July 15, 2007 to July 21, 2007
Wherein I can't read no Gobbledy Gook, BOY
That's a line from the greatest PSA ever. I've found a partial audio and I'm still searching for the full version.
Obligations to the Future
Each generation has the next in its power. We can lay waste to the planet or scrimp and save in order to transform our grandchildren's world into a technological cornucopia. The decision is up to us. But it doesn't necessarily follow that we should consider ourselves morally free to make any decision we like. Are there principles of public morality to which America should be committed in making this fundamental decision?
Perhaps not. We can well imagine some hardheaded libertarian consigning the entire question to the "invisible hand." It is up to each American to decide on her own what she should do with "her property," both during life and after death. If most property owners choose to mark their passage into the beyond by committing all their earthly possessions to the flames, the next generation would have no just cause for complaint. It would simply be tough luck.
To be sure, this is not an aspect of libertarianism that even fierce partisans take pains to emphasize. They are prone to praise the market system as a machine for growth without reflecting on the deeper implications of their philosophy. But the truth is that the market does not guarantee growth by itself. The market depends on the prevailing preferences of property owners. And if the rich ones don't give a damn about the future, libertarians have few conceptual resources enabling them to argue that the rich have done a grievous wrong.
So much the worse for these callous folk, or so goes the dominant utilitarian response. Rather than taking the narrow view of an individual property owner, the utilitarians say, we should adopt the position of a concerned citizen attempting a truly impartial view of the situation. From this vantage, the interests of young Americans of the year 2050 should count equally with those of us who happen to be around right now. In Jeremy Bentham's famous formulation: each should count for one, and none should count for more than one. As a consequence, utilitarians would have no trouble with the "bonfire" method of estate planning that exposed the callous indifference of the hardheaded libertarian. They would strongly support legislation banning such utility-minimizing activities: while the older generation might well experience some frustration in foregoing their bonfires, this pain is readily outweighed by the satisfactions gained by keeping the property around for use by the successors.
When we turn to harder cases, the utilitarian calculus depends on a complex balancing operation. Speaking broadly, it begins by comparing the relative wealth of earlier and later generations. Because the marginal utility of money generally declines as people grow richer, a relatively poor generation shouldn't scrimp to enable ts relatively rich successors to get even richer.
But other things aren't necessarily equal. If, for example, great technological miracles are just around the corner, extra savings might generate massive returns. Under this scenario, the enormous extra gains in welfare accruing to the rich generation in 2050 might morally offset the extra welfare losses suffered by poorer folds in the year 2000. The bature of our collective obligations depends quite heavily on predictions about the future that are difficult to subject to serious empirical critique. This is a significant disadvantage, the utilitarians must ruefully concede, but consider the alternative: isn't it better to make guesses about the future than to blind oneself to the problem, as the libertarians do?
Guess the book? I'm guessing this will be a little obscure. For an early hint, the authors are two Yale professors of law.
Clue #1: $80,000
Clue #2: no more clues, the book is The Stakeholder Society
That's a line from the greatest PSA ever. I've found a partial audio and I'm still searching for the full version.
Obligations to the Future
Each generation has the next in its power. We can lay waste to the planet or scrimp and save in order to transform our grandchildren's world into a technological cornucopia. The decision is up to us. But it doesn't necessarily follow that we should consider ourselves morally free to make any decision we like. Are there principles of public morality to which America should be committed in making this fundamental decision?
Perhaps not. We can well imagine some hardheaded libertarian consigning the entire question to the "invisible hand." It is up to each American to decide on her own what she should do with "her property," both during life and after death. If most property owners choose to mark their passage into the beyond by committing all their earthly possessions to the flames, the next generation would have no just cause for complaint. It would simply be tough luck.
To be sure, this is not an aspect of libertarianism that even fierce partisans take pains to emphasize. They are prone to praise the market system as a machine for growth without reflecting on the deeper implications of their philosophy. But the truth is that the market does not guarantee growth by itself. The market depends on the prevailing preferences of property owners. And if the rich ones don't give a damn about the future, libertarians have few conceptual resources enabling them to argue that the rich have done a grievous wrong.
