Walking in my town is dangerous

Four pedestrians were run over last night in my town, one dead, one severely injured, the others I suppose were only moderately injured. I almost got run over in a crosswalk in “uptown” (downtown) when a driver sped through a red light long after it had changed. In Charlotte, there is little regard for pedestrians (or for red lights in some cases). Seems like you can run over one and cause death, you can flee the scene and it’s really no big deal here.

Obama wins the Presidency

Yesterday, the Electoral College met in the various US state capitals and elected Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States.

The shames of Palm Beach

First, Jews (and Gentiles) in Palm Beach accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan in sufficient numbers do deny Gore the state of Florida, and thus the Presidency in 2000, giving us 8 years of Bush and Cheney. The butterfly ballot will live in infamy. Now, there’s this new shame, the man of the party did this to his own.

Player kicked off hockey team for comment about ex

What can an athlete do off the field (or ice) that is so bad that his team will cut him for doing it? Shoot at someone, or shoot someone? Take illegal drugs? Punch out a fan during a game? Drive drunk and hit some0ne? Take a gun to a strip club? Have sex with underage girls at parties where you get them drunk? Drag race and contribute to someone being killed? (Sorry, a few Charlotte examples thrown in there) Having half a dozen children in as many cities? Nope, none of those reasons is bad enough to get someone cut from his team.

Now one player for Carolina Panthers was not welcomed back to the team after what he did, but he did have his ex girlfriend murdered, and he was arrested and convicted for it. He’s still in prison I believe. And of course Michael Vick was cut from the Atlanta Falcons (and sent to prison) for his cruel treatment of fighting dogs. Now, what if a league were to suspend a player indefinitely, and the player’s team kicked him out, just because he made a crude (but not vulgar) comment about an B-actress ex. We are talking about the violent (and starved for publicity) National Hockey League no less.

US Presidential election actually being held today

The Electoral College today is voting for POTUS.  Today is the actual election. The past November 4’s activities decided who the representatives, or electors, of the Electoral College were to be. Electors, by individual state laws, are generally obligated to vote for whomever their states voted for in the popular vote.

Should India’s IT industry offer to help?

Reports say that the Mumbai police were just out-equipped and prepared by the November attackers. The attackers were in the 21st century, plus their willingness to be extremely aggressive, completely indiscriminate in who they killed, and in the end, to die. The Mumbai police and even India’s special forces are stuck somewhere in the 20th century. The police appear to have little or no experience with modern technologies such as GPS, e-mail or even mobile phones. They are at bottom, very poorly funded and can’t afford the training or the technology. Very ironic for a country that sees itself as being an IT power, if not already or right on track to be the world’s leading IT power. 

Could India’s IT industry help fund and equip the police with state-of-the-art technology? The UK has offered -help to India on better preparing it counter-terrorism efforts. A lot of people in India have hangups about their former colonial master, they may find it humiliating to take such aid. But couldn’t the Indian IT companies, that provide cybersecurity services (and hold or manage much of the West’s sensitive corporate data) help out themselves and along with some external consulting?

New multi-million Zimbabwean dollar bills

The art has changed on the bills. Some rock formation (Great Zimbabwe ruins?) is now on the 100 million dollar bill. Today, another 500 million dollar bill was introduced, as well as a 200 million dollar bill. According to the linked article, that 50o million dollars is worth about $2.50 US. Inflation was last pegged at 231 million percent, but now it’s off the scale.

Meanwhile hundreds die from cholera. Mugabe says one day that there’s no cholera in his country, then says that it was planted by the nasty British to try to soften up Zimbabwe for a joint US-British attack (not Israel too, why not??) First things first, we have to pull out of Iraq, win in Afghanistan, then Iran, then Venezuela, then after all that, then Zimbabwe.

Now if Mugabe needs to prepare for war with the UK and the US, he’ll have maybe 10 years to prepare given the priorities I outlines. Till then, he has to mobilize his army. He’ll need weapons, small arms to start with. He can go to Somalia and pick up all the Kalashinkovs he’ll need for around $150 US apiece. That would be, at the going rate of 50 cents US per $100 million Zimbabwean, $30,000,000,000 Zimbabwean per rifle. If there are any survivors left after HIV and cholera in 10 years, that is.

Running can kill you part II

Here’s a good article on MSN regarding the subject of running marathons and dropping dead as a result thereof. Read the whole thing if you have an interest, and here are my thoughts on the subject.

• In general, a lot of physical activity that is aerobically significant (did I just make up that phrase??) is better for increasing good cholestrol and strengthing your heart muscle so you better survive heart attacks, than not exercising. No surprise here.
• People have studied this a lot. Exercise is not a miracle worker or anything.
• You can still die while running, happens if not all time, but here and there. No surprise there. Even if you die running, it may be that you lived longer because you were running.
• You do have to watch your diet. Article didn’t mention the role of reducing stress from other aspects of your life, spirituality or other factors that could extend your life. You could stress out over getting enough exercise.
• Article doesn’t mention the inevitable injuries. There are at least, what,  1,001 ways to get injured if you run a lot. Any kind of physical activity runs the risk of injury, but doesn’t running carry the most risk (except skydiving?)   
• Bottom line is, running can make your healthier but won’t prevent you from ultimately going belly up. You should do it because you love it. Unless you don’t love it and have injuries, then you’ll have to find something else to do.

Don’t cuckold another man in Tennessee

If you cuckold a man in Tennessee, you can get killed. And if you are the cuckold, the judge will let you rot in jail for a whole 10 weeks or so, so you get the idea that killing the sonofabitch was sorta like wrong or something.

Don’t smile at everybody in New York City

According to Time, happiness has the traits of a communicable disease. Two doctors found that:

… an individual’s happiness is chiefly a collective affair, depending in large part on his or her friends’ happiness — and the happiness of their friends’ friends, and even the friends of their friends’ friends. The merriment of one person, the researchers found, can ripple out and cause happiness in people up to three degrees away. So if you’re happy, you increase the chance of joy in your close friend by 25%; a friend of that friend enjoys a 10% increased chance. And that friend’s friend has a 5.6% higher chance. 

However, if you want to wantonly spread cheer around, be very careful. As one of the doctors who authored the above mentioned study said,

“We are not giving you the advice to start smiling at everyone you meet in New York. That would be dangerous.”