Canuck Buck Catches Up

Well, the Looney has finally caught up to the dollar. What should we expect from this? What is the most likely outcome–pandemonium or bedlam? Sorry, I just like using the same phrases as wrestling announcers. Surely we should be in a panic. I mean, Canada’s dollar just caught up to ours. Before today, they were a third world country, right?

This whole situation makes me glad that I took trips to Canadia with Billymac, Halfacre, and the Shippensburg Old Boys while the dollar was still riding high. Ottawa, and The Bare Fax especially, would have been a lot more expensive with today’s exchange rate. Yet somehow, it’d still be worth every penny.

This Says it All

I had a pretty lively discussion yesterday with some locals about nationalized health care. Now I don’t have any illusions about my abilities to explain rational ideas to irrational people, but it’s fun to stir that pot every now and then.

Today I saw this first-hand account of nationalized health care that I believe makes the argument better than anything I could ever say.

My closest encounter with nationalized health care was in Wales where my friend Halfacre got his chin busted open. I’ve seen enough cuts to know that this one would take anywhere from 10-12 stitches. He got four stitches and an ugly scar as a souvenir.

But it was “free”, so I’m sure he didn’t mind, right?

Eaton Beavers

I was telling some guys I work with about how my blog traffic was recently affected by the Barbie Cummings story, and we started talking about funny porn names.  I was telling them about some guys I knew in college who either made up funny names or just had funny nicknames and the funny stories associated with these guys.  They thought the stuff was pretty good and worthy of posting, so here is the first installment…the story of Eaton Beavers.

I was hanging out with my buddy Burgers one night in ’98 or ’99 and was watching some TV while he was changing clothes to go out.  This was back before cell phones, and Burgers was one of those fancy boys who had to have caller I.D.  Believe it or not, this story isn’t even about Burgers (I’ve got plenty more on him), I just happened to be at his house when the phone rang.

Burgers yelled out from the other room for me to see who it was on the caller I.D.  The screen said, “Beavers, Eaton”….Eaton Beavers was calling Burgers.  Of course I started laughing and told him that Eaton Beavers was calling him.  He told me that was actually another friend of ours, Halfacre (real last name).

Halfacre had used a fake French accent when he got his phone connected and told the lady his name was Eaton Beavers.  It was even listed in the phone book that way.

Concensus versus Truth–Global Warming, Babe Ruth, and Rickey Henderson

The other day, a friend sent me an article from the KNS  about recent temperatures in East Tennessee, presumably trying to convince me that global warming is real and that the temperatures and phenomena in this area for the past 20 years prove it.  All of this stemmed from a conversation we had a few days before about global warming, whether or not humans are causing it, and who (individuals or governments) should do something about it.  Disclaimer:  I feel it necessary to state at this point that this is not a post on global warming.

The guy who sent this article is one of the smatest people I know–easily in the top five amongst my friends, although that may not mean much :), when it comes to raw intellectual power.  He is well educated in the sciences, with an engineering degree from a university who’s program is respected nationally.  I think it is safe to assume that the scientific method is still taught and practiced there and was part of his training.

My surprise isn’t that he believes in global warming.  I am more intrigued that he is willing to argue the causes, which he believes to be humans, based on scientific concensus while completely dismissing facts proven by the scientific method.  He doesn’t dismiss all of the facts mind you, just the ones that don’t support his opinion.

Okay…no more global warming.  Let’s shift gears and talk about baseball and how these topics are related. Continue reading “Concensus versus Truth–Global Warming, Babe Ruth, and Rickey Henderson”