Paul’s Grab Bag

Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Much was made of Stephen Colbert’s rescue of the US Olympic speed skating team, and the Colbert Nation patches they were wearing in practice.  Has anyone seen a US speed skater wearing one in the Vancouver […]

Corporate Personhood

From my post of two days ago: “And I think corporate ownership of congress is going to get worse, not better.” Boy, I’ll say.  Yesterday the Supreme Court extended free speech rights to corporations, who will now be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and parties. Some say this’ll be the […]

A Righteous Beak

Ever hear someone say he has a beak, or that such-and-such a thing gives him the beak?  We said it all the time in the USAF; “I have a beak” means I’m pissed off; “you give me the beak” means you make me angry. The beak must be secret military jargon, because when I Google […]

Strengthening Corporate/Consumer Bonds

Yesterday morning I mentioned to Donna that our charcoal-lighting chimney had rusted out. That afternoon I got this email: “Amazon.com recommends Weber 87886 Chimney Starter.” At the coffee shop earlier today our friend Darrell mentioned actor Tom Hanks, and I commented that he and I both went to Sacramento State College. A few minutes ago […]

Car Show

My friend Darrell gave me a free ticket and VIP parking pass to the annual Tucson Classics Car Show, so I spent a happy morning mooning over beautiful metal. Car shows and auctions these days are dominated by 1970s muscle cars (this one was no exception), but I’m interested in older, stock cars, the kind […]

Chad 2 NTSB: u’ve been pwned

Pwn: internet slang term, derived from the verb “own,” meaning to appropriate or conquer, implying domination or humiliation of a rival.  — Wikipedia. From the New York Times, 21 July, 2009: Driven to Distraction U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving By MATT RICHTEL Published: July 21, 2009 In 2003, researchers at a federal agency […]