fw - 30 FOSS apps

article bigging up 30 FOSS (free & open source software) apps for consumer PC.

I currently use #1 Firefox, & 11 VLC.

I used to use 17 MusikCube, but currently use the imho superior Foobar2000. Either way mf a wack iTunes app.

Energy efficiency stimulus

I generally agree with most of the steps suggested by this article, and buy in to the urgency of acting now, and aggressively. (I have problems with the emphasis on nuclear, given my concerns about waste storage and the cost effectiveness of it). Part of the problem has been that the Feds haven't fully funded the State weatherization programs in the recent past. This has to change, and more money should be made available. Energy conservation and efficiency improvements in peoples' homes make a lot of sense by stemming demand AND putting folks to work.

Stevie Wonder "All Day Sucker" = GOAT song on "calenta huevo hoes"

This funk song "All Day Sucker" off of Stevie Wonder 1976 Song In The Key Of Life is great. The beat is great, sick funky guitar & even the random xylophone on the chorus. Outstanding 5/5.



Also the lyrics are very relatable to any guys that have dealt with a calenta huevo girl. Aka approximately 99.7% of all heterosexual men alive. And that number is prolly rising, because it seems the plague of calentahuevoism is most likely rising in the past few years from all anecdotal evidence.

What is a calenta huevo girl/woman? Calenta Huevo is a genius term an old Peruvian friend from Dallas invented, literally means a "ball warmer". A girl that flirts tremendously with a dude, but in the end just wants to be friends, &/or use the dude to do some task, such as help her move apartments.

To be clear, I'm not being misogynistic, many women are very altruistic/non-calenta huevoish, just like many women are calenta huevoish. Just like a fair mind women would say many dudes are jerks or non-jerks.

Free Consulting to anyone if relevant: some sociologist do a PhD on trends in calentahuevoism since 1976 to 2008.

Damn, so many of Stevie's lyrics are timeless. The song "Black Man" should be played at Obama's inauguration

If you feel me [||] on calentahuevoism, hit up the comments on ur calenta huevo stories.

Obama selects physicist Steven Chu for Sec of Energy

Obama nominates for Sec of Energy Dr Steven Chu, a cabinet member that's an real work doer/thinker/engineer, as physicist. As opposed to candidates that are more of BS work doer/salesman/politrickian than real work doers, like H Clinton & Larry Summers. Bill Richardson is kind of half salesman, half real-work doer, as he has significant work experience in many Government sectors.

Anyways, it's great to see a physicist like Chu at the Dept. of Energy, at a time where allocating resources to different alternative renewable energy projects will be pursued. Chu is a Nobel Prize winner in physics, so his capability for this task is about infinite that of a typical generic DC douche lawyer/politrickian.

Too bad Obama skipped on real work doer Susan Rice to be Secretary of State, a PhD with 20 years of diplomat experience. Instead, Obama went with saleswoman/poltirickian Hill Dog Clinton, whose diplomat experience consists of meeting some foreign leaders while being First Lady in the 1990s.

The government, & US organizations in general public or private, could stand to use more real work doers/engineers/scientists/genuine subject matter experts/PhDs, & less bs work doers/salesmen/politrickians/lawyers.

Guidelines for consumer paperwork

Consumer reports has good articles 1 2 on how long & where you should keep certain types of paperwork.

Rahm Roast

At this 2005 benefit event, Obama roasted who would become his recently-selected chief of staff - Rahm Emanuel. Turns out, the pres.-elect is a pretty witty guy.

Lamestream Media was wrong - Latinos voted for Obama

Recall the moronic Lamestream Media talking point that Latinos wouldn't vote for Obama out of anti-black racism?

Recall Dallas was co-signing this nonsense talking point?

This point struck me as nonsense, since countries in Latin America have often elected non-whites & women: blacks (Venezuela - Chavez), Native American (Bolivia - Morales), women (Chile - Bachelet), east Asian (Peru - Fujimori, even the hated-on-in-the US-Muslim arabs (Argentina - Menem & El Salvador - Saca).

When Obama says "the US is the only country where a black guy with the name Obama could be elected President", I have to laugh. A dude like Obama could've done it in many of these Latin American countries in the 1970s or earlier. The USA is world-class in democracy in some attributes, but in this attribute, the USA has fockin sucked. Even the Irish Catholic JF Kennedy was considered too non-white by many US voters in the 1960s, & barely won that election, WTF?!

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

Check the CNN article. Your boy EGC was 100% correct on this one.

Latino vote Scoreboard: Obama 67 v McCain 31. That's right, Obama is more than straight doubling [||] McCain among Latinos.

I'll wait until Neveruary 31, 4080 for the Lamestram Media to apologize, & denounce & reject themselves, for this nonsense "Latinos won't vote for blacks" talking point.

Go Obama!

Ford Ecosport, anyone?

With all of the talk of bailing out the "big 3," my general impression is that these companies could've moved much more aggressively to implement some needed technological and product changes...

This article is a bit old, but focuses on Ford's comeback strategy in Brazil. They once again became profitable after losing a lot of money, focusing on (surprise) products that people actually demanded in the market.

fw - "The End" of Wall Street Boom

Michael Lewis article "The End" of Wall Street Boom.

fw - Wall Street Lays Golden Egg

Niall Ferguson Vanity Fair article Wall Street Lays Golden Egg

Liberal Oasis

fw - family member recommended this progressive radio talk show Liberal Oasis.

Sirota "McCain Banking on Confederacy of Dunces"

David Sirota goes in on McShame.

Cali government torching Aguablanca neighborhood

Aguablanca pre-Cali Police's ethering


Aguablanca post-ethering

I stumbled upon this sad story. This story makes me ashamed of the "C" of my "EGC" blog name.

Cali, Colombia police in 2006 burned a neighborhood of shack houses in the Aguablanca neighborhood, destroying the meager property & official Government documents ("papers") of all the community's members & rendering all homeless. 1 infant baby died as a result of the police's tear gas. Many other people including women & elderly were injured, via the police's physical assaults.

That Aguablanca neighborhood was an illegal settlement of makeshift shack houses. The fact that the settlement was illegal, IMHO does not justify the police's inexcusable behavior. I'm not an expert on human rights, but it seems, at a minimum, the Government could have transported the people, along with their posessions, to a temporary refugee area.

