And the best dog I've ever owned.

We found out today that Daisy has a pancreatic tumor, which is as incurable in dogs as it is in humans.  We will probably have to say goodbye to her within a few weeks.  I've had to make the decision to put down dogs before, but not for many years.  Still, she's had six good years that she wouldn't have had if we'd left her in the shelter, and she's going to have the best few weeks that we can give her.

I'll miss you girl.

The website of the City of Detroit. Catch it now, because who knows when they will fix it. Then again, they might never…

This is not a timewaster at all. It won't take but 30 seconds, but I guarantee your afternoon will be better for clicking here & watching the video. It's the Thai lantern floating ceremony, and the image of hundreds of lanterns floating up into the sky is magic!

Welcome to the return of the son of our friday afternoon time-waster series.  Once we attempted, every friday, to present those of you who were sitting, waiting, watching the clock, with things to do each friday, until you could start scooting to the door at 4:55.  We made the mistake of thinking we had a duty to give you this information, so it became like work, which is the antithesis of a friday afternoon time-waster.  While we're bringing the feature back, it will now be an irregular feature, with no obligation or loss of Slack on our part.

The Chart Game is a stock prediction simulation, which provides you historical data about one large, publicly traded company, but you're not told which company, or which phase in history.  Your job is to predict future performance based on the past performance you're provided.  Buy or sell.  You "win" the chart game by outperforming the S & P 500 over the course of a year, based on your decisions with this stock, and your trust, or lack thereof, of patterns in stock performance.

Having played the chart game many times, I can tell you that it quickly diminishes faith in the ability of analysts to beat the market as a whole over the long term, whether the analysts use Sun-Spot patterns, Astrology, Hedging, or any "system" other than Insider Trading.  Play for yourself and see that economics is truly the "dark science."

For a different time waster by the same author, see the fascinating Eyeballing Game, which we featured previously and described as "a test of skill, precision, and spatial geometry."  It too is diverting, and much more a test of skill than it is of luck.

In April, Tom Boonen, a Dutch pro cyclist, tested positive for cocaine use in April. Now, if he were in American sports, he would have released a statement disputing the charge, and suggesting that a supplement was mislabled or something. Boonen went a strange route where he (sorta, kinda) took responsibility for his actions (or at least for not knowing what his actions were…)

"I was very drunk. I do not know what happened, but the next day I tested positive for cocaine," he said.

Swiss Artist Felice Varini created an optical illusion the size of a village. It's a series of rings that are only visible from a distance. Up close, it's a series of seemingly random lines drawn on houses.

The most amazing part of the whole thing is how it was done. Using massive projectors, the image was literally overlayed onto the houses and traced! At the link above there are a couple of amazing pictures of the image being projected onto the village.

Proving that dead tree journalism still has life, the Seattle Times has a terrific two-parter on the downfall of Washington Mutual.

As with all truly great journalism, it's the weaving of little details that makes the story:

Someone in Florida had made a second-mortgage loan to O.J. Simpson, and I just about blew my top, because there was this huge judgment against him from his wife's parents," she recalled. Simpson had been acquitted of killing his wife Nicole and her friend but was later found liable for their deaths in a civil lawsuit; that judgment took precedence over other debts, such as if Simpson defaulted on his WaMu loan.

When I asked how we could possibly foreclose on it, they said there was a letter in the file from O.J. Simpson saying "the judgment is no good, because I didn't do it."

Via Overlawyered.

For a man who can't even properly pronounce the State he governs, Governor Schwarzenegger can be quite articulate. Recently, he went through a great deal of trouble to release a statement on why he was not signing a non-descript bill, AB 1176, relating to the Port of San Francisco. The bill was put forth by Democrat Tom Ammiano, who, when Arnold showed up at a Democratic fund raiser, stormed out, suggesting Arnold could (and I quote) "kiss my gay ass."

So, perhaps there was some bad blood there. Bad blood that seemed to seep it's way into the Governor's message. On first reading, some of the prose seems a little forced. Then, someone noticed a special message spelled out by the first letter in each sentence. Coincedence? The Governor's Office claims it is.

Via Talking Points Memo, a great little story about a report that representatives of the Pharma giant Hoffman-LaRoche were picketing one of Obama's Health Care meetings, and comparing him to Hitler (complete with little moustaches on his photos!)

Wow! That is bold, a major Pharma company not only coming out against Healthcare reform, but invoking Godwin's Law at the same time.

There's just one problem, the Police report was wrong. They were actually people from La Rouche, not LaRoche. "We originally thought it was La Roche," said Clifton Police Det. Capt. Robert Rowan, but "based on the investigation, they were working for LaRouche."

The investigation apparently involved spell check.

Let me be clear: I like it when my employees say nice things about me. But sometimes they go too far, and it's just awkward. Make that ass-kissing just a bit subtle, please, so that I can enjoy the illusion that I really am all that.

The head of the NEA didn't get that memo:

If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.

