Thursday, June 30, 2011

Two Parties

I brought up the question of abortion and as usual the usual pointless discussion ensued. A couple of my conservative friends chimed in and all they could talk about is philosophy and morality. I, being a more practical sort due to my engineering training, would prefer to talk policing. Or if you will: what can government really do (besides being a criminal organization I mean)?

I'm going to start here with my own bit of philosophy. Political Philosophy.

There are two parties in America today. Those that trust government and those that don't. The trusters are all the Ds and half the Rs.

And then there are the rest of us.
Yeah. The R trusters are different. "We only trust government for some things. Far fewer things than the Ds - that is for sure." Forgetting the problem of mission creep. How did fighting drugs morph into peeing into a bottle for a job? One of those unexpected mysteries of life to be sure.

Back to the morality question.
The morality is obvious. (In rich countries with plenty of food anyway).

What is also obvious is that policing such a ban will get very ugly.
I can't wait to see what the Pregnancy Enforcement Administration (PEA) will look like. It will be staffed with PEA brains to be sure. But will they require women to pee in a bottle weekly for the PEA? The Drug War precedent says yes. I'm not totally against such a move. It will be a great libertarian recruiting tool.
There is only one (so far) Pro-Life Organization I have found that says it is not the business of government to change hearts and minds on this subject. It is theirs:

Rockford Pro Life
I'm hoping this attitude will catch on.

Addressed to my pro life friends:
The government is barely able to keep order on the streets. And you want them to police the most intimate (available) part's of your or your mate's and daughter's anatomy?

Are you nuts?
Well not nuts exactly. It is a mental illness though. Faith in Government.

Again to my Pro-Government friends:
I worry about fellers like you. You have the best of intentions. And then the Democrats get in and use every power you have given government against you.

Idiots.

Or perhaps I should rephrase that. Government lovers. There is some evidence it is a genetic defect. Currently uncurable. My condolences.
And a parting thought. But first a little background. I had been discussing with one of my pro life friends the escalation of the Drug War to the point that SWAT Teams are going after defaulters on student loans. My friend said it was not about vaginas and vagina police (people who believe in government seem to have very limited imaginations).
Of course you are right my friend. It is not about vaginas. But if you get your way it will be.

The scene of the crime will need to be searched extensively by those forensically trained and if not the trained then who ever is available. Murder is a very serious crime and the evidence in this case is the body of the perpetrator. Police will at least need to watch the evidence being gathered to insure the chain of custody. This is some serious s***. You don't stint on murder investigations. Especially with 100 million potential criminals to keep an eye on.

And what happens when police go into the crime prevention mode?

What happens if the woman decides not to eat right and there is nothing where there was once something. There will need to be a law. And watchers. Perhaps a special badge for pregnant women so we can all be our sister's and children's keepers.

===

Are you forgetting what the Drug War has done for SWAT teams? Watch those student loans buddy. You don't want the 3 AM knock followed by the flash bang grenades and possible accidental discharge of automatic weapons just because your student loans are not up to date.
The Government starts with a mission and then the mission creeps. And pretty soon the power you gave to government to protect you is being used against you. Best to give them as little power as possible. The same attitude you would have towards any Criminal Enterprise.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Abortion Question Again

Ah. Yes. Abortion Prohibition. The stupidest idea Conservatives have had since they joined with Progressives to bring us Alcohol Prohibition.

Do you really want government to be concerned with the vaginas of your women? No. Of course not. It is the vaginas of "other women" that need policing.

Idiots.

What happens when Bill Clinton is in charge of the Vagina Patrol? If we are lucky all he will want is pictures. Just imagine what such an organization would be like if it was corrupt. And it will be. It will be.

Daley: Obama Policies ‘indefensible’

I try to keep up. Really I do. But I missed Bill Daley, White House Chief of Staff, basically saying that the White House was clueless on economics. This report was from 17 June.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley took heat from business executives Thursday for the Obama administration’s regulatory expansions. Daley also said he didn’t have any good answers for some of what President Obama is doing and expressed frustration about the “bureaucratic stuff that’s hard to defend.”

“Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible,” Daley said at a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) meeting.

Daley couldn’t answer basic questions and continually faced criticism from the executives in the room. The business leaders even applauded each other’s criticism of the administration. “At one point, the room erupted in applause when Massachusetts utility executive Doug Starrett, his voice shaking with emotion, accused the administration of blocking construction on one of his facilities to protect fish, saying government ‘throws sand into the gears of progress,’” wrote Peter Wallsten and Jia Lynn Yang in the Washington Post.
You have to read the whole thing. It is scathing. And I would not have known a thing about it had I not visited Ulsterman for updates.
When Daley, as the current Obama White House Chief of Staff came out publicly and declared there were policies initiated by the administration that were indefensible, that was just stunning. That story is being so under-reported. The White House Chief of Staff is calling President Obama indefensible. That is exactly what that was. And has there been any retraction? No. Did the president demand clarification? No. Daley said it and Daley was left untouched. It was an incredible power play on his part, the implications of which I don’t know at this point, but I do intend to find out.
Yeah. It was under reported. So I decided to have a look around and report it. We shall see if the story gets legs. Because right now it doesn't have any.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Cost Of “free” Is Your Freedom


As you can see from the above screen capture, Eric of Classical Values (thanks for the heads up from Classical Values commenter Keith_Indy) has devised a new catch phrase.

