If the Clippers win the Pacific dividion for the 2006-2007 season, Pat owes me a pitcher at Delerium. If they do not, I owe Pat a pitcher. Further, if the Lakers and the Clippers meet in the 2007 playoffs, Pat owes me a pitcher at Delerium should the Clippers win and I owe pat a pitcher should the Lakers win.
Suck it, Feinstein!. OK, so sixty six of you have gotten the message that you hate America out there. Will you all please shut the fuck up now?
Our lovely senate (co-led gleefully by asshat California senator Diane Feinstein — keep this in mind next time she claims to have a clue) is voting today on a constitutional amendment to allow congress to place arbitrary limits on the first amendment. Yeah, it’s the flag burning amendment.
I’ve got a certain cognitive dissonance about this whole thing. I mean, they can’t really be doin this, can they? They aren’t really valuing a symbol above what that symbol represents, are they? Seriously.
Anyway, instead of the usual hand-wringing about how stupid our congress is — because I think we all already know by now — I propose a game: Who can make the best claim about how flag burning is destroying America, handing the nation over to the terrorists, killing the baby jesus or whatever the flag burning people will have you believe the problem is?
My favorite so far comes from Erich:
Lack of respect for the flag is what causes “disgraceful” newspapers to release details of our covert surveillance plans.
Which is at least as good as anything I’ve heard out of the pro-first-amendment-killing crowd.
The ACLU has a handy lookup application that will let you call your senator and let them know how you feel.
Our lovely senate (co-led gleefully by asshat California senator Diane Feinstein — keep this in mind next time she claims to have a clue) is voting today on a constitutional amendment to allow congress to place arbitrary limits on the first amendment. Yeah, it’s the flag burning amendment.
I’ve got a certain cognitive dissonance about this whole thing. I mean, they can’t really be doin this, can they? They aren’t really valuing a symbol above what that symbol represents, are they? Seriously.
Anyway, instead of the usual hand-wringing about how stupid our congress is — because I think we all already know by now — I propose a game: Who can make the best claim about how flag burning is destroying America, handing the nation over to the terrorists, killing the baby jesus or whatever the flag burning people will have you believe the problem is?
My favorite so far comes from Erich:
Lack of respect for the flag is what causes “disgraceful” newspapers to release details of our covert surveillance plans.
Which is at least as good as anything I’ve heard out of the pro-first-amendment-killing crowd.
The ACLU has a handy lookup application that will let you call your senator and let them know how you feel.
In a report to congress, the National Academy of Sciences had the gall to contradict well-established science fiction and suggest that the earth is hotter than it should be and it’s that way because of human activity.
The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the “recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia.”
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.” Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.
Obviously this is some sort of conspiracy on the part of those data-loving academics to keep corporate-sponsored research down. It’s a gross limitation of our freedom of expression and I don’t understand why we as Americans stand for it. And what about that name: National Academy of Sciences. Why, it might as well be “The People’s Academy of Sciences” for its clearly anti-corporate stances. Damn those scientists and their method! Damn their data! Damn them all!
Two brief pieces of nerd news today. One is silly and the other is extrodinarily cool. Cool first: Tej and the rest of the Buzz Game crew at YRL got a nice shoutout on TechCrunch for their Y! “hack day” entry. Hey, it turns out that Yahoo has smart people in Burbank after all. Who knew? Second, amusingly, Business 2.0 lists Ruby on Rails creator DHH as #34 on their list of “People who matter”. Bezos, Ellison, Oprah and the EFF come in after 34.
It’s been nearly 12 hours since Miami beat Dallas to win the NBA finals and there’s still no word out of Mark Cuban. Ordinarily I can take or leave what people have to say about whatever, but I can’t wait to get Cuban’s reaction to the series.
Did I mention that I picked Miami to win back in November? We’ll ignore that I was convinced for the bulk of the season that Detroit and San Antonio were the teams to beat.
Joel’s commentary on BillG is amusing.
Watching non-programmers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf.
“It’s ok! I have great advisors standing on the shore telling me what to do!” they say, and then fall off the board, again and again. The standard cry of the MBA who believes that management is a generic function. Is Ballmer going to be another John Sculley, who nearly drove Apple into extinction because the board of directors thought that selling Pepsi was good preparation for running a computer company? The cult of the MBA likes to believe that you can run organizations that do things that you don’t understand.
My favorite kooky preservationists over at the 1947project updated their site recently. Everybody loves a good redesign, and it’s got the obligatory Powells advert, so you know it’s cool. The best part, for me at least, is that they now seem to have a full RSS feed so I’ll actually, you know, read their stuff. There’s little that’s more infuriating for me than an RSS feed that gives you like nine words and then “[...]” or “read more” or “I LIVE IN SILVER LAKE FOLKS MORE AFTER THE JUMP.” (Hi, Blogging.la!) I’m really excited to have access to the 1947project’s content in a convenient format. Thanks, guys!
Their Pasadena crime bus happens in July. The ticket prices are crazy high — $47/person — and I really should be saving money right now. Still, if the Pasadena tour is put together as well as their amazing Black Dahlia tour, it would totally be worth it. Plus it’s the ‘Dena, so bonus points for crime history in the city where I spend most of my waking hours.
Well, either way I’ll actually read their stuff now. Which is braggable.