Month: October 2012

Aren’t special privileges a wonderful thing? HOUSTON (CBS HOUSTON) – A wheelchair request can put you at the front of a long airport line. Or, at least, that’s the angle some fully-abled passengers are using to cut through the winding queues at airport security checkpoints, the New York Times reported. According to the 1986 Air…

You have seen the micro components on the latest electronic devices. They are hard to see with the naked eye let alone hand solder them. It is more like watch making than making electronics. I discuss my adventures in hand soldering and end with a William Blake quote at Solder Wicki. And no. That is…

The above is kind of a jumble. But it is only a two minute jumble. You can catch the high (low?) points of the economic numbers about half way through.

This headlinekind of renews my faith. In, um democracy or whatever it’s called these days in places like Venezuela. La consultora Varianza otorga una victoria al líder opositor por un 51,3% frente al 48,06 de Chávez. El cierre de los colegios se produjo una hora después de la estipulada Which means that wannabe permanent dictator…

While I can never speak for anyone else, I very much enjoyed Camille Paglia’s recent observations about art: The art world, like humanities faculties, suffers from a monolithic political orthodoxy—an upper-middle-class liberalism far from the fiery antiestablishment leftism of the 1960s. (I am speaking as a libertarian Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008.)…

The above is a monstrously Orwellian slogan I keep hearing. Meaning what, exactly? Give back what? And to whom? Did someone steal something from someone? If so, they should definitely give it back. Anyone taking something that did not belong to him has an obligation to give it back. But if what someone has is…

I think it’s a shame to see this sort of thing happening in the United States of America: CHICAGO (CBS) — The President of the South Suburban Branch of the NAACP alleges a director of the re-election campaign of Barack Obama has threatened and intimidated him because he doesn’t support the president. Such thuggish behavior…

Early voting patterns suggesting a Romney blowout in Ohio? And in a sign that the enthusiasm of 2008 voters is depressed, just 638,997 absentee ballots have been requested, according to American Majority Action, which culled the statistics together from Ohio college professors who are tracking the state’s absentee ballots used for early voting. The group…

A friend just sent me a link to the report that AARP has asked President Obama not to mention them again. This is, of course, good news to anyone who does not want Obama to have a second term. BUT- As I keep opining to anyone who will listen, right now is no time to…

As I sit here waiting for the presidential debate to start, I have a couple of questions. 1. Why is the presidential debate is being held on the Obamas’ 20th wedding anniversary? Coincidence? Or is the idea to give him an added sympathy edge? 2. And why should a presidential campaign speech be allowed to…

Somewhat to my consternation, I learned that it takes balls to live a shorter life. Again and again in the animal world, males have shorter lifespans than females, an effect scientists attribute in part to the deleterious effects of testosterone. Now researchers who looked at historical records of Korean eunuchs castrated during boyhood found that…

They say that looking at cute animal pictures at work will improve one’s day, so I should probably apologize in advance for this post. But hey, at least this is the evening and not the morning, so hopefully lost productivity will not be the result. In what I had thought was intended to pass as serious…

That’s the phrase of the day, courtesy Zombie (h/t Glenn). That only 9% of those polled are responding is just incredibly devastating — that means the polls are essentially worthless, with that kind of massive, systemic sampling problem they can’t really be said to be accurate to within better than 10% or so. Think for…