The cost of “free” is your freedom.


Pass it on.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Prohibition Blues



Jorma Kaukonen. Of Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, and Jefferson Starship Fame

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

Those of you of a certain age (what age is that?) will recall that ancient call. But for the rest of us that may become a reality thanks to a new government program. And what will that program do? It will let the frequency of the grid wander to better accommodate intermittent sources of power like solar and wind. And why is solar intermittent you ask? Clouds. Solar can go from full power to low power and back to full power with the passing of a cloud. And depending on wind speed that can happen rather quickly. With that going on it is tougher to keep the frequency constant. And keeping the frequency within one cycle of the 5,184,000 cycles that are supposed to happen in 24 hours
requires co-ordination.

Regulation of power system frequency for timekeeping accuracy was not commonplace until after 1926 and the invention of the electric clock driven by a synchronous motor. Network operators will regulate the daily average frequency so that clocks stay within a few seconds of correct time. In practice the nominal frequency is raised or lowered by a specific percentage to maintain synchronization. Over the course of a day, the average frequency is maintained at the nominal value within a few hundred parts per million.
Think of the grid as a huge rotating machine with what amounts to electrical "shafts" between every generator and load. If the speed of the generator and load differ greatly the shaft will break.
The primary reason for accurate frequency control is to allow the flow of alternating current power from multiple generators through the network to be controlled. The trend in system frequency is a measure of mismatch between demand and generation, and so is a necessary parameter for load control in interconnected systems.

Frequency of the system will vary as load and generation change.
So frequency will go up or down depending on supply and demand. A drop in supply (increase in demand) causes the frequency to go down. An increase in supply (decrease in demand) causes the frequency to go up. On an instantaneous basis this is held quite close to keep out of phase current (caused by generators and loads at different frequencies) to a minimum. Phase current requires bigger wires and transformers but delivers no power to the load. Expense without revenue. This is bad for business.

The frequency is generally changed (synchronized) at night when loads are lowest so the amount of phase current is minimized. Obviously it is cheaper and requires less co-ordination to let things drift a little. But when it comes to time a little means a lot. A five minute a month drift will put you off by an hour in a year. (that hour a year is about .01% accuracy). To keep it to 6 minutes a year requires that the grid average frequency be .001% accurate.

What kind of devices will this change affect?
A yearlong experiment with the electric grid may make plug-in clocks and devices like coffeemakers with programmable timers run up to 20 minutes fast.

The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing a change that has the potential to disrupt electric clocks in schools, hospitals and other institutions, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press. It may also mess with the timing of traffic lights, security systems, sprinklers and some personal computer software and hardware.
The biggest disruption will be in traffic flow control. What happens when you end rush hour traffic control twenty minutes early? Well, the electric power guys will be saving money and those stuck in traffic will be losing it.

With everything so interconnected seemingly insignificant changes in one part of the system can have huge effects in other parts of the system. For instance what about getting your alarm clock wake up at the right time to get to work on time? If you use an alarm clock like this one, Sony ICF-C318 Automatic Time Set Clock Radio with Dual Alarm you will be resetting your clock frequently despite the fact that the clock automatically adjusts for daylight savings time. So how do you get the right time? There is your computer or cell phone of course. But if you want something on your wall I like this clock: La Crosse Technology WT-3102B 10-Inch Atomic Analog Clock. It is synchronized to WWVB which is the time standard for North America (good to plus or minus one second or better - depending on some technical details). And what do you know? The frequency it broadcasts at (60,000 Hz) is exactly 1,000 times the desired North American line frequency to within one part in a thousand billion or better. Which is one second in about 30,000 years. Close enough for most work. Our most accurate atomic clocks are about a million times better - currently. And scientists and engineers are working constantly to improve the clocks. In fact of all the fundamental quantities we can measure - length, mass, time - time is the quantity we can measure most accurately although it is the most ephemeral.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Prescription Psychedelics

The idea itself goes a way back in psychedelic history when LSD was used by Dr Humphry Osmond to treat alcoholism. And alcoholism is a symptom of PTSD. Sometimes. Sometimes it is a symptom of something else. In any case the treatment of PTSD with psychedelics is gaining ground.

Let's say an abuse-ridden childhood has left you with PTSD that sparks panic whenever you hear shouts, even on TV. Or let's say a bad accident has saddled you with crippling anxiety and chronic pain. Now let's say that you could ease -- or even cure -- these woes with prescription psiloscybin.

Prescription ecstasy. Prescription LSD.

