Fucked again

The Sydney Morning Herald has a nice article about the triumph of Blu-Ray.

Rico says he bought a Beta tape player, back in the day, because it was 'better'....

Seal team, geddit?

A team of seals has taken over a nuclear submarine, and won't give it back. The Navy is concerned...

Mac heads unite

Seems that people still don't get it about Macs.

Rico says you're either a Mac junkie or a Windows clone:

Now that's change

A classic Saturday Night Live skit, via Michelle Malkin, that covers the whole 'change' issue perfectly.

Rico says if another candidate promises 'change', he's going to ask for it in silver dollars... (And by the way, Fred, now that you bailed on the campaign, I'd like my contributions back.)

Careful what you say

Seems Michelle Malkin has some 'issues' about recent comments by Michelle Obama.

Rico says opening your mouth can be a dangerous thing for politicians and their spouses...

Another splendid palindrome

Civil War for the day

Fort Clinch, east of Jacksonville in Florida. The big guns are, alas, fakes...

Spetsnaz are tough bastards

More travel, but warmer

Another NYT on-line travel article, this one about hanging out in St. Barts.

Rico likes the sound of that a lot better than Berlin; he's been to Berlin, but not St. Barts...

Great idea; let's see if it works

The New York Times travel section on-line has this article about honor-system wine bars in Berlin.

Rico says it's an interesting premise; he suspects it won't work here...

Gotta go

The new Indiana Jones movie is coming in May. It looks like a rehash of the earlier ones, complete with Nazis, lost tribes in the jungle, and the usual Harrison Ford wisecracks. But Rico will be there, regardless...

Too much time on their hands

Seems the latest internet craze is 'single serving sites', which only have one page and only do one thing. Some samples:

Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue. Sometimes the page is red, sometimes it is blue.
Misanthropebook, a Facebook parody.

Go to Kottke's page and check out others, if you care.

Classic, in a twisted sort of way

Homer, as if painted by Rembrandt. Interesting, but too weird, even for Rico.

And yet more old friends

I just sent a copy of At All Hazards to Sheriff Jim Wilson, who writes a column for Shooting Times. Hopefully he'll mention it in his column, and many people will suddenly want it...
I don't need to sell a million of them (though that'd be fine; feel free to order), but a few thousand of each would be nice. Hell, if each of my blog readers thus far just bought one copy...

Speaking of old friends

I got a call last night from Don Kantor, an old friend from my days in California.
The surprise was that, while I'd been trying to contact him, he'd been trying to contact me.
We hadn't spoken in probably fifteen or twenty years, so the coincidence was pretty high.
Had a nice chat, catching up, and we'll talk again.

Rico says there's something about a NDE* that makes you want to find all your old friends... (And if Dan Alcala or Maria Victoria Alonso or Randy Denbow or Janaia Donaldson or Liz Ens or Bob Hickson or Fariba Karimi or Mark Leinonen or Kelly Montana or Robert E. Smith are reading this, do email me, or post your email in a comment and I'll write you.)

*NDE = near-death-experience; they really suck, but are illuminating if you make it back.

Old friends, still around

Checked to see if the drug I used to take for my allergies, Coricidin, was still around. It is.
Turns out that the active ingredient was my old friend Dexter Methorphan.
Well, actually, it's dextromethorphan, but I thought it worked better as a character name in a story I haven't written yet; sounds like a hard-bitten detective, doesn't it? If I ever write it, I'll post it here...

That's dumb

Seems the combo Che/Cuba flag adorns the wall in Obama's campaign headquarters in Houston.

Rico says they'll be lucky if they don't get a visit from the Obama people in Miami...

But you can get your own right here at the Che Store:

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, doomed to repeat it, doomed to repeat it

Much to-do in the MSM over 'plagiarism' accusations between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, with point-counterpoint videos showing up on YouTube.
Supposedly Obama 'stole' lines from a speech by Deval Patrick, given back in 2006.
The first one cited is "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
The second one cited is "We have nothing to fear but fear itself..."
The third one cited is "Ask not what your country can do for you..."
The fourth one cited is "I have a dream..."

Now, is it suspicious that Obama used the same set of quotes (though only three of the four and not in the same order)? Sure.
Is it plagiarism? No. ('Inspired by' isn't the same.)
Because Patrick lifted them all himself, from the Declaration of Independence, FDR, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
First of all, if you steal from a thief, is it theft?
And, if you're going to steal (like Patrick did), steal from the best.

Rico says it's much ado about nothing. Oops. seems somebody named Shakespeare already said that... (And the headline for this post? Georges Santayana. See how easy plagiarism is?)

Another one gone, almost

Seems that Fidel Castro, after nearly fifty years in power, will 'not return to lead the country as president', according to al-Reuters: "To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament … I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept — I repeat not aspire to or accept — the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief", Castro said in the statement published on the website of the Communist Party’s Granma newspaper."

Rico says, wonderingly, that Granma has a website? What's the world coming to? Hell, his grandma didn't have a website...

Rico also says that the best they can come up with to replace him, of course, is Raul Castro...

Rico also says he never knew Castro had another family name, but apparently it's Ruz...

While it's not nice, the Fidel zombie doll from the Babalu Blog is, however, funny:
Rico hopes the old man goes soon, because Rico and his father are scheduled to do some snorkeling in Cuba as soon as US citizens can travel there legally...

Pissing Bill off

Seems a young heckler got into it with Bill Clinton in Ohio, and Billy Jeff didn't like it.

Rico says if you don't like political opinions, don't be one...

We should take our marbles and go

The president is in Africa this week, spreading American largesse.
Funny, Rico muses bitterly, that you never hear about the big aid campaigns paid for by the Russians or the Chinese, where they distribute free food and medicine to the impoverished countries of the world... (Or send troops to try and right some political disaster.)

