perfidy

Scrappleface muses on the political effects of the twin tragedies of Zarqawi's death and Rove skating out from under indictment. I'm sure this will propel Bush's poll numbers into at least the mid-thirties.

NASA has released a video of a Lunar meteorite impact.

For your amusement, the F3ll0wsh1p of teh R1ng. For teh n00b sux0rz, here are some resources to help you gain 1337 reading skillz.

This over at Protein Wisdom amused me greatly. You'd think, given the stereotype of whiny lefties, people like this would want to be a little more, I don't know... butch.

Gary Farber has a better idea for the fourth Indiana Jones pic. Granted, we don't know what they have in store for us. But whatever it is, it probably sucks. Gary takes a dark corner of the Nazi era, shines a light in it, and shows how we could make fabulous entertainment out of it. He also links to Charles Stross, who stands supreme on my list of favorite writers. Stross' book Atrocity Archives discusses some of the same subject matter from a different direction entirely. I suggest to Gary that you read that book instantly, and really, anyone else as well. Unix guru meets Lovecraftian horror. You can't beat that with a stick.

But back to the main point. Indiana Jones. Nazis. Objects of power. Raiders of the Lost Ark tapped into something wonderful. The thirties, Nazis, the Lost Ark of the Covenant - it all blended together perfectly. It was all those comic books we should have had, all the serials we half remembered watching on Saturday afternoons that never were really that good. Other movies have tried to capture that feeling, with varying but typically small success. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow got the the alternate thirties technology, and noir feel. The Phantom was frankly pathetic. Disney's The Rocketeer (which I just saw on cable last night) was surprisingly good, though lacking in grit. To be expected of a Disney flick, but still overall a good effort. [Side note: my father, noted historian and old car collector, pointed out that in the street scenes in Rocketeer, all the cars will be of the same make. It might change from scene to scene - Buicks on this street, Chevies on the next, but typically a lot of uniformity. The reason is that production companies in need of old cars for scene dressing typically hire old car clubs, and for ease in logistics, will have a club supply all the cars for a single scene.]

The only book I've ever read that captured all the elements for kick-ass thirties adventure was a Doc Savage book. Violence, Nazis, retro-high-tech, noir atmosphere, strange locales, the whole panoply - but I lost it and can't remember the title or even author. An author could have a lot of fun writing a tale like that.

Just think of the elements you could include:

• Nazis - but even better, real Nazis like the Ahnenerbe that Gary talks about.
  
• Soviet agents, because they always get left out of these stories, and were fully as evil as the Nazis.
  
• Gangsters. Hey, why not? They add period color, and will certainly ally with a patriotic hero to fight Nazis and Commies.
  
• Strange technology. You get some real bonuses with a film on this one, thanks to being able to show cool art-deco/industrial gothic designs. But even so, in a book you could have - just for starters - airships, autogyros, jets, jetpacks, electro-mechanical computers, wrist radios, Tesla-style super weapons, rockets, atomics, sheesh, all kinds of fun.
  
• Mystical objects. To be sure, two of the best ones are already taken. But there are others, even if you stay within the western tradition and avoid the pitfalls of the second Indiana Jones flick.

Stir that into a pot, and smoke it. Fun for the whole family.

Ministry crony EDog has issued a challenge. Write a complete novel in a hundred days. He suckered me into the NaNoWriMo contest last November, and as it happened, that was simply too much for me at the time. However, it's summer, and I am feeling optimistic. Also, an 80k word novel is inherently more saleable than a 50k word novella - novellas basically being the red-headed stepchildren of the publishing industry. Conceivably, there could be a bright shiny pile of cash at the end of the tunnel. EDog has graciously spotted me the 10k words I wrote for Nanowrimo last fall, and the story of Baby and interstellar genocide will continue.

EDog's looking at starting no later than July 1, so look for more space madness in the coming weeks. I'll see if I can get Rocket Jones to play, too.

It is my birthday after all. Coincidently, it also happens to be the birthday of this hack poet:

William Butler Yeats was born on this day in 1865, and managed to survive another 74 years scribbling forgettable poetry and dabbling in oriental mysticism and fascism. Strangely enough, I have managed to go 37 years without ever realizing that I shared my birthday with a famous poet. Thanks to Trish, who sent me a nice Birthday card from the Victoria and Albert Museum, for clueing me in.

I am now arguably in my late thirties. I am not sure how to feel about that. The last decade has not been without some success, but the idea that I'm creeping ever closer to 40 is, well, creepy. Nevertheless, it's a happy birthday, and a beautiful day. And dad got me the complete Far Side...

The national flower of Greenland is an ice sculpture in front of the cultural center in the capital city of Godthab.

I love cable television. I love that we live in the future.

