Let the market work in pharmaceuticals.
The Hidden Meaning
…of pronouns. Interesting stuff.
An Early Obama Letter
…confirms his inability to write:
Although a paragraph from this letter was excerpted in David Remnick’s biography of Obama, The Bridge, I had not seen the letter in its entirety before this week. Not surprisingly, it confirms everything I know about Barack Obama, the writer and thinker.
Obama was prompted to write by an earlier letter from a Mr. Jim Chen that criticized Harvard Law Review’s affirmative action policies. Specifically, Chen had argued that affirmative action stigmatized its presumed beneficiaries.
The response is classic Obama: patronizing, dishonest, syntactically muddled, and grammatically challenged. In the very first sentence Obama leads with his signature failing, one on full display in his earlier published work: his inability to make subject and predicate agree.
I am completely unsurprised by this. I think it at least partially explains why we aren’t allowed to see his transcripts.
SoCal Verizon
Anyone else having slow connection problems? I’m dropping packets, and some sites (e.g., National Review) are timing out. I’ve also had to reboot my modem a couple times today (I’m on FIOS). There’s a half-hour wait time for help on chat.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here is the chat session so far:
Chat Subject:Slow Throughput
Your Question:Slow connection.
A Verizon Service Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you. (17:37:58)
Agent Kapil has joined. (17:38:13)
Kapil : Chat ID for this session is 08291149279. (17:38:13)
Me (17:38:24): Dropping packets, have to repeatedly reboot modem.
Kapil(17:38:29): Thank you for contacting Verizon HSI Technical Support. My name is Kapil and I am the technical support analyst assigned to help you. Please stay online for a few moments while I review the information generated by your trouble ticket.
Kapil(17:39:05): As you are having a FIOS account. Please stay online with me while I connect you to our FIOS department.
This session is being transferred. (17:39:15)
17:54:53 Estimated wait time is 5 mins 15 secs. We apologize for the delay. You are 22 nd in the queue.
Me (17:39:55): 36m wait time? That tells me I’m not the only one…
Me (17:46:33): OK, time is jumping around.
Me (17:51:39): OK, now what how much time?
Me (17:52:27): If there are still 21 ahead of me in the queue, it’s hard to see how it will only be three and a half minutes.
Me (17:54:19): Hello?
Me (17:54:24): I have a life.
Me (17:54:53): Now the time is back up to five minutes. No, six. This is ridiculous.
Me (17:57:01): OK, now it’s back to 21 minutes.
Me (17:57:37): If I were just working, I might keep an eye on this, but I have to make dinner.
Me (17:59:06): This is pointless. I have no idea how long it will be until I get help. Closing this effing chat window, so I can get back to life.
My Office Is Unbroken
For those curious, I’m not sure what the problem was, but I fixed it by:
# yum remove openoffice*
Reboot
# yum install openoffice*
And now it works.
Narrowing It Down
The Progress launched failed due to a failed gas generator (which provides the pressure needed for the fuel into the chamber). Unless they can figure out why it failed and how to prevent it from happening again, though, that doesn’t allow them to fly again.
One In Four Democrats
…are racists:
In response to the question, “Do you think the Democratic party should renominate Barack Obama as the party’s candidate for president in 2012, or do you think the Democratic party should nominate a different candidate for president in 2012?” — 72 percent said they wanted to see Obama renominated. But 27 percent, slightly more than one in every four, said they wanted to see Democrats nominate a different candidate. One percent had no opinion.
Only one in four?
Good News For Texans
They may be getting a break in the drought soon:
A significant shift in the atmospheric circulation is predicted for the region, with the ridge of high pressure that has brought Texas its record heat and drought predicted to shift eastwards and allow a flow of moist, tropical air into the state. A low pressure region is forecast to develop in the Gulf near the coast of Texas on Wednesday or Thursday, and this low will need to be watched for tropical development. The shift in the large scale weather pattern does not signal a permanent end to the Texas drought, but it should bring welcome rains and cooler temperatures to the Lone Star state beginning on Thursday. This will be a relief to the residents of Austin, where the temperature topped out at 112°F yesterday–the hottest day in Austin’s recorded history, tied with September 5, 2000. By Labor Day, hot and dry weather will settle back in over the state, but the new ridge of high pressure will be weaker, and temperatures will not be as hot as this week’s.
From what I understand, it’s been brutal. It’s one of the reasons that I’m glad I’m in coastal CA and not TX.
Orbital Technologies
Here are some pretty pictures of their proposed space hotel. Still no explanation of how they get the price down below a million dollars (I don’t think anyone is going to get to orbit cheaper than SpaceX in that time frame, and they’re charging twenty million a seat). I also wonder when the “space tourism season” begins and ends. And where does it get its power, and how does it get rid of heat?
If you’re guessing I’m skeptical about this proposal, you’re correct.
AGW Is Just The Latest
A brief history of hysterical environmental false alarms. Some of which have killed millions. Rachel Carson’s holocaust was bigger than Hitler’s.