets very warm – so warm you start to melt! (students ooze out from their layers) Suddenly, you feel like you are in a fast elevator, shooting up through a crack in the earth (students run uphill). You blast from the ground way up in the air (jump) and land on the slope of a big volcano! It is so cool that you harden right away into another kind of rock made of what was melted rock. And here you sit, on the edge of a mountain, looking down into a valley at a river far, far below. I wonder what will happen to you now? Now ask the students, "Do rocks ever change?" "How long does it take?" "Does it seem like you went in a big circle (cycle) when you were a rock?" You did, you went through a cycle where you became 3 different types of rocks:sedimentary – other rocks ground up and squashed togethermetamorphic – squashed really hard and cooked, but not meltedigneous – melted and then cooled to hardenIn one type of these rocks, a type that is not squashed really hard and not melted, something special can be found. Do you know what can be found in sedimentary rocks? Fossils. Fossils are destroyed if the rocks are subjected to great heat and pressure (In the formation of metamorphic rocks) so they can only be found in sedimentary rocks. Ask the kids if they have every seen a fossil? Where? Explain that some people have jobs that where they search for fossils and bring them back to museums so that scientists can study and learn about the dinosaurs and then teach us about the dinosaurs. Read Barnum Brown: Dinosaur Hunter by David Sheldon about a fossil hunter who made a contribution to a museum and made a difference in our world. Connect (Team Building/Cooperation/Increase Self-Confidence):How big do the kids think the fossils were that Barnum Brown found? Explain that some dinosaurs were large and some were small. Have the kids help measure out dinosaur strides and place life size footprints down. Have the kids see what size strides they can take. Explain that we will make some smaller fossils. Have each child make fossils for each child to take home. Explain that when scientists look at dinosaur fossils, they are able to determine what type of food they might have eaten. Use a hand-held mirror to have kids examine their own teeth. Have them make observations such as the front teeth are long, wide and flat; there are four of these. The next ones are long, round and have a point; there is only one of these longer ones on each side of my mouth. The molars are next and are round and short but are rough on the top; we have two or three of the molars on each side of our mouths. The same type of teeth are on my upper jaw as on my lower jaw, etc. Ask questions such as "Which teeth are for tearing off pieces of meat?" (The incisors, which have sharp points on them. These are for biting also.) What are the back teeth for? (For grinding and smashing into smaller pieces so that we can swallow our food.) These teeth are also called molars. In Spanish, the word molar means "to grind," which is what these teeth do to the food before we swallow.Which teeth are we using to eat our "plants"? (We bite first, and then we chew; but we don't have to tear the fruit or vegetables.) Humans have both kinds of teeth because humans eat meat, and humans eat plants also. What do we think if a dinosaur skull is found and all its teeth, but a few front ones, are flat? (That they were plant eaters.) What do we think if a dinosaur skull is found and all its teeth, but a few front ones, have sharp points? (That they were meat eaters.) Use microscope to examine shark teeth.Based on what they observed with the microscope do the kids think that sharks eat meat or plants. Reiterate that sharp teeth are used for cutting and tearing meat and that the flat teeth are use for eating plants. Explain that plant-eating dinosaurs still need to grind up their food but they have a special part of their body called a gizzard. Have kids make a dinosaur gizzard.Take ActionClose with discussion about why scientists are important, why learning about our world is important and how now that we know that rocks can hold valuables such as fossils how do the girls think we should treat our natural world.

Cook Fam Maternity

The Cooks and The Grants go way back. Jon + Becky's wedding was actually one of the very first that I ever shot (in all film!) and I think their maternity was the very first. I even took pictures of them when I was in my high school photography class, nine years ago. Yowza!Daphne.These pictures reminded me of my Holga pictures.And this one looked like film too.Tabitha.Daphne and Daddy!Daphne and Mommy.I LOVE these two shots:Daphne loves to play with rocks!She has fun in Daddy's guitar case.She loves to sing worship songs.But she does NOT like when her rocks are taken away!Thank you Cook family! We love you!

Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis Cont'd: Rounds 7-14 - Fantasy Gameday Keeper

This is a continuation of my Fantasy Gameday Keeper League draft analysis post from last week. I know this is kind of a long post, so I'm hoping I won't lose your interest mid-post. If that happens, I'd suggest breaking it down into smaller bite-size morsels; mmmm...bite-size morsels of Roto Advice goodness.My round 7-14 picks were as follows:Round (overall pick) Player (player picked before / after)7 (82) D Young (OF) - (N Swisher/ J Bay)-This was the first of two picks I made completely disregarding the walks category (intentional or not, it still happened). Young's current ADP is 106, which is about the end of the 9th round for a 12 team league. Given that he walks very little, his value probably should have pushed down a little in a league like this (where walks count just as much as HR).So maybe I reached a little for Young, but boy, does he have upside. He's still only 22, and he was universally viewed as the #1 prospect heading into last season. Considering he hit .288 with 13 HR, 93 RBI, and 10 SB in his rookie season, I can't help but think things will only get better from here. He played very consistently as well, hitting well against both left handers & right handers, along with hitting well before & after the all star break.I view Young as a poor-man's version of Corey Hart or Hunter Pence, although he arguably has just as much, if not more, upside than them both & could outproduce each of them this year. He's young, strong, fast, and has a great major league career ahead of him in Minnesota. His lack of walks will hurt me a little, but I was willing to take a chance on him given his enormous upside.Pecota - .294/17 HR/81 RBI/14 SB8 (87) A Gordon (1B / 3B) - (B Jenks / F Hernandez)-This was another high risk / high reward pick on my part. Some of the third basemen left on the board at this point were Gordon, Beltre, Lowell, Encarnacion, Longoria, and Kouzmanoff; so given my options, I think Gordon was the best choice, especially since this is a keeper league (I didn't seriously consider Longoria at this point in the draft).Gordon had a very slow start to his rookie season last year, after the jump to the majors from AA ball. Although he struggled to find his groove, the Royals stuck with him & he rewarded them with 15 HR & 14 SB; unspectacular but solid. As the season wore on, he seemed to get more comfortable & more confident; this is evident by the 8 HR he hit in the final 186 AB over the last two months of the season. I'm expecting a minimum output of the Pecota projections below, although I see him as a major breakout candidate. Upside - .280 / 25 HR / 90 RBI / 25 SB; if he goes 20/20, I'll be pleased...especially since I know there is much more to come.Pecota - .269/18 HR/75 RBI/16 SB9 (106) S Kazmir (SP) - (B Wagner / A Beltre)-At this point, I wanted to start building my rotation with another solid starter; little did I know that I would be able to grab a 1A starter in the 9th round in Kazmir. I think his spring injury might have scared off some managers, but with an ADP of 68, or late 6th round in a 12 team league, I saw this as an immense value pick at this point. Kazmir was simply lights out in the second half of last season, putting up a line of 94 IP/2.39 ERA/1.14 WHIP/124 K/31 BB/8 W. What makes it even better, is he's 24 years old, which makes him a great candidate to improve even further. Although I'm a little nervous about the injury risk, he's still young & along with Smoltz, should be able to give me a solid 1-2 punch in my rotation at a much lower cost than some of the other top pitchers.Pecota - 195 IP/29 GS/197 K/3.24 ERA/1.23 WHIP/13 W10 (111) H Kendrick (2B) - (Y Gallardo / P Burrell)-Walks be damned! That should be by team name in this league.I picked Kendrick right around his current ADP of 117, but again, his value will be slightly lower in this league since walks matter...and he NEVER walks. OK, to his defense, he did walk 9 times last season in 338 AB, but boy, can he ever HIT.He's been described as a future batting champion ever since he entered the majors, and those projections might not be far off. He's never hit less than .317 in any of his 5 or so seasons in the minors, and he's hit .288 & .322 in his first two partial seasons in the big leagues. He's also been consistent in his lack of walks & with his ability to put the ball in play; he hasn't walked more than 24 times in any full season in professional ball.I see his upside this season at around .325/15 HR/25 SB, which is a nice line in the middle infield & would make up for his lack of walks. Even if he hits in the .280-.300 range with 10/10 output, I'll be happy since I think his best is yet to come. Overall, I was happy to fill my MI position with Howie.Pecota - .287/14 HR/73 RBI/10 SB11 (130) J Shields (SP) - (M Corpas / R Soriano)-I was quite happy to be able to grab a pitcher of Shields' quality in the 11th round. I view him as a proven commodity, and a low risk for any regression. Shields is a control fiend, and proved he can strike guys out at an above average rate as well. I think the Rays are a team on the rise, so his wins will likely increase as the team improves. He’s a good third addition to my rotation, and another solid value given his ADP of 116.A general note - I was pleased to get solid pitching value in the mid rounds, since I focused on hitting & didn't pick one of the top 10 pitchers early in the draft.Pecota - 190 IP/29 GS/148K/3.88 ERA/1.24 WHIP/12 W12 (135) J Soria (RP) - (J Hamilton / R Hill)-I thought it was about time to take my first closer, and Soria is a young stud with major upside. The negative? He plays for the Royals, so he probably won't get too many chances this season.After the all star break last season, he pitched 32+ IP, with 5 BB, 33 K, 2.78 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, and only a .183 BAA - good stuff. I still expect 30+ saves out of Soria this year, and he'll certainly help my team in ERA, WHIP, and K's.Pecota - 75 IP/36 SV/3.16 ERA/1.19 WHIP/81 K13 (154) S Drew (SS) - (J Peralta / I Snell)-I realized during this draft that SS is not the deepest position around this year. This pick was again based on upside, and the realization that Drew is a good big league hitter who was just too unlucky last season. With Peralta going off the board the pick before this, I was down to a handful of targets at SS - Drew, Greene & Escobar; since at least two other teams didn't have a starting SS at this point, I felt I needed to pull the trigger on who I viewed as the best SS left - Drew.I think he'll surprise some people this season by having a good year; many people forget that he hit .316 in 200+ AB the previous year. He has a good eye for the ball, walking 60 times last season, and he also chipped in 12 HR & 9 SB (in 9 attempts). Even if he hits the conservative Pecota projections, I'll be satisfied. And he's young & still has major upside, so this pick was a no-brainer at this point in the draft.Seeing how Kelly wasn't happy after the pick, chances are Drew wouldn't have been available when I drafted next time around.Pecota - .270/18 HR/64 RBI/6 SB14 (159) A Wainwright (SP) - (R Ibanez / R Betancourt)-I couldn't pass up a starter that I see as a possible breakout candidate this season. In the second half of last season, he put up the following line - 15 GS/99 IP/2.71 ERA/1.25 WHIP/77K/7 W. I expect him to carry that performance over into this season, as it appears he's re-adjusted to being a starter. The Pecota line is quite conservative, but that would even be acceptable from my 4th starter, especially given Wainwright's youth. Overall, a solid pick to fill out my rotation.Pecota - 175 IP/27 GS/4.09 ERA/1.37 WHIP/120 K/10 WAmazingly, I'm only about half done with my analysis. I'll probably take a look at the rest of my drafted team next week, so stay tuned.In other upcoming posts, I'll be highlighting some web based research tools that can be used to help you during the baseball season, along with re-visiting the world of fantasy basketball for a brief moment.With fantasy basketball playoffs just around the corner (for H2H leagues), I'll be highlighting waiver wire or fringe players that can either make or break your season - players that are hot, and players who are not-so-hot.Until next time...