Now, in context, it's pretty clear that the NEA chief means Obama is the most powerful person who is a writer since Julius Caesar, not that he's the most compelling writer since Julius Caesar. (I would characterize Caesar as more insightful than powerful of a writer, anyway.) Nevertheless, you would think that someone as steeped in the arts as Rocco Landesman would recognize that a comparison to Julius Caesar is, under the circumstances, extremely infelicitous.

Perhaps he's gone all swoony.

Also, is Obama really more powerful (considering his political circumstances) than Jefferson, or JFK, or Churchill?

(Latin grammar hat tip to David)

If you're going to make up an 800 phone number as part of the art for the jog-a-thon T-shirt for your elementary school, and hand out the shirt to all the kids, you might want to call the number first and see if it actually connects to anything. You know, just in case. That way you won't have to read this sentence in the paper the next day:

The 1-800 number goes to a she-male sex phone line.

Yeah, they used a made-up number as part of the art for some reason:

The T-shirts featured the school mascot – a lion – running with a 1-800 number featuring words instead of numbers.

The number was written as a cute slogan for the jog-a-thon, but turned out to be an actual number, said Rosemary Gladden, public information officer for Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.

And nobody thought to call it first.

And they're educating your kids.

(Via Fark)

Terry O'Neill, the head of the National Organization for Women (a pretty redoubtable organization in my mind) has criticized the President's all male basketball games as indicating a "boys club" atmosphere in the White House. Now, I'm always ready to criticize Obama for his sizzle over substance, but in this particular case, I just don't see it.

It would be one thing if there were women asking to get in on the game and they were refused. That would be bad. Should Obama invite some women to play? Yeah, that would be a great idea (and the linked article mentions HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a possible candidate). But does the absence of women from the game indicate an actively sexist President? I don't think so.

It won't surprise any of you to know that I am pretty down on religion. I have never been an adherent (my parents are the prototypical Cultural Jews – we celebrate Christmas) nor a big fan of just about any religion (although some of the Eastern ones have their moments..) I'm pretty much with Marx on this one.

The good news for you New Testament types is that Jews can be just as silly (or even sillier) than Christians. Exacerbated greatly by the fact that Judaism has more de facto leaders than a titular head. So, various Rabbis can make various statements about what is and isn't kosher (literally!)

Take for instance the ruling a few months ago that Crocs were too comfortable to be worn on Yom Kippur (sorry Ken..) or last year's blockbuster that approved nose picking on the Sabbath, despite the danger that a nose hair could be dislodged (cutting of hair is prohibited on the Sabbath).

Now, of course these strictures only apply to the most Orthodox of Jews. You can still see plenty of Crocs in Brookline or Manhattan on Saturdays. However, these things have a major effect on Israel. And the latest ruling, from a revered 99 year old Rabbi, impacts most people.

Jews regard Saturday as the day of rest (for Mormons it's Sunday), and for Orthodox Jews that means you don't use any electricity (among other things.) There have been clever means found to get around this (timers on lights, etc) and among the most imp0rtant was the Sabbath elevator. It's an elevator that stops at every floor so that the devout can sneak around the no using machinery or electricty rules. But no more, as Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv has ruled that the elevators are not kosher.

Apparently, there are buildings with these elevators all over the World, and this ruling is causing consternation. You see, many Jews had used the elevators to live in skyscrapers, leading to booms in tall buildings in Israel, and now they are stuck.

See, we Jews can be just as crazy as any other religious group. Although, I'm still shocked there has never been a Jewish televangelist. You'd think that was right in our wheelhouse.

I've mentioned before that efforts to market the "Republican brand" online are generally going poorly — at least for Republicans. That's not changing. The recent launch of the GOP web site was bungled in an easily-parodied way.

It only gets worse.

Apparently the RNC has a Facebook fan page. Now, there's nothing wrong with having a Facebook fan page for your political organization — so long as it is maintained and monitored by somebody competent, so that nobody can use it to make you look like a jackass. Did the RNC hire someone attentive and competent? Apparently not, since this image was uploaded onto the fan page and left there for days:

From the tone and literacy of the poster, I'm 99% sure that it was uploaded by someone wanting the RNC to look bad, rather than by an actual RNC fan who is an actual racist. But such propaganda measures are not just possible in the modern environment — they are obvious, predictable, and inevitable. Any political organization that employs online media that permits user submission must use competent moderation, or this sort of thing is going to happen — as the Obama campaign found out.

So does this poster prove a point about racism in the GOP? No. But it does prove a point about institutional competence and seriousness.

I took French instead of Spanish in high school. Though my French teacher was great, and I had good friends in the class, I have to admit that Spanish would have been more useful in my career. I have to use translators with some clients, which is inconvenient. I am frequently gripped by suspicion that I am not getting an exact translation, and not getting useful nuance.

I am not, however, gripped with paranoia that people speaking Spanish are mocking me. While they may be on occasion, that fear strikes me as stuck someone on the bleak landscape between narcissistic and delusional.

Larry Whitten is wandering that landscape.

Continue Reading »