RIP William F. Buckley, Jr.

The leading man behind the resurgence of conservatism in the post-WWII era died on Wednesday. He was 82. In addition to praise from Republicans and conservatives, I've seen it from Joe Lieberman (who Buckley actually helped get his Senate seat), Mario Cuomo, and Chris Matthews, along with various media outlets. Too much to link to, really, but if you don't know anything about the man, look something up.

Romney Drops Out

Boy, that sure was ironic (see the end of my last post for context on the complete misuse of ironic).

Various Links and Stuff

It looks like 24 has lurched to the left. It was never the most well-written show, but what sold it was the so-called "rightwing" stuff in it. I'd have to agree with the article that I linked to that it's problems last season were due to poor writing and not a need to veer to the left politically (although I didn't see any of last season after the first four episodes, which weren't particularly well-written, I did hear complaints about the writing). I've heard that Lost is also suffering from bad writing, and ever more ridiculus plot twists, so it looks like the two big serialized suspense shows are approaching their end.

Here's the Great British Venn Diagram, handy for those unsure how to differentiaite between England, Britain, the British Isles, and all the rest. It's stuff I already knew, but, let's face it, Venn diagrams are cool.

Little-known histories of seven famous toys. Worth a gander.

A few Futurama cast members in LEGO form. It's the best of both worlds. Although, like many small-scale LEGO creations, don't get your hopes too high for how they look. I don't believe I have any LEGO in several of those colors (most notably Fry's hair).

It's been around for awhile, but there's also the Bible in LEGO form. They've added a number of stories in the few years since I last looked at it. It even has ratings guidelines -- NSLV, so be sure to have your parent's permission.

A brief write-up on post-micturation convulsion syndrome (AKA pee shivers).

One of the last two remaining known U.S. World War I vets has died. He was 108. The last known survivor is currently 107; the last known Canadian survivor is likewise 107 and living in the U.S. The last known German survivor died on New Year's Day at 107, and another U.S. veteran died in December at 109. Harry Richard Landis, the one who just died, never actually served overseas, but is still counted as a WWI vet by the Army. He signed up for service in WWII but was rejected as too old.

The Phoenix Suns aqcuired Shaquille O'Neal from the Miami Heat for some reason. If I was a Suns fan, I'd be pretty ticked off. Since I'm not, I'm rather amused. You know, I recall a hard (flagrant, actually) foul the Suns committed againt Steve Kerr back in 1994, I believe it was. He was in the same spot, with about the same game situation, as Jim Paxson was when he hit the three to seal the win in game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals. Perhaps Kerr was just stewing all the years, waiting for the moment he could take his revenge. This also complicates things for a replay the Heat and Hawks need to play. Through 49 games, the Suns are outscoring their opponents 109.8-103.9ppg. Let's see where that stands at the end of the season.

Color video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I'm used to seeing it in black and white, so color was interesting. Oh, and that dog it mentions the professor trying to rescue, died in the collapse, because he bit the man trying to rescue him. The collapsed portion of the bridge was found, and declared a historical landmark, but the car was never found. Trvia about the dog available here. While nobody died in the collapse of the bridge, there was one fatality during construction, three days before completion, when a worker fell twelve feet. Another worker fell 190 feet into the narrows below, but survived with minor injuries. A painter died while painting the bridge about midway through its short service life when a paint can fell on his head.

A math pun love song. I love it. Though, once again, the danger of reading the youtube comments section is demonstrated with this beauty:

Every line in this song is a math pun. You have to know math to understand it. Ironically, my math teacher was the first to mention this video. I'm not that smart, and I still thought it was funny.

That's the worst usage of "ironically" I've seen in some time. I see plenty of people confuse irony with coincidence, but this was a case of calling something ironic that was the exact opposite of irony.

Super Tuesday

The media still isn't reporting exactly how many delegates each candidate won on the day, which seems like a mix between uncertainty over some of the outcomes and just not being on the ball. With that in mind, I'm unable to from a full picture of what went on, but I'll go ahead with what seem like reasonable projections of how that will all shake out.

First, my own experience -- I showed up at my polling place around 2:30pm, in the midst of something of a rush (several cars pulled in right before me and another immediately following). It was the longest wait I've ever had to vote, but not all that bad. Just over 300 ballots had been turned in before mine, though I can't speak as to the breakdown between Republicans and Democrats (though based on unopened packages of ballots I saw, along with the stack of ballots they were handing out, I'd guess it wasn't a large split, maybe 160-140). The lady started to hand me a ballot for the Dems before I said I was a Republican. At least three people seemed to have problems voting in just the time I was there. One person had her old address on her driver's license, and was asked to show two items with the new address; she only had one and said she had to leave for work, and left without voting (I believe she could have cast a provisional ballot, but the poll workers were more interested in getting something else with her current address before she left). Another woman wasn't on the rolls, but said that it had always been her polling place and was directed to another woman for assistance (not sure what happened there, but I'm guessing a provisional ballot, unless they discovered that her polling place had changed). I didn't catch what happened with another woman, but it seemed like she was a Democrat who had wanted to vote in the Republican primary. It was my first time voting at this new location, which is a Baptist church on the same street as the Baptist church that was my last polling place. Oh, and, yes, I did vote for Fred Thompson.

As to the results, I said the other day that Romney would perform "surprisingly well" in Arizona, and the buzz was certainly about that early in the evening, but that was partially because of bad exit polling that showed him tied with McCain. Last I checked, with over 90% of the vote counted, McCain led him 47% to 34%. McCain trounced Romney in delegates, as expected, but the biggest surprise was Huckabee, who spent a good portion of the night leading Romney in projected delegates. While Romney supporters are free to rejoice that McCain did not do as well as he might have, it really doesn't help them that the beneficiary was Huckabee.

As for the Democrats, Obama won more states, which will probably generate more headlines, but Clinton won the more important ones. I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment, but I ran them earlier, and with about 1680 delegates at stake, the states Clinton won had just over 1000, while the ones Obama won had just over 640, with New Mexico too close to call. With just under of third of those delegates not yet projected to either candidate, Clinton has only a slight lead in delegates won, but I expect that to grow some (though not to a 1000-640 advanatage). As I said would be the case, it looks like Clinton has won the day, but by such a narrow margin that this race could drag out for some time. Oh, and don't fall the "analysis" that came out before Tuesday, saying that, given delegate projections based on polls, Clinton would have to win 70% of the delegates after Super Tuesday to clinch the nomination; it ignores the "super delegates" (Dem officeholders and assorted others) in counting her delegates, but not in counting the number of delegates she'd need for a majority.

Various Stuff -- UPDATED

The new 2008 Topps baseball set includes a 12-card series honoring presidential candidates (six each for Republicans and Democrats). It's been awhile since I've added to my baseball card collection; I might have to do that. Cards are considerably more expensive than when I started collecting in 1991.

According to The Onion, Mitt Romney is so depressed, he's running attack ads against himself.

For those of you looking for a tattoo, I have the perfect one for you -- the Hello Kitty Darth Vader tattoo.

Someone took the time to create Minas Tirith in LEGO.

I love old computer ads. It was more expensive to get a worse product even before taking inflation into account.

A video of Tom Cruise talking Scientology. Scary.

UPDATE: more links

Cheeseburger in a can. I must agree with the poster that it's both the best and worst thing I've ever seen.

Wine for dogs and cats. Because you have nothing better to spend your money on.

Scientists explore just why water is so weird.

Disney's view of the highway of the future, circa 1958.