Rico says they all say they hate us, but they'd miss us if we were gone...

So much for international diplomacy

From the First In blog: When Hillary Clinton said, way back in New Hampshire, that Vladimir Putin "doesn't have a soul", I figured that would be the sort of thing the Russian wouldn't be pleased about. But when I called the foreign ministry the next day for comment, it was Orthodox Christmas, they were closed, and I let it slide.
He was asked about the remark at his press conference yesterday, however, and indeed wasn't pleased.
The former KGB lieutenant colonel appeared to lash out at Hillary Clinton when one reporter quoted her as saying that former KGB officers have no soul:
"At a minimum, a head of state should have a head," Putin said.

Rico says nice zinger, Vladimir...

Death has its purposes

Some things Rico won't get to see:

As it happens, a new Pew Research Center study suggests that, through government policy, America is well on its way to importing a Third World majority population of its own. Assuming a slightly lower immigration rate than we've seen over the last 20 years, the Hispanic population, according to Pew, will triple in the 45 years from 2005 until 2050.

The population projections are quite staggering. Here they are in millions:
Year......................2005 (percent)........2050 (percent)
Total (millions).....296 (100)...............438 (148)
Foreign Born..........36 (12)...................83 (19)
White...................198 (57).................206 (48)
Hispanic ................41 (14).................127 (29)
Black......................38 (13)...................57 (13)
Asian......................15 (5).....................39 (9)

It's not just that there's going to be three people where now there are two (so be sure to check around your house for where the additional people are going to stay), it's that who they are will be different.
Whites less, blacks about the same, Asians and Hispanics a lot more.
The split between rich and poor will probably get wider, too.

Rico says, while he's sure it will be fascinating, he's just as happy he'll miss that world...

Another great word

The VDare blog has a nice one today: "Predicting the winners of Presidential primary campaigns is a mug's game."

The Free Dictionary defines a 'mug's game' as "a futile or unprofitable endeavor".

Rico's been there, done that, and he's not doing it for this election, either...

Underutilized words

Rico just savors certain words, some for their sound, some for their meaning.

Defenestration is one of them. While there are historical references, it's just such a lovely-sounding (if unlovely in practice) word.

Another childhood memory trashed

I saw Taras Bulba first run, or nearly so (I would have been ten when it came out), and I got to watch the end of it this morning on television. It was awful, of course. (I'm surprised it got that 6.2 rating at imdb.com, personally.)
But what could you expect from a movie co-starring Tony Curtis which has the classic "Yonda lie the tents of my fadda" line, delivered in his Brooklyn accent. (Though the story was lifted from a novel by Nikolai Gogol, it was undoubtedly bastardized by Hollywood.)
But Yul Brynner was gorgeous as ever, and did a great job in an awful movie. Besides, he has a great line or two himself, including "There's only one way to keep faith with a Pole. Put your faith in your sword and the sword in the Pole."

Rico says they may have shot it in Argentina (cheap cavalrymen and lots of horses), but it sure looked like California and not a damn thing like Poland... (Though I belatedly realized that imdb.com does say it was partially shot on the Disney Ranch in Santa Clarita, California, so it's no wonder it looked like California. Of course, Santa Clarita doesn't look like that anymore, either...)

(The best part of the film, for Rico, was realizing that he and Taras Bulba now have the same hat!)

Wimps

(click here to go to the video)
But it's a .458 Winchester, not a .577, and Rico's fired one. It hurts, and it gives you a righteous thump, but notice the last guy didn't have much of a problem with it... (This video is actually from a range in one of the Arab Emirates, which is why there are all the little wimpy guys getting pushed around by it.)

Rico's counterparts

Seems this blog has hit on the secret to the outcome of the election this year: Angry White Men.

"The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him."

Rico says that's now a Rico mantra...

But the guy understands politics, too:
"The Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, and his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves."

Welsh rarebit

This Welsh blog had this great tshirt image. While it does give away some 'spoiler' lines of a lot of movies, Rico thinks it's extremely cool...

Civil War for the day

The Delaware Blues marching (with others) in the 140th Remembrance Day parade. Rico is in the second row, sixth from the left in the photo; look for the long mustache.

Finally, a truly sunny story

This New York Times on-line article shows the best of American ingenuity; it's why our business is still better than their business.
“A solar cell is just a big specialized chip, so everything we’ve learned about making chips applies,” says Paul Saffo, an associate engineering professor at Stanford.

Rico says he hopes they hurry up and figure it out; the faster we can make electricity and hot water from the sun and the faster we can use electricity to power our vehicles, the faster we can tell the oil-producing countries (notice that Rico didn't say "the Arabs", but we all know who he meant; there are non-Arab countries producing fossil fuels, like the UK and the Norwegians, but mostly they're not trying to kill us on the side, except for the Islamic but non-Arabic ones like the Iranians and the Indonesians) to go fuck themselves...

Rico also says we must stop using antiquated, if common, phrases like 'fossil fuels' to describe the primordial processes that, without recourse to any fossil-era plants or animals, continue to manufacture petroleum materials in the earth's crust...

So civilized

Seems there is a club, and neither you nor Rico are members. But it's French, so what do you expect?

