At Home In The Wasteland: November 2008 Archives

POTD: Nixon/Khrushchev Kitchen Debate, 1959

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (2L) vehemently arguing w. VP Richard Nixon (2R) who is furiously objecting as an excited interpreter (C) translates their firey words re US ideas on home construction during "kitchen debate" at American Natl. Exhibit at Moscow Fair

The entire transcript is worth reading, but this is the best line:

Khrushchev: You’re a lawyer of Capitalism, I’m a lawyer for Communism. Let’s kiss.

Sounds like the title of a Panic! at the Disco song.

(Howard Sochurek, 1959)

Giant alien squid attacks offshore platform!

OK, not quite, but check out this bizarre creature:

These stills are from video footage taken by a remotely operated vehicle operating at a depth of 7800 feet. The Magnapinna squid was hanging out by Shell's Perdido Spar, the deepest oil development project in the world. It's located in the Gulf of Mexico, about 200 miles off the coast of Texas.

So glad there are none of these giant squid where I surf. That I know of, anyways.

If only we'd listened!

Still amazed so many people believed all that Muslim/terrorist/socialist/fake birth certificate nonsense.

Your tax dollars at work: School vouchers and healthcare for Georgians

Remember that $1 billion aid package we promised Saakashvili after that little flare up in the Caucasus this past summer? The U.S. Government has just transferred the first $250 million to pay for the following:

The $250 million grant will fund Georgia’s budget expenditures to cover state pensions, state compensation and state academic stipends ($163.3 million), health care costs for people living below the poverty line ($26.1 million), allowances to individuals displaced by the conflict in Abkhazia ($6.1 million), financial support to schools through a voucher system on a per-student basis ($24.2 million), and compensation and salaries for government employees of all ministries excluding the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior ($30.3 million).

Meanwhile, back in America, local and state governments are laying off employees due to a lack of funds, students are dropping out of college because they can't get a loan to pay their tuition, and 78 year olds are looking for jobs so they can make their rent and pay for their prescriptions. But please, U.S. Government, continue to send our tax dollars to Tbilisi.

Daniel Craig: Hot or not?

I saw the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, on Friday night. I thought Casino Royale was better, as this plot was a little "meh". Also, tried to paint the oil industry as evil, again. Not cool. Nevertheless, the movie is entertaining as it contained plenty of fighting, explosions, and Daniel Craig.

However, while discussing the movie over burgers at Urban Burger in Rockville (so good) the next day, I was shocked to discover that Olga does not think Daniel Craig is hot. WTF? I told her she was crazy, but I'm pretty sure she thinks the same of me. I really can't trust her judgment, though, as I'm pretty sure she has some sort of crush on Sean Connery, who is, like, 78 years old.

Seriously. Hot.

POTD: Backpackers in Dubrovnik, 1957

Tourists carrying backpacks sightseeing in Dubrovnik.

Young people traipsing about wearing jeans and gigantic backpacks with a flag pinned to them. Fifty years later, and not much has changed (except for the footwear. Flip-flops, please).

Dubrovnik is by far one of the most beautiful places on earth. If I win the lottery, I'm moving there, buying a flat in the Old City, and spending my days eating pizza and seafood, drinking beer, and listening to the 80 year old dudes at the bar tell stories about whatever.

(Michael Rougier, August 1957)

Russian oil companies to explore off Cuba

Maybe:

Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island.
Russian oil companies have "concrete projects" for drilling in Cuba's part of the gulf, said Mijail Kamynin, Russia's ambassador to Cuba, to the state-run business magazine Opciones.

Kamynin also said Russian companies would like to help build storage tanks for crude oil and to modernize Cuban pipelines, as well as play a role in Venezuelan efforts to refurbish a Soviet-era refinery in the port city of Cienfuegos, according the article published this weekend.

[...]

Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prohibits U.S. companies from investing on the island. But Cuba's state-run oil concern has signed joint operating agreements with companies from several countries to explore waters that Cuban scientists claim could contain reserves of up to 20 billion barrels of oil.

Remind me again...this trade embargo is useful because? Oh, right...it's not. We have just allowed our Cuba policy to be hijacked by some bitter old dudes in Miami. Meanwhile, U.S. companies can't invest in lucrative opportunities there, and I can't fly down and enjoy a mojito and frita. Dear Obama: Please get rid of this useless embargo.

Global recession or whatev forces Russians to cut back on vodka

Uh, wow:

The global financial crisis has grown so bad that Russians are cutting back on vodka.
Stockpiles of Russia's national drink were six times higher at the start of the month than the same time a year ago because factories are producing vodka faster than they can sell it, an alcohol industry lobby and research group said on Monday.

"People are having to save money, including on drinks, and this is connected to the impact of the financial crisis on people's disposable incomes," Pavel Shapkin, president of the National Alcohol Association (NAA), told Reuters.

