Key Organic Molecule Detected at Extrasolar Planet

Scientists have detected the presence of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet for the first time, NASA announced today.

All I have to say is,

KILL IT
KILL IT
KILL IT
KILL IT
KILL IT.

It could be making WMD.

-MC Spanky McGee

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Where is Clinton left without revotes?

Clinton made a last-minute trip to Michigan today to emphasize her support for a re-vote there, saying it’s “wrong, and frankly un-American” not to have delegates from the two states seated at the convention.

I’ve already written on this topic today, but I’m so pissed off at how ridiculous this woman has gotten. This is clearly a shameless attempt to Swift Boat Obama by painting him as being an America-hater.

Clinton’s reasoning must be something like this:

1. Wright is un-American

2. Anyone who prevents Florida and Michigan from voting is un-American.

3. Barack Obama is preventing Florida and Michigan from voting.

4. Therefore Barack Obama is un-American

5.  Wright and Obama are un-American

The first premise is questionable. The third is definitely false.

Hillary is playing both on the Wright situation and the Florida/Michigan bullshit to make him look unpatriotic.

Total bullshit.

-MC Spanky McGee

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Hillary is still clawing for the votes of Florida and Michigan. Still. Here’s what she said today.

Clinton challenges Obama on Michigan vote

“I am here for one simple reason,” Clinton said to a small crowd of supporters gathered at an AFSCME hall. “To make sure Michigan’s votes are counted, and your voices are heard in this election.”

The Obama campaign released a memo Wednesday raising “serious” legal and procedural questions about the Michigan proposal.

Clinton said the matter of Michigan’s delegates boils down to each candidate’s commitment to voting rights and questioned if Obama is committed to “empowering the American people.”

“This is a crucial test,” she said. “Does he mean what he says or not?”

Hillary, I’ll say it to you again. No tear in my beer: you disenfranchised yourselves

If you want to blame someone for this, blame the elected officials in those states that tried to cheat the very rules to which they consented. Those officials are the ones that should have empowered the voters. This is not Barack Obama’s fault.

Hillary Clinton has the weakest arguments of any Democrat I’ve ever seen. Bottom line.

-MC Spanky McGee

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The damage and fatalities surrounding this weekend’s Atlanta tornado were not so sweet, and this is both creepy and fascinating. Say “cheese,” Mother Nature. Che-eeeeeeese.

Photo:

http://blog.al.com/bamabeat/2008/03/large_Atl%20Tornado%20ALcom.jpg

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So yesterday Fessy and I hooked up some awesome hot dogs from Yesterdog, a local joint in Griff’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now, normally Grand Rapids is known for old Dutch people, Republicans (e.g., Gerald R. Ford), Amway, Calvin College, and other such conservative delights. However, Yesterdog transports one back to the good ol’ days, where you paid 10-cents for a dog and a pop. (Here you pay between $1.60-$2.10 for a dog, which still isn’t bad.) Hanging on the walls are old advertisements and posters, antiques of various sorts, and pictures of people wearing Yesterdog pareph with famous people or in famous places.

Yesterdog offers six kinds of dogs, with varying combinations of toppings. I devoured two yesterdogs (chili, pickle, onion, ketchup, mustard), while Fessy hooked up a couple of ultradogs (ketchup, mustard, onion, pickle, cheese, chili, and kraut).

           

Combine those with some Pepsi, a cup of tasty chicken noodle soup, and some cheese curls, and you got yourself a damn nice meal for about $6.

There’s only a couple of drawbacks. One is that going through the line to order your dogs is like a visit to the Soup Nazi: You damn well better know what you want when you step up, or you’re going to hear, “NEXT!” These dudes have no patience for slow deliberation (which proved difficult for Fessy). They even have rules posted on their website. On the other hand, these guys are incredibly efficient, and crank artisan dogs out like none other. Plus they still use the old-school cash register from the 20s. They also stay open past bar-close for the drunk crowd - so I give these dudes some credit.

Second, the dogs themselves are not big. They’re buried under a ton of toppings, but once you get to the dog itself, it’s pretty minimal. Now I like this school of thought, but others seem to dig the gignormous (the second “g” is silent) Chicago beef franks. Honestly, the less ground-up leftover animal parts I’m digesting, the better. (Though I know several of you Soupy Trumpeters will disagree - that’s why your trumpets are so soupy.)

All in all, the trip was successful, and I would recommend anyone traveling to this conservative bastion take a break in East Town and check out the dogs of yesteryear. Or just check out the documentary:

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The Boston Red Sox did not take the field until an hour after the start time today for their final spring training game in Florida against the Toronto Blue Jays and earlier Red Sox Players voted to not board the plane that would take them to Japan for their to season openers against the Oakland Athletics. Mike Lowell, a player and team spokesman of sorts, said the team voted unanimously to skip the game and the flight because Major League Baseball has not followed through with promises surrounding the trip scheduled for departure later today.

The Red Sox were upset about the fact that their staff and coaches were not going to receive the $40,000 they were promised as a travel fund for the two exhibition games and two regular season games. According to pitcher Curt Schilling, there were other promises that had “already been taken away.” The Oakland A’s were going to discuss their stance on the issue before their game against the Chicago Cubs today.

An hour after the World Champion Red Sox did not take the field, a deal was in the works with MLB to work the situation out and ultimately the game is being played right now and the BoSox have agreed to make the trip to Tokyo.  It is being reported that the staff will receive the stipends that were in dispute.  Out of fear that the opener would not get played, opening day pitcher and Japanese born Daisuke Matsuzaka aka “Dice-K” was sent to pitch a Triple-A game and seemingly will not be the starting pitcher for the opening day.

