Posted 12:07 by Grote 0 comments

I, for one, welcome our new Giant Crab Overlords...

...that is with some drawn butter and a some ice cold beer. Apparently way back when, Stalin brought pacific crabs to the Barents Sea. Well, now their population numbers are exploding. The crabs weigh about 25lbs each and have a claw span of more than three feet. They say a leg can provide a grown man with a filling meal (Lembas legs?). Fisherman are complaining about the loss in other sea creatures but I say pass the crab legs.
Headline stolen from comment forum from Fark.

Posted 21:08 by Grote 0 comments

Ralph Nader (IMNSHO*)

Is it that time of the year already? Where lil Ralphie comes out of his hole, sees his shadow and runs for President? I don't think it'll have the effect that it did in the last election. In fact since he's not running under the Green Party Banner, I doubt he'll make much noise at all. I think the reason he did so well last year was because Bush and Gore were so undifferent from each other. They agreed during their joint press conferences (I refuse to call Presidential Debates debates) on just about everything and so when it came time to vote most people went to Nader who was the only viable third party canidate.

That being said, I think Nader is way out of perspective here. Even if he was running as the Green Party Candidate, which he's not, and IF he got elected, which he won't, he'd still have to deal with two very pissed off parties in Congress. You want to see Congressional Gridlock, elect a third party candidate as President with zero allies in Congress. To be a viable third party you need to start out small. Start locally take a seat or three in each of the state legislatures. Move for a bigger minority. Only then, should you shoot for Congress and only AFTER THAT, when you've got at least a 1/4 of the seats in Congress you could probably make a significant run at the White House. Working from the top down will never work and should you win through some quirk of fate the Democrats and Republicans will lock up every piece of Legislation you try to pass and then work on a common front to throw you out of the White House at the next Presidential Election and you and your third party will probably become a footnote in history.

So, Mr. Nader, please get down off the stage your fifteen minutes of fame are up. That and if you want to throw Bush out of the White House you'll stop your campaign sooner rather than later.
*IMNSHO= In My Not So Humble Opinion

Posted 16:42 by Grote 0 comments

Racketeering and Extortion Eh?

A New Jersey Mother has turned the tables on the RIAA (future referred to as "Assholes") and SUED THEM. She claims that the music labels by banding together and threatening people with lawsuits that it falls under the racketeering/Extortion statute(s). Interesting, this might actually work. For months now the RIAA has done everything but put on the black SS uniforms from the Third Reich and knocking down doors searching for sharers. I just want to know exactly how much of the money the RIAA has won in court goes to the groups. I betcha its a number less than 1.
Thanks to the good people at Fark.com for the link.

Posted 16:49 by Grote 0 comments

Coolest site of the '04 election

And hopefully a lot longer. The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has set up FactCheck.org. It's a site that takes what the politicians say in speeches or in ads, checks their facts and posts the wrong ones. (Lord, they must be busy). For example Kerry claimed in an Feb. 15th debate that Bush cut the VAs budget. However, under Bush funding has gone up 25%, which is twice as fast as it was under Clinton. You can read the whole article here.

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Mike, this is just another Conserivative spin website." Not so fast my friend! In a Feb. 12 e-mail link to video, the Bush campaign claimed that Kerry got more special interest money than any other Senator. The problem is the article the video references to only refers to paid lobbyists and the kicker? Bush got more. Again the entire article is here for your amusement.

Posted 16:30 by Grote 0 comments

You know you've watched too much Firefly when...

...you go looking for and find a website containing what the characters say in Chinese so you can go cursing up a storm at work and nobody knowing what you really said. That is, of course, depending on the fact that the translations are right. Nevertheless its fun to say "Go se" or "Ta ma duh!" and get away with it. If you haven't seen an episode of Firefly yet, you need to. With the cancellation of Angel, a Firefly movie may be coming quicker than we expected.

Posted 12:57 by Grote 0 comments

Hey Look at that!

