The interesting thing about visiting california is that I am simultaneously delighted by the smell of ocean rolling in off the breakers and infuriated that nothing noteworthy is open past 9pm.

Two days ago I ate at the worst taqueria in santa cruz, it’s still twice as good as anything in new york.

It turns out that Alligators are hopelessly enamored with marshmallows. There are even tours through Louisiana and Florida where people can purportedly feed alligators by hand. Coming from a guy with only nine fingers, that is probably one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve heard of in months.

This actually makes a lot of sense if you know a little something about sugar:

I found an interesting and strangely touching article in the NYtimes on an alligator trapper in the everglades. Lots of fun fackts.

-In 1977 alligators were endangered, now there are over 15 million of them in Florida alone.

This snapshot of San Francisco as a city teeming with homeless junkies is not entirely inaccurate. Of course, the reasons fox news presents [secular progressivism] are totally off. The reasons for homelessness in the city are unsurprisingly more complex. My research indicates that the single biggest problem is simply that homeless people from all over the country come to San Francisco. Essentially, SF is tasked with a federal sized problem on a municipal budget. It’s not that the city government adores crack smoke wafting over the tenderloin, the city simply lacks the resources to deal with it. The city has rejected as broadly irrational the notion that jailing drug addicts is either rational or cost effective but has failed to come up with a better solution. 1/2 way there.

Just checking a message on facebook and saw the this ad. Initially it struck me as deeply absurd but I’m coming around to the idea that she might be on to something. A lot of people don’t really realize that if you want to do something difficult you can save yourself a lot of time and ensure success by simply asking people that have already done it. If you’re nice, generally grateful and ask interesting questions the people you ask will become mentors. It’s seems a lot of people would rather puzzle through a process the long and hard way while risking failure than simply doing things the easy way. Which is cool I guess but not necessarily smart or useful most of the time. Finding mentors is largely a numbers game so it makes a lot of sense that she just placed a facebook ad.

The interesting part is that the Ad links to her blog instead of some way to contact her. I did a facebook search and found 37 people named leslie bradshaw. I sleuthed around on her blog until I found enough info about her to do a relevant facebook search and send a query about the success of her campaign + advice on how she can get a better response. {have the ad link to the about page on her blog, place her email at the top of the page and then add a direct link to her facebook profile. I am continually baffled by people who don’t understand that making a task even marginally more difficult will substantially reduce it’s possible success. but whatever, it keeps me employed}

My view is that if you don’t have any mentors you’re probably not doing anything hard. Heads up, this is a possible sign that you are stagnating and becoming lame.

For the first time, a federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release prisoners held at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruling Tuesday that 17 Chinese Muslims must be brought to his courtroom by the end of the week so that they can be set free.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said that the government’s authority to hold the men had “ceased” and that they were entitled to be released. The 17 are Uighurs who fled persecution in the far western reaches of China. U.S. authorities, fearing what Chinese officials would do, have refused to send them back to China

wait, back up a second. For 4 years the pentagon was saying “We have to keep torturing them, because otherwise they might get…tortured” ?!?!?!

did i get that right? because it is a fucking sad day to be an American. +1 internets to Ricardo M. Urbina.

:: Full Article via LA Times ::

Also, in the rumor mill and unsubstantiated second hand story department, I met a guy at a cocktail party last year who worked with a lot of the gitmo stuff and he said that nearly every single case was exactly like this. ie zero evidence.

Am I the only person horribly offended by American Apparel’s “Afrika” prints collection?

So, I just finished reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Klein details the rise of Chicago School Economics and the inherently undemocratic measures used to enforce a free market ideology. She also discusses how neoliberals take advantage of disasters to push through free market reforms. She uses different case studies to make her point, most notably Chile, Israel, South Africa and Iraq. I thought this was an interesting quote about Iraq.

Henry T. Nicholas III, a Californian technology billionaire worth an estimated $2.3 billion has been accused of feeding ecstasy to unwitting business associates, hosting orgies at a private drugs warehouse and building a secret party lair under his mansion that even his wife knew nothing about. The 18-page indictment on drug charges alleges that Mr Nicholas kept four properties in Orange County and Las Vegas, including a warehouse in Laguna Niguel where he stashed and distributed cocaine, crystal meth and ecstasy. He later remodelled the warehouse with private rooms and furnished it with art and high-end electronics. The court documents also claim that Mr Nicholas hired prostitutes and escorts for himself, his employees and customers and conspired to get illegal prescriptions for drugs such as Valium. In 2001, according to one count on the indictment, Mr Nicholas smoked so much marijuana during a flight on a private jet between Orange County and Las Vegas that the pilot had to put on an oxygen mask.

:: Free Time via Times Online ::

Let me add here that while I don’t condone feeding ecstasy to ceos, I can see how it might seem like a good idea at the time.

I wrote this a while ago and never published it because I wanted to make it one of those fancy three part blog posts. I think there’s a lot of power in realizing when you are never going to do something and just letting it go.

FDA: Hey, did you write down that stuff about about the experimental untested food like I asked?
Beef Industry: ohhh duuuuude, I totally forgot. My bad!

Now! from the people who brought you mad cow disease, CLONED MEAT!!!

You seriously have to read this whole article, it’s a fucking riot.
USDA Recommends Food From Clones Stay Off the Market

My favorite part is when the cattle/biotech companies are all “Cloning is just a way to make offspring” it’s like invitro fertilization. wtf, no seriously WTF!?!? Although maybe my favorite part is when the article talks about how the few clones that do survive are plagued with birth defects and abnormally high rates of disease but don’t worry, it’s safe to eat! And besides, we can’t label it because that would just keep people from buying it.

While the future is bright and shiny, it’s just as corrupt on the inside.

—-

A couple days ago the USDA issued the biggest beef recall in history, 143 million pounds. I’ve seen several articles on this and most of them gloss over a few salient points that I’d like to reiterate here

-This recall goes back two years. Wait, seriously? Yes, that is physically impossible and I’m concerned that there is no one in the media rational enough to collapse in ridicule.

-A two year recall means that most of this meat has already been consumed.

-Downed cattle requirements are in place because of mad cow disease. My understanding is that these regulations as they (ahem) stand right now are seriously inadequate. Also, mad cow disease is seriously under reported because there are strong disincentives for telling the truth.

-Almost universally the articles that I’ve seen completely fail to critically engage the beef industry’s claims about the safety of the food supply. I’ll try my best to paraphrase

Beef Industry: “The government forced us to recall an insanely large amount of meat because it’s been unsafe for two years. We didn’t notice that but trust us, eating meat is 100% safe.”
Journalists: “okay, well, we’ll just repeat your logically incoherent soundbite ad nauseum so that people don’t accidentally get really pissed off about how incompetent and greedy you are.”

-This is a recall spurred on by a video recorded secretly and delivered to the humane society. This didn’t come out because of vigilant regulators. I highly recommend watching the video.

 The Magic of Voluntary Regulation

Argh. I knew there was a good reasonthat I shouldn’t have ever trusted Facebook.

Too late now.

Question
Will someone, ANYONE, please tell me what the difference is between he Democratic Party and the Republican Party? I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Answer
If you’re for gay rights, you’re a Democrat. If you’re for gay sex, you’re Republican.

Occasionally there is thought-provoking material on Reddit.