So much the worse for these callous folk, or so goes the dominant utilitarian response. Rather than taking the narrow view of an individual property owner, the utilitarians say, we should adopt the position of a concerned citizen attempting a truly impartial view of the situation. From this vantage, the interests of young Americans of the year 2050 should count equally with those of us who happen to be around right now. In Jeremy Bentham's famous formulation: each should count for one, and none should count for more than one. As a consequence, utilitarians would have no trouble with the "bonfire" method of estate planning that exposed the callous indifference of the hardheaded libertarian. They would strongly support legislation banning such utility-minimizing activities: while the older generation might well experience some frustration in foregoing their bonfires, this pain is readily outweighed by the satisfactions gained by keeping the property around for use by the successors.
When we turn to harder cases, the utilitarian calculus depends on a complex balancing operation. Speaking broadly, it begins by comparing the relative wealth of earlier and later generations. Because the marginal utility of money generally declines as people grow richer, a relatively poor generation shouldn't scrimp to enable ts relatively rich successors to get even richer.
But other things aren't necessarily equal. If, for example, great technological miracles are just around the corner, extra savings might generate massive returns. Under this scenario, the enormous extra gains in welfare accruing to the rich generation in 2050 might morally offset the extra welfare losses suffered by poorer folds in the year 2000. The bature of our collective obligations depends quite heavily on predictions about the future that are difficult to subject to serious empirical critique. This is a significant disadvantage, the utilitarians must ruefully concede, but consider the alternative: isn't it better to make guesses about the future than to blind oneself to the problem, as the libertarians do?
Guess the book? I'm guessing this will be a little obscure. For an early hint, the authors are two Yale professors of law.
Clue #1: $80,000
Clue #2: no more clues, the book is The Stakeholder Society
posted by bill at 9:06 PM
34 Comments:
Poorly researched article at Lifehack. Let's look at the concept of 7+/-2.
To quote Edward Tufte (great discussion at that link):
Now and then the narrow bandwidth of lists presented on computer screens and bullet points on PowerPoint slides is said to be a virtue, a claim justified by loose reference to George Miller's classic 1956 paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two." That essay reviews psychological experiments that discovered people had a hard time remembering more than about 7 unrelated pieces of really dull data all at once. These studies on memorizing nonsense then led some interface designers to conclude that only 7 items belong on a list or a slide, a conclusion which can be sustained only by not reading the paper. In fact Miller's paper neither states nor implies rules for the amount of information to be shown in a presentation (except possibly for slides that consist of nonsense syllables that the audience must memorize and repeat back to a psychologist). Indeed, the deep point of Miller's paper is to suggest strategies, such as placing information within a context, that extend the reach of memory beyond tiny clumps of data.
From George Miller, about his 1956 study:
But the point was that 7 was a limit for the discrimination of unidimensional stimuli (pitches, loudness, brightness, etc.) and also a limit for immediate recall, neither of which has anything to do with a person's capacity to comprehend printed text.
IHOP buys Applebees. Next up, Steve Job's buys IHOP, changes name to iHop, reduces the number of choices, raises prices, but everything is so much better than before no one minds.
Take Applebee's dumbass quiz.
Interesting--meaning I don't really get the point, but I'll try to play along--quiz. I'm in the Tipping Tribe...and I guess I'll agree if by tipping they mean tipping the blues and reds into the river while tied to an anchor so we can start over. But I was only able to answer 4 questions:
1. rainy day; though since I pay at the pump, I can't remember the last time I was inside a convenience store.
2. Dr. Pepper; odd choices; Dr. Pepper is a Pepsi product and Sprite is a Coke product. If it was Sprite versus Pepsi, I'd pick Sprite.
