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Best Idea I’ve heard this month

I’ve said something similar in the past.  I just didn’t take it to its logical conclusion.  And I’m not funny.  (My apologies to Frank J. at IMAO for the substantial excerpt.  Frank, if you wrote crap filler around the good parts I wouldn’t excerpt the whole thing…)

This whole Sanford mess reminds me of the main problem with politics: Politicians. Apparently, normal people don’t want to go into politics, so we mainly gets weirdos.

(…)

Here’s my idea: Kidnapping.

The biggest red flag that you may have picked the wrong person for a political position is if the person wants it. Unfortunately, our current system only elects weirdos who want to be politicians. Instead, we we should find candidates from business and industry and just chloroformed them and have them wake up behind a mayor’s desk or something. Then he’d be like, “Wh-what’s going on here? Who’s in charge?”

And we’d be like, “You are!”

And he’d be like, “Noooooo! I have useful things to do! I can’t be a politician!”

And we’d be like, “We don’t care!” And then we’d threaten his family to get him to comply. You’ve all threatened families before; you know how that works.

Anyway, doesn’t that sound like a smarter system?

(emphasis mine)

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2009 06 27 cziltang Not quite News
Politics Comments (1) Permalink

Ice XV

I really don’t know what this means (I didn’t know there was an Ice II or that the stuff we usually see is known to ice scientists as Ice Ih) but it seems really cool. (via GeekPress)

pardon the pun

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2009 06 25 cziltang No particular point
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Weird Break

Well, boys and girls, I’ve got a bit of a break in what has been about the ugliest week I’ve had for quite a while.  The turning 50 part didn’t bother me.  Being repeatedly told I am the quintessential embodiment of evil (repeatedly, at volume) didn’t bother me either.  But having it happen while running on 2-3 hours sleep for the last 4 days to accommodate my own training attendance and the schedules and locations of those who were so kind as to remind me (repeatedly, at volume) of my inherent nature has been a bit much.  That, coupled with the realization that my parents, who are both 81, will probably both die before I retire and/or get my priorities straight and that I am neither being any help to them nor learning anything/enjoying the time we have sort of twisted me up a bit.  Call it a bit of self-indulgent, personal mortality reflection, an example of fatigue-driven self-pity, or a purely rational self-assessment on the occasion of my having reached middle age (I’m planning to live to 100), it has been weird no matter how you cut it.

The crowning glory of this veritable festival of the surreal has been the addition of a new computer to the Ratlands digital device inventory.  The Head Rat (whose previous experience has been a lovehate/hate relationship with all things computer related, with the noteable exceptions of online shopping and lolcats) suddenly decided weshe needed a laptop, which was shopped for, ordered, and which duly arrived this week.

I hate Vista (just thought I’d mention that and get it out of the way).

Seems like a pretty nice computer: 300 GB hard drive, 4 GB RAM, etc.  She seems to have done a pretty good job of shopping.  I could do without the 64-bit Vista, but I guess we’ll suffer through.  Unfortunately Vista doesn’t seem to want to play nicely with my router.  It would perhaps have played a bit more nicely if I had realized that there was a wireless adapter switch on the side of the computer that needed to be turned on, but as it happens, it didn’t matter, as nice is apparently a relative term.

In order to have internet access, I decided to use a cable for a direct link to the router, but I couldn’t get that to work either.  It turns out that plugging the ethernet cable into the dial-up phone jack isn’t terribly effective and results in repeated “ethernet cable disconnected” messages.

So, here we sit, both of us at the table while I try to write and the Head Rat tries to install software.

Great Googely-moogely.

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2009 06 19 cziltang Computers
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Apologies

Aside from being sick over the weekend, I’ve got some real thorny personnel problems going at work, which will entail some very long hours.  So, my apologies to any of you regular readers out there, but I’m not likely to be posting much in the next couple of weeks.

2009 06 16 cziltang No particular point Comments (1) Permalink

Back in the saddle. Again.

I actually got the office put back together last night, but then went to work for several hours.  I’m finally finished wading through the backed-up RSS feeds.  There won’t be any breathtakingly insightful essays (or any of the kind I usually write, either), but I will pass these links along:

Ahhnuld on the California budget.

Harry Reid on the research necessary to make an informed decision on the Sotomayor nomination.  (Must be an empathy thing.)

Another Robert Miller gem on the goal of Environmentalism.

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2009 06 06 cziltang Politics Comments (1) Permalink

Hiatus

I’m going to be absent for a while.  We discovered a water leak in our shower.  Unfortunately, the access to the pipes is behind my desk, so I will be shutting down the computer and moving all my office furniture for the next couple of days.

See y’all later.

2009 06 03 cziltang Personal Comments (1) Permalink

Now that you mention it…

I haven’t been posting much lately.  The Head Rat’s twin sister has been in the hospital, the Head Rat and I have both been fighting some kind of cold or virus or something, I’ve got a number of pending issues at work, and, if I (for some unfathomable reason) must be honest, I finally succumbed to Rat Jr’s badgering (since Christmas) and I finally tried playing Guild Wars.

I hate that child.  The last thing I needed was a potentially unlimited online game to suck the few precious free moments of my life away from me.

On the other hand, bashing critters with my Hammer of Fortitude is kind of relaxing…

Anyway, I let over 400 posts pile up in my RSS aggregator.  I tried catching up, and then finally said to hell with it, marked them all “read”, cleared the aggregator and resolved to start fresh.  Unfortunately, the Kansas news is all over the Tiller murder (the same way it was all over the BTK thing a while back) and since I won’t be hearing anything but the Tiller murder for the forseeable future, I have no real desire to delve into it right now.  And it has featured prominently on a number of the web sites I have in the aggregator, so I guess the “starting fresh” thing will have to be started fresh tomorrow or the next day.

I did take the time to take this current events quiz (via the Agitator).  You might want to hurry on that one, as it may be updated regularly.  I’m feeling reasonably good about it, as I got 11 of 12 right, which puts one in the 82nd percentile.  For what it’s worth, I screwed up the question about Afganistan troop strength.

And then, the item that inspired the title of this post:  Now that you mention it, he does have a point.

laurence fishburne
see more Lol Celebs

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2009 06 02 cziltang Personal
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Sunday night cat joke

A cat walks into a bar…

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2009 05 31 cziltang Disgustingly cute Comments (1) Permalink

2 things you should do

Now.

Read this: Simulacrum of a President: 84R4(K 084M4

Watch this: Why are conservatives so mean? (via Cold Fury)

Seriously, the first is worth some thought, and as for the second, when was the last time you watched a presentation that featured Alexis de Tocqueville AND Xerxes from the movie 300?

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2009 05 31 cziltang Media
Nanny State
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Solar power = free, unlimited energy*

*except when the sun isn’t shining.

Which, in Troy, Michigan, is apparently enough of the time during the winter that if something goes wrong with your battery back-up, your 800 sq. ft‡, $900,000, completely off-grid alternative energy showplace has it’s pipes freeze causing so much damage it is unsafe for use.

(via Moonbattery)

‡Nearly a million dollars for an 800 sq. ft. house?  My bloody apartment is bigger than that.  Triple my energy costs and I can pay them for the next 50 years and still have $700,000 left over.

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2009 05 21 cziltang Environment
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