Vuvuzela Righteousness

God lives.

Sex in Space

Alan Poindexter, a Shuttle Discovery commander on a recent trip to the International Space Station, responded to questions about sex in space at a press conference in Tokyo.

"We are a group of professionals," said Alan Poindexter, a NASA commander, during a visit to Tokyo, when asked about the consequences if astronauts boldly went where no others have been.

"We treat each other with respect and we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not ... an issue," said a serious-faced Mr Poindexter. "We don't have them and we won't.

"The April voyage broke new ground by putting four women in orbit for the first time, with three female crew joining one woman already on the station."

Yeah, right.  Methinks NASA's just saying that because, well, they have to.  I'll bet things are closer to James Bond's weightless boffing in Moonraker.  Oh, and Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic billionaire and financier of Virgin Galactic, no doubt has orbiting sexcapades in store given his professed admission to the "mile high club" at age 19.

Puss in "prosthetic" Boots

Oscar, a farm cat in England, lost both rear paws when a combine harvester caught him napping in a field in the British Channel Isles.

According to the Associated Press, his owners took Oscar to a vet who referred him to a a neuro-orthopedic surgeon.

"After losing his two rear paws in a nasty encounter with a combine harvester last October, the black cat with green eyes was outfitted with metallic pegs that link the ankle to the foot and mimic the way deer antlers grow through skin. Oscar is now back on his feet and hopping over hurdles."

Day 66 . . .

Chutzpah

Rahm Emanuel, the Obama Administration's Chief of Staff, appeared on FoxNews this weekend to warn Americans of the "danger" ahead if Republicans win back control of Congress this fall, saying we'll return to the deregulation that led to BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.  In other words, "Blame Bush."

Emanuel's and the Obama Admininstration's demonizing of private enterprise is the height of hypocrisy. 

Herewith a few inconvenient truths.

In addition to Big Oil, another scourge Emanuel pledges to protect America from is Wall Street.  But, as reported in The New York Times, after working as an advisor in the Clinton Administration, Emanuel worked for two years as an investment banker and made $16.2 million.

"President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is already widely known in the halls of Washington for serving as an adviser to President Clinton, and most recently as a congressman from Illinois. But in between those two roles, Mr. Emanuel made millions of dollars on Wall Street as an investment banker with Wasserstein Perella, as the boutique firm was known at the time.

"Despite having little experience or education in finance, Mr. Emanuel became a managing director at the firm’s Chicago office in 1999, helping to bring in business and seal deals.

"According to a 2003 article in The Chicago Tribune, Mr. Emanuel was brought in by one of the firm’s founders, Bruce Wasserstein, who was one of President Clinton’s most active fund-raisers on Wall Street and is now the head of Lazard.

"In his two-and-a-half-year stint as a banker, Mr. Emanuel — who once trained as a ballet dancer and was briefly a civilian volunteer on an Israeli military base — made $16.2 million, according to Congressional disclosures.

There's more. According to Wikipedia, Emanuel was a pig at the trough.

"Emanuel was named to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) by President Bill Clinton in 2000. His position earned him at least $320,000, including later stock sales.^[31][32] He was not assigned to any of the board's working committees, and the Board met no more than six times per year.^[32]
During his time on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.^[32][33] The Obama Administration rejected a request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel's time as a director.^[32]
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) later accused the board of having "failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention." Emanuel resigned from the board in 2001 when he ran for Congress.^[34]

But there's even more.  Despite this administration's best efforts to hang the oil disaster on Bush, Cheney, the GOP and anyone other them themselves, Rolling Stone magazine isn't having it.

"Ken Salazar took over as Secretary of the Interior in January 2009, vowing to restore the department's 'respect for scientific integrity.' He immediately traveled to Minerals Management Service headquarters outside Denver and delivered a beat-down to staffers for their "blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing" that had 'set one of the worst examples of corruption and abuse in government.' Promising to 'set the standard for reform,' Salazar declared, 'The American people will know the MMS as a defender of the taxpayer. You are the ones who will make special interests play by the rules.' Dressed in his trademark Stetson and bolo tie, Salazar boldly proclaimed, 'There's a new sheriff in town.'

