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Pale Rider in the dark shadows
My new habit of carrying the small camera everywhere with me is a good one I think. We are also entering prime cycling weather. A certain amount of wind chill is an incredible feeling.
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Open Mic Night once again
I did the open mic night at Limerick for the first time in quite a while last night. The songs I played were Blackjack County Chain, Red Clay Halo, Will You Miss Me, and
Waitin’ Around to Die. I played breaks on Blackjack County Chain and Will You Miss Me. It’s hard to tell how it all sounded with the PA the way it is. I’m bringing my pre-amp next time.The A-Sides are in the photo above.
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Tuesday rapid fire
I’m back from Kentucky, I’ll have a recap of that soon, in the meantime, here are some interesting links
- Harry Anderson and New Orleans
- An underappreciated man of all time
- Ranking Blogs as newspapers
- Radio Shack fires 400 people by email
- Offshore wind mills – seems pretty cool
- Man Lives to 112 Despite Junk-Food Diet
- This was the funniest SNL skit of all time, surprisingly it’s not on YouTube
- Another good skit is, specifically, Seinfeld meets Oz.
- A seemingly major oil discovery. Probably not as big a deal as everyone thinks it is, but then again, maybe not.
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Initial reunion photos
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Night time
Random photo
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Random photos from the camera phone
From Stone Mountain Park
The Scott Boulevard Ace Hardware. It’s a close second to their best billboard, which is “Grills, Grills, Grills!”
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Midweek rapid fire
- Real life Pac Man – hysterical
- One must not question the existence of Global Warming – This is in line with a trend I’ve been noticing in the media and it’s associated hacks, which is the annoying “No serious [insert either scientist, economist, expert, industry insider, analyst] disputes the existence of [insert theory that one is pushing]” mantra.
- Proportionate responses – one of the more daft comments on the Israel -Hezbollah conflict was that Israel’s response was disproportionate. Intentionally proportionate responses went out with the Greeks, and it’s only by accident now when the response is proportionate. The whole notion of strategy is matching strength to weakness. That is most of Sun Tsu’s Art of war.
- AcousticFriends.com – MySpace for the bluegrass/acoustic crowd. I’m listed on there as “Pale Rider”.
- Townes van Zandt Lyrics – and some tab
- A guide to black and white photography
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Funny
Chinese officials have decided to crack down on the practice at some rural villages of hiring strippers to perform at funerals. The practice is intended to attract more attendees to funerals because many people believe that a greater number of people improve the deceased’s chances for better afterlife.
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Interesting article about service in Iraq
From the Washington Post
Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002 “person-years” in Iraq during this period. The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq.
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The death rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000 — 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq. But one can also find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil. The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the Philadelphia deaths were homicides.The death rate of American troops in Vietnam was 5.6 times that observed in Iraq. Part of the reduction in the death rate is attributable to improvements in military medicine and such things as the use of body armor. These have reduced the ratio of deaths to wounds from 24 percent in Vietnam to 13 percent in Iraq.
The usual caveats apply of course, but it’s an interesting read.
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Why doesn’t the AJC have editors?
This is easily the most poorly written article I’ve seen in a long time. Granted, its all filler, and contains no new data. And being, the AJC, it mentions diversity (for no obvious reason) at least twice. The bolding defies explanation as well. Some strange passages:
It’s no secret in the world of big-time drug trafficking, federal agents say: If you want to be a major player in interstate drug peddling you have to have an operation in metro Atlanta.
Recent multimillion-dollar drug busts suggest that Gwinnett County has become that place in metro Atlanta for these drug cartels.
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In 2005, Gwinnett’s local task force seized a total of $34 million in illegal drugs. Those figures dwarf the amount of drugs seized in surrounding counties. A Cobb County drug task force, for example, seized $9 million in illegal drugs last year.The words flow like a piano through a blender.