Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The delegate strategy and other thoughts

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

In our last post we noted that Ron Paul still seems quite upbeat about his delegate strategy.  Well, there is news about his plan to have delegates (s)elected at the local/state levels and have them materialize at the convention for teh mazzive secret delughgates:

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Of course, for ANY reliable news one has to go to Applied Mathematics Harvard PhD and Ron Paul supporter Iris Mack:

Two networks yesterday, CNBC and MSNBC, broadcast a little known fact – Ron Paul appears to be winning the Republican nomination for President. When the popular Texas Congressman repeatedly assured supporters that the race was about delegates, not beauty contests, he apparently knew what he was talking about. Now, after three more states locked in delegates to the GOP nominating convention – CO, MN and IA – indicators point to a brokered convention with a possible, even probable, Ron Paul victory.

I’m sure Dr. Mack has run her quantitative analyses (as she likely did when she tackled Harvard’s “frightening” investments), but at least one of your editors is doubtful about such grandiose statements.

It is now likely, though, that Ron Paul will get the plurality in five states needed to appear on the ballot at the convention.  Frankly, I just wish the campaign and pseudo-associated Super PACs would spend money on the Ron Paul video game:

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Don’t get me wrong, I like the Ron Paul action figure with pocket constitution, but kids nowadays like dem games.

But since strict constitutionalist, libertarian, and anti-onerous intellectual property regime Ron Paul sued the unknown makers of the “China Jon” video for a trademark violation, I wonder if Ron Paul will take any action against the makers of the video game and action figures, especially since these two are actually used in commerce (or likely will be).  Let’s hope that they are not libelous in some way  (imagine the Ron Paul action figure praising Keynes!), or libertarian Ron Paul might also sue for common law libel and defamation, a cornerstone of libertarian thought.

Hey, did you know that Ron Paul is having a money bomb on April 15? Btw, Ron Paul money bomb on the 15th of April. Ron Paul, money bomb, April 15

Monday, April 9th, 2012

This is an e-mail one of your editors received from the Ron Paul campaign.  I think there will be a money bomb on April 15th, but it’s hard to tell from the language of the e-mail–though maybe the P.S. is trying to say something.  It’s interesting to note that Ron Paul is still playing up the delegate strategy, and, as of a speech he gave in Berkeley last week, he still sounded very confident about his prospects.  Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is talking about his campaign in the past tense.  We’ll see what happens in Tampa, which is after the money bomb on the 15th (btw).

….

If the establishment had its way, there would only be one Republican left in this race – and the National Convention would just be a massive rally for Mitt Romney.

There would be no talk about individual liberty.  No mention of trillion-dollar deficits, real spending cuts, and the out-of-control Federal Reserve.

And there would be no questioning the cost of utopian nation-building schemes or policing the world.

But thanks to your hard work and dedication to the cause of liberty, the establishment isn’t getting its way.

Not this time.

I’m planning to take my campaign to Restore America NOW all the way to Tampa, Florida, for the Republican National Convention.

But to do so, my campaign must have the funds to continue picking up delegates all across the country.

So can I count on you to help me fight all the way to the National Convention bypledging to make a generous contribution to my campaign’s Money Bomb on April 15?

So far, my campaign’s delegate strategy has paid off.

Dedicated supporters of mine have been turning out at their local caucuses and conventions to run as delegates to their Congressional District or State Conventions – where National Delegates will be elected.

It’s these delegates who will choose the Republican nominee at the National Convention in August.

That’s why it’s absolutely crucial my campaign has the funds to continue organizing and winning delegates in many states around the country.

And there are also important primaries in Texas and California coming up where hundreds of delegates will be up for grabs.

That’s why I’m counting on you to pledge to contribute to my campaign’s Money Bomb on April 15.

You and I have fought tooth and nail against the establishment for nearly an entire year now.

And the most important battles are happening right now.

So please, help me take my campaign to Restore America NOW to the Republican National Convention by pledging to make a generous contribution to my upcoming April 15 Money Bomb.

Let’s take our fight all the way to Tampa.

For Liberty,

Ron Paul

P.S. My campaign is holding a Money Bomb on April 15.

With the Republican National Convention fast approaching, my campaign must have the funds to continue winning delegates in many states all over the country.

So please pledge to contribute to my Money Bomb on April 15 to help me take our fight all the way to Tampa!