Noam Chomsky on Global Crisis, Healthcare, US Foreign Policy and Resistance to US Empire (Part II)

Democracy Now!Noam Chomsky on the Global Economic Crisis, Healthcare, US Foreign Policy and Resistance to American Empire Part II of our conversation with MIT professor and author Noam Chomsky on the global economic crisis, healthcare, the media, US foreign policy, the expanding wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, resistance to American empire, and more.“As far as policy is concerned, unless [Obama] is under a lot of pressure from activist sectors, he’s not going to go beyond what he’s presented himself as in actual policy statements or cabinet choices and so on: a centrist Democrat [who’s] going to basically continue Bush’s polices, maybe in a more modulated way,” says Chomsky. [includes rush transcript]Noam Chomsky, author and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for over half a century. Among his many dozens of books are Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, Manufacturing Consent, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, and Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. AMY GOODMAN: Today, a conversation with one of the most important dissident intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky, on the global economic crisis, healthcare, the media, US foreign policy, the expanding wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and resistance to American empire. Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned linguist, philosopher, social critic, and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Among his many books over the past few decades are Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, and Human Rights and American Foreign Policy. There’s a great collection of his work, just out now, edited by Anthony Arnove, called The Essential Chomsky.I spoke to Noam Chomsky earlier this month when we were on the road in Boston. This is Part II of our conversation. I began by asking him to talk about the current economic meltdown.NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, let’s start with G20. If you look at the Financial Times, the world’s major business journal, the day before the G20 meeting, they had a section on it, and they pointed out, I think correctly, that the main purpose is to present a picture of harmony and agreement. It doesn’t matter what you do, but make it look as if we’re all together on this. Now, there are sharp splits about how to approach the issue, but you have to make it look as if we’re all together. That’s pretty much what happened.Now, in the communiqué, which you read before, the crucial word was “voluntary.” So, the countries there are supposed to voluntarily choose to do x, y and z. Well, that means we couldn’t make an agreement. So we’ll call it voluntary agreement.Now, there was one point on which they agreed: a sharp recapitalization of the International Monetary Fund; pour a lot of money into the IMF. That’s a pretty dubious move. I mean, the record of the IMF has—the IMF is more or less a branch of the US Treasury, even though it has a European director. Its past role has been extremely destructive. In fact, its American US executive director captured its role when she described it as “the credit community’s enforcer,” meaning if a third world dictator incurs a huge debt—people didn’t, but the dictator did; say, Suharto in Indonesia—and then the debt defaults, the lenders, who have made plenty of money because it was a risky loan so they get high interest and so on, they have to be protected, meaning not by the dictator, by the people of Indonesia, who are subjected to harsh structural adjustment programs so that they can pay back the debt, which they didn’t incur, so that we can be compensated, rich Westerners can be compensated. So that’s the IMF, the credit community’s enforcer, a very destructive role in the third world. Now it’s to be recapitalized.Now, there’s discussion about this, and it’s interesting. You can read it in the financial pages. The supporters of the recapitalization say, “Well, the IMF has changed its spots. It’s going to be different from now on. We realize that it had this terrible role, but now it’s going to be different.” Well, is there any reason to believe it will be different? In fact, if you look today, it’s quite striking to see the advice that the Western powers are following, the programs that they’re following, and compare them to the instructions given to the third world.So, say, take Indonesia again. Indonesia had a huge financial crisis about ten years ago, and the instructions were the standard ones: “Here is what you have to do. First, pay off your debts to us. Second, privatize, so that we can then pick up your assets on the cheap. Third, raise interest rates to slow down the economy and force the population to suffer, you know, to pay us back.” Those are the regular instructions the IMF is still giving them.What do we do? Exactly the opposite. We forget about the debt, let it explode. We reduce interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy. We pour money into the economy to get even bigger debts. We don’t privatize; we nationalize, except we don’t call it nationalization. We give it some other name, like “bailout” or something. It’s essentially nationalization without control. So we pour money into the institutions. We lectured the third world that they must accept free trade, though we accept protectionism.Take the “too big to fail” principle, which the House committee is discussing today. But what does “too big to fail” mean? “Too big to fail” is an insurance policy. It’s a government insurance policy. Government means the public pays, which says, “You can take huge risks and make plenty of profit, and if anything goes wrong, we’ll bail you out.” That’s “too big to fail.” Well, that’s extreme protectionism. It gives US corporations like Citigroup an enormous advantage over others, like any other kind of protection.But we don’t allow the third world to do that. I mean, they’ve got to privatize, so that we can pick up their assets. Now, these are happening side by side. Now, here’s the instructions for you, the poor people; here’s the policies for us, the rich people. Exactly the opposite. Is there any reason to think the IMF is going to change it?AMY GOODMAN: Do you think President Obama is any different than President Bush when it comes to the economy? And if you were in the Congress, would you have voted for the bailouts and the stimulus packages?NOAM CHOMSKY: He’s different. I mean, first of all, there’s a rhetorical difference. But we have to distinguish the first and the second Bush terms. They were different. I mean, the first Bush term was so arrogant and abrasive and militaristic and dismissive of everyone that they offended, they antagonized even allies, close allies, and US prestige in the world plummeted to zero. Now, the second Bush administration was more—moved more toward the center in that respect, not entirely, but more, so some of the worst offenders, like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, were thrown out. I mean, they couldn’t throw out Dick Cheney, because he was the administration, so they couldn’t get rid of him. He stayed, but the others, a lot of them, left. And they moved towards a somewhat more normal position.And Obama is carrying that forward. He’s a centrist Democrat. He never really pretended to be anything else. And he’s moving towards a kind of a centrist position. He’s very popular in Europe, not so much because of him, but because he’s not Bush. So there is the kind of rhetoric that the European leaders and, in fact, the European population tend to accept. In fact, you know, even in the Middle East, where you’d think people would know better, they accept the illusions. And they are illusions, because there’s nothing to back them up. So, yes, he is different from Bush.Same—on the economy, well, you know, the current Obama-Geithner plan is not very different from the Bush-Paulson plan. I mean, somewhat different, but circumstances have changed. So, of course, it’s somewhat different. But it’s still based on the principle that we have to—somehow, the taxpayer has to rescue the institutions intact. They have to remain intact, including the people who, you know, destroyed the economy. In fact, they are the ones who Obama picked to fix it up.AMY GOODMAN: Explain.NOAM CHOMSKY: Like Larry Summers, for example, who is now his chief economic adviser. I mean, he was Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton. His great achievement was to prevent Congress from regulating derivatives, exotic financial instruments. Well, that’s one of the main factors that led to the crisis.His kind of senior adviser, one of the first, was Robert Rubin, who was Secretary of Treasury right before Summers. His main achievement—many achievements, like what he did to Indonesia and the third world, but here, his main achievement was to lead the way to revoke the Glass-Steagall legislation from the New Deal, which protected commercial banks from risky investments. It broke down those barriers. Immediately after having done this, he left the government, joined Citigroup as a director, and they began to make huge profits, including him, from picking up insurance companies and so on and making very risky loans, relying on the “too big to fail” doctrine, meaning if we get in trouble, the taxpayer will bail us out, which is just what’s happening, taxpayers now pouring tens of billions of dollars into rescuing Citigroup.Well, these are the advisers who were supposed to fix up the system. Tim Geithner was right in the middle of this. He was head of the New York Federal Reserve, so, yes, he was supervising these actions. Now, you know, you can argue about whether they’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing, but are these the people who should be fixing up the system?Actually, the business press just had some interesting things to say about this. Bloomberg News, you know, main business press, had an article in which they reviewed the records of the people who Obama invited to his economic summit. I think it must have been last November or December. They just reviewed the record. I think there were a couple dozen of them. People on the—you know, people like, say, Stiglitz, Krugman, they were never even allowed close to it, let alone anyone from the left or labor and so on, given token representation. So they went through the records, and they concluded that these people should not be invited to fix up the economy. Most of them should be getting subpoenas because of their record of accounting fraud, malpractice and so on, and helping bring about the current crisis.AMY GOODMAN: Professor Noam Chomsky. We’ll continue the conversation in a minute. If you’d like a copy of today’s show, you can go to our website at democracynow.org. Stay with us.[break]AMY GOODMAN: We return now to my conversation with Noam Chomsky about the economic crisis and how the Obama administration is handling it.AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think Obama chose to surround himself?NOAM CHOMSKY: Because those are his beliefs. I mean, his support comes from the—his constituency is basically the financial institutions. Just take a look at the funding for his campaign. I mean, the final figures haven’t come out, but we have preliminary figures, and it seems to be mostly financial institutions. I mean, the financial institutions preferred him to McCain. They are the main funders for both—you know, I mean, core funders for both parties, but considerably more to Obama than McCain.You can learn a lot from campaign contributions. In fact, one of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson’s investment theory of politics, as he calls it—very outstanding political economist—which essentially—I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state. And he takes a look at the formation of campaign contributors, and it gives you a surprisingly good prediction of what policies are going to be. It goes back a century, New Deal and so on. So, yeah, it can predict pretty well what Obama is going to do. There’s nothing surprising about this. It’s the norm in what’s called political democracy.AMY GOODMAN: Would you have let Citibank, would you have let Citigroup, would do have let the AIG fail?