Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-23

  • @LarryJMiller Happy belated birthday, Larry! #
  • A web developer walked into a bar… but quickly left when he saw the table layout. #
  • I have just created a new list titled 'Sports' using TweetDeck, follow it here: @jimcofer/sports #
  • Saw a pic of Kelly Clarkson; thought it was Elton John. Ooops! #
  • Anyone else just want to punch @piersmorgan in his smug, condescending face? #
  • @1outside Well, Weaving played a misunderstood cannibal in #Rake #
  • Wow… Wells Fargo's new signs look like Win 3.1's "Hot Dog Stand" theme: http://t.co/WIViKFTN #
  • Lisa won porn bingo! I'm so proud! #

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The Three Governors

Back when I was a political science major in college, I fell in love with a quote attributed to Aristotle that went something like “politics is the most important of all the sciences, since it’s through politics that we define ourselves”. I haven’t been able to find a source for the quote, and am pretty sure that Aristotle never said any such thing. But the quote has always stuck with me, because it’s totally right, yet totally wrong, too.

It’s right because we put our values into our laws, laws that prevent children from being sent to sweatshops, or debtors from being sent to prison, or the elderly from being swindled, or pets from being beaten and abandoned. Laws that say that those who have more income should pay a higher share of their income in taxes. Laws that say that discriminating against someone for their race or religion are wrong. In fact, our entire legal system is built on the notion of right and wrong.

But it’s wrong because, well… our laws can sometimes go horribly wrong. Slavery, Jim Crow, anti-immigration or anti-Catholic laws are just a few examples of that.

And it’s not just the laws that can go wrong. The political process itself can sometimes go off the rails. Sure, it sometimes shows human behavior at its best (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”) and at its worst (the recent budget impasse). But fewer incidents show human political behavior at its silliest than the time that Georgia had not one, not two, but three governors.

*     *     *

Eugene Talmadge was the perfect old-school Southern politician. Born in the small town of Forsyth, Georgia on September 23, 1884, Talmadge attended, and received a law degree from, the University [sic] of Georgia in 1907. After graduating, Talmadge moved to Atlanta, where he practiced law with little success. He then moved to the small town of Aisley, in Montgomery County in southeast Georgia. His law practice did a little better there, but Talmadge had to become a part-time livestock trader to make ends meet.

In Aisley, Talmadge lived in a boarding house owned by a widow named Matilda Peterson. Peterson was fairly well off, as she also owned a large farm, and was the town’s railroad agent and telegraph operator. She also sold livestock, which gave the two something in common. Talmadge began courting her, and the couple soon married. They then moved to Telfair County, where they bought a large farm on Sugar Creek. Matilda then purchased another large farm, leaving Eugene in charge of the first one.

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A Worthy Upgrade

“Hi, my name’s Jim, and I have a flashlight fetish.”

It sounds strange, but it’s true. Every time the missus and I go to Lowe’s or Home Depot, I have to check out two things – the spray paint aisle, and the flashlight aisle. I’m fascinated by all the different types of spray paint they have these days (I’m sooo tempted to paint my desk with the chalkboard spray paint!). I’m also fascinated by all the different types of flashlights.

It might seem odd, then, that I currently only own two flashlights.

The first is an Inova X5 LED flashlight I got for Christmas a few years back. It’s pretty boss. It’s made out of “aircraft aluminum” and is almost indestructible. And its multiple LEDs are bright as hell. The downside is that it uses odd size batteries (123, if you’re curious). These are relatively expensive at the few places that carry them (Energizer brand 123s are around $10/pair at Walmart and Lowe’s, although Lowe’s also carries the Sure Fire brand that are only around $4.75/pair). So I’m somewhat loathe to use the flashlight for an extended period of time, given that I’d have to find a store that carries a range of camera batteries to get replacements.

My other flashlight is an old AA Maglite. Maglites need no introduction; I’m sure there are few Americans who haven’t at least seen one, if not own one. They’re built like tanks and are reliable as hell. I don’t even remember when I got my Maglite, but I know I’ve had it for at least 15 years. But while it’s cool that the Maglite takes common, easy to find AA batteries, the light it puts out seems kind of wimpy compared to today’s LED lights.

Continue reading “A Worthy Upgrade”

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-16

  • Wow! For the first time since December 6, 1982, no team from Florida is in the AP Top 25! GT is #12 Go Jackets! #
  • Hate the #Pats but lovin' their throwbacks today! #
  • @AnglophileA Have fun at the show! #
  • @calman3000 Dude, that's AWESOME! Bet it smells great, too! 🙂 #
  • So is Occupy Atlanta still going on? Have they started passing out grape Flavor Aid yet? #SeriouslyItsACult #
  • If you REALLY want to evict the protesters from Zuccotti Park, give 'em trans fats and cigarettes. Bloomberg would have them out in minutes! #
  • I am the 318th follower of the great @GaryCole_ Woo-Hoo! #

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Marilyn knows what’s up!

In September 1952, Marilyn Monroe visited the campus of Georgia Tech to do a photo shoot for Look magazine. As Tech were the national champions that year, the magazine did a four-page spread about the team and their legendary coach, Bobby Dodd. Here’s a copy of the original cover picture, sans the masthead and cover blurbs:

Marilyn_Monroe_Look_Magazine_1952-09-09

I’ve looked all over the Internet and haven’t been able to find a digital copy of the article, but you can buy a copy of the magazine here for the low, low price of $168! Marilyn was sooooo hot, and she looked especially good in the Tech sweater!

