26 Sep 2008
American 419

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAHAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

via email

06:35 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Sep 2008
Hail cannon has neighbors ready to explode

OK, so I'm not a grain farmer, and I don't have an orchard, and a hailstorm isn't going to put me out of business, but boy, one of these babies sounds like fun!

After a series of hailstorms devastated the orchard's apple crop in 2007, the owner resorted this summer to using a hail cannon, a noisemaking machine whose sound waves supposedly disrupt the formation of hailstones.

(link) [CNN.com]

07:07 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

22 Sep 2008
Grapes with a EULA

The end result of patent madness.

The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of the produce, including (but not limited to) seeds, stems, tissue and fruit.

(link) [Madisonian]

via Overlawyered

20:18 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

20 Sep 2008
Surprise!

New Calf

That little patch of brown right under Mad Cow's head is her new calf - we named him "Bonkers"...

He was quite a surpirse, as we weren't sure MC was pregnant - in fact, we were pretty sure she wasn't. All that hair on the Highlands makes it damn difficult to tell, sometimes, and we'd not seen her with a bull. In fact, the only bull we've had here was Mad Cow's dad - and he left last December! So he must've gotten at her right before we loaded him up, 'cause this is about the limit, timewise.

Which is OK, I suppose, as the little guy only has one head and all four feet. And it means that our bull probably got after our other cow, too. And that means another surprise, probably real soon now, unless Chip (the bull) was real sneaky, or somebody from a neighbors field has been fence jumping.

14:47 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

18 Sep 2008
Illuminati spook fails to disarm Soviet cow nuke

Wow. Smoke this, it'll really get you out there...

A US Illuminati black op to seek, locate and disarm a Soviet nuke disguised as a blue plastic cow sculpture ended in failure when the special agent charged with the task got stuck in an air duct in Knoxville Museum of Art, and was obliged to call for traditional law enforcement assistance.

(link) [The Register]

06:42 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

17 Sep 2008
AIG gets $85bln lifeline

Ya know, I sure could use a bailout myself. And I wouldn't even need $85 billion ...

We are mortgaging our future (and our children's future, and their children's future) to save these greedy bastards that "invented" creative ways to lose money. Why? Because they're "too big to fail"? Or because those on the inside in government are essentially the same folks on the inside of Wall Street?

These guys being bailed out (not just AiG, but Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie, the lot) are the same sort of folks (investment bankers) producing reports that show companies how to "increase shareholder value" by shipping jobs overseas or importing H1B workers or selling off assets and leasing them back for the tax breaks. This isn't "trickle down" economics, it's flush the commode Econ101. How many millions of the rest of us have had to face bankruptcy thanks to their incessant greed and desire to borrow and loan against nothing?

They not only advised on shipping or selling our livelihoods, they actually jammed a "reform" of the bankruptcy laws through to stop the middle class from bailing out of impossible situations that way! Of course, they don't need bankruptcy - Big Brother will take care of them!

But the upshot of all this are the comments I hear coming from certain political figures, blaming the "free market" for these catastrophes. Free market my ass - there hasn't been one of those in this country since before the Civil War. If you really believe that either this latest spate of Republican led crony capitalism, or that the earlier progressive led "New Deal style" regulated monopoly market represents anything resembling freedom, I want some of whatever you're smoking. 'Cause it has to be some pretty good shit to make you that delusional.

I'll be filling out my personal loan application to the Fed today. I bet I don't even get a rejection letter. I'm not big enough.

AFP - In a move aimed at averting a new global economic shock, the US Federal Reserve agreed an unprecedented 85-billion-dollar rescue loan for American International Group.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

07:13 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

16 Sep 2008
Top adviser claims John McCain invented the BlackBerry

Oh, my.

Buffoons. The lot of them.

Nine years after Al Gore said he invented the internet, the John McCain campaign has claimed that the email-challenged Republican presidential nominee "helped create" the BlackBerry.

(link) [The Register]

17:14 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

15 Sep 2008
Pink Floyd member Richard Wright dies at age 65

Dark Side of the Moon album coverWright was an integral part, if not the driving force, behind the greatest band ever. Which produced Dark Side of the Moon, the greatest album of all time. RIP.

