HotShot Blog

Even though they believe Halloween is a sinful Godless abomination, right-wingers got quite a treat on Monday with the nomination of ultra-conservative activist judge Samuel Alito, aka "ScAlito." Scalito's dissenting vote on a case involving the Planned Parenthood v Casey precedent has made him a darling of the religious right movement.

The bright side of how the Miers debacle unfolded was that it was clear Republican Senators and right-wing activists derailed the nomination on ideological grounds. An up-or-down vote, something every Republican demanded on lower court appointees, was not afforded to a candidate for Supreme Court. The Democrats, along with possibly Specter, Chaffee, and Snowe, have a clear precendent on which to filibuster and block Scalito's nomination. Provided Reid can get his act together - and I have every belief he can - it will be a fight we will win. The American people are on our side (see my posting and this poll) on this. Given Bush's sub-40 approval ratings, there's no reason to worry of any political backlash.

As for a trick, the other big political news this week is the indictment of a top Bush official for intentionally unmasking the identity of a clandestine CIA operative for political gain. Some have celebrated the Bush administration finally being held accountable for an act of treason. But, as E.J. Dionne points out, it is the Republicans who have actually won here.

As long as Bush still faced the voters, the White House wanted Americans to think that officials such as Libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney had nothing to do with the leak campaign to discredit its arch-critic on Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

And Libby, the good soldier, pursued a brilliant strategy to slow the inquiry down. As long as he was claiming that journalists were responsible for spreading around the name and past CIA employment of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, Libby knew that at least some news organizations would resist having reporters testify. The journalistic "shield" was converted into a shield for the Bush administration's coverup.

Rove and Libby testified last year. If they had been honest and truthful about their wrongdoings, it would have caused a huge scandal towards the end of a presidential campaign. It is likely to have been enough to push 2-3% towards John Kerry, thus electing him President of the United States. The coverup worked. Bush was reelected, and now he will be able to pardon Libby (and possibly Rove), thus eliminating any repercussions of their wrongdoing. Quite a trick indeed.

So, the big Mistry got me playing this computer game he's liked since 'back in the day' (which in Shek-ese, usually refers to high school). It's called LORD (short for Legend Of the Red Dragon) and is a high tech game (you telnet in) with a sophisticated user interface (text). It is a multiplayer game, in which about 100 or so dorks...er, i mean users, create a character and go about these quests in an attempt to level up and defeat the legendary Red Dragon. These quests basically fill 2 testosterone-soaked categories - killing stuff and having sex. You get some points (and fake money - which you use to buy bigger weapons) for killing 'forest creatures' (computer bots), and even more for killing other players (virtually, that is - if you kill them in real life, you'll probably go to jail). You also get points for having sex - either by convincing another player to sleep with you (again, if you attempt this in real life, you will get STDs and babies instead of points) or winning a guessing game where you get to rescue a hot prince (or princess). Eventually you have enough points to kill the dragon and once you do that 5 times you win! Now, because advancing in the game pretty much requires you to kill other players, at any given time about 95% of the players are 'dead' (don't worry too much about the LORD mortality rate - everybody gets to regenerate once a day). Anyway, this got me thinking - what sort of computer games would reflect real life better, but still appeal to the raging hormones of your online gamer?

LATS - the Legend of Andro-Testosterone Supplements: In this game, players gain experience (AKA Bulk) by going to the gym and doing reps. Bonus points are randomly awarded by finding steroids, creatinine, or other fitness supplements. You level up by beating up various other dudes from 'pipsqueak man' to 'Arnold'. You can lose a level if you are caught by a random urine test.

PALM - Privately Always Looking for a Masturbatorium: In this game, you take on the role of a horny teenage boy in high school. Your challenge is to sneak out of class and find somewhere private to 'take care of business'. There is a constantly ticking hornometer - if you haven't escaped before time runs out, you lose points from the ensuing embarassing occurance. You also lose points if you get caught in the act (ie. janitor needs something from the closet, principle comes back to his office). You gain points by find discovering 'naughty magazines' or running into skanky classmates. You win the game when you finally get a date.

NERD - Not Enough Roleplaying, Dammit!: This is a meta-roleplaying game, where you join an online community of gamers. You get points based on the number of online role playing games you play and how well you're doing in each game. Bonus points are awarded by finding virtual cans of Jolt and packages of Hot Pockets. You win the game when you finally get a date.