If a growing phalanx of scientists get their way, those prescriptions could be yours within 10 years. Research into the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs is booming. An April conference on the subject at Great Britain's University of Kent featured lectures on such topics as "Ketamine Psychotherapy" and "Ayahuasca in the Contemporary World."

Leading this wave is the Boston-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), whose executive director Rick Doblin spoke at that conference. MAPS researchers have spent 15 years conducting international clinical trials whose results indicate that LSD and psilocybin counteract depression and anxiety and are effective pain-management tools while MDMA (ecstasy) conquers fear. Just this month, the Israeli Ministry of Health approved a new MAPS study using MDMA to treat PTSD.
It just frosts me that the War On Drugs has stymied this research for at least 3 decades. I think of all the Veterans this could have helped. Not to mention victims of child abuse.

When the Drug War goes down it is going to take a LOT of smug *holes down with it. You know, the "save the children and f* the adults crowd". If only they went after child abuse with the same vigor they went after drugs we wouldn't need a Drug War. Of course I would council that the Government stay out of it all and let the people solve their own problems. But that would make me a radical. A George Washington or perhaps Thomas Jefferson type. Of course George had to deal with a Whiskey Rebellion. So maybe government interference with the use of mind altering drugs is not exactly new. Although the government of that time was smart enough to avoid banning alcohol altogether. That effort was saved for a later band of geniuses who appear to be informing the current band of geniuses on the usefulness of Drug Prohibition.

More Israeli research into PTSD: PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Friday, June 24, 2011

Marijuana Is Not A Federal Job

Marijuana is not a Federal job says Barney Frank and Ron Paul. Pot prohibition, like alcohol prohibition, is a job for the States.

Marijuana laws should be set at the state, not federal, level, Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank argued in a bill they introduced Thursday.

The goal of the bill, HR 2306, is not to legalize marijuana but to remove it from the list of federally controlled substances while allowing states to decide how they will regulate it.

"I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana. Neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco," said Frank (D-Mass.). "But in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.

"Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom," he added.
My sources tell me that the aids to Republican Congress Critters are generally in favor of the bill and similar efforts. The Critters? Not so much. That will change in time.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Drug War – It Is Not Just For Dopers Anymore

The Drug War is not just a threat to dopers. It is a threat to gun rights as well. As one commenter puts it.

...this was a well executed plan to overturn the 2nd amendment and the DoJ lost control of the narrative.
Yes. And they are using Drug Prohibition as a backdrop.

They are using the Drug War against Gun Rights. And this is not the first time. Care to look into Alcohol Prohibition and its effects on gun rights? You would think some one with a knowledge of history would notice. You would be wrong. Mostly.

This was an attempt to use the Drug War against Gun Owners.

The Drug War – It Is Not Just For Dopers Anymore

Palin Uncancels Bus Tour

Yesterday I read with dismay reports that the Palin bus tour was in hiatus. Dang I thought to myself. This is going to play havoc with my prediction of a Juy 4th announcement by Palin that she is running. I could already taste the crow.

Palin's extended hiatus could mean that in spite of her readily apparent "fire in the belly," her family has persuaded her not to further pursue the presidency. Alternatively, it could indicate just the opposite -- that she is plotting her next move and wants to ensure that it is well thought-out -- and that she retains the element of surprise. Indeed, the problem with assessing how Palin's movements figure into her 2012 calculus is that she remains one of the most unpredictable political figures in America -- even to her most trusted aides.

There may be a logical hook for Palin to reassert herself onto the presidential stage: A documentary extolling her record in Alaska, "The Undefeated," is set to premiere in Iowa and other early voting states before its July 15 nationwide release.
All very well and good. Except it isn't so.
Imagine our surprise when reading media reports today that the “One Nation Tour” has been cancelled. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Oh, wait, that’s because it hasn’t been cancelled. (Good ol’ media… you never cease to amaze!)

As I said myself at the end of the east coast leg of the tour, the summer is long, and I’m looking forward to hitting the open road again. The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.

I wouldn’t think it to be such a slow news day that, what with numerous wars and serious economic woes concerning Americans, a bus is driving news stories today. The next leg of the tour continues when the time comes. In the meantime, no one should jump to conclusions – certainly not the media with their long track record of getting things wrong or just making things up.

- Sarah Palin
Very clever Mrs. Palin. The tour is on hiatus but it is not permanent. My July 4th prediction is looking iffy though. Does salt make crow taste better?

And is she going to do an open double cross on the media by mocking them for paying too much attention to her and then when they slack off doing something front page worthy? Another case of Hacksaw Bow coming up?

We Have A Smart President

The President is finally speaking sense:

“The proposition that the government is always right is manifested either in corruption or benefits to ‘preferred’ companies,” he said.

“My choice is different. The… economy ought to be dominated by private businesses and private investors. The government must protect the choice and property of those who willingly risk their money and reputation.”

[He] said that the country must begin to attack the problem immediately to avoid “the point of no return from the (economic) models that are moving the country backwards.”

