"[H]e [stands] firm behind his paranoia and radical beliefs. I respect that. Besides, he [is] a good source of nudie links."--Ravenwood.
"Its foci, in no particular order, seem to be baseball, Bush-bashing, and bare breasts. Not the stuff of legend, perhaps, but a lot easier to read than, say, Bartcop."--Dustbury
"This was a fine blog; it's just too bad his talent is wasted on the dark side." "Aesthetically speaking, LARS isn't the prettiest blog... it looks like a California mudslide at dusk."--The Smartercop
"A TRUE PATRIOT DEFENDS HIS COUNTRY FROM HIS GOVERNMENT."
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Oh, brother... The latest supporter of the George W. Bush re-election campaign is Dennis Miller. I don't even know how to begin to think of possibly commenting on the matter.
posted by The Rust One on 6/29/2003 03:48:00 PM |
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The Sports Guy once again has a hilarious take on the NBA draft. I wish everyone could write as well as Simmons.
posted by The Rust One on 6/27/2003 02:16:00 PM |
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Today, the Supreme Court upheld limited affirmative action at universities. The affirmative action debate is a long and difficult one, and one which--because of the nature of the matter, race--can be very heated and emotional. Because of this, I'll only say something brief on the matter. I attended a small, highly challenging college in the midwest. It was also a very conservative religious college that made one hold to a strict code of conduct. It was also extremely difficult to get accepted into the college. God knows why I was (because of swimming?). Ok, all that didn't touch on the race subject, but is important background. At my college, the population was 90% white. There was 1.x% Hispanics, 1.x% Blacks, and about 7% Asians. Everyday I went to class with (outside of a few them in a few classes) white, upperclass, wealthy, conservative students. Did this make a difference on my education? HELL YES! Why??? Because when we had discussions in class, which is a major part of the learning experience, most of the opinions expressed came from white, upperclass, wealthy, conservatives. An important part of learning how to think is to be able to interpret a wide range opinions, digest them, compare them to each other, and then make a decision as to which one you agree with (or mostly agree with). Now, certainly, there was still a wide variety of opinions despite the lack of ethnic or racial diversity in the student body, as I had the pleasure of going to college with students from all over the nation. I had a good friend from Idaho, a place where I was previously unaware any humans existed. Since I grew up in Boston, people were dumbfounded with my strange culture and strangah accent. However, coming from the same socio-economic-religious background, these students (I did not come from a wealthy background) all had pretty similar views on politics, culture, economics, and philosophy. The lack of diversity of students led to the lack of diversity of ideas. I am fortunate to have studied amongst some very bright people, and their intelligence on subject matter taught me almost as much as professors or textbooks did. Scratch that. Their intelligence taught me more than my textbooks, and nearly as much as professors did. But one thing lacked. The opinion of a poor, inner-city African-American. The opinion of a first-generation American. The culture of an Asian Indian. Luckily, I moved to southern California shortly after my graduation, and was able to be further educated by the diversity of my new homeland. I wonder what would have happened if I didn't. Would I only think as a white, religious, conservative, wealthy person? I probably would have at least much longer than I did. Hopefully I would have snapped out of it at some point anyways. But despite going to a very competitive, difficult college, my education was still lacking something very important, which is a diversity of opinions. Those opinions can only come from a diverse group of people. To sum things up, I completely agree with the Supreme Court's decision. Disgruntled whites may feel this will cause them to miss the cut at their favorite university. But if being educated by a homogeneous crowd is what they want, they are selling themselves short. While it does suck to be the first one to miss the cut on any college acceptance list, the education one gets when he or she does attend higher institutes of learning will be so much richer now that the Supreme Court has defended the diversity of the campus as a valid learning tool.
posted by The Rust One on 6/24/2003 01:53:00 AM |
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I was away on a dizzying 5-day journey. I sure you all missed my prophetic propaganda while I was gone. I come back, and Blogger has changed things up a bit on me. Let's see if it's for the better...
In case any of you care, here's the wrap-up of my trip: Thursday, left Newport Beach, and headed to Hearst Castle. I had driven by there a couple of times, but that was the first time I actually toured it. Let me tell you, it was absolutely unbelievable. I saw a statue that was made for Napoleon, and a pool tiled with 23-karat gold. William Randolph Hearst was a truly incredible man, and he built a truly incredible castle. After the tour, camped at San Simeon State Park, then headed up the 101 to San Francisco. I have to say that I wish all cities were like SF, as it is such a fun, diverse, and beautiful city. Both the architecture and the landscape make the city beautiful, and it has such a rich culture, as well. I took the BART for the first time to A's-Giants game. Oakland Coliseum marked the 11th Major League stadium I've been too. Still waiting to go to PacBell, then I will have hit all California baseball stadiums (until next year, when a new one opens in San Diego).
