London can only be described as exactly like the time I ate a bowl of rabbits.

This is what I mean about American complacency and its relation to ignorance. The following is self-evident to nearly everyone not living in the U.S.:

"Beginning in 2000, newly elevated President Vladimir Putin restored Russian stability by concentrating political power in the Kremlin, curbing free expression in the country's media, and consolidating economic power in the hands of the state. (The tripling of oil prices over the last four years has made his work much easier.) This forceful reimposition of order has earned Putin a 70-plus-percent approval rating. Broadly speaking, Russians have chosen the order that flows from authoritarianism over the chaos they believe was generated by ill-considered attempts to impose Western-style democracy." (article)

Many people in the U.S. would argue with you until they were blue in the face that the Russians do have a democracy simply because they can vote. They cannot understand that you can freely choose authoritarianism (see: Hitler) just as easily as you can vote against it.

Wait, didn't Sir George say we were going to Mars? Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran - it's all the same as long as they don't have nukes. He must've figured Martian bacteria must have developed nukes by now, so it's safer to invade the moon.

What is most upsetting is that we're holding people to two different sets of standards for free speech based on age. How is it that a minor has any less right to voice an opinion, however controversial, than an adult? If anything like the situation at this high school occurred at the university level, it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. That is unfair and hypocritical, and yet it is being seriously argued as appropriate by Ken Starr.

I rail on the American people in general for being ignorant in general, but nothing is 100% applicable all of the time. If you wonder why a President who was impeached continued to remain popular, it's partly due to the obvious bias of the people doing the impeaching. That's why no matter how much Bush caters to his radical base, he'll never convince most Americans that stem cell research is morally reprehensible – it's just too large a hunk of horseshit for people to swallow.

These are exactly the types of paradoxes that stymie most American workers – perform better by working less.

This is why I like Taoism and love reading Lao Tzŭ's masterpiece, Tao Te Ching (particularly Stephen Mitchell's translation – absolutely brilliant).

Also, in case you hadn't notice, irony has been recently redefined.

This, however, is just damn funny.

What is most disturbing to you:

- the fact that Mormon underwear looks like something from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange,

- the fact that our constitutionally secular nation is hyper-fixated on candidate religion,

- or that the Mormons have an entire website devoted to their undergarments (I've left the link text for effect), http://www.mormon-underwear.com ?

PS - my favorite part of the Slate article linked above:

"Romney's faith is of particular concern to evangelical voters who make up the GOP's key voting bloc—some of whom believe Romney belongs to a cult."

The evangelicals think his religion smacks of cultish tendencies? Spectacular. I don't think I've had enough compassionate hypocrisy just yet today, let's go for one more.

How about righteous indignation at something which displays the degradation of morality within society. Yes, by golly, we are not going to stand idly by and just allow the truth to be told – these blasphemes must be censored for the greater good!

Wait, it's quite likely no evangelicals read that because Silicon Valley is the modern-day Gemorrah. Duh! Let's just blame the liberal media! Yeah, so liberal they failed to make an issue of the well-documented connections between this current unethical Bush administration and the Iran-Contra fiasco. Media bias is not defined as asking pointed questions at a press conference, no matter how much the inept Bush giggles or condescendingly tries to side-step the queries.

Does anyone else notice that? This so-called "average Joe" president is unbelievably smug whenever he talks to the press. I'm sure the idiots not watching at home are probably thinking "yeah, that's it Georgie, you stick it to those Blue-blooded liberal pansies!" Oh wait, these are the same geniuses that need to be told in excruciating detail how driving slower and less often can reduce America's oil dependency, advice which they promptly ignore because they're just one person.

Anyone can complain while in the U.S. – I'm thousands of miles away and it still gets my goat every day! I hope North Korea nukes you to your senses America! You're on notice!

Darwinism strikes again!

Awesome!

... on a related note, Iran has submarines? Not that I care about the excuse, but still, wtf, eh?

The following style is, in a nutshell, why I am such an avid fan of Slate:

"If we had wanted our country to be run by James Baker, we had our chance. He was interested in running for president in 1996 but discovered that his interest in a James Baker presidency was not widely shared." [article]

Oh, I'm sorry, your answer is incorrect. All answers must be stated in the form of an '-izzle'.

