A Preview of President Obama's Second Term

Gibbon, Edward - The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is dominated by the executive. - 1776.

As if this term hasn't been a test case for  Executive Branch over-reach.  Go ahead. Vote for the Bastard to hasten the Inevitable Conclusion™

Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!

 Random thoughts and stream of consciousness post. I suggest navigating away.
It's become patently clear to me how the Television Nooz lags behind the interwebz.  Stuff I see on the national or local nooz lags by 12 to 24 hours at least. (ok, some doesn't even show up (cough Fast and Furious? cough).
Most of what I see on TVee nooz, I've already read on the interwebz the day before, except for the local rapes, murders, car jackings, house fires, fender benders delaying 60,000 people from getting to work on time, etc., etc.
Those I locate via MapQuest to see how close they are to the BAR Hacienda.
This one is not far away, egregious, and closer to a fellow Texas blogger, Teke,  I think, whom I hope to meet at Borepatch's  Texas Citizenship Commemorative Blogshoot in April, before BP heads back to the great state of Georgia. (Good lord, two older posts links to find that post, and he apologizes for his lack of posting. The man is a blogging machine)
Where was I?  Oh, yes, I'm watching the news. The basketball player Lin whateverhisasiannameis is getting his ass allickeydup by the nooz, somehow drawing parallels to Shirley McLaine and M&M Emenem MM? whatever. No, really, the local ABC affiliate actually made the comparisons.
Until Lin bounces one off the rim to...lose the game.
Look! A Sparkly Thing! (was that a squirrel?)

Well, that was random. Categories are going to be a challenge. Welcome to the Asylum.

A random thought

that has repeatedly popped into my head over the past several days, so I'm going to blog it to make it go away.
Canned cat food stinks at both ends of the Cat.

Romney can go EFF himself..Perry too

“It’s not the model for the nation… in Massachusetts, 93 percent of people were insured,” Romney said, mentioning that fixing health insurance cannot be done nationally because of states like Texas, where Romney said 25 percent of the population is uninsured"

Yeah, and the people's republic of massachusetts is doing so well...rrrright.

This guy is John McLame II. He is a liar. He is a liberal. He is bad for this country.

Well, If he thinks he can cut us out of the herd like a quarter horse, put us in a bad light to draw attention away from his dismal record, he is underestimating the American People.

Romney reminds me A LOT of governor good hair..I mean Perry. Perry has been hinting about running for prez. I assure you, you do not want Perry for president. The only reason he has been in office so long is that the lineup of political opponents has been so dismal. Perry struts around in tight jeans and ten gallon hat down on the border when the election cycle rolls around and has not done shit about the border situation in all the time he's been in office. He is neck deep in the Trans-Texas corridor debacle. Two, and only two scenarios are possible in this situation: either his pockets were set to get heavily lined with green, or he is as big a dumbass jock as he appears.

Perry has youtube videos our there of some speeches he's given, and when you watch them you just want to go "Hell Yeah".

Those speeches are 18 carrot bullshit. Perry is like every other politician out there. He will tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get re-elected, because "being governor is cool...and chicks dig me!"

One of my categories for posts is TIAC. It is an acronym from a science fiction novel. It encapsulates the concept that if you package and market something just the right way to the American People, the will buy a Turd In A Can.

Both Romney and Perry are a TIAC

Man, South Carolina has some Bulbs, don't they?

So, South Carolina is butching up to the federal beauroweenies over the incandescent bulb ban.

They are working legislation through the system to legalize production of incandescent bulbs in the state, for sale only in the state of South Carolina. I see an email in my near future to my state senator. This is Texas damnit, you let those S.C. boys upstage us?

I found my way to this tidbit via IOTW, which links to The Foundry.

Aside from South Carolina taking its own bulbs into its own hands, my favorite quote regarding cfl bulbs is:

And they’re more expensive. But that’s all right, says the Department of Energy, because they use less energy than incandescents and last longer. Although, as I mentioned on C-SPAN last week, studies have shown that the energy savings from CFLs aren’t as great as initially purported. California utilities have spent nearly $550 million to subsidize CFL bulbs for its consumers, and these utilities were eager to see what kind of savings they were getting to subsidize bulb purchases. It turned out that the savings weren’t nearly as high as the electric utility PG&E thought they would be.

but..that's all right, it's a feature, not a bug.

There's a missing bit of info in the article. If you break an incandescent bulb it implodes and sucks some of the C02 out of the atmosphere. (take that algore) Ok, so I made that part up.

If you break a CFL, you must immediately evacuate your domicile while holding your breath, don tyvek bunny suits with HEPA breathing filters, call in a HAZMAT clean up crew, and dutifully remove the contents in a ziplock baggie to your nearest big box hardware store for disposal, due to the mercury in the curlycue bulb. Following which, big box hardware store will dutifully dispose of it in the nearest landfill. (ok ... I made that part up too, it actually gets exported to Nicaragua where convenience store owners build their mansions)

The other buzz that's been rounding the interwebs for quite some time are the led bulbs. I've had lighting consultants pushing led lighting for the better part of a decade. Even now they are very expensive. They always get cut from the lighting budget. It's gotten to the point where I just want to tell them not to waste my time with trying to sell the LED fixtures.

LEDs are amazing technology to be sure, but energy efficient, meh, not so much.

If you run the numbers on the individual LEDs they look astounding with respect to energy consumption.

There is one little problem. It's known as a transformer, which is needed to drive the LEDs. Mister transformer is not so efficient, and as a by product wastes a great deal of energy generating heat.

I was completely on the LED bandwagon until recently when I had one of my lighting consultants admit that the LED lighting he was proposing was less energy efficient than the less expensive metal halide fixtures that were the alternate. The magic just isn't there any more.

Yes, I've seen all the test data, but the fact of the matter for both CFLs and LEDs is that the energy savings comes from producing less light. The argument that the color temperature and brightness of the CFL and LED lamps compensate is just plain bunk. This I can see with my own eyes.

The RRRRoyal wedding

man is the news picking its nose over this.

I guess if you hang on snooki's every tweet, you're watching this tripe.

My only comment is...yawn, whatevah.