10.30.2007 | 12:57 pm | Politics
The Calafornia fires are being blamed, of course, on GW: Global Warming and the president, who, as we know, is to blame for all the global warming in the world. The underbrush is dry from GW, they say, so it burns hotter and makes it difficult to put out the fires.
But wait…why is the underbrush even there? Before man started managing forests, fires were nature’s way of cleaning out the underbrush. Slow burning fires would burn off small trees, shrubs, fallen branches, dead leaves and debris. Old hardy trees usually survived fires intact. It’s an important part of the natural cycle. Fire is so much a part of the natural process that some species of pines, such as the Monterey Pine and Pond Pine, produce tightly sealed cones that only release their seeds when there’s a fire.
But now, every time there’s any kind of a fire, we (i.e. the government) runs in to put it out, no doubt singing “Here I come To Save The Daaaaaaaaay” en route. The fire is quelled and everyone feels wonderful about themselves, but the brush never gets burned off. “Environmentalists” fight attempts to remove the brush, sometimes making it illegal for homeowners to even clear their own property. So the brush accumulates. And accumulates. And accumulates. When it finally does catch fire, there’s so much dry, easily burned fuel that it gets out of control very very fast. Old, magnificent trees that survive normal fires are destroyed by the intensity of the flames, all because of man’s “help.”
And then, of course, it’s blamed on Global Warming. Or the other GW. Or both.
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10.28.2007 | 11:01 pm | Amusing
From the Department of Really Bad Design:
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10.21.2007 | 7:00 pm | Poker
When you’ve won the pot without going to the showdown, how often should you show your hand? Approximately never.
Poker is a game of incomplete information. The less people know about your playing style the better off you are. Every time you reveal a hand you didn’t have to you’re giving your opponents free information on how you play.
I used to show kings and aces when I won a tournament hand without a showdown, to implant the idea that I only played solid hands. I thought this would make it easier for me to pull off a bluff later on. Then I saw other players doing it, realized it was a transparent and useless move, and stopped.
Last weekend, fairly early in a multi-table table home tournament, I folded a garbage hand that several people called. A king came up on the flop, and everyone checked to M, who went all in. The next to bet was his wife, who had a hard time deciding what to do. “I know him,” she said, “He’s got something.” She showed me her hand, a pair of queens. After thinking about it some more she folded. So did everyone else. He smiled and flashed his cards to the guy sitting on the other side of him. I caught a glimpse of them - garbage. It was a stone cold bluff.
About twenty minutes later I was in the big blind with a 9,7 off suit. Several people limped in, letting me see the flop for free. It came up K, 9, 5. Everyone checked to M, who said “I’m all in.”
I had just a few more chips than he did. If I lost this hand I’d be crippled and effectively out of the tournament. He smiled. I didn’t pick up on any tells, but his demeanor was the same as when he had bluffed his wife out of the pot. I said “You’re full of it. You ain’t got it. Call.”
Everyone else folded and we flipped our cards. He had a five in his hand. My pair of nines held up. I nearly doubled my stack and knocked him out of the game. It turned out that was a pivotal hand for me, giving me a chip lead to exploit. I finished third, in the money.
Someone at the table said “Wow, that was a great read.” I just smiled. I wasn’t going to tell him how I did it, how M had inadvertently given me the information I needed to beat him by revealing his hand to someone else. After all, poker is a game of incomplete information.
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10.20.2007 | 10:34 pm | Police State, Political Correctness, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
When Michael Graham took his daughter to the pediatrician for a routine checkup, he wasn’t expecting that she’d be grilled about his drinking. He didn’t expect the doctor would ask his kid if he and his wife got along well, or if either of them used drugs, or of he made his daughter “feel uncomfortable”, but that’s what happened. (Note, you can read the whole article by clicking on the numbers at the bottom of the page.)
