Thursday, April 30, 2009
Now it Begins
needles ‘n’ pins
Justice David H. Souter [69] has indicated that he plans to retire at the end of the term in June ...
At least he waited til day 101.
Well, whoze it gonna be?
___ Elena Kagan
___ Hillary! and/or SlickWilly [as co-Justices]
___ Feinstein
___ Mephitic Chimp
Well, That Worked Well
smirky-smooch not so intoxicating as previously thought
Apparently Huuugo is inoculated against Unicorn Dust.
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez’s government has agreed to strengthen military ties with Iran.
...Chavez has built a close relationship with Iran, which has stepped up its presence in Venezuela and is helping to build public housing and manufacture cars, tractors and bicycles in the country.
Geek Fest!!!
non-geeks move along
Ten innovations inspired by Star Trek
1] The flip-top mobile phone
For a generation that grew up flicking imaginary communicators and saying “Beam me up, Scotty”...
I been enjoying this for years. ...jest sayin’
A Gubbmint Form For Everything
here Zubaydah—here’s a pen pencil dull crayon
Apparently it was US treatment that has Aboobie Zubaydah feelin’ down…
As authorized by the Justice Department and confirmed by the Red Cross, they wrapped a [protective] collar around his neck and smashed him over and over against a [fake] wall. They forced his body into a tiny, pitch-dark box and left him for hours [with a ***bug***]. They stripped him naked and suspended him from hooks in the ceiling. They kept him awake for days.
...The beat him because they believed he was evil.
Partly as a result of injuries he suffered while he was fighting the communists in Afghanistan, partly as a result of how those injuries were exacerbated by the CIA and partly as a result of his extended isolation, Abu Zubaydah’s mental grasp is slipping away.
Call me an insensitive skunk, but I’m not all that disturbed. I remember that this is someone who - regardless of his status in alQ—would gladly see me and mine beaten, vanquished, subjugated, forced to pay jizya, or simply beheaded with a rusty blade. And forced to wear a dam tablecloth all the while.
Today, he suffers blinding headaches and has permanent brain damage. He has an excruciating sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The slightest noise drives him nearly insane. ... Already, he cannot picture his mother’s face or recall his father’s name. Gradually, his past, like his future, eludes him.
Sounds like Alzheimer’s to me; something that happens all the time to warm, generous, kind people who have never met a CIA operative or offered to hack anyone’s head off. Sad, but not legally actionable.
Maybe hand his lawyah this:
*clicky* for bigger
Eros Total
WTF??!?!
expertise - speak up!
Is this another Green attack?
[April 26, 2009] Internet users face regular “brownouts" that will freeze their computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace, according to research to be published later this year. ... When Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist, wrote the code that transformed a private computer network into the world wide web in 1989, the internet appeared to be a limitless resource.
Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 percent a year, will start to exceed supply as early as 2010 because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry Web sites such as YouTube…Beginning in 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the Internet an "unreliable toy." ...
[Ted Ritter, a Nemertes analyst said] “For business purposes, such as delivering medical records between hospitals in real time, it’s useless,”...
Engineers are already preparing for the worst. While some are planning a lightning-fast parallel network called “the grid”, others are building “caches”, private computer stations where popular entertainments are stored on local PCs rather than sent through the global backbone.
whaaa?
[sounds like Algore’s www of scarcity]
[and where do I sign up for that “grid” thingie?]
[april 23, 2009] “The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past,” said Tim Berners-Lee, ...
Just 23 percent of the globe’s population currently uses the Internet, ... But that level is expected to rise, especially in developing nations, as mobile Internet access takes off, making it no longer necessary to use a computer to surf the Web, said Internet co-founder Vinton Cerf. ...