"Of all the clubs in the world, the Club of 100 in France may be the most exclusive. Its ranks include leaders in business, politics and law, but it’s the admission policy that really makes the Club des Cent, as it is known here, truly remarkable: only when an existing member dies is space made for a new one. The École Polytechnique, which trains top engineers in France, is one of two schools that give graduates entree to the upper tiers of French business. Officially, the club, now 96 years old, is devoted strictly to gastronomy, and when the group gathers Thursdays for lunch at legendary Paris restaurants like Maxim’s, politics and business are not on the menu. Claude Bébéar, the chairman of AXA, the French insurance giant, and a club member for more than two decades, says that there is “an atmosphere of real friendship; we are very close.”
The same is true of the French business establishment. A close-knit brotherhood — it’s nearly all male — that shares school ties, board memberships, and rituals like hunting and wine-tasting, the French business elite is a surprisingly small coterie in a nation of more than 60 million people."
"At least half of France’s 40 largest companies are run by graduates of just two schools, the École Polytechnique, which trains the country’s top engineers, and ENA, the national school of administration. That’s especially remarkable given that the two schools together produce only about 600 graduates a year, compared with a graduating class of 1,700 at Harvard.
"Getting into Harvard, which accepted 9 percent of its applicants last year, is a breeze compared with getting into the École Polytechnique."
"The École Polytechnique was founded in 1794, during the French Revolution, to train the country’s military engineers, and it officially remains under the umbrella of the French ministry of defense. Not only is the school free, but students also receive a stipend from the government to cover their expenses."
“They behave like blood relations,” says Ghislaine Ottenheimer, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the French elite. “There is a sense of impunity because there is no sanction in the family.”

Knew it all along

A couple of new books deal with women in the workplace, albeit with differing approaches:
“Seducing the Boys Club is equal parts autobiography and how-to manual. Ms. DiSesa bases her recommendations on her 35-year career in advertising. She recounts her fight to climb the corporate ladder while coping with divorce, breast cancer, remarriage, and sexist male colleagues she calls 'hooligans'. She lists seven deadly sins — humility, timidity, cowardice, submissiveness, blind obedience, visible fear, and hypersensitivity — as common female traits to be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, she also warns women to avoid male tendencies like getting 'drunk with power'. 'One of the greatest tools, or weapons, we have as women is flirting', she says, later adding, 'Men like women who like them'.” A half-dozen pages later, she says: “A female culture — one that embraces compassion, nurturing, collaboration and sensitivity — by nature creates a more productive, pleasant place to work than an atmosphere of fear, danger, and macho competition. Maybe a combination of the two cultures is the perfect workplace; it would be exciting but still fun.”
There are no maybes in What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business. The author, Christopher Flett, a Canadian-born entrepreneur, describes himself as a 'reformed alpha male' who is now dedicated to helping women outwit alpha males. Flett says the foundation of the 21st-century business model is 'authenticity'. But instead of recognizing the new paradigm, he says, many women keep hiding behind personality masks to play roles like Mother and Geisha or try to pass themselves off as 'one of the boys' by feigning interest in macho sports like ice hockey. At the same time, he accuses other women of committing a laundry list of typical female mistakes he details in chapters with subheadings such as Taking Things Personally, Making Excuses, and, in a description of perhaps the most egregious mistake, Not Keeping Secrets.”

Rico says these two authors probably wouldn't get along. But the whole premise that "the two principal tactics advocated by Ms. DiSesa are seduction and manipulation" is scary; Rico knows he's been hit by this act before in business, and the problem is that it works... (Guess that makes Rico an unreformed alpha male; guilty as charged.)

iPhone, uPhone, who's gotta iPhone?

Rico isn't sure he'd want a phone called the 'Crazy Love', but it probably sounds better in Chinese... But it seems that there's a million plus iPhones that Apple's sold but haven't turned up on the AT&T network as they were intended to per the lucrative agreement between Apple and the telephone giant. (Rico saw this same kick-back scheme at work with Apple's paper vendor, after he worked for the Fruit Company but had started worked for Claris, and thought it was stupid, being a sort of take-the-money-out-of-one-pocket-and-put-it-in-another scheme, but at least this deal represents real income for Apple. The earlier agreement only made the profit center of the guys doing the paper negotiations look good, thus driving up their annual bonus...)

Coincidence? Maybe

I just opened up my blog and there was the latest headcount on my visitors. Now, numbers that read the same in both directions (aka palindrome) are cool, but this one is even cooler for a very personal reason: when I joined the Fruit Company, many years ago now, we were handed a stack of employee ID cards and Rico was able to flip down a card in the stack and pick the one he wanted (even though he's not a Christian, who would choose to have to always explain, especially to believers, why you had 666 in your employee number), so his employee number was 7667...

Shotgun marriages rarely work

This BBC on-line article covers the problem well: "Microsoft's proposal to buy internet veteran Yahoo for a whopping $44.6bn certainly grabs the attention. But does it make business sense? In a way this won't be the Microsoft founder's problem. This summer Mr Gates will leave the company to work full-time on fighting global poverty and diseases like AIDS, Malaria and TB. But the Microsoft managers who have to make it work will be asked whether this is a case of one failing giant trying to prop up another."

Rico said that Billy bailed on the problem, and he almost feels sorry for those Microsofties who have to deal with it now...

Surrounded by idiots

According to this New York Times on-line article, the factory that made the bad ingredient that killed people using heparin hadn't even been inspected by the Chinese, much less the FDA. "The plant in Changzhou, west of Shanghai, appears to fall into the type of regulatory void that American and Chinese health officials are trying to close — in which chemical companies export pharmaceutical ingredients without a Chinese drug license." "Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the United States Food and Drug Administration, said inspectors from that agency would be visiting the Changzhou plant soon. Ms. Riley said she could not be more specific. Earlier in the week she described her agency’s failure to inspect the plant as a 'glitch'.”

Rico says someone has to go down for this 'glitch'...

The Democrats are undemocratic?

This LA Times on-line article explains the whole 'superdelegate' thing. In a nutshell, the party has created a class of 'voters' who outrank a huge number of 'real' voters who merely cast their ballot at the polls or in a caucus: "How powerful are superdelegates? In California, 370 regular delegates were allotted based on the votes of more than 4.5 million people in the state's February 5th primary. That means each of California's 66 superdelegates will cast a convention ballot equivalent to a regular delegate picked by more than 12,000 primary voters."

Rico says if the Republicans had set things up this way, the Democrats would be screaming...