AP - A Pink Floyd spokesman says founding member Richard Wright has died. He was 65.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

20:33 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

No helicopter moms among Rutgers mutant mice

I'm not sure what this means - or even if it means anything at all. 'Twas the headline that got the eye - and the mind, if you let it.

First, he discovered a gene that controls innate fear in animals. Now Rutgers geneticist Gleb Shumyatsky has shown that the same gene promotes "helicopter mom" behavior in mice. The gene, known as stathmin or oncoprotein 18, motivates female animals to protect newborn pups and interact cautiously with unknown peers. Shumyatsky's newest finding could enhance our understanding of human anxiety, including part-partum depression and borderline personality disorders.

(link) [EurekAlert]

20:19 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Wall St. has worst drop since 2001

The beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning? Only time will tell...

Stocks tanked today as investors reeled amid the fallout from the largest financial crisis in years after Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history and Bank of America said it would buy Merrill Lynch. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 500 points, according to early tallies.

(link) [CNN.com]

20:16 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

14 Sep 2008
Strange Look Alikes

14:43 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Peter Camejo, 68, Dies; Nader’s ’04 Running Mate

I owe something of a debt to Mr. Camejo, though we disagreed at least modestly on nearly everything political.

I was already active in the Libertarian Party in 1976, having sat in on the founding meeting of the Indiana branch (in the Love Furniture Store in Zionsville, for the historically curious, hosted by a gentleman by the name of Paul Hyatt). But despite our best efforts, ballot access was denied us, and I was facing in the voting booth a choice between Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter or Peter J. Camejo of the Socialist Workers Party.

I figured the latter choice would be a great protest vote - and I just couldn't bring myself to pull the handle for either Ford or Carter. So the SWP and Peter Camejo got my first vote in a Presidential election.

In looking over the results the next day, I noticed that Ford carried the county easily - and that Mr. Camejo received exactly zero votes. And thanks to the "secret ballot", I could not even protest that!

It was Peter Camejo was provided proof positive to me that elections not only can be rigged, but are, even in the United States. And that started me on the road to left libertarian anarchism, the road I still travel today.

So thanks, Pete, and rest in peace.

Mr. Camejo, a Green Party leader, was a third-party candidate in three California gubernatorial elections before becoming Ralph Nader’s running mate in 2004.

(link) [New York Times]

10:22 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Apple Declares DRM War On Sneaker Hackers

What's next? Demanding a surgically implanted RFID tag to match show to foot and prevent "unauthorized" wear?

Apple has applied for a patent to - no joke - extend digital rights management to tennis shoes and other articles of clothing. "What is desired," the patent application says, "is a method of electronically pairing a sensor and an authorized garment."

(link) [Rough Type]

10:03 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Sep 2008
Superstitions evolved to help us survive

The working definition of a superstition they use is "the tendency to falsely link cause to effect". They go on to include not only such things as religions and "lucky rabbit's feet" but alternative and homeopathic medical remedies as well. The capstone is trying to explain this as "evolutionary" behavior - claiming that even bacteria have "superstitions". Eventually they end up at "scientific superstition"!

It makes an interesting read, but I'm not sure that superstition is as "evolutionary" as described. It seems to me that for these behaviors to become a factor in biological evolution that they'd have to be pretty well reproducible, and hence have a real cause and effect relationship. The fake ones would be weeded out pretty quickly in this case.

Cultural evolution is another matter entirely, and I think that it's here that "superstition" joins myth as acts of remembrance and worship. And I think a plausible case could be made that with most superstitions, such as avoiding black cats crossing the road and not walking under ladders, the modern world is simply missing the context of the superstitious action.

Darwin never warned against crossing black cats, walking under ladders or stepping on cracks in the pavement, but his theory of natural selection explains why people believe in such nonsense.

(link) [New Scientist]

08:50 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion

I've been concerned about the onset of the Digital Dark Age for a while now, and this piece just confirms my fears. Although I must say that I never expected that the government, bureaucratic paper lovers that they are, would be leading the descent into the abyss.

Countless government records are being lost to posterity because workers do not regularly preserve documents.

(link) [New York Times]

08:28 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link