Christinaconomics

Called Kanye a jackass and now he’s defending us from the dark side with a lightsaber?  Soo cool!!!!

Every president always makes a speech for the kiddies as they go back to school, yet this time around, the anti-Obamanists actually turned into such a media controversy that several schools went so far as to restrict access over the internet to the speech because they decided it was injecting to much politics into the [public] school environment. (Admittedly biased report on the issue here)

Reasons this is bullshit:

1. It was a pep talk telling students to do their best, i.e. stay in school, be cool.
2. Gotta love how these conservative capitalists who are enjoying free education for their kids á la government program are so anti-this-government now that it’s Obama giving meaningless speeches instead of Bush-Cheney-Rove.
3. What a waste of taxpayer dollars to restrict a speech by the president telling kids to do their homework
4. Uh, Obama’s life story is so American & inspirational, who cares if you disagree with some of his policies, it doesn’t mean he’s wrong to tell your kids to do good in school & get ahead in life; he’s the first black president for Christ’s sake!  God forbid America’s children start thinking about their education as something more than free babysitting for mom & dad.

PS- I love how the people on the anti-Obamanist forum are obviously hyper-conservative, yet criticizing Obama on not fulfilling his liberal campaign promises.

PSS – why is Obama still underlined in Red in Firefox by spellchecker as if it’s misspelled?

Are you tired of the constant struggle with those seasoning packets?  Tired of waiting for the water  to boil, cook the noodles, and then drain?  Do you find yourself wishing there was an easier way to customize the flavor of your instant noodle soup?  Well, Japan has found the solution: Ramen Robots.

A restaurant owner in Japan built the robot.  Customers can place their orders on a computer, customizing things like amount of soy sauce, salt, and flavors.  According to the owner, there are over 40 million permeations.  Apparently the whole process is just 2 minutes, a minute less than the average time it takes a human to make his/her own soup.

While if I ever find myself in Japan, I will obviously have to try this robot noodle soup.  I can’t help but wonder about the combination of human laziness, impatience, ingenuity & money that leads to robot creation, and if the mechanical ingenuity of the few is leading to the detachment and inability to be self-sufficient of the many.

Oh No!  Not a noodle feeding robot!

More than 10 million Iranians turned out to vote on Friday, June 12, 2009 to vote.  Some undoubtedly voted for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  However, the climate in Iran during this election was ready for change, and that change was to be led by Mir Hussein Moussavi.

The democratic process has obviously been bypassed by corrupt officials.  Here’s some of the suspicious details as reported by CNN, Christian Science Monitor, Wired.com, Yahoo News & the New York Times.

• 46 million voters turned out, 85% of the voting population.  10 million more than any previous election since the 1970s.
• Iran ballots are counted by hand, yet the election results were declared just 2 hours after the polls closed.
• The percentage of votes for each candidate didn’t change through out the 2-day “counting” process and did not vary for regions that were strongly in favor of rival candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.
• In Lorestan, where conservative candidates altogether got only about 20 percent of the vote in 2005, Ahmadinejad alone got 71 percent of the vote this year.
• 10 million votes were missing national identification numbers similar to U.S. Social Security numbers, which make the votes “untraceable.”
• Regions in favor of Moussavi “ran out” of paper ballots, despite the 17-additional ballots that were supposed to be available.
• There are reports of polling stations that closed early, while voters were still in line.

Iranian leaders have offered to perform a recount in an effort to quell the protests, but it is not enough.  Protesters are demanded a new election.

Please support this movement on facebook and visit the website whereismyvote.org.

Isn’t this video hilarious?  Show your support by voting for Max here.  And follow the campaign at MaxIsGoode.com.

All those flashing cameras, and the scrutiny as you request for dijon mustard.

Since Mexico City cancelled all celebrations for Cinco de Mayo an account of the swine flu, I decided to take it upon myself to celebrate this great, Mexican holiday by purchasing a pint of tequila, and eating Mexican food.  All the Mexican restaurants were slammed, so we opted for take-out.  The chicken floutas at La Carreta were great, as always.  Unfortunately, on the drive back to my house my boyfriend and I got all mad at each other over something rediculously minor.  Upon arrival to my house, I had entered my “I don’t know” phase where I say “I don’t know” to everything.  [Ex: "Are you mad?"  me: (sigh) "I don't know."]   Pretty unproductive in retrospect, but on with the story.  I had 4 bags and about 5 other things that I needed to bring in from my car.  My boyfriend offered me some much needed help with the bags, but out of stubborn anger, I stupidly declined.  I was about 10 feet from where I could set my bags down, when the bag with the tequila slipped out of my elbow’s grasp (was holding it with my elbow), fell to the floor and shattered on the concrete.  I just kept walking and asked my boyfriend to clean it up.  By the time he cleaned it up and caught up with me, we had a good laugh at the rediculous of the whole thing, including how niether of us really wanted to drink tequila anymore.  Ho-hum.