It’s time to invest… in burritos and tacos. Gourmet burritos and tacos are going to be the first big IPO of 2006. I have reliable information from my insider that Chipotle is very, very near it’s IPO (as proof by yahoo! finance). I’ve been hearing this for about a year now but it’s finally about to happen. It’s my opinion (so not to get anyone in trouble) that the shares will start around the $22 to $25 dollar range and will be available in the next few weeks. Employees bought stock this week for a discount which mean the IPO isn’t far behind.
If you don’t know what Chipotle is… you must live in Oklahoma. I’m addicted. I make the 5 hour round trip drive from OKC to the nearest Chipotle in DFW at least 2 times a month. So I pay about $56 dollars for a burrito. But my mouth and my tummy love me for it.

note: 01-26-06 – in the few days since i wrote this, CNBC reports the estimated value has jumped from the $20 – $25 mark to the $35 to $40 mark. The IPO is happening in about an hour… 10:15. I’m so excited.

I just saw a link to this on Wonkette. A nice collection of pictures of the idiotic signs outside of churches. My fav is “Go Bush Go Priase the Lord Pass the Ammo”– it warms the heart.

If you haven’t read the transcript of Al Gore’s speech on Monday, you really should. At last, someone explains, eloquently and forcefully, everything that’s wrong about the Bush Administration’s shameless disregard for the rule of law. Drawing on examples from the NSA wiretapping scandal, from Guantanamo and Abu Graib, from the practice of extraordinary rendition, and even from Vietnam, it explains why the Adminstration’s preposterous assumption of all powers under the rubric of “war powers” is a threat to our democracy itself.

The problem of course, is that no-one will hear the message. It’s a shame it can’t be condensed to a simple message that people will actually hear and understand, rather than having to read a 10-page transcript of a speech given to a select audience, but the fact remains that this is a complex issue that doesn’t submit easily to the soundbite. The best passage I could find that comes close is in fact a quote from a Yale professor:

“If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution.”

but I fear the only soundbite that will emerge is the following:

This effort to rework America’s carefully balanced constitutional design into a lopsided structure dominated by an all-powerful executive branch, with a subservient Congress and subservient judiciary, is ironically accompanied by an effort by the same administration to rework America’s foreign policy from one that is based primarily on U.S. moral authority into one that is based on a misguided and self-defeating effort to establish a form of dominance in the world.

which generated applause during the speech (according to the transcript), but devoid of context I’m certain will be reproduced in the right-wing blogs with the caption “Why does Al Gore hate America?”

To the Democrats: more of this please, but next time, let’s package it for TV, ok?

Hey there posters. There’s a new version of WordPress out with some big improvements, especially around user levels/role, speed and usability. David and I will be evaluating and installing it in the next few weeks. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Now that NASA’s Stardust space craft has returned safely to Earth with its treasure — cometary and instellar particles — scientists hope these particles will provide them with clues about the nature of the universe from a long, long… long time ago. Say, 4 billion years? Around the time the universe was apparently created.

These particles (and maybe some other stuff, I wonder) were caught in aerogel, a porous material that is mostly air. The interesting particles are believed to be approximately a tenth the diameter of a human hair and located somewhere in the 10×10-centimeter slab of aerogel. Searching for the interesting bits is apparently going to be like “searching for 45 ants in an entire football field, one 5-cm by 5-cm (2-inch by 2-inch) square at a time.”

Your mission —should they choose to accept you — is to download graphic representations, called focus movies, of the aerogel and examine them for particles.

You can learn more about the haystack and the exceptionally exotic needles on Stardust@Home, where you can also apply now for the search that will begin in mid-February. (The long-running search for significant radio signals from space, SETI@Home, provided inspiration for this new search for particles, but this work requires active humanoid participation.) The project is predicted to complete in October.

I can’t think of a better reason to go to LA.

Yesterday’s email included the contract for my volunteer position as Euro-editor for this year’s BlogHer. I have a few questions on the details, but esentially, I’ll be trying to publish the best blogging from and about Europe to the BlogHer site during the lead up to the conference in San Jose, California, in June. BlogHer focuses on women, of course, but hello, guys, I did ask about what the editorial policy is around including Y chromosomes in my selections. Stand by on that.

In exchange for my hard work (like I couldn’t use some of my squandered web hours contributing?) I’ll get the mighty muscle of BlogHer promoting my own site, Nerd’s Eye View. I’ve been having something of an identity crisis around the site. Note the remodel! Note the advertising! Note the participation in Performancing discussions on how to monitize your blog. (Bleh. There’s that word again. Monitize. Bleh.) I’m not going to sell a billion copies of my book, Baked Insanity, without some marketing, right? If I want to write less “To BLAH, click the BLAH and then, click BLAH” and more stories about noisy elk, I’m gonna have to get my writing in front of more eyeballs. Welcome to the era of shameless self-promotion.

But wait there’s more. It’s not just about I Me Me My. There’s some pretty fine writing out there about European issues that warrants sharing. You may be shocked to learn that I am anti-Americentric thinking. It’s true! I engage in my share of Eurobashing, but not more than I engage in my share of Ameribashing. Indulge me while I get up on a soapbox for just a minute and rattle on about how exposure and understanding of other cultures and ideas makes us not just better neighbors, but better people. Eh, you don’t need to hear this. You know. I’ll step down now.

Anyhow, I could use your help. I’m looking for first rate Euro-bloggers. I have plenty of good ex-pat sites bookmarked. There’s no shortage of stories about language lessons or the crazy local phone company or the significance of pork. You get the picture. There’s also plenty of primo travel stuff out there, plus, that’s a whole ‘nother category for BlogHer. That’s what I’m NOT looking for.

I’m looking for sites about European issues. I want the Ameriblog and The Daily Kos of Europe. I’ve got some feeds already, but I’d rather get dupes than miss something, so I’m not going to list them. I’m way a lefty but know thy enemy, yes? I’m also looking for photostreams, podcasts, and any other bloggy stuff that offers quality insight on European issues. I’m primarily looking for work by women – hey, it’s BlogHER, not BlogHIM – but I’ll certainly look at other stuff. English language only. Of course there’s great stuff in all European languages, but I lack the skill to evaluate it. Unless it’s visual, then, okay, bring it.

That’s more than enough about me and my needs. You and your recommnedations, please? In the comments (or here on Nerd’s Eye View. Thanks loads for helping me out in this upcoming bloggy adventure.

Note: Cross posted a few places. Sorry for dupes in your RSS readers.

It’s too late to get the season discount, but you really ought to get yourself to at least one of Black Box Opera’s shows. I am a total opera philistine, but when I heard these folks sing, well, I GET IT. Plus, opera in such a small space really gives you an amazing sense of the power of these voices. The first show is at the end of January. There’s more info here.

Letterman interviewed Bill O’Reilly last night on his show, and it was fun to watch him dismiss as stupid most of O’Reilly’s points, and then sum the whole thing up with the statement, “I have the feeling that 60% of what you say is crap.”

Of course, it’s still a little distressing that only comedians are willing to take any of these knuckleheads to task, but I guess it’s better than no one doing it.

In case you have missed the baby panda craze, don’t. The fricking bear is so cute you’ll go into instant, but highly pleasurable, sugar shock.

The New York Times, though it can no longer be counted upon for hard news delivered the year it broke, does have an entertaining story on the “science of cute” that includes this interesting tidbit:

Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round ears, floppy limbs and a side-to-side, teeter-totter gait, among many others.

I don’t want to steal any panda thunder… but that’s a pretty good description of yours truly!