heef

CPA?

2009-11-16T05:29:58Z

Anyone know of a good-yet-at-least-moderately-affordable CPA in Massachusetts? I need a hand knowing the ramifications of self-incorporation and how to do business filings and payroll, and if they're good, I'll retain them for an hour or two a month going forward.

Desperation

2009-10-06T08:09:41Z

What marks Obama's desperation for a "win" other than his attempt at the Olympic proceedings?

Dude.

2009-09-28T21:15:10Z

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/news/story?id=4510742

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6228477/UN-leaders-back-nuclear-resolution-but-grow-impatient-with-Iran.html

Mr. President: THIS is what you spend your time on? Dammit, DO SOMETHING USEFUL. Ugh. /vomit

Our President sucks right now. Sorry, but he does. He gets nothing done, kowtows to despots, and demonstrates an utter lack of spine. He resorts to apologetics for our past misdeeds, yet never notices that we spend more on foreign aid than every other country in the world, combined. He bends over and grabs his ankles to appease dictatorships. Witness: Hugo Chavez and Moammar Qaddafi praise him, and Sarkozy and Brown verbally slap him. He's done precisely nothing domestically, save for continuing deeply unpopular Bush policies (some of which make sense, despite the ravings of the maniacal left, and some of which do not.)

Iran is going to have a bomb in the next few years unless Obama does something unexpected (or Israel decides that we're spineless enough to be effectively useless and thus takes independent action.) Do you think that, in the face of precisely *zero* outside efforts to overthrow their regime, that their nuclear weapon will be anything but offensive in intent? Do you seriously think that they need a 3,000 chamber cascade to enrich Uranium to anything but bomb capacity? How naive is the American electorate? (Note to self: Prepare for painful reply.)

Thanks for voting this guy in. He's doing exactly what I expected, and nobody anywhere should be proud of that. McCain's policies weren't particularly better, but at least it seems that he'd have executed some of them with at least a modicum of vertebral integrity, which right now seems like a massive upgrade.

Dumb pun of the day.

2009-07-14T10:54:24Z

If Senators voting to seat her are casting "Sotomayor-yeas", would the votes not to seat her be "Soto-mayonays?"

Online store site

2009-07-04T23:12:50Z

I'm looking to set up a small online store, hosted by someone else so I don't have to set up any of the payment stuff. I just want to be able to set prices, upload images of the products, and sell stuff. Any suggestions?

Mathematicians rule.

2009-06-20T19:46:23Z

On the evidence that the Iran vote was rigged:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR2009062000004.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Racism in justice

2009-05-27T09:34:41Z

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602846.html?hpid=opinionsbox1:

Judge Sotomayor has spoken about how gender, ethnicity and race influence a judge's views, and that should be one subject for her confirmation hearings. In a 2001 speech, she said: "The aspiration to impartiality is just that -- it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. . . . Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases . . . . I am not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, . . . there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

First: Hypocrisy much? You deride a universal definition of wisdom, then rely upon it in your subsequent sentence.

Second: Yay racism and sexism. Go go go.

She may be qualified and bright, but that statement is pathetic and disturbing. Cue the apologists.

Nothing new under the sun

2009-03-04T10:14:47Z

No we can't!

John Maiar?

2009-02-26T08:24:03Z

"John Locke. Yes, that's what they used to call me... John Locke the Grey.

I am John Locke the White, and I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide."

Sorry, no.

2009-01-20T17:18:19Z

America is *not* a friend of each nation. We can be, under different and varying circumstances, but we surely *are* not.

Whoa

2009-01-20T17:08:31Z

How did those guys sneak a howitzer past security? This is no good.

Inauguration side question

2009-01-20T16:56:27Z

Who are you and what have you done with the real Aretha Franklin??

Still true...

2009-01-13T02:00:21Z

Chloe O'Brian is the best character on television.

Cooking

2008-12-10T19:30:29Z

Two of the biggest holes in my cooking, in my opinion, are sauces, and the handful of basic dishes that I've just never made (and thus can not vary experimentally).

Well, the other day I made my first risotto. Buttery goodness with chicken stock and prosciutto and parsley. Pretty good stuff, though if I experiment on it too often, I'll see you all at 300 lbs.

LOSTing it up

2008-12-10T19:26:14Z

So my Lost season 4 DVDs showed up yesterday. Now I'm in one of my marathon viewings - S1-S3 in under 5 days (I often play it in the background while I'm working). Currently 4 episodes away from the awesomeness of Desmond, albeit accompanied by 18ish episodes of what I like to call "Ana Lucia Hell" - it's just one of those difficult things that you have to suffer through for the greater good.

So, while I'm having fun here watching mah favorite show... I guess I'll just open the floor to any LOST-related discussions. Who's your favorite actor on the show? Favorite character? Biggest plot hole? Theory for S5?

Excellence in advertising

2008-12-07T16:21:38Z

Greg Oden's ESPN commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXbpB-rlung

This just cracks me up every time I see it. The advertisements are fantastic, and clearly Oden has a self-effacing sense of humor.