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there are other possibilities. So, the government could just take over the viable parts. And parts of them are functioning; parts are dysfunctional, like the toxic—what they call the toxic asset parts, you know, the financial manipulations.Well, one thing you could do, which has been suggested by a number of economists like Dean Baker, just take over the good parts, essentially nationalize them, put them under public control. And “nationalize” means public control, at least if you have a democracy. Not here, but if you had a functioning democracy, it would mean let them be under public control, and the parts that are responsible for the huge losses, just let them go off by themselves. In fact, that would be the way of taking care of the AIG bonuses that everyone’s screaming about. In fact, as Baker pointed out, just spin off the parts that were involved in financial manipulations and caused the crisis, let them go bankrupt and let the executives try to get the bonuses from a bankrupt firm, OK, with no legislation necessary. That’s what should be done with Citigroup.And in fact, it’s interesting, it’s kind of happening. You know, after the breakdown of Glass-Steagall, they did bring in—they made use of it, under Rubin’s direction, among others, to take—bring in insurance companies and other risky investors. Now they’re divesting them. And they’re going in the direction of becoming, you know, commercial bank.Now, incidentally, this is not the first time this has happened. Paul Volcker is on the news today, you know, saying, “Let’s slow down,” and so on. Well, he’s the one who, under Reagan, who helped bail out Citigroup last time they crashed. At that time they were Citibank. They had followed World Bank and IMF instructions and lent huge amounts of money to Latin America and were assured by the World Bank that it’s all fine, you know, markets will take care of it, etc. Well, in a crash, Paul Volcker came in. He raised interest rates very sharply. Third world countries, whose payments are tied to US interest rates, couldn’t pay their debts. The IMF moved in, took care of it, and essentially recapitalized Citibank. That’s the way the system works: you make risky loans, you make a lot of money, and if you get into trouble, we’re here to bail you out, namely the taxpayer.AMY GOODMAN: And how do the Republicans differ from the Democrats in this? What do you make of—do you see it as just a minor footnote that Republicans, or some of the governors like Palin, like Jindal—NOAM CHOMSKY: There’s a difference.AMY GOODMAN: —are saying they’re not going to take stimulus money?NOAM CHOMSKY: There’s a difference. I mean, we basically are a kind of a one-party state. I think C. Wright Mills must have pointed this out fifty years ago. It’s a business party, but it has factions—Democrats and Republicans—and they’re different. They have somewhat different constituencies and different policies. And if you look over the years, the population has—the majority of the population has tended to make out better under Democrats than Republicans; the very wealthy have tended to make out better under Republicans than Democrats. So they’re business parties, but they’re somewhat different, and the differences can have an effect. However, fundamentally, they’re pretty much along the same lines.So take, say, the current financial crisis. Actually, it began under Carter. The late Carter administration is the one that began—was pushing for financialization of the economy, you know, huge growth of speculative financial capital, deregulation, and so on. Reagan carried it much further, and Clinton continued it. And then, with Bush, it kind of went off the rails.So there are differences, but differences within a pretty narrow spectrum. And anyone who’s a little off the spectrum, like Nobel laureates in economics who are a couple of millimeters off the spectrum, they’re basically on the outside. You can interview them, but they don’t show up at the economic summit.AMY GOODMAN: How does the global economy and our own economy relate to the issue of war and US foreign policy?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, you had a pretty good interview with Joseph Stiglitz about that a couple of months ago, in which he discussed the relationship of—he was talking about the Iraq war. And as you’ll recall, he pointed out correctly that the Iraq war, which, first of all, is going to cost trillions of dollars, also had the effect of sharply increasing the price of oil, predictably. And as he pointed out, we could sort of paper that over for a while by a housing bubble, so there was a huge housing bubble which anyone with eyes open could see. I mean, for a century, housing prices had sort of tracked the economy, GDP; then, all of a sudden, they shot way beyond the trend line, which means there’s a bubble, and it’s going to burst, and you get into trouble. But the housing bubble, which was supervised by Alan Greenspan and with the Democrats—actually, it started under Clinton—it replaced the tech bubble under Clinton, and it gave an illusion of prosperity, which—so you didn’t see the effects of the rise in oil prices, which went very high. But if you trace all the connections, yes, there’s a clear connection, as he pointed out, between the war and the economic crisis.And in fact, it’s deeper than that. The US is just in a class by itself in military expenses. It basically matches the rest of the world, and it’s far more advanced. Well, that’s drawn from somewhere. You know, that’s money that’s not being used to develop the economy.Now, in fact, you have to add a footnote here, because part of the very high level of US violation of free trade principles is that the economy itself is based on military spending to a substantial extent. So the modern information revolution—computers, the internet, fancy software and so on—most of that comes straight out of the Pentagon. My own university, MIT, was one of the places where all of this was developed under Pentagon contracts in the 1950s and the 1960s.In fact, that’s another critical part of the way the economy works. The public pays the costs and takes the risk of economic development, and if anything works, maybe decades later, it’s handed over to private enterprise to make the profits. And that’s a core element of the economy. Of course, we don’t permit the third world to do that. That’s considered a violation of free trade when they do it. But it’s the way our economy works. And it’s kind of complementary to the “too big to fail” doctrine of protectionism for financial institutions. But the general—we do not have a capitalist economy. We have kind of a state capitalist economy in which the public has a role: pay the costs, take the risks, bail out if they get into trouble. And the private sector has a role: make profit, and then turn to the public if you get into trouble.AMY GOODMAN: Would you extend that to healthcare?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, healthcare is a dramatic case. I mean, for decades, the healthcare issue has been right at the top of domestic concerns, for very good reasons. The US has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs and some of the worst outcomes. It’s also the only privatized system. And if you look closely, those two things are related. And the privatized system is highly inefficient: a huge amount of administration, bureaucracy, supervision, you know, all kinds of things. It’s been studied pretty carefully.Now, the public has had an opinion about this for decades. A considerable majority want a national healthcare system, like other industrial countries have. They usually say a Canadian-style system, not because Canada is the best, but at least you know that Canada exists. Nobody says an Australian-style system, which is much better, because who knows anything about that? But something like what’s sometimes called Medicare Plus, like extend Medicare to the population.Well, up until—it’s interesting. Up until the year 2004, that idea was described, for example, by the New York Times as politically impossible and lacking political support. So, maybe the public wants it, but that’s not what counts as political support. The financial institutions are opposed, the pharmaceutical institutions are opposed, so it’s not—no political support. Well, in 2008, for the first time, the Democratic candidates—first Edwards, then the others—began to move in the direction of what the public has wanted, not there, but in that direction.So what happened between 2004 and 2008? Well, public opinion didn’t change. It’s been this way for decades. What changed is that manufacturing industry, a big sector of the economy, has recognized that it’s being severely harmed by the highly inefficient privatized health system. So, General Motors said that it costs them over a thousand dollars more to produce a car in Detroit than across the border in Windsor, Canada. And, you know, when manufacturing industry becomes concerned, then things become politically possible, and they begin to have political support. So, yes, in 2008, there’s some discussion of it.Now, you know, this is very revealing insight into how American democracy functions and what is meant by the term “political support” and “politically possible.” Again, this should be headlines. Will a proposal come that approaches what the public wants? Well, we’re already getting the backlash, strong backlash. And what private healthcare systems are claiming is that this is unfair. The government is so much more efficient that they’ll be driven—there’s no level playing field if the government gets into it, which is true.AMY GOODMAN: If you had a public and a private plan.NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah.AMY GOODMAN: If it were like Medicare.NOAM CHOMSKY: If you had them side by side—AMY GOODMAN: Most people go for Medicare—NOAM CHOMSKY: —they will.AMY GOODMAN: —but if you wanted to go for a private plan, you could.NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, if you could. But they’re not—they say, “Well, we can’t compete.” For good reasons. I mean, in every country except—industrial country except the United States, the government uses its massive purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. That’s one of the reasons prices are so much higher in the United States than in other countries. Well, they could—the Pentagon can use purchasing power to negotiate prices for, you know, paper clips or something, but, by law, the government is not permitted to do that in the case of healthcare. Well, if you had Medicare Plus, they would, and that would drive down drug prices, and the private industries can’t compete.AMY GOODMAN: FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, did a study of the week leading up to the White House healthcare summit of the networks and how they were covering single payer, the issue of like Medicare Plus, and I think they found that absolutely—that almost—there was almost no representation in the media of a single-payer advocate—NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah.AMY GOODMAN: —and almost the only mention was someone blasting single payer.NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, yeah. That’s because it has no political support; only the majority of the public. It’s the same as the media commentary in 2004. In fact, if you take a look back at the end of the last electoral campaign, Kerry-Bush campaign, in October 2004, right before the election, there was a debate on domestic issues. I think it was maybe October 28th or so. Just take a look—read the New York Times report of it the next day. It was very dramatic. It said Kerry never brought up the idea of any government involvement in healthcare, not, you know, Medicare Plus, but any government involvement, because it is not politically possible and lacks political support—just the population. Well, that—AMY GOODMAN: What studies show you the population wants this?NOAM CHOMSKY: I mean, there’s been poll after poll, goes back, in fact—AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you think is going to break through?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, it’s a problem of the general dysfunction of formal democracy. I mean, there’s a very substantial gap between public opinion and public policy on a host of major issues. And on many of these issues, both parties are well to the right of the public, international and domestic.Incidentally, that’s one reason why elections are run the way they are. Elections are run as marketing extravaganzas, and that’s not kept secret. So the advertising industry gives an award every year for best marketing campaign of the year. For 2008, they gave it to Obama. He beat out, I think, Apple Computer. And if you look at the comments of financial—of advertising executives, PR executives, they were euphoric. In fact, they said—you can read it in the Financial Times, business press—they said, you know, “We’ve been marketing candidates like commodities ever since Reagan, but this is the best we’ve ever done. It’s going to change the atmosphere in corporate boardrooms. We have a new style of selling things, you know, the Obama style, you know, soaring rhetoric, hope and change, and so on.” Yeah, that’s true.And if you look at the campaigns themselves, they’re designed essentially by the advertising industry to sell the commodity—it happens to be a candidate—and they’re pretty carefully designed so that you marginalize issues and you focus on what are called “qualities.” In Obama’s case, you know, soaring rhetoric and so on; in Bush’s case, a nice guy and like to have a beer with him and so on. That’s the kind of thing you focus on. Where do they stand on issues? Well, the public is mostly uninformed. I haven’t seen current polls on 2008, but the 2004 election, where there were polls shortly after, showed the public had almost no idea what Bush’s stand was. In fact, a majority of Bush voters thought that he supported the Kyoto Protocol, because they support it, and he’s a nice guy, so he must support it.And elections are designed that way, and it makes good sense. I mean, the people who run the elections, they read the polls, and very carefully, in fact. In fact, they mostly the design them for their own interest. And they know that the parties are to the right of the public, so you better—on a large number of issues, including crucial ones like Iran and others—so you better keep issues off the table, which is what’s done. So what the—healthcare is a dramatic case of it, but it’s only one instance.AMY GOODMAN: Renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, speaking to me in Boston last week. We will return to the last part of our conversation after this break. You can get a copy of the full two parts by going to democracynow.org. Stay with us.