Base System

I had a discussion this weekend about what activities were expected at "second base". I think this helpful chart certainly clears it up.

Friends of the A** End of Nowhere

President Obama has expressed admirable plans for green energy. Typically, they involve the generation of energy in remote areas (by solar or wind) and transmission into urban areas.

Unfortunately, it is in the production and transmission that these plans run into a phenomenon I like to call the "Friends of the A** End of Nowhere". Want to put a solar farm in the desert? FAN sez the desert environment is incredibly fragile and you'll harm it irreparably. Want to transmit that power to the city? FAN sez the route is right through a conservation area and wants you to go another less direct, more inefficient way. Want to research and generate wave energy on the coast of Oregon? No dice -- property owners, fishermen and environmentalists will call you rapacious foreign capitalists who want to industrialize the ocean.

Infrastructure progress in the United States proceeds at a glacial pace for a number of reasons, one of which is the ability of environmental and citizens' groups to use the courts to gum up the works for justice and due process. It is my sincere hope that President Obama will have a Nixon-to-China moment and be able to effect change positively for power generation during his terms in office.

Nope, not even close.

What was the wrongest part of the President's speech to the AMA? This whopper:

"To most Americans, you are the health care system. Americans - me included - just do what you recommend."

Um, no. No, Mr. President, we don't. Not even close. We don't do the things doctors recommend, we cherry-pick the treatments and we don't comply with prescription instructions.

Right-Wing Extremism

The Department of Homeland Security says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.

Remember all of the venom being spewed by right-wing pundits about this Homeland Security report? In the past two weeks we have had a doctor who performs abortions gunned down outside of his church (I find it very interesting that someone who claims to be pro-life murdered someone), and a lunatic open fire in the National Holocaust Museum. In no way can these stories be spun any other way. The DHS report was absolutely right. Because there is a liberal black dude in the oval office every idiot who is hateful will now turn ultra-hateful. I cannot understand why there was such fervor over the report when it is pretty obvious that violence from these types of groups was going to occur.

EPIC!

Literally Total Eclipse of the Heart

I'm in a silly mood. My friend sent this to me and I felt like sharing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA