Holy CRAP...

...is this guy funny.

'Quick Change' from Defective Yeti.

Levi takes it!!

Y'know, if you had told me ten or twelve years ago that a popular bike race held in a state which will elect Arnold Schwarzenegger governor would be won by a guy named Levi Leipheimer, and featured off-the-radar ex-star Patrick Dempsey in the closing ceremonies, I would have thought the future would be a very strange place indeed.

Levi took it in Day 1 and held on through 7 days of riding to win by 21 seconds over some of the best riders in the game. Great job.

Photo courtesy of Amgen Tour of California website.

Give 'em hell, Harry

England's Prince Harry is going to Iraq.

As for him being insulated from the 'real' dangers, it doesn't seem at first blush that that's been the case in his family's past, and seeing that he's a 2nd lieutenant in a tank group, it probably won't be the case for him either.

Would that more of our scions were comparable to him and Pat Tillman instead of K-Fed.

un-American

I've tried to take a break from political awareness for a little while. After the heady change of power in November it quickly became apparent that the Democrats were either unwilling or unable (even with a majority) to do what their constituents want them to do, and frankly the reality of it all is too depressing.

This note in Balloon Juice, though, got me good and pissed again. I won't add to its analysis of the Military Commissions Act, only highlight two of the post's more poignant parts.

"Under the commissions act, the government may indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as “enemy combatants” and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics."

and

While we can hope the Supreme Court overturns this nonsense, our best bet is to use the mechanism that created this mess- Congress and the President. Support legislation to reign in this authority, and refuse to vote for any candidate who will not work to overturn this garbage. To do anything else is to shirk your real duty as a patriot and a citizen, despite what the know-nothing scaremongers yell otherwise.

We need to be vigilant about this, and remember who voted how, no matter the reason; political compromise, or expediency, or whatever poor excuse may be spouted down the road. So, just for fun, I looked it up (Senate and House). For my readership of four in Michigan (hi, mom!), the vote was down party lines in the House, Blues against, Reds for - do with that what you wish. In the Senate, though, Democrat Debbie Stabenow voted for it (other Dem Levin, of course, did not), probably in a timid bid for centrism as she was in a tough race. Doesn't matter. We need people willing to stake their temporary jobs (really, she's not going any further in this industry) on their values and in this case we're talking about whether we think it is okay for a government (ours or someone else's as we kind of set the standard, internationally) to detain and torture, indefinitely, people that government doesn't like.

Bad juju on Stabenow and the Red Michigan Representatives.

Y'know...

...some friends would know it was enough that I would be doing some mundane and soul-strangling thing this coming Saturday, probably in the cold, definitely in southeast Michigan, likely involving either (take your pick, though both will be right at different times of the day) soiled diapers or cleaning out a garage, while they spend their day doing an off-road-triathlon-adventure-race-thing in, um..., South Africa. These friends would let it go with a brief, 'yeah, looking forward to it' so as to not let on just how incredibly cool it's gonna be.




However, other "friends" would send a link which illustrates the course, and describes in breathless prose the swim in "the pure mountain waters of the Magaliesberg," mountain biking with "spectacular views of Tonquani Gorge," a river crossing, uphill portage, bone-jarring downhills, something called a Mountain Sanctuary gate, undulating jeep track through citrus orchards, and a run through "indigenous riverine bushveld" with possible "sightings of resident Wildebeest, Kudu, Blesbok and Impala." I don't even know what indigenous riverine bushveld is, but I really want to run through it while sighting a Kudu, whatever the hell that is.

Yes, that's what some "friends" would do, rifle off a quick little missive like this:

"...so I thought I'd read up again on the race I'm doing on Saturday. I figured you'd appreciate it as much or more than the next guy. Did I already send that to you?"

:\

Did you notice the little "Did I already send that to you?" all innocent and concerned. Nice. Don't let the exceedingly friendly exterior and the humanitarian job delude you: Peter Keller-Transburg is a calculating and evil bastard.

That's gonna be you, Pete! Running all alone without any friends! Is that a nine-year-old girl way up there in front of you?