[break]AMY GOODMAN: We return now to the last part of my conversation with leading American intellectual and anti-imperialist critic Noam Chomsky.AMY GOODMAN: The whole issue of populist rage, Noam Chomsky, actually, do you think that this rage is going to boil over as the unemployment figures rise?NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s very hard to predict those things. I mean, it has a potentially positive side, like it could be like the activism of the 1930s or the 1960s, which ended up making it a more civilized society in many ways, or it could be like an unfortunate precedent that quickly comes to mind. I’ve written about it.Take a look at Germany. In the 1920s, Germany was the absolute peak of Western civilization, in the arts and the sciences. It was regarded as a model of democracy and so on. I mean, ten years later, it was the depths of barbarism. That was a quick transition. “The descent into barbarism” it’s sometimes called in the scholarly literature.Now, if you listen to early Nazi propaganda, you know, end of the Weimar Republic and so on, and you listen to talk radio in the United States, which I often do—it’s interesting—there’s a resemblance. And in both cases, you have a lot of demagogues appealing to people with real grievances.Grievances aren’t invented. I mean, for the American population, the last thirty years have been some of the worst in economic history. It’s a rich country, but real wages have stagnated or declined, working hours have shot up, benefits have gone down, and people are in real trouble and now in very real trouble after the bubbles burst. And they’re angry. And they want to know, “What happened to me? You know, I’m a hard-working, white, God-fearing American. You know, how come this is happening to me?”That’s pretty much the Nazi appeal. The grievances were real. And one of the possibilities is what Rush Limbaugh tells you: “Well, it’s happening to you because of those bad guys out there.” OK, in the Nazi case, it was the Jews and the Bolsheviks. Here, it’s the rich Democrats who run Wall Street and run the media and give everything away to illegal immigrants, and so on and so forth. It sort of peaked during the Sarah Palin period. And it’s kind of interesting. It’s been pointed out that of all the candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one who used the phrase “working class.” She was talking to the working people. And yeah, they’re the ones who are suffering. So, there are models that are not very attractive.AMY GOODMAN: And she very much is being talked about as a leader, really, of the Republican Party.NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, she was kind of a model. You know, the talk radio mob went crazy over her. And one shouldn’t demean it. You know, they describe themselves—it’s really worth listening to: “We’re fly-by country. You know, they don’t care about us, those rich Democrats on the East Coast and the West Coast who are all, you know, interested in gay rights and giving things away to illegal immigrants and so on. They don’t care about us, the hard-working, God-fearing people, so we’ve got to somehow rise up and take over and elect Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh or someone like that.”As I say, the precedents are not attractive. Now, if—now even before the next presidential, if in the next congressional election the economy has not begun to recover, this kind of populist rage could boil over and could have very dangerous consequences. This country has a long history of being kind of ridden by fear. It’s a very frightened country. This goes back to colonial times.I mean, we’re very lucky that we have never had an honest demagogue. I mean, the demagogues we’ve had are so corrupt that they never got anywhere—you know, Nixon, McCarthy, you know, Jimmy Swaggart and others. So they were kind of destroyed by their own corruption.But suppose we had an honest demagogue, you know, a Hitler type, who was not corrupt. There’s probably—it could be unpleasant. There’s a background of concern and fear, tremendous fear, and searching for some answer, which they’re not getting from the establishment. “Who’s responsible for my plight?” You know, and that can be exploited. And unless there’s active, effective organizing and education, it’s dangerous.AMY GOODMAN: Your assessment of President Obama so far?NOAM CHOMSKY: Frankly, I never had any expectations. I wrote about it over a year ago. I thought then, and I think it’s been confirmed, that he’s essentially a centrist Democrat. He’s moving back—I mean, the Bush administration was kind of off the spectrum, especially the first term. So he’s moving things back toward the center with a kind of a public posture, which was recognized by the advertising industry. That’s why they gave him the award for best marketing campaign, which—but as far as policy is concerned, unless he’s under a lot of pressure from activist sectors, he’s not going to go beyond what he’s presented himself as in actual policy statements or cabinet choices and so on: a centrist Democrat, going to basically continue Bush’s policies, maybe in a more modulated way.AMY GOODMAN: Do you see Afghanistan becoming an ever-expanded war in the next decade or so? Do you—now we’re talking about doubling the US troops there.NOAM CHOMSKY: No, that’s the way Obama and the Pentagon see it. In fact, they say so: this is going to be a long war, it’s going to be extended, the US is going to take over the military side, and it’s going to expand it, it’s going to expand into Pakistan. And, I mean, we’ll talk about development, but the focus will be on the military. Obama, right now, is trying to get NATO to cooperate, but recognizing that they’re not going to send military forces. The populations are opposed.AMY GOODMAN: Canada is pulling out.NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, Canada’s pulling out, and the others—maybe Holland has made a termination date, but we’ll at least ask them to come in and sort of help out on the civilian side. That’s their job. It’s the famous line of, I guess it was Robert Kagan: you know, “they’re Venus, we’re Mars.” So we’ll move in like Mars and take care of the military side. You know, we’re good at killing people. And they can come in and sort of put on the band-aids and make it look like something good is happening. It’s not the right direction.AMY GOODMAN: The unmanned drones bombing Pakistan?NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, drones. And that has effects. So a lot of the worst fighting recently has been in the Bajaur province, right on the border. It’s in Pakistan’s side. And militants in the area have reported to the press that part of the reason is that an American drone attack hit a madrasa, a school, and killed about eighty people. Well, you know, they’re “uncivilized barbarians”; they sort of don’t like that. So they reacted. And now, one of the militants has said, “OK, we’re going to bomb the White House,” which is considered totally outrageous. But, you know, if we kill as we like, there’s going to be a reaction.AMY GOODMAN: Where do you see American empire in ten, twenty, thirty years?NOAM CHOMSKY: Prediction in human affairs is a very low—has very little success, too many complications. The United States, I think, will come out of the economic crisis, very likely, as the dominant superpower. There’s a lot of talk about China and India, and it’s real, they’re changing, but they’re just not in the same league. I mean, both China and India have enormous internal problems that the West doesn’t face.You get kind of a picture of this by looking at the Human Development Index of the United Nations. The last time I looked, India was about 125th or something. And I think China was about eightieth. And China would be worse, I think, if it wasn’t such a closed society. In India, you sort of get better data, so you can see what’s happening. China is kind of closed. You don’t see what’s going on in the peasant areas, which are in turmoil, you know. They have environmental problems. They have huge—hundreds of millions of people are kind of like at the edge of starvation.We don’t have—you know, we have problems, but not those problems. And even the industrial growth, which is there—you know, for part of the population, there’s been improvement. But when you take, say, India, where we know more, in the areas where high-tech industries developed—and it’s pretty impressive. I’ve visited some of the labs in Hyderabad. You know, it’s as good or better than MIT. But right nearby, the rate of peasant suicides is going up, very sharply, in fact. And it’s the same source. It’s the neoliberal policies, which privilege a certain sector of the population and a certain—and let the rest take care of themselves.AMY GOODMAN: And yet, the rise of progressives in Latin America?NOAM CHOMSKY: That’s important. I mean, Latin America, for the first time in 500 years, is moving towards a degree of independence and a kind of integration, which is a prerequisite for independence, and also at least is beginning to face some of its massive internal problems. I mean, Latin America has probably the worst inequality in the world. There’s a wealthy sector, small wealthy sector, which is extremely rich, but they have—their tradition is that they have no responsibility to the country, so they send their capital to Zurich. You know, they have their second homes in the Riviera, and their children study in Oxford or whatever. This is beginning to be faced in different ways, but it’s sort of happening all over the continent. And they are beginning to integrate. The United States obviously doesn’t like it. In fact, it’s barely reported most of the time.So there was a very interesting case last September, when President Morales in Bolivia—Bolivia is, in my opinion at least, probably the most democratic country in the world. Nobody says that, but if you look at what happened in the last couple of years, there were huge, popular, mass organizations of the most repressed population in the hemisphere, the indigenous population, which for the first time ever has entered the political arena significantly and were able to elect a president from their own ranks and one who doesn’t give instructions to his army, but who’s following policies that were largely produced by the population. So he’s their representative, in a sense in which democracy is supposed to work.And they know the issues. It’s not like our elections. They know the issues. They’re serious issues: control over resources, economic justice, cultural rights, and so on. You can say they’re right or wrong, but at least it’s functioning.Now, the elites that have traditionally ruled the country, of course, don’t like it. And they’re threatening virtual secession. And, of course, the United States is backing them, as the media are. And it got to the point last summer, I suppose, where it led to real violence.Well, there was a meeting of UNASUR, the Union of South American Republics—that’s all of South America—a meeting in Chile, Santiago, Chile. And it came out with a declaration, important declaration, in which it supported President Morales and opposed the—condemned the violence being led by the quasi-secessionist forces. And Morales responded, thanking them for their gesture of support, but also saying, correctly, that this is the first time in 500 years that South America is beginning to take its affairs in its own hands without the intervention of foreign powers, primarily the US.Well, that was so important that I don’t think it was even reported here. I mean, the meeting was known, so you see vague references to it. But it’s an indication of developments that are taking place in various ways.AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, you’ve just hit eighty. We just have a few minutes to go. And how does it feel?NOAM CHOMSKY: I have a few years to go. I don’t think about it much.AMY GOODMAN: But as you reflect, talking about these huge social movements, cataclysmic times in the world, your life experience, what gives you hope?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there’s both hope and fear. I mean, I’m old enough to have grown up in the Depression. And some of my memories—I didn’t understand that much at the time—childhood memories, are listening to Hitler’s speeches. I didn’t understand them, but I could sense the reaction of my parents, you know, and had a feeling of fear, you know, a tremendous fear. In fact, the first article I wrote was in 1939, when I was in fourth grade, and it was about the expansion of fascism over Europe, a kind of a dark cloud that may envelop everything. And as I mentioned before, I have some of those same concerns now.On the other hand, there’s been tremendous progress. The country is far more civilized than it was, say, forty years ago, thanks to the activism of the ’60s and its aftermath. And some of the most important developments were after the ’60s, like, say, the feminist movement, which has probably had more of an impact on this society than any other. It’s mostly post-’60s. The solidarity movements, which are unique in the history of imperialism, there’s never been anything like them. That’s from the ’80s. The global justice movements, what’s called anti-globalization—shouldn’t be—that’s, you know, the ’90s and this century. These were all very positive developments.They haven’t changed the institutions. In fact, the institutions have reacted by becoming harsher, not surprisingly. But they’ve changed the culture. I mean, take, say, the 2008 election. I mean, I didn’t like the candidates, as I’ve made clear. On the other hand, forty years ago, or maybe ten years ago, you couldn’t have imagined that the Democratic Party would have two candidates, an African American and a woman. OK, that’s a sign of the civilizing effect of the activism of the ’60s and everything that followed.Well, that can be mobilized. In fact, it’s already. If you count the number of activists in the country, it’s, I suspect, well beyond the ’60s, except maybe for a very brief moment at the peak of the antiwar movement. OK, that can be a basis for proceeding onward. So, that’s a reason for hope.AMY GOODMAN: And finally, our condolences on the loss of Carol.NOAM CHOMSKY: Thanks.AMY GOODMAN: Your life partner, someone you knew—well, you’re eighty—what, for seventy-seven years?NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, actually. Not easy to face.AMY GOODMAN: What gives you the strength to go on after Carol?NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the kind of thing you do, for example. That makes a difference.AMY GOODMAN: And you have a wonderful family.NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah.AMY GOODMAN: So, our condolences to you—NOAM CHOMSKY: Thanks.AMY GOODMAN: —and your kids. Noam Chomsky, thanks so much.NOAM CHOMSKY: Thanks.AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at MIT, leading public intellectual of our day. If you’d like to get a copy of the full interview, part one and today’s part two, with Noam Chomsky, you can go to our website at democracynow.org.Related Democracy Now! Stories Noam Chomsky on US Expansion of Afghan Occupation, the Uses of NATO, and What Obama Should Do in Israel-Palestine (4/3/2009)