Backwards, they always get it backwards

If these school shooters (cowards, like the Taliban, hitting soft targets) would only shoot themselves first, it would be so much better for all concerned...
"Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student — except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms. Professors and students knew him as a bright, helpful scholar, but his past included a stint in a mental health center... The 27-year-old Kazmierczak also had a history of mental illness and had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication, said university Police Chief Donald Grady."
Dunavan, described Kazmierczak as timid and apologetic. "He was really, really mousy."

Rico says you take a 'really, really mousy' guy with mental problems, let him go off his meds, let him get hold of some guns, and then wonder why he decides to wipe out some unsuspecting (and unarmed) bunch of college kids...

Hitting soft targets again, the cowards

How hard is it to walk into a crowd of innocents and pull the pin on your suicide bomb? Not hard enough, apparently, according to an AP on-line article: "A suicide bombing at an outdoor dog fighting competition killed 80 people and wounded scores more Sunday, a governor said, in what appeared to be the deadliest terror attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Officials said the attack apparently targeted a prominent militia commander who had stood up against the Taliban. He died in the attack... The Taliban often claim responsibility immediately after major attacks against police and army forces — often naming the bombers — but shy away from claiming attacks with high civilian casualties."

Rico says it seems a high price for one guy they could have killed somewhere else...

Why Rico hates religion

From this New York Times on-line article: "With each of life’s disappointments and indignities, Mr. Sayyid has drawn religion closer... Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood... In their frustration, the young are turning to religion for solace and purpose, pulling their parents and their governments along with them... More young people are observing stricter separation between boys and girls, sociologists say, fueling sexual frustrations. The focus on Islam is also further alienating young people from the West and aggravating political grievances already stoked by Western foreign policies. The religious fervor among the young is swelling support for Islam to play a greater role in political life. That in turn has increased political repression, because many governments in the region see Islamic political movements as a threat to their own rule... “Yes, I do think that Islam is the solution,” Mr. Sayyid said, quoting from the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but tolerated organization in Egypt that calls for imposing Shariah, or Islamic law, and wants a religious committee to oversee all matters of state. “These people, the Islamists, they would be better than the fake curtain, the illusion, in front of us now.” Across the Middle East, marriage is not only the key to adulthood but also a religious obligation, which only adds to the pressure — and the guilt... Mr. Sayyid lives with his mother, Sabah, who is 45, and who divorced shortly after he was born. He now spends most of his time behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Golf, listening to the Koran... “What do you think? Of course I am bored,” Mr. Sayyid said, trying not to let go of the forced smile he always wears when he talks about his stalled life. “When I get closer to God, I feel things are good in my life.”

Rico says so, the solution to Islamic fundamentalism is getting their young men laid... What else is new? But money, as ever, is barring them from getting married, and they can't get laid without getting married. The solution? A secret CIA program to provide free marriages for any young Arab or Persian man who wants to get married. Maybe streetcorner vans loaded with cash, like mobile marriage banks...
Unfortunately, there's a tremendously similar problem with Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists; they both know they have the Truth, and that's a scary thing...

Civil War for the day

The grave of Rico's multiple-great-uncle Jones in the national cemetery at Murfreesboro, where he was killed.

LIke mother like daughter

While Rico would love to do a photo overlay test to see if there are Vince Foster characteristics in her face, there's no doubt that Chelsea Clinton is her mother's child. She's stepped up to 'pimp' for her mother (even though that phrase got an MSNBC correspondent in trouble), and has improved Hillary's vote-gathering power wherever she's campaigned. But she's been declared off-limits to the press, an odd thing in the midst of a campaign.

Rico says she's the one truly innocent Clinton, and hopes she survives the process...

An answer to a question no one asked

Seems the Swiss, not heretofore known as an auto-producing country, have developed a truly submersible car. To make it more interesting, it's a convertible. (That would have been Rico's first thought when designing a submarine: leave the top off...) Apparently it actually works, and will 'make a splash' at the Geneva Auto Show in March.
The specs are impressive: 77 mph on land, and 1.8 mph underwater, with a 3 mph 'boat' speed on the surface.
Named the sQuba, it's supposedly resistant to salt water.

Rico says he'll let someone else drive this first. He doesn't like submarines, especially ones that cost a half million dollars...

Civil War for the day

Gettysburg, the Friday, back in September of 2007.

Other than the coat and him being dead...

...there's no connection. But Rico wanted one for years, so he traded heavily on his near-death-experience to justify buying a coat just like this one. (With no epaulets and no stars, of course.) Rico says it may be cold in Philly, but inside that coat it's always Key West...

The view from in here

The text says: "What I was actually thinking about while you thought I was just lying there."

Rico says there's always a lot going on, even when it doesn't look like it...

(Click on the image to see the photos at a more reasonable size.)

Damn! for the day

Some things you're just as happy to see in pictures, rather than in person. This waterspout, shot by a NOAA cameraman off the Florida Keys in 1969, is one of them.