“Googlebot ignores crawl-delay ftl”

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

It sometimes pays to read a website’s robots.txt file, as it may contain rather funny comments about particular bots.   Case in point, Twitter’s robots.txt:

http://www.twitter.com/robots.txt

#Google Search Engine Robot
User-agent: Googlebot
# Crawl-delay: 10 -- Googlebot ignores crawl-delay ftl
Allow: /*?*_escaped_fragment_
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /*?
Disallow: /*/with_friends
...
# Every bot that might possibly read and respect this file.

FTL may mean one of two things: “faster than light” or “for the lose.”  I am going to guess that since this likely has to do bandwidth usage, it is the latter.

Because here are at Kitsch-Posh we are all about TEH OPEN INTERWEBZ RDY 4 UR CRAWLING, here is our robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Ron Paul would be proud.

Kitsch-Posh EXCLUSIVE: Inside the SFO Yoga Room

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

San Franciso International Airport recently unveiled a Yoga room, which is being called the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

One of your editors flew out of SFO on Thursday and had a chance to visit the Yoga room.  How was the experience, you ask? Well, the pictures speak for themselves.  Please note that the lights for the $15,000-$20,000 room went on and off at random intervals:

The light shows the way

Jackpot

Rules are meant to be respected...

...so I respect

$15,000-$20,000 at work

And I head for the exit

P.S.:  No one bothered me as I was taking the pictures inside and outside of the room, even though I was next to the security checkpoints, looked young and somewhat middle-easternish, and only had a backpack on me.  AMERICA!

P.P.S.: The plane from SFO to LAX was over 20 minutes late thanks to Obama Jam.

P.P.P.S.: No Yogic Flying, sadly.

October 21, 2011: The really real end of the world

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

or so this I received about 75 days ago would have us believe:

Man, those Occupy Wall Street people just keep getting bad news.

The Tonight Show Debacle: A Harvard Lampoon-Crimson Conspiracy

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Here at Kitsch/Posh we occasionally let our readers peer into the world of Harvard and give them an exposé of the environment.  From the online social life of Harvard students, truthers in the school, Harvard’s love for Obama, to some Holocaust stuff in the school newspaper; the more you know, the better.  We also like to post about possible copyright infringements that have nothing to do with Harvard and put up ASCIIs of famous economists (and former professors) that they then link on their blogs.

As serious blogger-journalists with clearly nothing better to do with our time, we did not want to jump to conclusions when rumors surfaced that Conan was running into trouble with The Tonight Show and that NBC Universal President and CEO Jeffrey Zucker was considering another late-night shift. After all, both are men of integrity (maybe one more than the other) working in a high-stakes business.  They can’t let collegiate animosities interfere, right?

Not.

Given how the situation has unfolded in the last week, we believe the latest fight over The Tonight Show can now be explained using a Harvard paradigm.  Here is how it goes:

Conan and Zucker both went to Harvard at roughly the same time and lived in Mather House, an undergraduate dormitory for upperclassmen that was “designed by the same firm that built Hitler’s bunker.”  Mather is also known for its plans to take over the student body.  On top of that, Conan, president of the The Harvard Lampoon, and Zucker, president of The Harvard Crimson, are destined to be mortal enemies in an eternal struggle for world domination.  Or something like that.  If NBC wants drama at 10, why not develop a show based on a Conan-Zucker rivalry in college?  (only if Coco and the Chin fails, of course).  It could even be dramedy.

We believe The Harvard Lampoon may be scheming something in Conan’s name.  Stay tuned.

PS:  Let the record show that your editors reside in Mather, are part of the vast Mather conspiracy, and may or may not be members of The Harvard Lampoon and/or The Harvard Crimson.

PPS:  Edit: Addendum: Vanity Fair knows what’s going on.

Some Harvard-related social websites for the masses

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Here are a few interesting sites.  Enjoy!

Alive

Harvard FML: Based on the popular FML, the Harvard Voice designed this site to give students on campus (or abroad, MIT, Wellesley, and occasionally other Ivy League schools) a way to communicate their woes anonymously.  One author at the Bostonist believes that the website’s topics are bland and not indicative of true FML moments.  If you search long enough, however, you will find that Harvard FML houses posts about loneliness and social anxiety that go beyond MLIA “mediocrity.”  The user comments range from empathy to outright meanness, so I think that the site captures the spirit of the Harvard community well.

