Is it just me, or is TV getting better?

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Alaska

I’ve mentioned before that my wife and I don’t watch that much TV. Generally I’ll skim the NewsHour, but if there’s a good dramatic series we tend to find out about it after it starts, so we generally wait for the DVD so we can watch several episodes back-to-back without waiting a week for the next one.

Well, thanks to Chris Byrne, we found out about Burn Notice in time to catch the pilot episode, and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying this series. Hey, it’s got Bill Bruce Campbell! [thanks Darrell for the fix!]
I also just came across something called Saving Grace — which looks like a detective drama set in Oklahoma City or thereabouts — that has some great writing and acting. It doesn’t hurt that it stars Holly Hunter and that Laura San Giacomo shows up often. It also takes religion seriously. I’m not a religious fellow myself, but that is certainly a different approach for Hollywood. Anyway, the first season has four episodes left to go, so we’ll get the DVD when it comes out.
Now, I suppose this all means that TV is actually getting worse, considering the vast amount of programming on the vast number of channels that we choose not to watch because it’s utter crap.

Side note: during football season, our TV habits change, because my wife watches football almost 24/7. We tried to watch part of the Colts game last night, and Rivrdog’s criticism was spot-on. It was the worst coverage of a football game I’d ever seen. The three yahoos in the booth are not only terrible, they’re so un-photogenic that it would be better to just show the playing field and never cut to the booth.

ESPN had better change some things before the regular season starts, or Monday Night Football will actually start to lose viewers.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

In case you missed it

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I know I nearly did.

Constitutional Law Professors Eugene Volokh and Jack Balkin discuss the 1st and 2nd Amendment on video.

Kewel.

Posted in Kewel!, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

While I hate to question their judgement

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I’m not so sure that this is the best use of union campaign dollars. The monetary return just isn’t there.

Bob Krumm writes

Having grown up in Cincinnati, the Delta Queen, is an icon for me.  The last “real” steamboat in America, complete with boiler and sternwheel drive, was homeported there when I was a kid.  But next year may be the ship’s last.

The culprit?  Congress.

In 1966 Congress passed the Safety at Sea Act, which required that all passenger ships carrying more than 50 overnight passengers, be made of wood metal [Thanks to the alert eyes of many readers who pointed out my glaring error].  The Delta Queen has a double steel hull, but its superstructure is wood, including oak, mahogany, and teak.  To compensate, the wood decks are coated in a fire retardent material and there is a sprinkler system throughout.

Because of those protective measures, and the fact that the Queen is never more than a mile from shore, Congress has always granted her a waiver from the all-steel construction requirement.  The exemption renewal again passed through the House this past year, but died in the Senate.

Why?  Because of a renewed interest in safety?  No.   Because her crew isn’t unionized.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, ”would not support the exemption unless the Seafarers International Union gets behind it.”

He also points to this post at The Jawa Report

Historical attractions are a much better way of spending taxpayer dollars than just about any pet issue that any politician, (D)umbass or (R)etard, can think of. This is not pork. This is, once again, the selling of a national historic item. The USS Sequoia barely survived its journey. The Delta Queen may not.

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RNS Quote of the Day 08/21/07

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Alaska

We’ll take a momentary break from the Reagan Diaries. This one’s just too good to pass up.

Robert Novak: Well, I think Bill Clinton was a minor league liar compared to Jimmy Carter. Carter would just lie for the sake of lying. He was absolutely incredible.

Novak’s making the rounds of the various publicity outlets promoting his new book. I read it recently and it’s an absolute gold mine for political junkies. He mentions that his original manuscript was thousands of pages long and completely unpublishable. I sincerely hope he donates that original script to whatever university library ends up with the Evans & Novak papers, because the anecdotes he published about politics and political figures are priceless — and that means there are many more, just as priceless, that were left unpublished.

Oh yeah, and he has lots and lots of instances of Carter lying in his book. The hypocrisy is almost laughable — at least Bill Clinton didn’t say “I’ll never lie to you.”

Novak.jpg

Buy the book, you’ll like it.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

Pardon the Parenthesis

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Phil Kadath

It was either those or commas, and there would be entirely too many of them if I used those exclusively.

Here’s the deal:

My latest “new boss”, in her infinite wisdom, hired an incompetent. A Trust Fund baby, who hadn’t held a job in four years (and had partied away the majority of the funds) with no computer skills (it took her four weeks to remember how to get into her work Outlook program without asking someone, and yes, it was just a one click operation from the Toolbar icon) no map reading skills, little knowledge of the layout of the area, no alphabetical look-up skills and had never worked a communcations base-station (probably the easiest part of the job).

She could type better than I could (which isn’t difficult). But since she was also a work area slob, I’m not even willing to give her full credit for that.

Next, my latest “new boss” had to justifiably fire the semi-competent my previous “new boss” had hired, and whom myself and the guy who does my old job finally trained to competence (she was a partier and finally ran out of “coming in late credits”).

This caused the incompetent (who could see the writing on the wall as to how, after seven weeks of the best training, she’d never get the job down to where she could function) to quit.

Now, the guy who does my old job is going on vacation leave for the week and, because I refused to go back to dayshift, they have a person who used to kind of do my old job at another division filling in for him. I am the backup, who will be staying late to make sure the day at least starts off decently, and will then arrive early to try and end it civilly.