Capitalism works!Toy makers sending fewer hot toys to Wal-Mart, and opting to have exclusive launches at chains like Toys R Us. Seems that Wal-Mart has been undercutting prices too much causing competitors to cut back on their purchases from the same toymaker. So, toymakers have fired back and have told the goons Wal-mart to go fark themselves. Neat.

Posted 16:33 by Grote 0 comments

New Bond Debate Begins in 5...4...3...

Its offical, Pierce Brosnan will no longer play James Bond. So who will be #6? Ian Flemming's contract with EON productions (the people who make the films) that the actor must be Welsh, British, or Scottish. That means no Tom Cruise, no Leonardo. But maybe Clive Owen? More to come as detail emerge.
UPDATE! According to this the question of whether or not Pierce is back has muddied a bit.

Posted 18:50 by Grote 0 comments

Meet the Author!

Actually, I guess, that should be met the author. A week ago, I met renowned Science Fiction Author/Star Wars Author, Timothy Zahn. You may know him from such works as the Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, Last Command) and the Hand of Thrawn Duology (Spectre of the Past, Vision of the Future). Well is most recent novel just came out called: Survivor's Quest. I won't bother with a summary, you can click on the link yourself. Anyway he was a very cool guy to meet. They started giving out line numbers about an hour before he was supposed to speak. Well, about half hour before he was supposed to speak, he asked if the audience minded if he did some visiting/signing now and then leave and make a proper entrance with a small contingent of the 501st. Of course the audience agreed, so he did some signing and visiting and then left and walked in with the (what else?) Imperial March Blaring. He gave a little history, he was working on Physics PhD when he took up writing; He almost went to to TOR publishing instead of Bantam, which would have made him miss the Star Wars boat; He was there for less than a month before the editorial staff submitted his name among others to Lucasfilm for the task of expanding the Star Wars Universe. One of the most interesting parts is that before Lucasfilm switched from Bantam to Del Rey publishing, they came to him to bookend the expanded universe before moving on to the New Jedi Order. He agreed under two conditions: 1. He got to end the war between the New Rebuplic and the Empire. 2. Mara and Luke get together. Lucasfilm said yes on #1, no on #2. He walked away. That takes some guts. About a month later Lucasfilm calls him back and says yes to both conditions and the rest is history. He also mentioned that this new novel is the first of two. Actually its the second of two because "if prequels are good enough for George Lucas, they're good enough for me." Both books deal with the doomed Outbound Flight Project, previously mentioned in the Thrawn Trilogy. Before we get to the pictures, he told two very bad jokes while signing books. The staff was doing trivia for the others that were waiting and one of the questions was: Name the working title of Episode II. The answer was:Jar-Jar's Big Adventure (No I'm not making that up). At that point our author runs up grabs the microphone and say "Actually there were two other working titles 1. Lil Orphan Ani and 2. Ani Get Your Gungan." Many groans cried out but not suddenly silenced. On to the pictures!


Two of the 6 or 7 members of the 501st that were there

Timothy signing a book

Me speaking with the author as he signs my books

Me and the author.

Special thanks to Jason Googash for use of his digital camera.

Posted 21:29 by Grote 0 comments

OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"

Well, maybe not all of us but the odds are not in you're favor. At least according to this panicky website that predicts that we'll have an oil peak sometime in the next 0 to 10 years and that somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.5 billion people will die. However being a good Republican, I don't believe this; therefore I offer my "Top Ten things that will happen before we have an 'Oil Crash' (in no particular order)":

10. Asteroid Collides with Earth

9. Doomsday device created and used by an evil genius (quite possibly my god-daughter Adrienne)

8. Alien Invasion and enslavement

7. Nuclear War

6. Peace between Israel and the Middle East

5. I get elected President of the United States as founding member of the new Bull Moose Party.

4. George Lucas writes a good Star Wars Script.

3. Fox re-options Firefly

2. Weapons of Mass Destruction are found in Iraq.

1. France gets involved in a war and doesn't surrender.

In all honesty, the real reason I believe this "nightmare" scenario won't happen, is because we humans are very resourceful (and no I don't mean drilling in the Artic Refuge). There are things like Liquid Natural Gas and Gas to Liquids technology. Not to mention the old phrase, "Necessity is the mother of invention." If we start to run out of oil, hundreds of new ideas for alternative fuels will pop up, one has to work. The reason we don't have these alternative fuels yet is we humans also like to procrastinate and fear change.

