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26 August 2008

Calling Harrison Bergeron

9 year-old pitcher not allowed to play in 8-10 year-old little league team "because he's too good." Story here, and detailing the requisite follow-up legal action here.

Money line:
Jericho ’s pitches are so fast and accurate that league officials and some
parents feared their kids weren’t able to play freely, league attorney Peter
Noble said recently.

I was watching the Incredibles this weekend, uh with my daughter, and this story brought back this dialogue:

Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.

Title comes from this (excellent) story by Kurt Vonnegut.

25 August 2008

Obamanomics

Not that I really needed another reason, but this very lengthy delineation of Obama's economic plan also precludes any possibility of voting for him.
If time allows a more substantive critique will follow, but for now:

History has shown that free markets aren’t so good at, say, preventing pollution or the issuance of fantastically unrealistic mortgages.
--Is pollution better or worse in Russia, China, North Korea? Was it better in East Germany or West Germany? I work in the title insurance industry and the free market has done a pretty good job of affording mortgages to people who qualify for them. There have been problems to be sure, but the market adjusts to these problems. There will be far fewer no-doc negative amortization loans in the future than there were in the last ten years. No government regulation is necessary to effect that.

Increasingly, the income-tax system becomes a way to transfer money to poor families. ...the essence of his market-oriented redistributionist philosophy (though he made it clear that he doesn’t like the word “redistributionist”).
--As I noted elsewhere, I was under the delusion that taxes were a way to provide revenue to the government to provide necessary government services (as to the federal government, those specified in Article I, Section 8). It is not the the responsibility of the federal government to take money from the one to give to the other in the interest of fairness, good tidings or under any other rubric.

There's a treasure trove of nonsense in this piece, not least of which is the complete lack of serious criticism or analysis from the Time's "economics columnist."

the Hoff

Doesn't seem to want to go away.

I love this:

In my travels round the world I have always been surprised that no matter where I go people recognize and know me, from Europe, Australia and India to the Philippines and the Zulu Nation in South Africa. This got me thinking... I realized that while two people from two entirely different countries and backgrounds may seem to have nothing in common, the only thing they might have in common is me... So I decided to start a network where people from across the world might come together and get a conversation started over me. Where it will lead, I don't know but the world would be a better place if everyone talked a little more to each other...

the Narcissism is just staggering.

14 August 2008

Common Words

Try this.

My mark, 31 of 100. Ugh.

I could give a hint, but I won't.

Pun Intended

This is in honor of my brother:

1. Two antennae met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does thistaste funny to you?"

7. "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'" "That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome." "Is it common?" Well, "It's Not Unusual."

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says toDolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't believeyou," says Dolly. "It's true, no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10. DejaMoo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn'tfind any.

12. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted,"Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I know you can't - I've cut off your arms!"

13. I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other andsays "Dam!"

16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire inthe craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can'thave your kayak and heat it too.

17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standingin the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse."But why," they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

18. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

19. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate verylittle which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he sufferedfrom bad breath. This made him... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

20. And finally, there was the person who sent twenty different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Great stuff. Nod to Jonah Goldberg and his wonderful readers.

UPDATE:

Did you hear about the midget fortuneteller that escaped from prison?
The newspaper headline read, "Small Medium at Large!"

Do you know how Descartes died?
He sat down at a bar. Bartender says, "can I get you something?'
Descartes said, "I think not," and vanished.

11 August 2008

Isaac Hayes

Rest in Peace.



His finest work.