Cash for Clunkers

Dan Lyke: This evening we're going to look at a truck that was advertised on Craigslist, a 1991 Ford F-250 that's got a claimed 36k miles on it. The story is that the guy's grandfather bought the car, drove it for a few years and 28k miles, it's been sitting in a garage for 8 years, and then they put another 9k miles in the past 3 years. They want $3.5k, the '91 F250 has a number of recalls on it that probably weren't fixed in that time when it wasn't being driven, so there could be some pros and cons. And back-of-the-envelope says this truck would cost about $.15/mile in gas versus a new 1/2 ton truck at $.10/mile. So I figure that since we're going to be up in Cotati this afternoon we may as well look at it, but I'm not sure it's the right vehicle for me.
[Edit: Didn't get the truck.]
However...
Apparently there's a attempt by Congress to implement a "cash for clunkers" program that'd give you $3,500 if you have a vehicle that gets less than 18MPG (the article says "car or light duty truck" and you trade it in for something that gets at least 4MPG more, $4,500 for something that gets 10MPG more. The official EPA fuel economy web site doesn't give me a "search for cars with less than 18MPG that'd qualify" feature, but I'm kind of wondering if there isn't the opportunity for some Craigslist speculation here...

Hunter Prey & Glen Cook Reviewed

Sandy Collora, who directed the fantastic fan film Batman: Dead End, has a cool looking feature-length movie coming out in the near future: Hunter Prey. The trailer is being hosted exclusively by io9, so I’d suggest clicking over there for a sneak peek.Here’s the “Mission” of the movie:Hunter Prey centers around a group of elite intergalactic commandos that have crash-landed on a harsh and unknown planet while transporting an alien prisoner. Now they must track down and recapture the escaped creature, and their orders are to bring it in ALIVE.The soldiers begin to question their orders while finding themselves at a severe disadvantage, not being able to harm the prisoner. The team starts getting picked off, one by one, by their dangerous adversary, until the odds become even.With one soldier remaining, he's faced with a decision. Does he risk his life playing the creature's game or does he disobey his orders and kill it. The realization he comes to, after finding out why his superiors want the prisoner alive and why the alien is trying to escape, starts to change the way he thinks not only about his situation, but himself, as he finds out who's really hunting whom? After seeing Batman: Dead End, and World's Finest I’m really looking forward to this movie. From the trailer, the movie has a good look and feel, and has potential to be a thrill ride of a film along the lines of Pitch Black which I liked a lot and is easily Vin Diesel's best film outside of Boiler Room, which is sort of a back-handed compliment. A Roger Zelazny novel I read a few years ago also evokes some of the same feel - Eye of the Cat - in that both involve intergalactic bounty hunters and a story that has an action feel with more beneath the surface.Collora's been designing monsters in Hollywood with cool people like Rick Baker and Stan Winston Studios for a while. So yeah, this movie has a lot of potential to be fun and entertaining.Since it is Tuesday here at the 'o Stuff, that means it is book review time. Glen Cook is most famous for his Black Company saga, but before that, he wrote of a messiah-figure coming to power in a windswept desert. This series, of course, is The Dread Empire saga and a couple of years ago, I read the first NightShade Books omnibus of the first three novels A Cruel Wind. Late last year, I was happy to receive A Fortress in Shadow for review. I posted the review last night: As prequels, the novels work extremely well for people who read the initial trilogy, either in single book format or the lovely NightShade edition A Cruel Wind. On its own terms, these two novels tell the cohesive story of a world of mounting forces and conflicting beliefs. Though the story that unfolds between the covers of this volume is entertaining, it really is set up for grander events, more sweeping character arcs and might serve as only a teaser for people yearning for more of the same.