Robert Cailliau, who designed the Web with Berners-Lee in 1989, said having more data on the Internet, and more people with the ability to access it, will spur the development of new technology and solutions to global problems.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Moral Equivalency
≠
In all the caterwauling about the “torture” memos, the most unsophisticated, painfully naive argument is “if we don’t be mean to their guys, then they can’t/won’t be mean to our guys.” It not only indicates that they’ve never even met a JihadJohnny but that they are completely incapable of extrapolating to what lengths a human will go motivated by a religious belief. Childlike, they are stuck in a world where the Marquess of Queensberry rules always apply as they ignore the clear evidence that JihadJohnny has never heard of the Geneva Conventions, nor would he ever have any interest see any point in abiding by them. [No, the reason they don’t wear uniforms is not “they’re too poor."]
Given that we face an enemy who is as implacably inconvincible as any run- of- the- mill “Progressive” [iron, there] they blindly persist in claiming that their own discooomfort at any particular technique trumps the safety of us all. [Hell, yeah—it’s disagreeable, even distressing; ask any battle-hardened Marine. Yet there are those who know there are things beyond their own cooomfort level and who cowboy up and take care of business. To them I am grateful. And supportive.]
Ace brings teh question:
A point that never gets mentioned: Liberals try to reassure Americans that in a ticking-time-bomb scenario, of course they’d do the rough stuff required.
Um, how? Given that liberals are branding all of this unconstitutional, unamerican, and wholly illegal, how do they carve a special ticking-time-bomb exception?
How can they be so sanguine in the face of clear evidence that the ticking-time-bomb scenario is in our future? Because they are convinced that some of those nasty, limbic-impaired rednecks will be around to do the heavy lifting for ‘em. All high-fallutin’ lawfare aside. [You’d never expect dem dumb rednecks to understand all that intricate, wordy nuance, now, wouldja?]
Yanno what I think? I think we left them [the Democrats] out of power too long—they’re not accustomed to making the difficult decisions or doing the nasty jobs. They’ve been sniping from the safety of the side-lines too long. A turn at the helm is grounding and keeps one’s head out of one’s ass the clouds. Same thing as the know- it- all teens who are “smarter” than their parents or grands; they simply have no practical experience against which to measure their grandiose theories.
Now they’ve morphed into “Progressives” and they’re gleefully stuffing their grandiosity down everyone’s throats like teens given a parent-free weekend. And it’s turning out as just well as a weekend at Bernie’s…
!!!!
...It’s a shame the president doesn’t have a Simon Cowell to tell him he’s off the charts...
ToDaZed 'W∅n Kicks Redneck' Story
“games," indeed
...Obama seemed to be repressing a smile…
“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around ... let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”
“But, ... let’s not play games and pretend that the reason [for the deficit] is because of the Recovery Act."
Deficit spending is NOT he reason for the ...uh, deficit.
CBO estimates that enacting [the Economic
Recovery Act of 2008] would provide $89.3 billion in budget authority and result in outlays totaling $50.4 billion in 2009 and $88.4 billion over the 2009-2018 period— ... a loss of revenues totaling $10.9 billion
... CBO estimates that enacting [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009] would increase federal budget deficits by $185 billion over the remaining months of fiscal year 2009, by $399 billion in 2010, by $134 billion in 2011, and by $787 billion over the 2009-2019 period
Net Impact on the Deficit
2009 - $184,900,000,000
2010 - $399,000,000,000
Well, ‘ktksbai for clearing that up, ∅h Sn∅∅ty One.
Makin' Me Sick
not the virus - the WALL TO WALL SCREAMING
Look Over There!!!
The Hog Fever
The Cochinillo de Pendejadas
The Little Pig of The Apocalypse
Spittin' Mad
makin’ FDR look like a goldbrick
despite the stake the administration would drive through theHeartbeat of Americaentity formerly known as General Motors, they would ensure the United Auto Workers, loyalists to the marrow, would reap some benefit from the carrion.
GM bondholders own $27 billion: they get 10 percent of the common stock
UAW owns $10 billion of the bonds: they get 40 percent of the stock
Uncle Sam Obama kicked in $15.4 billion: gets close to 50 percent
So what’s that—Smart Math?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
ToDaZeD Random Coinkydink
tasty randomness
Yesterday I dropped by Flea only to be disgusted by find this pic:
“I like to read” ...