Saturday morning, went to Golden Gate Park, which was completely overwhelming. I had never heard about the park in any detail from anyone before. I went there, figured that since I had two hours before I had to hit the road, I could at least stroll through the whole thing, if I didn't stop too often to look at things. Boy was I wrong. The park is immense (just found out it's the largest urban park in the world), and full of all kinds of nooks, crannies, displays, buildings, picnic areas, concert shells, etc. If you ever get the chance to go, you have to check it out. After that, strolled down Haight St., which is my type of street, then went to a wedding in Turlock, CA. Don't ever go there.
Sunday, drove back to the coast. I had reservations to camp at Big Sur. On the way there a took a Sunday drive around the Monterey Peninsula on the 17 Mile Drive. The $8.25 toll had caused me to balk at the drive on previous visits to the area, but let me tell you, it was worth it. I even ate at Pebble Beach Golf Links, a place I thought was reserved only for the most wealthy of the wealthy. I was pleasantly surprised that the people there were very hospitable to a nobody like me.
Today, drove 8 hours down Highway 1, which has the best scenery of any road in the world. I highly recommend the drive to everyone.
I care about my readers so much that I immediately posted this as soon as I got home. Hope you care. News updates to follow sometime soon (hopefully).
posted by The Rust One on 6/24/2003 12:07:00 AM |
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Part 3 of the Boston Globe's series on Sen. John Kerry focuses on the fact that his anti-war role places an automatic spotlight on him. Some really interesting stuff included on Richard Nixon's fear of the Massachusetts Senator.
posted by The Rust One on 6/17/2003 10:15:00 PM |
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Following up on the list from the Senate I posted last week, here's a sampling of how much money congressmen make. My representative has "$1 million to $5 million" in a money market account. I guess my plan to detrone him will be fruitless.
posted by The Rust One on 6/16/2003 10:36:00 PM |
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I've been waiting for this news for a few weeks now... The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) argues that millions of dollars are at stake with regards to online distribution of music and that if people "pirate" music from the Internet, it will hurt artists' sales. Well, Radiohead's fantastic new album Hail to the Thief, officially released on June 9th (in the UK, June 10th in the US) has been available for download on Kazaa, etc. for several months now (someone apparently stole the tracks from the studio where they recorded the album in California) and surprise surprise surprise, the album has hit #1 on the British charts and is on track to become the fastest selling album of the year. To me, Hail to the Thief is equivalent to a case study in the HBS Review: the RIAA had a hypothesis and this news totally and completely blows it out of the water. It's the 21st century, RIAA, and you can't stop progress. Embrace it...don't fight it.
Update by The Rust One June 17: Sen. Orrin Hatch wants the government to have the power to destroy computers which illegally download files. Since computer sales are slow, is this just a ploy to boost the technology industry? I would argue that 75% of computers would have to be destroyed under Hatch's plan.
posted by Lazy on 6/16/2003 07:42:00 AM |
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The Boston Globe today has an excellent article which questions the idea of the work week. Is it too long? Is it too short? Should overtime hours be allowed to be converted to flex time off, which would be a great help to workers with families? As an employee in the mortgage industry, in which we often work long hours (like, overtime every day) and are underpaid, I appreciate the fact that scholars are questioning the theory behind the bulky, traditional work week. The first part of this article also gives us a quick history on how the standard work week evolved.
posted by The Rust One on 6/15/2003 11:53:00 PM |
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National ID Shirt? PC World reports that new technology may soon be placed on the tags of your clothing, and many other goods, in order to track inventory. Of course, this type of technology is eerily similar to a universal bar code which will identify each individual, their recent purchases, their bank account status, etc. This should freak out privacy advocates like myself. If you've seen Minority Report and cringed at the scenes where retinal scanners enable advertisements to personalize their message instantaneously, than this should cause for similar concern. Of course, the makers of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags claim that the technology will only be used for help in stocking shelves. The last sentence of the article made me chuckle, as I do indeed think certain CEO's will be cackling with delight over this technology. Luckily, the technology will be on the tags, and not in our retinas. Therefore, I only have to rip the tags off my clothes, not rip my eyeballs out, a la the crazy drug dealer in Minority Report.