On Tuesday two very important governors races will be decided as voters in Virginia and New Jersey head to the polls. In New Jersey, despite the latest shenanigans by the Forrester campaign to spread lies about his opponent, Corzine will win handily. Virginia, on the other hand, is a dead heat.

The polling for the Virginia governors race puts Kaine slightly ahead of Kilgore. Rasmussen, who nailed the 2004 presidential election, has Kaine winning by 3 points. In a state where Republicans heavily outnumber Democrats, however, this is no guarantee of success, but it is certainly encouraging. The Kilgore campaign, terrified of a loss, are pulling out all the stops, including mailing a fake Democratic voter guide to suburban voters. The mailing urged people to vote for Russ Potts. On the back was small print saying "Paid for and authorized by Virginians for Jerry Kilgore." Dirty tricks, indeed.

If Kilgore wins, he has promised to slash taxes largely by eliminating a great deal of education funding. The idiocy of this should be clear. If we don't have good education in this country, it will not be possible for American workers to compete globally for good paying jobs. Kilgore will take a giant leap exactly in the wrong direction.

Furthermore, Kilgore is fundamentally hostile to many of the rights and liberties we hold dear as Americans. By that I don't mean abortion, although abortion could certainly be included as a privacy right. Kilgore stands on the wrong side of an ideological divide as to who should decide how we as Americans should live our lives. As a part of the conservative movement, Kilgore believes that government should have broad powers to legislate moral conduct, including matters of life and death.

Michael Schiavo recently spoke out about Kilgore's extreme views.

"I have seen firsthand what can happen when a governor disagrees with a single citizen. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush abused the power of his office in an attempt to replace my personal family decisions with his own opinions and political grandstanding," Schiavo wrote in a statement distributed by a Democratic consulting firm. ...

During the debate, Kilgore said he is "not going to agree to the forced starvation of any individual if that individual hasn't had a say." He said he would urge people to put their end-of-life wishes in medical directives.

"I don't think governors should use their PR grandstanding to intervene in these cases," Kaine replied, adding that disputes should be settled in the privacy of courts.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Personal matters such as these should be left up to families to dispute, not legislatures and governors, reason enough to support Kaine.

But a Kaine defeat has greater implications than simply setting Virginia back many years. Virginia will be a swing state in the presidential election of 2008, especially if Governor Mark Warner is the Democratic candidate or running mate. In addition, Virginia has a few competitive races in 2006 and 2008 that may be decided by voter turnout. As a Republican governor with a Republican legislature, Kilgore will be able to tailor and target the agenda to bring out the conservative vote next year and in 2008. We will likely see an anti-gay marriage initiative, anti-immigration legislation, and crusades against evolution, all designed to attract "values voters." Even though George W. Bush will fade into the dustbins of history, strategic initiatives such as these might keep the Republicans in power for at least another 7 years.

Today was a good day for me. So good that I had to blog about it.

Nothing major happened, but a lot of little things went well today. I started off by having a good day in LORD. My character was able to defeat a player above me and pick up a huge chunk of experience points. In addition, I got a 24 gem castle event and increased my charm by 6 points. The only thing that could have made it better was a bank double, but my luck was good even without it.

Later, a group of third year Ph.D. students and I had lunch with our program director. He wanted feedback on how the first two years were structured. He also told us we need to propose our dissertations by January or February at the latest, which means I will have to nail down a topic very soon.

Lunch was excellent. I had my favorite, chicken parmesan. It was quite tasty and had a slight twist to it. The chicken was covered in a layer of eggplant on which the cheese rested. The eggplant gave it an added meaty flavor.

The best event of the day came in the afternoon. I finally finished coding up some empirical work and the preliminary results were great. My paper predicts that momentum traders earn better returns when volatility is low. Using portfolio holdings data from mutual funds, I found today that the average return on funds that use momentum strategies is strongly negatively correlated with market volatility. The result is exactly what I wanted, and helps out a lot with my paper.

To top it off, I found this pleasant news. An ABC News/WaPo poll found that a solid majority of Americans want Democrats to regain power next year. According to the poll, registered voters would vote 52% to 37% for a Democrat over a Republican for Congress. This is a big deal. These generic polls do actually predict votes close to the election. Of course a lot can happen between now and a year from now, but the fact is that Democrats now have majority support of the country. This is something that we have not seen since the Clinton era.