“Corruption, hostility to investment, excessive government role in the economy and the excessive centralization of power are the taxes on the future that we must and will scrap,” he said.
Of course the "we" who have this smart President is the collective "we" (heh). Because it is the President of Russia.

H/T Dave of Classical Values. Well more than a hat tip actually. I practically stole the whole thing from him. But it was a really good idea. And I had to give it my own twist.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Global Warming Kills Children

Yes. Global Warming is Killing Children.

Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their daughter and her toddler brother before killing themselves.

Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.

[snip]

[the] parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police.
Hypocrites. Didn't they realize that the heat from burning gunpowder contributes to global warming? Too bad for the kid though. Usually with these kinds of situations the "cause" is irrelevant. If they hadn't latched on to global warming flying saucer people might have sufficed.

Babies Make Us Rich

Let us think this through. It will require some math. Like dealing with the concepts "more" and "less". Let us begin.

The number of smart people (people who can design chemical plants or multi-billion transistor chips) is pretty much dependent on total population. The bigger the total population the more smart people (more or less).

We have a system (industrialization) for multiplying the results that smart people can get. We don't just get a hundred very good swords. We get a hundred million of them.

Given the industrial system - the bigger the population it can support, the faster it advances.

Which brings me to a smaller point. The way out of our current mess (besides drastically trimming government) is to invent more stuff.

Guns And The Drug War

With Project Gunwalker so much in the news these days it is rather surprising to me that the 2nd Amendment Community is not up in arms (heh) about the Drug War. The biggest threat to gun ownership (at least according to those who initiated the Gunwalker Project) is the Drug War. And yet the silence from the gun rights community is deafening.


Here is a bit Posted by Ann Barnhardt - June 17, AD 2011 9:54 AM MST where the author tiptoes around the issue.

Gunwalker never, ever had ANYTHING to do with drug enforcement or stopping the cartels. NOTHING. The reason that the Obama regime, which we all know is a treasonous Marxist-totalitarian enemy force, executed the Gunwalker program was to create optics (lots of dead Mexican civilians, dead Mexican law enforcement, dead Mexican military and dead Americans) that they could then use to justify the elimination of the Second Amendment via the U.N., specifically the Small Arms Treaty. ATF insiders have reported that the Obama regime was "giddy" that Mexicans were being killed by Gunwalker firearms. This is because these people are Marxists, and as I have said here repeatedly, Marxists lie and murder human beings as policy. Marxists believe that human life has no intrinsic value and that human beings are object pawns that can be used and exterminated without compunction in order to further their own goals and increase their own power. In this case, the goal is to disarm the people of the United States so that the Marxist-Obamaist regime can seize totalitarian, dictatorial power, overthrow the Constitution, and establish a global power matrix. This disarmament will be achieved (or so they think) by using the meme of American omni-culpability. In other words, everything is OUR FAULT.

"See? These Mexicans are dead because of weapons sourced in the U.S. If it weren't for the U.S. and the Second Amendment, none of this would have happened."

Yeah, except the Obama regime specifically handed the weapons in question to the Mexican cartels, and then explicitly FORBADE the ATF agents from interdicting them.
Implicitly she recognizes the threat. Explicitly? Not a fookin word.

Why? I suppose it is because beating up dopers is such a popular sport in America. And why not? Currently Jews are out of season.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Bernie Madoff Is In Charge



H/T Vanderleun

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Trouble With China

The AEI Outlook Series takes a look at China and sees a few bumps in the road. Here are the main points:

China is facing destabilizing inflation; capital has flowed into China must faster than it has flowed out, in part because Chinese residents are prohibited from investing abroad.

China's reported inflation rate on consumer goods rose to 5.4 percent in March, but its implied inflation rate is 8.4 percent--a large discrepancy suggesting that China is underreporting its inflation rate.

Chinese authorities have taken some steps to lower inflation, but they may be delaying more drastic measures to avoid instability before the 2012 transfer of leadership.

China has the second-largest economy in the world--accounting for one-third of global growth in 2010--so a Chinese hard landing would be very damaging to the global economy.
Yes. Trouble in China would be very damaging to the world economy. But it would also damage China.

The problems for China are similar to those of Japan. An economic model that works in an economy that needs rapid development no longer works in an economy that needs a broad development of internal services.
On a more fundamental level, China is tracking what one might call the Asian "work, save, and invest" model that proved so unsuccessful for Japan after its economic boom period in the 1970s and 1980s. During those decades, its financial sector failed to develop, and Japanese citizens were discouraged from investing abroad. Inside Japan, investment-allocation decisions were made largely by government agencies that recycled household savings deposited in Japan's Postal Saving System and its sheltered banks. As a result, Japan's financial sector developed far more slowly than its production sector. Saving was very high, as in China today, so there was a huge supply of funds for the government to allocate inside Japan. The government agencies favored investment in Japanese manufacturing facilities, especially those in the export sector.