After reading story, I gotta say a big 100% NO to this US-COL "free trade" agreement. Maybe COL Pres. Alvaro Uribe, McShame, & WOAT Bush can have randomly have the police burn down their house & all their possessions & papers, & then smack them silly, & leave them homeless. Then let's see if these plutocratic douches think this type of behavior is "acceptable". Why should the US workers join the "race to the bottom", with the country whose government participates in such blatant human rights abuses. Keep in right that civil rights are hard to win, & our ancestors died to win them, but can easily be lost when under attack by plutocrats or fascists.

The concept of a egalitarian society, of equal rights of all citizens, is under assault in USA, & was frankly always focked up in COL. We have the proto-fascist ReThug wing of the Republican party, encouraged by McShame & PalInsane, encouraging the notion that non-white or non-rural Americans are "not Real Americans". These ReThugs are also painting blacks & Muslims as non-real Americans & 2nd class citizens.

If like me, you believe in equal rights, you must influence your circle of family/friends to be aware of this assault on egalitarianism. Don't allow the USA society to gradually drift further in the direction of COL society.

Sarah Palin on SNL

Sarah Palin is finna continue clowning herself on SNL, Sat Oct-18. Wikipedia lists some dude named Josh Brolin as the guest, so it appears that Palin would prolly just be in 1 skit.

Still tho, isn't Palin supposedly "an energy expert"? How does she have time to clown on SNL, with the election in 20 days ALSO, LOL.

Subprime Primer

This Subprime Primer cartoon Google presentation file breaks the Financial Disaster 08 down like an organic compound.

IMHO there should have been some basic regulations to prevent this nonsense.

economist Jeffrey Sachs: Social Welfare State, beyond ideology

economist Jeffrey Sachs concludes that the data shows that social democracy pwns market fundamentalist economies.

Baby Boomers damaged the USA

Check this great post from the Economics Finance & Investment blogspot

The early Baby Boomer generation (1946-1955) has taken it all.

* Their parents had meager (or no) employer provided retirement benefits; Boomers had generous defined benefit pensions PLUS retiree medical benefits; their kids will have 401(k)s with pathetic returns as the effects of the "age wave" kick in.

* Their parents had the Great Depression; Boomers had the greatest economic expansion in history; their kids will have a decades-long recession like Japan's "lost decade" only longer.

* Their parents had ditch digging jobs under Roosevelt's jobs program; the Boomers had great jobs; their kids will have the jobs that are not outsourced to India

* Their parents' government ran a balanced budget; the Boomers' government ran a deficit almost every year of their adult lives; their kids will be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars of debt

However the Boomers need to remember that the next generation needs to keep paying taxes for Social Security and Medicare to maintain them in the style to which they have become accustomed. However, these programs (particulary Medicare) will be bankrupt before that next generation can use them, so Boomers should tread lightly. In the next 10 years, this country is going to have generational warfare that will make the "class warfare" that our politicans often mention seem like high tea at the Ritz.

Vagina Cheney

We already had 8 years of Dick Cheney. Just say no to Vagina Cheney. No misogyny jic.

The Sarah Palin Pity Party (PalInsane ethered Vol 6)

Rebecca Traister ethers the incompetent GILF PalInsane.

Dean Baker denounces proposed Wall Street bailout

Baker denounces bailout.

RO's World

I stumbled upon this dallaspenn commenter's blog, RO's World.

This an American black guy, living in Japan, that "philisophizes" (c) Cape Fear on wage slavery, hip hop, Japanese & American culture, self-improvement, "hoesology", "dunnies", "oneitis" & maintaining a Japanese harem. This dude is straight comedy, & his tons of unique slang. It's kind of hard to describe, so I just suggest checking it.

Katie Couric interview of Sarah Palin

GILF PalInsane self-ethers again, which I discovered on Crooks & Liars.

PalInsane apparently cannot construct a coherent logical sentence. In this sense, she a moronic dumbass, in the tradition of WOAT Bush, Dan Qualye, & Miss Teen South Carolina

pt 1


pt2


Miss Teen SC


Couric: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PalInsane: Hey Charley such as Russia such as Putin such as I need a map such as

Dude, WTF?!

fw - PC books

this laink has 20 .pdf books (327 MB) on consumer IT topics, such as MS Office 2007 apps, home networking, PC maintenance, & SQL language theory (for database heads).

check it out mayne, maybe let it run over a break, since it might take 1 hr+ to dl, depending on your connection.

Spaiseone blog - Desperatus

RYM homie & Westsiiiiider (AZ IIRC) Spaiseone has a new political blog, Desperatus

RYM has been warning of an economic ELE for 1 yr+ on RYM, so the kid is kinda prophetic. You might want to listen to his thoughts.

Glass Booth: comparing Pres candidates on issues

Here's my Glass Booth issue questionaire results on the 2008 US Pres election.

GB IMHO is a good rough approximation of how candidates' position on issues matches with your own. The poll takes maybe 15 minutes, it's quick

GB has updated the site to include 3rd party candidates Nader, McKinney, & Barr. It also has the issues for the major party VP candidates, Biden & Palin.

Keep in mind that one might also consider other factors important in influencing one's vote than the issues, such as experience, judgement, ability to work with Congress, ability to realistically win the election, independence from political donors, ethics, etc.

Here's how GB said the candidates compared on the issues, in percentage agreement
90 Nader
81 McKinney
71 Obama
51 Barr
40 McCain

The 1st step of GB asks is to allocate 20 points over 14 issues. This is nice, so that what's important to me is weighted more highly. This way, trade & economics gets heavy weight, while OTOH I gave no weight to gun control or gay rights.

Here's my allocation
3 pts
Civil Liberties & Domestic Security
Trade & Economics

2 pts
Environment & energy
Health care
Iraq & foreign policy
taxes & budget

1 pt
abortion & birth control
education
immigration
Social Security
medical marijuana & drug policy
crime & punishment

0 pts
gun control
gay rights

The 2nd step is to answer your support on each issue. The choices are strong support (S2), support (S1), neutral (N), oppose (O1), strongly oppose (O2).

If you completed the GB questionaire, hit up the comments to let me know your thoughts.

Prince discography

these forums seem to have the Prince discography 1 2

Ellen Brown opinion, derivatives caused bank failures

Ellen Brown opines that financial derivatives were the cause of the recent financial instituion failures, like AIG, Lehman, etc.

