No, not that one.

I'm talking about the one that eat's REALLY SPICY food just to show how tough he is? As if not tasting your food at all is something to be aspired to?

Did you ever secretly wish it would be too much for him?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/chef-dies-after-eating-super-hot-chilli/2008/09/30/1222651028585.html

I just want some opinions about this:

I've noticed a lot of comments with the election coming up in regard to "taxing the top 10%" and "the rich" getting "picked on" for one reason or another. Many people seem to think that wherever you are in life, in regard to your financial standing, that that's exactly where you put yourself. And that we should all pay the same amount to our government.

I see the reasoning behind that thinking. Don't get me wrong. To use a simple example: I don't want to work all day and think that the person next to me who is screwing off all the time is going to get the same thing I do on payday.

Still though, I have a problem with this opinion that everything we obtain in our lives is somehow based on our own skill and nothing else. A lot of the good and bad things in my life have seemingly come about by random chance. Call it the will of god if you want.

My questions (and I'll try to put them as simply as possible) are these:

Did the guy who made $10 million last year really do it because he worked one-thousand times times harder than the guy who only made $10 thousand? Is he really one-thousand times smarter? Is that even possible?

By that rationale, it stands to reason that if we were all born with the same IQ and the same physical capabilities, we would all make the exact same amount of money.

Look, I don't want to live in a Marxist society. But I do work my ass off and I'm smarter than the average bear. I think the people that made something of themselves by using the system in place should be giving something back. And I don't they're giving enough. At least, not here in America.

Do you? Any thoughts?

Try the Sarah Palin baby name generator and find out!

http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

Okay, I just updated flash player 9 from the Adobe site an hour ago and now no YouTube videos will play from The Sift. They play fine on YouTube and any other player works just fine here.

Is anyone else having this problem?

I've done everything I know how to do at this point to try and fix it.

It's not that I need VideoSift. I could stop coming here any time I want. I just like to watch YouTube embeds... from here...

SHUT UP!

I just realized that the Bulwer-Lytton contest winners were announced last month, along with the Lyttle Lyttons.

Explanation from Wikipedia:

"The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is a tongue-in-cheek contest that takes place annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San José State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" — that is, deliberately bad. A prize of US$250 is awarded."


If you haven't seen these but like a good, obscure, and funny read, check them out. I think I like the Lyttle Lytton even better than the original.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html

I had no idea.

This is a link to Orson Scott Card's latest rant about gay marriage and the supreme court. Feelings which I was blissfully ignorant of until this morning.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html

I knew that Mr. Card is a Mormon. I have no problem with that. I respect his feelings on the constitution and the supreme court.

What's giving me chills is a response that is pretty much taking the words right out of my own head:

http://www.geekinthecity.com/rants/you_overthrow_t.php

"Ender's Game" was the first novel that I ever read. I read it when I was 9 years old and I've read it several times since. Whenever I get into a discussion with someone who hasn't read it but expresses an interest, I always go out and buy them a fresh copy.

Maybe I'm overeacting, I know. I think my favorite geek Rick Emerson said it best:

"Chills.
"When heroes go down," sang Suzanne Vega, "they go down fast."
Aaron "Geek in the City" Duran weighs in on the recent anti-gay-marriage comments made by celebrated author Orson Scott Card. Rarely have I seen a sense of deep betrayal put in such stark, emotional terms."

How did your Neat-o-Rama links not pick this up!?!

From the page linked below:
This machine, "Robokiyu the Rescue Robot," was originally designed to help remove rubble and trapped people from disaster zones. Until, that is, it was realized that the thing might be better suited to removing (and swallowing) those unfortunate people who had already died. So now if you get stuck in an earthquake in Japan, consider that not only may you die, but you may spend your last few minutes being eaten by this thing.

http://www.asylum.com/2008/07/30/weirdest-robots-ever-corpse-eater-bot/

OK, I know that not everybody is into him but I would like to hear some favorite George Carlin quotes. I'm not saying you have to pick your #1 of all time, that would be impossible for me but I've been sharing some with friends over e-mail and I'd like to hear yours.

Here's mine:

"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”"

I was going through the top videos of 2007 channel and noticed a whole bunch of videos that I remember really liking but it looks like I haven't voted for any of them. What happened to all my votes?