Wow... just... wow...

Michael Moore was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening, and I must say it was... well it was scary. First of all, he cleaned himself up. He shaved, lost the hat, combed his hair, and he was wearing a suit. He said, "If you can't beat 'em, you might as well look like them." There was a small part where he cracked a few seriously light-hearted Leno-style jokes about Bush. He even joked about himself. It almost seems like he's taking the advice of the bloggers. He didn't flip out about Kerry's loss or about how Bush stole the election. He acknowledged that the Democratic party didn't have anything to offer the people other than that he wasn't Bush. He was downright humble. When Leno asked him what he thinks happened in Ohio, he actually concedes, "I think Bush got more votes."

Now, the second part wasn't quite so humble. Leno mentioned Bin Laden's tape, where he refers to the "My Pet Goat" scene in Fahrenheit 9/11, and Moore really just sort of dodged the question and brought up that the media didn't show the whole "My Pet Goat" footage from Fahrenheit 9/11. Of course, he doesn't mention it was primarily because it was several minutes of dead air. He leaves you to make your own decision. For the most part, I would honestly have to say he was reasonable, but he did make it a point to plug his book by reading a passage.

I have to mention this thing, that I caught. He says he got 3,000 letters from soldiers in Iraq, that he threw together to sell to people (aka, his latest book, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?"). But remember, even if those came from 3,000 individual soldiers, there are what 100-200 thousand soldiers there? I forget the figure at the moment, and I can't seem to find a statistic on the net. I want to say there's 200 thousand there, but there may only be 100 thousand. Regardless, say it's only 100 thousand. The letters he got, if they're all from individual soldiers, represent 3% of the soldiers there. If there are more than 100 thousand, then it's less than 3%. He's still on the fringe.

But, I'll get back to the good. He didn't mention "Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2" or "Sicko." He didn't mention bogus voter fraud allegations in Florida or Ohio. He didn't whine and complain. I gotta give him credit for growing up, at least for his first appearance since the election. I really want to say that I can finally drop it, and let Michael Moore go. But I'm hesitant to accept that he won't be back. We'll see.

Update: It's rather obvious that it's all an act, and a thinly veiled bid for an Oscar nod. But I'm still going to say... whatever. While his website still makes mention of voter fraud in Ohio, he told a bigger audience that "Bush got more votes." Good enough for me.

What's the difference between me and you?

This article came up on Yahoo! and it reminded me of one of the big differences between Westerners and the Islamic fundamentalist nations that sponsor and support terrorism.

Nichols, 49, is serving life sentences without parole for separate convictions in state and federal courts for his role in the bombings. Juries in 1997's federal trial and the state trial this June deadlocked over whether he should be sentenced to death.

First of all, if a nation like pre-war Afghanistan had found a terrorist in their midst that bombed an American building, they'd be applauded. We catch them and punish them.

The other difference is that Nichols assisted in the killing of 168 Americans and we have juries "deadlocked over whether he should be sentenced to death." If someone in Iraq decided to merely speak out against Saddam, he would have been fragged then and there.

Just a thought. Now, I have no ill-feelings toward Muslims. I'm not a racist, and I'm not trying to make a broad generalization. This isn't about the so-called "little people." It's about the many Islamofacist dictators who are exploiting their beliefs and blaming the West for all of their own mistakes, spawning anti-American sentiment in the process.

On the Effectiveness of the U.N.

Iran's being a whiney little bitch about it's uranium enriching centrifuges, but don't worry. We have the mighty U.N. to take care of them...

Still, refusal by Tehran to drop demands to exempt equipment from the enrichment suspension could prompt a much harsher resolution that could include the threat of U.N. Security Council action.

I want to get a resolution from the U.N. Security Council. I hear it tickles.

Seriously, I want to see how this pans out. Maybe the ultra-left will figure out that diplomacy doesn't work the way it really should, and sometimes you have to put someone in a hurt locker to get them to stop what they're doing. Though, I sincerely hope this amounts to nothing, and diplomacy will prevail, I don't have a whole hell of a lot of faith in the U.N. anymore.

I'm already sick of it

Alright, people. You all drive like you've never seen snow before. Almost all of you are from Minnesota. You should have been expecting this shit two weeks ago. I can't even stand 12 hours of snow anymore... and this is going to continue through March? Heaven help me.

$#@%!&!?$#

Leave it to the weather man to make one accurate prediction a year. And it's the first snow. Excuse me while I go drive around town in it. This is going to suck.

Stupid Southpaws...

Why didn't I find this page before? If I'd have seen this, I probably wouldn't have been so adamant about spreading the word about how Bush wasn't as bad and Kerry wasn't as great as the liberals wanted to think. Their 11/1/04 prediction was 100% accurate. Nifty. Too bad some insane moonbats still won't accept the results. Get over it already, children. Some of you already are. But then there's Ted... I saw him at Kathy's last night and I said "Ted, I haven't seen you since the election... [Ted shakes his head] Come on, unity, man." and offered to shake his hand and he wouldn't shake hands with me. Ted, again, I'm sure you won't read this... but honestly, you're pretty much the one olive branch to the ultra-left for me... don't act like a little bitch. But what can you expect from someone who believes the "9/11 was staged" conspiracy theories?