The only consolation after Michigan's loss to Ohio State: a 3-point margin of victory signifies domination like 2 percentage points give a "mandate."

It's like they work at my office!. They even published a handy guide to sexual harassment ethics in the workplace.

I feel like my nonsensical writing talent is in danger of being pwnd by spam poetry:

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Man, that is deep. It is so true that "yourself doing is void warranty problems," I've run into that situation many times before!

Many people say there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Yes, well, there are some minor ones I happen to like.

Also, some conservative sites keep railing on Rep. Joe Murtha. Granted, the guy made a pretty big mistake, but let's review what the arguments would be if he were a Republican:

- This happened 25 years ago, give it a rest! The fact that it's in the news proves the liberal bias of the media.

- He was never found guilty for any wrongdoing.

- It was a mistake he made early in his career; getting embarrassed like that would make him more ethical because he learned the hard way what a mistake like that can cost him.

And so on. Feel free to add any other excuses that would be used by the GOP were it one of their cronies.

In case there was any confusion over the definition of either "fair" or "balanced", leave it to that bastion of moral integrity, Fox News, to set the world straight. I guess they perceive their organization as being fair in dishing out anti-liberalism, thus balancing the "liberal" media.

Right.

The Dutch are officially nucking futs. Chess + boxing? Brilliant!

Not that this isn't whack either.

Wow ... let the brainwashing begin.

Wired News on e-Voting Paper Trails

I don't understand how anyone can claim that neglecting redundancy in something as critical as voting is a bad idea. This isn't even an argument:

"They're adamant that few voters will actually look at the paper record, negating its usefulness. During a test of paper trails last year in Nevada's primary and presidential elections, election observers estimated that fewer than 30 percent of voters bothered to examine the hard copy."

The usefulness of the paper trail does not lie with the individual voter, it's having the ability to verify the election results. Don't take it from me, take it from Kim Alexander, the founder of the California Voter Foundation:

"'It gives voters the opportunity to verify their vote, but it also gives election officials a meaningful audit trail to verify software vote tallies, and it's that latter purpose that has made the paper trail a no-brainer,' she said." [emphasis added]

This is an equally pathetic argument against paper ballots:

"Critics also say the printers will jam, break down or run out of paper, creating more labor for poll workers. And they argue that an election involving numerous races and candidates would produce an unwieldy paper trail that would be time-consuming for voters to review and difficult for election officials to recount -- especially if the thermal paper used in the printers is tightly curled."

. . .

Let me repeat that - we can't verify the results of the election because the voting machine's paper is just too tightly curled. Sorry. Better luck next election cycle!

These arguments are absurd. They didn't make these types of bullshit arguments when we had no other option but to use paper, why is it all of a sudden such a concern? How much was spent on electronic voting machines and how much labor goes into their technical support? Furthermore, who can honestly say they prefer an unproven technology that is demonstrably insecure with no backup or a backup? I guess scumbags like Diebold have no problem saying such things ...

So who says they're sucesptible to manipulation? Hell, even Fox News covered the topic (albeit with a ... well, believably biased headline).

Also consider Ars Technica's guide to stealing an election, the State of Florida's refusal to return to Diebold, and Princeton University's security analysis for electronic voting. But of course you, my dear John Q. Public, you alone are smarter than all of those ivory-tower types scattered across the internet and, um, at Fox News, and you know your vote will be counted correctly. Well, you sure can go home smug in your smartness, especially if you're one of the 18,000 or so Florida voters whose ballots were lost this election cycle. Brilliant.

I don't understand - just because our brains function as a collective "DEE-dee-dee!", that is no excuse for our elections to be less transparent than, say, Kyrgyzstan.

These security issues with electronic voting have been well-documented since the 1980s, and yet we are still have not implemented appropriate checks and balances two decades later.

What is wrong with people? What's next, voting through TiVo?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Aha! Anecdotal support for my earlier missive on Fortune's oil article.

Also, Bush may not read newspapers (or online news, like the BBC), but maybe he watches The Simpsons. At any rate, I think I've discovered the secret of "cool".

