Month: March 2011

Black Eyed Peas – Just Can’t Get Enough

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

After their gawd awful Super Bowl Half Time Show, I thought it might be over for the Peas.

… but I quite like their latest release.

Click PLAY or watch it on VEVO.

Not much of interest in the video, but there’s something I like about the tune. And I’m astonished to report that I’m not yet bored by digitally altered vocals.

Cher started something of interest.

Mitch Daniels for President

On By Rick McIn government, product endorsements2 Comments

Obama needs the best possible challenger.

So far as I can see, that’s Mitch Daniels, Jr., (born April 7, 1949), current Governor of the U.S. state of Indiana.

… Upon becoming Governor, Daniels pressed for a series of changes that brought him into conflict with both Republicans and Democrats. During his first year in office, he proposed a number of tax increases, budget cuts, and privatization plans to balance the budget. …

He turned the State deficit to a surplus in one year, a proven business man.

… Daniels also suggested that the Republicans stop pursuing their social agenda on gay marriage and abortion, and focus on the economic crisis the nation faces …

Most recently he killed it with a speech at the 2011 Conservative Political Action (AUDIO) where Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and other GOP presidential hopefuls …

… were a simplistic pastiche of conservative shibboleths, declarations in favor of motherhood and apple pie, and second-rate jokes about Democrats, particularly Obama. …

I heard about Daniels on left-leaning Slate.com. Even lefties are impressed.

Unfortunately, Daniels’ is still saying he doesn’t want to run. Let’s give him some encouragement.

Like Mitch Daniels for President 2012 on Facebook.

Worst Company In America 2011

On By Rick McIn humour, product complaintsLeave a comment

It’s March Madness over at Consumerist.

… I’ve got to think one of the TelCos will win LOSE.

Here’s Your Lineup For Worst Company In America 2011!

Thanks for the link, Jason.

calling BS on Obama

On By Rick McIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m disappointed that Obama has done so little to try to fix the American deficit and debt.

Has his Presidency been “marked by cool calculation and risk-aversion” … Or has he been gutless?

You could argue it both ways.

I was the first person I knew to suggest that the relatively unknown, inexperienced Barack Obama could be President. (The internet loved him.)

AND the first of his boosters I knew to declare he couldn’t possibly win reelection.

But who’s going to beat him?

Economist – A rival for the president

Obama’s advisers would be gleeful to campaign against Sarah Palin.

Huckabee is Sarah Palin without the charisma. And is a lying lowlife, to boot, I’ve just learned.

… Perhaps the strategy for the Democrats is to do nothing until the election, then try to start fixing the American debt and deficit in the second term.

download IE9

On By Rick McIn product endorsementsLeave a comment

For the first time in over a decade, Microsoft just might have delivered the best browser.

It’s markedly faster than Chrome.

Microsoft set out to do four things with IE9. The browser had to be fast, it had to be standards-compliant, it had to be trustworthy, and it had to put the focus on sites and Web content, rather than the browser. …

arstechnica – The most modern browser there is: Internet Explorer 9 reviewed

Download Internet Explorer 9

You’ll need Windows 7 or Vista if you want this browser. It doesn’t work on XP.

Update: Not everybody agrees that IE9 is now best.

The Tree Where Man Was Born

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

by Peter Matthiessen (1972)

A perfect moment. …

Sitting in the outdoor hot tub looking out over Pismo Beach. Listening to classic Matthiessen as an audio book.

Africa in the 1960s

On the great East African plain it is the human who feels himself the intruder. Here, and perhaps only here, the world is that of the animals. It is they who belong, as humans do not. In the more sensitive traveler this evokes a feeling of being privileged to observe ancient forms, settings and behavior that have survived intact from pre-history.

“Matthiessen has the language to express this feeling of awe…Matthiessen also goes into the relationships between humans past and present in East Africa’s great fauna with many a flash of insight into the instincts each has bred in the other…This is the Africa book par excellence.”

(Saturday Review)


Amazon

Here’s where Matthiessen first met famed field biologist George Schaller, the man he’d join in the Himalayan adventures documented in The Snow Leopard, one of my very favourite books.

Both Schaller and Matthiessen are still alive. In fact Matthiessen in 2008, at age 81, received his second National Book Award for Shadow Country, an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s. (41hrs audio)