Clinching on the road usually a cinch for Red Wings

ANAHEIM, Calif. - No NHL team knows how to clinch a round on the road like the Detroit Red Wings do.They've done it eight consecutive times, most recently vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets but most impressively last June when they clinched the Stanley Cup vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins. With a win tonight in Game 6 at Honda Center, the Red Wings will advance to a third consecutive Western Conference finals; with a loss, the series goes to Game 7 on Thursday in Detroit.Their experience of never giving an opponent room to breathe was honed last month when Columbus staged a furious attempt to extend the first-round series to five games."We ended up winning 6-5 in a crazy game where we were in control of it twice," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "That, to me, is usually how these final games go. They're tough. Anaheim is preparing just so they can play again they'll have a Game 7 mentality, and we'll have to have the same."The Red Wings haven't had to win a series in seven games since the 2002 Western Conference finals. The current team, largely together since 2005-06, has gained invaluable experience over the years at knowing what it takes to win on a night like this."We've got a group of guys that now, everyone knows what kind of game to expect," forward Dan Cleary said. "When a team is facing elimination, you're going to get their A-plus game plus more. You've got to match that level and weather the storm early, and we've got to push back when they're pushing, just push back harder and skate faster. It's going to be tight game. We just have to be patient and grind it out."It's a different mind-set on the road. You've got to make sure the situation doesn't take you over. You've got to be focused and stay within yourself, and we've been able to do that the last few times, and our people will be able to draw on those experiences."

Traditional Kava extract eases anxiety and moderate depression

Joan Robinson Research conducted at the University of Queensland has found a traditional extract of Kava (Piper methysticum), a medicinal plant from the South Pacific, to be effective in reducing anxiety. To be published in the journal Psychopharmacology are the results of a world-first clinical trial which found that a water-soluble extract of Kava was effective in treating anxiety and improving mood. The Kava was prescribed in the form of tablets supplied by Queensland company MediHerb Pty Ltd. Lead researcher Jerome Sarris, a PhD candidate from the University's School of Medicine, said the placebo-controlled study found Kava to be an effective and safe treatment option for people with chronic anxiety and varying levels of depression. "We've been able to show that Kava offers a natural alternative for the treatment of anxiety, and unlike some pharmaceutical options, has less risk of dependency and less potential of side effects," Mr Sarris said. Each week participants were given a clinical assessment as well as a self-rating questionnaire to measure their anxiety and depression levels. The researchers found anxiety levels decreased dramatically for participants taking five of the kava tablets daily compared to the placebo group. "We also found that Kava had a positive impact on reducing depression levels, something which had not been tested before," Mr Sarris said. In 2002 Kava was banned in Europe, the UK and Canada due to concerns over liver toxicity. While the thee-week trial raised no major health concerns regarding the Kava extract used, the researchers said larger studies were required to confirm the drug's safety. "When extracted in the appropriate way, Kava may pose less or no potential liver problems. I hope the results will encourage governments to reconsider the ban," Mr Sarris said. "Ethanol and acetone extracts, which sometimes use the incorrect parts of the Kava, were being sold in Europe. That is not the traditional way of prescribing Kava in the Pacific Islands. "Our study used a water-soluble extract from the peeled rootstock of a medicinal cultivar of the plant, which is approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia and is currently legal in Australia for medicinal use. "In addition to benefiting sufferers of anxiety, allowing the sale of Kava in Europe, the UK and Canada would significantly enhance Pacific Island economies, which have lost hundreds of millions of dollars by not being able to export the plant over the past several years." Sarris J, Kavanagh DJ, Byrne G, *Bone KM, et al. The Kava Anxiety Depression Spectrum Study (KADSS): a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial using an aqueous extract of Piper methysticum. Psychopharmacology 2009;doi:10.1007/s00213-009-1549-9 [Abstract Full text] *Conflicts of interest: Kerry Bone is a co-founder of and consultant to MediHerb Pty Ltd, the supplier of the tablets used in this trial. He was not involved in the conduct of the study or the analysis of the data. Comment: In addition to the acute necrotizing hepatitis risk alluded to in the article, prolonged high doses may cause "kava dermopathy" a scaly skin rash [Kava monograph ()]. It may also increase photo sensitivity, so excess sun exposure should be avoided. Kava may be contraindicated if taking benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, buspirone (Buspar®) , some Parkinson Disease medications and antidepressants which act on noradrenaline/norepinephrine such as the tricyclics, desvenlafaxine (Pristiq®), duloxetine (Cymbalta®), mirtazapine (Remeron®), venlafaxine (Effexor®), and the dopaminergic antidepressant bupropion (Wellbutrin®). Consult a physician or pharmacist before taking a Kava supplement with these or other medications. Abuse of Kava in the form of bulk tea/powder has had a devastating effect on some Australian (and North American) Indigenous communities where it has replaced alcohol. Its use is now restricted in some states.

Dove cottage

Spa Betty Series: Boreh Boreh

You may have noticed that during my Bali Spa Series endeavor, I became a little obsessed with the reflexology (as demonstrated here, here, here, here, here and here). Not wanting to chase away all of my loyal readers who prefer other types of spa treatments, I sign up for my first Boreh Scrub.
What the heck is that, you ask? Well, it’s a mixture of things like ginger, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, rice powder and cinnamon. Like the Balinese Lulur Scrub, this paste is rubbed all over your naked body before you’re wrapped like a spiced cadaver to stew in your own juices. It is said that Boreh improves blood circulation, relieves muscular pains and headaches, and is good for healing the flu. I can’t vouch for all that, but I did enjoy the treatment.
Having been to Putri Bali II for a Lulur Scrub my first week here, I choose to go to Putri Bali I to try the Boreh. I also decide to get a facial since I haven’t yet had one here. Typically I don’t like facials because they hurt, my nose runs and I enjoy popping my own zits, but for $5, I can afford to take a walk on the wild side.
The technician leads me through Putri Bali I’s lush garden to a private hut and starts me off with the facial. My hair is pulled back out of my face with a terry cloth band of questionable cleanliness. Then various lotions and tinctures are applied to my countenance. It’s relaxing, but is also totally something I could do at home and in less time. This isn’t like the pseudo-medical facials I’ve gotten at home from certified estheticians. There is no magnifying glass, no bright lights, no “expressing of facial congestion.” It’s just a down-home face cleanse and that’s alright by me.
After the facial, the real fun begins. I’m given a pair of tourist panties and then the woman rubs the dark brown Boreh paste all over my body. It’s messy as hell and when all is said and done, the term “scat play” comes to mind (sorry, Puritans). It smells nice though and I am wrapped up and left to my thoughts to let the paste really work its magic.
After maybe 10 minutes, I am led to the outdoor bathroom attached to my private hut. The woman tells me to shower before getting into the flower petal bath she has prepared. I heed her instructions, hoping my shower runoff will be turned into some sort of Balinese mulled wine. Then I dip myself into the bath and soak my cares away while sipping hot ginger tea and watching ants scurry around the tub.
Travel Betty Basics
Putri Bali I, Legian, Bali Indonesia
Ambiance: 3.0 out of 5 Passion Fruits
Treatment: 3.5 out of 5 Passion Fruits
Cost: Boreh Scrub 100,000 rupiah (including tax) / Facial 50,000 rupiah (including tax)
What that means in U.S. Dollars: $16.21
Other Betties Blogging About Boreh
Karla, over at Write Sense
Yoyo, of Yoyo The Sheep fame