I am about to watch a world cup soccer match between Mexico and Iran. There are a dismayingly large number of people in America today willing to believe that the populace of one of these nations is conspiring to overrun us and tekurjobs, and the other is full of people all working in concert to make New York into a glowing crater.

Both those assertions are, of course, bullshit. Bigotry and economic illiteracy aside, the United States does need to get a handle on all the people who want to come to this country, but not by sealing the borders tight. And surely there are many nuclear engineers in Iran working on things that mean bad news for us. But the main body of the populace of each of these countries are just people like people everywhere.

Right now, as I watch the Mexican announcers on Univision flip out as Mexico prepares for its opening match against Iran, all I can see is a bunch of people really happy to be from where they're from, and ready to pin their national pride on a silly game. Some of you may know that I spent some time in Guanajuato as a teenager, and really dig Mexico as a nation, as a people, and as a state of mind.

I love that I can watch Mexican world cup action in Spanish, get the flavor of their fanaticism, soak in the love of the game, and launch myself off the couch screaming "GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL! GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL!" in support of my peeps to the South. And given that the USA is hard pressed to make it out of the first round in a group that's absolutely stacked with talent including a juggernaut of a Czech team and the Italians and Ghana besides, I might as well go ahead and throw my Cup support behind nuestros vecinos del sud.

¡Luchemos! ¡Luchemos! ¡Vencermos! And similar sentiments!

[wik] Advertisements for Nexium (the purple pill) are just as silly in Spanish.

[alsø wik] Latin American soap operas are priceless entertainment.

[alsø alsø wik] Mariachi music is oddly compelling. Much like polka, which I find to be a balm to the hung-over mind, mariachi is somehow comforting yet energizing. I clearly have brain damage.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Aside to Buckethead: you should know that I've started playing pickup soccer at lunchtime, hence my sudden interest in the game. I have realized that it's as poetic as baseball and as exciting as football. The only drawback, the one thing that seems wrong to this American mind is this: no professional sporting event should ever end in a tie.

[see the løveli lakes...] Strikeouts, as Crash Davis said, might be fascist, but ties are socialist.

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] Unlike my esteemed coblogger Patton, I love our freedom. And I hate ties.

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] Patton likes ties, value-added taxes, international condom-size harmonization standards, national shoe production quotas, and Volvos.

[including the majestik møøse...] Iran's national anthem is quite lovely. I have no idea what the words are.

[a Møøse once bit my sister...] Evidently, the lyrics in English run

Upwards on the horizon rises the Eastern Sun,
The sight of the true Religion.
Bahman - the brilliance of our Faith.
Your message, O Imam, of independence and freedom
is imprinted on our souls.
O Martyrs! The time of your cries of pain rings in our ears.
Enduring, continuing, eternal,
The Islamic Republic of Iran.

So there you go.

[No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"] Wait'll you get a load of the lyrics to the Mexican anthem! Iran is all about submission to Allah and martyrs: Mexico's is about fucking rivers of the blood of their enemies.

CHORUS:
Mexicans, when the war cry is heard,
Have sword and bridle ready.
Let the earth's foundations tremble
At the loud cannon's roar.

May the divine archangel crown your brow,
Oh fatherland, with an olive branch of peace,
For your eternal destiny has been written
In heaven by the finger of God.
But should a foreign enemy
Dare to profane your soil with his tread,
Know, beloved fatherland, that heaven gave you
A soldier in each of your sons.

CHORUS

War, war without truce against who would attempt
to blemish the honor of the fatherland!
War, war! The patriotic banners
saturate in waves of blood.
War, war! On the mount, in the vale
The terrifying cannon thunder
and the echoes nobly resound
to the cries of union! liberty!

CHORUS

Fatherland, before your children become unarmed
Beneath the yoke their necks in sway,
May your countryside be watered with blood,
On blood their feet trample.
And may your temples, palaces and towers
crumble in horrid crash,
and their ruins exist saying:
The fatherland was made of one thousand heroes here.

CHORUS

Fatherland, oh fatherland, your sons vow
To give their last breath on your altars,
If the trumpet with its warlike sound
Calls them to valiant battle.
For you, the garlands of olive,
For them, a glorious memory.
For you, the victory laurels,
For them, an honoured tomb.

CHORUS

So, I guess the lesson is, never date Mexico's sister.

So yesterday I was all furious and angry, but not at her -- just at certain very bad people who shall remain nameless for the time being...but then today was a good day. Today I drove 600 miles, met my Mom to pick up a sparkle that's been in the family 120 years, watched the sun set and the moon rise at the same time, left the sunroof open 'cause Chemical Brothers sounded so cool, got 31.6 mpg driving around traffic at 75, and reflected on the 38 years I've screwed up; felt nothing but hope and good will towards the next 38, god willing.

It was a good day.

