Random notes from the past couple of days

Someone needs to add this to the guy's version that never was written of that book:

When the girlfriend you bought a car for, whose rent you've paid, who you bought a giant-ass fancy Bernina sewing machine for so that she could stop working at the gentleman's club and who you subsequently got a hernia for because she wanted the giant-ass fancy Bernina sewing machine moved, can't be bothered to show up to hang out with you before or after your hernia repair surgery, she's just not that into you. 

And your best friend who does show up and sticks around through the entire surgery and spends the night at your place to make sure you're OK and takes you back to the hospital in the morning because your catheter is blocked and is spending another night at your place to make sure everything is OK?  We've come so far with acceptance of gays that every doctor and nurse is going to automatically assume that he's your significant other and start asking him to make medical decisions for you and they're going to try to get him to learn to flush out your Foley and learn wound care for your testicle that's black and swollen to the size of a grapefruit.

Posted by: Alice H at 05:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Those Zany Japanese: Part 1,390,203

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 07:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Retirement Age

People have been talking about retirement at work a lot lately and somebody objected to increasing the retirement age and I though, "what a stupid fucking position."

Look at it this way, when Social Security was enacted in 1935 the life expectancy at birth was 61.7 years.  That means that more than 50% of people didn't live to be of retirement age in the first place back then.  Now, more than 50% of people will be expected to draw from Social Security for at least 15 YEARS EACH!

Now, if everyone retires at 65 and works approximately 45 years in that time, that means they will spend 35 years not contributing work but still consuming resources.  When the life expectancy gets to 90, we're talking about people spending fully half of their lives developing or in retirement. 

That's just crazy talk.  We just have to move the retirement age back as people live longer and longer.  After all, the idea of a retirement age was to give those no longer to work because of age the ability to survive, not to give everybody a 20 year vacation*. 

I propose we lock the retirement age to our best estimate of life expectancy or perhaps a bit lower than that.  After all, due to the way that is calculated, most people that make it past 25 also make it past the average life expectancy due to the diminishing effect of people dying at an extremely young age. 

Look, Social Security is the red right now and this is just the tip of the iceburg.  Either we raise the retirement age soon to something we can live with or, due to societal bankruptcy, it will be raised FOR us to a billionty. 

Fin.

* - Great if you can afford one but certainly not a government responsibility.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 03:58 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Finger puppies! Times Two!!!!!1!!1!eleventyone@!!!!

(from the WOW report)

And, FINGER PUPPY! 

OK, yeah, he's not a finger puppy, he's a fucking TOE PUPPY!, but it was just too perfect that both of these came up in such a short period of time.  Blame Chad980whateverthehellhisblognumberis.

Posted by: Alice H at 11:34 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Those damned photoshoppers

Ruining everything.  Can't we just have realistic models with all their flaws and body parts intact for a change?  They've already 'fixed' this picture on the original site.

Posted by: Alice H at 09:33 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I have no comment on this

Yeah, it's kind of a crappy thing to do, but such is business.  And there's no reason to keep your sales staff if you have nothing to sell.

Posted by: Alice H at 06:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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One sentence tells the whole story

This poor schmuck was born with three strikes against him.

One woman, who is an aunt to both the boy's unmarried parents, who are cousins, said his parents don't get along.

On a purely theoretical level (and assuming this isn't a case of an adult blaming an innocent kid for something he didn't do), I'm wondering what our three readers' opinion is on whether this boy could be rehabilitated.  And if he can't be rehabilitated, what should be done?

Posted by: Alice H at 03:50 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Even Rick Moran sees it...

The social contract between government and governed is collapsing in the US.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 09:51 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Fantasy Foozball

With great joy I remind you that football season rapidly approaches and with that the opportunity for some fantasy action!  I'll be the first to admit that the format of last year's campaign was flawed so we'll be trying some different stuff this year.

1st, we'll have a standard 12-person fantasy league and if that fills up, try a second. 

2nd, I'm going to set up a pick'em league so we can have as many morons as want to participate playing that.  Hopefully I'll have them both set up within the next couple of weeks. 

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:33 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Facebook Friends

I've apparently made friends with enough cool bloggers on Facebook to be suggested some pretty intimidating conservative personalities.  Victor David Hanson?

I think I'd be sad for him if he became my Facebook friend.  Sorta like I'd be against any club that would have me as a member.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:32 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Random thoughts on the Chevy Volt

As I'm reading things about the $40K rolling abortions, I can't imagine it's gonna do well with consumers, even hippies, because hippies already own Priuses, Chevys are American anyway, so they have no appeal to liberals to begin with.  I see one of two things coming down the pike, either regulatory schemes come down to try and force people to buy them, more gov't rebates, tax breaks and incentives to buy them, or this rolling hunk of crap is gonna become the car of government institutions.  My gut tells me that we're gonna see a loooooot of Chevy Volts sitting in municipal and state parking lots. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 11:43 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I LOL'd.