The book log is still alive...sort of

The book log is still alive...sort ofI can't believe I haven't updated Stacked since December. Yikes! Believe it or not, I have been reading. My review for The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (cough...over-rated... cough) should be up shortly. "The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army." -- General George Washington, July 2, 1776 Title: 1776 Author: David McCullough Publisher/Publisher Date: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005 Library/Bookstore: Wal-Mart Date Borrowed/Bought/Read: March 2009 Rating: **** What It's About: 1776 focuses on General George Washington and his ragtag army of colonial, rebels. Untrained, unprepared, and underpaid, the rebels find themselves on the losing side of the battle over and over again. (After awhile, the losses really do start to get embarrassing.) We learn about the frustration and despair that General Washington felt as he struggled to keep his men from deserting the army and the American cause. Why I Chose to Read It: I really enjoyed the HBO mini-series, John Adams, so I thought it would be a good idea to read 1776, which I had bought a year earlier. I also wanted to learn more about what went down during the Revolutionary War. Notes About the Book: I'm not a religious person, but even I'm convinced that our winning the war had to be the result of some divine intervention. I got a kick out of reading about Mt. Whoredom. Washington inadvertently intercepted a letter from General Lee to Joseph Reed that lamented his "indecisive mind" and called for new leadership. Ouch! Hmmmm. I had more notes about this book, but I seem to have forgotten them. Shame on me for waiting so long to write a review. Do I Recommend It? Yes. However, it can be kind of dry at times. I really liked how George Washington never gave up, even though he was convinced of his own shortcomings. Links: George Washington Mount Vernon Rediscovering George Washington The American Revolution

Blackberry pan jam

Every once in a while I wonder why some produce in the mediumscarymegamart is relegated to the 50 per cent off rack. Some things I can understand--apples that look as if they were stuffing from Muhammad Ali's punching bag, capsicums so wrinkly no amount of Botox would save them, bags of salad greens that look as if they were dredged from the local patch of wetlands. Last week I rolled by the rack--they usually have giant bags of still-good mushrooms begging to be sent to a good home. No mushrooms, but four containers of absolutely lovely and almost blemish-and-fuzz-free blackberries (no, not the RIM crackberry). It could have been a mistake--whether "on purpose" (as in staff trying to get cheap food for friends who show up at the *exact* right time), or overzealous stockers trying to get rid of them for whatever reason (really, let's not guess)). But they had the neon pink triangular stickers screaming their affordability...I couldn't say "no" to that, so I bundled four containers into my trolley and went on my merry way to ponder the universes of sweet potatoes, roasting chickens and freezer bags.Apart from nibbling on them here and there, or tumbling them on ice cream, I realised that I was a greedy guts and bought more than I could realistically finish before they really deserved to be on the discount rack. What to do what to do...I suppose I could have frozen them, but nah. I came up with something better (well, for me at least)Pan jam, that lovely makeshift jam perfect for small batches of fruit. I suppose you could sterilise a bottle or two and properly preserve them, but when you only have about a cup or two's worth of jam, it's just easiest to keep it in the fridge and have it with your morning toast, on ice cream or enrobe it in bits of leftover pastry (waste not, want not, I suppose).And yes...whenever I think of or make "pan jam" Ram Jam starts running through my head...always Black Betty...which then makes me crave apple brown betty...with dollops of jam.The recipe is rather loosey goosey. It is done to taste and is totally based on the sweetness of your fruit. My ratio of fruit to sugar is 10:1 by weight. So, in other words, for 100g of fruit, add 10 g sugar and then adjust if you want it sweeter. Blackberry pan jam300g blackberries, rinsed30g sugar (plus more, if necessary)a squeeze of lemon, lime or orangea splash of vanillaAdd fruit and sugar to a pan over a medium hob. Stir together, eventually the fruit gives up its liquid and starts to become...jammy. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if you want. Stir for about five minutes, add the citrus. Stir for another five-ten minutes, depending upon how thick you want the jam. Stir in the vanilla and decant to a bowl. Store unused jam in the fridge.cheers!jasmine© J. Mangalaseril, unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved. Please don't steal my work; my lawyers have sharp teeth.

Good advice from unexpected places

My mechanic is a very nice guy named Oso. That is his nickname, his real name is Oscar, but everyone calls him Oso. He is a very large guy and he has a brilliant colorful tattoo of the Virgin on his left arm. Anyway, Oso has done a great job of keeping my Jeep running and happy for some time now. He is very impressed that I prefer to drive a stick shift and also that I get my oil changed every 3,500 miles just as he recommends. I don't drive all that much but of course this is Los Angeles and you do end up driving some, even if you're a hermit. Driving is part of life out here. Back when gas reached $5 a gallon all over Los Angeles, I became really frustrated with The Man. I would leave for work in the morning and gas would be one price then by the time I got home the filling station on the corner had jacked up the price another ten cents per gallon, and this was happening every single day. I complained about it, but I got a lot of poison pen emails and comments from people in other countries along the lines of 1) "Shut up you stupid American" and 2) "Well stop driving if you don't like it." Which was really helpful and awesome as you can imagine. And also, totally solves all the problems! (Of course that was before the rest of the world began to experience the same rockstar economic stranglehold we'd been struggling with for months. Oh, Schadenfreude. You are so bittersweet.) But I was still mad at The Man, because people were driving less and less (later studies confirmed this, but I knew it already from the utter lack of seats on every bus and subway car in Los Angeles) and gas was still going up ten cents a day even though demand was declining and then, just as the election rolled around suddenly LO And Behold! Gas dropped to under two dollars. Seriously? You're telling me that it was just normal fluctuation in prices? One day gas is five bucks a gallon and the next day it's a buck ninety-eight? Hey, I was born ... just not yesterday. You people are screwing with us. Stop it. So anyway in my disdain and also eschewing (eschewing! like chewing, but only spitting out!) of The Man, I decided it would be awesome to convert my car to run on cat poop, which I have an amply supply of, constantly replenished each day. But until a poop combustion engine was created I would go veggie oil! No matter that my Jeep is not diesel, in everything in life I use the man-on-the-moon logic. This is how I think: We can put a man on the moon, surely we can do whatever silly thing it is I have set my sights upon today. Come on, people! So I found a company that does conversions of gas (not diesel) engines to biodeisel and I gathered all the information and printed out stuff from the innernet and I drove myself one Saturday afternoon to see my mechanic, Oso. He works at a shop in sunny downtown Pacoima that has a huge mural on the outer wall with a sunset and the word "Jalisco!" painted in brilliant red letters. Most of the guys at Autos de Jalisco know me, because a big blonde in a red Jeep is hard to miss in that particular shop. So I waved at Lil' Payaso, one of Oso's other mechanics. "Hey Payaso! I'm looking for Oso!" I had my big folder of information in my hand, with certain passages highlighted and called out with post-it-note flags. "Hey! Yeah, uh, Oso isn't here right now," he said. "You need me to change the oil on your Jeep?" "No, I'm good." I said. "I wanted to show him this stuff about car conversions. You know when he'll be back?" Payaso looked down at his shoe for a minute, and wiped his hand on a red cloth, then he looked at one of his buddies. Who was studiously not looking at me. "Uh, Oso's gonna be gone a while," he said. "OK, I'll come back tomorrow I guess," I said. "Nah, he's not coming back tomorrow. He had to go away for a little while." "Away?" I asked. "Where did he go away to?" "Um, up north," he said. So that is how I discovered that Oso was "up north" in Pelican Bay. Something about a parole violation. I didn't ask. He's a good mechanic, and I'm not married to him, so what he does is his business. Besides, people make mistakes. Just yesterday I myself almost stabbed someone with a fork 200 times. But I resisted -- for now. I asked Payaso how to get in touch with Oso, after all, if he was currently a guest of the State of California, I figured he'd have plenty of time on his hands for reading up on engine conversions. So Payaso gave me Oso's mom's phone number and I called her up and after some funny Spanglish (me) and some bewildered questions about whether or not I was a guera (her), she gave me his address and I wrote him a letter and sent it along with all the information I had gathered. Hey Oso, This is Laurie, the one with the red Jeep. I hope you remember me and don't think I am just some stranger writing to you. Anyway, Payaso told me you were taking some time away and your mom gave me your address. She was very nice, I hope I said the right words in Spanish. Hah hah remember that time I called you a cow when I was trying to be cool and call you a vato? Anyway. I am enclosing some information about converting my Jeep to bio-diesel. Please let me know what you think, as I am very angry about gas prices. Or if you can convert my Jeep to run on solar power. Or air! [smiley face] Last week I had to take my car for an oil change so I took it to the guys in the garage at work ... it ended up costing a lot and now I have a new radiator. I hope you are well and come back to L.A. soon. Your friend, Laurie with the red Jeep I sent off the letter and a few weeks passed. One day I got home and I had a letter from Oso, with his prisoner number clearly visible in the top left corner of the envelope. He had also drawn a very good picture of my Jeep on the back. I am sure my postman now fears me. Hello Laurie, This is Oso. Of course I know who you are and already I knew you would write me because moms told me a guera called up and she said your Spanish was real good. Anyways do NOT do anything to your Jeep!! I read the papers you sent and my celly read them also. We think this is a very bad idea. Also my celly says you can't buy the oil you have to collect it from fast food places and filter it. It is very hard. Don't take your Jeep to that guy again who put in the radiator. Take it to Lil' Payaso or go to the muffler shop on Arleta and ask for Dreamer, he will fix you up until I come back. I think you were joking about the solar car but don't let anyone talk you into anything, especially the radiator loco!!! I get out in a few months. Keep your tires inflated. Stay true, Oso I thought that letter contained some good advice and was very wise, all written in very neat block letters on a sheet of notebook paper. I had to ask someone to tell me what a celly was, because I am that cool. (It is apparently the shorthand for cellmate. I didn't have HBO back when "Oz" was a big hit so cut me some slack!) My parents will be so proud. Anyway this is a very exciting week because Oso is getting out of prison and coming back to Los Angeles. And now that I have passed the state smog check for at least two more years, and also now that people are fired up about alternate fuels, I think the time is right to re-investigate a Jeep engine that runs on cat poop. I personally think this is brilliant and am sure I can eventually convince the guys at Autos de Jalisco we have a lucrative new business venture ahead of us. And when things start to go weird, as they have lately (see above: "Might stab someone with a fork.") I try to remember the good wisdom I got from my mechanic while he was up north. Things will all work out OK -- if we just stay true and keep our tires inflated.