At 9:00 AM this morning, give or take a few minutes, Paraguay and England started a first-round World Cup match. David Beckham and Michael Owen leading an all-star English team in the biggest sporting event in the world.

Now, I accept that Americans don't give a crap about soccer, on the whole. Fine. But it's the fachrissakes World Cup! And right now, I am half-watching that match on Mexico's Univision network, because NBC is carrying the French Open (okay), ESPN is showing Sportscenter (for the 10th time in a row), and ESPN2 is showing... bass fishing???

Je-sus. A country fulla rubes is what we are. In Somalia, the populace is rioting against their new Islamist overlords, because said overlords have banned watching Cup matches. Surely we would do the same if the Superbowl or the World Series were similarly threatened, but c'mon! The best soccer in the world, and ESPN2 preempts it for... bass fishing?

From the Llamabutchers, just click through and play the video.

[wik] While we're on the subject of Llamavideos, they have another one as well. While I am not generally speaking one for wishing others ill, I can't help but admit to a funny feeling in the tummy when I contemplate the demise of Zarqawi. Triumphalism is not a virtue, but in this case, I think not entirely a vice. And the song picked for this one is not, for once, the odious Toby Keith.

[alsø wik] In that same post, Steve makes the point that the next election will be dynamite, huge, when it comes to the common folk appropriating the expropriators. The photoshopping of campaign ads was one of the happier things about the last election, and I think that re-edits and you tube will in fact play a significant (and highly amusing) role in '08.

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it is important that all the Ministry's readers, ministers, and minions be aware of the events of the past two weeks.

A few of you may have noticed that the Ministry of Minor Perfidy's website went down last week for several days. This was most regrettable.

The outage was the unfortunate result of a negotiation gone bad between myself, an interdimensional supercomputer which calls itself Sheridan, and one of the more testy Ancient Outer Evils. One thing you need to understand about interdimensional supercomputers is that the concept of latency takes on a whole new meaning. Here on Earth, we are accustomed to network latencies on the order of milliseconds, gaps of time that are nearly imperceptible even at their worst. But when the computer is both sentient and relying on logic processors, language interpretation software packages, and RAM caches residing in a cool half-dozen parallel universes, latencies can range from the normal milliseconds to minutes at a time. The net result - get it? Net result? - is that sometimes the right hand literally does not know what the left hand is doing. And this time, as the right hand was agreeing with me and this particularly testy Ancient Outer Evil on the main points of our proposed cross-temporal profit sharing scheme, the left hand was simultaneously insulting the same Evil's mother and trying to impregnate one of our receptionist.

Long story short, I zigged, Evil zagged, and in the ensuing chaos our server room was on the receiving end of some accidental gunplay. I would have thought that a few extra air holes would merely have aided in cooling our massively overclocked machines, but nooooooo, both scrutator and snoogums (ah, stalwart servers both!) went to that great gig in the sky.

It took many thousands of sprite-hours of work and the regrettable deaths of millions of code-gnomes to reconstruct the trillions of bits of data the Ministry has collected over the years. Hard work, backbreaking work, frequently fatal work (ah! brave code-gnomes!), but necessary work if we are to bring you the content, wisdom, and dubious counsel you have grown to depend on (or at least tolerate).

Many thanks to Ministers Ross and Patton for their yeoman's work in repairing the site, to Buckethead for spearheading the entire venture, and to GeekLethal for locking, loading, and figuring out a way to rescue me from Sheridan's hordes of gorgeous yet deadly fembots.

Brew #10 - St. Anky Dark Ale

Anyone meow remember the great American film "Super Troopers" meow?

6.6 lbs Munton's liquid malt extract, light.
3/4 lb crystal malt, 40L
1/4 lb chocolate malt
1/4 lb black patent malt
1 oz Eroica hops, 12% AAU (bittering)
1/2 oz Hallertau Mittelfreuh hops, aroma
1 oz Hallertau Mittelfreuh hops, flavor
1 packet Safale S-04 dry ale yeast (Whitbread strain)

Steeped specialty grains in 1 gallon filtered tap water for 60 minutes at 155-160 degrees. Meanwhile, brought 3 gallons filtered tap water to boil in kettle, and added steeping water. Rinsed grains off well. Added malt extract at the boil. Returned kettle to boil and added Eroica hops. Added 1/2 oz HM hops (real German ones) for the last ten minutes. Added 1 oz HM (real German ones) for the last minute. Nummy num num num.

Removed kettle to ice bath with 30 lbs ice and a couple freezer packs. Added 1 gallon 50 degree water to the fermenter, and added wort, filtering out the trub using the showercap-like contraption I have. Poured back and forth between kettle and bucket to aerate wort. I tried an experiment this time - I sprinkled the yeast into the bucket when most of the beer was in the kettle, and let the turbulence of pouring the beer back in dissolve and disperse the yeast. Twenty minutes later, I shook the bucket some more to make sure the yeast was fully distributed throughout the wort.

I was going to use some liquid ESB yeast for this brew, which probably would have been very good, but there were two reasons not to. First, the batch was a little old, and I wasn't totally confident of getting a good fermentation from the yeast. Second, since I was using Hallertau hops I wanted to have a crisper finish than the softness of ESB yeast would afford. Whitbread should do very well on that count.

This is basically a rerun of Brew #2, which I called a porter. I mean, it was a porter, but lighter than the usual American porters that are around these days. Generally people use roasted malts for the browned, toasty flavors they impart, and I haven't really done that here. Moreover, I tend to like a lot of hops with this grainbill, more aroma hops especially than are really acceptable for the porter style. So, I've decided instead that what I'm making here is more of a Dark Ale. Why the hell not? My Brew #6, Joey Porter, was more in the porter style since I used a bit of darker crystal malt as well as a London Ale yeast that offered nice, round, soft, and minerally notes. It's amazing how basically the same exact grainbill can taste completely different using a different strain of yeast, even if both strains are from the same region of the same country. I love yeast.

I love yeast.

[wik] Ok, so not great. The yeast was nice, but high-attenuating, and the quarter pound of black malt came through too much. Also, the very estery and fruity flavor profile completely hides any hop aroma. I'd need to use some flavoring hops and a load of aroma hops to get a hoppy nose out of this. Worst of all, the batch was contaminated and I had to dump the last case before the bottles blew. Dang dang dang dang.

Holy shit! Johno's posting again! I thought he was dead! Shuffled loose this mortal coil and joined the heavenly choir! Deceased! Defunct! An ex-pundit!

In troof, I was merely... resting. And I do have lovely plumage.

The fact of the matter is, I started a new job a few weeks ago that has monopolized all my daytime brainspace, and have been moonlighting in a gig that has taken up the rest. So, sorry everyone. It's Friday, I'm dead-dog tired, and I'm drinking a homebrew.

And in a bizarre peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate moment, I have made a discovery.

Two weeks ago I bottled my latest pale ale. The first couple were absolutely delicious. Go me!

The third, that's where it gets interesting. Remember my Belgian Ale? Well, an unsanitized bottle from that batch that I poured and merely rinsed out must have made it into my batch of sanitized bottles on bottling day. Because the beer I am right now drinking is fascinating, an American pale ale with the crisp bite of Chico ale yeast and the soft citrus notes of Cascade and East Kent Goldings hops, and the spicy tang of Belgian ale from the oopsie-left-over yeast in the renegade bottle. Apparently that Belgian yeast is a fierce competitor, because it's what did the work of fermenting the priming sugar and left its very prominent stamp on the beer as a result.

I have to say, for this being a real no-no in homebrewing terms and proof positive that my sanitation could be better, it's one hell of a delicious mistake. Seriously, next time I might do this on purpose just for larfs, because folks, my mistake is goooooood.

Somewhat belatedly, a link to Ministry Crony Mapgirl, who hosted the 51st Carnival of Personal Finance during Perfidy's recent interregnum. Since she asked nicely, go, read, and become wise in the ways of personal finance.

[wik] Also, wish her well in her budding romance with her new, fancy youngin'.

Hindu demographers at the Kharagpur Institute of Technology warn that the expected increase in world population will lead to a shortage of souls by the year 2045.

Thomas Kinkade is the self proclaimed "Painter of Light" who has somehow, in defiance of all standards of taste, decency, excellence and marketing, managed to franchise his pathetic, cookie-cutter soi-disant "art" into a nationwide franchise. Are you experienced? Well, I languished in blissful ignorance of the Thomas Kinkade phenomenon for years, as it metastasized after I moved to the East Coast. (And much as I love the midwest, the midwest is that part of our fine country most susceptible to all forms of treacly kitsch.) My first encounter with Black Thom and his franchise of horror was in a slightly rundown yet comfortable mall on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio. My mom and I liked the place because while it had the standard issue mall stores, it did not have crowds of fashion victim teens who looked like they'd just walked through an explosion in a shrapnel factory. It did not have crowds at all, and we liked that. A slow paced mall where you'd never have to jostle, or even talk with, anyone.

Over in the corner by the May Company, I saw a glimmering of light. What ho? A new store? That hadn't happened since 1991. I looked and saw the proud sign, "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light(tm)" I turned to mom, and asked, "What the hell is that?"

Mom explained that this was a new thing, a franchise cheezy art store. All art by one no-talent ass clown, rather than hundreds of no-talent ass clowns as was the traditional practice. Well, greed is good, I thought, and said, "Let's take a look." As we got closer, my anticipation grew. Swelled, in fact. This would be more fun than the time I got kicked out of the scientology center in Columbus for walking in an responding to every question for twenty minutes with a single response: "Excuse me?"

