Saturday, January 31, 2009
thank god.
when i turned to the sports page of the boston globe this morning i was delighted to read that the celtics and their shitty mascot, Lucky the leprechaun, have parted ways. the only thing that wimpier version of notre dame's mascot was good for was a hearty "boooooh."
one interesting tidbit about lucky, he was the first unmasked mascot in the nba. well, i'm they could slap a gorilla suit on him and send him over to the phoenix suns..
Friday, January 30, 2009
Songsmith Part II
P.S. the songsmith will also do songs that already had drums. Here is my favorites, but if you youtube songsmith and your favorite song you can hear it destroyed by computer programming.
Roxanne
Trippy Techno Wonderwall
Roxanne
Trippy Techno Wonderwall
Microsoft does Garageband
This commercial makes me want to laugh and shoot myself at the same time.
"You sing into the microphone and the drummer plays the song"
THERE IS NO FUCKING DRUMMER!
"You sing into the microphone and the drummer plays the song"
THERE IS NO FUCKING DRUMMER!
what a surprise...
the republicans have picked this guy, michael steele, to be the new leader of the GOP. call me a cynic but i wonder why they picked him..
and here he is being a complete asshole at the 2008 republican national convention:
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
this is really happening.
lil wayne is releasing an auto-tuned rock album. this is the newly released single, "prom queen" and the album will be called rebirth. i first thought to myself, "wow this is horrible. why on earth would lil wayne try to make a rock album?" then i remembered that group of kids in high school that listened to lincoln park...
trust fund kids finally show some emotion
"Tidbits of toilet paper twisted in the wind at Bernard Madoff's Palm Beach home Monday morning - possibly the work of some ticked off teens who lost their trust funds.
Some teenage boys called The Palm Beach Post newsroom Sunday evening to take credit for the prank - one they said was sanctioned by their parents. They said they were acting in retaliation after they lost their trust funds to the accused swindler."
link
Jeff Goldbluman group
plus since we all know that melody is a rip off of this track from the ugliest man in rock history. P.S. that jazz bass makes me rock hard.
Thriller the Musical!
So According to Entertainment Weekly...Which i Check hourly. They are making a thriller movie that will include music from both of the wall and thriller and have a plot based on that of the song.
"This musical will be the exclusive Michael Jackson authorized version of Thriller and Jackson will participate in every aspect of the creative process."
"This musical will be the exclusive Michael Jackson authorized version of Thriller and Jackson will participate in every aspect of the creative process."
the War of Currents and the unfortunate fate of "Topsy" the elephant
Trapped in a Monday morning fog of cubicle boredom, I decided for once to focus my usually aimless internet pursuits on a single goal. Today, this was to harness an understanding of the national grid and the finer points of power transmission. Where better to start, I thought, than by wikiing Thomas Edison, the genius behind the light bulb. After all, the light bulb was the main reason people wanted power in their house in the first place..
It turns out that Edison was kind of an idiot. He held patents for a DC (direct surrent) power infrastructure that was inefficient and economically ridiculous. Still, he engaged in what's known as theWar of Currents with George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla who were proponents of the much smarter and ultimately victorious AC (alternating current) power grid.
In a really sad and pathetic last ditch effort to save his potential fortunes, Edison funded the public execution of a variety of different animals via AC power electrocution. This culminated in the 1903 electrocution of "Topsy," a 28 year old elephant who was a staple of the Coney Island circus. He made a video of it too, to try and scare people. He may have inadvertently popularized electrocution as means of killing people too. What an effin' idiot.
What the fuck? that's horrible. Sure, legend has it that Topsy killed a drunken circus clown who tried to feed him a lit cigarette, but come on. Did we learn this in school? I feel like I would remember but maybe not.
It turns out that Edison was kind of an idiot. He held patents for a DC (direct surrent) power infrastructure that was inefficient and economically ridiculous. Still, he engaged in what's known as theWar of Currents with George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla who were proponents of the much smarter and ultimately victorious AC (alternating current) power grid.
In a really sad and pathetic last ditch effort to save his potential fortunes, Edison funded the public execution of a variety of different animals via AC power electrocution. This culminated in the 1903 electrocution of "Topsy," a 28 year old elephant who was a staple of the Coney Island circus. He made a video of it too, to try and scare people. He may have inadvertently popularized electrocution as means of killing people too. What an effin' idiot.
What the fuck? that's horrible. Sure, legend has it that Topsy killed a drunken circus clown who tried to feed him a lit cigarette, but come on. Did we learn this in school? I feel like I would remember but maybe not.
Krugman on the Obama stmiulus
As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending. Some of these arguments are obvious cheap shots. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already made headlines with one such shot: looking at an $825 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure, sustain essential services and more, he derided a minor provision that would expand Medicaid family-planning services — and called it a plan to “spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives.” But the obvious cheap shots don’t pose as much danger to the Obama administration’s efforts to get a plan through as arguments and assertions that are equally fraudulent but can seem superficially plausible to those who don’t know their way around economic concepts and numbers. So as a public service, let me try to debunk some of the major antistimulus arguments that have already surfaced. Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments, write him or her off as a dishonest flack.
