National Review proposed New Orleans for 2008 RNC

Back in September of 2005 the National Review ran an editorial proposing that New Orleans be the site of the 2008 Republican National Convention.:

"No single step would go further to dramatize the GOP's commitment to rebuilding New Orleans than announcing now that the party's 2008 convention will be held in the recovering city. Such a move would signal the party's confidence in the Big Easy's renewal, and put it at the forefront of what should be similar commitments from private actors to do their part to help New Orleans come back."

Now considering, Hurricane Gustav heading for the Louisiana coast and the "Focus on the Family" video requesting that Christians pray for it to rain during Senator Obama's acceptance speech in Denver, it would have made for an interesting week if the GOP had taken that advice.

Hoping everybody on the Gulf Coast gets through this one OK.

OK, I Frakking Get It!

"Frak" means the same thing as "Smurf".

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And speaking of Battlestar Galactica, I had earlier noted the physical resemblance between Senator McCain and Colonel Saul Tigh. Maybe it's just the glasses or the somewhat rhyming names, but Gov. Sarah Palin, reminds me of President Laura Roslin. Does Number One Observatory Circle have an airlock?

How many people have ever lived?

Estimates vary from 45-120 billion. Due to uncertainties in when Homo Sapiens began (or even which homids to include), and the lack of robust statistical data on population and birth rates until modern times, these estimates are likely to be off by billions or even tens of billions.

The most recent estimate that I've found is from a Population Reference Bureau article which placed the number of people that have been born from 50,000 BC to mid-2002 at 106,456,367,669

Taking estimated birth rates for 2003-2008 and starting with the estimated mid-2002 population (6,215,000,000) and population estimates for each year to mid-2008, I calculated that approximately 776 million people have been born since the 2002 estimate - putting the total number of humans born at over 107 billion. Based on the current estimate for world population (6,677,564,000 for July 2008), this would means that about 6.2 % of all humans who have ever lived, are alive today.

Santo vs. The Invasion of the Martians

I'm just not creative this week, but here's a fun trailer from SANTO VS LA INVASION DE LOS MARCIANOS. I want one of those blinking helmets.

How does Klaatu live so long?

Anybody want to guess the cause of death for the "3rd class witchdoctor"?

Here's the plan: First we get captured...

This seems to be one of the most common plot devices for espionage and sci-fi series episodes and movies. Why don't villains recognize that their plans for global/galactic/universal domination would almost always succeed if they did NOT capture their opponents? There is a near 100% probability that they will escape and find the nuclear self destruct button or functional equivalent. This is greatly assisted by corridors in their starship/skull cave/headquarters that are designed to allow maximum concealment and recruitment of henchmen with very restricted vision.