OYAT

I saw Dr. Long yesterday and he said he took a quick glance at Mark’s CAT scan and that everything looked fine. I’m sure if there was a problem, he would have told me by now.
It seems Mark's disorientation is mostly with time and place. Seems 1987 must have been either a very good or very bad year for him. He also seems to think that he's been in rehab for either seven or two years - or so it seems to him. As to the place, today it was Florida until I told him to look out the window at the snow and later in the day he said he was in a hotel in Delaware. This is a very very common disorientation among brain trauma individuals. The therapists and nurses orient the patients to time and place throughout the day.
When I arrived this morning Mark’s roommate was out at therapy. I told the nurse that Ken had been talking to me yesterday (Ken hasn’t talked since his brain surgery), but when his wife Marsha got there he wouldn’t say anything to her. After the nurse left Mark’s room, Mark asked if his name was Ken? And was he married to someone named Marsha? I told him that Ken was his roommate and Marsha was Ken’s wife. He said he didn’t like the name Ken and didn’t want to be married to someone named Marsha. As a matter of fact, he didn’t want to be married to anyone. I asked him “you don’t even want to be married to me?” and he said he would marry me only if I was pregnant. Oh man, I’m glad I’m writing this down.
What is the chance that there would be two Amish men with the same last name (Stoltzfus) in one brain unit of one rehab hospital at the same time? One is at least in his 50’s or older and the other seems to be a teenager. The younger one has tons of visitors and they were all sitting in the TV lounge tonight. I think they were enjoying the electricity and TV as much as the visit.
Since Mark has only one one-hour therapy session on Saturdays and Sundays, he seemed to have more energy today. We ordered out Chinese food and he wasn’t very happy with it. He thinks his taste buds are a little off. He even thinks Coke tastes bad so he’s back to iced tea.

That should be 'one year ago tomorrow', because there was no post for today, it seems...
(The ladyfriend is still teasing Rico about the "I'd marry you if you were pregnant" line; seems her menopause and my vasectomy made that funny...)

Another Berkeley classic

What would a siege of a police station be without a bearded guy playing a banjo? And is this what old hippies are reduced to?

Rico knows, even if they don't

This lighthouse was on the iGoogle page today, identified only as (sic) "Lonley lighthouse". Rico knows they meant 'lonely', but obviously they didn't run their spellchecker.
They also didn't know, apparently, that it's on a lonely rock in the middle of the Sacramento river delta, off Benecia. It's an amazing place, if you ever go there.

OYAT

Mark was a little more chipper today, although he was awfully tired tonight and after dinner and his shower, was in bed by 6. When I left at 6:30 he was snoring.
Mark had his x-ray today. They do that to check the settings of his shunts. I didn't talk to Dr. Long but I'm assuming everything was okay. Unlike the hospital, they actually will look for you to give you updates. His CAT scan is tomorrow afternoon.
We had an exercise the other day in PT where I had to toss Mark the ball and ask him a math question and then he had to give me the answer when he tossed it back. They all laughed when I asked him what pi was but they stopped when he gave me the right answer (and I could tell they didn't know it and they asked me if he was right - beats me but I did look it up and I know he got the 3.14 right). But then tonight when I asked him where he was he said a stadium. Well, we were sitting in a brightly lit room in uncomfortable chairs watching a big flat screen TV!

Rico says he could only remember pi out to 3.14159...

A Brit explains the whole thing

Excellent commentary

This, from Melanie Phillips' column in the Spectator:

"Too many in the government cannot get their heads round the fact that, while what we are up against is not war as conventionally understood, i.e., aggression between states, it is much more than terrorism because of the strategic goals, which are the overthrow of the West. Partly because the establishment persists in thinking that as this is such a preposterous proposition (How can people stuck in the 7th century possibly ever overthrow the most powerful civilisation in the history of the planet? Too ridiculous for words, dear boy!) it could never happen and therefore should not be taken seriously, and partly because that establishment is so terrified by the implications of a religious war of cultural conquest that it takes refuge in a myriad different fatuous other explanations for what is happening."

Rico says we must understand that there are people out there who want us (and all we stand for) dead, and they will try again one of these days...

But they're so peaceful...

This, from the current Religion of Peace blog:

2/15/2008 (Nimroz, Afghanistan) - Religious extremists gun down four Afghan police officers.
2/15/2008 (Peshawar, Pakistan) - Mujahideen attack an army checkpoint with automatic weapons, killing a local soldier.
2/14/2008 (Baghdad, Iraq) - Jihadis bomb a crowded marketplace, killing at least seven Iraqis.
2/14/2008 (Awja, Iraq) - Freedom Fighters shoot a family of nine to death in their home, including children.
2/14/2008 (Mogadishu, Somalia) - Islamic militants hurl a grenade into a crowd, killing a school headmaster.
2/14/2008 (Yala, Thailand) - A laborer is shot to death in front of his wife by militant Muslims.

Rico says you should note how many of these are incidents where a jihadi blows up people in places where the likelihood of their getting blown away is low, like in people's own houses or a marketplace. Rico hates cowards, and religious cowards are the worst...

That word again

To the horror of his ladyfriend, Rico can't have a conversation without it...

Me, too

The Queen of England had hers, Nancy Pelosi had hers, and Rico had an annus horribilis all his own.
But it's 2008 now, and Rico's doing much better, thank you.
Let's hope it stays that way...

Civil War for the day

The Delaware Blues, ready for another round of shooting. That would be Rico in the far back left corner...

Stupid fads, indeed

From the Waiter's Rant blog, this on food faddism: "Around 2002 artisanal bottled water was all the rage. A few swanky restaurants even hired 'water sommeliers' to help patrons pair the 'right' water with their food. I think the all the water sommeliers got executed with the tea sommeliers back in 2003. Talk about stupid fads."

Rico says he agrees with WC Fields on the whole water issue: "Fish fuck in it."

Redmond as clusterfuck

Seems that Microsoft is having enough troubles, even without trying to swallow Yahoo, according to this on-line article from the New York Times.

Rico says it couldn't happen to nicer idiots...

No, no, it was those guys, really

Seems the Syrians have promised to reveal "the party involved in this crime and who stands behind it. An investigation is ongoing. We hope that you will soon hear the results of this mighty effort."

While Rico doubts the 'mighty effort' part, he's sure the investigation will reveal, surprise, surprise, that Israel supposedly blew up Imad Mguhniyeh in Damascus, whether they really did or not...

Microsoft loses another one

Seems that Nintendo's Wii gaming console is projected to displace Microsoft's Xbox as the game machine of choice.

Rico laughs virtually...

