It looks slimy, it’s definitely squishy, and it can sure squeeze through small cracks just like the clever marine invertbrates beloved by a certain Godless biologist who hangs around these parts. But it’s a robot and a little bit eerie to watch. [Read more…]
Up-update: Twitter is side splitting funny. Tag #UseHermanCainAsAVerb as in I almost got caught screwing my mistress but I #HermanCained my way out of it.
Update: Thank Odin, Hardball explained just now that voting for an alleged adulterer, Herman Cain, is bad. Voting for an admitted one, Newt Gingrich, is OK.
Reports are swirling a women will or has come forth and claimed she and GOP presidential former contender Herman Cain carried on a 13 year affair: [Read more…]
And I’ll make it short and sweet. With Europe softening toward mild recession and the US stuck in permanent high unemployment, the demand side of the equation is unlikely to ratchet up anytime soon. As long as supply is stable this leads to lower gas prices between now and the end of Spring. This is a seesaw: the worse the Euro recession is and/or the economy here, the lower gas prices tend to go, so it’s not exactly good news for everyone.
There are two climate change articles on Google news that caught my eye this morning, not just because of the titles, but because they’re juxtaposed in such a way that they inadvertantly illustrate the nature of the manufactured controversy better than a single article could. The first is called Climate change denial still runs strong in US and reviews the gulf between climate scientists and data, as illsutrated in the chart above, and public sentiment swayed by decades of misinformation spread in large part by the fossil fuel and energy indsutries. The second is a piece in the Daily Mail, naturally, trying to create a controversy over BBC executuves consulting with climate scientists about how to present the science and what the consequences of increasing global temperatures might be to culture in general. [Read more…]
For those of you lucky enough to be away from the news, and computers, I am envious. But you did good, you shopped well, incidents of pepper spray and over competitive shopping aside. In fact, online and real world sales punched out a decent Black Friday and Internet weekend or whatever you meddling kids are calling it these days. [Read more…]
Here’s a Sunday special for FreeThinkers, because I’m especially busy this Sunday: Do you have a website/blog whatever? If so list the url in the comments below and I’ll be sure and bookmark it for future links and throw a blurb to it up here on the front page, above the fold, over the next few weeks and maybe sooner. This offer is extended to all sites including religious and/or conservative sites — although you may not like the commenters that show up on your religious and/or conservative site if it gets linked anywhere on FTB — with the exception of real whackos like Klan or terrorist sites and the like. Cute Billy Joel meets World of Warcraft video made by some friends of mine below the fold. [Read more…]
We get hate mail at Daily Kos and post the best every Saturday for Hate-mail-a-palooza. This week we got a real gem from the rabid mind of a creationist victim titled Evolution Fantasy(!), reproduced in whole below the fold for your holiday reading pleasure. [Read more…]
The Hubble Deep Field View courtesy of NASA/JPL
As someone who has picked a lousy title on many occasions, I sympathize with the author of this piece at IFPpress. Nevertheless, I can think of a great many differences between the most profound mysteries in cosmology and supernatural cosmogonies the world over. The first mythology-cosmology item given in the article looks somewhat defensible:
String theory, the most promising theory of physics of the past thirty years, since it was meant to explain everything, cannot be tested or proven.
False. String theory, like any scientific theory, makes testable predictions. The primary obstacle is those tests cannot be performed at the energies our current technology cannot produce. The author continues: [Read more…]
There’s a myth in the US, fanned by agents of the super wealthy, that if you just work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, you’ll be rewarded with riches. It’s an easy sell all the way around. Regular people want to believe it, and it fluffs the tender feelings of those who are rich. Work hard and you’ll succeed, everyone wins! Good luck, you’ll need it. There are more powerball lottery winners in the US than people who started in the middle class and became billionaires. But even for more moderate winners it’s just not true. I know this for a fact, I’m one of the moderate winners. [Read more…]
I’ve always loved Black Friday. Back in my broker days it was the best day of the year to go to work. An old depression era rule decrees the stock market cannot be closed more than three days in a row, the only time it’s been broken was in the darkest days right after 9-11. So the NYSE and NASDAQ dutifully open for three or four hours, junior floor specialists and a handful of market-makers man the exchanges. In hundreds of broker-dealer offices around the country, like the one I worked in for years, a few sales assistants and maybe a standing compliance officer come to work, the sweet odor of margaritas and egg nog have been known to waft delicately through the empty hallways and offices.
But Black Friday for retail is a whole different story. It’s hustle and bustle, the official start of the Christmas shopping season. Later last night at a Walmart in California one neurotic shopper took that way, way too far. And where do you suppose she got this crowd control idea?
(LAtimes) — Matthew Lopez went to the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch on Thursday night for the Black Friday sale but instead was caught in a pepper-spray attack by a woman who authorities said was “competitive shopping.” Lopez described a chaotic scene in the San Fernando Valley store among shoppers looking for video games soon after the sale began.