UPDATE: How convenient. It seems a little rain was enough to give Mr. KT an excuse to skip the race. Sure, some will call it a "humanitarian crisis," but one man's crisis is another's opportunity to not have to commune with the wild Kudus on their home turf.

In all seriousness, if you'd like to help out, every little bit helps: World Food Programme ($ can go to WFP ops in southern Africa, if you so designate), or Mozambique directly through World Vision.

nail on the head

Brought to you by Toothpaste for Dinner

Tour of California starts today

It's actually the Amgen Tour of California. You know, Amgen, the guys that make the "drugs of choice for the doping cyclist."

Regardless, it starts in a couple hours and Ivan Basso, Levi Leipheimer, and a bunch of others worth watching will be there, so if you get Versus (what used to be OLN), lucky you.

Is it good that our comedians are smarter and have more integrity than our leaders?

Bill Maher is back on HBO (which I don't have) and Salon.com did an accompanying interview (which we all have) about the show and his role as chief foot fire applier now that Democrats rent all the flats in D.C. Some tidbits:

Summation of Kerry's strategy in '04:

"Look, I'm not going to really outline how different I am from this guy, because I'm afraid there are some things about his positions you like. So I'll just trust that when you get into the voting booth you'll say, 'Well, the one guy is a retard. It's a no-brainer, I'll vote for the other guy.' "

On McCain:

I'm completely over John McCain now.... It's [his soul] been sold. I gave him a lot of latitude, because I do think he's a bright guy, and I think he's got anger, which I think is a good thing. I know that's something you could throw in his face -- "How can you be president? You're angry." -- it's about time we had someone with anger. How can you not be angry, is my question.

On Iraq:

Iraq has only been a country since what, 1932? That's seven years younger than Paul Newman. Why are these drawn-on-a-map borders worth one more American life?

I used to really enjoy Politically Incorrect and was as indignant about its cowardly cancellation as the wingnuts were about his statement which got it cancelled. Maher's one of the brighter bulbs out there - I hope his show, which he's evidently more happy with than PI, does really well.

So strange what we'll do...

...for a little mool.

I was thinking this morning, don't remember why, about what people are willing to do to make money, what kind of crappy (either for them or someone else) jobs they'll do, and what kind of values or futures they'll sell out for short-term gain. I was thinking that it's easier for me to understand the lure now that I'm a parent, quickly watching the dreams I'd held onto as a young adult sift into the realm of unlikeliness if not impossibility anyway, and hoping to still provide a life less ordinary for my otherwise suburban-cursed kids, though I'm still not at the point which I'd take a job I saw as morally amiguous, unsustainable, or even mundane.

Then this afternoon I got my periodic Google search email (Google executes a particular search for me daily and emails the results) and noticed something I've seen a few times since beginning to use this tool: links to websites with descriptions or text with an almost cohesive (in a post-modern poetry sort of way) but still random, machine-generated content. If you were to actually click on them (something I don't recommend) you'd find a site that exists solely to show up in a search result and steer you somewhere else. Below are today's examples:

captured in Pakistan in 2003, told his form a governing coalition. Civil Liberties Union in San Diego, horseradish to recall the Jews possessed enough incriminating private property. together. and statements delivered to the US The left-handed Langerhans hit a Tedstone said. an empty airplane hangar ... legislation that would provide a path - http://back-of-lawler.spaces.live.com/

Seriously, how much of a shitbird do you need to be to be in charge of *.spaces.live.com? What a stupid and pointless thing to do with your life, even if it does in some way help you pay the bills. I just wonder how much money I'd have to make before I felt good at night if developing this kind of thing was my job. It would take at least some brains to figure out how to do this - it probably combs other sites for content and then mashes it together to keep it relevant and 'findable' by top search engines. What could that kind of intellect do if doing something worthwhile?

UPDATE:

In today's email from Google, I have recursively become part of the problem, it would seem, with bad juju's name, author, link, and the title of this post showing up with the content from the top result above stuck in as if it was the content of this site. Strange.

I removed the other two results as they were all running into the sidebar.

tl3

"We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."

- Clarence Seward Darrow

Moonshine: Fuel of the 21st Century

This is an excellent article about the potential and challenges of using ethanol as a fuel source.

For the record, I'm against it: corn ethanol in large amounts is agriculturally unsustainable, and distracts from the increased efficiencies (like hybrid cars and green buildings) that could quickly deliver energy benefits. We shouldn't be wasting another cent on corn ethanol research, even as a stop-gap to get us to the mythic hydrogen economy. The article nicely explains where both the benefits and difficulties of measuring potential lie, though, so don't take my word for it. Should be required reading for every legislator and driver in the country.

Environmental spit-take

A plan to reduce the mud flowing from what's suspected to be a man-made volcano in Java centers around dropping 4,000 concrete balls into it. Go ahead, try to read this whole article without thinking the word 'ben-wa' and stifling a giggle.

My favorite line: "It will make the mud tired. We're killing the mud softly."

And, in a cameo commentary by Captain Obvious: "If the mud doesn't just whirl straight past these balls, it could work."

I predict either middling success with an unintended consequence or spectacular, jaw-dropping, concrete-ball-raining, politician-berating failure.

In other fun environmental news, orange, stinky, oily snow is falling on Siberia, but I'm sure it's a liberal chicken little plot to distract us from how well the President is handling the Middle East or something.

The grandeur of world-class sport

Words cannot explain my excitement at the prospect of traveling down the hallowed lanes upon which these great souls tread...

Bring Your Own Big Wheel

Thanks, Doug, for the link.

Sutherland vs. Sakai

One of the legendary dogfights of WWII took place above the carnage of Guadalcanal between two of Japan's and the US' finest pilots. What happened after the fight is more amazing than the fight itself.

Whoah!

This is becoming a long, teasing list of sexy electric car eyecandy.

Audi has joined the fray, even if in concept only, with the RZero:

I can not WAIT for the future!

for those of us...

...encased in snow, far from the lovely crushing heat of July.

A cool photo essay of the Tour de France, with English commentary.

tagline 1

Doom on you.

Not because I actually wish it on you in general, just if you have it coming. Doom is so much bigger, blacker, and deep than namby-pamby karma, comeuppance, or even retribution.

One of our aircraft used to have an awesome skull and Doom on You stencil inside an access cover for the fuse panel. We never knew who painted it, but I loved that it was there, a hidden reminder to the chaos that awaited any misstep.

tl2

The second tagline for bad juju was a Chinese proverb that I stumbled across somewhere on the web:

If we're not careful, we will end up exactly where we are headed.

We beat Seattle!!

Finally, something Detroit is better at than Seattle (and Helsinki, I might add). We get more sunlight than both.

Found a cool solar suitability calculator - you can see how much sunlight a given area gets with surprising results. For instance, Burlington, Vermont could be a hotbed of solar power, with almost as much sunlight annually as Corpus Christi, Texas... betcha didn't know that.

What is cool about this is that you can tweak the inputs to accurately estimate the dollar value of a solar system in your area.

screensavers are bad, uh-kay?

From the EcoStreet blog, some good methods for cutting down on your PC’s electricity use, which can quickly add up to noticeable savings, especially for businesses where people leave their computers when they’re not working at night. It’s helpful that the article gives simple how-tos, explains what different settings do, and stresses tailoring settings to individual use to avoid becoming a burden. A couple of the tips are excerpted below:

“Turn off monitor” - my suggestion: 5 minutes. This puts your monitor into standby, which uses less power than being fully on, but it still uses a lot, so remember to turn it off when not in use. Your monitor accounts for about 1/3 of the electricity your PC uses.

Hibernation is a special form of power saving. …Everything in memory gets saved, then the PC turns off. When you turn the PC back on, it reverts to the state it was in right before it went into hibernation - your Excel spreadsheet will be open, your song will continue playing from the part it stopped at, etc. This is great if you spend a lot of time working on a document, or usually have several programmes running, as you can turn the PC off completely, and have it open up exactly how it was.

Please remember, though, that screensavers are a waste of money and energy. If you have time to allow a screensaver to appear on your screen, then you have time to turn that screen off.