Marge: I just don't understand what 'being cool' means. Kids, am I cool?
Bart and Lisa (look at each other, then simultaneously reply): No.
Marge: Well, I don't care. I don't care whether I'm cool or not ... and that makes me cool, right?
Bart and Lisa (bored, simultaneously): No.

You know what makes a nation cool? In how many ways it can subvert international treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as appears hell-bent on doing with India and Pakistan.

Actually, he probably never read the treaty because he used "new-cue-lar" in his Google search.

Download my new hit single!

this is the blog that no one reads
it is written by a guy named Steve
he, started writing it not knowing what it was
and he'll continue writing it forever just because

[repeat, with variations]

this is the blog that no one reads
it is written by a dork named Smeve
people started ignoring it, knowing what it was
and they'll continue ignoring forever just because ...

LOL!

Everything you need to know about why Bush was an abject failure at business:

"The president talked repeatedly about 'benchmarks' for progress in Iraq, using that word 13 times. But he did not discuss the consequences of the Iraqi government missing those targets. Such a question, he said, was 'hypothetical.'"

Logically equivalent to the exchange:

"But sir, what happens if people don't buy 15,000,000 widgets next quarter?"

...

"Aw, now that's just bollocks."

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
H. L. Mencken

Similar things could be said about the American political system. I just watched a piece on CNN where a conservative radio host accused Michael J. Fox of "exaggerating" his symptoms from Parkinson's Disease. I looked it up online when I got home from work, and who is responsible but that perennial imbecile, Rush Limbaugh.

I guess there really is nothing more American than shifting from a clear, logical discussion of the issues to baseless and absurd personal attacks.

But wait, there's more! That standard-bearer of professional journalism, MSNBC, had the following informal poll:


I think that each of those (approximately) 68,288 people should be indiscriminately injected with PD as retribution for their incomprehensible ignorance. What's next, ignoring the medical advice of "activist doctors"?

As a further lesson in coping with ignorance, Rush Limbaugh should be injected with the disease (what's another high for that druggie anyway?) and his degeneration should be filmed and put on YouTube.

Then again, maybe I should reconsider the severity of the punishment. I mean, since when has hypocritical intolerance not been a core American political and social value?

And of course: al-Qaeda bombs us because they envy our freedom.

On a humorous note, if this doesn't cheer you up a tiny bit and make you laugh, nothing will: How to Prank a Telemarketer

european attitudes toward sex, I

One of the women in HR had to leave our office's Friday night gathering at the pub because she had to go to a dildo party.

She told this to a group of 4 male co-workers, one of whom shied away from putting his dick onto a bar stool earlier in the conversation. At her challenge. After calling another one of the guys a pussy (all of this in jest of course).

I love it.

You don't have to be a prude to find this extremely disconcerting.

I do have to ask, however, why flaunting sexuality is still such a taboo, even in Europe (granted, it's Britain). Selling young children a variety of toy weapons is considered perfectly acceptable on the part of Tesco. If toys are so influential, then why are nations having such trouble recruiting volunteer armies? Certainly the children in the United States are exposed to more simulated violence than almost anywhere else on the planet, yet recruiting by all branches of the military is proving extremely difficult.

Let's follow that hypocrisy with a Catch-22. Consider for a moment that the toys are, in fact, extremely influential on future behavior. In the grand scheme of things, what's worse: having loose morals concerning whom you try to fuck or whom you try to kill?

Where do you want to demolish MSNBC today? How about this gem:

"The story of his journey to the political center sheds light on why control of the Senate and the shape of the final years of Bush's presidency may rest on a thousand or so votes tucked in the lush planes and hills between the mud of the Mississippi and the rise of the Great Smoky Ridge."

Are planes a cash crop for Tennesseeans? I don't recall ...

This is quite possibly the largest load of shit to come out of Iraq since we invaded.

Simply illogical.

"But what I can say is what the prime minister is aiming for is to have one voice reflecting accurate information about the statistics of those who are dying every day" - okay, who has it?

"So, the concern was that the Ministry of Health, which has had accurate figures to date, be the official source of the information." - okay, so the Ministry of Health has accurate information ... and you want whom to give the information? Oh, right, in order to avoid putting too much bureaucracy into the process, you've decided to add an extra, purely political layer onto the information:

"The leader of the Health Ministry in Iraq appealed to be allowed to continue supplying the figures to the United Nations but was turned down according to a subsequent letter from the prime minister’s office, Mr. Qazi’s cable said."

