I’m as concerned about high gas prices as the next guy. Here’s an interesting story for you involving Internet sock puppetry by an oil company, plus out-of-control spending on expensive booze.
BP? No, Sinopec, the Chinese oil company.
Jumping Jack Flash…
May 6th, 2011What is it with people?
May 6th, 2011They always want to focus on the worst-case scenario.
Sure, if you get wolf pups for your kids, there’s a chance that the wolves will eat your children. But that’s the worst case scenario. Anyway, the wolves are unlikely to eat more than one of the kids.
And, hey, what’s the best-case scenario? Your kids will go on to found Rome. Weighted against that possibility, don’t your worries about kids being eaten seem kind of trivial?
We could fly a helicopter, nothing left to talk about.
May 6th, 2011The NYT, the WP, Wired, and Aviation Leak are all over the stealth helicopter beat. (Note: that WP link is a video, and will play a commercial before the video starts.)
I don’t have much to say about this at the moment, but I did think it’d be useful to provide a roundup of the coverage. If anyone has any additional reliable links (not bar speculation from people who claim to be former members of SEAL Team 6) please feel free to drop them in comments.
Edited to add: Here’s something else interesting from the WP: a summary of Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice
Obit watch: May 6, 2011.
May 6th, 2011This one’s going out to Mike the Musicologist: Arthur Laurents.
Randomness in my pocket like grains of sand.
May 5th, 2011I have no joke here, I just like saying “competitive pole dancing“.
In case you were wondering, the sanctioning organization appears to be the US Pole Dancing Federation.
Lawrence pointed me to Bill Simmons’ recent column about the NBA playoffs. I don’t care much about the NBA, but I loves me a good “The Wire” quote fest. Shame that Simmons couldn’t find a way to work what’s recently become my own personal favorite quote, but what can you do?
Snark.
May 5th, 2011Good thing we didn’t pass that concealed carry on campus bill, eh?
Art (Acevedo) damn it, Art! watch (#O of a series).
May 5th, 2011We have been covering the ongoing struggle between Officer Leonardo Quintana and the Austin Police Department: the APD kept firing Officer Quintana, and Officer Quintana kept being reinstated by arbitrators.
The verdict is now in on Officer Quintana’s latest appeal. Officer Quintana is now ex-Officer Quintana.
Obit watch: May 5, 2011.
May 5th, 2011Link goes to the LAT obit, but I want to highlight this obit from the Onion AV Club. I think Sean O’Neal does a very good job of summarizing Cooper’s work and explaining why his passing matters, without the usual condescending idiocy that characterizes much of the AV Club’s work.
“It’s not a balloonl It’s an airship!”
May 4th, 2011Slow news day. But I did find this LAT article interesting: Goodyear has commissioned three new blimps.
I wasn’t aware you could get 54 mph out of a blimp, much less 73 mph. (According to Wikipedia, that’s close to the cruising speed of a Piper Cub.)
I’m sure it comes as no great shock to anyone except me that ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik has a web site. At least, I think that’s their web site.
Check out the link to Zeppelin Hangar FN. Their online menus even have prices!
TMQ Watch: May 3, 2011.
May 3rd, 2011So we’ve reached the last TMQ of the interregnum. What pressing questions were you hoping TMQ would answer? “What does Bin Laden’s death mean for U.S./Pakistan relations?” “Trump: serious contender or joke?” Nope…
The end of the beginning.
May 2nd, 2011The news came by way of an email from Andrew “Junketeer” Wimsatt as I was leaving for work this morning.
I’m still digesting the events, but here’s some preliminary thoughts:
- Barack Obama just insured his reelection in 2012.
- You know all those Carter/Obama comparisons? Yeah, Obama just made sure those are going to get dropped by the side of the road too. “Hey, at least the Obama administration managed to successfully execute a military operation!”
- I want to ask “How do we know? Could it have been just another bin Laden clone?” Answer: “DNA tests confirmed his identity later in the day“. Question: how do we have his DNA?
- What does this do for US/Pakistan relations? It seems clear that Pakistan has been hiding bin Laden for years, and I find it hard to believe the government of Pakistan was not somehow involved.
- So we’ve still got to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood, Ayman Zawahiri, and every other two-bit terrorist organization out there.
- “After what the president described as a firefight, they killed Bin Laden.” Makes you wonder; was Bin Laden shooting back, or did they kill his guards and then execute him? Did he have any last words? Did the folks who shot him have a cutting remark appropriate to the situation?
- Somebody’s going to get a NYT bestseller out of this.
- A whole bunch of somebodies will never have to pay for a drink for the rest of their lives.
- And there’s going to be a whole lot of posers.