Another one bails on the white chick

Another Democratic 'superdelegate', a congressman from Georgia, has announced that he's now supporting Obama, rather than Clinton. This could be the start of a trend, and thus spell doom for Hillary come the convention.
While having superdelegates, who aren't elected by anyone other than the party itself, sounds suspiciously undemocratic to Rico, it's how they've chosen to play the game this time.

Rico says it'll be interesting to watch the party reverse course on the Clintons...

Not quite like shooting fish in a barrel

Seems the incoming satellite has a forty-inch sphere full of hydrazine in it, and that's liable to survive reentry.
Now, Rico's no rocket scientist, but hydrazine falling on your head is probably a bad thing.
To solve the problem (and maybe, just maybe, test out a little ballistic missile defense system at the same time), they're going to try and hit it upon reentry with an ABM missile fired from a ship in the Pacific.
Rico wishes them well, but this is not a simple task. We've hit warhead-sized targets (this satellite is apparently the size of a school bus, so it will show up well on radar) before, so this one might actually work.
The US, however, has pledged to compensate any country damaged by the descending satellite...

More strange bedfellows

It's like a prize fight; one guy wins, one guy loses, and hugs all around afterwards.
Willard Romney endorsed John McCain for the presidency. Rico doesn't know whether Romney can give his delegates to McCain, or if that waits for the convention, but he's 'urging' them to vote for McCain. If they do, that puts McCain over the top.
Huckabee is still hanging tough, but that won't last.
Over on the dark side, Clinton and Obama are still slugging it out. (Rico just typo'd 'slutting', but that's not true. Obama's a guy, and she doesn't know how to be one...)

Rico says fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy campaign...

OYAT

Mark's physical progress has been moving right along. He is actually able to walk on his own but the therapists spot him as he walks. Yesterday, the therapist walked behind him and had her hands on his shoulders and made them sway back and forth which made him walk faster and better, and more natural looking.
The Norwalk virus (upper and lower GI virus) struck the rehab hospital over the weekend. Mark's room mate was transferred to the hospital (he's very old). Luckily Mark has escaped so far but there were a lot of new faces on the nursing staff and were they busy! Imagine 50 people with limited mobility and impaired verbal skills with vomiting and diahrrea. They've been cleaning the rooms down with bleach. It's beginning to smell like a YMCA. I guess it could be worse.
They had Mark's team meeting yesterday and decided not to move his discharge date up from March 6 because of his lack of stamina. He has been extremely tired and he says he feels dopey. He decided his anti-depressant which he had been taking for only a couple of days might have caused this. Also, his therapy sessions have gone from half to full hours and I think it took its toll. He has also been sleeping on his back which exacerbates his sleep apnea (he can't sleep on his stomach because he still has the feeding tube, which they aren't using but can't be removed until mid March). While the trach was still in, his apnea was fine. I think this; along with them waking him every 3-4 hours during the night for the toilet isn't helping him get a restful nights sleep. At my urging, they are sending him for a CAT scan tomorrow morning to check those shunts to make sure they're draining okay.
There are a few individuals on Mark's ward whose head trauma have caused unusual and disturbing symptoms. He says it's sometimes difficult to tell the hospital from an insane asylum. There is an older lady, who probably had Alzheimer’s before her head injury. She walks up and down the halls with her handbag, yelling, "Where's my handbag?" Some of her other favorites are "Get out of my house", and "I hate this god damn place", etc. For an old lady her voice has a lot of volume and carries clear down and across the hall. There's another woman, who's about 35 who had meningitis. She constantly strolls the halls giving out orders. You can tell she was probably some sort of executive. She also carries her hand bag and at night wears her coat over her pj's. And then there's a man, who looks to be in his late 30's. I call him Houdini because he pulls the fire alarm and is always hanging around the doors trying to escape (Mark is on a locked wing). All three of these people have one-on-one, a round the clock aide that never leaves their side, even while they're sleeping.
Mark was in the green house and transplanted some little Burro's tails into individual pots. He really enjoyed playing in the dirt. He said it was the most "real" thing he's done since he got there. It's on his tray table and he's very proud of it.
I will definitely post tomorrow to let you know how his CAT scan went. Other than that, he is really doing great. He has his long awaited appointment with the neuro-opthomologist on Monday.

Weren't they already at war?

Seems Hezbollah has vowed 'open war' with Israel over its putative slaying, via car bomb, of their boy Imad Mughniyeh.

Rico never noticed that Hezbollah had declared peace with Israel, so he's not sure what's different now. But Israel, never a slouch when it comes to threats, "ordered its military, embassies and Jewish institutions overseas to go on alert". But, no matter who killed Mughniyeh, it's a good thing: "We've had a vested interest in seeing this guy dead since he took 241 Marines from us in 1983, a Navy diver in 1985, and 19 soldiers and airmen in 1996. Bob Baer, a career spook with ops time in Lebanon, called him the 'grail' that we've been after for over two decades."

Rico says a car bomb is the best thing Imad could have hoped for...

Another one gone

Rico missed the passing of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, famed for his transcendental meditation work with the Beatles awhile back.
Seems the guru was anywhere from 91 to 98 years old, though no one knows for sure.
As this column put it so well (and so Rico-like): "Far be it from us to make fun of the other guy's religion, at least now that Mitt Romney is out of the presidential race..."

Can Rico have one, huh, huh?

Seems the new crop of freshmen Democrats have learned how to play the game:

"Freshman Representatives Nick Lampson (D-Texas) and Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.), two of the Republicans’ top political targets this year, were among the biggest beneficiaries. Lampson collected $15.2 million in earmarks by himself. Including projects he shared with colleagues, Lampson grabbed $42 million. Boyda secured for herself an astonishing $20.7 million worth of projects. She shared another $17 million worth of projects with colleagues."

Rico says he's been a good boy, he could use an earmark or two...