Why do women find bald men unnattractive? Now before all you baldies get up in arms, let me tell you that some of the most wonderful, loving and worthy men I know are bald - like my father, both of my grandfathers, all my uncles, heck pretty much every male in my family over 30. (I am not immune to this either, all you have to do is give me some steroids- with the activating power of androgens, my Xtreme bald genes will kick right in)

Yet, like most of my peers, I prefer men to have a manly full rugged head of hair. Of course, male-pattern baldness is sort of paradox - it's caused by an excess of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a sort of extra-powerful super-charged manly form of testorsterone. It's the Arnold Schwarzenagger of hormones. Men with the correct genetic predisposition, upon reaching puberty, will start churning out DHT and setting off a ticking time bomb which eventually leave their crowns naked and bare like a baby's bum. Of course you have to realize, that all this testosterone must affect other parts of their bodies too....leading me to wonder why, evolutionarilly, women don't prefer bald men, as they should have increased 'virility'.

Of course facial hair is a sign of virility too, but most ladies don't find facial hair on men to be attractive, either. But the difference there is it's much easier to fantasize a hairy guy without the beard than a bald guy with hair.

So what hope exists for the bald guys? Propecia - a lot of guys will say they don't want to try it since it lowers sex drive (by blocking that manly DHT). But hey, first you need to have somebody to enjoy that sex drive with :p And there's always a wig, but unless it's a good one we can usually tell. Don't even try the baseball cap, we always assume there's a bald spot under there. One friend told me that the only thing that hurts him is noticing that once he went bald, women stopped checking him out. They do however check him out when he wears a bandana on his head. Yet as we get older, we'll start to notice the bald guys more and more. I see lots of good looking older ladies check out my bald dad all the time. I think when I get older, I'll probably check out bald guys too (but not my dad, that would be gross).

Bald guys, don't be too disenheartened. Personality always trumps hairdo, or lack of one. And in the meantime, let this lovely 'poem' by my friend Qijia Ouyang cheer you up:
bald guys are cool
u can shine their head
and it'll light up the road
at night

Thank you...

Great news. This site is no longer being hosted off my home computer. The new webspace is considerably faster and more reliable. The site should be much more accessible without the annoying lags. Best of all: I can turn off my old linux machine when the hard drive starts making noise. I can finally sleep at night!

Also, I had to redo some stuff in order to get the site full of the same content as before. Let me know if there are any bugs.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is sponsoring a contest for the "greatest idea since sliced bread." They are collecting submissions for how we can improve the economy and the lives of ordinary Americans through policy. A panel of judges will select 21 winners. The winners, in addition to seeing their idea be pushed at the national level, will win a cash prize of at least $50,000.

There is no entry fee. Anyone not a member of the SEIU can enter a submission. It does not have to be long and detailed; in fact, the submission limit is 175 characters. Instead, all they want is a simple, common sense idea that will make our country greater. Previous submissions are posted on the website, including my idea:

Short Term Loans to Reduce Poverty

We need a federally backed microfinance loan program. The idea is to give short term (3 months or less) low interest loans to people who have unexpectedly hit financial difficulties. This would keep people from falling into poverty due to unforseen circumstances, such as a car accident, layoff, or death in the family.

As it stands, many people who most need a loan are unable to get it because they do not have sufficient credit. This program would be implemented on a large enough scale where the small percentage of defaults can be largely financed by a low interest rate.

The implications for this program would reach beyond simply reducing poverty and reducing the need for public assistance. As just one example, one of the reasons that the number of late term abortions is high is that poor people often need to save money for the procedure. A short term loan program would ameliorate this problem.

I hope you will all partake in this exercise in little 'd' democracy.

Last night I was watching a movie with my parents - it was a Korean film called 'Oldboy' and in addition to many other discomfort-inducing scenes, it featured a lengthy, boisterous, vocal sex scene. Now I'm sure most of you have experienced the discomfort of watching a sex scene with your parents. Me, I can't do it. I squirm. I focus on an object across the room. I can't look at the TV.

