I've recently joined Odeo to help manage my podcasts and Barack Obama's was a featured one the other day: Odeo: U.S. Senator Barack Obama Podcast.
While not the first U.S. Senator to have a podcast (that distinction belongs to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, he is the only individual Senator with a podcast tagged on the site with senate. Hopefully, Larry Craig's constituents will get him tagged properly.
This is pretty funny, but I hope people realize that he's obviously responding, (note the different handwriting samples) to a request from one of his aides:
Yahoo! News Photo
I may not have voted for the guy, but I'm pretty sure he can take a bathroom break whenever he feels like it.
We interrupt the coverage of the Bush administration's virtuoso display of incompetence in New Orleans to bring you...news of a draft deferment thanks to video games.
For all your mylar/canvas abstract painting needs, visit the art site: r e g a l n o m i c s.
Here's a site that will automagically translate your English sentence(s) back and forth between 5 languages:
Lost in Translation
The results can be quite entertaining:
Original English Text:
I look at you all, see the love there that_s sleeping, while my guitar gently weeps.
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping, still my guitar gently weeps.
Translated to French:
Je vous regarde tout, vois les that_s d'amour là qui dort, alors que
ma guitare pleure doucement. Je regarde le plancher et je vois qu'il a
besoin balayer, ma guitare pleure toujours doucement.
Translated back to English:
I look at you all, see the that_s there love which sleeps, whereas my
guitar cries gently. I look at the floor and I see that it has need to
sweep, my guitar cries always gently.
Translated to German:
Ich betrachte Sie allen, sehe die that_s dort zu lieben, das schläft,
während meine Guitarre leicht schreit. Ich betrachte den Fußboden
und ich sehe, daß er Notwendigkeit hat zu fegen, meine Guitarre
schreie immer leicht.
Translated back to English:
I regard you everything, see that_s loving there, which sleeps, during
my Guitarre easily walk. I regard the floor and I see that he
necessity has to sweep, my Guitarre cries always easily.
Translated to Italian:
Li considero tutto, vedo i that_s amoroso là, che i sonni, durante il
mio Guitarre camminano facilmente. Considero il pavimento e vedo che
la necessità deve scopare, il mio Guitarre grido sempre
facilmente.
Translated back to English:
I consider all, I see them that_s the loving here, than the sleeps,
during my Guitarre they walk easy. I consider the pavement and I see
that the necessity must sweep, my Guitarre outcry always easy.
Translated to Portuguese:
Eu considero tudo, mim v o that_s amar aqui, do que os sonos, durante
meu Guitarre que andam fácil. Eu considero o pavimento e eu v que a
necessidade deve varrer, meu outcry de Guitarre sempre fácil.
Translated back to English:
I consider everything, me v that_s to love here, of that sleep, during
my Guitarre that they walk easy. I consider the floor and I v that the
necessity must sweep, mine outcry of always easy Guitarre.
Translated to Spanish:
Considero todo, yo los that_s de v amar aquí, de ese sueño, durante
mi Guitarre que recorren fácil. Considero el suelo y el I v que la
necesidad debe barrer, protesta de la mina de Guitarre siempre fácil.
Translated back to English:
I consider everything, them that_s of v to love here, of that dream,
during my Guitarre that they cross easy. I consider the ground and the
I v that the necessity must sweep, protest of the mine of always easy
Guitarre.
This is the best browswer plugin I've ever used. You choose the categories of sites you want to see, click the Stumble! button and voila, a new one appears. You can rate any site, whether you got there by stumbling or not and it uses collaborative filtering to suggest new sites. It's definitely worth checking out.
StumbleUpon
"Dyseducational" drivingliikenne.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
Very amusing.
Perhaps the most striking evidence of this came on Sunday during CNN's 'Late Edition' when host Wolf Blitzer quoted West when asking Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson whether the response to Hurricane Katrina has been racist. Thompson, a Democrat, said the government had failed and 'someone has to be held accountable.' He cited the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
The most revealing part of the exchange, however, was the fact that Thompson mistook the comments from West as a statement from Princeton University professor, theologian, author and activist Dr. Cornel West. In one fell swoop, the rapper and college dropout has earned a place in the front ranks of this country's best-known and most respected African-American activists."
We'll see if this pans out: Rocky Mountain News: Shell's ingenious approach to oil shale is pretty slick. If it does work out to be economical at $30/barrel and has an EROEI of about 3.5 then we might be ok after all. However, this columnist doesn't mention rates or scaling all that much. She says that it takes about eight months or so to go from normal ground to when the oil starts to come up and that it dried up, and pretty quickly too, about a year later.
I really hope they can get this to scale and produce at a fast enough rate as it does look a lot more promising than other oil shale recovery methods.
Also, here's some testimony that Terry O'Connor of Shell gave before Congress a few months ago regarding In-situ Conversion Process: Committee on Resources-Index
The Rebellion of the Talking Heads - Newscasters, sick of official lies and stonewalling, finally start snarling. By Jack Shafer
Many interesting things in that article, the last of which is the fact that Jack Shafer's email address is:
Slate.Pressbox@gmail.com
So, apparently, Slate (which is owned by Microsoft, or at least was a year ago) uses a gmail account for their editor-at-large's email. Funny, indeed.
I'm reminded of the phrase "drastic times..."
Just to give you a sense of just how badly FEMA has f*cked up.
This was published in October of 2005, so of course, like the politicians say, nobody could have imagined this.
Louisiana's Wetlands @ National Geographic Magazine: "It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV 'storm teams' warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."