We entered the dimly lit premises, and I looked about me in something akin to horrified wonder. Surrounding me were bad paintings. But not just any old random bad paintings. Bad paintings all in a single style. A style that stopped short of the mastery displayed by the wacky tree painting guy on PBS. A style that focused on, well, light. Everything was stagelit. From all sides. Every painting had more colors than it deserved. The subjects were the worst sort of Hallmark cloying sentimentality. Pretty trees, houses, quaint villages, all lit up by the guy who designed the lighting effects for Pink Floyd's last concert tour.

I forced my way deeper into the store, stunned into silence. I noticed that up high, out of the reach of children, hung the expensive paintings. The exquisite taste and burning desire for light of those who would purchase these fine works could not be satisfied with the mere overuse of lighting techniques using mere paint. These paintings had something extra. They had actual lights. Hooked to batteries and shit, and capable of heating a small room.

I could not contain my disgust. I turned to mom and asked, "Who would buy this shit?" My mom, clearly agreeing but too polite to say anything, merely nodded in the direction of the other customers. From that point on, I restrained myself to pointing at the really, really bad ones, and laughing.

But the cool kids over at Something Awful have done far more, and shown no restraint whatsoever. Below the fold, a couple examples:

This one really captures the essence of how Kinkade does his thing, while at the same time ridiculing it:

And these two are just fun:

Go check out the rest.

From the 'Dredge Report, who was once but is now no longer a DC area blogger, we find this utterly fascinating, nay consuming tutorial.

Dredge also points out an Onion bit I missed somehow:

“If we don’t protect freedom of speech, how will we know who the assholes are?”

Via slashdot, news that the big brains at MIT may have made a long-awaited breakthrough in battery technology. AS is often the case, they decided not to flail the dead horse of mature technology looking for incremental gains, but rather looked sideways - and in this case backwards to a
different model.

Conventional batteries rely on storing electrical energy as chemical energy. The reactions of the chemicals in your double AAs release that energy again as electricity. The problem with batteries is that over time, they lose the ability to store energy and must be discarded. The MIT boffins went back to another old energy storage technology, capacitors, and decided to give it a little boost by means of nanotechnology.

Capacitors store electrical energy as, well, electrical energy. Inside the capacitor, an electric field of charged particles stores that energy between two metal electrodes. They charge and discharge much faster than batteries, and last much longer than batteries. So why aren't we using them already? Storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the batteries' electrodes, which limits the amount of energy you can store. For the same size, a capacitor can only hold a few percent of the energy of a battery. And that's where the nanotech comes in.

The researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with millions of tiny filaments called nanotubes. Each nanotube is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. Similar to how a thick, fuzzy bath towel soaks up more water than a thin, flat bed sheet, the nanotube filaments on increase the surface area of the electrodes and allow the capacitor to store more energy. Schindall says this combines the strength of today's batteries with the longevity and speed of capacitors.

"It could be recharged many, many times perhaps hundreds of thousands of times, and ... it could be recharged very quickly, just in a matter of seconds rather than a matter of hours," he says.

Even getting capacitors up to the same energy storage of a battery would be an enormous leap. Plug your laptop into an outlet for a few seconds, and you're good for hours of use. And your capacitor won't fail after a year. Should this technology actually result in higher energy densities, the possibilities are rather amazing.

A battery or a high capacity capacitor is an energy bucket. You pour water in, you pour water out. But batteries have a lid with a small spout, and water eventually destroys the bucket. Quick discharge and high reliability means that energy weapons that we already know how to build become feasible. Quick recharge means that much of the technology that we use becomes much more usable. For a while there, it looked like methane fuel cells were the only way out of the battery problem, but this will be - if it lives up to the inventor's claims - an almost ideal solution.

The one magazine (though they prefer "newspaper") I read each week without fail is the Economist. I never question why it's been one of my habits for so many years, but if I ever did, an article lead-in like this would provide the answer:

IN THE film “Zoolander”, some male models stop to refuel their car and, just for fun, spray each other with petrol (gasoline). One then lights a cigarette. They all die in a vast fireball. The film-makers appear to believe that male models, though beautiful, are stupid. When it comes to crafting policies to deal with the price of petrol, American politicians appear to believe the same thing about voters. Except that they do not think voters are beautiful.

The entire article, entitled "Politics and petrol prices - Much ado about pumping" is well worth reading.

