Monday, April 26, 2010

Excessive Government Pay?

The best part is the S.F. deputy police chief saying he's helped reduce the deficit because of the taxes he paid on his half million dollars salary. (Rachel Gordon, April 26, 2010, SF Chronicle)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2010/04/25/MNC51CLUBN.DTL

Oh, the arrogance and self-dealing.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Usain Bolt

[Update: link no longer works. Sigh.] 

Usain Bolt will never cease to amaze me: http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1078141 4x100 relay. Guess which runner he is.


Fun Tips

Here is a list of good commencement speeches and funny films:

Commencement Speeches

1. Will Ferrell's 2003 Harvard commencement speech. See if you can spot Al Franken in the audience.

2. Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University.

3. Ellen DeGeneres' 2009 commencement speech at Tulane University.

I was too lazy to add all the links, but you can find the speeches on YouTube.

Funny Films and Shows

1. The I.T. Crowd, Seasons 1 and 2

2. Adam's Apples, a Danish film

3. Wedding Crashers

4. My Cousin Vinny

Friday, April 23, 2010

Cary Grant and Grace Kelly

Just saw To Catch a Thief. Not one of Hitchcock's usual suspense films--it was very funny and had wonderfully comedic banter:

Francie: Money handles most people.

John: Do you honestly believe that?

Francie: I've proved it.

John: You're a singular girl.

Francie: Is that good or bad?

John: Oh, it's good, it's quite good. You know what you want. You go out after it and nothing stops you from getting it.

Francie: You make it sound corny.

John: Oh no, you're a jackpot of admirable character traits.

Francie: I already knew that.

John: Yes, I will say you do things with dispatch. No wasted preliminaries. Not only did I enjoy that kiss last night, I was awed by the efficiency behind it.

Francie: Well, I'm a great believer of getting down to essentials.

It's much better in the spoken word than on paper.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Average Lawyer's Creed?

Isaiah 59:4 "No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil."

Update: a friend says that the above quote should apply to politicians, not lawyers.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Gender Gap

From NYT, April 18, 2010, Sunday Business, page 8:

Women account for just 6 percent of the chief executives of the top 100 tech companies, and 22 percent of the software engineers at tech companies over all, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology. And among venture capitalists, the population of financiers who control the purse strings for a majority of tech start-ups, just 14 percent are women.

Interesting.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Malanga on California's Government Unions

Steven Malanga on California's government unions, including the teachers' union:

http://city-journal.org/2010/20_2_california-unions.html (City Journal, Spring 2010, "The Beholden State")

You wouldn't think that a public school teacher could possibly be an enemy of private enterprise and fiscal responsibility, but the rank-and-file don't usually dictate policy to their union bosses. Also, political discourse has become so hostile, no large entity seems to be fighting over the middle ground, where common sense resides.