[...]

The alcohol industry body said 8.2 million decalitres of vodka -- or more than half a litre for every one of Russia's 141 million population -- was stockpiled in shops and warehouses on November 1, a volume unprecedented in modern Russia.

In further evidence of the impact of the crisis, separate research by TsIFFRA, an industry analytics firm, showed alcohol production dropped 15 percent in October due to poor demand.

Fatalities related to alcohol poisoning had been in steady decline since 2006, when there was an outbreak of deaths from bootleg vodka. But in September they rose again for the first time, going up by 6 percent on the same period last year, according to the NAA's research.

POTD: Malibu, 1961

Post Gidget invasion, and Dora's nightmare.

(Allan Grant, 1961)

Tom Friedman writes stupid column, again

Like this one:

So, I have a confession and a suggestion. The confession: I go into restaurants these days, look around at the tables often still crowded with young people, and I have this urge to go from table to table and say: “You don’t know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn’t be here. You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning. Please, wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home.”

And then he gets owned by the commenters.

Tom, please STFU and go back to your palace in Bethesda.

Yam & Jam '08

Name the National Thanksgiving Turkey that Bush will pardon on Wednesday.

After the presentation, the turkey will be flown first class to Disneyland Resort in Southern California, where he will be the grand marshal of "Disney's Thanksgiving Day Parade." After the parade, guests will be able to visit the turkey in Frontierland section.

Could you imagine sitting in first class next to a turkey?!

Last year I can use this photo. And yes, it's real.

Inland Empire in a "tailspin"

Worse than Detroit:

The most recent federal statistics for the nation's 49 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more residents showed the Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario area worst in unemployment at 9.1%.
The figure -- which is based on reports up to September -- is eight-tenths of a point higher than the second-worst region, the Detroit metropolitan area.

POTD: November 22, 1963

Pres. John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline arriving for a tour of the city on the morning of Kennedy's assassination.

I always thought this photo was incredibly sad. A little over an hour after this photo was taken, Kennedy would be pronounced dead.

(Art Rickerby, 1963)

It's that time of the year

Gazprom and Ukrainians fighting over natural gas contracts again:

Russia's state-owned energy company, Gazprom, will cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine on January 1 unless a new contract is signed, a company spokesman has said.
"We would like to avoid such a scenario, we would like to agree on everything before New Year, but as you understand, we cannot deliver gas without a contract," spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told Russia's Vesti-24 television on Saturday.

Zzzz...they'll settle this eventually.

This Russian-Venezuelan oil & gas exploration project brought to you by American ingenuity

Just sayin':

When state television in Venezuela trumpeted the start of exploration this month by the country’s state oil company and a consortium of Russian businesses amid cries of “Comrades!” all around, little attention was directed to the drilling platform they were standing on. It had been leased from Scorpion Offshore, which monitors its rigs around the world from its home office in Houston.

POTD: Apollo-Soyuz "vodka" rations, 1975

American astronauts Tom Stafford and Deke Slayton holding tubes of vodka given to them by Russian cosmonauts during historic rendezvous and linkup of Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft.

Who cares what space food tastes like when your meal comes with a tube of vodka?

(The tubes of vodka didn't actually contain vodka, as that is probably the last thing you want your crew to drink when piloting spacecraft. As a joke, the Soviet cosmonauts pasted vodka labels onto tubes of borscht and presented them to the Americans for a toast. Yes, tubes of borscht. I think I'd rather have the vodka.)

(1975)

POTD: Nuclear test dummies, 1955

Atomic Bomb Test In Nevada Scorched & disheveled male mannequin clad in dark business suit standing in the desert w. lady mannequin in bkgrd., 7000 ft. from the 44th nuclear test explosion, a day after the blast, indicating that humans could be burnt but still alive.

Well, that's comforting. The tie on the dummy is a nice touch as well.

(Loomis Dean, May 1955)

Kristof on the U.S.-Georgia relationship

Since then, the United States has announced a $1 billion package of aid for Georgia. We should remember that military assistance would be a waste, for Georgia’s Army will never be strong enough to deter Russia. In contrast, trade and investment give Georgia international economic weight and probably help discourage a Russian invasion.
Note to Mr. Obama: It would be a nightmare to have our troops tethered through NATO to Misha. In any case, Georgia doesn’t obviously qualify for NATO membership since it doesn’t control its full territory, while the talk about NATO pushes all the wrong Russian nationalist buttons.

Ah, what's another billion in aid? Let's be sure to replace all their destroyed military equipment as well.

Idiocy has consequences, too

What a buncha elitists at The Economist!

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.
The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

Posted by Lindsay at 08:47 PM | Permalink |

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November 25, 2008