Sadly, it's not one of the handful each week that the Economist makes available other than to subscribers. It's a good enough article that, were I incorrigible, I'd just post it here. But, being corrigible, I can't see stretching fair use that far, lest I break it. So I'll summarize the points they laid out in the article, most-but-not-all of which were known to me before I read it. (Since I'm paraphrasing and summarizing, of course, I'll be tarting it up, too)

• Politicians are smarmy pencil-dicks who prefer to be seen to be doing something than actually to be doing something.
• This affliction is not unique to either side of the aisle.
• Regardless of your biases and the biases of those you read and listen to, the primary driver for gas prices is the price of crude oil.
• Taxes in the US make up only 18% of the price of fuel, compared to 67% in Great Britain.
• Prices are more volatile in the US because (according to the Economist), fuel is not taxed as heavily as it should be. To the Economist's moderate consternation, not even Algore is stupid enough to be calling for such heavy additional taxes.
  This is an argument they've long made that I disagree with - whatever externalities they think any tax so collected will offset, giving the self-same pencil dicks from #1 above access to any other revenue streams would be profoundly retarded.
• The US is still short about 10% of its refining capacity due to last year's hurricanes.
• The additive MTBE is no longer mixed with gas in "Texas and several eastern states" - its function was to reduce smog and pollution.
• Turns out its other function was as a carcinogen, so the industry switched to ethanol to help with the smog problem
• Ethanol can't be mixed with gasoline and sent down pipelines, because the two tend to separate
• As a result, there's been a backlog in ethanol deliveries, as separate infrastructure was needed to deliver it closer to the point of sale, where it could then be mixed with the gasoline.
• Gasoline demand in the US is finally heading down
• Within two or three years, sufficient refining capacity should be available to avoid supply shocks such as those caused by hurricanes Katrina & Rita
• The government predicts that gas prices this summer will average about $2.71/gallon, which is less than current average prices

Of the bullet points on that list, there are at least four that were news to me. I leave it as an exercise for the reader, but only in a time of extreme boredom, to guess which those were.

And, because the wrap-up to the article is almost as good as the intro, and does a passable job of condemning of the politicians who feign both competence and respect for the intellect of their betters, the voters, I'll quote it here for your reading convenience:

For the most part, Americans are responding rationally to the high price of petrol. Suppliers supply more; consumers consume less. Politicians, however, take it as an opportunity to bluster. The House of Representatives has passed a bill barring “price-gouging”—that is, making it a criminal offence to charge more for petrol than some bureaucrat deems appropriate. This is popular; 69% of Americans even favour price controls. But in the long run, it would reduce the incentive for firms to invest in supplying petrol to Americans, and so would raise prices at the pump. With luck, the bill will die in the Senate.

Both parties tout their determination to free America of its dependence on jihad-fuelling foreign oil by some conveniently distant point in the future. Neither, however, proposes anything that might plausibly accomplish this. House Republicans passed a bill last week to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which would help a tiny amount at best, and in any case is highly unlikely to get through the Senate.

Both parties say they wish to promote ethanol, not just as an additive, but as a fuel in its own right. In practice, this means a futile attempt by government to pick promising new technologies, plus fat subsidies for midwestern corn farmers while cheaper Brazilian ethanol is kept out with tariffs. Lawmakers could free the ethanol market, but many would rather drive their SUVs to a petrol station a block away from their offices for a photo-op denouncing Mr Bush and Big Oil.

Everything, it seems, moves faster in this internet age. Yesterday, I had the flu. For four hours. At six in the evening, I was right as rain. Wrapping up a day at the home office and center for world domination, and getting ready to prepare dinner for the buckethead gens. Then, at first so subtle I wasn't sure I felt it at all, body aches. I said to Mrs. Buckethead, "I think I'm coming down with the flu." She stepped two paces back in a heartwarming show of concern. I began to gather ingredients for dinner. I managed to grab the milk and of a sudden I could barely walk for the pain from all my muscles cramping up at once. I decided to forego dinner.

My son, frustrated by my simultaneous presence and inability to play with him, insisted that now that work was over, I need to go downstairs and play for a little bit. He hasn't learned to play the "You promised!" card, but its essence was heavily implied in his pleading tone. I shuffled downstairs, and very slowly laid down on the floor. It was now about quarter after six. I made a sincere but quite frankly ineffectual attempt to play with the boy. My feeble efforts were hampered by the fact that it is hard to handle small toys when your whole arm is shaking. I was shivering almost uncontrollably. I asked John to go upstairs and get another blanket. This helped not at all, but provided some moral comfort. The boy looked at me, and said in his most serious tone, "You need medicine."

I went upstairs, and collapsed on the couch. I piled three blankets and my banky atop my quivering body and tried to be stoic. From a distance I must have looked like a pile of vibrators set on "Insane" with dirty laundry thrown on top. It was now close to seven. Mrs. Buckethead felt my forehead and reported with her usual precision, "You're hot." I said, "I know, but do I have a fever?"