Hmmm ... and of course this has nothing AT ALL to do with the Republicans (because the vast majority of politicans who shaped the Iraqi government are Democrats, naturally) trying to minimize the damage that, gee, 3 years have gone by and we're still in Iraq and all these civilians seem to keep dying for no good reason.

Where logic fails, corruption fills the gaps.

I received this message earlier today:

"Blogger Problem

This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate.

Status code: 1-500-3

Please visit the Blogger status page or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance."

What if I don't want to notify an engineer? When have they ever fixed anything? :oP

I also found some excellent music on iTunes.

4 Strings - "Sunrise" & "Take Me Away (Into the Night)"
Mynt - "Still Not Sorry"
Ultra: iTrance 1 [entire album]

Sometimes life crystallizes into the briefest sliver of perfection. That was how I felt while eating and listening to "Satellite" earlier this afternoon.

Thought: the more certain you are about a particular theoretical stance, be it politics or physics, the lower the probability that it's true. Possibly. I'm not certain, but I think that could be the case.


... potentially.


I have no idea why I even bothered posting this.

Also, if you want insight into why the rest of the world thinks we are fucking stupid, take a gander at this impressively idiotic list of "fuel-efficient cars." High 20's to low 30's in the city? It's the twenty-first century! Numbers like that should be below, not even worth mentioning. The fucking Avalanche made the list!



The AVALANCHE!!!

omfg!!! YouTube like totally stabbed there own eyes out over this kid's video! it's just like that Edipus guy we lerned about in class 2day! I didnt think it was tru until Jon was all like "I red it on MSNBC!!"

(The story itself is quite hilarious, check here (their tag line is awesome).)

... and yes, those are nested parentheses, lol. Just like calc!

On an unrelated note, buying a new ball does wonders for your game (bowling, sicko). I went from bowling ~165/game to a 211, 233, 156 series. Well, actually the bowling is partially related (second cousin, thrice removed) to the above story: the weightlifting I did over the weekend caused me to tense up the final game and ruin my 600-series.

However, unlike unlucky Aleksey, I'll be back in top form next week :oP

Now for something totally different.

I subscribe to the philosophy of random acts of violence. Wherever Fortune senior writer Nelson D. Schwartz currently is, I sincerely hope he feels a tremor as I utterly demolished his half-assed article. Nelly, baby, this is for you!

No, I don't trust you, Fortune. Why? Well, for starters, you leave convenient gaps in your "explanation" - one which also contains unwarranted leaps of logic. In brief:

1) "...according to one Gallup poll, a lot of Wall Streeters wish they'd been in on the plot.

So what really drove prices down..."

Arguing from a hypothetical (brokers could've made money if they'd known!) anecdote is not justification (even though Fortune is not explicitly justifying, their syntax is such that it is dismissive of any real consideration for anything but the notion that conspiracy is silly). So if the government conspired to drop gas prices, it had to be to the benefit of brokers? Small fries in terms of political power for one, and for two - for any conspiracy to be believable, it can't be airtight. Brokers made money, Republicans elected, public duped, corporations keep from leaking info - it's too much. You can influence what you can influence, and although I'm certain nothing concrete was ever discussed, it doesn't need to have been when the energy sector time and again pours money into the elephant's coffers. Of course, since the current administration is keen on holding closed-door energy sessions, for all we know it could have been an explicit request from one old oil crony to another >wink< >nudge<.

2) Hurricane ... or not to cane.

Preying on the ignorance of the masses. If you truly take seriously the following supposition, that brokers en masse and against all common sense believed in a repeat of the 2005 hurricane season (which is given twice the article space as the other two reasons), then you are just the type to read MSNBC as an authoritative news source. You and I may be stupid enough to invest on such whims (and I've actually done quite well for myself investing on whims so far, lol), but a brokerage deals with these pesky things called probabilities. Yes, once a trend gets started its difficult to stop (as the article does mention), but to essentially lay the bulk of the blame on a dark horse instead of sound economics is yet another ploy to lull people into thinking the world really is a lot simpler (and a lot less subtle in its manipulations) than it really is. It's like a bad sitcom. "Oh, honey, the silly brokers across from me at work today were so trigger-happy they invested in gas because I farted. Guess your chili is really bringing home the bacon after all! Ha ha!"