Some Government regulation, which is actually applied by the regulators & not just on the books but toothless, is necessary to prevent these Corporate Welfare rip-offs. How is that not obvious to ReThuglicans?

Don't Wait in 08

this is a local Atlanta metro effort to encourage advance voting, since apparently Georgia is notorious for long lines & other nonsense on election day.

GILF PalInsane = Liar

McSame gaff: McSame thinks Spain in Latin America

ffwd to 3:00 in this youtube clip. McSame is being interviewed by a Miami radio station.


Time also reports here.

McSame apparently does not know
1 Spain is not in Latin America
2 Spain is a fellow NATO ally

McSame is a moron on foreign policy.

UPDATE

Investment Bank, RIP

good articles 1 2 on future of investment bank industry.

The industry's current revenue model is done. Good riddance on these Corporate Welfare Whores.

McSame flip flops on financial industry regulation

McSame/GILF PalInsane keep giving more evidence that they are morons, not intellectually curious, not detailed oriented, but very good manipulators of people & extremely power hungry.

Chaognosis tennis GOAT analysis: Ken Rosewall

Chaognosis is a blog on tennis history.

Chaognosis has an interesting article, proposing an alternate method of counting "grand slam equivalent tournaments", which I will make up a term here for discussion as GSE (no Fannie Mae ReThuglican Corporate Welfare C-E-Ho disasters just in case).

Chaognois' method takes the most important UK, France, & USA tournament for a given year, chosen by Chaognosis' subjective analysis. It ignores the Australian, which was not taken "seriously as a grand slam" until sometime in the 1980s (as recently as John McEnroe's prime, McEnroe & many other top players skipped going Down Under [||]). Read the article itself for more detail.

Bottom line, by Chaognosis' analysis, Ken Rosewall has 17 GSEs, compared to Pete Sampras' 12 (7 Wimbledons, 5 US Opens) & Roger Federer's 10 (5 W, 5 U).

Personally, I'm not buyin it, on the account that the depth of competitors of the tennis game has in general been increasing dramatically into the 90s (Sampras' decade) & even more into the 2000s (Fed's decade). IMHO if Federer ties Sampras' 14 GS by winning 1 more GS tourney, I would vote for Fed as the GOAT.

It should be noted that any such comparisons are "apples-to-oranges". There has been significant change that even make it hard to compare the 1990s/Sampras era to the 2000s/Fed era. The synthetic type of tennis strings Luxillon "Big Banger" [||] which allow more spin, & the slowing of the courts for example. Sampras was dominant as a serve & volleyer, whereas in the 2000s there have been very few serve & volleyers in the Top 100 such as Ivo Karlovic, & none off hand I can recall that have made the Top 10.

Bottom line, Fed is the Illest. Sampras himself has admitted it. Prolly ol man Rosewall itself would also agree.

McSame/GILF PalInsane Lies

CNN's exposes McSame/GILF PalInsane extreme lying.

ironic hypocrite douche: Lynn Forester de Rothschild

How does an ex Hillary Clinton voter woman with surname Rothschild that lives in London, call Obama an elitist? Dee dee dee!

A lot of these Hillary voters are fake Dems anyways.

What's next, is Sarah Palin gonna label a Physics Nobel Prize winner a dummy?

Termanology "Politics As Usual" album

I'm eager to listen to this upcoming Termanology album.

The 3 songs produced by DJ Premier all are excellent bangers, with Preemo's unique boom-bap with DJ scratched chorus steez, & each have a video on youtube:

How We Rock


So Amazing


Watch How It Go Down

fw - Corporate Welfare for ex Freddie Mac CEO

this is 1 of the most obscene Corporate Welfare story ever.

The incompetent loser unethical ex-CEOs of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae might get $8M+ severance packages. WTF?!

Since US Fed Gov is bailing these "GSE" entities out, these lames should get nathan.

Why is it that pensions go broke, an average worker is screwed, but these incompetent Corporate Welfare C-E-heez-Os get paid?

Man, Funk Dat (c) Sagat

Perot Charts

"now here's the deal see"

Ross Perot is "back up that ass with a resurrection" (c) Samir from Office Space.

Perot has a site with charts on the US Gov & economy.

Mark Cuban blog

entrepreneur Mark Cuban has an interesting blog.

Check his opinion on the stock market.

GMan blog

My Mpls correspondent for the RNC debate, has created his own blog.

GMan is an expert on consumer IT, & also has an interesting opinion on many current events issues.

fw - advice on PC backups

Jamie Zawinski advice on PC backups.

Your hard disk will eventually fry, so a backup process is essential for pain minimization.

Gina Gershon ethers Sarah Palin (vol 5)

an aside, beauty Gina Gershon is 46 yo? Dang!

Robert Kuttner murks Sean Hannibitch on his own shyt

Robert Kuttner murks Sean Hannibitch

fw - I’m Not Sure America Is Ready For A Smart President

fw - Joe Bitchmade Biden

fw - Republicans & Military men on John McCain

powerful 5-min youtube clip on John McWarmongerer

Federer wins US Open, lucky GS #13

Guess who's bizzack! *does 2 step to that Scarface/Kanye West song*

Federer wins 5th consecutive US Open. Fed is now solely in 2nd place on the all-time GS title list with 13, 1 behind Sampras' 14.

last game


award ceremony

Sarah Palin ethered Vol 4: Capitol Hill Gangsta

fw: Elvis Presley more overrated than 2Pac

2Pac > Elvis opinion. I never listed to any Elvis album, but seeing how he jacked his whole steez from 50s black rockers, I have to agree.

Chobixitosp discogs

This Mexicano Chobixitosp goes in heavy with discogs, of rockers like The Beatles or Billy Joel, Mexican rockers like Mana, random other Mexican music, & random other music like Bob Marley.

A person could easily refuel their Ipod on this site.

Stevie Wonder discog

this Brazilian dude on blogspot apparently has the Steve Wonder discog (or at least a huge portion of said discog). Archiving for reference.

Billy4202

I stumbled upon this Billy4202 hip hop blogspot. Among other things, it has links for some obscure Panacea albums.

Sarah Palin ethered Vol 3: Wasilla citizen Anne Kilkenny

Anne Kilkenny describes Palin as a toxic combination of incompetence & arrogance of WOAT Bush, with a side of Darth Cheney's ruthless dictator steez.