11. Discovery Channel
12. U. S. Open Tennis or Major League Soccer
For the rest it's also not so much as no preference as I'd prefer to walk away rather than have to choose. For other questions:
I'll die of thirst before drinking either Coors or Bud. Or I'd be fine with tap water, which is my answer for the previous question.
I loved the distinctive Saab before Buick bought them and turned them all into Opals; I guess Audis are ok, but I'm not really a car person, that's the wife's department.
Don't care if it's free, I'm not reading either, so why go through the hassle of it cluttering up the mailbox just to throw it away.
No grocery store preference--if I passed a Whole Foods on the way home, instead of the 4 Publix markets, I'd stop there. Other than I won't shop at Walmart because it's depressing and a pain in the ass, and I prefer Publix to Kroger. Also, Whole Foods isn't really an organic market, but I get what they mean. I enjoy shopping at a Whole Foods, and a couple of similar markets, but they're not as convenient so I usually just go there when I'm looking for something specific.
Not a cocktail drinker, so if those are my choices, I'd just like a glass of tap water. Please. A couple ice cubes, if not too much trouble.
For the special event and internet history, all those are so far off the radar as to be impossible to select one over the other.
Sunday was a bad day for Australians at the Tour DAY France:
Stuart O'Grady: To be precise, eight fractured ribs, a fractured shoulder and a punctured lung, the result of a heavy crash on the way down a mountain on the Tour de France.
Michael Rogers: If O'Grady was the one physically hurting the most, Michael Rogers' emotional pain would be greater, and perhaps more permanent.
When he crashed at 60km/h on a notoriously risky descent, the all-rounder was beautifully placed to win the stage and take the famed yellow jersey.
His life's work was coming together in a way that may not necessarily ever be repeated.
Rogers tried to soldier on, but his agony was obvious as knees, hand and shoulder injuries reduced him to tears and forced him to stop.
It was as sad to watch as anything in Australian sport this year.
The Rogers fall was especially hard to take as he seemed about the only one capable of riding with Rasmussen and would probably have the yellow jersey if not for the crash. We'll see if Rasmussen has what it takes to keep control of the race. There are old names not far behind him--Mayo has ridden well before, but seemed to lack an attacking spirit during the Lance years. Then there's the always impressive Vinokourov riding with stitches in both knees from a fall earlier in the week. If you're looking for Americans, Leiphemer is still in contention. He's had some bad luck in past Tour's, but if he can put up some good time trials and stay close in the Pyrenees, he still has a shot.
Tuesday should be an entertaining ride with opportunities to attack and blow up the field. Starts with an HC climb, a long descent, than a Cat1 almost immediately followed by another HC. My guess is there'll be some early breakaways by noncontenders on the first climb with the main GC hanging together. Expect at least one team to push tempo up the Cat1 to try and isolate the main rivals so only a handful are left for the final HC. If this back in the Lance Armstrong Posal days I'd expect Lance and Bruyneel to come out with an attacking strategy from mile one and explode the race on the first climb. Now, I don't know if the teams have that confidence of themselves or if they're still trying to figure out whose the most dangerous rider on the road.
Someone's google search inadvertantly brought them to my "Whale fishing" post. They were most likely looking for Whale Done, a management training program:
What does training killer whales have to do with training humans? More than you might think! In this inspirational program, leadership expert Ken Blanchard applies a proven approach used by the whale trainers at SeaWorld to teach managers how to increase employee effectiveness at work.
In contrast to the all-too-familiar GOTcha approach to management (where supervisors focus on catching people doing things wrong), the Whale Done! approach teaches viewers how to improve relationships by building trust, accentuating the positive, and redirecting the energy when things get off track. By building positive relationships, organizations become more productive, achieve greater results, and create an environment where everyone is genuinely excited about the work they are doing!
Positive feedback and raw fish can work, until the killer whale has a bad day and decides to eat the trainer. Other than that, it's exactly like a desk job.