Seriously, everyone, take a step back and think of how you behave at a basic level. Say you have a friend, Sally, who like roses. You know she likes roses because she has a rose for an icon on AIM, she sends e-mails with rose patterns, and you've seen her get excited about receiving roses in the past. Does she need to specifically e-mail or IM you to tell you that she would like roses on her birthday? If she does, then by god you really are that stupid, but my guess is that no matter how well you know probability you could surmise that roses would, at the very least, not be a bad option.

I'm a giant multinational oil conglomerate with interests around the world, but I'm based in the U.S. due to historical reasons and, because the PR fallout would be too bad, I cannot overtly relocate to a lower-tax environment (but you can bet your ass what assets I can put there are in tax-free offshore accounts). Now, I know Americans are largely sheep with ADD. I'm pulling in so much profit I can't buy jets for executives quickly enough to spend it all before the market turns down again. All this cash, where to invest. Well, I already contribute to Republican campaigns because they're oh-so-kind to me come tax season. What if instead of an outright contribution that would get a lot of negative press we just ease our prices a little? People broadly associate Republicans with energy, so lower energy prices would be an issue most probably positively associated with Republicans. The money we lose in profits, which we already have so much of we're lighting $1000 cigars in the mouths of $1000/hour hookers with $100 bills, is just like the money we set aside to contribute. Also, if we time it juust right, we can a) do it long enough beforehand to make it look like it was purely market forces and we had nothing to do with it and b) ensure there is enough time between the drop in prices and the election so that people remember the decline but don't stop to consider its convenient timing.

Now, the above has a lot of conditionals in it, but it's all predicated on a simple thing: recognizing a trend and hedging your bets on a likely outcome. I've heard in more than one source that "easing tensions around the world" have contributed to lower prices. LOL. Not only are there the same amount of reports coming from Iraq, more from Afghanistan, and renewed violence with Palestine, but NORTH KOREA NOW CLAIMS TO HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Are you fucking kidding me? Is it really easier to swallow the media's enormous pile of bullshit than to believe that there may possibly be collusion between the oil-drenched members of this administration (and it's "no-holds-barred" sleazeball architect, Karl Rove) and the energy sector in the United States? Anywhere else in the world you would get a reasoned debate considering both sides of the issue, but in the good ol' U.S. it's "aw, shucks, whoduvthunkit?" Or, even if it were ever exposed, would people change their view so that the default would be that the corporation should be assumed to be a giant, guilty ball of sleaze (ahem - Enron, WorldCom, stock back-dating, HP, etc.) as a basic premise on which all debate is predicated?

3) Innumeracy + smoke and mirrors = THE FLEECING OF AMERICA (redux)

"The switch in Goldman's basket of commodities had been previously announced by the firm, but that didn't stop the conspiracy theorists. "Hmm, what a coincidence, luring Goldman's top dog to take a HUGE pay cut by becoming Treasury's top dog, and then Goldman Sachs makes this unexpected decision, serving to dramatically drive down gas prices," said the Grey Matter, a liberal blog. But the grassy-knoll crowd didn't bother to crunch the numbers."

Okay, I hope you see where I'm going with this one. "The switch ... was previously announced ..." - would it really have killed the article to state when? No, but it may have provided more fodder for conspiracy if you knew it was March instead of August, for instance. [I will try to find out]. Why does the date matter? If it was early in the year, then it would've already had time to pan out in the marketplace well ahead of the decrease in gas (late summer). If it was announced in, say, July, then Fortune's argument is more valid.

"But the grassy-knoll crowd didn't bother to crunch the numbers."

The following explanation about long and short positions is irrelevant for two reasons. Most importantly, it still assumes that for the conspiracy idea to have validity the brokers must somehow profit. Look, these companies (energy sector) dump millions into campaigns every year. If their partners at some brokerage make a 3.9% return on their investment instead of 4.2%, in exchange for another two solid years in which to lobby friendly Republicans into screwing you and me a little harder, that's a sound fucking investment. There is no practical upper limit on the value of political capital of that magnitude (Republican trifuckta of Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch).