Ecuador....Ingapirca

At the end of our train journey to El Nariz del Diablo we got on a bus that was heading for Ecuador's third city, Cuenca. Towards the end of the train ride the weather had already started to deteriorate, the clouds had descended and it was raining steadily. The bus made its way through what may well have been a very spectacular mountain landscape, we couldn't tell because visibility never seemed to go beyond about 50-60 metres either side of the road. One of the few things we could see were the signs by the road side exhorting us to enjoy the Andean landscape. We weren't going all the way to Cuenca, at least not yet, and we left the bus at a small town called El Tambo.Our destination was Ingapirca, Ecuador's only significant archaeological site from the period of the Inca empire. It only took a few minutes to find a bus that was heading for the village by the site, but as we set off up a rough mountain road I couldn't help wondering whether we were doing the right thing. Higher up the mist seemed to be even thicker, the rain didn't let up and the prospect of spending the night in this area wasn't very appealing. On arrival at the village we got off the bus to find ourselves facing two small hostels. Which one would it be? After a moment's hesitation we started with the one on the left. As we walked in, a door opened and the owner’s young daughter turned back and shouted "Extranjeros!". Her mother, a tiny indigenous woman, came out to greet us and confirmed what we already suspected; there was no problem with availability of rooms on this gloomy, wet day in Ingapirca.The accommodation was simple but comfortable enough, and cheap. Once we had put our bags in the room it was time for a walk around the village in the rain, the dark and the mist. The village may not be very big but in these conditions it's almost possible to get lost. We ate in our hostel and had an early night; this is not a place with much nightlife.By the morning things had brightened up a bit, which is not to say the weather was great; but it wasn't raining any more and we could get a good look at our surroundings for the first time since we arrived. Breakfast consisted of bread, cheese and one of the sweetest cups of coffee I have ever tasted. Then it was off to take a look at the site, located just a couple of hundred metres away from the village itself.We got there slightly early; they weren't quite ready at the ticket office and were obviously taken aback by having visitors so soon. I don't know if this site ever gets crowded, but we beat everyone to it. Without the clouds making everything invisible it was possible to see that the location is quite impressive. Ingapirca was a significant site for the local Cañari people before the Inca period of domination began. The Incas took it over as their own, changing the focus of worship from the moon to the sun, and Ingapirca now lies on what is known as the Inca Trail. Machu Picchu it isn't, anyone who arrives here expecting something that magnificent will inevitably be disappointed.Most of what survives is basically the foundations of storehouses and other buildings. The exception to this is the central "castillo", which has survived better with the assistance of some restoration work.It doesn't take long to see everything, including the museum and the Inca face sculpted into the rocks a few minutes walk from the main site.I enjoyed the visit, after the unpromising start I decided it was worth it; although I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they need to go out of their way too much to see it. It's possible to visit Ingapirca in a single day from Cuenca, without the overnight stopover, but if you're passing down this way from Riobamba then it makes more sense to stop and see it before continuing further down the Panamerican. With our early start we had time to see the site, get the bus down to the small town of Cañar, and catch another bus that got us into Cuenca by lunchtime.

No Random 11 today, but a fashion diatribe about fashion diatribes

There is much to-doing at the worldwide headquarters of CJSD Enterprises, Ltd. today, so I have to let the list go today.However, I invite you to see the concentrated stupidity that is George Will's diatribe on blue jeans. If you want to know why both the Republican Party and mainstream newspapers are bleeding rectally, this one column pretty much captures it all. The even better part is that Will, in talking about how jeans are a symbol of a laziness of appearance, essentially borrows most of a Wall Street Journal editorial against jeans by Daniel Akst. I guess George had to pad out his column long enough to get his check so he could head to Brooks Brothers.The WSJ column is no better, dropping this doozy:Despite its air of innocence, no fabric has ever been so insidiously effective at undermining national discipline.This, of course, ignores statistics showing that while our dress has gotten more casual, we still lead the world in worker productivity.I suppose next week's columns will be about the Satanic influence of necking and comic books.Have a good weekend, and remember to straighten those ascots and polish those monocles before you go out.

Tuesday, 04/28/09 11:51 PM

Still feeling crappy, restless, high-energy but undirected... need a windmill to charge. When you don't like the position in which you find yourself, you have to move to change :) I did manage a great 40 mile ride along the beach from Dana Point down to Camp Pendleton and back (nearly averaged 20mph, but just missed); this is one of my favorite rides now, flat and windy, no traffic, watching the sun set over the ocean... One year ago I was recovering my hard drive, and getting ready for a trip to Europe. Seems like approximately forever ago. If I had only known then what I know now... Slashdot: Why digital medical records are no panacea. Links BusinessWeek: electronic health records have a dubious history. I think a lot of this is true; they are not a panacea. But good standard online EHR would improve patient care, streamline treatment, and reduce costs. Seems well worth pursuing... Keith Kaplan: web tracking of swine flu. I'm trying to figure out how real this is; I sort of over-reacted to the SARS scare, and now I'm sort of under-reacting to this... Remember that giant "model" rocket? Well, they launched it! And everything went perfectly... check out this video for the blastoff and recovery... how cool is that? As go the car companies, so too go the car magazine; MotorTrend has filed for bankruptcy, as reported by TTAC, a car blog... so be it. Now who will report the "car of the year"? Eric Sink discusses time and space tradeoffs in version control systems. What's interesting is that the exact same tradeoffs come up storing images, only the sizes are much larger, so the benefits of deltas are much greater. Brad Feld reminds us don't confuse a conference and a trade show. What? We would never do that, would we? Actually I think the difference is more in the eye of the beholder than in the nature of the event. Sorry Brad. The awesomest iPod app? Vinyl gives you a mini spinning disk, you can even control the speed of playback. Wow, I don't know what to say. The ultimate dancing bear? ZooBorns of the day: Maned Wolf cubs. [ You are reading the "aggregated" RSS feed for Critical Section, with one item for all posts in a day. If you would prefer the "splintered" RSS feed, with separate items for each post, please use this link instead. ]

Happy Mother's Day! A few fun things for you....

First, the winner of the my Blog candy for the Paper Temptress Metallic Paper assortment is :Denise (peanutbee) said...Awwwwwwwwww! This is THE cutest!!May 7, 2009 5:58 AMCongrats Denise! Please email me your snail addy by Tuesday and I will have Patricia ship the paper out to you ASAP! :) Thank you everyone who left a comment, be sure to take a look around the Paper Temptress store the Metallic line is 25% this month and has 33 colors tochoose from!Next, check out this "Mother of the Year" video! it's about ME! (don't worry, (G rated) and it can be about you, or the other moms you know! Pass it on! ;) Enjoy!Last, be sure to check out the StampTV Stamping Lifestyle magazine in the next couple days, it will always be available for you to read, BUT there is a a three day only coupon code in there for Gina K Designs and it starts TODAY, don't miss it!Have a wonderful Mother's Day! I can't share my project I made for my Mom yet, because I have a stomach virus so we had to cancel them coming in for a visit so I haven't given it to her (of COURSE she reads my blog) But it is a gift that would be fun for birthdays , Father's Day etc, too, so I will share that soon! Tomorrow you'll be seeing a sweet treat, just in time for a baby shower, yum! and hopefully, I will be able to share some Mother's day treat i got fom my own kids, Jonathan has been busitng at the seam sto give me what he amde at school all weekend! :)Later this week, I have been experimenting with my Nestabilities again and have some pretty cool things to share, can't wait!PS Many of you wrote to me about the "babies on the brain wink": just to clear that up, it's becuase I have a baby set out and can't stop makign baby stuff, no other reason, I promise! :)

Julie Chen is Expecting

Julie Chen of the CBS Early Show announced on last Tuesday's show that she is expecting her first child with her husband, President and CEO of CBS Corporation, Les Moonves. Julie said, "I am expecting my first child." And as she rubbed her tummy she added, "So it wasn't a big Sunday at the buffet table. I'm starting to show now! And my due date is Oct. 4. So, fingers crossed, and ...I'm not taking maternity leave from (the CBS show) "Big Brother," which she hosts. "I e-mailed my boss over there this weekend and I said, 'Don't worry. I can still do the show!"'Congratulations to Julie and Les!Full Story: CBS NEWS

Who's more drawing?

Optical Illusions, Math and the Singularity

The power of optical illusions, magnetic fields, the singularity, maths, and food portion sizes.
Key to all optical illusions discovered --
Humans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist. It's nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur. And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.
NASA scientists make magnetic fields visible, beautiful --
Magnetic fields are invisible, at least usually. But Scientists from NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory have made them visible as "animated photographs," using sound-controlled CGI and 3D compositing. It makes the fields, as explained by the scientists, dance in an absolutely gorgeous movie called Magnetic Movie.
The singularity
Math for the layman
300 calorie food picture gallery
Take a look at the above, have a nice week and play it where it lies.
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