Why can't the pundits be more frank on camera?

So check out this tail end of a segment on MSNBC. I should state that over the last few days, I've closely observed the pundits on this channel right here in my hometown, St. Paul, where the Rethugs have taken over the city and the feds, state troopers, city cops from around the region (and country) have turned the place into a police state. But I digress...

Chuck Todd of MSNBC, who I somewhat respect for the analytical skills he brings, was moderating the segment. On as panel guests were Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor and genuine Republican strategist/analyst, and Peggy Noonan, a conservative prima donna that is really fokking annoying. Anyway, Chuck wraps up the segment and lo and behold, somebody in production screws up and decides to leave the mic on and camera recording, right there in the middle of Rice Park (where the crowd consisted of a large number of left of center folks ( - represent St. Paul!). They proceed to detail, without any equivocation, how McCain has royally f*kked himself with the Palin choice.

Why can't we get the real, "gut" level analysis from these pundit types? Or even better yet, get rid of the Noonans, Murphys, Carvilles, and Begalas on these political analysis shows? It's like these so-called "analysts" have such strong ties (and a stake) in the outcome of the election of the day that they can't get themselves to be frank on camera.

GMan's report on RNC protest

EGC has obtained some exclusive news/investigate journalist, to better inform all 5 of my loyal, er occasional readers.

Mpls reporter GMan reports on the RNC protest:

"The concert went well until the end. Rage Against the Machine showed up unannounced with 30 minutes left on the permit the city gave the concert. The police would not let them on stage and cut the power. Tom Morello and the rest of Rage went around the stage in front of the concert goers and performed with a megaphone before starting a huge protest which went down to the Excel. I think the ACLU will end up suing the city for not honoring the permit. Rethuglicans were in the streets talking with the cops and taking pictures on the parade. I took pictures of the rethuglicans, most seem embarassed. Douches."

St Paul police shyt on protestors incl Democracy Now

Greenwald covers this story, that apparently LameStream Media like CNN is ignoring.

Looks like Los Puercos are shyting on 1st & 4th Amendment rights of US citizens. Fock is the US turned into China now, WTF?!

I personally want Obama & McSame to be asked about this. And if they are asked about this fiasco, they better "denounce & reject".

Disgusting. "I thought this was America"

skit: McSame is Palin's beyotch

Anonomo sent me this skit, comedy.

Capitol Hill Gangsta

I stumbled upon this Capitol Hill Gangsta

This college kid is both thought-provoking & comedy. Like a pundit commentator version of Phonte.

Here's his latest clip, which is on Sarah Palin


A provocative take on Wal-Mart

Open Left

I heard Matt Stoller interviewed on TYT by Cenk, the guy made a lot of sense. For future reference, I'm liking his Open Left & personal blog/sites.

Critiques Of Libertarianism

Critiques Of Libertarianism site, is an interesting commentary on Libertarian political/economic theories.

GILFgate: Saran Palin's infant son is really her grandson

I'm very hesitant to get into National Enquirer-esque stories, but the photos in these daily kos articles (1 2) are DAMNING!

I'm labeling this scandal, where Sarah Palin lies & says her infant grandson is her own son, GILFgate. Pls propagate this term if you wish.

Sara Palin ether Vol 2: Roland Martin

Mark Crispin Miller

Miller's site details WOAT Bush's election fraud.

Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain

Turns out McSame has been lying about details of his Vietnam POW experience, which he mentions about 4080 times daily. His fellow soldiers tell the truth on this site.

ReThug pundits ether VP Sarah Palin

Even ReThug pundits Pat Buchanan & Joe Scarborough dismiss ReThug VP candidate Sarah Palin as a joke with little experience. Buchanan at least has a track record of his own opinion. Scarborough OTOH, is a ReThug water/weed carrier operative. I'm sure he was thinking to himself "damn, even I can't overhype this spare Palin. Even I have my limits on partisan dumb shyt I will spew".



BTW, I invented a manner to say Sarah Palin's name:

1 Say "Palin" with Spanish-like pronunciation "pa-lin", eg in a manner that rhymes with obscene
2. Say "Sarah Palin" in the sing-songy manner of the saying "n-bomb please". If not familiar with this phrase, watch some youtubes from American black comedians like Dave Chappelle.

McSame comedy, starin' at VP Palin

McCain Unfit To Lead

Stupidity in USA, 2001-8

this Tom Tomorrow cartoon is a classic, which ethers ReThuglican non-logic of this lost 2000s decade

Obama selects Biden for VP

Biden is a decent pick that I'm OK with. I was hoping for Wes Clark or Russ Feingold, but I can get behind Biden [||].

Biden has good foreign policy experience, an apparently has decent attack dog/ethering skills. McSame & his Rove Mini-Me campaign manager stay telling lies & ad hominem attacks on Obama. Obama thus far is almost as weak in John Kerry in not defending himself & not attacking McSame.

Biden apparently is horrible at managing his personal finances, & has medium Gaff-A-Lot Syndrome saying things like "you're the first Indian I met outside of 7-11" and stuff like that. Lucky for Biden, McSame can't really attack him on these 2 Biden weaknesses, since McSame shares them & actually has them worse. McSame doesn't know how many houses he has. McSame gaffs constantly, especially making factually incorrect statements on foreign policy like not knowing the difference between Sunni & Shia, while claiming to be a foreign policy guru.

McSame has much dirt, from horrible judgement, horrible school/job performance masked by the nepotism of his daddy/granddady Admirals, wife cheating, financial scandal with Keating 5, etc.

Biden has to morph into Attack Dog Joe & be the "bad cop" to Obama's "good cop".

Break out the keg of ether Joe! Get up in their ass [||]!

Making Sense 2008

Progressive group Campaign for America's Future has a free pdf book Making Sense 2008 discussing the most discussing issues/policies.

opinion on US demography & the Olympics

Ruben Navarrette opinion on US demography & the Olympics

article on acutaries in insurance vs home mortgage

Star Tribune article on how actuaries run analysis in the insurance industry, but no such analysis was done in home mortgage industry. Hence no surprise that a closter fock occurred in the later.