On Gardasil

2008-11-27T02:38:57Z

Gardasil is the vaccine that protects against HPV. It's recommended for women who are still growing, in order to protect them against a common form of cervical cancer that is very highly correlated with (and thus believed to cause, backed by a mountain of scientific evidence) this form of cancer. While there are some folks who will not have it administered to their children out of fear that it will somehow make them more likely to have sex (sigh, PLEASE), it is, for the most part, gaining widespread acceptance.

Here's my question: assuming that most women who have HPV contract it from heterosexual sex, why exactly is this only being administered to women? Unless there's something it does harmful to men (only) that I'm not aware of, it should be recommended for everyone, so that you're doing battle on both fronts. Assume it protects 99.9% of people from catching the virus. If 50% of men are carrying it, and it has a perfect transmission rate, then 1 sexually active woman in 2,000 will catch it. (All figures are guesses, but they're only to prove a point-at-large.) If the vaccine is effective in men as well, then only 1 in 2,000 men will have it (in the long run) and thus 1 woman in 4,000,000 will contract it.

Even if the numbers are off by a couple orders of magnitude, the point stands. Vaccinating men *and* women is the right play, long term, and could possibly eventually result (unless the vaccine is far less effective than I think) in a smallpox-like eradication, unless the virus has a substantial nonhuman transmission vector.

Sundry thoughts on TV

2008-11-25T04:23:22Z

* Heroes is, right now, the record holder for "show that was pretty good once and is now nigh unwatchable". My friend Katie and I chat online every week, as it's playing, about how terrible the plots, lines, characters... even acting, at this point... are. It's suitable only for MST3k-ing, having now jumped every living species of shark.

* I don't miss "Saved by zeeeero" commercials a bit.

* I cannot wait for Lost to return. January is too far off.

* Craig Ferguson is the second best late night talk show host on TV. He's hilarious.

* The commercials for The Starter Wife really reduce my enjoyment of the neverending supply of House on USA network. I'm getting to the point where I actually do *not* want candy, and it's because of those awful commercials. That show looks awful. Tip for TV execs: when you put the funniest one-liners in your commercials, and they're not funny at all, your show probably sucks.

* Monday Night Football is at least tolerable now, as is SportsCenter. They've toned down the idiocy.

* House may or may not be running out of ideas... I just haven't figured out which yet.

Reporting the important news

2008-11-07T21:24:35Z

One thing I very much wish right now is that the major newspapers, television networks, etc. would stop reporting the daily swings of the DJIA as major news. The Dow is going to be swinging wildly for some time, and what really matters are the stories that cause the long-term trends, the solution to (or continuing difficulty of) the credit crisis, unemployment, global market trends, etc.

It's not just a matter of my personal annoyance... I think that the daily movement of the Dow is causing people more distress than it should right now. That sort of thing is important to day traders and mutual/hedge fund managers, bond traders... but not the people who get their news from CNN, not people who are retiring anything over a year from now, and not the corporations and banks who are making investments on month-and-year-long trends.

New proposal for American elections

2008-11-06T15:11:22Z

Early decision.

You win more than 60% of the popular vote, you get to start immediately. But if you applied for it, it'd be binding, so you wouldn't be allowed to run for president of any other country at the same time.

Jeter as fielder

2008-11-06T06:54:49Z

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11042008/sports/yankees/worst_fielder_in_majors_136772.htm

Gotta love that.

Generic election question

2008-11-06T04:56:56Z

Does anyone know, off the top of their head, where the dates for the election, and for the inauguration are set? Are both actually set in the Constitution itself?

Dinner last week

2008-10-31T06:44:09Z

Had folks over last Saturday for a little harvesty afternoon. Here is the meal:

Pork tenderloin: Marinaded in apple cider and olive oil, stuffed with onions, dried cranberries, rosemary, and diced apples. Rubbed with salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, and ginger. Roasted over red onion slices and basted with the cider portion of the marinade.

Chuffed potatoes roasted and basted in the same pan.

Zucchini and summer squash sauteed in butter with dill and parsley.

Steamed asparagus, topped with a homemade blended dijon vinaigrette with fresh parsley, basil, sage, cracked peppercorns, and chives.

Onion-topped bread with olive oil seasoned with red pepper, peppercorns, and sundry herbs.

Apples and bananas cooked in brown sugar and butter, over vanilla bean ice cream.

Gracias a nadyezhda for the notion for the main dish.

News Flash! CNN misstates something!

2008-10-29T20:02:46Z

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/29/news/economy/fed_move/index.htm?cnn=yes

But other economists expressed fears that the Fed has already left itself with limited ability to respond to future problems by taking rates this low.

"Now they're running low on ammunition," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research. "They look like Barney Fife with one bullet left. That's not too encouraging."

It does, in a sense, leave them with limited ability to go further... but not for the reason CNN states - because technically, in an absurdly poor economy (far beyond what we're experiencing right now), there is no lower bound on the rate. An extremely aggressive Fed could, in essence, push that rate negative - this would mean loans for which the borrower would be paid interest(!) It would be a desperate tool, and an improbable one, but it's not as if the Fed Funds Rate simply has to stop at zero (and thus they are running out of room in some hard and fast way.)

/shrug

Sic Semper Dumbassus

2008-10-27T22:41:31Z

Ted Stevens is guilty.

One corrupt senator down, 99 to go...