The Last Ephor

until I started working in DC.  After watching this, however, I really want one.

This is why John Hawkins is a professional writer and I'm not. So, When Will The Phoenix Suns Practice What They Preach? The Suns don't even believe their own BS. If you do go to a Suns game, guess what? You'll find that their arena has an extremely secure border. You don't go by their rules, you don't get into the game. If somehow, you do get in without buying a ticket and they find out about it, they will send their security over and they will demand that you prove that you belong in the arena. If you can't show them a ticket, it doesn't whether you just arrived or whether it's late in the 4th quarter, the Suns will immediately deport you right out of the arena for not following their rules. Indeed. I would love to see Arizonans flood the arena as "undocumented fans". They should scale the fences and overwhelm security. They will not, however, get it. To them, there is no analogy. They see the illegals as people who simply want a better ...

Jersey City cans F1 grand prix plan As I suspected. This was never going to happen for reasons too numerous to list. The prime movers are upfront cost to get the park up to F1 specs would be very high and the residents would not be happy with incessant auto racing within earshot. (If they built an F1 track they'd have to allow racing of some form on a regular basis to pay for installation and upkeep of said track) Who knows if NASCAR can come to Staten Island I suppose anything is possible.

Pa. fireworks store has video of NYC bomb suspect But shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago, he gave up his job, stopped paying his mortgage and told a real estate agent to let the bank take the house because he was returning to Pakistan . Once there, according to investigators, he traveled to the lawless Waziristan region and learned bomb making at a terrorist training camp . ...but authorities said they had shed little light on what might have motivated him. Hmm.... This is really going to bug me. I wish there was some way we could figure this out.

Kavips, for whom I used to have great respect, has a post about the simple way to fix our economy. Let's take a look: The economy problem is simple. You need people working, people making money, and people spending money… He forgot saving and investing. Those are two critical needs for any healthy economy. If anything our savings rate has been way too low over the last 30 years. Savings is solvency. We've punished savings and, to a lesser extent, investing so people have been spending like crazy. In fact, that's one way we got into this mess. We overspent on credit cards, mortgages and the like. That's a minor point compared to what Kavips concedes by omission. The key word is "people" and not government. Government doesn't fuel economies. It can only take money our or otherwise distort with regulations, laws, taxes and subsidies. He knows and finally admits it. I never thought I'd live to see the day. All three have to be in effect at the...

If Star Wars was a Samurai Epic So cool. Pix at the link

Briatore sees fundamental changes on the horizon “F1 is very confused at the moment, there will surely be some changes. There will be a push to change things, because the way it is now, I don’t see it having a big future,” Briatore told Autosprint magazine. “The problem is a bit with everything: the lack of spectacle and unpredictability under normal conditions. “Also the costs: when we were insisting to have three cars per team, the Federation instead opened the doors to teams who had no budget guarantees whatsoever. I think this was a bad decision. “There are teams in F1 who are one or two seconds faster compared to a GP2 team, and to be one or two seconds faster, they spend a minimum of 60-70 millions, while GP2 spends three. There’s something wrong there.” Briatore is being coy. He's longtime friends with FIA CEO Bernie Ecclestone. He doesn't want to put the blame for F1's woes on his old friend. Loyal but ultimately misguided. Duffy, you ask, what would you do to sa...

Ferrari get FIA green light for engine modifications Ferrari have received the green light from the FIA to modify their 2010 V8 powerplant, which has suffered from consistent reliability issues so far this season. In an unprecedented move , the FIA have permitted the Scuderia to make some internal changes to the design of the unit, which has suffered a number of high-profile failures. This raised the possibility that Fernando Alonso in particular might not have enough engines to last the season. In F1, The Rules are constantly changing. They change them every year to hamstring the stronger teams and help the weaker ones. It's sort of like the draft in the NFL. They want to boost the lower ranked teams to make the whole thing more appealing to fans. Nobody wants to see the same team win year after year. Unless that team is Ferrari. F1 fans even have a name for it, "Red Horse Rules". When the rules are different for Ferrari some will shrug and say, "whaddaya go...

"This is the best day of my life." This one made my day.

STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine | Mail Online This doesn't make all time travel impossible. I do believe in time travel. Time travel to the future. Time flows like a river and it seems as if each of us is carried relentlessly along by time's current. But time is like a river in another way. It flows at diff erent speeds in diff erent places and that is the key to travelling into the future. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. He realised that there should be places where time slows down, and others where time speeds up. He was absolutely right. And the proof is right above our heads. Up in space. This is the Global Positioning System, or GPS. A network of satellites is in orbit around Earth. The satellites make satellite navigation possible. But they also reveal that time runs faster in space than it does down on Earth. I nside each spacecraft is a very precise clock. But despite being so accurate, they all gain around a third of...

Official: TSA ramping up East Coast security measures The Transportation Security Administration on Sunday ramped up security screening at airports along the East Coast after an attempted car bombing a day earlier in New York's Times Square, a Department of Homeland Security official said. Seems to me they are taking this threat seriously. The unnamed official also called their current posture a "scramble" . Additionally the NYPD has the guy on video and has certainly run down the actual owner of the vehicle, where the plates were stolen from as well as myriad other bits of evidence. They are rather tight lipped about whom they suspect. Formerspook notes that this mimics the way the Ft. Hood shooter was handled. Could it be that the suspects have Middle Eastern ties and they're keeping a lid on this until they can either play out the leads? JammieWearingFool has a picture that in my amateur opinion looks like it could be the man they're looking for. (I don...

Police Wiretapping Jumps 26 Percent The number of wiretaps authorized by state and federal judges in criminal investigations jumped 26 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to a report released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Remember when the sky was falling? When Chimpy BU$hitler's Dissent Squashing Brigades (Ashcroft Division) roamed the nation looking for Constitutional rights they could trample? When we heard endless hue and cry about the loss of rights we'd never get back (You know, the ones that were never enumerated)? When The Patriot Act was the worstest thing ever? President Lightworker was going to save us from the yoke of tyranny. We would breathe the fresh air of freedom. Or not. Not one wiretap was refused in 2009. On average they cost over $52,000. Does this make any sense to you? If it does, can you explain it to me?

How to Make Visa Obey Your Every Desire: The Credit Card Concierge Experiment Ha! Awesome. I'll have to give this a try.

Rep. Gene Taylor: Oil Spill Not So Bad, Looks Like Chocolate Milk Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor says the oil spill isn’t so bad after all. Oh, that's nice. I was worried for a minute there. Nothing to see here, move along. (No I will not remark that if his name had an R and not a D after it that he'd be pilloried in the MSM)