Oh, I'm working on a debunking of the "States-with-higher-IQs-went-for-Kerry" hoax. However, while looking for information on it, I found out there are already some debunkings of it and other ones. I found out that the state average IQ list was based on iffy methods, basing average IQ on average income (which has a tendency to go together, but it doesn't take into account how the income/cost of living is higher on the coasts). I also found out that my theory was correct, that the reason the IQs are lower in the south is in part because of the Democratic voters there. (Southern blacks are unfortunately not as well-educated as blacks in the north, and blacks tend to vote Democratic.)

I managed to find a better list of state average IQs based on better methods (ACT/SAT scores, taking into account % of population tested and the like). The range is a lot closer together, and it actually indicates some potentially damning evidence for those Kerry voters who think they're all smarter... D.C. is actually near the bottom of the list, and D.C. is basically a single county with a highly populated city that was very lopsided for Kerry, and most counties with highly populated cities were the ones that were very lopsided for Kerry... so one could draw conclusions about the fact that counties that went for Kerry have lower average IQs than ones that went for Bush. One thing I noticed while number-crunching: it appears that Minnesota had the highest voter turnout, with approximately 74.1% of the 18+ population making it out to the polls (unfortunately my figure was of all people over 18, so I couldn't take into account felons who were ineligible to vote - and it was also the population estimate for 2003... not their projection for 2004... which was hidden in a complicated mess of .DAT files that I didn't care to mess with).

But all I'm really trying to do is prove to some nitwits that everyone has their own opinions and those opinions are just as important as others, and people who voted for who they thought was the better candidate are not stupid. The real stupid voters on both sides are the ones that put the campaign stickers on the back of their car and drive 5 under the speed limit in the fast lane. Those are the real threats to modern society. Not Al-Qaeda. We need to take them out. War on Bad Drivers, I say. I'll stop writing now... I'll leave what I was going to add for another post.

Black Friday

So... my very first girlfriend got married today. That's trippy. At the reception, my mom said I need to find a nice girl so I can get married. My reply was as follows: "Finding a nice girl is like finding a magnetic monopole. The math says it has to exist, but no one's found it yet." A little physics humor for Black Friday.

Fudge the Po-lice

I got a speeding ticket last month, and something occurred to me. I had to check to be sure, so when I took out my checkbook to write out the check for it, it was confirmed. The last time I wrote a check was for the speeding ticket I got last March. I guess I don't use my checkbook very much, eh? I also got both tickets under the same circumstances. I was stuck behind idiot drivers and was speeding to get around and away from them. If the cop had been there a minute earlier or later, they wouldn't have pulled me over, because I was only speeding for about 10-15 seconds. Well, this time was because some idiots were playing their stupid driving games that the people on highway 14 like to play. They would be over the limit, but not keeping up with traffic. That is, everyone is going 75, but they're going 71 in the fast lane. So the dipstick finally changed lanes and I sped to get around the nimrod, because when he changed lanes, he sped up too. Dumbass. Thanks, jackass. Similar thing happened with the other, except it was just two morons going under the limit on North Broadway, sitting right next to each other, clogging up both lanes. Then when one of them went into a turn lane, I was already ticked, so I zipped out in front, just to get out of there and not strangle traffic anymore. Both times, there happened to be a cop in the oncoming lanes. I didn't argue, because I'm sure the dudes wouldn't see it my way. It's called proactive driving, not pussy driving (aka driving scared, aka "defensive driving"). This turned into a long post for something that was originally just an amusing anecdote. I'll stop ranting about things and leave you with my opinion that all speed limits should be raised by 10 mph, the fines should be raised, and then officers should no longer give a 5-10 mph leeway for speeding. That's it.

Like you cared

I was at the studio today, since 8 AM. I remembered something I pondered once, but never told anyone about. Simply that the datarate for CD audio is 44.1 khz, or 44,100 hz and sometime a while back I was thinking about it for some reason that's beyond even me, and I came to realize that 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 5 x 7 x 7 = 44,100. The datarate for the CD audio format is the squared product of the first four prime numbers. That is all for now. Hopefully this won't be my last words before I fall asleep at the wheel and kill 3 siblings on their way to a wedding or something on "highway" 14 (that happens, what? monthly now?)

And then along comes Samus

Ok... so today wasn't a great day for my wallet. Seriously, my wallet flipped me off and was bitching all the way home. See, I had to buy Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season 3, totalling just under 80 dollars. Oh, I just remembered I have to get my controller back from Irvin. MP2 has a multiplayer mode that sounds insane. Lord... I'm not even out of Los Santos yet and I already bought another game. Eff it. School can wait. I can do my homework anytime. I got the video games right now... or is it the other way around...

Most eXtreme Tax-Simplification Challenge

I heard about this yesterday morning, but I didn't make a new post about it. Here's an excerpt from the speech that President Bush gave at the rally here in Rochester. (I was actually there, too, so I heard this first-hand.)