Cenk ethers racist Jared Taylor

TYT's Cenk Uyger ethers racist Jared Taylor

Micheal Phelps pwned the Olympics

I've been following the Olympics some, but mainly tennis, & some random highlights of other sports like football, team handball, & table tennis, thanks to the awesome NBCOlympics.com streaming internets.

I Wikipedia Mike Phelps because I read that he's putting up ridiculoid performances.

Damn, the stats are insane! 8 events (5 individual, 3 4-man team events), 8 gold medals, 7 of them being World Records! On the 100 m butterfly, dude "slacked" & got only an Olympic Record instead of the WR.

I'm about to say something shocking, given my inherently reasonable Federer stan stauts. Well, most hardcore tennis fans are fellow Federer stans, & many of the greats like John McEnroe already give Fed tennis GOAT status.

I'm gonna put Phelps as currently tied with Fed for Athlete of the 2000s Decade (AD) status. Fed has been running away with the AD, but I can't front on Phelps. There's still 18 months left in the decade, let's see what happens.

Oh what about Tiger Woods? Golfer, please. Phelps & Fed are real athletes, in Olympic sports, where you exert mad cardio & cannot wear a Corporate Uniform/Sunday church clothes to compete in. To put a golfer up as AD is an oxymoron.

BTW, speaking of Fed stans, Fed won the doubles gold medal with fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka, defeating serious doubles teams, like India's Paes/Bhupathi in the QF, & US' Bryan Bros in the SF. It would be great if Fed played doubles at the big Grand Slam tourneys, he could further pad his GS title stats that way.

Fiscal Conservative cartoon

Awesome political cartoon by Steve Greenberg

Welcome Anonomo

Anonomo, welcome to the blog, I look forward to your posts.

About your comment on abbreviatons. Not to sonn you dude, but you just pulled a John McSame senior type moment, even tho you're young.

There is a new invention, available widely 13+ years ago, called "the internets". Specifically, if you put "WOAT" or "IOKIYAR" in urbandictionary or teh google, you will get a definition.

When I use a new slang term, I typically include a link to its urbandictionary definition. But I'm not gonna do that continuously.

Shyt like the New York Times similarly might have an occasional word I don't know. Then, instead of whining, I just look it up on a dictionary website.

Not to be a dick, but...

Not to be a dick or anything on my first day of guestblogging, but I gotta make a humble critique of this blog. We oughta have a "terminology key" for some of the newbies to the blog, you know, and spell out what all of the following mean, i.e.:

WOAT = Worse Of All Time
IOKIYAR = WTF??

etc.

Peace and hair grease, bitches.

What's up, Mane?

What up, dedicated readers of the gringocolombiano blog?

I have been graciously asked to guestblog from time to time. Hope you find my words of value.

Paz,

Anónimo

review of instant messaging software apps

Lifehacker's review of instant messaging software apps.

Edwards has heezos in different area codes

Turns out John Edwards has a mistress.

Thankfully Edwards lost in the Dem nomination race. McSame would prolly sonn Edwards.

Not to be a jerk, but as powerful/popular as Edwards is, I'm surprised his mistress is a 5/10 like Rielle Hunter. Eds is on that B Clinton steez it seems.

Well McSame has had affairs originally with his current wife Cindy McSame while he was married to his 1st wife who stuck with him through his Vietnam imprisonment, & prolly then years later cheated on Cindy with Vicky Iseman.

But IOKIYAR rules the media, & the right-wing LameStream Media is McSame's base, biased towards McCain & negative on Obama. Plus ReThugs are good at negative campaigning dirt on Dems, Dems are horrible at hurling dirt at ReThugs.

I hope Obama doesn't eff around with a mistress. Obama won't get the IOKIYAR pass from McSame's Media. Obama will need an iron will, as dimes like Harry Berry, Scarlett Johansson, & "Obama Girl" are all heavy Obama stans. If Bill Clinton were in Obama's shoes, he would already boned 5 of these "stanlitas". B Clinton stayed boning 4/10 women like Monica Lewinsky, no way could he resist 10/10s like H Berry.

I hope Michelle Obama is breaking off B Obama as much as he wants, or at least 3x/week. Working non-stop with 4 hrs sleep for months on end must be very stressful & tiring. Some sexual healing + brains are very useful in relieving the stress.

No misogynist jic on this post.

man races zebra

This is absurd, yet interesting. Track sprinter Shawn Crawford runs 100m dash against animals.

Crawford beats the giraffe, but gets sonned by a Zebra.

Dude, people are good thinkers, but we will get sonned by animals on physical contests.

running shoes: Reebok Boyleston Trail

I know some of yall or sneaker guru/fanatics, or running enthusiasts. Help me out. Did I win or lose here? What's your take (no Jim Rome)? Pls pontificate in the comments.

I've been walking or running in my neighborhood for exercise lately, since I've been too busy to play much tennis these days.

I went to the local Kohl's & they had about 20 diff types of running shoes, altho some were out of stock in my 10.5 size.

They had these Reebok Boyleston Trail, orig $59, on sale for $29. They seemed dece enough & comfortable when trying them on, so I was like "fock it, do it live" (no Bile O'Really), & copped. At home I searched the internets for user reviews, I couldn't really find much. I went for 3 walks or runs so far, comfortable with no blisters/problems.

I figure these Reeboks are dece enough for generic run/walk exercise. If later on I happen to get hardcore into running where I start doing 5K or 10Ks often, I figure I can research the market better, & get some serious running shoes, prolly having to buy from an internet retailer for selection & price (prolly around $100?). Currently I average 1 or 2 5K races per year, I'm not a hardcore runner or an enthusiast.

Flava Flav & Ted Kennedy boned Bile O'Really's wife

B Crawford reports some real life comedy.

Flava Flav & Ted Kennedy supposedly each were playing with the punani of this woman Maureen McPhilmy, before Bile O'Really wifed her up.

So maybe this is the secret reason Bile hates hip hop & progressive Democrats. Maureen prolly complains Bile's "pipe game" ain't up to Flava or Ted's level, nhjic.

Another point, these 3 dudes seemingly have extremely mutually different personalities, different "types". Is it possible for this Maureen to ever say a dude is "not her type".

I hope Bile O's nemesi (or is it nemesisis?) "Nazzzz" & Ludacris holler at Maureen, add-on to the comedy for us, & grief for Bile-O!

McCain's racist jokes

McCain tells racist jokes.