First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years. It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.) The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 — and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.
Next, write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money. Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens. The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved. This suggests that public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan. But rather than accept that implication, conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.
Finally, ignore anyone who tries to make something of the fact that the new administration’s chief economic adviser has in the past favored monetary policy over fiscal policy as a response to recessions. It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero. That’s why we’re talking about large-scale fiscal stimulus: it’s what’s left in the policy arsenal now that the Fed has shot its bolt. Anyone who cites old arguments against fiscal stimulus without mentioning that either doesn’t know much about the subject — and therefore has no business weighing in on the debate — or is being deliberately obtuse. These are only some of the fundamentally fraudulent antistimulus arguments out there. Basically, conservatives are throwing any objection they can think of against the Obama plan, hoping that something will stick. But here’s the thing: Most Americans aren’t listening. The most encouraging thing I’ve heard lately is Mr. Obama’s reported response to Republican objections to a spending-oriented economic plan: “I won.” Indeed he did — and he should disregard the huffing and puffing of those who lost.
Linkage
First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years. It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.) The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 — and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.
Next, write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money. Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens. The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved. This suggests that public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan. But rather than accept that implication, conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.
Finally, ignore anyone who tries to make something of the fact that the new administration’s chief economic adviser has in the past favored monetary policy over fiscal policy as a response to recessions. It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero. That’s why we’re talking about large-scale fiscal stimulus: it’s what’s left in the policy arsenal now that the Fed has shot its bolt. Anyone who cites old arguments against fiscal stimulus without mentioning that either doesn’t know much about the subject — and therefore has no business weighing in on the debate — or is being deliberately obtuse. These are only some of the fundamentally fraudulent antistimulus arguments out there. Basically, conservatives are throwing any objection they can think of against the Obama plan, hoping that something will stick. But here’s the thing: Most Americans aren’t listening. The most encouraging thing I’ve heard lately is Mr. Obama’s reported response to Republican objections to a spending-oriented economic plan: “I won.” Indeed he did — and he should disregard the huffing and puffing of those who lost.
Linkage
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
transparency.
"WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, in his first full day in office, revoked a controversial executive order signed by President Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents' records.
The new order could expand public access to records of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the years to come as well as other past leaders, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
"It's extraordinary that a new president would address this issue on his first full day in office," Aftergood said. "It signifies the great importance he attaches to open, accountable government. The new order suggests President Obama will take a narrow view of executive privilege and assert it in a much more limited way than what we've seen in the recent past."
Under Bush's order, former presidents had broad ability to claim executive privilege and could designate others including family members who survive them to exercise executive privilege on their behalf.
Obama's new order gives ex-presidents less leeway to withhold records, Aftergood said, and takes away the ability of presidents' survivors to designate that privilege.
Separately, an Obama memorandum issued Wednesday also appears to effectively rescind a 2001 memo by President Bush's then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft giving agencies broad legal cover to reject public disclosure requests.
"For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city. This administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but with those who seek it to be known," Obama said before a gathering that included his senior staff. "The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it. Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
The new order could expand public access to records of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the years to come as well as other past leaders, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
"It's extraordinary that a new president would address this issue on his first full day in office," Aftergood said. "It signifies the great importance he attaches to open, accountable government. The new order suggests President Obama will take a narrow view of executive privilege and assert it in a much more limited way than what we've seen in the recent past."
Under Bush's order, former presidents had broad ability to claim executive privilege and could designate others including family members who survive them to exercise executive privilege on their behalf.
Obama's new order gives ex-presidents less leeway to withhold records, Aftergood said, and takes away the ability of presidents' survivors to designate that privilege.
Separately, an Obama memorandum issued Wednesday also appears to effectively rescind a 2001 memo by President Bush's then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft giving agencies broad legal cover to reject public disclosure requests.
"For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city. This administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but with those who seek it to be known," Obama said before a gathering that included his senior staff. "The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it. Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
random ish..
the top four manufacturers plan to have new 3D TVs on sale by the end of 2009. read more!.
Singing Began in Fish, Perfected by Birds more.
the u.s. department of defense is soliciting proposals for a computer program that would enable young children to interact with a virtual version of their parent. more..
Singing Began in Fish, Perfected by Birds more.
the u.s. department of defense is soliciting proposals for a computer program that would enable young children to interact with a virtual version of their parent. more..
holy shit. Nazi angel of death Josef Mengele 'created twin town in Brazil'
"The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is responsible for the astonishing number of twins in a small Brazilian town, an Argentine historian has claimed."
you have to read more...
you have to read more...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
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