Isn't is a hoot! After 80 years of discriminating against women, the scumbags of the Augusta National Golf Club finally allowed two females to join. Representing the 0.1% is Darla Moore of South Carolina. And representing African Americans AND professional women is no other than The Mushroom Lady herself, Condoleeza Rice, giving her best Sir Sidney Poitier impression. Yes, that one, who apparently was so criminally negligent of her duties that she allowed 9/11 to slip out of Dubya stream of semi consciousness, and made the case for Iraq, costing $1-3 trillion and somewhere between 50,000-1,000,000 deaths (including both Iraqis, foreign contractors and Americans).
According to the Washington Post, the Bushies are back and playing for team Romney. Which is interesting, though not surprising, considering Romeny's Big Daddy is Sheldon Adelson, the benefactor of King Bibi of Likud fame, who must be chomping at the bit for more Middle East carnage. Romney, who transports the family dog on the car roof, apparently has no problem letting the fleas ride with the family.
And talking of King Bibi, who is now on record of lecturing and reprimanding both the President AND Secretary of State, I think the US should grant him his wish, and let him take care of Iran by himself, without any red lines, threats and inhibitions. As Ronald Reagan once said, 'boys would be boys'.
But when he is done, let him also take care of Iran's response by himself, too. and let Sheldon Adelson airlift supplies and ammunition to Israel, and hire military contractors to intervene on his behalf. After all, Shelley seems to have plenty of money to throw around, so maybe he should put his money where his mouth is, instead of performing a leveraged buyout of the American Government.
Of course, Adelson knows a good investment when he sees one. By putting in $100,000,000 to buy Romney the presidency, his puppet would then invest over $1,000,000,000,000 of US tax-payer money into a war with Iran. That's a 10,000 fold return on investment, and is a conservative estimate.
After all, the rich guys with money in the Caymans and Switzerland can use a global oil crisis, followed by a recession that would finish up what the Bush housing bubble started. They can then buy all the remaining property on the cheap. In times of war, cash is king, and who has more of it than Adelson, Romney, and their ilk.
Just a thought.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Rebooting a bus
As someone who likes to test new applications, or try out overlooked old ones, I have had my shares of computer crashes and reboots. From Windows blue screen of death, to the frozen apple of the iPod, I have probably seen them all. Even Linux crashes (imagine that - the desktop is not as stable as the server...).
During several longs spans of time, my computers (running MS products, of course) would crash as soon as I entered the office, like the elevators of The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy.
But until today, I have not seen a bus being rebooted. To be honest, it was not that the whole bus froze - only the electronic payment system - but a commercial service without ticketing is as good as dead.
Here is how it happened. A pretty girl, playing a game on her iPhone while handing the driver a bill and the electronic charge card, confused the driver. He tried charging the card, and failed embarrassingly. Frantic, he started pressing repeatedly the buttons on his card crediting system, but to no avail (or even to the detriment of the software, who knows). Sweating (and swearing in a muted mumble), the driver turned off the engine, waited a few second and turned it on again.
The driver turned off the engine, sprinted to the battery compartment and pulled out the plugs. Minutes later, when he reconnected the battery, lights flickering, he powered the engine, at which point the ticketing system started functioning again.
Not an impressive life event by itself, but how often does one get to witness a bus needing a reboot? To me it is worthy of a blog entrance.
During several longs spans of time, my computers (running MS products, of course) would crash as soon as I entered the office, like the elevators of The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy.
But until today, I have not seen a bus being rebooted. To be honest, it was not that the whole bus froze - only the electronic payment system - but a commercial service without ticketing is as good as dead.
Here is how it happened. A pretty girl, playing a game on her iPhone while handing the driver a bill and the electronic charge card, confused the driver. He tried charging the card, and failed embarrassingly. Frantic, he started pressing repeatedly the buttons on his card crediting system, but to no avail (or even to the detriment of the software, who knows). Sweating (and swearing in a muted mumble), the driver turned off the engine, waited a few second and turned it on again.
The driver turned off the engine, sprinted to the battery compartment and pulled out the plugs. Minutes later, when he reconnected the battery, lights flickering, he powered the engine, at which point the ticketing system started functioning again.
Not an impressive life event by itself, but how often does one get to witness a bus needing a reboot? To me it is worthy of a blog entrance.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
A rose by another name
Roses are an important part of Mitt Romney's essence. His modus operandi is extremely sub rosa - he keeps his money hidden in foreign countries to avoid paying taxes, he wiped out his Massachusetts records when he left the Governor's mansion, and his business records are sealed to avoid embarrassments. And, like many moneyed people, he probably believes his excreta smell of roses.
So I was not completely surprised by this sweet anecdote in his acceptance speech: "Mom and Dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist – because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died – she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose."
A touching story, which merits further analysis.