Abhishek never updates this blog. He claims this is because he is very busy. Yeah right. I'm the one who's busy in the hospital...SAVING LIVES. Ok, that's an enormous exageration. The only life I ever saved was the giant bug I let outside instead of squishing it when I caught it in my apt. I'm actually busy in the hospital....ANNOYING PATIENTS and WRITING NOTES IN THEIR CHARTS. Yes, this is what the mysterious medical school tuition goes towards - a mountain of paperwork that nobody reads. Anyway, this isn't about why I don't update the blog. It's about why Abhishek doesn't update the blog. I mean it's his blog, no? Let's take a look at the very busy schedule of a FINANCE PHD STUDENT!!

• Sleeping in...I can call Abhishek at 11 AM and he'll still get mad at me because he was asleep. Of course, I can't blame him too much, because whenever I go visit him, I sleep until 1 PM. His apartment needs some sunlight! Maybe they can rig up some mirrors in the alley to reflect sunlight into his window like they are doing in that Austrian village
  

• Working on his paper...this consists of sitting at his computer and surfing the web. sometimes a result comes up, and then he types something else in, restarts the program, and resumes surfing the web
  

• Playing LORD...no explanations needed
  

• DFNYC...this consists of lots of meetups, pre-meetup meetups, post-meetup meetups, and pre-pre-meetup meetups. I'm not even kidding. I have no idea what goes on at these things, but it seems to involve lots of beer.
  

• Seminars...these have free food, and sometimes souvenirs
  

• Working out...Abhishek takes Cardio Blast and Intermediate Golf, yet he still finds time to swim and lift weights. What a stud.
  

• Posting on the LORD message boards...because you can only play so much LORD in one day
  

• Talking to me...I make sure that when I am not in the hospital annoying patients, I am pestering Abhishek with a nonstop barrage of phone calls with the purpose of informing him that I am bored.
  

• Watching the 'Colbert Report'...this often occurs at the same time that he is supposed to be talking to me. Abhishek is very resourceful at watching the Colbert Report when I'm trying to talk to him on the phone - if it's not on TV at the moment, he'll just watch it off Comedy Central's website.
  

• Not posting on Hotshotblog.com...but you already knew that :p
  

The war in Iraq is still quagmire, the insurgency continues, more than 2,000 American soldiers and countless Iraqis have died, and a solid majority of Americans have concluded this war was not worth it. Disapproval ratings for the President and for Republicans in Congress have topped 60 and even 65 percent. Bush is now the least popular president since Nixon during Watergate.

In response, the Bush administration has decided it's going to get serious and change their strategy about fighting the war. Except I'm not talking about Iraq. The administration is more concerned with fighting a public relations war back home. Beginning on Veteran's Day, which is supposed to be a day to respect and celebrate our men and women in uniform, President Bush started a series of partisan speeches lashing out at anyone who dares to criticize the Iraq war. In his temper tantrum, he derided opponents as being unpatriotic and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Well Mr. President, it seems you just called a majority of the country traitors, since most Americans agree that you're a lying sack of shit that took us into an unwinnable mistake of a war.

In a more Orwellian sense of irony, Republicans are now running a full fledged campaign to demonize war opponents. They've set a media war room, led by a real-life traitor himself, Karl Rove. Not that there's really anything new about this. Every since Bush was elected, the Republicans have set up a permanent campaign operation designed to keep them functioning smoothly. Eventually, however, the American public figured it out, and now all the spin in the world won't save them.

The sad thing is that Bush probably could rally the country if he simply outlined a strategy and began to level with the American people. Instead of hiding behind catch slogans such as "win the war on terror" that even Republicans are tired of, he could give speeches detailing how we will help Iraq transition to sovereignty, what conditions must be met before we can withdraw troops, and when we can realistically meet those conditions.

Unless Bush actually changes course and outlines a plan, the Democrats are going to continue hammering the Republicans and rightfully winning the political battle. The media is finally started to move away from their loyal support of the GOP. Even the Iraqi leaders themselves want the United States to pull out.

For the first time, Iraq's political factions on Monday collectively called for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus....

About 100 Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, many of whom will run in the election on Dec. 15, signed a closing memorandum on Monday that "demands a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces," the statement said.

As Congressman Murtha said recently, the American people are light years ahead of politicians on this. So to Republicans, if you don't want to win, don't change anything you're doing and keep attacking your opponents as being unpatriotic. Because it's the surest way to lose your majority.