"Except that it didn't. Salazar did little to tamp down on the lawlessness at MMS, beyond referring a few employees for criminal prosecution and ending a Bush-era program that allowed oil companies to make their "royalty" payments – the amount they owe taxpayers for extracting a scarce public resource – not in cash but in crude. And instead of putting the brakes on new offshore drilling, Salazar immediately throttled it up to record levels. Even though he had scrapped the Bush plan, Salazar put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone – an all-time high. The aggressive leasing came as no surprise, given Salazar's track record. "This guy has a long, long history of promoting offshore oil drilling – that's his thing," says Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "He's got a highly specific soft spot for offshore oil drilling." As a senator, Salazar not only steered passage of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which opened 8 million acres in the Gulf to drilling, he even criticized President Bush for not forcing oil companies to develop existing leases faster.

Here's another fact.  Guess which federal-level politician is the all-time highest recipient of money from BP?  Yep.

Watson

Soon, human Jeopardy contestants made of carbon and water will compete against Watson, an IBM Supercomputer made of silicon.  IBM shook the chess world in 1997 when its Deep Blue Supercomputer defeated reigning chess champion, Garry Kasparov.  Let the games begin!



As reported in The New York Times:

"For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer. In other words, it must do more than what search engines like Google and Bing do, which is merely point to a document where you might find the answer. It has to pluck out the correct answer itself. Technologists have long regarded this sort of artificial intelligence as a holy grail, because it would allow machines to converse more naturally with people, letting us ask questions instead of typing keywords. Software firms and university scientists have produced question-answering systems for years, but these have mostly been limited to simply phrased questions. Nobody ever tackled “Jeopardy!” because experts assumed that even for the latest artificial intelligence, the game was simply too hard: the clues are too puzzling and allusive, and the breadth of trivia is too wide."

According to IBM:

"Code-named "Watson" after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, the IBM computing system is designed to rival the human mind's ability to understand the actual meaning behind words, distinguish between relevant and irrelevant content, and ultimately, demonstrate confidence to deliver precise final answers."

Think you can beat Watson? 

All that glitters . . .

. . . is gold.

Krugerrands broke the $1,300 an ounce price point as more and more investors pour money into the metal and other commodities.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

"Gold's appeal has been enhanced by volatility in the wider markets as investors worldwide weigh the strength of the economic recovery. Gold-futures prices are up more than 10% since April, when Greece's sovereign-debt crisis and a weaker-than-expected recovery in the U.S. jobs market led investors to question the stability of equities markets."

Now, you can buy gold from vending machines . . . in Abu Dhabi.

I'd rather be working

Great. Yet another report that says your hard work is killing you and you're too stressed out to enjoy vacation time.  According to expedia.com, only 53% of working Americans say they come back feeling rested and rejuvenated after vacation, and 30% say they have trouble coping with work stress while they're away.  It's not enough that finances and job security are uncertainties for just about everyone these days.  Now we have to read that if you work too hard and worry about work when you're not working you're insecure and have low self-esteem.  Worse, all that constant worry spikes your adrenaline and cortisol and will send you to an early grave.

I don't know anyone who dares to take more than one week of vacation at a time.  The mixed signals workers get about work-life balance and personal performance and results ensure that.  Read more here from The Wall Street Journal - Why Relaxing is Hard Work.  Money quote:

"Always remember . . . while you're on vacation, goofing off, someone is in the office doing your work and angling for your job.  But don't let that keep you from having fun!"

Since when did The Wall Street Journal start reporting this kind of depressing nonsense to its readers?  When Rupert Murdoch took over.

Do you hear me?

From the great Stan Freberg.

Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?

Heck of a job Barry

Daniel Henninger in his Wall Street Journal Wonderland column - Obama Meets Toto -  gets to the real issue - misplaced expectations of government competence:

"Two historic events happened in the Gulf of Mexico this spring: Unimaginable amounts of accidental oil rose from a hole one mile below the water's surface. Bigger than that, the federal government was exposed as the Wizard of Oz, unable to do anything about it."

1961

I don't know if the Chicago Blackhawks were tormented by opposing teams fans with chants of 1961 the way the New York Rangers were with 1940, but the Blackhawks finally won the Stanley Cup after a 49-year drought.  The Rangers' last championship in 1994 ended a 54-year wait, best emoted by a fan who held up a sign of relief, reading "Now I can die in peace."

It was also nice to see former Blackhawks star Bobby Hull back in the embrace of the organization after a grudge banning by former team management.  Hull watched Game 6 with fans at Harry Carry's Tavern on Navy Pier near downtown. 

Working Out

I've been an exercise buff all my life, enjoying all kinds of sports and workouts like ice hockey, running, tennis, aerobics, kick boxing, boot camps, strength training, yoga, spinning, etc.  For me, it's hard not to go to the gym, even at six in the morning.