Today, I wander by Ace’s headlines and find:
The real question is, why has Obama been so successful? Many commentators have focused on his calm leadership style, his deliberative methods and his tight teamwork. That’s all true, but there is a larger explanation for the success so far. Obama has read the country and the political moment correctly. He understands that America in 2009 is in a very different place now.
...It’s not only that Obama has inherited a more liberal country. He has figured out how to utilize the moment. Rahm Emmanuel’s [Saul Alinsky’s] aphorism “Never let a crisis go to waste” has in fact proved a brilliant political strategy. By combining short-term stimulus spending with long-term progressive projects, Obama has confounded the opposition. [and grifted your grandchildren] ...
Just as important, Obama has not overinterpreted the moment. [wtf?!?]
Who penned that smarmy yet tiresome tongue-bath? Yep.
Fareed Zakaria
Just a bit of random randomness, I see… Nothing to it, you raaacist, limbic-damaged rednecks.
When Only the Best in Formulaic Puerility Will Do
That’ll do.
Monday - Tiger Woods
Tuesday - Toby Keith
Wednesday - Usher
Friday - Forest Whitaker“Celebrities used to be considered vacuous people who didn’t know anything,” says [ Brookings Institution Vice President Darrell West,]. “And I think in response to that, the celebrities who are getting involved politically are actually boning up on the issues and developing expertise.” ... “Obama seems more open to using celebrities for policy formulation and getting ideas.”
“Used to be??!?!?” Oh dear heavens! “expertise??!?!?” Next you’ll tell me actors aren’t animals. [oh no? have you ever eaten with one?]
“Getting ideas ... policy formulation” Swell. The Tards leading ∏eh Mong∅.
...But West sees a shift in how this president regards America’s greatest social export.
“I think he understands that celebrities have gone mainstream,” says West. “They are no longer radioactive and there is no need to avoid them. America has become a celebrity culture.”
*bangs head on wall*
Celebrities
Monday, April 27, 2009
ToDaZeD Stamping Out Burning Ducks
Life in The Country™
This morning at about 6am, someone had a very, very bad day. He and his car made this sculpture of our east gate.
And this is what seems to have taken the brunt of the hit. This was the gate anchor post made of 8” well casing [used] sunk 3 feet into the ground into a well-tamped concrete base. Ripped that puppy clean outta the ground and it ended up about 15 feet away from it’s original position. Un-dented. Barely scraped.
And no skid-marks on the highway. yikes. Considering the time and the lack of traffic, he musta hit this going at least 55-60.
We were lucky, indeed. The cows were all away on other pasture pending the rebuilding of our highway fenceline. [yes - the entire thing. It was about 50 years old, so it didn’t owe us anything] The Mister and various friends have been working on that project for about a month, now, so there were rounds of modulated cussin’ at the mess made of their fresh-stretched fence. They were due to finish at the other end this week. The cows were due to move back to this pasture today.
*whew*
Even the damfool grape-herdin’ neighbor was lucky. His super-kewl, high-dollar, shiny black cyclone deer fence was barely stretched. If that car hadn’t been slowed by that gate anchor post, he’d have lost a lot of fence, some pricey decorative tree roses and a well head.
Something rarely considered when an accident like this happens: The Mess. The emergency responders did a damfine job of cleaning up—even left the license plate behind *thanQ!*—still, Lovely Daughter the Elder and I spent a couple of hours gathering glass shards, bits of shattered plastic and dashboard junk away from the fence so we could scrape the area [about 500 ft2] with the skid-steer to get the glass out of the pasture while the boys were knocking the cement off the post and re-setting it. Took two of ‘em to move the damtning. [She remarked that it’s like when you drop an egg. You know the volume of the spilled matter isn’t really that much—it just seems like a gallon of egg. Same with the busted glass from one car.]