Posted 21:58 by Grote 0 comments

Everytime I think Bush Makes Some Real Progress...

He goes and does something like this. After the Massachusetts Supreme Court's ruling that gay couples are allowed to be married, he calls it deeply troubling and says if the courts "insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process." Except the courts aren't forcing their will. They're enforcing the law, or at least in this case, citing Brown vs. Board of Education, which basically says that separate isn't equal. Frankly, I don't care whether or not gays should be allowed to married. If they made gay marriage leagal tomorrow I'm not going to wake up and say "I think I'm going to marry a man today!" It's not got going to effect the sanctity of my (future... maybe) marriage. I'm begining to think that 14th Amendment wasn't such a good idea. It basically stripped the Tenth amendment of its power (The 14th more or less applies the Constitution to the State and local level. The 10th says that any powers not listed in the Constitution or Amendments are reserved for the States. See a paradox?).

I was going to list an example of this problem. However, the example I was going to use was Congress' withholding Highway funds if a State doesn't have their minimum drinking age at 21. I was going to cite South Dakota vs. Dole. The problem is that both parties involved cited the 21st Amendment (repealling prohibition and setting guidlines for the sale of said Alcohol) instead of the tenth. I'll find an example and post it here later.

Posted 16:21 by Grote 0 comments

I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

After a computer crash, and just not caring for a while, I've decided to refire this puppy up. I promise (like a good politician) that i'll post more often. ;)

To Wesley Clark!

In the Fark forums about Wesley Clark's speeding ticket. Something fun happened. Remember the Bill Brasky skit from SNL? Well the new Bill Brasky seems to be Wesley Clark. Check them out (requires a little bit of scrolling and avoidance of the flames). My personal favorite is: "Ever since the ticket, Wesley Clark has carried the motorcade on his back, and no cop could catch up to him to give him a ticket.
TO WESLEY CLARK!"

Hey I was right about something!

I heard a rumor about a week and a half ago that Bush might dumb Cheney for another VP. The name that's on the short-short list is Rudy Giuliani. Well MSNBC has confirmed that the rumor exists. (Hey, it's soemthing). Now you may ask why would Bush do this? Easy. Multiple reasons.

1)The unpopularity of the war. Bush may think in his heart of hearts that the war was the right thing do but despite what people think he isn't stupid. He can push that he nabbed Saddam but I would downplay the war as much as possible.

2)Haliburton. You may not have heard about it, but there are investigations going on Capitol Hill. Cheney used to work for Haliburton and they got their reconstruction contract without hearings or bidding. It'll probably pick up speed as the year goes on. Its possible that IF they get reelected Bush will have to pick a new VP before the midterms because the Democrats will probably throw Cheney out.

3)Electoral College. Until Cheney, the primary roll of a VP was to help carry a region/State that the canidate has no hope in. Bush lost big in 2000 in the Northeast especially New York. (Yes, yes Bush lost the popular vote blah blah blah, Bush didn't win the election). Giuliani is from (duh) New York. New Yorkers still love him. He goes on the ticket, its a good bet that Bush carries New York and its whopping 31 Electoral Votes. Not mention New Jersey and the other surrounding States.

4)Cheney's Health. Cheney's not in the greatest of shape. He's had at least one bypass, and let's face it he's a heartbeat from not being Vice-President any longer. That and it's probably the public reason Bush will dump him.

So we'll see what happens over the next 3 or 4 months when the conventions hit. I'll keep you posted.

In a bit of old news...

I was savin this nugget for a while now, it seems kinda relevant after his arrest for domestic violence. Back in December, Colin Powell appointed James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, to the new position in the State Department. The Position? Secretary of Soul and Foreign Minister of Funk. Of course if he gets convicted, he might lose his job. Don't think I've got enough Funk in me to take it though.

Now If you'll excuse me I'm going to practice throwing Fireballs. It's only a half circle motion from back to front....