Furthermore, the article again plays on the layperson's ignorance. There is no "number crunching" required for collusions of the nature conspiracy theorists are describing. The issue is itself collusion, which is often done person-to-person and not in Excel spreadsheets. Also, the numbers are irrelevant for a third reason - the guy who stood to benefit from this (Goldman's top dog) had left the industry. Who cares if the people he left behind get slightly screwed? Also, why would someone in a brokerage take a government job for less pay? Have you ever heard of anyone getting into investment banking for altruistic motives? "I'm only going to make money for good capitalists!" It's not law, people don't begin with unattainable ideals of righting the system. Investment bankers get into it for one reason and one reason only - they love the high of making fast-paced deals and getting exoirbant compensation. They don't get into the system with grandiose ideas of changing it, they get into it with grandiose ideas of what it can do for them as individual and, hopefully, absurdly wealthy capitalists. Again, there is no need for crunching any numbers, this is a human attribute for reasoning known simply as "common fucking sense".

4) Discrepancy

Now, I'm not arguing that this guy should not have made money, but consider:

"[Barrowcliffe] has managed to eke out an 8 percent gain for the year by avoiding bets on which way crude would go, instead playing off the spreads between different products, betting on how, say, heating oil would move if gasoline prices went down." (emphasis added)

Okay, he (Barrowcliffe) then goes on to say how he wasn't "tipped off", which is again relying on the absolutely idiotic notion that for the conspiracy theorists to have a case (not a true one, just one which merits further discussion) the brokers had to benefit. If you can believe that one businessman would willingly screw another (or a whole host of others, including some of his buddies, but a whole lot of his competitors and enemies), then you have just refuted Fortune's argument in this article in its entireity. That's pathetic journalism and even more pathetic that most people aren't even going to give more than a cursory glance at the headline and sub-headline (which, gee, make a pretty convincing case in lieu of the lack of logic underpinning the article).

Now the discrepency is this: Fortune insinuates that heating oil is being pegged by investors as a steady investment, as below,

"Right now, the latest bet by traders is for a normal winter - if there's a sudden cold snap before Thanksgiving, expect a bump in crude."

Now, given the nature of the markets, it's best to pad any type of forecasts with a lot of ... well, there are technical terms for it, but it's all bullshit. Phrases like "right now", "latest bet", etc. serve as a safety net if Fortune wants to go back and say "we didn't predict anything, we just reported where people thought the market would move." Fair enough. But if you want to accept Fortune's authority on the lack of any conspiracy theory, as well as the subversive way in which they insult your intelligence, follow the second link below the article: Big drop seen in winter heating bills. Fortune just sorta kinda told you something in a tiny blurb about the market, to justify its case against a conspiracy, yet it then writes an extensive article for the opposite view.

5) It's the fina-al insu-ult!

"Ironically, the current price for crude - $59 a barrel - is roughly where oil insiders have been predicting it would be if it weren't for all that hot money flowing into commodities."

This one almost seems like it could be completely true, no bullshit (except for the abuse of the word "irony"), but again your feeble intellect is being demolished by a logical fallacy (in this case, arguing from the antecedent clause). To put it simply, it hinges on your understanding of a simple vocab word: therefore. Logically, "If A, then B. A, therefore B."

What that means can be illustrated in countless examples. Say I am hungry (pre-existing condition, but necessary for purposes of illustration). I tell you "If you have an apple, I will eat it." You pull an apple from your pocket, and I eat it. If A (if you have an apple), then B (I will eat it). A (you have an apple). Therefore B (I eat it). Simple, eh? (not 'A', lol).

Now, arguing from the antecedent is a fallacy as follows. "If A, then B. B, therefore A." You have to understand that just because B depends on A, A is NOT the only thing that can cause B. If B happens, it does not have to have any bearing on A. It can, but does not have to.

Same example, except reverse the order. Instead of saying "If you have an apple, I will eat it." I say nothing to you (there is no A yet). We are both standing next to each other in silence, and you pull out an apple (condition B, possession of apple satisfied). Am I going to eat it? I haven't said anything, therefore I'm not bound to A. Maybe I am am hungry and have thought of eating it, but if I have yet to specify condition A, then there is no way that your action is directly tied to condition A.