You can read the first chapter, or as I prefer to call it, "The mystery of the blue-shirted man":
As people exited the stadium, scores of them were still dripping from the soaking they'd happily received sitting in the "splash zone" of the first ten rows. Despite this—or perhaps because of it—their faces sparkled with smiles. Still in his seat in an upper row of the emptying stands, Wes Kingsley remained staring down into the pool. Its blue depths, recently awash with great waves but now still, seemed to echo his mood.
After the crowd had left and the place was quiet, an underwater gate opened and a giant black form moved into the pool and began circling it. A trainer came through a door and strolled out onto the lip of the pool, and the huge killer whale immediately swam over to him. "Nice going, big guy," he said, stroking its head. "Enjoy your playtime. You earned it." As the trainer rose and walked along the pool's edge, the whale moved with him. It seemed to be trying to stay as close to him as possible.
The blue-shirted man in the stands shook his head and thought to himself, You'd think that after doing a whole show that whale would hoard its free time. But what does it want to do? Play with the trainer! A question was forming in the man's mind, a need to know that had been building up in him ever since the start of the show. He had an impulse to go down there and ask the trainer that question, but fear of embarrassment held him back. Then suddenly he got up off the bench and quickly descended the stairs.
Now that's how you write a cliffhanger.
Where to start for Tour DAY France news: TDF Blog.
Story I missed: T-Mobile's Patrik Sinkewitz won't start tomorrow's Stage 9 after a serious collision with a Tour fan yesterday
From the team website:
Sinkewitz suffered an open fracture of the nose, head trauma, and a shoulder injury in the high-speed collision - and will definitely not be able to continue at the Tour de France.
The 78-year-old fan is in a coma.
edit for 2nd comment: Next up, Steve Jobs buys IHOP, changes name to iHop, and reduces the number of items. Even though the pancakes are smaller and more expensive, no one minds because they're tastier and shiny. No one can explain why a shiny pancake is a good thing, but people are standing in line to get one.
That's a good edit.
Thank you.
Also, I have no clue whatsoever about this week's book.
I think I heard the authors interviewed on NPR and thought it sounded like an interesting idea. Figured I'd ultimately disagree, but hoped to be intrigued. Don't think I made it halfway through the book before throwing it across room. Looking back, what I did read of this book is probably responsible for giving me a big push towards libertarianism (small l)--or at least recognizing that while I didn't know which team I wanted to play for, I sure as hell didn't want to associate with these authoritarian jackholes. Got a bit tired of the condescending attitude towards people who wanted to decide for themselves how to live their lives and spend their money. Plus the idea that all problems would be solved if we just threw a bunch of money at it.
Just another tonic Tuesday, trivia edition.
Nothing but WAGs (wild ass guesses) this week. I'm not even interested in looking up the correct answers
1. Vatican?
2. Bryan Adams?
3. SeVeN?
4. Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
5. ???
6. 5,007 years old?
7. ??? Doing some quick wiki-ing, a few of the leads were originally intended for someone else. For example, George C. Scott was supposed to have John Wayne's role. But it would be quite easy to pick any number of movies that fit this criteria, so I'm hoping there's something else.
Breakaways, attacks, and a chase a the Tour DAY France.
Highlights from the live coverage at Velonews, times are race local:
1:41 pm. Today's stage started an hour ago, with 171 riders leaving Val-d'Isère. As expected, T-Mobile's Patrick Sinkewitz didn't make the start. He was injured in a post-stage crash on Sunday. The spectator he struck appears to be recovering, by the way. He emerged from a coma yesterday morning according to hospital officials in Grenoble.
After an hour of racing the peloton has crested the summit of the Col de l'Iseran, with Discovery's Yaroslav Popovych leading the way, with a 30-second advantage over Jose Ivan Guitierrez (Caisse d'Epargne), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Vladimir Gusev (Discovery), Stef Clement (Bouygues telecom) and Benoit Vaugrenard (Francaise des Jeux) and 1:00 over the peloton.
1:55 pm The TV feed has just shown poor Marcus Burghardt (T-Mobile) crashing into an unattended dog on the descent. The dog is okay...