I feel for the poor bassturd—I’m not even sure if he’s still alive. [no police report yet] But piecing together clues from his dashboard litter, it is most likely he’s an illegal with no insurance. We’ll soon see.
Life Is Grand.
No. I Will NOT "Forgive You"
No. I Will NOT “Forgive You”
soul-numbing stupid from our “betters"
Tackling the ethics of eating
It was that headline right there that actually made me clicky, almost against my will, on this piece of buffoonish flummery.
There was a time, not so long ago, when eating in an environmentally, ethically conscious way was a drab business—brown and beige food, with a few wilted organic vegetables relegated to a woebegone produce bin at the grocery store.
But these days, everything is coming up green and, forgive us, groovy.
Oh dear heavens above—did ya miss that whole “back to the farms” bit of your counter-kulchah movement?!? The part where the soon-to-be Dried Up Earthmothers were cute-but-furry hippie chicks teaching you how to make comuuuuunity urban gardens and “Eat Small, Live Small, Think Small”?
Buying delicious, locally and humanely raised food is the new righteous way to save your health and your planet.
“Righteous”??!? rly? Someone Anyone still uses that word?
...items such as grass-fed beef hot dogs ... filtered water ...canvas bags decorated by the students at a nearby elementary school… the slushy is “ginger tonic"
wait. “ginger tonic squishys”??? Mmmm.....
Diet for a Small Planet ...ethical food… as sustainable living turns chic, the choices for living the simple life become anything but. Should you wash your dishes by hand, or does the dishwasher use less water? Drive to the farmers market or save gas and make do with what’s in the closest supermarket? Must you become a vegetarian?
It’s enough to drive bike one to drink!!
...and the Iron Quotient Quote:
"It’s not like we all have to hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ together,"
Then the underlying issue emerges: [all G-d’s chillin got issues: some just handle ‘em ]
Is it OK to buy that organic peach in January if it comes from Chile, or is the fuel used to transport it too costly to the planet? What about the lives of the animals killed for food? Or those of the people who work in slaughterhouses or pick strawberries? When words like “sustainable” are marketing tools, how can a consumer figure out what to do? And can a family on a budget afford to eat sustainably?
“We feel so out of control of everything that’s around us,” says Kate Heyhoe… “Being green is something we can impact."
Lookie here, Binky. You aren’t supposed to be “in control of everything around you.” No human ever has been nor ever will be. [therapeutic intervention: “Get Over It!"] Just consider how out of control you might feel if Algore gets his way and we all end up living in mud huts with no electricity, at the mercy of the weather cliiimate, growing our own “veggies” with stone tools, hunting—and being hunted by—our dinners. Now that’s some “out of control” fer ya.
ToDaZeD *California facepalm*
you, too, MN… GA… Mass...MD...
So. You’re a United States Representative—all elected and everything. And you see an issue you believe *someone* really ought to do *something* about. Being, as you are, a fully-fledged member the second most powerful body in the world, what do ya do?
Yep. Ya go out and stand around with signs until someone is forced to remove your fat ignorant crazy ass to the pokey. uh huh.
Five members of Congress and three activists were arrested on civil disobedience charges in front of the Sudanese Embassy on Monday for protesting “crimes against humanity” in Darfur.
The congress members crossed a yellow police tape line and refused to leave the largely peaceful demonstration [wait… weren’t the *nation-wide* TEA Parties *completely* peaceful? Must be a redneck thang...] after calling on Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir to reinstate 16 nongovernmental aid organizations that he expelled or shut down last month in response to the International Criminal Court issuing a warrant for his arrest.
...Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.)—were handcuffed by Secret Service officers after crossing the tape and taken to jail by local police officers. Each paid a $100 fine and was released within several hours.
...Woolsey said in an interview that it “was the right time to show her commitment and dedication” by joining the protest.
“I hope that is very clear to our administration and to international communities that violence in Darfur must end,"
Way to be effective, Ninnyhammers.
*wanders off mumbling something about “teats on a boar"*
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{/if}
