I must apologize to my earnest readers for a bit of confusion that I had mistakenly implied in a recent post, Adventures of a War President (War Means Jobs, Baby!). In the closing, I joked about "an MBA colleague." This is what lead to the mass confusion and hysteria, and I apologize if it had caused any of you any stress.
Let me state for the record: I have never, or will never, study to obtain an MBA. I must admit that I had thought about it at one time after graduate school, but eventually (and rather quickly) thought better of it than to waste my time with a bunch of know-nothings studying up on nothingness for a seemingly worthless degree. (Wooh; I got it off my chest. Hell, G.W. has one and look at what that has done for society -- nothing good.)
What I had meant when I spoke of "an MBA colleague" was a fellow engineer (read: colleague) in a former company that had taken the time to get an MBA after his Ph.D.
Once again, I apologize for any discomfort my blogpost had created; none was intended.
The Pew Research Center has just conducted a survey to find what viewers/listeners watch/listen what programs. It turns out Bill O'Reilly's viewers are some of the smartest, and Jon Stewart's Daily Show viewers are not far behind. Pew defined this ranking, however, on the number of people with "high knowledge." What is a person with high knowledge, you ask? Am I a person with high knowledge? Well, take the test for yourself... (These are the exact questions that were asked by Pew in developing their criteria for people with "high knowledge.")
(1) Which party has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives?
(2) What is the name of the current U.S. Secretary of State?
(3) What is the name of the current president of Russia?
If you answered all three correctly, you have high knowledge. Now, do you watch O'Reilly or Jon Stewart?
When Bush insisted to Tim Russert, "I'm a war president," in a February 2004 interview on Meet the Press, who knew that Bush was not only discussing his war in Iraq (and the pulling of troops in Afghanistan in order to prosecute the unnecessary war in Iraq) and his administration's desire to follow Iraq with a pre-emptive war with Iran (while allowing North Korea to harbor the same nuclear intentions), but Bush's statement also meant to address the nation's unadulterated support for Israel and loose definitions of ceasefires (or no ceasefires at all).
As an MBA colleague of mine once said, "War means jobs, baby!" (I shit you not. In fact, if I find that email, I will publish it.)
Today is the Major League Baseball trading deadline, which addresses the question, for all intents and purposes, how the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox shore up their rosters for the stretch run by plucking overpaid players from underachieving teams in the last year of their contract. End result: Boston vs. New York in the ALCS.
By the way, the Yankees have the highest team payroll at $199 million and the Red Sox have the second-highest at $120 million. The Oakland Athletics are 21st (out of 30) in team salary with $62.5 million. The Florida Marlins bring up the rear spending less than $15 million on their team's players. And that is why they suck. (Actually, they don't; they are only 8 games under .500.)
If you are a liberal blogger, consider submitting your best work (read: blog-entry) into the latest edition of the Carnival of the Liberals, hosted by me on Tuesday, August 2. I have been anticipating this moment for some time, and now that it has been made official, please consider submitting a post into the No Rules Edition of the Carnival of the Liberals. (See rules that apply.)
While driving to the train station this morning, I passed a car on my left and said to my fiancee in the passenger seat, "Look at this car; it's even uglier than the Cruiser." I quickly passed the car, and as I looked back in my side mirror I realized what make it was, and informed my ever-so-sleepy passenger of my findings. "Nope, it is a PT Cruiser." Snap.
pS, We were a tad tired this morning (and slept in until 6:15) because of our attendance at the A's game last night (they won). Beer and peanuts... does it every time.
Doonesbury offers insight on Bush's frustration with freedom-hating incipient-democracy voters... (Click on image for full cartoon.)
Image: Yahoo!
Although I didn't go ahead and make tee-shirts available for purchase (but I cannot promise what I'll do after four years either), today marks the third anniversary (I guess the correct term is "blogiversary;" thanks Skippy) of this blog, and seriously, I am looking forward to three more. Seriously, I am. (No, seriously.)
On that fateful morning (and afternoon) of July 28, 2003, I posted four blog-entries. They were all quick blips because I was mostly working on changing the god-awful Blogger template-of-yore that I had originally chosen (I am pretty sure it was this one), but I still stand by my initial musings on immigration, Iraqi oil, and the ignorance of conservatism.
Continuing on with the cellphone photowonders...
Last week, I blogged about the filming of a commercial outside my office window here in downtown Oakland. This doesn't happen too often, so I pulled out my cellphone camera and documented the event. It turned out the commercial was for a Toyota Camry (or a Toyota dealer in the bay area) and it starred former 49ers quarterback Steve Young...
As it was, it turned out to be much ado about nothing, besides that the Oakland police had to block off Clay Street here in City Center for half-the-day, and the surprising number of people who decided to drive around the barricade that nearly spanned the entire width of the road, just to turn around a couple hundred feet later. (Umm, what did you think the barricade was for?)
The first photo is of the three-plus hours of setup the crew did before filming their first take (Steve Young is in the tan Camry). The second shows an industry secret: soak the road so the road looks much darker in the commercial. And the final photo is moments before take one. (Notice the streaking water from the prior soaking and the random passersby that must have frustrated the hell out of the director. The filming took place outside the Federal Building in Oakland, and we know how federal employees rush to work in the morning, don't we? That's not nice.)
I didn't want to say anything, but I have a blog...
- I am not suggesting anything different would have happened (it would), but an engineer should have been in charge of this project, not some politician.
- It is about time someone wrote about the fact that the Buffalo Bisons were part of breaking the color barrier in baseball much earlier (some 60 years) than the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- And Bush does an interesting about-face -- going to Congress to expand the legality of wiretapping -- instead of just wiretapping illegally. (Oh, so that is how it works.)