So, going back to this example, Fortune is using this type of logical fallacy to make their argument. To refresh your memory, Fortune is saying that because some "oil insiders" thought the price should be where it is today, that nullifies any conspiracy theory. Not a bad supposition on the surface, except that Fortune (the sticklers about crunching numbers, remember?) doesn't offer any indication as to how many of these "insiders" are being referenced. Is it even a majority? I would bet not, considering that for every report I read about oil "peaking" I could find another that was going ga-ga over the prospect of $100/barrel oil prices [will reference this, because of course you ADD sheep forget things within a week of their published date].

So, Fortune is playing the stupid game of "Well, there were some people who said that condition B would occur, and now it has! This, like, totally proves our point!". If you're digging back through past data looking for support, chances are you will find someone, somewhere who "forecast" today's situation (hence why some people get lucky, like Barrowcliffe, and others lose a fortune, even though they are participating in the same market). Different forecasts, different investment choices, different outcomes. If you go back, then it's child's play to find support for *any* investment choice. Look also at what Fortune did with how it worded the stuff about the heating gas markets - it has readily available quotes to show that no matter which way the market goes, up or down, they were able to "predict" where the market would go.

This is why real, good traders aren't reading the freebie bullshit that gets passed off as news and/or critical analysis to all of you.

BAA! BA - wait, I forgot where I was going with that ... oh, Madonna adopted a negro child! Mobilize the national guard, the hard-working Africans are going to steal the Latino's jobs!

(On a side note, this move towards the "second-generation web/internet", exemplified by streaming media, is going to make it harder and harder to specify, much less locate precisely, sources of news. I had to search extensively to actually find a link to the video and not a list of videos which you had to then search to find this particular piece. Luckily, and this is where being a pack-rat comes in handy, I have my own archived copy, but I believe it's too large to host directly on the blog and I don't have anywhere else to put it right now.)

As Stephen Colbert had with "truthiness", I thought I had the market cornered on "pointlessnissity." Perhaps the term, but not the idea behind it. Damn.

In a related development, dead rats now mean that climate change is bunk, according to the Discovery Channel. Oh, and who owns Discovery Channel? Disney. Disney is a completely apolitical entity who freezes hiring based on Republican election victories because that makes good business sense.

Convincing people climate change is a myth also makes good business sense, if you trade in Republican political capital. And yes, one tiny article on the Canadian Discovery Channel website is hardly going to convince a lot of people, but when someone argues that climate change is debatable they have a well-known source (for the layperson that is).

Really, people, if you can't think at least do yourself a favor and read Manufacturing Consent.

in a word ... baa!
In most of Europe, "calories" are listed as "energie" on most food items. Sounds like a lot more positive, yet Europeans aren't nearly as rotund as most Americans. Guess that shows the failure of negative reinforcement, assuming that 'calories' carries with it a negative connotation. Doesn't quite sound as good to say "I'm counting energies" either.

he worked hard for no money
Something that's been rattling around in my mind for a while - most people today deride communism as a derelict means of societal or economical management. Yet few people, I think, realize that the acknowledged founder of the communist ideal, Karl Marx, literally 'wrote the book' on capitalism, Das Kapital (still studied today for its insights), before rejecting your reality and substituting his own. So it wasn't like there was this crackpot with a half-assed system for wealth distribution - he (and Engels) knew what they were talking about inside and out (arguably as well or better than many of today's capitalist economists).

What is amusing is that the very income disparity we're seeing today become ever broader was exactly the mechanism by which Marx predicted capitalism would basically self-destruct. I guess it remains to be seen how much further we can push the system. I wonder if the ueber-liberal non-discriminatory hiring practices make it okay for one to hire communists into capitalist workplaces (though I guess that falls under 'political views').