It looks like Burghardt is, too... the carbon wheel on the front of his bike, though, has passed on to a higher plane of existence.
2:12 PM Rasmussen
is tucked in comfortably behind six of his teammates who have taken up chase duty. They are now 3:06 behind the leading six.
2:19 PM Reader question
Nicole K asks:
What was the illegal mechanical assistance Levi received on stage 8? And what is a bidon pull?
On Sunday's stage, Leipheimer had a major mechanical problem and had to make a bike change. That was perfectly legal, of course. What raised the ire of officials is that he then apparently feigned further difficulties and the Disco car came up to allow the mechanic to make adjustments to his bike. In those instances, a rider is allowed to hang on to the car, although the rules say that the rider/car combination can not make significant progress relative to the peloton. Apparently he did.
Following that, he drifted to the other side of the car to get a bottle (bidon in French). Now in those cases, it's a tradition for the team director to hold the bottle outside of the window. Both he and the rider hang on to the bottle, while the director hits the accelerator. While it might be tradition, it's illegal and the Tour is being stricter about enforcing the rule that bars that.
Leipheimer was fined for both transgressions, but he got a 10-second time penalty for the bottle trick... and that's the one he was most bothered by. But, no, he didn't seem to deny either offense.
2:55 PM The gaps
lMikel Astarloza (Euskaltel) leads the race. He has about 20 seconds on Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery), Jose Ivan Guitierrez (Caisse d'Epargne), and Vladimir Gusev (Discovery). Stef Clement (Bouygues Telecom) and Benoit Vaugrenard (Francaise des Jeux) are another 15 seconds back and then the peloton - which is already down to about 40 riders - is 2:19.
3:33 PM The impact of this stage
Today’s stage is one of those stages not to win the Tour, but certainly to lose it. (Please excuse the hackneyed cliche... it really applies today)
The Galibier is a brutal climb and any rider not on top of their game runs the risk of getting spit out the back and losing contact over the summit. It’s a long way down to Briancon but it will be tough to latch back onto the group if they cede too much time. Alexandre Vinokourov – who won a similar stage in 2005 – said it’s a “stage difficult to define. Coming the day after the rest day, you run the risk of decompression, especially physically. I know that when I lost time in 2005 in the stage to Courchevel it came after a rest day. It’s an important rendezvous but it won’t be decisive, but one must always respect a climb like the Galibier. I expect a breakaway to pull away on the first climb.”
3:37 PM The gaps
So we have Guitierrez, Astarloza, Gusev, Popovych annd Clement (!) at the front. They are about 1:20 ahead of Barloworld's Soler Hernandez and Juan Miguel Mercado (Agritubel) is chasing at 1:50. The peloton is at 2:20, with Dekker and Boogerd setting tempo for Rasmussen.
3:50 PM Valverde
Has attacked and blown apart the peloton. He is joined by Rasmussen, Cadel Evans, Contador, Leipheimer.... Astana is now forced to chase.
3:51 PM Valverde
Has already swept up Mercado... the pace is high. Kloden has joined that elite group. Moreau is there. Vino did not make the split!
3:59 PM Contador
Attacks out of the yellow jersey group.
4:00 PM Man, he's
flying! He just caught and passed Popovych!
4:03 PM Chasing
Contador is a group composed of Rasmussen, Valverde, Kloden, Leipheimer, Popovych, Juan Jose Cobo (Saunier Duval) and Iban Mayo.
4:11 PM Over the Galibier
The Disco duo of Popovych and Contador have crested the summit.
4:13 PM Now 36km
of a wild descent off of the Galibier. There is a nice little 1km climb to the line today... but lots of dangerous hairpins before that.
4:33 PM Soler
is 14km from the finish. He's hanging on to a lead of 1:30 over Contador and Popovych.
4:34 PM Time gaps
the two chasers are 1:22 behind Soler.
The yellow jersey group is at 2:01.
The Vino group is at 4:09. That Vino group is growing in size. We see Menchov and Chris Horner in there.
