Gullibility

Was watching the Daily Show yesterday. They were talking to some amazingly stupid people outside a Palin rally. I realize that it's the job of the Daily Show to find morons to parade, but it was still scary.

These people seemed to be completely serious when they said that if Obama was elected, he'd walk into the White House in a turban, drop the border security and we'd be overrun with islamic terrorists overnight, and America as we know it would fall immediately. They really seemed to honestly believe every piece of ridiculous garbage that's been fed to them.

Not only that, but they seem to believe that the president would even have the power to do such a thing.

The amount of misinformation that seems to be spreading underground is absolutely amazing. There is a whole underground out there that believes that neither Obama nor McCain are eligible to run for president because Obama was born in Kenya (he wasn't) and McCain was born in Panama (true, but on a US base, so that's OK).

These people are really working themselves into a froth. The sad part is, I can see what's underneath it. They're terrified of black people and won't admit it.

Airless tires

kevinnickerson recently asked about airless tires. There's a good entry about them on BikeForums today:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=481555

In short: they're OK for very casual use like tourists noodling around the beach. In road use however they have significantly higher rolling resistance, so lower speed and more work, and at reasonable speeds (18+ MPH) they start to exhibit bad handling characteristics (they squirm).

As someone on the thread said, they rely on new business because they probably don't get much repeat.

Audiobook finished

Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Thankfully, this was the 2nd of only 2 books narrated by this guy. I won't call him awful, but he's the worst I've listened to.

The book was good anyway, I just had to live with my teeth gritting every time he destroyed the pronunciation of a word.