It isn’t over yet, folks. I think we can take a day to celebrate (is this how folks felt when Hitler’s death was announced?), but this isn’t the end.
(Speaking of the end, subject line hattip.)
Edited to add 1: “American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head.” Heh. “What’s the last thing that went through Bin Laden’s mind before he died?” NYT obit here.
Edited to add 2: Lawrence disagrees both with my use of insure (which I think is justified, in the sense of “killing Bin Laden was like purchasing an insurance policy against defeat in 2012”) and the substance of that position. (Check the trackbacks for the link.) I’ll admit that was a quick take, without the benefit of sober reflection. I’ll also admit this is why I usually leave the geopolitics to him. However, I think my position is defensible depending on who runs against Obama in 2012. Trump? Obama could run campaign ads consisting of nothing but 30 seconds of a still photo of Bin Laden with head wound and win. On the flip side, if the mission commander suddenly outs himself and declares for the Republican nomination in 2012…
Edited to add 3: Because it just isn’t a celebration without cake. Thanks to Borepatch for the inspiration.
Notes on Full English.
May 1st, 2011I’ve been driving past Full English for a couple of months now. It’s located behind a convenience store/gas station on Manchaca, very close to Tex-Guns (official purveyor of arms to WCD). However, I hadn’t had a chance to stop in until today.
How was it? A little rough around the edges, but I liked it more than Lucky J’s Chicken and Waffles. Some notes:
- I’d love to see a real menu. They’ve got a printed all day breakfast menu. It looks like they have some pastries and cakes, that they do high tea, and apparently they serve bangers and mash (at least on Friday night). I’d love to be able to find out what else they offer, or even if they do offer other stuff.
- I can’t tell until I know what they do offer if they need to expand their menu. I’d love to find someplace that does good fish and chips, for example, or meat pies. It looks like they’re trying for at least a beer and wine license; I have hopes that maybe we’ll see some traditional pub grub added.
- The bangers and back bacon were quite good. The pork is locally sourced, and the sausages are apparently made in house.
- I recommend against ordering coffee. I’d probably get a soda instead. (They have Mexican Coke, if you’re in the area and want a pure cane sugar fix.)
- There’s a bit of a slacker vibe to the place, but nowhere near as bad as Lucky J’s. Their music choices were much less obtrusive.
- Damn, but I want one of those “You Are Now Leaving The American Sector” posters. (The Checkpoint Charlie museum doesn’t seem to have an online shop set up, and Google is no help in finding other sources.)
Would I go back? I want to see these folks make a go of it. I’d have to be in a specific mood to get the English breakfast again, but I’d like to try some of their sandwiches and perhaps pastries as well.
TMQ Watch: April 26, 2011.
April 29th, 2011WCD got into it a bit last week with Lawrence over the merits of the NFL draft. It is our position that the draft just really isn’t that important to NFL teams. We do not dismiss the draft totally; a team may get lucky and pick up, say, an Earl Campbell. But teams are just as likely to get lucky and pick up, say, a JaMarcus Russell. Our belief is that good coaching, good team building, and good player selection (remember, players don’t have to come from the draft; undrafted unwanted free agents that do surprisingly well are an ongoing TMQ trope) are more important than draft choices.
With that introduction out of the way, let’s jump into TMQ’s annual “mock the mock drafts” column.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Bubble.
April 29th, 2011A casual conversation on our way to dinner led us to this Wall Street Journal article about Crayola’s Washable Colored Bubbles product.
Crayola figured out a way to make colored bubbles (excuse us, “bubbles of color”) on demand. This is a pretty hard problem if you understand anything about the physics of soap bubble formation; you’re talking about surfaces thousands of times thinner than a human hair. Conventional dyes won’t work, so Crayola’s invention is kind of a big deal.
Crayola’s invention also stains things. Permanently. At least that’s what some parents are claiming. (A quick look of my own at the Amazon product reviews suggests that the WSJ may have slightly overstated the number of negative reviews. Or Amazon may have pulled some.)
Why are we reminded of the classic phrase “hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers“?
We briefly considered picking some of this up for our younger relatives, but then had second thoughts; we much prefer our spleen where it currently is, on the inside of our body, as opposed to having it yanked out violently through our nose.
“150 g of pidgeon gizzards”
April 29th, 2011We have previously made note of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
Now, also by way of the NYT, we have coverage of the book’s errata. Wouldn’t want to overcook those scrambled eggs there, Bob.
Also, we’ll toss up a link for our great and good friend Glen, who is a big Negroni fan.
Things have been kind of slow this week, and we have also been coming off either a cold or an allergic reaction to all the crap floating around in the air. We are aware TMQ has a new column up (his annual “mock draft”) and plan to blog that in the TMQ Watch, perhaps as early as tonight.