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Do you remember the popular 1999 song “Blue” (“I’m blue da ba de..”) by the Europop band Eiffel 65? It’s the one with the video of the dancing blue guys. (Did you notice that that song is a rant against materialism?) Well, the first song on that CD is “Too Much Of Heaven,” a Marxist/environmentalist rant against materialism that’s unusually explicit about the problem:

it’s called money dependence today,
and people just keep on going on
looking at the dollar bill,
and nothing else around them.
no love, no friendship, nothing else,
just the dollar bill coming on into their pocket,
into their bank account,
and that’s too much of heaven
bringing them underground.

…and typically vague about the “solution:”

the answer,
is blowing in the wind.
the answer is blowing.

Continue reading Random tunes…

Forbes: The U.S. has more billionaires than ever. It’s interesting to note how much of the list consists of the newly minted fortunes of self-made men – especially in the fields of technology and retail. These men made their fortunes by making a vast array of goods and services previously available only to the wealthy (personal computers, a vast choice of consumer goods) affordable for the average consumer.

More than 25 percent of public school teachers in Washington and Baltimore send their children to private schools, a new study reports.
Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.
In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.

Btw, Washington DC spends over $12,000 per student each year – the highest cost in the nation. It also happens to have the lowest public school test scores of any state in the nation.
A good private school will start at $8,000- $10,000 per year – so the median income DC resident would have to pay $22,000 to send one child to private school.

And if you think America has gone to pot, UK Parliament member Dianne Abbot, the most prominent opponent of private schools (which are called “public” by the Brits) has chosen to send her own kid – to a fee-paying school.

Cool: Rocket launch video archive.

Many would say that I should pity, not ridicule the poor bastards who buy into such schemes. They might be right, but a fool and his money are easily parted anyway.
(Thanks, Tim.)

Apparently, leftist professors are getting so desperate to find evidence of racism to justify their employment that they are creating their own. And it worked – almost.

A college professor convicted of staging a hate crime by spray-painting her own car with racist slurs was ordered to undergo 90 days of psychological testing at a state prison.
…The Claremont McKenna College psychology professor reported the racist and anti-Semitic slurs on her car on March 9, prompting college officials to cancel classes the next day as thousands of students took part in demonstrations calling for tolerance.

More here. Discuss.

Google’s online networking website Orkut is growing like wildfire, and it has some pretty cool features. Best of all, it’s written in .Net, so it’s outstandingly fast, unlike JSP and PHP based services. If you’re already a member, look up GreedyCapitalist If you aren’t, you need an invitation – just ping me for one.

CBS has admitted that they were “deceived” about the fake Bush memo. It’s pretty obvious there was some dishonesty going on the part of CBS and I’ll be pissed if some heads don’t roll – but not as much as all the disillusioned (with W) conservatives who are going to vote – not for Bush, but against the “leftist media.” I bet Dan Ra^ther (who should, but won’t, be canned) is kicking himself sore for giving Bush a big boost. While this is far from being the primary factor, my prediction is that it’s all uphill for Bush from now– he’s going to win by a landslide.

The sad thing is that Bush’s policies have been so self-defeating and fraught with contradiction that any imbecile should have been able to beat him. Fortunately for Bush, “I am not W” Kerry managed to do his own campaign for him.

What about me, you ask? I think both candidates are pathetic and contemptible welfare statists, but W is the lesser evil.

It is interesting to consider how the music I listen to gets to my ears:

It starts on a computer several thousand miles away, where CD’s are compressed into MP3 files, which are then encoded for streaming and sent over the Internet. The stream passes through about 18 different routing points, as it is sent by T1 line, optical signal, (sometimes) satellite, optical fiber, coaxial, and finally ethernet cable, as it reaches my wireless router. From there, it is transmitted over a 54Mbps 802.11g wireless connection to my laptop, which decodes the mp3 stream, and sends it to an FM radio transmitter. Finally, the radio signal is picked up by my desktop pc, and plays on my speaker system.

I drive a lean, mean, love-bug killing machine. That windshield is the aftermath of one day’s drive.