As Japanese citizens grew wealthier, by the 1980s they looked for ways to store and enhance the wealth they were accumulating as a result of their hard work. They invested in the Japanese stock market and even more vigorously in Japanese real estate. In the late 1980s, the Japanese real estate bubble grew so large that the emperor's palace in central Tokyo was said to be worth more than the state of California. Of course, the bubble burst a year later, and Japan entered a lost decade that included wealth losses equal to nearly three years of national income followed by persistent deflation and generally stagnant growth. These are problems that persist to this day in Japan, which sadly has a whole new set of problems from its recent tragic earthquake and related nuclear disaster.

And Japan's current problems are huge.
Japan Posts Second Biggest Trade Deficit In History

For those who may not have noticed it, the headline says "deficit" and pertains to Japan: once upon a time a booming export economy. The reason: the ongoing collapse in export trade, after May exports dropped by 10.3% from a year ago, and just better than April severe economic contraction of 12.4%. Consensus was for an 8.4% decline. The net result was a monthly deficit of 853.7 billion yen, or $10.7 billion, the second biggest inverse surplus ever. And just like in Europe, where things are going to go from insolvent to perfectly solvent any minute now... just not yet... so in Japan the economic renaissance which will cause the economy to surge (unclear how: no new monetary stimulus, and the recently announced fiscal stimulus of Y500 billion in new loans will do precisely nothing to boost anything except for some corrupt bureaucrats Swiss bank accounts) is coming any minute.... just not yet. Bloomberg says: "Shortages of power and parts have disrupted production and slowed overseas sales, prompting Japanese companies including Honda Motor Co. to forecast weaker earnings. Higher unemployment in the U.S. and weakening demand in Asia indicate Japan won’t be able to rely on global demand to pull itself out of a slump caused by the quake." And the understatement of the weekend comes from BNP economist Azusa Kato: "The state of the global economy is a little worrying. Both the U.S. and Europe aren’t doing that great and emerging economies are also tightening at an incredible pace, increasing uncertainty."
"Increasing uncertainty", is econo speak for: "Things are going from bad to worse."

There is the little problem of radiation safety in agricultural exports.
#Radioactive Tea in France: Shizuoka Governor Tells France Tea Is Safe, "No Problem"

Besides, the tea leaves may not be from Shizuoka anyway, says his government.

The Oxford PhD (in comparative economic history) governor of Shizuoka strikes again, responding to the news that the French authorities confiscated the radioactive tea from Shizuoka Prefecture at the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris for the high radioactive cesium count (1038 becquerels per kilogram), more than twice the safety limit for the EU. (I'm rather surprised that it's that high in the EU.)
The follies going on in the treatment of the nuclear disaster in Japan are so numerous, depressing, and foreseeable that I have done nothing for over a month in cataloging them.

Here are two blogs that will help a LOT if you want to keep up:

ex-SKF

Radiation Safety Philippines

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Bob Pease Killed In Car Accident

Legendary analog electronics guru Bob Pease has died in a car accident at age 70. Bob and I exchanged e-mails from time to time. One long exchange was on the proper way to implement a PID control loop in software.

He will be greatly missed. RIP Bob.

Bob's latest column (there will be a few more). What’s All This Solo Hiking Stuff, Anyhow?

Monday, June 20, 2011

I Just Learned A New Word



Vajazzled


Court Ordered Suicide

The title is a little extreme. But if you read the guy's long suicide note you might come to a different conclusion. Here is an excerpt to give you the flavor:

When then a man is arrested for domestic violence, one of two things can happen. If they are only dating and have separate apartments, then he can head home. But if they are living together, then this fellow has a real problem. Bail conditions and then a possible protective or restraining order prevent him from being with her. So he needs to find a new place to live, at least until the charges are resolved. The King of his Castle is no longer allowed into his castle. A feminist name Pence who wrote that was absolutely giddy at that outcome. So he can get his own place if he has enough money. Or he can move in with his mother, his sister or another relative. He might have a girl friend who would let him stay with her. And if none of this is possible, well then I guess he is sleeping in his car down by the river.

If he has minor children, money will soon turn into an issue. Most men I know do not mind paying child support. They want their kids to have food on their plates, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. But it does stress that man's finances. Child support is usually 33% of the man's gross income. Withholding for taxes, social security and health insurance can range up to 28% of his gross paycheck. So a man making $500 a week gross has only $825 monthly left over after withholding and child support. That is not enough money for an apartment here in Central Massachusetts. That does not include other expenses like heating, electric, gas, groceries, telephone, cable, car payment and car insurance. So he is in a financial hole. Estimates of homeless men run 82% to 94%. I am going to round that down to 80%.

