French

My former professor from UC Santa Cruz Geoff Pullum has nothing but lovely words for the French in this article posted on language log.

And I couldn't agree with him more.

The 10 Richest Fuckers in America

So the list of 400 or whatever richest fuckers in America showed up in Forbes, and then in the more accessible San Francisco Chronicle today. The top few are obvious: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, and Larry Ellison. Big software/hardware and investment tycoons. I mean, Bill Gates alone is worth $51 billion. Do you have any idea how much money that actually is? Here, let me write it in a more standard way: $51,000,000,000. Most people have a mere nano-fraction of that in their account now.

Anyway, so what makes me a little freaked out about it is the bottom 5 on the top 10 (I didn't see the whole list, but I bet it goes on like this): Christy Walton, Jim Walton, Robson Walton, Alice Walton, and Helen Walton. Have you ever heard of these people? Well, I haven't, but something strikes me as funny about the names... could they be part of the same family? Well, yes. It turns out they made their $15 billion or so each with Wal-Mart stores.

Now, the thing about Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs and yes, even Bill Gates is that when they hire people to make them richer, they pay these people well. The software/hardware guys managed to get rich despite paying many people hundreds of thousands of dollars (each) per year. The Wal-Mart fuckers got rich by fucking their employees.

What a swell place we live in. Oh, and goodbye gulf coast. We will miss you.

The War At Home

SUCKS! That's pretty much it. This show is almost the worst show on TV. Normally, when a show is bad (American Dad, later Simpsons, etc.), I can actually sit through it, and occasionally laugh a little bit. But, The War At Home didn't even make me chuckle, and we had to stand up and turn off the TV half way through the first episode last week. This review sums it up nicely.

Know what makes me sad?

Every once in a great while (meaning once every few days), I see a grown man or woman on a scooter. No, I don't mean the kind of scooter that I (and mods) ride. Those are acceptable. The ones I mean are those razor scooters or similar, with the range of possibilities going from little metal ones to big wood-decked gas-powered ones (like the thugs in the neighborhood ride, 'cause the gov'mint took they car, or some such thing). Anyway, it makes me sad, because these grown, non-thug humans are riding these things down the sidewalk and stuff, in business attire, on their way to and from work. Sigh.