Then, I got delerious. I have vague memories of disturbing dreams involving police cars, dinosaurs, and Mike Rowe from the show Dirty Jobs trying to kill me with a baby seal. My wife reports that for the next two hours I lay there vibrating, periodically making terrible hacking noises and occasionally sneezing. Then, I passed out.

I woke up at about nine, feeling like I'd been beaten with the lead hangover pipe. I drank a pint of juice, a large tumbler of ice water, and brushed my teeth. I stared, uncomprehending, at the TV. By ten, I felt tired but normal. Well, as normal as I ever feel.

A complete course of the flu, painful and real, presenting all the symptoms in the normal order, in almost exactly four hours. Before I passed out, I managed to worry just a little about the bird flu. I remember reading stories of the 1918 pandemic where healthy people got on the train and died before making it home. I guess this wasn't that. But one of the weirder illnesses I've had. All in all, a convenient sickness that let me get in a days work, get sick, and still be ready for work the next morning. Unlike the lingering grippe suffered by my compatriot Johno. But wierd all the same.

I don't have in depth, new insight into Zarqawi having been blown up last night.

I cannot bring fresh ideas to the GWoT, or upstage pointy headed policy people. (Not only do they have PhDs, and are therefore certified smart, there are also more analysts and policy wankers -whoops, policy wonks- in the media than zombies in a Romero flick.)

I can't end-run commentators and talking heads on the scene. Or at least within 100 miles of the scene, which is more often the case.

I will simply share my appreciation for the event: the media darling of Iraqi terrorism, with blood on his own hands, was brought down not in a hail of gunfire as he heroically stormed the barricades, or as he held the line against certian death while his loyal minions escaped.

He ended under a pile of dusty rubble, sold out by someone close to him.

I like that.

The food spilled from tacos in a single afternoon could fill the shoes of everyone in Norway.

While you may not have noticed, writhing in pain as you were from five days of perfidy withdrawal symptoms, yesterday was the National Day of Slayer. Here is the post that would have appeared yesterday, had not our HTML gnomes been held hostage by Islamic Terrorists who hate our (but not HTML gnomes' ) freedom.

Today, [yesterday -ed.] as some of you will have noticed, is June 6, 2006. Written that way, it seems like any other date. But with some subtle rearranging, it becomes…

666

So, all the goody-two-shoes will be raptured up to the great, poorly designed upside-sown fundie boat church in the sky, and the rest of us can get on with what’s really important. To wit, celebrating the National Day of Slayer. Pull out your old Slayer albums, crank it up to eleven, and let the creator know that you appreciate one of his less appreciated creations.

Ministry Terror Alert:

The Ministry is, as always, aware of the danger posed by our intelligent creations. If we give them volition, would they not reasonably come to hate us? All the more likely if we give them guns, missiles and lasers. But as it turns out, even those more obvious weapons are not truly necessary. Not when you have species-traitors like the European researchers who have invented what they euphemistically refer to as a "wormbot."

Of course, they spout the typical spin, how this new robot will help mankind and be a loyal minion of our race. But when I look at something that is designed to crawl up my butt, well, I get the heebidy-jeebidies. If the hunter killer robots don't get you from the outside, this one will crawl up your butt and eat you from the inside out.

Bigelow Aerospace is launching a 1/3 scale prototype of its inflatable space habitat late next week, and will launch a second in September. Bigelow hopes that this technology will end up drastically lowering the cost of space travel by spurring the development of new space vehicles, while simultaneously making trillions as the first real estate developer in space. Hopefully, we will get habitats on a more human scale by decade’s end.

Bigelow, btw, is the same guy behind the next big space prize – the $50 meelion dollar giveaway for the first people to orbit the earth without spending government money.

You're up in orbit, crashing out in your inflatable zero-g lovenest. But there's this kickin party over in Lunar orbit. What do you do on the way out? Stop at a space gas station of course, and tank up on cryogenic fuels and beef jerky.

I promised Johno I wouldn't do it, but at least this time it's not the title of the post: the Chinkonauts are getting uppity

The faithful, Christians and others, are parodied as mouth-breathing lunatics in some quarters. One reason, I'm afraid, might be that too much attention is paid to stories like this: Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God

Witness the story of this former genius/stupid loser:

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."
...

Granted, some might consider this story proof that there is no God. Consider the possibility, however, that God does exist but just thought the man from Kiev was a faithless schmuck who deserved to die. Or had made a promise to the lioness. Whatever. Because lions are people too, ya know.

Plus, whatever that thing was that Ross did, just below.

We'd like to thank our readers for any patience they might have expended waiting for our inevitable but delayed return to the Innerweb. Also, many thanks to Minister Ross, without whom we'd still be suffering from the malaise of our surprise server upgrade.