After the King has left his castle, his wife runs into a problem. She was use to getting his whole paycheck for the household. Now she get a third for child support. Figure they both work and made the same money, her budget went from 100% down to 66%. If she was running the house on $3,045. a month when the King was home, now without him she only has $2,220. Most households in America cannot withstand a 27% hit on the household account. She'll juggle the bills but eventually most wives figure out that they can pay all the smaller bills if they just does not pay the big bill. That would be the rent or the mortgage. So six to nine months after the King is out of the castle, the Queen, the Princes and the Princesses are also on the street. Domestic violence feminists state that 50% of victim spouses of domestic violence end up homeless at some time in their lives.

The last group of homeless from these arrests are children. The domestic violence feminists state that 70% of domestic violence couple have children. So 50% female times 70% children equals 35%. But children is plural. So we will double to 70%.
He goes on with facts, figures, and anguish for 15 pages (all on one page at the www site). The Man's name?

Tom Ball


RIP Tom. We'll see what we can do.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sex Banned From Swingers Club

In theory it is a zoning issue. Sex banned from Pasco swingers club. The article is of some interest. But the comments are more interesting. A lot of imagining going on about police tactics that led to the dispute. This comment was typical.

JJ

I wonder how many "undercover" visits were required by these law enforcement officers! Im guessing a lot more than has been reported wink wink...It's like when they arrested Pee Wee Herman in an adult movie theatre...12 cops hanging out watching porn all day...tough work, but at least our tax money is being well spent protecting us from these harmless criminals. Whatever happened to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? These people are harming no one (except potentially themselves). If they are not disturbing others rights then I see no justification for any government entity dictating how people should live their lives. It's ridiculous and insulting at the same time.
I forgot to mention the State this happened in. Florida.

So is Florida going libertarian? Stranger things have happened.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Carrying Cheese Causes Arrest

Yep. Carrying cheese can get you arrested. And if it is concealed carry? Well I'm sure that would only add to the suspicion.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- An enzyme found in cheese triggered false drug test results that led North Carolina deputies to think a man with 91 pounds of tortilla dough was actually carrying that much cocaine, the sheriff said.

Antonio Hernandez spent four days in an Asheville jail this month before tests by a state lab showed he was carrying food, not drugs.

A Buncombe County deputy stopped Hernandez on May 1 and found what turned out to be a mix of cheese, shrimp and tortilla and tamale dough in his truck. A portable kit used by deputies changed colors, indicating the mixture was illegal drugs.
The field tests are not very accurate. They are accurate enough to keep you in jail for four days though.

My friend Jeralyn at Talk Left has a bit on the subject.
The National Press Club in Washington, DC took on the aspect of a chemistry lab for a short while Tuesday afternoon as scientists and researchers sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project gave a startling demonstration of false positive drug test results obtained using some of the most widely used field testing kits employed by law enforcement to detect the presence of marijuana and other drugs.

As a lab-coated and rubber glove wearing researcher from the South Carolina Center for Biotechnology dumped a sample of oregano into a field test kit, Mintwood Media's Adam Eidinger produced a positive test result for cocaine with another kit simply by exposing it to the atmosphere. "This is just air," Eidinger said, opening up a test and waving it as the reagent turned orange, indicating a positive result.

"While testing the specificity of the KN Reagent test kits with 42 non-marijuana substances, I observed that 70% of these tests rendered a false positive," said Dr. Omar Bagasra, director of the Center for Biotechnology, who conducted the experiments.
The whole arrest deal is supposed to have a basis in probable cause. The standard has now been lowered to improbable cause. The below video is from the Talk Left post.



Here is the report mentioned in the video: False Positives, False Justice [pdf]

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Trash No Longer Welcome

Palestinian Trash that is. And not just left overs and waste products. It is the Palestinians themselves.

The mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, was quoted this week as saying that Palestinians are no longer welcome in his country.

He also condemned Palestinians as “trash” and said that he’s not afraid of their weapons.

Sheikh Qabbani’s remarks were made during a meeting he held in his office in Beirut with a Palestinian delegation representing refugees and various Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

The furious mufti later kicked the Palestinian representatives out of his office.
Apparently he has a problem with the Palestinian sense of entitlement.
The meeting was called to discuss Palestinian “assaults” on state-owned and Islamic Wakf lands in Lebanon.

“We’ve hosted you and no longer want you,” the mufti told stunned members of the Palestinian delegation.

Accusing Palestinians of “usurping” Wakf lands to build houses, Sheikh Qabbani told his visitors: “I will defend Wakf lands even if that costs me all what I have.”

Attempts by the Palestinian representatives to clam the mufti further enraged the top religious official, who at one point shouted at them: “You are trash. You [Palestinians] will never be victorious. Nor will your cause. I’m no longer afraid of your weapons.”
The Palestinians keep getting kicked out of where ever they wind up. The Saudis got rid of theirs. The Kuwaitis got rid of theirs. And the Lebanese may be next. Too bad the Israelis are stuck with theirs.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Trivial Stuff



via Jews For Sarah and Big Hollywood

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Strange Number

I got a call from 815-518-1111. I picked up the phone and there was silence for a short while and then an automated voice said "Goodbye." So I used Caller's Profile to get a line on them. Here is what I found out: The phone number in question is located in Coal City, Illinois and it is a land line. I called the number and got an ear splitting tone. It is probably a FAX line - at least with respect to incoming calls.