Let's hope it's one or the other

Larry King had James Carville on his eponymous show last night and asked the operative question:

King: If Hillary loses Texas or Ohio, is it over?

Carville: Yes.


Rico says it don't get any plainer than that...

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke

We've been encouraged to show our solidarity with the fatwa'd cartoonists who dared to profane the Prophet.
Not that you had to ask Rico twice, of course; poking the Islamofascists is a professional sport with him...

Stupid holiday anyway

But the Religion of Perpetual Outrage has gone over the top, yet again:

In Indonesia:
“The Valentine’s Day celebration is not our culture as it usually relates closely to immoral acts where, during the celebration, young couples tend to hug and even kiss each other. This is an immoral act, right?”

In Saudi:
"The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said."

In Kuwait:
"...the ministries promised to take all measures necessary to prevent any indecent celebrations and practices and any immoral behaviors that may happen on Valentine’s Day today... A number of Islamist MPs meanwhile described Valentine’s Day as a Western tradition that is not compatible with Kuwaiti values and contradicts sharia."

Rico says now they've gone too far...

Now that's creative

Some things Rico can't do, and this is one of them. But he's happy there are people whose heads work this way, just to make an amazing little video like this one.

I thought that was the point of the FDA

But it appears that pharma companies in the US can make drugs using components made outside the US.
That little oversight has apparently caused some deaths of people using heparin to thin their blood.
The problem? Manufacturing issues in China.

According to the Los Angeles Times on-line: "Baxter spokeswoman Erin Gardiner said Wednesday evening that some of the active ingredient probably was made in China because Baxter got its supply from another company that had manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and in China.
Baxter wasn't identifying the source, but Gardiner said the supplier had been manufacturing heparin for more than 30 years and had been supplying Baxter for more than 20 years. She said the plant in China had been in operation for several years.
Baxter inspected the supplier's U.S. facility and its China plant last year, and both have good records in terms of safety and quality, the company said. The FDA has not inspected the plant in China, the agency said."

Rico says what a fucking surprise...

When are we going to get it that the Chinese operate on traditional nineteenth century capitalist principles, no matter the communist face they put on things. This is why the FDA was formed in the first place in 1906, to keep people from selling contaminated food and drugs. They need to do their job. And pharmaceutical companies need to be banned from using crap made in China until further notice... Rico has spoken.

No, no, it was those other guys

Seems that everyone is backing away from responsibility for the car bomb that killed Imad Mughniyeh, one of Hezbollah's militia commanders, in Damascus. In a statement, Hezbollah said Mughniyeh was killed "by the Israeli Zionists", while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said that "Israel rejects the attempts being made by terrorist groups that try to tie Israel to the incident".

Rico thinks the best statement was by Yossi Alpher, a former official with Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and one-time adviser to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak: "There are so many countries and intelligence organizations that had an account to settle with this guy that it could be a great many people".

Bill got out just in time

Seems that Microsoft has just released a new update to its OS with eleven security patches, six of which are 'critical'. "Of the six critical fixes, Jonathan Bitle, manager of technical accounts for security provider Qualys, said MS08-010 stands out because it addresses four severe HTML issues in Internet Explorer. The vulnerabilities in –010 would allow a specially crafted page to perform remote code execution on the user's system... Finally, MS08-011 covers three vulnerabilities in Microsoft Works File Converter, which could allow an attacker to take control of a system."

Rico says he'll stick with his quaint little Macintosh OS, thank you...

Hillary is really reaching now

Seems that Hillary is channeling two female politicians, Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards (both deceased), as supporters of her run for the White House. “I can hear their voices saying, ‘You keep going! You give the people a real choice about the future!’”

Rico can hear Ann Richards saying, in that delightful Texas twang of hers, "You go to hell, girl"...

Another bad look

Someone could get rich giving politicans like this one 'mirror' lessons... (And what's with the whole 'pointing with two fingers at the same time' thing? Surely that's got to be a Saturday Night Live skit...)

Wrong approach to the problem again

From Michelle Malkin's blog, the whole border fence thing is back on again, based on a 1.4 billion (that's billion with a b) border security package. Not for our border; it's for them to control their border on the Guatemala/Belize side...
The US government has big plans for a whopping eleven additional miles of bad fence along our over-a-thousand-mile border with Mexico.

Rico says the answer, as ever, is privatization. Ammunition dispenser stations (requiring a credit card) every thousand yards along the border, along with a 'no law' zone for the first mile, and the whole problem goes away. More vultures, true, but only for awhile until the coyote problem dries up...

What it's like

Everybody's rightly curious about what it is that I see, given my fourth nerve palsy. It's a hard thing to describe, but this may give you a sense of it; everything's there, just twice, and offset by ten degrees. This illustration is false, as well, in that both images are the same strength through my eyes, but that would be hard to read on-screen...

Civil War for the day

The line blazing away following the command to 'fire' at Fort Shenandoah.

Death didn't look like this

Rico has a recurring waking dream, has had it for years, about walking backwards down a beach while sweeping away his own footsteps behind him. Something about backing into an unforeseen future, and erasing one's past at the same time. Very philosophical, Rico guesses. But when he was 'mostly dead', as Miracle Max put it, it was just blackness, not a pretty beach...

The Japs are at it again

Seems that Sony is trying to fight out the super-thin laptop market with Apple, following the Fruit Company's introduction of the MacBook Air.
Given that Sony's previous laptops have been POS models, Rico isn't clear on what they're bringing to the table as competition...

Another bonehead move

Off the boat and onto the sinking ship...

T-Mobile, never a brilliant player in the mobile phone biz, has partnered up with Yahoo in Europe, supplanting Google.
Given that Yahoo is trying to gag Microsoft in its attempt to swallow the internet company, that sounds like another brilliant business move to Rico...

It still ain't an iPhone

Google is trying to out-Apple Apple with its new Android software for mobile phones at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona: "An eager crowd pressed to watch Ramesh Iyer show how users of Android-equipped smart phones will navigate the Web by running a finger over the display — and how they'll find full-size pages, not a Web resized for mobile devices' small screens."
It'll be about as clumsy as the rest of the wanna-be-Apple-but-don't-know-how systems out there.

Rico says the Fruit Company has still got it...

A good thing, too

Seems that Blue Cross stepped in the shit by sending a letter to physicians, asking them to rat out patients who weren't reporting their pre-existing conditions like they should.
As someone with a bit of a pre-existing condition himself, Rico is happy to see them get smacked for this. California, always on the cutting edge, has tried to pass legislation that would force insurance companies to not deny coverage based on health status. While that's probably not going to make it past a judicial review (something about restraint of trade or something), it's an interesting notion...

Lily would be so proud

That would be the ladyfriend's dead dog Lily, a beagle. Because a beagle has won the Westminster dog show, the first one ever.

Berkeley's at it again, the other way

Seems that Berkeley has rejoined the United States...

Israel (or somebody) gets another one

With Hezbollah officials getting whacked on a regular basis, you'd think they'd want to get out of the business...

What's the sound of a ship sinking?

Seems that Hillary's much-vaunted 'base' of voters is defecting.
While she's a few primaries shy of giving up, that whistling noise is either her past the graveyard or the boat going down...

Rico says he hopes Texas and Ohio don't fall for the Clinton 'mystique'. It's time to streamline this election and get down to the fight between Left and Right...

Wanted to but couldn't

This is just the kind of thing I always wanted to put in the catalog when I worked at Alfred Angelo, the bridal gown company. But not even on my way out the door; they had no sense of humor about these things...

Ancient history

Seems there was an old JFK:Obama connection; who knew?

Barack Obama's father came to the US from Kenya in 1959 on a student visa, using airfare raised by people like Jackie Robinson. The next year's students had airfare problems again, this time solved by a contribution from the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, thanks to then-senator John F. Kennedy. (Nixon apparently tried to use this 'scandal' in his campaign against Kennedy, but it didn't work.)
In the current campaign, Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Obama, not her female counterpart.

Rico says it's a good thing; the Kennedys are backing the more Kennedy-like candidate...

Better idea

This Daily News article has a great suggestion, just a little late:
"Now, seven years later, comes word that we are finally ready to treat six of the perpetrators like the cheap killers they are and hold them accountable. Too bad we did not do that from the start. Too bad we have made them too much like martyrs and not enough like murderers.
The Port Authority cops certainly had the right idea when one of their detectives arrived in Afghanistan after 9/11 with handcuffs that had belonged to one of their murdered comrades, Police Officer Donald McIntyre. The cuffs went on 70 Al Qaeda suspects just as they had on bad guys back in New York. This included one of the very top Al Qaeda guys, Abu Zubaydah.
What we should have done then was bring him and the others back to New York and put them through central booking like any other bad guys: "Stand on the red tape. Face the camera. Now get in there with the rest of the scum. Next."
Instead, we stuck him in some secret prison and waterboarded him. You can be sure we have detectives in New York who could have gotten more reliable information, without physically coercive methods that would get the case tossed out in a civilian court."

Rico could not agree more. Next...

Too good for Saturday morning

Seems that Gaza TV (and why not, everybody else has a channel) is running a rabbit-based show where the lead character, Assud, promises to 'eat all the Jews'.

Rico says he didn't know that bunnies ate meat, even kosher...

Always a good witness

Even Rico gags at the notion that the police opened an investigation of the death of Seth Tobias, a CNBC commentator found dead in the pool behind his house, based on the testimony of Billy Ash, an Internet psychic who said Tobias' wife had confessed to him.
"Based upon the evidence available at this time, including the autopsy and toxicology reports, there is no indication of criminality in the death of Mr. Tobias," said a letter signed by Mary Duggan, assistant state's attorney in Palm Beach County.

Rico says police work is getting pretty bad when internet psychics are your sources... (And how did she confess to him? Email? Phone conversation? Surely there'd be a record somewhere.) Pathetic.

Oh, no, really, just business as usual

Hillary is now backpedaling furiously, and says recent events weren't "a shakeup" in her campaign.

Rico says nah, couldn't have been; just looked like one, that's all...

Tough wedding

Seems this poor guy had his brand-new wife have a heart attack and die in his arms as they were dancing after their wedding.

Rico says he's not much for marriage, but he feels bad for the guy...

The ides of March

Looks like Hillary may finally be on the way out.
According to this from the Daily News, "the once-mighty Clinton campaign is beginning to feel like the last days of Pompeii."
"I think it's over for her," a fanatical Hillary loyalist glumly guessed on the eve of the next three Democratic contests. "He's going to win." If Obama sweeps Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia today, he'll be 7-0 since Super Tuesday, when he won 13 contests to Clinton's nine. Wisconsin and Hawaii next Tuesday also look promising for him.

Rico restrains his snickering, but just barely...

Stop whinging and go, you old fart

Seems the Anglican archbishop is still trying to justify his stupid remarks about sharia law. He "conceded that his choice of words in broaching the issue may have been misleading".

Really? Rico says his choice of words was exactly what he meant, and now he's sorry he said them. Too fuckin' bad. The old man can go and run some remote diocese in the Outer Hebrides or something...

High time, too

Australia is finally owning up to its poor treatment of its aboriginal people:
"Australia is preparing to issue its first formal apology for past mistreatment of the country's Aboriginal people. The declaration by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be the first act of the new government when the Australian parliament reopens in Canberra on February 13. It will acknowledge injustices suffered by Aborigines in the years after European colonization that began in the late 1700s."

Rico says we didn't do much better with our aboriginal peoples here in the States, but at least the Apaches and Comanches and a few other tribes gave as good as they got...