This potentially could have been may still be disastrous for the game of baseball that is already under heavy scrutiny for heavy steroid use and a salary cap situation that many feel is out of control.  Japanese players like Matsuzaka, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hideki Matsui have been making the jump to America to play in the big leagues with great success.  The fanbase back in Japan is growing and playing these games over there is a logical fit.

Check Out Us Versus Them for Red Sox Coverage With Style

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All I can say is, “Holy shit.”Too bad they don’t show what it does after it tumbles down that bigass pile of rocks. That would be a clincher.

I’m starting to feel a little…

(Just kidding, Boston Dynamics. I’m kidding.)

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“Cool robot” commercial.

This commercial is just ok. I think it could have been better if she got stomped. Oh well, it must be an “understanding” Transformer.

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Gizmodo.com

Dead Dog Sweaters May Not Be the Best Way to Remember Your Pets

Best Buy Pledges $10 Million to Past HD DVD Buyers; Trade-Ins, Too

Lifehacker.com

http://lifehacker.com/369211/ten-legal-commandments-of-photography

http://lifehacker.com/369314/windows-vista-service-pack-1

Sogood.com

Mom Says “Fun Straw” Looks Like Genitalia

Slate.com
The Speech

CNN.com
Facebook ‘cheater’ won’t be expelled

To tell you the truth, I don’t see how the Facebook group is different in principle from a study group.

A tool like Facebook does make it easier to to cheat, and the temptation probably goes up, too.

But, the students could get together secretly in person, and the only way to catch them would be to screen the results of their work (the old fashioned way, in other words).

I think the profs should devise assignments to make it hard for them to cheat, but easy to study together.

Maybe after we bomb or melt our way back to the stone ages, our memory skills can improve. Sweet.

See comments below for what other Soupy Trumpet writers think.

-MC Spanky McGee

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While you’re here, check out Spanky’s take on Obama’s speech:
Obama’s speech on race, Jeremiah Wright, and the crux of the issue. A challenge to the critics.and Erich’s

McCain’s Middle East policy: “Keep fighting the bad guys. Someday we’ll figure out why.”

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Obama gives speech on race

Obama spoke yesterday of diamond-hard facts facing our culture.

But all of the discussion can be boiled down to one key question. The question is, Has Wright’s inflammatory attitude become part of Barack Obama’s psyche? In other words, to what extent does Obama believe the same things about America that Wright does? What Obama’s critics want to show is that Obama has been inculcated, been habituated by Wright to hate America. I’ll return to this shortly

So many critics are saying that he should have left the church. The idea here is supposed to be that, if he disagreed so much with what the pastor had said, real renunciation would involve his leaving.

This view of things assumes an all or nothing attitude, just like Bush does: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html) Either you support your preacher or you don’t.

As if there isn’t a way for anyone to disagree significantly with someone, yet support him in other ways, on other topics. We do this all the time with friends and family. Why not a preacher? There is a false dichotomy in the assumption behind the critics’ charge.

Now, back to the issue of inculcation. Obama’s critics now have the burden of showing that he is disposed to hate this country. In order for them to relieve themselves of this burden, they will have to give us the evidence that he does hate this country. Where is the evidence? I’ll bet a shit-ton of M&Ms that you can’t find it.

It is not enough to say that Obama was most likely inculcated by Wright, only given the amount of time they were in the same room . After all, we know that merely being with someone doesn’t mean that you absorb who they are or their ideas. Anyone who has taken piano lessons can tell you this.

If you’re going to try to pin down a supposed cause of something, you’re going to have to tell me what the effect is. In the case of Barack Obama, you will be hard pressed to isolate an effect that is identical with some bit of hate against the entire country.

So here’s the challenge to all the critics: find me some talk from Obama where he says that he absolutely hates America. If you cannot find more than a statement of dissatisfaction with America (and who hasn’t uttered that kind of statement?), then you will have failed in your goal to tie Obama to Wright’s inflammatory ideas. If you fail to do this, then you should admit that Wright’s comments are irrelevant to this presidential race.

If Wright’s negative teaching has not overtaken Obama, then you should regard him as a dunce who cannot learn from his teacher, or you should look at him as an intelligent critical man who disagreed with the negative messages.

I think we we can regard Obama as a student who has surpassed his teacher in wisdom and serenity. (Thanks to the Ship for putting it this way).

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Update 3-19-2008 12:01 PM

Commentary: Courageous Obama poses…

Derrick Ashong writes:

Who can honestly argue that black America is not today contributing mightily to its own social, cultural and economic decline?

Who can honestly argue that white America has not been willfully blind and too often complicit in the injustices that continue to be visited upon people born with darker hue or stranger accent?

I think these are good questions. But they don’t seem to be sinking in. Why? I suspect most people in the middle between the Republicans and Democrats are still concerned with our foreign policy and those who hate America. The right-wing nut jobs are not going after Wright because he’s black–they’re going to try to peg him to the current enemy. And Obama’s opponents are trying to peg him to Wright.

Once again, they will need hard evidence that Obama has absorbed the anti-American sentiment that Wright (supposedly) has. But they will not be able to do this.

My point is that America has largely swept the problem of race under the rug. That’s because we’ve been battling other problems for now–namely Bush’s idiocy and asshole terrorists, such as Bin Laden.

I think most people are aware that racial problems exist. But I also think that people are also trying to figure out how to pay for groceries, to remember to take their kids to soccer practice, to stay on top of their daily lives.

It’s true–but unfortunate–we’ve neglected our racial problems. The dialogue now reopens.

-MC Spanky McGee

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