Speaking about taxes, this tax code of ours is full of special interest loopholes. It's a complicated mess. It's a million words long. The American people spend six billion hours a year on taxes. I think we need to do something about the tax code. In a new term I'm going to bring Republicans and Democrats together to make this tax code more simple and more fair for the American people.

The president is already fittin' to make good on this promise with a big ol' sweeping tax reform, and our own local representative, Gil Gutknecht is one of the guys leading the charge.

"Think of a world where there is no income tax, where you get to keep everything you earn and you pay the tax man when you buy stuff," Gutknecht, R-Minn., told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Legislation co-sponsored by Gutknecht would scrap federal income taxes and replace them with a 23 percent federal sales tax (in addition to existing state taxes.)

Oh glorious day. Sure, 23 percent sounds steep, especially if it's in addition to state taxes, making our local tax 30 percent. But, think about it... You won't be getting money taken out of your paycheck, and you won't have to pay-in at the end of the year. Rich people buy more expensive things, and often more of them. They'll pay more. The poor will pay less. And if people save their money, they'll pay less than someone who makes the same, but spends it all. It also looks like big businesses will be losing their little loopholes they grew so fond of, and they're none too happy.

Business groups are voicing concern that President Bush’s proposed reform of the tax code will do some of them more harm than good.

[...]

Many industries have well-established preferences built into the tax code that a broad reform effort could jeopardize. The real-estate industry and nonprofit groups, for instance, have benefited from tax deductions for mortgage interest and for charitable donations.

But... I thought Bush only sided with big business. Guess maybe not. Now some could argue that this will be bad for charities, which is the first thing I thought of. But honestly, if all these celebrities really care about the charities they're handing their tax dollars over to, they can afford to keep giving, can't they? We'll just have to see which ones actually care about their charities, rather than look at them as a source of tax deductions.

That's what you get, dumbass

Anyone who watches CSI religiously, like my parents, got a bit pissed last Wednesday when CBS interrupted the final minutes of the show to report that Yasser Arafat had finally kicked the bucket. Seconds after the credits ended, the news came on... reporting that Yasser Arafat had finally kicked the bucket. We apologize for the fault in CSI:NY. Those responsible have been sacked.

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News has fired the producer responsible for breaking into "CSI: NY" last week for a special report on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death, a CBS executive said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The news report came during the last five minutes of the forensics mystery last Wednesday, prompting viewer complaints and leading CBS to repeat the show Friday.

Too bad my dad had to go to Wisconsin, he missed the repeat of the episode. Oh well.

My god is it really 3:45? I guess I got so excited that I can post so MFing easily with this thing I just went to town. I already have something else I want to post... I'll do it tomorrow.

T-storms, come back, I didn't mean to hurt you, baby

I guess there are weather machines, but I was looking in the wrong place:

New York, Nov 16 (IANS) An India-born, US-based scientist has proved that large-scale installation of windmills to replace conventional sources of energy may cause drastic local weather changes.

According to a newly published study by The Journal of Geophysical Research quoted by the New York Times, a wind farm with thousands of wind turbines also removed an enormous amount of energy from the air.

Remember that animation I made back in July? (Scroll down the page to July 21 and click the link there... Freewebs appears to be fickle about outside links to images). It was put together with a few screenshots from a Doppler radar animation on The Weather Channel's website. To the west of Olmsted county, smack dab in the center of Dodge county, is Dodge Center (clever name, eh?). They have a windmill farm just south of town with 46 turbines that was set up over 2002 and 2003. I can't seem to find any real statistics on the trends of precipitation or severe weather activity in Rochester, so this is purely anecdotal... it seems to me that for the last few years, the most severe weather has come from the north. Usually, thunderstorms seem to come from the west-southwest into Rochester, but if it comes from a different direction it's a much ballsier storm. I wish I could find data on this, but the NCDC (like most other potentially comprehensive data websites) seems to either hide their data, charge for it, or compile it all into meaningless graphs for impatient people like myself to skim over and ignore.

Of course, I know this sounds like a stupid, Michael Moore conspiracy theory (except mine is less contrived, and all the facts given are in-context and true), except I know that if it is in fact true, it's not a conspiracy to make thunderstorms less frequent (or to make billions of dollars for Halliburton). It's just something to ponder, and if it is true, it's just another little reason to move somewhere where there aren't windmills triflin' with my favorite weather condition.

It's that easy?

So... I've been doing this pseudo-blog on my website... you know the one... And whilst dorking around on Google, looking for free stock footage (which isn't easy to do, when every stock footage website says "royalty-free" on it), I found this free blogging thingamabob. Yay. Now I don't have to cut and paste a dozen lines of HTML to make a new post.

So... here's the new blog. I'm probably going to save that old blog and use it strictly for site changes, like in the gallery and all that stuff that doesn't change. In other words, I probably won't use it that much, if at all. Now I have a place to bitch to high heavens that's a hundred times easier to upkeep. It even archives everything for me. And it's free. I'll still keep that old site, of course. It's just that now it will only be my portfolio... and it'll still have my tangents, too, so it won't be completely tirade-free.

Speaking of those tangents... I see an Ad Nauseam on the horizon...