Seen in Ennis, Tx

It's actully a really good restaurant.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

From the Washington Post:

"How do you make something out of nothing?," asked one such operative who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter. "By acting guilty when you're innocent."r

Yeah, but we're not so sure yet that anyone is innocent here. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Their argument is that the White House could have pushed out an answer to the Sestak job controversy quickly but, in so doing, would have run the risk of not having all the facts of a relatively complex situation straight -- making it a real possibility that they would be bludgeoned by the press if there was a mistake or inconsistency in the original statement.

Instead, they chose to conduct an exhaustive review, which led to what we expect to be a detailed document from the White House counsel's office later today, in order to take the public relations hit and quickly move on.

They chose to do an exhaustive review???? If the situation is as simple and cut and dried as the White House is telling us it is, then the "exhaustive review" should have taken three minutes, not three months. I know bullshit when I smell it, and the fact thatClinton is involved doesn't help matters at all.

And another thing... Since when do ex-presidents do the bidding of their former chief of staff? Methinks they used Clinton precisely for his Teflon qualities in case something like this happened.

NBC is still stupid, which makes Hulu stupid

From Appleinsider:

According to report by the New York Post, unnamed sources reportedly said that "several large media companies, including Time Warner and NBC Universal, told Apple they won't retool their extensive video libraries to accommodate the iPad, arguing that such a reformatting would be expensive and not worth it because Flash dominates the Web."

The media firms are said to be betting on a new fleet of iPad-like devices promised by Dell and HP, which they expect will run Flash and therefore not require any changes to their existing libraries of web content. One media executive also pointed to the announcement of Google TV, which is expected to promote Flash as a media distribution technology, although not to mobile users.

Once again, NBC Universal proves how dumb, greedy or lazy they are. And since they also control Hulu, the midset is propagated even more.

Clinton? Really????

The White House asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Rep. Joe Sestak about the possibility of obtaining a senior position in the Obama administration if he would drop out of the Democratic primary race against establishment-backed Sen. Arlen Specter, the Obama administration said in a report released Friday morning.

Critics say the Sestak job offer may have violated the part of the U.S. code that says: "Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation...appointment...provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress...to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity...or in connection with any primary election ...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

Iron Baby

Myths About "Going Green"

From John Stossel at Reason.com:

We're constantly urged to "go green"—use less energy, shrink our carbon footprint, save the Earth. How? We should drive less, use ethanol, recycle plastic, and buy things with the government's Energy Star label.

But what if much of going green is just bunk? Al Gore's group, Repower America, claims we can replace all our dirty energy with clean, carbon-free renewables. Gore says we can do it within 10 years.

"It's simply not possible," says Robert Bryce, author of Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy.

Even with subsidies, "renewable" energy today barely makes a dent on our energy needs.

Bryce points out that energy production from every solar panel and windmill in America is less than the production from one coal mine and much less than natural gas production from Oklahoma alone.

But what if we build more windmills?

"One nuclear power plant in Texas covers about 19 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Manhattan. To produce the same amount of power from wind turbines would require an area the size of Rhode Island. This is energy sprawl." To produce the same amount of energy with ethanol, another "green" fuel, it would take 24 Rhode Islands to grow enough corn.

Maybe the electric car is the next big thing?

"Electric cars are the next big thing, and they always will be."

There have been impressive headlines about electric cars from my brilliant colleagues in the media. The Washington Post said, "Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they're within reach of the average family."

That was in 1915.

In 1959, The New York Times said, "Electric is the car of the tomorrow."

In 1979, The Washington Post said, "GM has an electric car breakthrough in batteries, now makes them commercially practical."

I'm still waiting.

"The problem is very simple," Bryce said. "It's not political will. It's simple physics. Gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium ion batteries. There's no conspiracy here of big oil or big auto. It's a conspiracy of physics."

Meat Rainbow

From The Big Caption.

I'm Getting a New Dog

I want it to be white with brown spots and floppy ears.

Polar Clock for Snow Leopard

Up until OS X Leopard, my favorite utility of all time was Pixel Breaker's Polar Clock. But the Leopard upgrade broke it and so I've gone a couple of years now without it.

But on a whim, I checked the Pixel Breaker website this morning and found.... drumroll... Polar Clock for Snow Leopard!!!!!

It's a free screen saver available for download, and I absolutely love it.

And there's even an iPhone version now, too. And yes, there's a Windows version too (but something so beautiful just doesn't belong on a crappy old PC.)

Thanks, Pixel Breaker.

TayHoss on iTunes

I just found out that TayHoss, a Houston-area bluegrass band that I've done some work for from time to time, is now on the iTunes Store!

Until I was hired to do some work for them, I never knew a whole lot about Bluegrass music, other than that I really liked the stuff I heard on Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and from Alison Krauss. But I quickly found that there's a kind of purity to Bluegrass music, and that this band, in particular, has something special.

Check them out on YouTube. They do a song called "The Rocket," which isn't on their album but is just hauntingly sad and beautiful.



If you're interested in Bluegrass Music at all be sure to download their album, Beaumont Road, from iTunes. You're going to like it a lot.

The Numbers are Ugly

From Rasmmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove...

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide favor repeal of the health care law. That’s the highest level of support for repeal yet measured.

Just 27% are even somewhat confident that Congress knows what it’s doing when addressing that nation’s economic challenges. That figure includes only 6% who are Very Confident that Congress knows what it’s doing.

Most Americans have “come to believe that the political system is broken, that most politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers,” observes Scott Rasmussen. Forty-one percent (41%) of voters say that a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. In his new book, Scott adds, “Some of us are ready to give up and some of us are ready to scream a little louder. But all of us believe we can do better.”

The Pi Beta Phi sorority girls from Oho University could do a better job, despite the fact that they act act with the same reckless abandon that Congress has been.

Wal Mart Set to Drop iPhone Price

From CNN Money:

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, plans to slash the price of Apple's 16GB 3GS iPhone to $97 beginning Tuesday.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is widely expected to unveil a brand-new iPhone next month, and could be working with retailers to clear out its remaining inventory of the about-to-be-outdated model.

The 3G S will run iPhone 4.0 software with multitasking, so to say the 3G S will be outdated isn't really fair. If you're in the market for an iPhone or just want to upgrade the one you currently own *cough* Matt *cough* this might be a great time to get a good deal.