Obama is pulling a Kerry so far, going easy on McCain, while McCain hurls all type of ad hominems on Obama.

Obama needs a STRONG ATTACK DOG surrogate/weed carrier to hit McCain hard, starting yesterday.

If Obama goes out like a punk biatch Kerry, I might punch a hole in a wall. This country can't take 4 more years of incompetent Corporate ReThuglican policies, led by bottom-of-the class dumbasses like WOAT Bush or McSame.

McCain O'Reilly mashup "Fock it do it live"

Lieberman "u just humiliated urself, dude"

The latest great internets slang is "u just humiliated urself dude".

Fake Democrat Joe Lieberman, aka Droopy Dog, keeps talking as if he represents all American Jews, & all Israeli citizens. He implies anyone who doesn't support his crazy neo-con neo-clown policies is "anti-Israel".

Lieberman, u just humiliated urself dude!

NYT reports approval ratings:

Lieberman 37% favorable, 48 negative
Obama 60% favorable, 34 unfavorable

Pwned! Scoreboard beyoch!

L'chaim to Obama! Mazeltof!

American Monetary Institute

AMI, a think tank that advocates reform of US money, from the current credit system controlled by private investment banks & the quasi-private Fed Reserve, to a public Fed. Govt-based system, where money's value is based in law (as opposed to credit).

Health insurance company rules

Bert & Ernie mashed with MOP

Comedy. Good job of the mashup guy, Ernie's mouth moves in sync with the lyrics. I'm not a MOP fan, but this song "Ante Up" is great, one of the best energetic hyper audio caffeine-type songs.

Sam Pizzigati "Greed & Good"

Interesting sounding book about on bad changes in US Labor in recent decades. Free legal online version of the book available on the site.

WalletPop

personal finance site WalletPop

WOAT murderous gold digger

This 70-something woman already is charged with killing 1 husband, & is being investigated for murking 3 other husbands + 1 of her own sons!


WOAT trife ho ever?

Grandfather Economic Report

some interesting bearish economic sites

Fred's Intelligent Bear
Grandfather Economic Report
Prudent Bear
Clusterfock Nation - a major topic is peak oil

Richard Florida "Who's Your City"

Richard Florida "Who's Your City" appears to be an interesting book that argues that the city (where?) you choose to live in, can matter equally to your career (what?) & your spouse (who?).

Bookmarking this for later reading.

Obama = cowardly bitch on FISA

Obama has been a ReThuglican Lite BITCH lately since HillaRove finally quit, specifically on FISA/Immunity for telecoms.

Greenwald breaks it down like an organic compound.

I hope this an aberration, & not the “real Obama”. It’s ironic & cowardly that Obama, a former Constitution Law Professor, is shyting on the Constitution like this. Big ups to Russ Feingold & his weed carrier Chris Dodd, who are leading the few 15 Senators fighting this bill. Amazing that all these Senators, many of them lawyers, don’t understand the concept of The Rule of Law.

A ReThug Lite cowardly Obama would be still >>> McSame. I voted for Obama in the primary. However, if this is indeed the real Obama, my vote will change from being an “enthusiastic vote” to a “lesser of 2 evils vote”.

That is not change I can believe in.

Future Pundit

Future Pundit, a blog on technological changes & their impact on society

Rothbard "Wall St Banks, & US Foreign Policy"

interesting article from Libertarian Rothbard on how investment banks have a major influence on the US Government from 1890 until current times. WTF.

Ray Fontaine, Deist ex-Catholic priest

Ray Fontaine site, a Deist ex-Catholic priest. Interesting opinions.

US economic megabubble

good blog post noting how the US Fed Gov, starting with Nixon & going through today with WOAT Bush, use Enron/HillaRove style accounting to understate inflation & unemployment, & overstate economic growth rate.

Fugazi stuff.

fwd - article on age discrimination

fwd - article on age discrimination. Some examples of 50 yos getting laid off from their good jobs in fields like IT or engineering, & then not finding a new job, or taking an unrelated non-"knowledge worker" $12/hr job to get by.

I'd like to see some study done, ranking US occupations by reasonable chance of working in that occupation until age 65.

fwd - instrumental tributes to The Roots

want to share the Greatness of The Legendary Roots Crew with someone anti-rap? Perhaps an older family member, or someone else that is an anti-rap extremist?

I saw these lainks on a blogspot.com. I suppose these "albums" are like "free mixtape bootlegs" as opposed to studio albums, & thus sharable here.

smooth jazz - mainly saxophone

classical music steez - violin/strings

Is Bob Barr a brotha?

Wonkette speculates that Libertarian candidate Bob Barr has some African ancestry. I never thought of that or cared, but dude does look similar to Rev Wright!

If Barr is part African, that would be ironic in this election. Barr looks to be getting his "Nader 2000 on" in this election, taking enough McCain votes away to help his "brotha" Obama out in maybe at least 1 key swing states. I read that poll gives Barr 6% of the national vote in a Obama-McCain-Barr race. I assume that all the other 3rd party cats like Nader, McKinney etc will be collectively < 1% this time around. GA, Barr's home state, could switch from being a "solid red state" to a swing state, give Barr's hometown vote, + high likely pro-Obama turnout of black voters.

The situation looks good for my candidate Obama, as long as HillaRove finally goes home already!

Olberman ethers Hillary Clinton

Olberman intellectually ethers Hillary for her implying that Obama might get murdered.



I never recall a Democratic candidate with such Rove-like tendencies as Hillary, at least not among the Presidential candidates.

It really seems that Hillary just cares about Hillary's power. Any other considerations, such as what's best for the USA or the Dem party, are minor secondary considerations to Hill-Rove.

At this time, I believe the Hillary conspiracy may be true that Hillary just wants weaken Obama, so Obama will lose to McCain, so that Hill can re-run in 2012.

If 3rd parties didn't have such a poor record in the US Pres. race, I believe Hillary would pull a Lieberman & run indy in 2008.

F Hillary. In 2009, I hope she is shunned & sonned by Pres Obama & her Senate colleagues. No leadership position in the Senate, no VP, no Supreme Court justice offer, you gets nothing Hillary.

article: how RIAA identifies music pirates

This article implies that only people sharing music files on their hard drive over the internet are in danger of RIAA lawsuits.