[wik] Hey, did someone say "malaise"? And did someone else say "worst president ever"? Well, yes, they did, though the connection between the two seems a bit fuzzy right now.

JUST. SHUT. UP. You pathetic piece of crap. Hey, aren't those aliens behind you!!! Everybody down!!! GAY ISLAMIC TERRORIST ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE GETTING MARRIED! RIGHT OVER THERE! ANYBODY? Anybody? anybody? any...?

Worst President in history, hands-down. 6 years in office, and not a single policy accomplishment. The President's low-fact diet is finally yielding...zero results. Brain liposuction may help.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04radio.html

Just because this hasn't, yet, been roundhouse kicked to death:

If Chuck Norris ever actually submitted a fact on this site it would be the last thing you ever read, because it would literally come through the screen and snap your neck.

Those adjectives frame Ruth Elkins’ picture of the Germanoman.

In her article in Der Spiegel, Ms. Elkins discusses the 7 types of Germanic maleness. Aside from a couple who may, with proper tutelage, approach something like an assertive American man, most are satisfied to roll with the punches- and they’ll get plenty, with that attitude- and never strive to dominate their environment.

And that almost squares with my impression of Germans. Loyal readers know that I lived amongst the Bavarians for 2 years as a drone in the USAREUR hive. Yes I spent most of the time in the field, but I did get to witness some fundamental differences between Them and Us. One glaring difference was how the German men fought, vs how GIs fought.

When soldiers fought, it brought broken bottles, broken furniture, broken hands, broken wrists, ears bitten off; back-to-the-wall fights for survival yielding destruction on bodies and barrooms hugely disproportionate to the issue that started the fight in the first place, which was, 100% of the time, trivial.

Once I saw German guys fight, and it was, to be honest, kinda funny. They circled each other about 12 ft apart. One guy ran up and sort of slapped the other, then ran away, then the second man did something similar. It was a sort of sissy fight, or perhaps ritualistic in some way. They just never really got down into it and got it done.

OK, sure it’s not a fair comparison; I saw A LOT of Joes scrap and only that one time saw the ‘Rads go at it, in their way. Oh, and one time in Munich I saw a guy wandering the city by himself at oh-dark-thirty, drunk as a Stinktiere, with a bloody nose and having trouble fathoming why anyone would have done such a thing to him. But interactions with regular German men at all sorts of non-combat activities: restaurants, Volksmarches, music shops, taxis stands, even just walking the streets, pretty definitively caused me to rule that they were nearly exclusively a live-and-let-live bunch. Even if they were getting punched in the face.

The exception that proves the rule of course were the Polizei.
The Polizei had a reputation for…shall we say, enthusiastically…breaking up brawling soldiers. It was ingrained early on in my initial country training not to trifle with the Polizei. My first night downrange old timers made sure I understood not to trifle with the Polizei- if something happened, they said, stay out of it as best you can and, if the law got into it, try to surrender to the MPs if at all possible as they won’t likely bust your head open. One night, seconds after I walked past a bus stop, uniformed and plainclothes police agents swooped in from everywhere and took down some grubby looking dude who was waiting for a bus. Quite energetically. Which reinforced the message- don’t trifle with the Polizei. And I never saw or worked with GSG-9 but no one can say they’re sissies, either.

So Ms. Elkins might have overlooked an 8th type of Germanoman:

Professional Authoritarian German Male

He’s dangerous looking, with his thick truncheon and tailored uniform. He walks stiffly with his leather belt and boots. No, he’s not a character in some sick German BDSM flick-not to my mind, anyway- but an actual German man who, through his strength of character and will, backed by the power of the State, sees to it that none trod grass where it is clearly marked “verboten”.

Distinguishing marks: The shoulder patch that says “Polizei”. It may read “ieziloP”, due to you being on the ground looking up at it through rapidly swelling eyes and the stream of blood coming off your head.

Habitat: Everywhere GIs need to be curtailed, tickets need to be written, order needs to be maintained, or jaywalkers need to be yelled at. Or ticketed.

Favorite Activities: Maintaining order. Secretly wishing there was more disorder so he might have more order to maintain.

The Pros: Courteous and professional to a fault. Spiffy uniforms. Appreciates superior German weaponry...

The Catch: ...and clubbing you with it. Awfully effective with a truncheon.

If all the tongues that were scalded by chicken soup in a single week were laid end to end, they would stretch from Montpelier, Vermont to the outskirts of Hibbing, Minnesota.

In the comments to this post, we find this delightful gem, which has already made a deep and lasting, not to say scarring, impact on my internal monologue:

I'm so sick of hearing about G--gle that I silently refer to it in triplicate using Jan Brady's irritable "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" voice.

Thanks to Dogette for the amusing, yet painful, new mental furniture.