This Boy Elroy

What does God want with a starship?

...is what I think about when I read that some people want to start offering creationism as a masters degree in Texas universities.

What does one do with a masters in creationism?

Oh! How foolish of me. I forgot that the media gives air time to idiots, assholes, and zealots in the vain of being "fair and balanced."

Bored at work? Make a crown. That's what I did.

Take a boring old DVDr spool label:

On the back draw your favorite crown design, I chose the classic fleur de lys:

Cut pattern out with a razor blade:

Try the pattern on before proceeding:

Break for lunch.

When you return, use pattern as a guide to cut foil to cover your crown with a metallic facade:

Wear your finished product whenever you like, however you like:

F-Yeah!

I love Condi speaking into the mic saying, "Yeah, how are you? It's good to see you." like nothing is happening. 

Plastic surgery makes everything better.

If you read the news you know that this week Mr. Asshat vetoed a bill that would have expanded SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program).  Apparently he feels that we, as a nation, are not responsible for the health and well being of the poorest children in our society.  The poorest embryos, however, get five star - five diamond accommodations but once that gift from god pokes his little cranium out into the world for the first time he's not our problem!  It's like a rule from Animal Farm:  Embryos good, children bad. 

I digress. 

In the car this morning Brad was telling me how some conservatives, even those who supported the SCHIPS bill, had a problem with how part of the bill was going to be funded;  $1 added to cigarette tax.  I agree that adding $1 to cigarette tax is bogus.  Why is it that there is never an uproar from the right when taxes are added to cigarettes and alcohol; and why does it happen so often?  People who smoke and drink are disproportionately poorer than those who don't.  So instead of raising income taxes commensurate with the amount of money one makes (thus shifting the tax burden onto those who can afford it), we raise taxes on things (things that a puritanical society considers vices) that poorer people buy.

I mean, why would the mega-rich want to pay taxes?  Just look at what this satellite image of a home here in the exclusive north Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow (doesn't that name just REEK of revolting privilege).

The have EVERYTHING they need inside their own walls.  They have their own tennis courts, park, gardens, lake, pool, and by the looks of it they probably can afford their own health insurance too.  If they paid taxes it would be like they're paying for all the stuff they already have twice!  So when Mr. and Mrs. Doe are recovering pool-side from their latest elective cosmetic procedure the last thing on their minds are the all the poor children born with cleft paletes who actually need plastic surgery to live normal lives. 

Hmmm, plastic surgery.  Wait just a minute!  People who get elective plastic surgery are disproportionately rich.  Instead of taxing cigarettes and alcohol, I propose funding a new SCHIPS bill where tax revenue is generated from elective plastic surgery procedures.  You're not raising income, estate or capital gains tax so that neutralizes 90% of republican argument AND in a puritanical society it only makes sense that if you tax the smokers and the wine-os that you should tax the strumpets as well!  Every time Ms. Doe goes into the doctors office and demands larger breasts, smoother skin, a higher brow, or botulinum toxin to prevent her face from accidentally showing any sign of compassion for those who have less than her she get's taxed, and that money goes to help those who need it most.  Same goes for Mr. Doe getting pec implants, calf implants, and laser hair removal.  Because if you can afford to spend $10000 for fake tits or $1000 to strip all the hair off your body then you can afford to help poor children get the healthcare they deserve and, more importantly, need.

Condi

Did anyone else see this photo of our beloved Condi on The Huffington Post? She looks like she just stepped off the sound stage for the Thriller music video. I guess all that evil on the inside is starting to bubble up to the surface.

Update: I couldn't help myself. That photo of Condi was dying to be made into a mock inspirational poster.

You gotta have friends, right?

From a recent article in the New York Times regarding Condi's possible return as provost of Stanford and her overall legacy.

"In fact, her friends say that she rarely questions whether she is right or wrong, instead choosing to believe in a particular truth with absolute certainty until she doesn’t believe it anymore, at which point she moves on."

