Frosty Wasteland
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
Another loyal reader captures the utter devastation.
Keep those powdery images of destruction coming and I’ll post ‘em!
Archive for March 1st, 2007
Winter Time Fun
Thursday, March 1st, 2007The snow is so deep that I can’t open the doors to the house to get outside. If this keeps up I am going to have to climb out a window…a window on the second floor. Jared welcomed us to the real world, no way dude. We live in the real world 24 / 7 / 365. Like, totally real.
You poofters who live west of the great plains are the ones who don’t live in no real world.
Colorado Springs? Fundamentalist koo koo land!
Boulder? Hippie retirement community.
Santa Fe? Crystal worshiping freaks!
Albuquerque? Permanent oxygen deprivation induced psychosis at 5000 feet.
Phoenix? Old people kingdom!
Salt Lake City? If you can drive from winter to summer in less than 30 minutes, that’s ain’t real dude.
Las Vegas? Please.
San Diego? Summer never never land.
Los Angeles? Hollyweird.
San Francisco? Liberal koo koo land!
Portland? Depressing leaps from spring to fall and back to spring.
Seattle? The potential to be killed at any moment by tsunami or lahar gives the place an unreal feeling.
Living in Minneapolis prepares one to live anywhere out west with ease. It’s real here.
Those guys who live out east? New York, Jersey, Philly? You guys are crazy real. I couldn’t hack living out there.
Bored?
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
Take your car out for a drive around the Twin Cities. I had to go pick up Baby Smithers from day care a little while ago.
Holy crap.
We have gone without a real winter for so many years that people have forgotten how to drive in this stuff. It’s unbelievable. I don’t even know if I can really even call what I witnessed “driving”. More like barely controlled sliding, slow speed crashing, panic-stricken-death-grip-pant-wetting attempts at steering.
You slacks in California have no idea. You get a little rain and it’s a 20 car pile up. Six inches of snow and you would all be in the ditch in less than a minute, guaranteed. Especially you Frazer, you can hardly even ride a bike.
Photo courtesy of a loyal reader. If you have a view from work or home that shows a good view of the white and fluffy devastation send it on and I will post it up.
Tomorrow I’ll be reporting about how bad my back hurts again.
Driving a Taxi vs. Filling a Prescription
Thursday, March 1st, 2007I wrote about Muslim cab drivers who refuse to carry alcohol or service dogs in their cabs a couple of months ago.
A question to those who came to the defense of the cab drivers in this situation: Do you think drug store pharmacists should be able to refuse to fill a birth control pill or “Plan B” pill prescription due to their moral or religious beliefs?
What’s the difference?
This seems like the same issue to me. Do your job or go find another job to do.
The very definition of incompetence
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
In 1994 North Korea was very close to being able to build atomic weapons using plutonium. Sabers were rattled, everyone got super hyped up, there was talk of war. The Clinton Administration entered into negotiations with North Korea to shut down their weapons production and place it under international inspection in exchange for fuel oil shipments and help in building nuclear reactors. The “Agreed Framework” was signed on October 21 1994.
The Republicans took control of Congress in the general elections of 1994 and began stalling tactics on the Agreed Framework. While the North Koreans began to get frustrated that the U.S. end of the agreement was not being met in full, by the year 2000 the funds were in place to begin construction of the reactors. The power plants were set to go online by 2003.
By October of 2002 the Bush Administration had decided to take a hard line towards North Korea. The Administration claimed that North Korea had begun a new weapons program to enrich uranium. North Korea denied that they had began such a program. In November of 2002 fuel oil shipments to North Korea were halted. In December of 2003 construction of the reactors was halted.
One month after work stopped on the reactors North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They kicked out the weapons inspectors and restarted work on the plutonium weapons program that had been dormant for nine years. The Bush Administration, distracted by war in Iraq, let the situation fester for three years. On October 9 2006 North Korea tested their first successful nuclear weapon.
Now, just five months later, U.S. intelligence officials are doubting whether a North Korean uranium program ever even existed in the first place.
So, in summary, because of a uranium weapons program that may have never existed, the Bush Administration goaded North Korea into pursuing work on a weapons program that had previously existed. This has allowed a totalitarian state to join the “nuclear club” making negotiations with this state much more difficult, if not impossible.
This is a perfect example of the quality of work that we have enjoyed since January 20 2001.
It’s a screw-up that staggers the mind. And you don’t even need to know this new information to know that. Even if the claims were and are true, it was always clear that the uranium program was far less advanced than the plutonium one, which would be ready to produce weapons soon after it was reopened. Now we learn the whole thing may have been a phantom. Like I said, it staggers the mind how badly this was bungled. In this decade there’s been no stronger force for nuclear weapons proliferation than the dynamic duo of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.
War of the Wurds
Thursday, March 1st, 2007Tygart pointed out that the USADA did not have the right to publicly comment on pending cases, and that this put the institutions accusing the athlete in a difficult situation. “We were painted as the bad guy by a one-sided PR campaign. Our rules don’t allow us to comment, and we follow those rules. As a result, we’re erroneously perceived. The reality is that we simply have the integrity to do our jobs and follow the evidence where it leads.”
Boo hoo.
This imbalance may soon be over, as one of the proposed revisions in the World Anti-Doping Agency code, which will be considered at WADA’s meeting in Madrid in November this year, would allow anti-doping officials to respond to negative statements about the arbitration process that are “directly attributable” to accused athletes.
This is heading in the wrong direction.
I came down hard on Flandis for bringing his doping fight into the public arena in order to raise cash for his defense. I am even more troubled that WADA or a national anti-doping agency will have the ability to respond in the public arena.
I don’t not believe that there is anything to be gained by drawing the public into a doping fight. As I have stated previously, it is not the public that is the final arbiter of a doping charge. Allowing the escalation of a media battle regarding a positive doping test is not going to make it more or less likely for a doping charge to stick or be dismissed. It should be the evidence and the merits of the case that determine the outcome.
Instead of giving WADA the right to respond publicly they should put the clamps down on both the athlete and the federations/agencies regarding a doping charge. It should be “no comment” until all the judgments and appeals are finalized.
Once the outcome has been finally determined everyone can say whatever they want. Until then everyone is reacting with less than all the necessary information. And yes, before you mention it in the comments section, this applies double to opinionated bloggers who shoot their mouths off without having all the info (like me).