So who is the Magali's Workout System trying to win over equating their workouts to birth?

The Secret Powers of Time

Brilliant.  By Philip Zimbardo on kottke.org.

"The six different time zones are:

1. Past positive: focus is on the "good old days," past successes, nostalgia, etc.
2. Past negative: focus on regret, failure, all the things that went wrong
3. Present hedonistic: living in the moment for pleasure and avoiding pain, seek novelty and sensation
4. Present fatalism: life is governed by outside forces, "it doesn't pay to plan"
5. Future: focus is on learning to work rather than play
6. Transcendental Future: life begins after the death of the mortal body

Find out which time zone you're in by taking this survey.

Fool on the hill

"It's a fantastic honor (for) the Gershwin family to give me this incredible award and for me to be awarded it by the Library of Congress. And in fact, after the last eight years, it's great to have a president who knows what a library is," McCartney said, drawing cheers from the audience.

Nice, Sir Paul.  Very classy.  And no mention of John Lennon?

Now spend some time fixing a hole.

Perfection

Only 20 pitchers over more than a century have pitched a perfect game in Major League Baseball.  That's 27 batters up and 27 batters down, and no walks or errors.  My boys and I enjoyed this once-in-a-lifetime experience in 1998 at Yankee Stadium, when David Wells blanked the Twins 4 -0.  It was magical, even though Wells said he achieved the feat with a "raging, skull-rattling hangover."

Which makes it all the more disappointing that the Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga's bid to be the 21st pitcher of a perfect game was denied on the final out of the game after a blown call by the first base umpire, Jim Joyce.



It was the top story on ESPN's SportsCenter yesterday and nearly 200,000 readers from all 50 states voted to overturn the blown call and award a perfect game.

Even more admirable is the writing of The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, who captured the deeper lesson.

"It's everything that follows that blunder that makes the story great.  When Galarraga hears the call, he looks puzzled, surprised. But he's composed and calm, and he smiles, as if accepting fate. Others run to the ump and begin to yell, but Galarraga just walks back to the mound to finish the job. Which he does, striking out the next batter. The game is over.

"The umpire, Jim Joyce, 54, left the field and watches the videotape. He saw that he'd made a mistake and took immediate responsibility. He went straight to the clubhouse where he personally apologized to Galarraga. Then he told the press, 'I just cost the kid a perfect game.' He said, 'I thought [Donald] beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw until I saw the replay. It was the biggest call of my career.'

"Galarraga told reporters he felt worse for Joyce than he felt for himself. At first, reacting to the game in the clubhouse, he'd criticized Joyce. But after Joyce apologized, Galarraga said, 'You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry.' He said, 'He felt really bad.' He noted Joyce had come straight over as soon as he knew he'd made the wrong call.

 "What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity. And in doing so, Galarraga and Joyce showed kids How to Do It.

"A lot of adults don't teach kids this now, because the adults themselves don't know how to do it. There's a mentoring gap, an instruction gap in our country. We don't put forward a template because we don't know the template. So everyone imitates TV, where victors dance in the end zone, where winners shoot their arms in the air and distort their face and yell "Whoooaahhh," and where victims of an injustice scream, cry, say bitter things, and beat the ground with their fists. Everyone has come to believe this is authentic. It is authentically babyish. Everyone thinks it's honest. It's honestly undignified, self-indulgent, weak and embarrassing.

"Galarraga and Joyce couldn't have known it when they went to work Wednesday, but they were going to show children in an unforgettable way that a victim of injustice can react with compassion, and a person who makes a mistake can admit and declare it. Joyce especially was a relief, not spinning or digging in his heels. I wish he hadn't sworn. Nobody's perfect.

"Thursday afternoon the Tigers met the Indians again in Comerica Park. Armando Galarraga got a standing ovation. In a small masterpiece of public relations, Detroit's own General Motors gave him a brand new red Corvette. Galarraga brought out the lineup card and gave it to the umpire—Jim Joyce, who had been offered the day off but chose to work.

"Fans came with signs that said, 'It was perfect.' It was."

Top Kill Protest

At a weekend protest over the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe, New Orleans residents gathered in Jackson Square.  This poster caught my eye.

Vietnam era protesters will recall the original image and influence.

Meanwhile, Wall Street voted with its feet too, pushing BP stock down 15 percent, a $19 billion drop in market cap.