I Saw You Harvard: Depending on your viewpoint, this website serves as the manifestation of our stalker-creeper fantasies OR as a chance to let that special person know that there is someone in the Harvard universe (hopefully) who cares about him or her.  It’s also great for telling people–in a general manner, of course–that their opera singing sucks or that you saw them eating boogers when they thought no one was watching.  Like Harvard FML, this website is moderated, so the posts never get too risqué.

Lifeline

Bored At Lamont:  The most controversial social website at Harvard, post-Mark Zuckerberg.  The name comes from Lamont library, a place that serves as a general hub for undergraduates who wish to do academic research, study, or fantasize about the person sitting next to them.  Given the apparent lack of moderators, at its height this site became 4chan meets emo meets craigslist. Most posts were about racism (racist), elitism (elitist), sexual orientation/hookups, and depression.  It was unavailable for some time and it has not reached anywhere near its former glory since its return.  Now you know about it.  Make the magic happen.

Dead

The Harvard Idea Bank: A child of the economic crisis, this website was not a social network in the traditional sense.  Rather, it was a way for students, faculty, and staff to submit ideas for budget cuts.  The few legitimate proposals mainly focused on obvious, albeit relatively small, cases of energy waste, such as sprinklers going off during a rainstorm.  Enough joke posts made it past the censors so as to render the site useless.  These orly srsly posts included selling the Harvard Lampoon and getting rid of Dunster House, an undergraduate dorm.  I also posted a few jewels to see if I could make it past the censors.  The Idea Bank probably had no real effect on Harvard’s cost-cutting strategy.  As one of my professors told the class, Harvard’s decision to invest substantially in interest rate swaps meant that the elderly people who proctored exams in past years just could not do so anymore.  It did not matter if the proposal was part of the Harvard Idea Bank.  To be fair, in my case the exam process ran much better with the professor as the monitor.

Wrong on many levels but right on the money

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

I do not have the capacity to judge Jasper Schuringa’s alleged heroism in the way Stacey Woelfel does.  I also do not necessarily believe that “if someone has an honest story to tell, they’ll do it for free,” thereby indirectly attacking Schuringa’s credibility.  However, I agree with what Woelfel calls “checkbook journalism” and his description of it.  It is not merely a news organization like CNN paying for exclusivity, it is the method in which they choose to do it that makes the practice seem underhanded.

Terms like licensing, picture exclusives, and video rights are ways for these organizations to have their cake and eat it while maintaining plausible deniability.  CNN would never pay for a news story since it is a respectable news group, but it would pay thousands of dollars for access to pictures and videos.  Same difference?  What is more telling about our present state of affairs is how low these organizations seem to be willing to go to get access to a story that is not really “news” in the traditional sense.  At least I can accept that Schuringa’s account is important because he played a role in what could have been a major terrorist attack.*  On the other hand, when there are rumors that NBC gave $300,000+ to Octomom for an interview and confirmation that ABC did pay a substantial fee for “rights” to an exclusive interview with Octograndma (money given to Radar Online, a gossip website), then checkbook journalism should be seen as a symptom of a larger problem in media today.

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* I found it odd that right after a later rebroadcast of the interview the anchors warned that CNN could not “independently verify Mr. Schuringa’s account” at the time.  The fact that they are willing to jump the gun to get first dibs on Schuringa’s account is probably a bigger problem than checkbook journalism in this case.

Irony: an example

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

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This clip played before the Avatar showing I attended. The advertisement stands at odds with some of the themes presented in the movie.  Without giving too much away, I am referring to the clip’s implication about one’s service in the military contrasted against the “morally correct/incorrect” choices the main characters in Avatar make.   At first I thought it was a mock advertisement akin to the ones shown before Tropic Thunder or the fake movie trailers between the Grindhouse features.  Now I realize that with a name change (and more Autobots and Decepticons) it could easily be the preview for next summer’s blockbuster.

A reminder of home

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

SixStrongMen

Spotted on a billboard outside a traditionally black church in Crenshaw, a few miles from where I live.  The ad is more poignant given the high levels of violence in South (Central) Los Angeles.

This is why Jim Bunning isn’t being allowed to run for re-election

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Remember when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-asshole) predicted in February that Justice Ginsburg was going to die in nine months and later had to apologize for it? [Huffington Post]

Well… “Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg taken to hospital” [Reuters]

Now if only he can tell us which lottery numbers to pick… Maybe he’ll just tell us to pick last week’s numbers. [Reuters]

A vanishing post; will self-destruct at around 7:35 p.m.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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