Hoping For Recession

Okay everyone, let’s review this and see if we can prove it wrong through diligent, scientific research!

I suggest you start here…

RedPlanetCartoons » Hoping For Recession

Filed under: Business, History

Top Ten Signs You’re a BlackBerry Addict

Personally, I’d add the following: “When you blog about Blackberry Top Ten lists…”

Thanks to Mark Spoonauer who wrote this and Hayden at Pinstack.Com who tipped me off to it.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it, you probably don’t own a BlackBerry.

Top Ten Signs You’re a BlackBerry Addict
10. After a cross-country flight you wait for all your new messages to download before you alert loved ones you’re still alive.

9. You try to use BlackBerry keyboard shortcuts in Outlook. (No, you can’t hit the space bar to type “@”)

8. You think the iPhone would be much better if it only had a physical keyboard–and a trackball smackdab in the middle of the touch screen.

7. Your BlackBerry keeps you regular. Go to the bathroom without it and you’d have to “push” on your own.

Sorry, to read the rest go visit the article at Laptop Magazine, at Top Ten Signs You’re a BlackBerry Addict

Filed under: Technology

What Ham is Reading…

I mentioned a couple days ago trying to get comfortable cracking open the pages of an actual book.  No simple task when you’ve spent the last four years doing all of your research and education in front of a 17 in monitor.  Technology dazzles, simple paper and ink do not.

Obviously, though, it isn’t the presentation that should hold us, but the message, right?  Okay, hat tip to Marshall McLuhan for that bit o’ wisdom.

After several fits and starts, I’ve covered several chapters of Steven D. Levitt’s and Stephen J. Dubner’s “Freakonomics”.  And I’ve found it to be quite refreshing.  As Rachel Stern describes the text at the Beaconhill Institute;

Out of the rarefied air of academia, Levitt taking center stage shows that economics is not a “fourth or fifth language” but an exciting tool that can be used to represent how the world actually works. With interests in cheating, corruption, and crime, Levitt explores the unasked questions of everyday life.

Now, if you’re the type of person who’s surfing across the channels and stop on the the discovery channel, then you’ll probably enjoy this book.  While the concepts certainly engage the reader’s ability to conceptualize, the prose is digestible and does not impede the discussions.

School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers

Did you know a simple algorithmic equation caused some Chicago teachers to be fired for cheating?  And how exactly does this relate to economics?  Well, you’ll have to figure that out by reading it yourself!

Filed under: Economics, Readings

Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

I don’t usually shamelessly plug web sites, but I found this great little music site on the recommendation of the kid at my local coffee shop.  It won’t let you download music, but will play almost any artist you want, while it associates similar artists/songs to build a play list.

Best thing about it?  No annoying DJ’s or commercials.

Been playing with it for about the last 10 minutes and built some quick play lists:

• Annie Lennox
• Peter Tosh
• Michael Buble
• Nickelback
• Jimmy Buffet
• Dave Koz

Of course, they don’t just play the artist, but again, develop a play list of associated styles and singers to make your own music compilation.

 

Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

Filed under: Technology

Friday Night Free Association

Spring seems to finally gotten here, weather warm, the sand volleyball court in my complex is teaming with young folks and I’m toying with trading my truck for a Harley.  How does it look on me?

Secondly, got back on line with a new notebook complete with Window’s Vista (saving my opinion of it until I work through the new features).  Managed to sync my blackberry through BlueTooth, too!  Ain’t technology grand? 

Lastly, packing up my reading list with some new titles:

• The Pleasure of Hating (circa 1800) by William Hazlitt
• The Starfish and the Spider (2006) by Brafman and Beckstrom
• Freakonomics (2005) by Levitt and Dubner

I’ll have your book reports within the next week in case you might find the titles interesting.  Stay tuned.

Filed under: Thoughts

Absolut Offensiveness: Bumped to top…

Updated: Sunday 6 April. 

MEXICO CITY —  The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.

From Foxnews.com

You’ve seen these Absolut Vodka adds before, but you may have not seen this one. Read more at La Plaza in the Los Angeles Times. 

The whole concept taps into the idea that the U.S. pretty much stole all of what was Mexican territory.  Of course that’s all b.s. cuz we pretty much purchased most of the territory.  And what we didn’t purchase was part of the ole “Independance from Mexico” thing, i.e.; the Bear Flag Revolution in California and the Lone Star Republic of Texas…

It’s all wishful thinking on their part, but it’s inflaming a lot of folks.

Filed under: Ass Clowns, Business

Taxing Big Oil

From RedPlanet and Thomas Sowell from April 2006: Oily Politicians.

 

Ironically, the people who are making the most noise about the high price of gasoline are the very people who have for years blocked every attempt to increase our own oil supply. They have opposed drilling for oil off the Atlantic coast, off the Pacific coast, or in Alaska. They have prevented the building of any new oil refineries anywhere for decades.

I love this cartoon as it succintly describes the lack understanding of economic theory.  Are you all familiar with Supply-Side Economic Theory?  Here’s a small tidbit from James D. Gwartney, a professor of economics at Florida State University and previously chief economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

Supply-side economics provided the political and theoretical foundation for a remarkable number of tax cuts in the United States and other countries during the eighties. Supply-side economics stresses the impact of tax rates on the incentives for people to produce and to use resources efficiently.

Time to send our Politicians back to school…

Filed under: Big Oil, Democrats

My blog should be burning up…

I made it back online temporarily.  Not sure where I should start with all the wonderful things that have been happening lately.

Should I talk about Hillary ducking bullets in Bosnia? Just wondering if her remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr. today were more accurate than those previous memories.  Just watched her on Fox saying that she was in shock and hurled her book bag across the room when she heard he was shot.  Should we doubt her memories?

 

Filed under: Democrats