> cosmicpenguin.net

Defending Cheerios, Cereal of Liberty. As the article tells it, our marxist government is going after Cheerios for promoting themselves as the next great miracle cure. Now, thats just downright Unamerican, dammit. My favorite line: "Washington raised ciggie taxes to pay for SCHIP expansion and are [sic] gearing up to raise soda taxes to pay for Obamacare ... No vice is safe from the health police. Dijon mustard and arugula exempted, of course." Correct me if I'm wrong, but any plan that encourages more arugula and less cigarettes is a solid plan in my book. I can't help but feel like we are all the victim of some great parody. Lets pretend it is and laugh anyway.

The most excellent factcheck.org has their analysis of the Obama speech up. I knew that the automobile was not invented in America , but I admit I was snowed by a couple of the other statements he made, especially the one about the Minneapolis policemen which I parroted to Stacee (as I'm sure was the President's intention).

If the conservative talk radio hosts wern't already foaming at the mouth screaming about socialism and redistribution of wealth, then this will do the trick. Their concerns would be more believable if most of the nationally syndicated talk show hosts didn't qualify for the tax increase, but as it is it just sort of sounds like sour grapes. I never hear a financially strapped person call into those talk shows - its always business owners and folks who stand the most to lose from the Obama plans. I'm not prepared to buy into the redistribution of wealth thing hook. line and sinker, but don't try to sell me a line of crap that you are so unbiased and looking out for the common good. You are looking out for your good. Admit that first, and lets move on from there.

Check out this rant from the chief president-hater Rush Limbaugh. Apparently, ol' Rush is worked up because the stimulus bill was posted on the house and senate websites as a *gasp* PDF. He bravely took to the airwaves to inform his listeners that the Obama administration was out to hide the truth from us with this black magic technology that you couldn't even keyword search. I told three people this story today, and all three immediately said, "Umm - click on the binoculars". Tomorrow on Rush: yelling at kids to get a haircut and to get off his lawn.

Note: Marc suggested that maybe the PDF was a scan of the bill. Its not - here is the link to the bill on the House website: http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/111_hr1_text.pdf. Looks perfectly keyword searchable to me.

I've always admired British politics - I love how its acceptable to shout things at the Prime Minister while he is talking to parliament. If they did that in the United States, the State of the Union address would be must-see-TV. Anyway, a row over the death date of Titian (the painter) spilled over into Wikipedia, as one politician misstated Titian's age at his death (He had him pegged at 90 years instead of 86), and an "overzealous" staffer changed the Wikipedia entry for Titian accordingly. I see two problems here - first that the staffer thought it was important enough that a trivial sentence in a larger statement about the economy be proven "correct", and secondly that he thought that nobody would notice that he changed the date. There are a million ways to add controversy to the article without resorting to blatant vandalism. Just further proof that you shouldn't take Wikipedia all that seriously.

Its that time of year again. A few conservatives poke their heads out of their Washington DC offices, see some snow flakes, and then decide that global warming must be wrong, because its clearly not warm. After all, the world revolve around Sean Hanity, and if he isn't warm, then the globe isn't warm (Also, rumor has it that he isn't hungry because he had a big sandwich, so all those reports of starving people in Africa must be wrong too). along the same vein, I heard ads running on XM radio reporting that the winter last year in Anchorage was the coldest on record, so the reports that the Arctic is melting are bunk as well.

Listen fellas, let me learn ya'. Firstly, climate change is the overall effect on the atmosphere over a long time. Climate is not what is happening on your 5 day forecast. The overall health of the atmosphere joins with the ocean and various topographical features to cause what we know as weather. Secondly, global warming is so called because it is well, global. That doesn't mean that everybody is going to jump up 5 degrees all at the same time. Certain areas will warm faster then others, and that warming has an effect on the ocean and land, which further influences temperatures. In fact, there are increasingly realistic scenarios that point to run-away warming around the equator actually driving temperature on the North American continent down by 5 to 10 degrees. That might sound pleasant, but that will have a dramatic effect on our nation's ability to produce food, not to mention turn the cities of the Northeast into iceboxes.

Second lesson - the arctic regions. The pole regions are plunged into darkness for months at a time during winter. They are going to be cold, and they will remain to be cold. The problem is not the winter, it is the summer. During the summer months the temperatures are significantly hotter, and more importantly, the oceans are much warmer, which is accelerating the loss of sea ice. Losing the permanent sea ice is not only just bad for the Polar bear, but in Antarctica the sea ice is what is holding the landmass ice from slipping into the ocean. Once the sea ice is gone, the glaciers of Antarctica will accelerate into the warmer ocean, melting and increasing sea level accordingly.

The moral of the story? Shut up about the snow in DC and have a listen to what Al Gore is saying.

This is just annoying. Congress is going to pass a bill moving the mandatory DTV transition date to June 12, citing the long list of people waiting for converter boxes, bu they aren't atually releasing more funds to the converter box program. So we're going to wait another 3 months and still be in the same boat because Grandma Plotz is going to miss Lost because she didn't get a converter box in time. Cry me a friggin' river. Heaven help us when we run out of IPv4 addresses and we have to try to convert the world to IPv6. Maybe this is the 2012 disaster that the Aztecs are warning us about.

Obama's Inauguration from Space. Courtesy of the Google Satellite. I like the comment on the makezine page that says "Looks like the Orcs attacking Minus Tirith".

Update: As usual, the Big Picture was on the ball with Inauguration pictures. #3 is an expanded version of the satellite picture. There are some amazing photos in there - in particular, #33 struck me - its is a visual representation of the juxtaposition of the past and the present in race relations. I also liked #48 - its is interesting to see the shared bond between presidents boiled down to a simple manilla folder.

I would be remiss if I didn't note today is inauguration day. In with the new, out with the bumbling, and here we go. Its natural to think about the last 8 years and the twists and turns our lives have taken. Mike and Mike had some interesting statistics this morning - over the last 8 years, the Patriots have been the most successful team in the regular season. The Spurs, Yankees and Red Wings were the best teams in their respective sports. The highest scorer in the NBA over the 8 year period was Kobe Bryant. The highest scorer during the senior Bush term? Michael Jordan (interesting dichotomy there). They didn't touch on college football, but I'm guessing that its a tossup between USC and Florida. Closer to home, during the last 8 years, the Utah Utes have been the only football team to go undefeated twice during the BCS era, and they have won two BCS games in that period. I think its safe to say that during the Bush term, the Utes were the best non BCS conference team, hands down. I started the last Presidental era unmarried (though I was dating Stacee) living in Utah, and hacking on StrongARM processors. I start this term with a beautiful wife, a beautiful baby, living in Colorado and hacking on StrongARM processors. I guess some things never change after all.

I underestimated the goodness of the American people, and I am glad I did. Tom Friedman said "And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man — Barack Hussein Obama — won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States.". I still fear that we as a people are not nearly as good as we like to think we were, but on this night, I am less cynical than ever.


You have the mandate, President-Elect Obama, please, please, please don't let us down.