Wow, it's been like over a week since this thing was updated. I would update more often, but I can't write about what interesting happens to me during the day because it would violate patient confidentiality. I suppose I could write about the boring lectures we had to sit through today at the VA. The guy went like an hour over. I think he was Indian. Half the class was asleep. One guy was still asleep in his chair when the rest of us had already left to go home (Norman said he'd go back to wake him up in 5 minutes). The VA smells like urine and is full of veterans rolling around on Rascals. Sometimes they outfit their rascals with American flags and stereo systems so everybody can hear 'margaritaville' or whatever else it is that veterans like to listen to.

I had an interesting dream last night. Abhishek was dancing around in a frilly pink tutu and then my grandfather walked in and saw him and gave him a lecture. I don't remember the topic of the lecture though.

I want a porsche. If anybody has extra money lying around, you should send it to me to start a 'get the spoiled little suburban girl a porsche fund'. It was warm today. Like 70 degrees. It was in the 20s last week. What gives? Wow I have absolutely nothing to write about.

I have to get my parents Hanukkah presents and I don't know what to get them. Any suggestions? Maybe I should sew them something with the exciting sewing machine they gave me last year. Blah. Any readers want to guest write for this blog? I'm sure you could write something more intersesting than this. In fact, I bet Abhishek will go in and delete this blog just because it is so lame. He edited out the best part of my last blog. Stupid censorship.

You are all in for a treat today! You are about to become privy to the naughtiest jokes I ever heard . . . in elementary school.

1. You have to answer each of the following questions 'pea soup'

   • What did you have for breakfast?
   • What did you have for lunch?
   • What did you have for dinner?
   • What did you do all night?

   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that was HILARIOUS. See, pea soup sounds like pee soup and that's potty talk! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2. Are you PT?

   The 'cool' kids asked me this in kindergarten. PT sounded bad, so I said 'no'. Then they all laughted at me because apparantly PT meant potty-trained. Oops. Then, another day, some other 'cool' kids asked me if I was PT. This time I was smarter and said 'yes'. They all laughed at me again, because now PT meant 'pregnant teacher'. In retrospect, I'm not sure what was so insulting about being called a pregnant teacher, but it managed to make me cry anyway.

3. Once there was this little girl and she was in her room and her mom called her to dinner. The girl said, 'just a sec!' The mom waited a couple minutes and then called her again, and again she said 'just a sec!'. The mom was now getting inpatient, because dinner was getting cold so when she called her daughter the third time and the daughter said 'Just a sec!' the mother said 'NO MORE SECS!!!!'

   This one was funny because secs sounded like SEX, which was a 'dirty dirty word' in elementary school. Nobody said sex unless they were whispering and giggling. We even giggled when we saw the word 'sex' in reference to gender. That's how funny 'sex' is.

4. There once was this lady who bought a mansion. She knew that lots of fancy houses had fancy names (like Worthington Manor etc.) and she wanted her house to have a fancy name too. But she didn't know what to name it! She eventually decided to name the house after her favorite soap opera star, Harry But. Eventually, she had a baby. Of course she couldn't figure out what to name the baby, so she went to the store and saw a crack on the wall, and decided to name the baby crack. One day, Crack crawled out of his playpen, and his mother didn't know where he went. Terrified, she ran to the police station screaming "Officer you HAVE to help me! I've searched my Harry But and I couldn't find my Crack!"

   Get it? Get it? OK, you just have to suspend disbelief and accept the fact that this lady was too stupid to name her own kid, that she really thought the police would know that her mansion was named Harry But, and that..oh forget it. It was really hilarious in 4th grade.

5. This old lady was taking a shower when she glanced out the bathroom window to see her pet poodle, Frisho, running down the street. Terrified she jumped out of the shower and ran out of the house, dripping wet and naked shouting 'Frisho! Frisho! Has anybody seen my Frisho??'

   Get it? Frisho sounds like 'free show'. And she was NAKED. HAHAHAHAHA

6. The Pen Fifteen Club

   Once, the 'cool' kids asked me if I wanted to be in the Pen Fifteen club. I was a dork with no friends, and I felt really special because I thought I was finally going to join a club! I said, "Really? Sure, I'd love to!" So the cool girl smiled and proceeded to write PEN15 on my hand in big letters. In permanent marker. This was in middle school. We never did end up having a club meeting either :(
   

Anybody else got some good dirty jokes from their elementary school days? Post 'em in the comments sex-ion- HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!11!!1