Wednesday Open Thread

Filed in National by on March 2, 2011

Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. How is your week so far? Mine has been interesting – at work I got a brand new laptop (yay!) while Free Radical’s laptop died.

For those of you worried about the Matrix coming true – Representative Rush Holt wins a battle in the war of man vs. machine. He beat Watson, the Jeopardy computer.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt — an actual rocket scientists, as his supporters like to tout on bumper stickers — tonight topped the IBM supercomputer Watson in a round of Jeopardy! down in Washington.

Holt — who was a five-time Jeopardy! winner more than 30 years ago and joked midday that Watson was “just a little Atari” when he made his game-show splash – tweeted almost an hour ago about the experience: “I played a full round against @IBMWatson tonight and was proud to hold my own: the final tally was Holt $8,600, Watson $6,200.”

Damn, that’s really impressive. Go scientists!

In case you were wondering, Texas governor Rick Perry’s next job won’t be in the field of geography.

During a sit down with reporters on Monday, the Texas governor incorrectly identified Juarez — located across the Rio Grande, and border, from El Paso — as “the most dangerous city in America.”

The misstatement came in the middle of an impassioned assault on the administration’s record of enforcing the border.

“How many more American citizens are going to have to die?” Perry asked.

Will Texas’s wingnutty textbook board change their textbooks to make Rick Perry look better?

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (8)

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  1. Obama2008 says:

    Federal wildlife biologists have declared the eastern cougar to be extinct

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded there are no longer any wild populations of mountain lions in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

    A large male cougar, reached for comment in White Clay Creek State Park, hissed “That’s what we want you to think” and muttered something about jack-booted thugs.

    Also, Kid Shelleen’s.

  2. heragain says:

    Seriously. If the cougar I’ve seen in this neighborhood isn’t wild, he sure wasn’t on a leash.

    It’s possible we should get most elected officials remedial help. Like soon.

  3. MJ says:

    So when did Evan Q become an “expert” on NCCo government? Apparently, Rick Jensen thinks he is.

  4. cassandra m says:

    Maybe there is a Best Buy/Boscov connection we don’t know yet.

  5. Action Alert
    DelDOT Regulations-Comments due March 5, 2011.

    http://www.deldot.gov/newsy/proposed_real_estate_regs/DelDOT_proposed_regs_real_estate.pdf

    Some thoughts being circulated:

    · First and foremost, all acquisitions and the public comment period on these regulations should be suspended until Governor Markell hires a new DelDOT Secretary. However, if they do not, then:

    · In the first sentence of the Background, DelDOT promises a transparent, consistent, cost effective, and fair plan to move forward. The proposed regulations do not support this plan in the following way:

    o Under section 3.3- Independent council/consultants/committee should review any and all hardship requests to ensure they are in line with DelDOT’s plans

    o Section 5-Procedures for Review and Approval of Advanced Acquisitions-specific guidelines/procedures should be proposed, reviewed and comments on by the public before any additional acquisitions are made. Additionally, the public should have an opportunity to comment on all transactions under section 5.3

    · Section 6- Consistency reviews do not mention or seem to adhere to the Quality of Life Act which requires counties to adopt Comprehensive Land Use Plans that are recognized by the State of Delaware

    · Section 6 does not mention the State Planning Office which should have the ability to comment on/participate in consistency reviews (Should the argument be made that DelDOT should go through the PLUS process like any other land development?)

  6. Geezer says:

    Re: Cougars in NCCO: Also, Redfire Grill in Lantana Square — especially Friday, but also on just about any night that ends in ‘y’.

  7. skippertee says:

    I saw a cougar here in New Castle county.An escaped or released one, most likely not an Eastern cougar.
    I was sober as a judge, I swear to God, when this happened.
    My wife and I have a feral cat colony living on our back porch in cat-condos.They now allow us to pet them and return our affection.
    We married late and have no children.
    I was lucky to find a woman to deal with my madness late in life.

  8. Aoine says:

    Look like the Republicans, the T-Baggerz and the Delaware 9/12 patriots have pissed off the wrong folks – according to these stats they have alienated a vast majority of potential voters

    sucks to be an endangered species:

    Delaware’s Hispanic population nearly doubled, from 37,277 in 2000 to 73,221 in 2010. Hispanics, who may be of any race, now make up 8.2 percent of the state’s population, up from 4.8 percent in 2000.

    • Asians were the state’s fastest growing racial group, up 75.6 percent from 16,259 in 2000 to 28,549 in 2010.

    With these new numbers, it also means that the Voter’s Rights Act of 1965 kicks into high gear – here come bi-ingual ballots folks
    I can imagine the squawking that will get from the wing-nuts in Sussex county…and the crazies at DP want to round them up with 5 guys in the back of a pick-up truck with shotguns…. now they want to do Hispanic outreach?? sorry charlie, that boat sailed a long time ago and you all missed it…

    Pass the pop-corn