There seems to be a fair amount of this going on judging by a Google search on "telephone automated voice goodbye" and reading a few of the pages the search turned up.

Supposedly putting yourself on the Government Do Not Call list fixes this. We shall see.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Health Care And Immigration

There is a discussion going on at Talk Polywell about what the changes in Turkey mean to Europe. The question of health care came up in the context of immigration. I had a few words to say. (edited)

Well yes. Health insurance is a problem. But health care is not. You walk into a hospital with a complaint and you must be served. Pregnant women especially. The hospital has classes. Expensive? Yes. The deal is we can afford it. And our wait times are shorter. We like that. As in any queuing system - if you over provision sufficiently the service is good. If you are efficient the wait times extend. And if you are perfectly efficient the system ceases to function (eventually).

Here at Talk Polywell we often discuss why the US spends so much of its income on health care. My reasoning is as follows: The way income is spent (allocations) varies as you move up in income. The poor spend all their money on food (and shelter if they can afford it). You do not expect the same allocation in a $30K per capita economy as a $45K per capita economy.

====

Now should we be providing every one in the country with health care? It is probably a good idea from a public health standpoint.

But maybe we need to do something about those coming across.

Coyotes charge from $500 to $2,000 to get people across the Mexican border. We could set up way stations. Make them watch a video (choice of Spanish or English) about the US Constitution - (focus on the right to bear arms HEH.) give them a copy of the US Constitution (Spanish or English) and issue them a work visa and SS # (foreign nationals cannot collect). And charge them for the privilege.

Right away you make money on the deal. Spread your ideals. And to some extent you can track the individuals (SS#).

This makes more sense than our current approach (doing nothing) but we can't get there because the positions of all sides has hardened.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. - Winston Churchill. Let us hope the try everything period is almost over.

The World Of Experimental Physics



Suggested in a private message by EricF of Talk Polywell. I was amused when he talked about the lab guys (about 50 seconds in) and said what they were doing was hard to understand and after all he was only a theory guy. There is more video (about 10 minutes) if you want to go a little deeper.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The US Military, Cannabis And PTSD

It appears that some former militarly people are supporting the use of cannabis for PTSD.

Cannabis Science, a Colorado Springs marijuana pharmaceutical company, has formed a military advisory board featuring military officials to advocate for easing restrictions on injured veterans who want to use marijuana for relief.

The advisory board will be comprised of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Sullivan and other folks who know there way around the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and the Department of Health and Human Services. As Sullivan noted in a release, "The military advisory board is committed to ensuring service members, veterans and families who are dealing with psychological health conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and traumatic brain injury (TBI) challenges have access to all options of quality treatments available." According to Sullivan, cannabis has been proven to help veterans struggling with chronic and phantom limb pain, sleep disturbance, brain injuries, PTSD, anxiety and depression.

The effort is the brainchild of Cannabis Science president Robert Melamede, PhD., a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professor and longtime proponent of the "Endocannabinoid System," the concept that marijuana contains components that regulate many different body functions.
The Endocannabinoid system is not just a concept. It is a fact. All you have to do is look up the CB1 receptor and the CB2 receptor to learn a whole lot more. You can also read:

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System

Police and PTSD

FDA To Study Cannabis For PTSD

Of course military people are not the only ones suffering from PTSD. But they came by it honorably: war vs child abuse. You can find out more about that at:

Heroin

And just for all you libertarians out there:

DRUG WAR = BIG GOVERNMENT

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Huge Oil Discovery In The Middle East

Saudi Arabia? Nope that has already been picked over. The "new" oil find is in Israel.

The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.

The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims.
Of course you should read the whole thing for details but the essence is that if this oil can be exploited it will put a lid (depending on demand of course) on what can be charged for oil. In any case immediate fears of an oil shortage are put off a little longer. And if the Wave Engine works out it could extend that "little to fear" era by 50 or 100 years. Long enough to develop what ever comes next without requiring a crash program.

Speaking of offending Muslims. I wonder if they would be offended if the price of oil declines by half? It would be good to see that proposition tested in the real world.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Highly Unusual And Unexpected

This is not about some decline in an economic indicator especially not about the latest trends in unemployment claims. It is about the coming of a quiet sun.

A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.
Will we be heading for a period of cooling as we have seen in other periods of a dormant sun such as the Maunder Minimum? No one knows. But it does seem stupid to be shutting down coal fired power plants in the face of that possibility.

Assigned Meaning

In an article on what traits a computer programmer needs to be successful the following comment was made on the outcome of the study.