4:40 PM With 10km to go
the lone leader is 59 seconds ahead of the two chasers. Back in the yellow jersey group is split into two...separated by about 15 seconds. Leipheimer and Kloden and Sastre and Evans are caught in the second half.
4:43 PM Wow
The front half of the yellow jersey group is about to pull back the two Discovery riders. It's Rasmussen driving the effort there. The Leipheimer group is now 11 seconds behind the Rasmussen chase.
4:44 PM Caught
Contador and Popovych have been caught by Rasmussen, with 5km to go.
4:47 PM The Leipheimer
group is being driven by Kloden and they have bridged back with 4km to go.
4:49 PM he's about to hit the climb
Soler is approaching the steep little climb... he has 50 seconds. We might bet on Contador if anyone is going to catch.
4:51 PM Rasmussen really pushing hard
It looks like Soler may hold this. He's 500 meters from the line.
4:51 PM Soler
is on his way toward locking up Barloworld's first ever Tour de France stage victory. Valverde gets the 12 second time bonus for second at 38 seconds. Sastre is third. Evans is fourth, Rasmussen is fifth and Leipheimer crosses right behind the yellow jersey.
4:56 PM A big group of riders
finishes with Vinokourov at 3:24... a big, big, big loss for a man once considered to be the favorite to win the 2007 Tour de France.
Give us a few minutes and we'll assess the damage.
5:05 PM Overall standings
1. Michael Rassmussen (Dk) Rabobank, 43:52:48
2. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne, at 2:35
3. Iban Mayo (Sp), Saunier Duval, at 2:39
4. Cadel Evans (Aus), Predictor-Lotto, at 2:41
5. Alberto Contador (Sp), Discovery, at 3:08
6. Christophe Moreau (F), Ag2r, at 3:18
7. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, at 3:39
8. Andreas Kloden (G), Astana, at 3:50
9. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery, at 3:53
10. Kim Kirchen (Sp), T-Mobile, at 5:06.
Daily political polling, and leading the Tour de France, Rasmussen is quite versatile.
As far as Kentrivia
1. Lean with it.
2. I sort of recall Wayne Gretzky (and Magic Johnson) being there for some reason, but if not him, Neil Young.
3. Don't play scrabble enough to know, but would have guessed s-i-x, assuming 1pt, 1pt, 4pt.
4. WWJD? (didn't realize that slogan is that old, but makes sense).
5. Flo
6. Today is the beginning of Leo, so presumably 'it' would be the constellation which the sun transits (due to the procession, the zodiac signs should change at a very slow rate).
7. Haven't a clue. Haven't even a Sinatra related guess. Haven't seen 3 of the films (am ashamed to admit having seen one of them).
X is 8 points, so six = 10
seven = 8
Twelve = ( 1 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 )
This is not the way a species with hopes of survival behaves, Driver feels insulted by deaf man, takes beef to parking lot:
Raymond Keith McWain, 26, had just turned from Mountain View Drive onto Boniface Parkway when he noticed a truck with three men alongside his car. One of the truck occupants is deaf and mute. The deaf man was communicating with the other two in the truck through American Sign Language, a written police statement said.
McWain thought the sign language gestures were some sort of slight or "disrespect" toward him, police said. So McWain began doing some gesturing of his own. He honked and cut in front of the truck before pulling into the Papa John's pizza store on Boniface, police said. The men in the truck followed.
In the parking lot, McWain and the three men from the truck began pushing and shoving, police said. McWain's cousin, Daniel Harris, 20, who works at Papa John's, came out and began beating the deaf man as the deaf man's companions pummeled McWain.
Multiple shots were fired from at least one gun.
Police are looking into whether Harris pistol-whipped the deaf man. A shot might have gone off then, police spokesman Paul Honeman said.
"It's being investigated," Honeman said.
The men from the truck left the parking lot.
When police arrived they found McWain lying in the parking lot bleeding heavily from his head and upper body, Honeman said. At first police thought he'd been shot, but it turned out his injuries were from being beaten and kicked. McWain was taken to a local hospital where he was listed in fair condition.