This would explain how the "blogspot listing a Rapidshare link" sites stay immune from the RIAA. The blogspot says "hey it's on Rapidshare, it's not my hard drive". Rapidshare can say "hey what a user puts on Rapidshare is their business". Either the blogspot user or Rapidshare will kill the RS link if someone associated with the shared album complains/asks.

Mike Gravel, Obama Girl, & Soulja Boy, WTF!

Mike Gravel "raps" to the Soulja Boy song & flirts with Obama Girl. WTF?! Gravel is hilarious.

Dean Baker article "Developing the New Capitalists' Man"

Another great Dean Baker article. Baker shows the hypocrisy of US elites/corporations. Basically it's ok for corporations to act in their own greedy self-interest, even if it screws it own employees/customers/etc. But if a consumer/family acts this way, it's unacceptable. Instead, the consumer should give corporate welfare to giant corporations, whether on underwater mortgages, pharma drugs, or music CDs.

Obama supporter slogan: You Tell Em B

UPDATE: my urban dictionary definition
---

Anyone catch Obama's May-06 speech after winning the NC primary? After a good line, some loud Obama stan kept yellin "You tell em B"!

Let me be 1 of the first on the bandwagon of the greatness of the "You Tell Em B" slogan. I predict millions including myself will be saying this countless times in the 2009-16 time frame. It will be as widely known as "Give Em Hell Harry" that Harry Truman voters used.

Just remember you read it here first.

You tell em B!

Thom Hartmann

UPDATE 2008-may-05

Hartmann's shows podcast links have changed

Thom Hartmann national show
Hartmann local Portland, OR show
--
2007-may-21

Thom Hartmann (wikipedia bio) is a progressive talk show host from the "radical middle". Hartmann IMHO is the MOST INSIGHTFUL person in the MSM. To me, he sons other Air America talk shows, USNWR editorialists, & any of the few TV commentators that are actually worthwhile such as Jack Cafferty or Lou Dobbs.

Hartmann has a historian's perspective when discussing issues. I have a feeling that many current events are similar to events in history, but since no one alive had a grandparents alive during the historical time frame, we never learn from the mistakes in the past. Hartmann is one of the few people very aware of history. For instance he talks about the middle class is not a normal thing historically, but an anomaly that has only happened a few times in history, and if not protected, will disappear again.

Hartmann has an interesting perspective about the difference in worldviews between progressives & conservatives. Progressives believe that people are fundamentally good, and the purpose of government in addition to defense & policing, is to provide a safety net or "backstop" for people. Conservatives believe that people are fundamentally evil, the purpose of government is only for defense & police, and that control of society should be left to a few elite since the evil masses can't be trusted to run the society. Hartmann uses quotes from 200+ year old philosophers on both the progressive & conservative sides to justify his interesting theory.

Hartmann has articles & podcast mp3 file of his talk shows on his site. Check it out sometime, your brain will thank you.

E-Fuel Corp, makes personal ethanol machines using sugar

Interesting article on E-Fuel Corp, makes personal ethanol machines using sugar.

Hey if the E-Fuel machine really cost $10K, & can reliably make ethanol for $1/gallon, I would strongly consider effing with it.

But even better, why couldn't a service station network be set up to sell this ethanol? It seems a service station would get better economies of scale than a home personal machine.

The Roots album "Rising Down"

The Legendary Roots Crew has dropped their 8th studio album, "Rising Down". Perhaps the most consistent music artist of the last 15 years, once again the Legendary drop a good album.

Several videos have been dropped on OnSmash, all apparently directed by this Filipino director Rik Cordero. Questlove said he took the budget to make 1 traditional music video, & instead made several videos using Cordero, who specializes in making good videos while using lower-cost equipment/technology. Questo said this is the future of music videos, making low cost videos to put on internet sites like OnSmash. Makes sense to me, since the traditional music video channels like MTV don't show many videos anymore anyways, they're mainly reality TV channels now.

Get Busy


Rising Up


75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)


Birthday Girl (bonus track)

The New Unions

This article "The New Unions" has kind of swag-jacked a theory I've had for a year: the only real unions for college-degreed jobs are licensing requirements.

From a US worker perspective, it's natural for one to want their occupation to be over-licensed, in order to keep supply of colleagues in the occupation low, & thus demand high. This effect is the same as a traditional union, in terms of enhancing the employment rate, pay, working conditions, etc, of those licensed workers in question.

For a general US citizen perspective on the US economy, the problem with the current scheme is that there is no coherent scheme. Some occupations are not licensed at all and should be. Other occupations are over-licensed.

Some occupations, such as IT professionals such as software engineers, & certain engineers in general, face extreme competition from H1-B visas, offshore outsourcing, & age discrimination. Other occupations have there professional society force extreme protectionism to prevent newcomers, whether US citizens, H1-B, or offshored workers, from competing in the field.

IMHO Ideally the nature of each occupation could be analyzed for the work content and skills, & an appropriate coherent level of licensing would be required. The H1-B visa could be reformed perhaps to allow a limited amount of yearly visas, say the 65k workers/yr number from a few years ago, to be put out for competition to the highest bidder. Maybe it would cost something like $40K per visa, & companies hiring IT, engineers, professors, lawyers, accountants, physicians, architects, etc, would have to compete with each other for the limited H1-B slots, & would have to really rethink hard their statement "we couldn't find an American willing/able to do the job".

Of course any such reform, if it happens, is probably not going to happen significantly for years. In other words, people that are actually adults now may want to consider retraining (or training if still in college) for heavily licensed careers.

I'd love to see the MVP US economist Dean Baker drop some knowledge on this article. I'm gonna hit up his blog comments & see if he'll pontificate on this & drop the $0.02.

opinion: Blame CIOs for the IT skills shortage

opinion Blame CIOs for the IT skills shortage

opinion on future software industry

Software founder/exec Romesh Wadhwani of Aspect Dev/i2 & other vendors gives opinion on future of the software industry.

most consultants are mere order fulfillment?

Vinnie pointed out this Brian Sommer opinion stating that most business & IT consultants are not true consultants, instead they are order fulfillment folks delivering tasks.

Interesting perspective, my take is that there's a spectrum between consultant status & order fulfillment status. At least in the supply chain software implementation area, there is usually some specific nature of the client's business requirements, which requires some creative thinking by the project team. If it was pure order fulfillment, more of the project could be automated in software, or delivered in manuals that a trained client person could do themselves. I can't speak for other business app software areas like ERP or CRM, they might be more commodity in nature.