GO JACKETS! TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-09

  • Dumb joke of the day – Q: What's brown and rhymes with snoop? A: Dr. Dre! #
  • @informedblackmn TastyKakes are AWESOME! Especialy the butterscotch and peanut butter varieties! #
  • Hooray! Amanda Knox is free! 🙂 #
  • R.I.P. Steve Jobs #
  • Fire up your web browsers! Philip Glenister's new series, #hidden stats in only a couple of hours! 🙂 #
  • @jenny_wade Happy birthday, pretty lady! 🙂 #
  • "Do you see yourself more like, as a rapist who does magic, or a magician who also likes to rape?" #TheLeague #
  • Eating 5 year-old Bimini Bread I found in the freezer yesterday. Still good! #
  • It's the MOST WONDERFUL day of the year: CHILI COOK-OFF DAY!!!! #
  • Gameday!! #gojackets #stingem #stingtheturtle #gatech #
  • There's an guy in a J. Geils Band shirt at the chili cook-off…. #
  • The New York Times endorsing Occupy Wall Street is like King Louis XVI endorsing the guillotine. #
  • This years #pmchantillychilicookoff rocked as always! Thanks to #Goose and the gang for another year of chili and fundraising for hospice! #
  • Another delicious dinner @diamondclt! #

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R.I.P. Steve Jobs

From his famous commencement speech at Stamford in 2005:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

I own two iPods, but could otherwise not give a damn about Apple products. I find Apple’s products to be both hostile and clueless to enterprise. I find Apple’s computers to be pretty in design but mediocre in specs and execution and terribly overpriced. And there are few people in this world more annoying than Apple fanboys. In short, I’m not an “Apple guy”, nor will I ever be.

However, the very first computer I ever owned was an Apple II+. I spent hours upon hours upon hours using it. And it wasn’t just a simple machine. It was a veritable spaceship that could take me almost anywhere I wanted to go. I learned BASIC and a bit of Pascal on it, and learned to make all those transistors work for me. I eventually got a modem and discovered the world of BBSs and online information services. And my world was no longer limited to Snellville, Georgia. Using this magic box, I could communicate with people all over the globe… instantly.

Moreso than any other single device, the Apple II+ changed my life. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Thanks, Steve.

More Politics

I generally try to stay away from politics on this site, mostly because it’s so polarizing. If you don’t like Mad Men reviews, you can just skip over them and not think anything of it. However, political issues tend to excite people’s passions, and I don’t want to alienate readers. So I tend to stay away usually. Usually. But sometimes things just get get my blood pressure up, and I need to vent. And today is one of those days.

First of all, can someone explain to me how Arizona’s proposed illegal immigration law is not a legitimate exercise of a sovereign state’s police powers? See, here’s my line of thinking: back in the 1950s, various Southern states chose to ignore the federal integration laws. So the Feds sent in troops to ensure that Southern universities allowed blacks to enroll. So a state ignored a federal law, and the Feds decided to enforce the law. And the liberals thought this was a good thing. But when the Feds decided to ignore their own immigration laws, Arizona decided to take their own initiative. So the Feds ignored their own law, and a state decided to pass a law to remedy the situation… and now the liberals are calling foul. So which is it – can one sovereign pass a law when another sovereign willfully chooses to ignore an existing statute or not?

And why is it that when GOP candidate Rick Perry decides to go to a Christian retreat, the mainstream media cries foul and doubles their ink orders… but when candidate Obama met with members of the New Black Panthers that same media completely ignores it. What’s more, when those same Black Panthers were accused of some of those most blatant voter intimidation ever seen in the United States, Obama’s friend and Attorney General Eric Holder somehow decided not to prosecute anyone for it. And yes, this is the same Eric Holder who recently lied to Congress about the so-called “Operation Fast and Furious” (in a nutshell, the ATF allowed over 2,000 guns to be sold to people it knew worked for the Mexican drug cartels as a means of making a bigger legal case against the cartels; at least two US Border Patrol and ICE agents were killed with guns ATF allowed to be smuggled into Mexico, to say nothing of the dozens of Mexicans who died thanks to the operation). Holder told Congress, under oath, that the first he’d heard of Fast and Furious was around April 2011, but CBS News found documents which indicate that Holder was briefed on the operation as early as July 2010.

Say what you will about George W. Bush. Hey, he wasn’t my favorite guy, either. In fact, he’s the reason I changed my voter registration from Republican to Libertarian. But at least when Bush wanted to kill American citizens, he did it the old-fashioned way: by sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to get shot or blown up. Obama hasn’t got the honor or stones to do that, so he just uses Predator drones to kill American citizens. Yes, Anwar al-Awlaki was a bad person. He was on every terror watch list there is, and the world is probably a better place without him. But it’s astonishing that no one seems to give a damn that the Obama administration, under the advice of the CIA, essentially executed an American citizen without a trial or due process of any kind. This, from the same people who crucified the Bush administration’s policies in the media. Dick Cheney wants an apology from them, and personally I think he’s due one. I also can’t wait until Obama deploys Predators here in the United States so they can execute his political enemies as well. And hey, perhaps he can follow Bev Perdue’s advice and suspend elections until he gets his way.

What the fuck happened to America?