He goes on to tell the story a five year old who was asked if her parents had a gun. When she said yes the doctor grilled her for more details; he wanted to know what kinds of guns the parents had, how many they had, and how they were stored.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the doctor then called the police and reported everything he had learned.
An errant doc? A nosy exception to the rule? Nope. These are not isolated instances. They are, in fact, required.
This policy document, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, establishes a policy requiring doctors to not only hound their young patients, but to question them about anything their parents do. The following are direct quotes from the policy paper:
“Pre-teens as well as teenagers should be interviewed privately during each office visit with the reassurance of confidentiality and a discussion of its limits. Even an apparently straightforward complaint such as headache or sore throat may be associated with an underlying substance abuse problem.”
“It may be helpful to begin with questions about the patient’s attitude toward use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs within his or her environment (home, school, and friends) rather than probing personal beliefs or habits.”
“Inquiry regarding the extent of tobacco, alcohol, or other drug use by peers and family should be a part of the routine history of every child who is seen in the pediatrician’s office.”
What happens when the kids get something wrong? When I was growing up my father had a beer with every evening meal. One beer, never two, and I never saw him drunk, or even tipsy. Yet, if I were asked, as a five year old kid, about Dad’s drinking I probably would have said “Dad drinks beer every day.” Of course, back then, pediatricians weren’t acting as the eyes and ears of Big Brother.
While it is reasonable for a doctor to make further inquiries if there are signs of abuse or he suspects something is wrong, this kind of fishing is unconscionable. Since this is official policy, parents should never leave their kids alone with their pediatrician.
Isn’t that sick?
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10.15.2007 | 11:16 pm | Amusing
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10.12.2007 | 9:05 pm | Junk Science, Politics
The Nobel Peace Prize lost all its value when it was given to Yasser Arafat for taking a brief break from murdering Jews. But just in anyone forgot how worthless it is, they’re reminding us by giving it to Al Gore and the IPCC.
I’ve already said most of what I have to say about Gore in this podcast and this article. But I’m making this blog entry to provide a place for you, the readers, to comment.
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10.11.2007 | 5:45 pm | Big Brother, Politics
“I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home” – Hillary Clinton
“New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, continuing to hit on economic themes in her White House campaign, said the government should do more to help people save for retirement, and is proposing an annual tax credit of up to $1,000 to help do that.” - The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2007
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.” - Alexander Fraser Tyler, 18th century Scottish historian, The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic
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10.10.2007 | 9:55 pm | Political Correctness, Junk Science, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
In a semi-free country like the US it’s difficult to impose tyranny in one fell swoop. It has to be done slowly, little by little, baby step by baby step. And it’s important that those first few steps seem reasonable.
The first anti-smoker law was passed in the sixties. It demanded smoking and non-smoking sections in airplanes. That seems pretty reasonable, and it was passed with little objection. If someone said “In a couple of decades this will lead to it being illegal to have a smoke in a bar,” everyone would have laughed at him. And if he said “In forty years this will lead to it being illegal to smoke in your own home” he’d have been written off as being batshit crazy.
This week the city of Belmont CA passed a law that does just that. If you live in an apartment or a in a condo you’ve paid for, your private property, it will soon be illegal to smoke in it.
Fellow citizens, how long are we going to put up with this kind of shit? What will it take to wake up the American Sheeple?
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10.9.2007 | 9:55 pm | Politics, Religion
The AP reported that Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter earmarked $100,000 of our tax money for the Louisiana Family Forum, which is headed by former political cronies. And what does this fine group do? They push creationism.
That’s right, our tax money is being used to finance an organization devoted to making kids stupid. And even these mouth breathers fail they’ll force educators to fight them, using resources and energy that could be better spent elsewhere.
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10.7.2007 | 11:27 pm | Pop Culture
Out of the 60,000+ podcasts out there somehow yours caught my eye. It looked interesting enough for me to add it to my podcatcher and download a few shows. Unfortunately, I’ve removed it from my subscription list, for one or more of the following reasons.
