Mark’s Blog

My bloated, British doppelganger, Boris Johnson, won the London Mayoral race.

I don’t agree with many of his positions, but I wish just once that I had the chance to vote for a presidential candidate that was as literate, intelligent, and honestly human as him.

His excellent victory speech here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7381585.stm

(Can you imagine a speech like that being made in the US…  nah, I can’t either.  He mentioned drinking!  Think of the children!)

In the news today:
Pittsburgh Beats Out Los Angeles as U.S. City With Worst Air Pollution

Harold D. Miller helpfully points out how wrong the ALA’s claims are in his article: Misleading Headlines on Air Quality, Yet Again

To summarize: ALA figures are from a single monitor (that is not in Pittsburgh) near a coke production plant that is twice as high as monitors actually in Pittsburgh. Worse still, the ALA fails to point out the source of even these emissions… 80% of which is from states upwind of Pittsburgh.

Better still: they first pulled this stunt in 2006, and yet they continue to ignore the problems with their report.

Ignorantly relying on bad science is one thing, willfully using bad science is another.  Those responsible for this are betraying all those who sincerely donated their time and efforts and who thought they were fighting for a noble cause.  The ALA should be ashamed.

title reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche_and_Turd

(warning slightly melodramatic political rant follows…)

Pennsylvania has closed primaries.  Which means as a registered Libertarian, I get to sit on my hands come primary day.  Not that it is a great loss… none of the candidates even bother to pay lip service to the fundamental principals of our constitution, especially the rights of individual.  Each candidate has their own spin on how we must sacrifice for the good of the many.  How dangerous the world is,  how dangerous our neighbors are, how we are all victims of unfairness, and how the state will take care of us… if only we submit to it.  Looks like America “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave”™ will have to carry on in spite of its government (and most of its citizens) yet again, for the foreseeable future.

Turn it up:  http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154584/

How much I hate April Fools on the internet.

Ha, ha… a bogus news release/product announcement/etc…

I’d wouldn’t mind just being bored by it, if I didn’t have to wade through this shit all day long.

I was thinking about legal documents…  the one’s with little sticky arrows showing us where to initial and sign.

It says something about the people who use the arrows and the people who sign:  Our assessment
: we are too dumb to fully understand the document…  Their assessment:we’re so dumb we can’t even be trusted to know where to ignorantly scratch an “X” agreement.

DSC_7881, originally uploaded by Mark’s Mom.

I’m getting really jealous. I want to spend hours playing with bits of paper and rolling around on the floor chasing strings… it’s just not the same without a cat.

An enormous load, originally uploaded by denovich.

Checking my Flickr stats I learned…

This is the first hit in Yahoo Image Search for “enormous load”

God help you if you have “safe search” turned off.

1. Myron Cope
2. William F. Buckley Jr.
3. ?

The English are far more formal than I had suspected. Sure a great deal of them aren’t (I’m looking at you Slough) but the ones I see most often are. I certainly don’t stand out when I’m in shirt and tie in our village. Just getting dressed for a walk along the Thames has me puzzling over various pieces in my wardrobe trying to get the right look. Hell, I even own multiple scarves now.

I now find myself taking a much more planned and possibly gentlemanly approach to my personal grooming. WWDoWD? (What Would the Duke of Windsor Do?) Honestly, I have no idea why I would even care. But I’m guessing that since he never had any real job, he probably had time to do everyday things with style. With that in mind, over Christmas I splashed out on some shaving kit in the hope of turning a chore into something a little more pleasurable.

I’d love to have the confidence to use a straight razor, but I’ve never had a steady hand. At my calmest, my extremities merely resonate with a mild hum. Hoping to avoid unintentional exsanguination, I opted for the next coolest option, a double edged safety razor ( A Merkur Heavy Duty Long Handle with Feather brand blades.) It’s a safety razor, but that doesn’t mean care is not required. (Have a block of Alum on hand just in case.) Thankfully, I’ve had little trouble with it so far. I have found the little bit of fear in the morning is possibly better than coffee. On the downside, although the shave is nicer, the results are not really any smoother than a Gillette Fusion Mach 5 Power. (If you shave against the grain, the Fusion can do a little better but that can be a bit tough on the face. Trying them side by side this morning Deb picked the DE razor, but I couldn’t honestly tell the difference.) On the plus side, blades for a DE razor are dirt cheap. I can however wholeheartedly recommend a nice badger hair brush and some good shaving soap. Again I went a bit overboard on the brush (silvertip badger) but just about any brush when combined with the right soap (Taylor of Old Bond Street is nice) will produce a great lather and an enjoyable (well… as enjoyable as it’s going to get) shave. The soap seems to last forever and the whole process just seems right. Finish things of with a little moisturizing after-shave lotion.

Now to go crush a beer can on my forehead in an attempt to reaffirm my masculinity… before I next blog about organizing my wardrobe.

I think of at least 10 blog posts a day. To the point where I mentally process most new events with the starting premise of “How would I blog this.”

And then I don’t.