While to overtime will be nice, I’d much rather be home.

All this adds up to me posting later in the AM and quite possibly not a whole lot. I will be thinking of y’all (so that I don’t end up in a holding cell after throttling someone for an extended time) and posting what I can. David is getting back into the swing after a rather busy patch at work himself, so it seems as though you’ll be getting tag-teamed.

Lastly, if anyone in the Seattle area with a living, breathing work-ethic who can read a map (and possibly generate one), knows at least a little of the local layout, can speak English clearly, use the alphabet, get along with Teamsters, doesn’t mind some hefty OT at the beginning and the rotating management, and can use a PC to do more than just read this here interweb is in need of employment, I know of a multi-national corporation who pays above the industry standard and has some rather impressive benefits (after 90 days, of course) who has postitions open.

Apply to my email.

Have a good week. I know I’ll be attempting to do so.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Not exactly what I’d call crumple zones

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Phil Kadath

Even though “crumple” is exactly what they do. They just do it a bit too much.

Back around the end of June I posted this on the topic of what the Democrats emmisions legislation would do to the safety of US autommobiles. In the post I pointed out that the Chinese are producing cars that are eco-friendly and that they are marketing them in Europe, with plans to do the same in the US in the near future.

The post also contained links to the pitures of what these cars looked like after the German equivalent of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety got done ramming simulated vehicles into these Chinese cars. The results, for those who missed the pics, were not pretty to anyone but a sadist.

Lee at Right-Thinking found the video of these tests.

While all the dialoge is in German, a translation is not necessary. Basically, everyone in the cars, including properly secured children, is dead. Any hit, any realistic speed, from any angle.

If the prices of these cars, which is reportedly very attractive, gets people to buy them, it may the last bad decision they ever make.

And remember, this is what will happen to each and every car on the US market by 2020. Maintain your current vehicle with care. Your future purchase could cost you dearly.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 3 Comments

If they’d Have Just Left It Well Enough Alone

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Phil Kadath

In California, a group called Californians for Equal Representation has sponored an inititive to change the way the state divides up it’s electoral college votes.

Called “The Presidential Election Reform Act”, it would divide up 53 of the 55 EC votes to the candidate who won each of the Congressional Districts and then the final two to the actual state-wide winner.

While this sounds as atrocious as it actually is, and quite probably Unconstitutional as well, it brings a warmth to my heart because of the reaction from those on the left.

You see, the CfER group was started by a rather influential Republican lawyer, and in using recent history to watch how each Californian CD votes, this plan could prove a windfall for the Republican Party candidate.

And, in their usual fashion, lefties high and low are fuming about it.

Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker labels it a scam.

The FireDogLake bloggers are similarly shaking in their Birkenstocks while simultaneously attempting posed fuminations at the idea of changing the Electoral College (they’d much rather just get rid of it altegether).

But, of course, they’ll never mention that it was their side of the political ailse who most recently demanded that the EC was old fashioned, and my personal favorite “Not in line with our democracy.”

Makes you wonder just how much sleep they got in their US History classes.

Posted in Too Stupid to Live | 1 Comment

Phony Baloney

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Phil Kadath

If you listen or read any of the drivel the left spews about John Edwards, you’ll see that they have fully bought his altruistic pap. It is almost as if the idea of a man of his financial stature even speaking about the issues he does is enough to land him the title of “Helper of the Poor” and no amount misdeeds seem to be enough to shake his acsent to the lofty post in the leftie mind.

Or are there?

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.

The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.

This one is going to cost Edwards, financially.

Shortly after this story hit at the end of last week, he stated he was going to divest his portfolio of these investments and give money to those whom this company has foreclosed or is about to foreclose on.

If he doesn’t come up with the cash rather quickly though, which he hasn’t put a date on as of this morning, it could also start costing him credibility.

The lefto-sphere has been putting on a full court press over the subprime fisaco and this story won’t stay under the radar and off their blogs for long. In fact, I’m not exactly sure how long they can ignore it. I know I’ve dropped it in a couple of key demographic blogspaces and it has yet to be deleted, so we’ll just have to see.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | Leave a comment

Save the Date — August 28

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Alaska

The Brady Bunch wants to make that a day for anti-gun activities.

Not so fast, say we civil rights advocates. On that day, the plan is for everyone who owns a gun or supports the 2nd Amendment to go to a dealer and buy either ammunition or a firearm, or both.

I first saw this on David Codrea’s blog. He has links to other blog-mentions. Check it out, and mark the date!

Not only that, there is a flyer to pass out to the gun shops to ask their participation, and a flyer to post in the store.

We need to get the word out, so letters to the editor of your local paper are an excellent idea as well.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day, 08/20/07

Posted on August 20, 2007 by Alaska

From the Reagan Diaries:

Sunday, April 19 — Easter

A beautiful Easter morning. In the afternoon Rev. Louis Evans & his wife called and brought us communion. They made it a most meaningful day.

Watched some TV in bed and saw Gloria Steinem rake me over the coals for being a bigot and against women. Either she is totally ignorant of my positions which I doubt or she is a deliberate liar.

–Ronald Reagan

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment