damn straight..

The Ten Do's and Don'ts on The Great State of Texas Foods

Like other states or cities who are very particular about their cuisines, Texas has its own little set of rules when it comes to eating. In Chicago, for example, putting ketchup on a hot dog is slightly worse than trampling on the American flag after setting it on fire using the Eternal Flame from John F. Kennedy's gravesite. And in Germany, putting a slice of orange or lemon into your hefeweizen is akin to ordering a beer and then pissing straight into the mug before drinking it. Refreshing!

read on 


The Houston Press

somebody finally gets it right

No, really. watch..

a great lady passes

most of the remembrances of Barbara Billingsley will, of course, be her work on "Leave It To Beaver", I prefer her twist on the Beav's mom as a multi-lingual airplane passenger.




P.S. did you know Barbara is Peter Billingsley's cousin by marriage?

a little bang

do not try this at home...

up, up and away...

the 2010 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 


Balloon Fiesta from Michael Salisbury on Vimeo.

all I want for Christmas is...

my own barrel o' whiskey..

Cask strength, 3 Years Old. unchilfiltered and not coloured. Numbers limited for this baby. Delivery in November 2010

inc. 30 L cask, contents and delivery (mainland England)

Price: £1,200.00

that's about $1900.00 not counting delivery to Texas

and I would certainly let the barrel age for a decade or so....

sure I would...

English Whiskey Co.

why can't Johnny program?

we are losing an innovative edge ...

Amazingly, America - the birthplace of the Internet - is the only developed nation that does not teach programming in its public schools. Sure, some of our schools have elected to offer "computer" classes, but instead of teaching programming, these classes almost invariably teach programs: how to use Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, or any of the other commercial software packages used in the average workplace. We teach our kids how to get jobs in today's marketplace rather than how to innovate for tomorrow's.

Just last year, while researching a book on America's digital illiteracy, I met with the Air Force General then in charge of America's cybercommand. He said he had plenty of new recruits ready and able to operate drones or other virtual fighting machines - but no one capable of programming them, or even interested in learning how. He wasn't even getting recruits who were ready to begin basic programming classes. Meanwhile, he explained to me, colleges in Russia, China, and even Iran were churning out an order of magnitude more programmers than universities in the US. It is only a matter of time, he said - a generation at most - until our military loses its digital superiority.

As we continue to look at programming as a menial skill to be outsourced to developing nations, we will lose our innovative superiority as well. While this may not hurt American corporations capable of sourcing its code from anywhere, it would certainly hurt Americans looking for a skill set to replace our manufacturing jobs.

more

finder kudos to BoingBoing...


you should really read BoingBoing and it would not hurt to read this...

it will piss you off, it will make you think, it will change your world view..

USA!!! USA!!!

ladies and gentlemen, I knows my American History..

How American Are You?

Incredible!

Was the national anthem your first dance at your wedding? Does it flow red, white and blue when you nick your skin shaving?

Score: 90% (18 out of 20)

real war games..

playing for real..

nuclear bomb detonations from 1945-1998..

kinda hypnotic..kinda scary..




notice that although 2 and 3 are on historical targets, parts of the USA and the USSR , not to mention the South Pacific received a battering.

Anyone wanna buy some only partly radioactive real estate?

take notice

I’m overwhelmed with the urge to share a dark, dirty literary secret: that I not only read science fiction, I love it, I learn from it — and I think you should too.

This isn’t because the genre is producing great literature. For the most part, it isn’t. A lot of the best known science fiction looks either dated (Jules Verne, HG Wells) or dumb: the platitudinous and banal ‘philosophical’ discussions of the Star Trek crew on their pointless and endless galactic cruise. Or take (please!) the movie Avatar, a lot of science fiction is about flashy special effects grafted onto silly politics and creaky plots.

Nor should you read science fiction to find out where technology is going.

Science fiction is perhaps best understood by an alternative name for the genre: speculative fiction. It is fiction that asks questions about the human condition and the meaning of life by taking us beyond everyday life. We go to strange planets, far distant futures or even to our own past — in order to learn about who we really are.

Taken as a whole, the field of science fiction today is where most of the most interesting thought about human society can be found. At a time when many academics have become almost willfully obscure, political science is increasingly dominated by arcane and uninspiring theories and in which a fog of political correctness makes some forms of (badly needed) debate and exploration off limits, science fiction has stepped forward to fill the gap.

The biggest single task facing the United States today is the unleashing of our social imagination. We are locked into twentieth century institutions and twentieth century habits of mind. Science fiction is the literary genre (OK, true, sometimes a subliterary genre) where the social imagination is being cultivated and developed. Young people should read this genre to help open their minds to the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us; we geezers should read it for the same reason. The job of our times is to build a radically new world; speculative fiction helps point the way.

excepts from the article by Walter Russell Mead


please read this article in it's entirety,it will provide links to some of the most innovative and forward thinking writers out there.

AND ABOVE ALL, READ , JUST READ!!!!

economic theory

as good an explanation as any...

a cat tale

a lost cat, some coworkers(?) and a series of emails..

read the whole thread...


Thanx Steve !!!

are you gonna eat that?

never really liked McDonald's but I did not know that the food had such a long, almost freakish shelf life....

from The Happy Meal Art Project

The Ahnold sings

this is priceless

Wait for it...

evolution in action

A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's Bakersfield, Calif., home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing left from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

more at NPR

too much? or just right?

The ultimate dessert..



twigged by Mental Floss

slip, sliding away

If only the commute downtown could always be this much fun.

Thousands of people — at least those who are at least 48 inches tall — descended this past weekend into the low-lying center of Grand Rapids, Mich., for a free trip on what promoters believe is the world's longest inflatable water slide. The puffy blue-and-yellow slide is about 500 feet long, stretching about three city blocks. It carried participants on an elevation drop estimated at 100 feet.

The megaslide is the brainchild of Rob Bliss, a 21-year-old maestro of social media. It is the latest of about a dozen public events he has conceived and publicized via Facebook, drawing dozens to thousands of participants to downtown Grand Rapids.

Bliss' first event was a pillow fight in 2008 that drew more than 1,000, according to The Grand Rapids Press. Next, the call went out for zombies. About 4,000 arrived.

The goal of each event, he said, is "creating a unique moment in time and reimagining what a downtown space can be used for."

The slide's builders say the $30,000 contraption can last about 20 years with good maintenance and careful storage, so the plan is to reinflate it annually.

The Denver Post

see, one vote does count...

The New York Daily

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Schumer supplied the only voice Thursday as the Senate passed by voice vote a $600 million border security bill seen as a down payment on immigration reform

But Republicans quickly mocked the security bill they supported and said they don't trust President Obama's broader reform effort that might provide a path to citizenship for immigrants.

Since Republicans had already signed off on approving the bill by unanimous consent, the Senate invoked a rarely used procedure to avoid bringing members back to vote during a summer recess.

Schumer was the only senator on the floor for the voice vote while Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) was the presiding officer. Schumer had to set up his own lectern to speak because Senate pages were also on recess.

The border security bill calls the Republicans' bluff, Schumer said, "because it pulls away their No. 1 excuse, which is we can't do comprehensive [reform] until there is border change. Certainly we were getting nowhere the old way.

"And this new law will also strengthen our partnership with Mexico in targeting the gangs and criminal organizations that operate on both sides of our shared border," Schumer said.

The bill will fund hiring for 1,500 border and customs agents, set up forward bases for the agents along the border and boost the number of unarmed drones flown on the U.S. side of the border to track illegals attempting to sneak across.

Schumer said the bill will be paid for by raising fees on foreign-based companies that use U.S. visa programs, including the popular H-1B program, to bring skilled workers into the U.S.

Obama, who was expected to sign the bill Friday, said it "answers my call" for tighter border security and "will make an important difference" in the battle for overall reform.

there is of course a dissenting opinion...

But Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the bill "seems more like an effort to receive positive press than to genuinely improve the critical border situation."

"The Masters of the Universe in Washington are always proposing new plans to deal with the massive illegality at the border," Sessions said, but they then fail to put them into effect.

Mr. Sessions, elected in 1994, yes, 16 years ago, in Alabama, a state with as far as I can tell, not a lot of border issues to deal with...

Oh, wait...

Florida.

But that whole Masters of the Universe in Washington stuff.. 

Man, you've been there for 16 friggin' years...

no,, really?!?!

Austin Police have discovered something new ....

Austin police said Tuesday that they've seen people try to hide drugs in just about anything. Just last week, senior patrol officer Jared Manning said, he found painkillers inside a fake battery.

At a news conference Tuesday, Manning showed off other innocuous-looking objects in which police have discovered narcotics, including a Dr Pepper can that had a pill bottle glued inside.

Police also have found drugs in an altered WD-40 oil can and a dictionary that had been hollowed out with a key-locked box inside, Manning said. These drug-concealing containers are made at home or bought online or at local novelty shops, he said.

 Really!!...Wow !!!

I'm sure this kind of super Hi-tech, James Bond type stuff never,never happened before....


Austin American Statesman