The deaf man also went to a hospital later that night for treatment.
Police found Harris crying, crouched near the front counter inside Papa John's, court documents said.
The only man arrested was Harris, who was charged with possession of methamphetamine. When police searched Harris at the scene they found several plastic baggies of meth, a glass pipe and $4,691 in his pockets, court documents said.
Washington Post: Falcons' Vick Indicted In Dogfighting Case
What the locals are saying: AJC Blog.
I've made two comments about Mike Vick.
May 10, 2007: I think Atlanta's romance with Mike Vick is officially over.
May 4, 2007: My prediction: Falcons will need a new quarterback before the season starts.
Tour DAY France news should be uneventful for the next few days. Extremely flat today and tomorrow with a couple hills on Friday. Shouldn't be any changes* on the leaderboard as the main guys mark each other and conserve strength for Saturday's difficult individual time trial. While the results can be exciting, watching a time trial is a bit dull. Therefore, if you want to watch, I recommend Sunday and Monday when they hit the Pyrenees. As far as I'm concerned, there is no better sporting event or example of athletic suffering and triumph than a hotly contested mountain stage in the Tour DAY France. Tuesday is a rest day and Wednesday is the final day in the mountains.
*FYI for those not familiar. It's quite possible a group of sprinters could get away with enough of a lead to end up near the top of the GC. They can get away with it because they'll also be expected to lose massive amounts of time in the mountains. No one with any realistic shot at winning the race will be allowed on a breakaway. If you're watching at home, just tune in for the last 30 minutes or so to see if the peloton can catch the breakaway and watch for the sprint finishes and occasional brutal crashes at the line.
The Tour will be uneventful so long as they clear the area of Golden Retreivers.
A dog, try a deer. Here's a link to me from last summer. I make a similar comment about the mountain stages--thought it sounded familiar. And also link to Frankie Andreu's tour diaries--great reads. To copy:copy, here's a bit from the 200 TdF:
I was sitting in the middle of the group and as I looked up the road I saw this brown blur cutting across the fields in front of us. We were going sixty km/hr downhill and this blur, which I thought was a dog, was sprinting at about twenty km/hr. All of a sudden the brown blur, like an arrow, shot straight into the group and hit Guesdon (Francaise des Jeux) on his bike and leg. That's when I saw it was a deer. Amazing as it sounds Guesdon didn't crash but the deer was messed up . When I passed the deer it was on the ground having convulsions, I think it broke it's neck. Guesdon later on had to do a bike change but other than that he was fine.
I spell it Tour DAY France out of respect for Bob Roll. Best Background I could find:
Bob Roll pronounces it 'tour day frants' (rhymes with 'your gay pants').
Last night, the evening of July 14, 2005, Bob was confronted regarding his odd pronunciation of the name of the race. Bob's explanation was essentially to tell a story about the rude-zilla treatment he had experienced over the years from French service workers: 'We finished a long day yesterday by retiring to a lovely cafe, and took a streetside table in this beautiful bucolic setting, and waited an hour and a half for the waiter to acknowledge us..."
Then he went off on a hysterical riff. The bottom line was, as long as these language-pronunciation Nazis treat us like crap, I'm going to say it like I say it.
I can't do Bob's narrative justice so that's all I'm going to relate. It was a wonderful monologue. I was laughing too hard to think to record it and have not been able to find a transcript online yet. Let's just say, Bob Rolle has got the French figured out, and he knows how to needle them hundreds of times a day during the Tour coverage.
I was right earlier this week: I've nevere even heard of that book. Reading some of the description at the link you provided, though, made my skin crawl. Why do people want to return to the economy of the Carter Years? Have they completely forgotten how aweful that was?
Bruce Ackerman is indeed frightening stuff.
More frightening, he claims in his Yale web blurb that ideas from the book quoted led to policy implementation in Tony Blair's UK.
Also, Prof. Ackerman is a Commander of the French Order of Merit.