Cost:
A daily single rose dosage ('rosage') over sixty four years runs to 23,360 roses (not counting birthdays, Valentine's days and other parties and celebrations). That's a lot of roses. At today's prices, this 'rosage' would run between $70,000 - $120,000 (assuming average to top quality roses - after all, one would not go to all this trouble to get cheap roses). We knew, of course, the Romneys were wealthy. At least, unlike Mitt, George Romney earned his money from real engineering, not financial engineering.
Persistence:
Another fascinating aspect is the persistence. The ritual beats Cal Ripken's record by decades. Have George Romney and his wife stayed home throughout their 64-year marriage? Considering George Romney was an auto executive, and a presidential candidate (despite his birth in Mexico, where his parents lived to avoid US anti-polygamy laws), one might guess not every day of his life was spent home. And it is hard to believe his wife never took a trip, visited her parents or siblings, or just spent a night on the town with friends.
In other words, like most GOP convention speeches, there probably is some liberty with the facts here. And not to repeat this behavior, let's be clear that Mitt's grandparents have not practiced polygamy, only chose to live in a polygamist Mormon colony.
Process:
Then there is the procurement and delivery. Did George Romney drive to the florist every daybreak to pick his wife's rose? Did the butler do it? Was the daily flower delivered by the florist?
Where was Mrs. Romney while Mr. Romney was putting the flower on the bedside table? Powdering her nose? Sleeping? Did she ever intercept the rose before it made it to the night table?
Did Mitt really follow his parents around for 64 years, to check on the roses?
The Discovery:
I just can't wrap my head around that part of the story. How likely is it that a missing rose act as the only clue to one's partner death? Did no one check on Mr. Romney when he failed to show up for breakfast or drive to the florist?
How far from a spouse does one have to live for that to happen? In a different bedroom? A separate house? Distant cities? Another planet?
Didn't anyone tell poor Mrs. Romney her husband had died? She had to infer it from the missing rose? What quality of help did the Romneys have around the house?
Face Validity:
I do not know Mitt's parents, but having lived together for over six decades, they must have shared a lot of good, loving times. Still, I doubt is the veracity of the story, which appears taken from the plot of a Hallmark movie. Seems to me that the speech writers fibbed a little. To paraphrase Charles Barkley, Mitt Romney was misquoted.
Then again, this is nothing compared to other speakers, like Marco Rubio, whose parents fled from Cuba to Florida to escape Castro several years before the communists rise to powe.
So I was not completely surprised by this sweet anecdote in his acceptance speech: "Mom and Dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist – because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died – she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose."
A touching story, which merits further analysis.
Cost:
A daily single rose dosage ('rosage') over sixty four years runs to 23,360 roses (not counting birthdays, Valentine's days and other parties and celebrations). That's a lot of roses. At today's prices, this 'rosage' would run between $70,000 - $120,000 (assuming average to top quality roses - after all, one would not go to all this trouble to get cheap roses). We knew, of course, the Romneys were wealthy. At least, unlike Mitt, George Romney earned his money from real engineering, not financial engineering.
Persistence:
Another fascinating aspect is the persistence. The ritual beats Cal Ripken's record by decades. Have George Romney and his wife stayed home throughout their 64-year marriage? Considering George Romney was an auto executive, and a presidential candidate (despite his birth in Mexico, where his parents lived to avoid US anti-polygamy laws), one might guess not every day of his life was spent home. And it is hard to believe his wife never took a trip, visited her parents or siblings, or just spent a night on the town with friends.
In other words, like most GOP convention speeches, there probably is some liberty with the facts here. And not to repeat this behavior, let's be clear that Mitt's grandparents have not practiced polygamy, only chose to live in a polygamist Mormon colony.
Process:
Then there is the procurement and delivery. Did George Romney drive to the florist every daybreak to pick his wife's rose? Did the butler do it? Was the daily flower delivered by the florist?
Where was Mrs. Romney while Mr. Romney was putting the flower on the bedside table? Powdering her nose? Sleeping? Did she ever intercept the rose before it made it to the night table?
Did Mitt really follow his parents around for 64 years, to check on the roses?
The Discovery:
I just can't wrap my head around that part of the story. How likely is it that a missing rose act as the only clue to one's partner death? Did no one check on Mr. Romney when he failed to show up for breakfast or drive to the florist?
How far from a spouse does one have to live for that to happen? In a different bedroom? A separate house? Distant cities? Another planet?
Didn't anyone tell poor Mrs. Romney her husband had died? She had to infer it from the missing rose? What quality of help did the Romneys have around the house?
Face Validity:
I do not know Mitt's parents, but having lived together for over six decades, they must have shared a lot of good, loving times. Still, I doubt is the veracity of the story, which appears taken from the plot of a Hallmark movie. Seems to me that the speech writers fibbed a little. To paraphrase Charles Barkley, Mitt Romney was misquoted.
Then again, this is nothing compared to other speakers, like Marco Rubio, whose parents fled from Cuba to Florida to escape Castro several years before the communists rise to powe.
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