Scott Brown elected Massachusetts State Senator

Do you think a woman who had posed nude could ever achieve national political office?

Disaster in Haiti

The only hope long term for Haiti is a deadly disease that only affects jerks. That’s the only hope for a lot of developing nations criminally ruled by jerks. The CIA got close with AIDS, but they didn’t realize back then that butt-sex and being a jerk were not mutually inclusive. Ah well, dreams for the next conservative administration.

‘We are the world’ Haiti relief recording session begins

These people need to be stopped. Send your money to Red Cross.

State of the Union address

I don’t know why people take Obama’s speeches to seriously. I mean, they were never meant to be taken literally. His message is one of hope and change. We can all learn valuable lessons from his speeches but – lol – you can’t apply those ideas directly to policy – that was never the intended purpose of his message.

Toyota Recall

Yeah! Another fat-cat scapegoat! Yeah, let’s get’m! Whoohoo!

Obama getting tough on China for trade agreement infractions

I’m getting tough on my credit cards too. I’m taking a different approach though. I’m paying off the debt – or at least trying.

Underpants bomber now talking, encouraged by parents

Wow Obama administration! Way to go getting the kid to ignore his lawyer’s advice. If only all terrorists had responsible parents. And thanks for telling us about it too. Now all of America knows how great of a job you’re doing protecting us. Hey, so have you gone ahead and put Al Qaeda on the list to receive your FUCKING news letter yet?

Sarah Palin to receive $100k speaking fee for Tea Party Convention

Only a Liberal would find this controversial. She’s a Conservative from Alaska. What do you think she’s going to do with the cash? Buy something with it? You give those people a rifle and a pair of boots – a few years later they’ve got a city with a shipping port. Watch, she’ll invest in some unknown little jackass somewhere and turn another baby-blue state red. Astroturf my ass… U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A

Healthcare reform bill stalled

Ok guys, I get it. You got caught up in all the inaugural excitement. We elected Obama assuming “change” meant a thoughtful approach, but you thought we gave you a mandate to turn the country on its keel. So you went after you’re dreams: single payer, sky-rocketing business costs, and reduced carbon output. I can’t blame anyone for going after their dreams. And hey, at least you go that juicy stimulus!

But those darn Democrats, they got in your way. Single payer was compromised into single payer under a different name – then into a public option. Then even that was compromised – first into some fancy long winded name coined by Pelosi that essentially meant public option, and finally, a year later, into nothing more than a list new regulations – more similar to the Republican alternative to Hillary Care than the brilliant progressive stride we were all assuming would slide through. (Eh, regardless of the naïve math and unfunded state Medicaid mandates) And to add insult to injury, you have to buy some of those Dem votes too.

And darn-it – you could have passed it. Hell, you could have passed a bill covering sea lions FFS. I know you’d like to blame the Republicans, but shit man – you knew you had all the power and that’s how you wrote the bill. No Republican could have voted for that thing any more than you guys could all climb on board with invading Iraq! Or – wait. You got tricked on that one – hu? Well, you know what I mean. You can’t blame the dog you’re walking when you walk into a pole – even if he was enthusiastic about it.

So the question is: What now. Indeed, this bill is shot to shit. Stack that monstrosity on the back of the toilet in the staff bathroom. But what now? Should you pole-vault over the wall with Pelosi? Should you try to come to some reasonable consensus with a few reasonable Republicans? Should you keep this unorganized circus with your ring leader off in his own ring singing his poems?

I’m not sure what you should do. I’d like to see some actual reform though.

Congress to cut funding for KSM trial in NY

Every time anyone asks Obama or anyone in his admin a question about trying KSM in civilian court, they duck the question and assure us he’ll be convicted and executed. So if this is just going to be a $1 billion show trial – why not just “have the trial” (wink-wink)? You know – take a few days off, “have the trial,” print up some transcripts and stuff, execute the bastard, and use the $1 billion on some new Predator drones or something.

Don’t ask don’t tell – once again up for debate

What part of “don’t ask don’t tell” is so hard to understand?

I did hear of Pat Robertson’s comments. I know next to nothing about the supposed pact though. It apparently comes from a single book. Some say it is true, others say it is not. Either way, Robertson certainly wasn’t being intentionally hateful. The program he said the comment on was dedicated to raising relief money for the Haitian victims. Immediately after the comment he added something like, “so let’s reach out and help these people….” The comment was meant to move his viewers to compassion for a lost and struggling people.

Of course, there were Christian Haitians injured and killed in this incident, and that is regularly the case; the righteous and unrighteous suffer together so that the righteous can show the unrighteous how to suffer as trusting creatures of Almighty God.

There is good reason to see this situation as the doing of humans rather than demons, though. So many buildings collapsed because they were hazardous buildings. So many are now destitute because they were already in poverty. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Why only now are the richer nations of the world rushing out their hands with commitments of long-term help? Perhaps this earthquake will be the turning point for Haiti. New resources. Better government. Stronger communities. If God did send the quake, he might have sent it to wake us up!

I think to start, if there were rumors of our own ancestors having made a pact with the devil, I would want to organize a ceremony dedicating us and our children forever to the Lord. Just in case. Just to be clear.

In an earthquake, the release of energy in the Earth’s crust creates seismic waves, or waves of force, that spread out from the energy release center, or epicenter.  As a wave passes an object on the ground, the ground and object move with the wave a short distance and then spring back, only to be hit by another wave, and another, and another.  This massive shifting of the ground puts great lateral stress on objects such as buildings.  As the stress on the structures that make up the building accumulates, the building eventually fails in numerous locations.  For a small-scale example, glue a cardboard house to another piece of cardboard and then shake it back and forth.  The weakest part of the house (probably the glue in this example) will fail and the house will fall over.  When Earthquakes are powerful enough, they create massive damage to cities such as what happened in Haiti.

There are three types of earht-quake proofing when constructing a house or building: passive damping, diagonalbracing, and base isolation.  Passive damping includes the use of energy-absorbing materials that can deform and take the brunt of the energy rather than the building.  Diagonal bracing is just as it sounds.  Using diaganol bracing in the frame of the building helps to prevent lateral failure.  Base isolation includes isolating the foundation of the building through the use of large rollers and a number of other techniques.  In the case of the rollers, imagine a ball inside of a bowl.  If you shake the bowl back and forth the ball will roll up and down from one rim of the bowl to the next, but not very far relative to its initial position to the ground.  Now imagine this ball connected to the corners of a building’s foundation with “bowls” underneath.  In an earthquake, the ground will shake back and forth, but the building will not move with the ground as easily.  This technique is common in places like Tokyo, but adds to building costs and complexity.  As you can imagine, old and cheap buildings in poor countries do not have the luxury of this earthquake proof construction.