Your show is too long. I don’t have as much time as I’d like for podcasts, and I’m just not willing to listen to you for the hour and a half I could spend listening to six fifteen minute podcasts. I think there is a much shorter, much better show in there struggling to get out. As an experiment, try doing one episode that’s 1/3 the length to see if it makes it better.
You talk in a monotone. If you’re not excited about the subject, why should I be?
You laugh at your own jokes. A lot. As a solo show, an occasional laugh is fine, but you bellow at your own cleverness every single time you say anything you think is even slightly amusing. I hate laugh tracks.
Your production sucks. The days of great content allowing you to get away with lousy production are over. There’s more well-produced good content out there than anyone has time to listen too. Your whistling Ss sound like fingernails on a blackboard, your popping Ps are pathetic, and your three dollar microphone just doesn’t cut it any more. If your show were brand new I’d be a little more forgiving, but you’ve been doing this for a while now and if you don’t care enough about it to learn the technical end of your craft I don’t care enough to listen.
Your volume is all over the place. The first time I dived for the volume knob I was annoyed. The third time I skipped the rest of your show and deleted it from my podcatcher.
You use too many word whiskers. A few ums and aws are fine, but your show is so full of them I couldn’t pay attention to anything else. Your excessive use of “like” and “you know” makes you sound like a Valley Girl. (Last year I tried a podcast on Film Noir which was hosted by two people. One of them said “And, Uh,” in front of every sentence. I loved the subject enough to give it one more try a few shows later to see if they had improved. They hadn’t. The End, roll credits.)
You didn’t get to the point. You told me your show was about X, but you rambled on and on about all kinds of supporting crap until I got bored and moved on. (Point of Inquiry is a good example. They spend a good five minutes telling you about their organization, what the show is about, blah blah blah, and then they often play a promo! And it’s the same shtick every damn time. When they finally get to the content it’s a great show, but why does it take them so long to get to the point (of inquiry)?)
You didn’t get to the point II. You told me your show was about X, but you rambled on and on about your cat or your kid or your operation and I just lost interest before you got anywhere near the subject matter.
You put your own show down. Actually, I never subscribed because of this. Your show description said “Just a couple of guys hanging out. We’re not that good, but its fun.” If you tell me your show sucks I’m just going to agree with you without trying it.
You put your closing comments first. Sharing phone calls and e-mails is the best way to encourage more phone calls and e-mails. It’s an interesting part of the show for some people, but others find it dull. If you put it at the end of the show, where it belongs, people who aren’t interested can skip it easily after enjoying the meat of your message. But you put it at the beginning, so I just skipped to the next show on my list.
Looking for a podcast that avoids these errors? Try The Quick Hitts Podcast, the perfect complement to this blog.
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10.4.2007 | 4:20 pm | Junk Science
If you’re not extremely skeptical of statistical claims, you should be.
“SAGITTARIANS are 38% more likely to break a leg than people of other star signs — and Leos are 15% more likely to suffer from internal bleeding. So says a 2006 Canadian study that looked at the reasons residents of Ontario province had unplanned stays in the hospital.
Leos, Sagittarians: There’s no need to worry. Even the study’s authors don’t believe their results.” (Link requires free but annoying registration.)
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10.2.2007 | 12:33 pm | Junk Science
This article, first published in 1990, provides a clear explanation of what should and should not be considered “junk food”.
“The real definition of junk food (or, of any of its synonyms) should recognize the fact that the adjective is applied exclusively to food items that children, and especially teenagers, find appetizing. Thus, codliver oil, despite its undeniable greasiness and artificially added vitamins and preservatives, is not junk food, because children loath it. Cake, which children love, is, on the other hand, a non-basic (or junk) food, despite containing flour, eggs, milk products, fruit, and sugar (which, with the inexplicable exception of the sugar, are all individually classed as “basic” food items).”
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