If that's what your friends say about you to the press then you're probably psychotic.

Perspective

"For one year of the cost of the war in Iraq we could have a permanent lunar base."

- David Sabathier, Director of the Human Space Exploration Initiatives program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

From The Future of NASA

Bottled Water Redux

I wrote this letter to Whole Foods in May expressing my concern about importing bottled water from New Zealand.

Then I didn't hear from them and I wrote them again and cited an article in the New York Times about how some restaurants are refusing to serve imported bottled water because of the carbon footprint it leaves.

Whole Foods wrote me back recently and it was mostly gobbly gook about how the shoppers demand water from exotic locales. Yeah, well I think it'd be convenient if Whole Foods started carrying chemical cleaners so I didn't have to go to Target but I don't think they'll start selling Lysol products anytime soon. They also wrote about how shipping is the most efficient form of transporting goods across the world:

A great example of this difficulty came up in a discussion that our CEO, John Mackey had with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, at UC Berkeley recently. As john pointed out in that discussion, the majority of food shipped internationally is shipped by relatively energy efficient ocean vessels. If you live in Berkeley, you may actually use less fossil fuel and produce less carbon dioxide by buying rice from Bangladesh than from certain parts of California, as ocean vessels emit dramatically less carbon dioxide per pound of cargo than trucks.

Wow, that's great...IF you live in Berkeley. News flash, not everyone lives and eats in Berkeley.

The email also mentioned about how they promote local farming and they have a Local Producer Loan Program. Red herring, thanks.

Anyway this issue seems to be getting legs in the media lately. In a recent issue of Business week there was an article about carbon neutrality and importing water: How "Green" Is That Water?

Today, a reader emailed me this story from the San Diego Union-Tribune: Pour choice - Restaurants make money on it; consumers drink it up; but the environment has a tough time with bottled waters

Let me say that I am not totally against bottled water. Many of these articles cite statements saying that municipal water is heavily regulated and is just as good as bottled water. Here, in Dallas, the water tastes like ass. A couple of months ago I purchased refillable bottles and I get my water, for $0.39 per gallon, from Whole Foods. The water is filtered from a municipal source on the spot, I walk home with the bottles from the store. At work, I drink Ozarka bottled water, which is a bottled water that comes from a source in the region and doesn't travel far to get to me. I do my best to recycle the bottles, but will be putting more effort into that from now on. I used to buy sparkling Italian mineral water from Whole Foods as well but have since stopped and now purchase locally produced (it's just filtered water that's been carbonated) and canned club soda.

Think about what you eat and drink. Think about where it's made, what it's packaged in, how far it had to travel, and how many resources were used so it could get to you.

Do you have a flag?

Canadian PM vows to defend Arctic

This article made me vomit everywhere. Two-thousand-fucking-seven and we're still bickering over land and boundaries; staking flags in the ground and crying out, "It's MINE I was here FIRST!" Why do the leaders of the world get to behave like children - spending money they don't have and throwing tantrums when they don't get what they want - while the rest of us have to be adults?

It reminds me of this:

I found this line particularly rich:

Five countries -- Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark -- are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed. One study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

Um, there's a giant mass of incandescent gas (a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen turns to helium at a temperature of thousands of degrees) right above our heads that we can all share and get energy from. Also, it doesn't require that we drill giant holes into the ground underwater, which to me sounds far more dangerous and complicated than setting up solar arrays on the ground- you know, where we can breathe.

I love how the writer of this article implies that global warming has a silver lining:

As global warming melts the passage -- which is navigable only during a slim window in the summer -- the waters are exposing unexplored resources, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.

This is like saying that dropping the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good thing because it introduced new and possibly advantageous mutations in the human gene pool. Idiot.

That's My Bush!

Now here is a prime example why, like I said in an earlier post, I am not able to get into the fourth of July festivities.

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence

Hey at least I can say that this is what I expected of him, unlike all those people who voted for him thinking they were getting..... What DID they think they were getting?