For All You Physic Geeks Out There

The Large Hadron Collider Rap.

Man thinks Step Father was Zodiac Killer

This California tv report seems to indicate that the Zodiac Killer has been found. Unfortunately he is dead. The only other real explanation is that it is some huge hoax. See more from CBS13 here.

Alabama the Class of the SEC (for now)

Alabama embarrassed Clemson last night 34-10. They completely controlled the game in all aspects, except for a kick return to start the Second Half. Unlike pretty much every other SEC team, Alabama started with a ranked, Division I school so this win will move them up the rankings quite a bit. A good start for Nick Saban.

Arsenal Crushes Newcastle

In an excellent display of football Arsenal beat Newcastle United 3-0. Except for a short time in the second half Arsenal completely dominated. If they could play like this every time it would be wonderful. They were 2 and 0 this week outscoring their opponents 7-0. They have drawn a good group in the Champions League. A lot was made up for last week's disappointing loss.

Government at Work

Despite a record tax increase last year the State of Maryland still faces a $1 B shortfall, which will probably increase as time passes. The reason is, according to "What's happened is the economy," said Del. Murray D. Levy (D-Charles), a leading voice on the House Appropriations Committee. "We were not prepared, and are not prepared, for the economy." For more see this article in the Washington Post.

That is one of the problems with relying on property and sales taxes to fund a growing number of things. MD did cut some spending, but not enough. They already have a high state and local income tax. I guess they need to cut another $1 B in spending. Of course the economy has been in a downturn for about 9 months now, so maybe some better preparation would have helped.

Arsenal Crushes Europeon Opponent

Arsenal today won a second game in the first round of the Champions League against FC Twente of Holland. They had earlier beat the side 2-0 in the Netherlands. Now at home they easily won 4-0. They will advance to the next round. See this for more. Walcott, Nasri, Gallas and Bendtner scored.

New Book

My family thinks I am weird but the latest book I purchased to read is Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. It is very well written and deals with a complex subject in a way that is easy to understand. It is also interesting in that it contrasts how Germany used a Socialist response to the Great Depression after 1933.

Animoto Video

Located Here

Raiders

The Raiders start another season with a lot of hope. Hope for an improved offense to complement a defense that has played well over the last few years. Unfortunately there is a shortage of wide receivers, so the offense will be a lot of Darren McFadden running and then catching short passes. We will see how that goes. The Division, though, is weak this year with Denver and KC looking at rough seasons as well. It wouldn't surprise me if Shanahan is gone after this year as his recent personnel moves haven't really worked too well.

Arsenal Loses

Arsenal struggled with their new midfield and lost 1-0 to Fulham away. Fulham scored early in the first half on a corner. It looks like it will take some time for Arsenal to figure things out, with supposedly one more major signing to come. Expect a rough season for a while.

See The Daily Telegraph, here, for more.

Arsenal

Believe it or not the Premiership season started last week. Like half the teams Arsenal is 1-0-0 having won their first game 1-0. They play again this weekend and the transfer market rumors are still flowing with the latest linking Silvestre to Arsenal. There major acquisition this year, Nasri, scored the only goal so far, which is a good sign. If Eduardo can come back ok and the midfield step up they should ok for the season.

2008-2009 Sparkman High School Marching Band

The band warmed up for next weeks opener by performing for a few minutes at the Football Jamboree.

New Slogan for Inane Taskers

From now on the catchphrase of the blog will be "Memory is RAM."

Thanks IT Crowd.



And you cannot get the DVD's in US format (yet)!

This Is F@#$ing Hilarious

I am assuming this is a British TV series about two hard working Help Desk people in a minor corporation. Enjoy.

Blow to the RIAA

A Federal judge has ruled that copyright holders must first determine if a fair use violation has occurred before sending take down letters. An article on Wired can be found here. A music company had sent a letter to a lady who posted a video on YouTube of her toddler dancing to Prince saying that she had violated the copyright and could possibly be punished. She argued that it was fair use. The record company said that they don't have time necessarily to determine that right away. This should deter many of the letters sent by copyright holders to people utilizing fair use.

Soviet Plans Confirmed

Victor Suvorov was a Soviet defector in the 1980's. He actually was a senior military intelligence official. He wrote several books about his service and the Soviet military. In Inside the Soviet Army he described why he thought the Soviets could beat NATO in Western Europe. One of the things he said was that any attack would begin with a massive nuclear offensive on NATO bases and resources. Then Soviet tanks would drive West to the English Channel through a radioactive haze. Some doubted the feasibility of this, or the need. Now in the Weekly Standard, here, Ulf Gartzke, writes about how some German historians are using declassified Czech files and discovered that was the actual plan. In fact the Soviets came very close twice to launching it. There is sure to be more to come as these kind of files are opened up and researched.

Fooling Around with iPod Touch 2.0

Bumping this for all my fans in Guntersville, AL.

History Takes Precedent Over the Environment

This aticle describes attempts by the National Park Service to make the Manassas Battlefield National Park more like it was in 1861 and 1862. Unfortunately for trees it was cleared farmland. The Park Service is removing trees that have grown in the last fifty years to make the vistas that visitors see what the soldiers would have seen. If they NPS wanted to go all out they would have to tear down buildings, realign hedgerows and treelines, plow fields and plant corn and so on. There are people I am sure who would like that as it would be more realistic and give people more of an idea of what the battle was like. Of course cutting down large number of trees is not popular with everyone. It is a dilemma that faces the NPS in most of the battlefield parks. At least at Manassas the first battlefield is contained in the park. Some Virginia battles have disappeared in development.

Washington Post Ombudsman is Clueless

Following up her surprising analysis that the Post favors photos of Barack Obama over John McCain, Ms. Howell does the same for total number of stories written about the two candidates. See the story here, it was a little better then photos - only a 3 to 1 advantage for the Democrat. Ms. Howell rather then asking any questions about this, which she at least did with the photos, accepts the standard "Mr. Obama is a compelling story of a newcomer" from the editor. With the photos she said that the overwhelming favoritism for one side was probably not a good thing. Here she just says "Numbers aren't everything in political coverage, but readers deserve comparable coverage of the candidates."

Update: The Washington Post has a widget that shows related links and posts to their article. They nicely show this one, but for some reason label it "No Title", despite showing the other linked posts' titles. Maybe I should be nicer to Ms. Howell?

Double Update: Turns out for some reason all my links from the Post show "No Title", so no grand conspiracy there although it was fun to think about for a while.

Stunning Announcement on Friday About Bigfoot

According to this article, four men will announce proof of Bigfoot. Sometime on Friday there will be a press conference. No indication if the History Channel's Monsterquest is involved.

Tropic Thunder

I would like to think this is a parody article, part of the marketing for the movie. But somehow I doubt it. I find it hard to believe that Ben Stiller can play a character more feeble minded then Zoolander.

Oil Spike Over

Martin Vander Weyer at the Daily Telegraph writes about the end of the "Oil Boom". As he points out the evil "speculators" will be dropping their future contracts pretty quickly with a 20% decline over the last few weeks. That act will further cause the price to drop, which will then cause further dumping. Demand and supply still seems to rule a bit. See his full article here.

World of Warcraft Band Video

The creators of WoW set up a band within the game for themselves. Here is a little video of their efforts. Music is not what they were playing.

End Sex Segragation at the Olympics

The reasoning presented in this article about not checking the sexuality of Olympic participants would lead one to state that since there is no true way to tell if they are a man participating as a woman, or vice verse, just end the division based on sex. That would be the only fair way. Since the athletes are to be sexually identified based on "The only dependable test for gender is the truth of a person’s life, the lives we live each day. Surely the best judge of a person’s gender is not a degrading, questionable examination. The best judge of a person’s gender is what lies within her, or his, heart." then it is idiotic to divide the competitions by sex. Let them all compete openly and together.

Sarcasm Is Wasted On Some People

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote a sarcastic column on how Obama is acting like he is already President. See it here. He then hosted a regular chat here. The theme of the chat was obviously how he, Dana, was going to be attacked for having the presumption to criticize Obama. More sarcasm, I think, but I am not sure. Media Matters for America, a George Soro's funded group who attacks the conservative media (while pretending to critique all of the media), then wrote this post about how Dana had the nerve to mock those who criticized him as "whiners" rather than owning up to his mistakes. Some people take things, like politics, too seriously.

Stormy Saturday in Harvest

Classic Graham Parker

The continued transition from the Seventies to New Wave.

Aftermath of the Storm