(I'll let that sink in a bit. Can't find what led to this commendation, expect it's for outstanding achievement in anti-americanism)
And his editorials for London Book Review over the years have been fascinating, poorly written, and incredibly wrong-headed.
(Is there a 'progressive' alive who believes "brevity is the soul of wit"?)
I would imagine that in an Obama or Clinton administration, Prof. Ackerman (or worse) would get a plum appointment or advisory position.
Bruce Schneier says:
And that's the problem: the TSA is both arbitrary and capricious, and it's impossible to follow the rules because no one knows how they will be applied.
about My encounter with the TSA:
He asks what it is. I tell him it is a battery charger for my iPod. He asks if I made it myself, to which I reply that I purchased a kit over the internet. He says that he can't let me on the plane with it. I explain to him that I have flown with it 4-6 times a month for a year now and nobody has questioned it. He says, "Not on my watch and not with my people."
He swabs the device and runs it through the calorimeter. Again, no residue.
I ask why it can't be taken on the plane and he said, "Because it looks like an IED." Now, I agree it looks suspicious, but the machine found no traces of explosives, and the device wasn't big enough to do any damage.
Next he finds my green laser pointer, shines it at his hand, and tells me I can't take that on the plane either.
At this point they shut down one of the two screening lanes. There was a request to, "get Donna down here," which means that all heck is about to break loose.
I also enjoyed Natch's I bought a 78 record that I have no license to use
Ah, now I understand the Michael Vick Ron Mexico references.
From Jennifer Weiner: The New York Times Book Review has a blog.
I'll steal this from the comments: Best. Bride. Ever.
Why you shouldn't allow comments on a blog:
The important thing to notice here is that Dave does not see blog comments as productive to the free exchange of ideas. They are a part of the problem, not the solution. You don't have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else's thoughts. That's not freedom of expression, that's an infringement on their freedom of expression.
...with a link to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory . Brilliant.
Yeah, if soquoted had ever achieved any degree of success, I'd have probably turned off the comments long ago. As it is, I really do enjoy the few of you that do stick around and play along.
I've almost entirely stopped reading Althouse primarily because of the quality of the comments section. That used to be a plus for that blog, now it's a minus. And it's a HUGE minus when Althouse decides to pitch her posts as troll bait. Ugh.
Loved the story about the bride, too.
And with Althouse, it isn't just the lefty commenters, like that pissy little link from a week or so claimed. Sure, there's a handful that show up just to piss in the soup, then again, many of the righties do consider it their sandbox and view almost anyone else as an intruder.
iPhone magic tricks.
On second thought, maybe I should get a Nokia E70:
This keyboard will not only stomp your colon, but the colons of distant relatives of the human species such as lagomorphs, and hypothetical colons of children you haven't even had yet. Want to type a backslash? No problem. Ampersand? You bet your ass. On an iPhone, you have to press an additional button that opens up an alternate keypad that will allow you to type numbers and punctuation. So typing something as simple as elipses (...) requires you to tap your finger 9 times. Enjoy your phone, losers! People like me who have shit to do will stick to a keyboard that doesn't have its lips wrapped firmly to the user-interface equivalent of a ....
...[further down] There you have it: the most objective comparison of two cellphones ever made. I think I'll take the rest of the afternoon off and copy and paste text on my cellphone because I can.
I emailed Reader some time back and told her that it was actually the righties that were driving me most crazy at Althouse. Getting infuriated by chuckle-heads who ostensibly agree with me is worse than dealing with trolls who are just looking for a fight. I could name some names, but you've no doubt got your own list. I'm fairly certain they would intersect to a large degree.
I know what you mean. I find I'm usually harder on people who think I'd agree with them, but their reasoning is shit.
It would be depressing to back through and catalog all the people who said some form of "we don't want your kind around here."
One, who the hell are you to say that. Two, don't like the person or the argument, then don't engage. I wish I could say trolls were easy to ignore, but observation does not agree with theory.
Post a Comment
<< Home