Ouchies.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:05 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Where the hell is everybody?

Hello? Is this thing on? Did the apocalypse happen while I wasn't paying attention or did you suddenly all get jobs?

*tumbleweed blows by*

Anyone? Bueller?

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:02 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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North Korean Website Compensating

This is pretty hilarious.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 03:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Afghanistan is not where empires go to die

One of the memes of those who advocate a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan is that historically the Afghans have never been conquered; that Afghanistan is “the graveyard of empires”. I have argued against this view in the comments sections of other blogs as well as here, most recently last year when Ralph Peters once again called for us to withdraw. Once again I must be a trend setter because now almost a year later Foreign Policy magazine has published an article entitled, “Bury the Graveyard” which advances the idea that the graveyard of empires meme is hurting our progress in Afghanistan:

The Victorian British and the Soviet Union, the story goes, were part of a long historical continuum of arrogant conquerors that met their match in the country's xenophobic, fanatical, trigger-happy tribesmen. Given a record like that, it's obvious that the effort by the United States and its NATO allies to stabilize the shaky government in Kabul is doomed to fail.

Look, failure is always a possible outcome, especially judging by the way things have been going lately. But if the United States and its allies end up messing up their part of the equation, blame it on their bad policy decisions. Don't blame it on a super simplified version of Afghanistan's history -- especially if you prefer to overlook the details.

…

One of those myths, for example, is that Afghanistan is inherently unconquerable thanks to the fierceness of its inhabitants and the formidable nature of its terrain. But this isn't at all borne out by the history. "Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a 'highway of conquest' rather than the 'graveyard of empires,'" Barfield points out. "For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody's empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C."

…

Unfortunately, popular views of the place today are shaped by the past 30 years of seemingly unceasing warfare rather than substantive knowledge of the country's history.

So, what does this mean as far as the current war in Afghanistan go? Well in practical terms probably not much. The COIN strategy that GEN Petraeus is likely to pursue is inherently based on the idea that a stable government (or more accurately a stable enough government) can be established. All that an acceptance of this view of history can really accomplish in the current fight is to foster an acceptance, among the political class, that it actually can be won, and I stick by that assertion. From the article:

I made my first visit to Afghanistan that same year (ed. 2001). The Afghans I met were neither xenophobic nor bellicose. What they wanted most of all was peace, and they didn't trust their own leaders to bring it. "We're sick of fighting. We hate war. We want to have a free election," one grizzled -- and illiterate -- warrior told me. "And let's have the United Nations come in and make sure it's fair, so the warlords don't interfere." I heard similar views from many Afghans.

Really the fight is ours to lose, but given the attitudes currently in existence in D.C. I think that we are well on our way to that outcome.

Posted by: chad98036 at 05:07 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Today? Not a good day.

Today I feel like the part where Meg says "You can't just die and leave me on this stinking Earth without you." But I'm trying to feel like this:



We forget, we all forget, how huge and amazing and miraculous the world is.  I am grateful for my life, I truly am. 

Posted by: alexthechick at 08:45 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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A question for the law talking guys

Does anyone besides me find it a little unsettling that the judge is taking so long to hand down a ruling on the SB 1070 injunction? It seems like if she was going to deny the injunction she would have had a decision on Friday or this morning. The fact that she hasn't released one makes me think she is really digging for precedent to justify the injunction.

Now some words of wisdom from Lionel Hutz (Your case won in 30 minutes or your pizza is free)

Posted by: chad98036 at 09:32 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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99% of heterosexual-leaning males agree

Christina Hendricks' body is exactly what you want to strive toward to attain a healthy body image.

Posted by: Alice H at 04:37 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I see many phone brickings in the immediate future

Apparently the Library of Congress has seen fit to exempt rooting your phone from the DMCA.  I'm not convinced that this means that it's OK in the eyes of the cell provider to do this - Verizon, for example, has maintained that rooting your phone is a warranty violation, and I think the feds don't really have the legal standing to interfere in a service contract that two parties have agreed to.

So would someone with some legal background care to weigh in on this?

(And yes, I'm aware I've sold my soul for a shiny gadget.  Feel free to give me hell for it.)

Posted by: Alice H at 12:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I heart Colorado

This is going to seem insensitive, but this is part of why Colorado is awesome.

Someone died skiing.

This weekend.

Yep, it's July.

And yet, only two hours from where he died, it was hot enough today to take the kiddos swimming.

Posted by: Alice H at 11:12 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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