Obama "gets that dirt off his shoulder"

Obama mashed up with Joe Camel. Nice! Hillary "Rove" can't eff with that!

economist Reich endorses Obama

Bill Clinton friend & Sec of Labor, economist Robert Reich, endorsed Obama.

Who else is getting annoyed with hypocrite Hillary "Rove" Clinton?

Roubini explains the Bear Stearns fiasco

Nouriel Roubini explains the Bear Stearns fiasco in this opinion "A Generalized Run on the Shadow Financial System".

Amen, sir. No corporate welfare for douche incompetent fiscally moronic investment bankers!

Roubini's recommended policy is excellent "If a bail out should occur this is a fiscal policy action that should be decided by Congress after the relevant equity holders have been wiped out & senior management fired without golden parachutes and huge severance packages"

Aras, open source PLM app vendor

This private Boston software company Aras, supposedly was an existing proprietary PLM app vendor with real existing customers, that changed to an free open source model, meaning the software license cost is free for new customers. Existing customers get free maintenance for a certain time frame.

The article claim Aras now makes its revenue from annual maintenance fees.

It said the app is only available on Microsoft (MS) infrastructure (Windows OS & SQL Server database). Since MS is so huge, I wouldn't be surprised if Aras gets some corporate welfare subsidies from MS, if nothing else for MS to point out a successful example of their involvement of open source.

Obviously it would be better if Aras also supported a LAMP open source infrastructure software stack, but this is still a good step IMHO.

I think this trend for open source business app software would be good for customers, and for the "real work" departments of a software vendor (software development, consulting/implementation, customer support, etc. Too much cost, time, & effort is wasted in an app software sales cycle.

Boom Bust blog

Boom Bust blog, financial markets commentary

douche cable pundits named Douche

Coincidentally there are 2 cable pundits with names that sound like douche

Donny Deutsch

Steve Doocy

Pete Rosenberg interviews Questlove

Pete Rosenberg interviews Questlove

Check the end where Questo shows his "man purse" full of multiple terabytes of music on multiple portable hard drives. Damn son, I thought I had too many random GB of data!

Uyger goes in on the "Obama is elitist" meme

Cenk Uyger goes in & destroys the nonsense rightwingnut/H Clinton "Obama is elitist" meme. Classic.

Kurzweil: Making the World A Billion Times Better

Computer scientist/entrepreneur/futurist Ray Kurzweil has an editorial predicting that computer science/information technology will help the energy & medical problems greatly in the next few decades.

Stagnation Celebration

Dean Baker has an article on the how the "demographic crisis" predicted circa 2030 is really a benefit.

Baker explains how the fallacy that in each country, each older generation must be backed up by a same-sized or larger younger generation(s), in order to keep the ratio of W/R ratio (my lingo for purpose of illustration) sufficiently high, where W = number of workers, & R = number of 65+ retired seniors.

I never bought this fallacy myself, because it seemed to be
1 unsustainable. Eventually the human society/economy must learn to operate with a constant or declining population. If every generation grows even slightly (say 1%) bigger than the prior generation, at some future time there won't be enough resources to maintain a certain standard of living, such as the US 2008 median standard of living. This might be in 50 years or 1000 years, but logic says it would eventually happen. Even if our descendants circa figure out how to colonize the solar system, the same fate would eventually occur.

2 productivity. I recall Baker saying in another article that productivity has risen 66% in the last 30 years, yet only the top 1% or 5% of income folks have had a meaningful improvement in living standards, the rest have faced constant or declining living standards. Shouldn't all the cumulative productivity allow the society to operate with a declining population?

I guess Japan will be living experiment to see who is correct. Japan almost certainly will have a declining population this century.

US Colombia free trade agreement

Condi rice hypes the US - Colombia "free trade" agreement. The MSM aka conservative nanny state apologists George Will & Investor Business Daily echo Rice.

2 US Congressmen debate the issue on PBS.

I'm waiting to see if actual intelligent & pro-US middle class economist or commentators like Dean Baker, Paul Craig Roberts, Thom Hartmann, David Sirota, etc drop $0.02 on this issue.

weak USD influencing EU to outsource mfg jobs to USA

Article says that the weak dollar is influencing EU companies to outsource manufacturing jobs to the USA, to make products for US customers.

The article misses the point that this manufacturing in a country for its own customers, thus this does not increase US exports, it just stops some US imports. This is different animal than a Chinese factory or Indian software development center making product for global (mainly US) customers.

Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted

I stumbled upon this interesting article arguing that "career planning is time wasted". The reason psychologists give is "miswanting", the concept that humans are bad a predicting what will give them future happiness.

The article recommends ""The best strategy for career planning is this: make your best guess, try it out and don't be surprised if you don't like it".

The Simple Dollar references this article in a blog post, arguing that personal finance trumps career planning, since personal finance will always be needed & relevant in your life, whereas a specific career plan may become irrelevant if you choose or are forced to change careers.

workplace A vs. B players

This USA today article compares the concept of workplace A vs. B players,& that a company needs to respect both types of workers. I'm not sure if I agree with the concept, but it's interesting to know anyways, since many PHBs out there do believe in this A/B concept.

Obama wins TX delegate count

TX finally tallied their delegates from the TX caucus. In the combination of caucus + primary delegates, Obama wins TX 99 - 94.

Somehow I doubt that H Clinton will stop claiming TX as her victory.

Youzhny hits himself in the head with racket

In a Lupe Fiasco-like self-ethering "Fiasco", Russian Top 20 tennis player Mikhail Youzhny hits himself in the forehead with his racket hard, causing bleeding & injury timeout, during the current Miami masters tourney. WTF. Youzhny still won the match.

article - How To Do What You Love

Career advice in article "How To Do What You Love".

iTulip

iTulip is a bearish website, commentating on asset bubbles. It claims to have called the IT/internet retail bubble in 1999, & the housing bubble in 2002, "EARLY" (c) Freeway

Job Market 2009

hilarious yet said sketch clip, "a lot of truth is said in jest" here.

The way shyt is going, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 5-10 years a decent amount of Americans started applying for visas & jobs in other countries, at least in certain occupations.