Thanks to... Cardinal Ximinez.
posted by The Rust One on 6/15/2003 09:58:00 PM |
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This month's Atlantic includes an excellent book review on a book about the economics of baseball. Since I got my degree in economics, and am a huge baseball fan, this article was right up my alley (and I'll pick up the book, as well). The review was more about baseball and the strange hold it has on diehard fans like myself, than it was about the book. If you're a baseball fan, you'll love the author's words. If you're not, maybe it can help you understand the passion of baseball fans, or maybe it will make you think we're total weirdos. I hope you enjoy. I'm back to watching my Red Sox, which I am able to view inexplicably through Extra Innings, even though I didn't buy the package this year. Hope no one from Adelphia is reading this...
posted by The Rust One on 6/15/2003 03:43:00 PM |
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How much does a Senator make? Here's a list of the assets owned by the Senate leaders. It's interesting to see that lifelong politicians for the most part earn less money on the side than do leaders who came out of the private sector.
posted by The Rust One on 6/13/2003 04:03:00 PM |
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Slate has a most excellent piece on the Sammy Sosa bat-corking incident and the media barrage that followed. The media made Sammy's image so squeaky clean. Why, then, be so upset when the image is tarnished by the same people who created it?
posted by The Rust One on 6/11/2003 11:51:00 PM |
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When I first received the e-mail below, I was very skeptical. I was sure that the "advertisement" I was about to see was going to be either a joke or a hoax. But it may just be the best advertisement I've ever seen. Even if every word of this e-mail is a lie, and the ad was computer generated, or controlled by some other force, it would still be a really amazing commercial.
> This is some pretty cool stuff..
>
> New Honda commercial in the UK.
> Very important that you understand: There are no computer graphics or
> digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time
> exactly as you see it. The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes,
> something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the
> whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the
> time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six
> million dollars and took three months to complete including a full
> engineering the sequence. In addition, it's two minutes long so every time
> Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough
> dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it is fast
> becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda
> executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free" viewings
> (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!). When the ad
> was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately
> without any hesitation -- including the costs. There are six and only six
> hand-made. Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers
> disassembled two of them to make the film. Everything you see in the film
> (aside from the walls,floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts
> from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was
> shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing
> computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found
> out it was for real. Oh. And about those funky windshield wipers. On the
> new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to
> start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet.
Here's the ad. Hope you enjoy.
posted by The Rust One on 6/11/2003 10:20:00 PM |
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Abolish what? From the Slate (recent) archives, an interesting piece on the history of the filibuster. Also found there is a strong argument to get rid of the electoral college as well as the Senate. And they make some damn good points, too. Ravenwood (who's site I haven't read in a long time, and after glancing at it today, remember why) has argued that state legislatures should once again vote for Senators, which would keep federalism alive, give the states more power, keep checks and balances in place between the states and the federal government, and keep voters more in tune with local elections.
posted by The Rust One on 6/10/2003 01:03:00 AM |
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A Yankee victory next year? No, not the New York Yankees, the New England political Yankees. Candidates from New England haven't won the Presidency since JFK, could the curse of the Bambino affected them too? Do voters vote regionally? Hopefully, Howard Dean will stop the losing streak this year, and we'll bring some action back to Pennsylvania Avenue.
posted by The Rust One on 6/07/2003 12:17:00 PM |
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Considering that Sammy Sosa has been my favorite ballplayer for probably 10 years now, I hope that Rob Neyer's take on the bat-corking incident is the correct one.
posted by The Rust One on 6/05/2003 04:35:00 AM |
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Stop Media Oligopoly I received this e-mail from United States Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) the other day:
Dear Friend:
Thank you for contacting me regarding media diversity. I
appreciate the opportunity to review your comments.
I share your concerns regarding the upcoming release of revised
media ownership rules. What is so troubling is that the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is releasing these
changes without giving Congress -- or anyone -- the opportunity
to review them. These changes could shift the structure of our
media marketplace and severely limit the diversity of media
outlets.
You will be pleased to know that I have, along with several of
my colleagues, written to Chairman Powell of the FCC expressing
our concerns surrounding this process. As a representative of
so many California constituents and companies that could be
affected by these changes, I feel it is imperative that we be
given time to review and discuss any proposed changes.
Thank you again for contacting me on this important issue. For
future reference, we are not able to respond to every message
sent to the email address, "senator@boxer.senate.gov". For
your convenience, you may send messages through my website,
using the form available at
http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.html .
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
Ted Turner, who as a large shareholder and member of the board of a large media company who profit from the proposed rule changes, stood up for freedom and made this ballsy statement on the matter. Will the FCC listen to the cries of the people? Unlikely.
posted by The Rust One on 6/02/2003 06:52:00 AM |
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I want answers!!! Where's Osama and Saddam??? Even the "editorial director" at one of the largest media outlets in the nation is asking this question. While we're on it, where are the weapons of mass destruction that were the sole justification for a legitimate war in Iraq???
Post Script: A very good Slate article asks the same question.
posted by The Rust One on 6/01/2003 03:29:00 PM |
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I took this picture during a trip to Europe while visiting my good friend Paul. He has posted some pictures of my trip here and here. Also, check out the rest of Paul's awesome photo album. I originally forgot to include our pictures of Tinturn Abbey. They are my favorite.
posted by The Rust One on 6/01/2003 04:51:00 AM |
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