I'm not advocating communism per se (certainly not in its currently practiced form of Communism), only suggesting that people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss its core tenets. Capitalism, as a worldwide phenomenon, is often justified with the analogy that "a rising tide lifts all ships" (implicit support of global warming?), but the problem is that it also floods the low-lying seaside communities. That tide could also swamp your dinghy but leave, say, a multi-million dollar yacht unaffected.

working out ... in a gym (part II)
So this is another aspect of European culture not found in America: sexual attitudes. I was watching a commercial for some magazine while running on a Precor machine, and what was the commercial about? Women's nipples randomly popping out in all sorts of social settings (restaurant, the gym, in the park, etc.). I mean, full nipple, not that Janet Jackson half-covered with a piercing shit, lol.

Also, I took a walk around the men's locker room. There are 2 sauna rooms ... and they are accessible to both men and women. In fact, there are "instructions" for cleaning each other before going into the sauna (I'm going to take my camera next time because the illustration cannot be done justice in mere words) and also instructions that the man would do well to give the woman a massage. This is, by the way, fully in the nude for both sexes (the illustrations are quite clear about that). Imagine a world where two nude members of the opposite sex can interact without sex/rape/violence/etc. I mean, Dubya would be flabbergasted.

Also, on a random aside, there is a petting zoo a few hundred metres from my house. No real purpose, someone just augmented the park with a cow, some goats, etc. Completely fucking random.

Some observations about Holland:

lowlands
The Dutch are once again the tallest people in the world (on average). My Dutch buddies joke that it's because nearly the entire country is below sea level, so by natural selection the tallest tend to be able to breath when the country floods.

working out ... in a gym
The fitness club I joined not only allows payment exclusively via bank account (no checks, credit cards, or even cash), it also requires 3 visits before you are allowed to use the facility on your own: an 'introduction' about how the machines work and what is available, a fitness test (I have 11.5% body fat, which is pretty good), and a 'first training' where the specific workout plan devised for you at the fitness test is codified (they suggest optimum weights for machines, reps, etc, depending on your level and goals). I find it both a bit of a hassle, as a lot of this I already know, but it is pretty cool to have a personal workout guide developed specifically for you. It is also a lot more expensive than the U.S. - 40-50 euros/month is typical (40 is actually a discounted rate).

hospitality
The first week I was in my house, this guy knocks on my door around 2300 and asks if he can "use the SIM card from an old mobile." I'm like "umm ... I don't have an old mobile, sorry."

Yesterday a guy rings my doorbell and asks if I have any coffee or "some caffeine." When I tell him I don't drink coffee, he looks at me like I'm putting him on.

I have nothing against being open and all with your neighbors, but I do not think I need to have an American worldview to find some of that behavior more than a bit odd. Bringing someone a pastry because they just moved in is a nice gesture; mooching off someone after they've been here less than a month is just strange.

Extensive piece in New York Magazine on Stephen Colbert.

(If you're wondering, I nailed the Coulter/Colbert comparison. It isn't hard to discern, especially if you actually watch his show.)

I've come to the following conclusion: people tend to take excessive photographs of themselves in social situations to convince themselves they are having a 'blast.'

So the other night my washer/dryer combo goes a little haywire. Not knowing what to do, or how to interpret the code "E10" flashing where the time normally displays, I just shut it down and restart the cycle. Twice. It finally washes. Once done, I check this little square of metal that appears to be a door and viola! - one very full and very wet lint trap (in this photo it's already been cleaned):


However, if you look closely, you may notice something peculiar ...


Apparently this lint trap moonlights in Amsterdam's RedLight district. ZING!

Well, now we know: soon means just under 2 years.

I'll re-post my old mblog entries here. Also, feel free to browse some of my posts on DeviantArt. It's been a while since I've uploaded anything new, but I'm sure I will soon.

Random thought for today: I went to Pizza Hut in Scheveningen (near the beach). They have a salad bar and whatnot, but you can only go once. No free refills (of course). The waiter saw me walking up to the salad bar and said "only 1 plate." I told him in the U.S. you can get all-you-can-eat, and he responds "yes, but then for 2 euros you could eat the whole thing."

Now, you could actually eat the whole bar, as it is quite small (though the glass would be impossible to digest), but what I don't understand is the lack of customer trust. You say you're afraid the customer will eat too much, but then you have open-air restaurants where you are just expected to go up and pay after you eat. Sometimes the servers don't even remember what you've ordered and you have to tell them. Hell, you could just walk away.

How is that not worse than someone possibly eating too much of your food?