"Scope stops bad breath": It's The Marketing Stupid

"What are you?," Trout asked the boy scornfully. "Some kind of gutless wonder?"

This too, was the title of a book by Trout, "The Gutless Wonder." It was about a robot who had bad breath, who became popular after his halitosis was cured. But what made the story remarkable, since it was written in 1932, was that it predicted the widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings.

It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground.

Trout's leading robot looked like a human being, and could talk and dance and so on, and go out with girls. And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But the he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race.

Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade

Hiroshima Survivor - Recalls First A-Bomb

Shigeko Sasamori was 13 years old on August 6, 1945. At 8:15 AM she was working with her junior high classmates clearing the streets of Hiroshima, Japan. She looked up into the clear blue sky when she heard a plane flying overhead and saw something white dropping to the earth. Shigeko was less than a mile from the center of the explosion caused by the world's first atomic bomb.

Somehow, Shigeko survived, but she had terrible burns over most of her body. Some of her fingers had fused together and scars on her face made her and others like pariahs in Japan for fear of contamination.

Listen to her story:

I-35 Bridge Collapse Info:

From the New York Times: Tons of Repaving Material Was on Bridge at Collapse.

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 5 — Trucks carrying tens of thousands of pounds of crushed stone were parked on the Interstate 35W bridge, and more stone was sitting on the deck when the bridge collapsed, investigators said Sunday, raising suspicions that the added weight of materials intended for repairs may have played a role in the bridge failure.

Speaking of Failures.......

OTBL quote:"The can't-do attitude is symptomatic in politics and not in the market, where they have to do or die, quite literally. The state is not driven by the same incentives and since they can tax and confiscate, they lack the ability to economize and rationally allocate resources."

Hey spiritofpublicus, speaking of market based failures,
how are those sales of the "Price of Sin"? Have you sold a dozen yet, or has bottom dropped out of the vanity press market?



















































Loser!

Jack Bauer V. Global Warming

"24" Takes On Fight Against Global Warming



From "An Inconvenient Truth" to popularizing the Prius, Hollywood has helped lead the way on some environmental issues. One of the latest initiatives: Cool Change, Fox's company-wide program to reduce the network's impact on global warming. As part of that effort, the seventh season of "24" will take steps to reduce and offset the carbon emissions from the show's production, with the goal of having the season finale be entirely carbon-neutral.

It may sound like a publicity stunt, but Fox spokesman Chris Anderson says the network isn't after bigger ratings. "We are publicizing '24's' commitment to climate change for two reasons and two reasons only: to inspire the public to take global warming seriously and hopefully to motivate other studios to make changes to their production practices as well," he says.

Read more@ The Washington Post.

Mr. Peanut Wins Coveted " Goodman" Award - Beats Stiff Competition

During a ceremony held in his own mind, Mr. Peanut was awarded coveted
"Goodman Award" for outstanding goodness and watchdoggedness.
The judges took special note of Mr. Peanut's frequent and eloquent school board
meeting speeches that championed the cause of the hundreds of taxpayer and local
concerned citizens. Judges also recommended that the Vatican should be petitioned
to begin the process of Mr.Peanuts canonization into sainthood.

Congress Gives "Big Oil" a Taste of It's Own Medicine

AP reports:

WASHINGTON - Declaring a new direction in energy policy, the House on Saturday approved $16 billion in taxes on oil companies, while providing billions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives for renewable energy and conservation efforts.

Republican opponents said the legislation ignored the need to produce more domestic oil, natural gas and coal. One GOP lawmaker bemoaned "the pure venom ... against the oil and gas industry."

The House passed the tax provisions by a vote of 221-189. Earlier it had approved, 241-172, a companion energy package aimed at boosting energy efficiency and expanding use of biofuels, wind power and other renewable energy sources.

Halliburton Awarded No Bid Contract to Rebuild Nations Bridges

President Bush announced today his administration would be awarding Hallibuton a $65 Billion no bid contract to repair or replace the nation's 156,000 structurally deficient bridges.
Vice President Chaney when asked for his reaction to the no bid contracts being let to the company where he was formerly CEO was quoted as saying "Yippie! Our years of neglecting the country's infrastructure has finally paid off, (handsomely)"


The Real Story:USA Today

"During a 2005 inspection, the I-35W bridge, which was built in 1967, was rated "structurally deficient" and possibly in need of replacement, according to a federal database. The span rated 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability in that review, White House press secretary Tony Snow said."

"Of the country's nearly 600,000 bridges, 26% were found structurally deficient or "functionally obsolete" in a 2006 U.S. Department of Transportation report. The condition of heavily used urban bridges like the one that collapsed this week is even worse: one in three are classified as aging or unable to accommodate modern vehicle weights and traffic volume."

Three Anti-CAFTA Republicans Have Road Projects Slashed

National Journal's CongressDailyPM
August 05, 2005
by Darren Goode
Three House Republicans who loudly opposed the Central America Free Trade Agreement saw their highway projects cut as much as 70 percent, based on figures in the recently passed surface transportation reauthorization conference report. GOP leaders said they held off a vote on the highway bill to squeeze out support for CAFTA, which passed by two votes last week despite 27 GOP defections.

Two of the loudest defectors -- Reps. Virgil Goode of Virginia and Walter Jones of North Carolina -- had their "high-priority" highway projects cut by more than 70 percent from the House-passed bill. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., who also was an outspoken opponent of CAFTA, had his projects cut by more than half, all well above the average 20 percent average cut for rank-and-file House members. Goode said the House voted on CAFTA around midnight July 27 "and the next morning we looked through the transportation bill and saw that my projects had been cut 76 percent -- and that's all I know."

"Stupid" Quotes

"Weese spoke again at the end of the meeting, citing his frustration with everything from administrators being seated with the board at meetings to making him wait until the end of a meeting to speak. Weese went on to call several board members and administrators “stupid” and left the meeting without waiting for board member response."

HSO

Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You can't stare at it long, it's too risky. You get a sense of it then you look away.

Jerry Seinfield

Republican Cleavage Sighting...

Mr. & Mrs. Fred Thompson

Remember the Good Ol' Days...