Stickybuffalo.com

Well, it’s been about a decade since Ben offered up an ever-moving juicy web-hole for us to cram angry anti-Bush statements in, and what a decade it’s been. Wars, wars, wars and depressing political decision after depressing political decision have beaten most of us into some sort of adulthood, and for those already there, into some new kind of middle age.

Looking back over old SB material, I can’t help but feel like the “Aught’s” are a lost decade with little societal progress to speak of. I don’t think easier web access and the ability to “blog” from anywhere on the planet (Iran, I’m looking at you) really counts as anything more than a small evolution. Blogging about horrible atrocities still feels as frustrating as it did ten years ago, maybe more so now as the signal to noise ratio is so bad. I must admit that twitter now fills the obsessive-compulsive need to know what’s going on right now, and it’s easier than the endless surfing I did in 2000. There are more numbers after the names of my gaming consoles, and I have a thin tv big enough to double as a dining room table. Perhaps saying there’s little progress is overly-negative, and what’s astounding to me is the slow pace and appalling cost.

It leaves me wondering what the alternate reality of Gore ‘00 would have brought us? Would we have even been attacked in 2001? Without the Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan expenditures, how would the collapse of the “housing bubble” turn out? Would we be driving flying cars run by Mr. Fusion and floating around on hoverboards? Only 5 years till Marty and Doc Brown arrive, now I just need to decide on what events I should have gambled on!

What happened to Chuck Grassley’s relevance? Such a shame. I don’t know how we’ll get through health care reform without him.

I’m not saying Dan Riehl definitely puts on lederhosen and fucks baby penguins.

That would be irresponsible — there simply isn’t enough evidence to say one way or another.

All I’m saying is, from what we know at this time, it’s premature to say for sure that Dan Riehl doesn’t put on lederhosen and fuck baby penguins.

I check Yahoo mail a couple of times a day, and their splash screen links five or so AP headlines that seem to change throughout the day. For the last several days, there has always been at least one story up about the grad student who was murdered at Yale. Yesterday, there was also a story about a criminally insane murderer who escaped from his asylum day-trip to a county fair, and that he’s still at large. In a normal world, that would be fucking huge news, since an actual danger exists (he was believed to be heading toward his family, who were uniformly puzzled why he was allowed to go on the trip), and since it seems so much like a horror movie. Instead, the focus of the story was procedural: how such a person could end up at a county fair in the first place. The AP’s story, in other words, wasn’t that a crazy murderer was on the loose, but that the gubmint has failed yet again.

And, of course, that story is already down the memory hole, and there’s nothing about it on Yahoo today. After all, the woman the escapee killed was elderly, and we all know that it’s not news unless the victim was young and pretty.

Attention readers:

You may be interested to know that financial deregulation and pure unchecked greed were not the cause of, but are in fact the obvious solution to, the ongoing economic crisis. What’s more, none of this would have happened if not for the Federal Reserve and the 16th amendment — Hayek, Friedman et al predicted it!

If this strikes you as a compelling thesis, slap on a Ron Paul button, wipe the semen off your copy of Atlas Shrugged, and head on down to the IMU for what promises to be a stimulating series of conversations.

[AcadStudorg] Austrian Economics, book/discussion club!!
Students for Austrian Economics (UI) [austrian.econ.uiowa@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:08 AM
Attachments:
Hello,

In light of the near total meltdown of our banking and financial systems in Fall of 2008, much more attention is being paid to the field of economics. In particular, many more scholars are paying attention to the Austrian School of Economics, which unlike other economic schools of thought, saw our current crisis coming years ahead of time and have a theory to explain the events we have seen.

Are you skeptical of multi-trillion dollar deficits and debt?

Do you trust a monolithic, all-powerful central bank that centrally plans monetary policy and sets interest rates?

Do you believe that freedom, and not government, should be the driving force in the economy?

If you are concerned about any of the above questions, then you will likely be interested in attending the regular weekly meetings of ‘Students for Austrian Economics (UI)’

Come Join Us! Every Thursday at 6 pm, beginning this Thursday, September 10th, in the Kirkwood Room (257) of the Iowa Memorial Union.

We will be studying economics in the traditions of the great 20th century economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard!

We will begin introducing the basic concepts that make the Austrian School distinct and follow up with pertinent conversation about current events.

It will be a wonderful, intellectually stimulating time!
Thank you for your consideration,

-Students for Austrian Economics-

www.mises.org

so i do this thing sometimes, for perverse reasons i don’t fully understand, where i email spammers back. i doubt anybody ever reads them, but i get some jollies out of it.

i think this is the first time i’ve written one of these emails back to a list that i willingly signed up for.

stimulus:

from Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com info@barackobama.com
reply-to info@barackobama.com
to josh@stickybuffalo.com
date Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM
subject Now, it’s our turn

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com wrote:

>
> Joshua –
>
> Last night, President Obama called on our representatives to pass health reform that brings stability and security to Americans who have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don’t, and reins in the cost of care.
>
> Now, it’s our turn. After last night’s speech, members of Congress have no doubt about where the President stands. But to win this fight, we must show that Americans from every state and every background support his plan — and we need Congress to do the same.
>
> Click here to call your representatives, and then tell us how it went. According to our records, you live in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district. Please call:
>
> Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 363-6832
> Sen. Tom Harkin’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 365-4504
> Rep. Dave Loebsack’s Iowa City office at (319) 351-0789
>
>
> (Not your representatives? Click here to look yours up.)
>
> Call your representatives, and tell whoever answers where you are from and that you watched the President’s address.
>
> Then tell them that you want your representatives to support the President’s plan, ask them where they stand — and thank them if they already clearly support it.
>
> Don’t forget to click here to let us know what they said.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of folks will be calling, so please try again if you get a busy signal.
>
> This movement has brought us to a historic moment where reform is within reach. Now your energy and commitment are needed to get us the rest of the way.
>
> Please call today:
>
> http://my.barackobama.com/CongressCall
>
> Mitch
>
> Mitch Stewart
> Director
> Organizing for America
>
>Donate
>
>
> Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
>
> This email was sent to: josh@stickybuffalo.com
>
> To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe

response:

From: josh@stickybuffalo.com
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Subject: No, it’s still HIS turn
To: info@barackobama.com

Mitch,

You guys have some solid brass cojones on you. You follow up the defining capitulation of Obama’s first (only?) term by trying to rally the faithful, mindless beasts of burden that we are, once more unto the breach. For what? You just punted on the one proposal that had a snowball’s chance in hell of addressing the problem he so eloquently outlined last night, a proposal he campaigned and won on — which, by the way, still has broad majority support among the public, despite the summer’s barrage of insane demagoguery that you guys utterly failed to anticipate or respond to.

If the President isn’t willing to fight, or even put up the pretense of willingness to fight, for the public option, where does that leave us? Where does he get off asking “us” to sacrifice more time and energy to help America swallow whatever nuggets of “reform” might be coaxed from the suppurating, campaign-contribution-lubricated asshole of Max Baucus? Maybe if we work real hard we can get ourselves mandated into buying private insurance with no provision for making it affordable — that’s one big bowl of shit I can’t wait to dig into! I’ll be sure to call my congressman right away.

Brass fucking balls. If only you’d show the same testicular fortitude in confronting the insurance lobby and the shrieking idiots, instead of pissing on the people who worked to get you elected, maybe we’d get some real reform. Until that day comes, good luck with this turd of a presidency — I’m sitting out 2012.

Josh

P.S. My favorite touch is how you remembered to include the “Donate” link at the bottom of the email. You guys are friggin’ adorable! Sorry, I need that money to pay my exponentially increasing health insurance premiums.

I stumbled into a really interesting presentation recently on the intertrons while researching the idea of “Cradle to Cradle” design. Among other things, it takes issue with the idea of recycling, in its current form, which is really just slowing down the process of waste production as goods are “downcycled” into lower-quality products. Wending my way to the video below led me past something I’d seen before, the “Eco roof” at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan Truck Plant. As you’ll see in the presentation, installing a 10-acre grass roof saved Ford nearly 40 million dollars in the construction of an equally effective water treatment plant. Perhaps a good intro is the following quote from the presentation, on why McDonough’s book is printed on a fully recyclable polymer that can be recycled into another book made of the same polymer.

as Margaret Atwood pointed out, “we write our history on the skin of fish with the blood of bears.” And with so much polymer, what we really need is technical nutrition, and to use something as elegant as a tree — imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons and self-replicates. Well, why don’t we knock that down and write on it?

-William McDonough on why his book, Cradle to Cradle, isn’t printed on paper.

So Chuck Grassley decided that he’s going honor his healthcare-industry campaign donations and, along with the “Quitta from Wasilla,” drum up fear instead of rational debate on the ever-shrinking healthcare reform we were promised last November. It’s not that I don’t think Senator Grassley is probably controlled by Republican handlers I’d find appalling, it’s just that he’s seemed somewhat rational in the past. His harping on the Sotomayor nomination, and now his “they’re going to pull the plug on grandma” show a decline in his previously-perceived-as-centrist speech. I feel like he’s marching, lock-step with the looniest of the loons. So much for Grassley attempting to curry favor from anyone but the hard-right. I suppose when you’re not worried about re-election, you cater to your base.

So, Senator Grassley, your remarks just got me to pony up money for your inevitable downfall. I really hope Tom Fiegen or Bob Krause pulls the plug on Grassley. Both campaigns (@tlfiegen & @krauseforiowa) managed to figure out that Twitter is worthwhile. Heck, I now know that Bob Krause will be on the Rachel Maddow Show, waiting for me on DVR, thanks to Twitter. Krause has an ActBlue fund raising page which you ex-Iowan’s might consider tossing money at. Maybe Grassley should consider following some of his own advice and taking the “Japanese-way out.”

Alberto Contador Welcomes the Fellowship

I’m really tired of this guy. He’s cold, eternal-hater Greg LeMond says he’s doping, and why does he always use the “gun” on the podium? Watching Stage 18 TT video reminds me of villains I love to hate, like Val Kilmer in Top Gun or Kevin Spacey in Seven. They’re good, “too good.”

BTW, much like I know all too well that Saab’s are born from Jets, I now know that buying a car is like trying on a dress. I hate you Cadillac.

Update: He actually acted as a teammate to Lance on Saturday up Ventoux. It worked well to have Alberto cover all of the Andy Schleck’s attacks, especially since Lance seems to be as strong as Frank. Nice riding Astana!

If you haven’t been watching, there is still time. Stage 15 started a whole new race in Le Tour. The first day in the Alps gave us the action we have been waiting for, as well as a resolution in the conflict about the real team leader of Astana. Alberto Contador kicked it into high gear (well, not literally. he was probably in a low gear, but that is how the saying goes…) on the last climb of the day, leaving a trail of the best riders in the sport struggling to catch up to him. Finally, we can put to rest the question: who is the leader of Astana? Even Armstrong had to admit, “Contador was the strongest man…” and so, pledged his support. 

The overall standings have Contador and Armstrong in one and two with teammate Kloden in fourth. Team Astana is really showing they are a Tour de Force and will most likely win the team competition.

These last few days will prove to be grueling for the riders and exciting for the audience as we watch them ascend and descend some treacherous terrain. Starting with 180 riders, we are down to 163 with the news that Tom Boonen abandoned today. But it’s not over until the Champs Elysees!