Dehnadi and Bornat's thesis is that the single biggest predictor of likely aptitude for programming is a deep comfort with meaninglessness:
What makes computers so interesting to me is that all you have is a gazillion on/off switches. There is no alphabet in your computer. There are only switches. So how does the computer send an e-mail? Meaning has been assigned to certain patterns in the switching matrix. Now it helps (sometimes) if the meanings assigned are consistent. But the essence is: there is no intrinsic meaning to anything going on in the inside of a computer. Short version: meaning is dependent on context. And that is very profound in all kinds of situations. Like how do you communicate with someone who has a far different set of contexts? In computing you ask: is that block of bits you have supposed to be interpreted as numbers or text? What kind of numbers? What (human) language? To get the meanings entirely correct the context has to be spelled out in detail. Which is to say that communications between humans is very difficult. We assume contexts which may not be relevant. This leads to miscommunication.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Convesrion Of David Mamet

In an interview of David Mamet the interviewer is discussing David's reading habits when it comes to economics. As an aside the reviewer notes:

Later in our conversation, I ask whether he had read any economics before and he says not—he typically gets absorbed in a collection of books relating to his current play for two years at a time before moving on. I wonder what might have happened if he had picked up John Maynard Keynes instead of Friedman.
We do know what happened - 9 to 20% unemployment (depending on how you count) and a double dip recession. The economic multiplier effect for government spending is probably on the order of .5 (Spanish spending on $Green Energy) to .8 (US Government spending on WW2). So government spending REDUCES economic output.

It is good that Mamet was not overly influenced by Keynes.

But he is influenced by Sarah Palin.
So who would he prefer as president? He replies that he is "not current" with the Republican contenders until I mention Sarah Palin. "I am crazy about her," he answers immediately. "Would she make a good candidate for president? I don't know but she seems to have succeeded at everything she put her hand to."

Mamet compares Palin to a late friend in Cabot, Vt., where he owns a "little cabin in the woods ... I like to hunt. I like to fish. Cross-country ski. It's in the middle of absolute nowhere. A dirt-track road, a 200-year-old post-and-beam house. Gorgeous." His friend, he continues, was "a hardworking guy, a man of honor who was looking out for the town's interests. I thought of him when I saw Sarah Palin. She started with the PTA and then became the mayor and then governor [of Alaska]. I thought, well, OK. That's someone who knows how to work."
Well I like Sarah too. And the fact that my old friend likes her is just a plus.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Monday, June 13, 2011

The Soros Plan For The 2012 Election

Let me start out by saying that this is speculation of the rankest sort. I have nothing objective to go by. The best way to start this is to look at Resident ∅s chances given current conditions.

Current economic conditions are terrible. The jobless rate is running from between 9% and 20% depending on how you do the count. And the housing market isn't coming back any time soon. So he can't run on his economic record.

Hope and Change? A tad too threadbare this time around. You can only be the first black (not a Muslim) President once.

So what do I think a winning issue for the left will be? What issue will be a large negative for every Republican with a good chance of winning the nomination? The Drug War. All it has to do is explode in the right way in 2012.

So what triggered this off for me? George Soros and Richard Branson among others met a little over a week ago in New York to discuss Drug War Strategy.

Gathered within the plush confines of New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel is a veritable UN of former presidents from around the world, George Soros, the billionaire investor, and Sir Richard Branson. Everyone is talking about drugs, though no one seems to be having much fun.

These luminaries are in New York to support the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a thinktank that is calling for an end to the so-called "war on drugs". Branson, who is one of the commissioners, is putting some cash in, as is Soros. Branson's son, Sam, is working on a documentary – a film his father hopes will do for the drugs debate what An Inconvenient Truth did for global warming.

The rest of the commission are serious people, including the former presidents and prime minsters of Colombia, Greece, Mexico and Switzerland, the UN's Kofi Annan, the writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa. But it's Branson the cameras flash at most during the press conference. Afterwards, the group is photographed together, and Branson plays the clown, throwing his hands up in the air and whipping out that megawatt smile. It's cheesy as hell, but everyone laughs.

Seldom has he goofed around with more serious a purpose. It's been 50 years since the United Nations orchestrated a global convention on drug prohibition, and 40 years since president Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. It isn't working
Yep. It isn't working. 3 Men Shot, Tortured, Beaten & Then Hung Over Bridge in Monterrey, Mexico.

Another report on the Global Commission on Drug Policy from Al Jazeera.
A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy has concluded that the global war on drugs has failed. The commission, which includes a group of politicians and former world leaders, says the current anti-drug policy has been fuelling organised crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths.

The authors of the report have called for some drugs to be legalised and for an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

They also criticised governments that claim the current war on drugs is effective. But, the White House has rejected the findings, saying the report is misguided. The US government has spent more than $2.5 trillion fighting the war on drugs over the past 40 years.
They don't seem very upbeat about the drug war.

How about the LA Times?
A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, recommends that governments try new ways of legalizing and regulating drugs, especially marijuana, as a way to deny profits to drug cartels.

The recommendation was swiftly dismissed by the Obama administration and the government of Mexico, which are allied in a violent 4 1/2 -year-old crackdown on cartels that has killed more than 38,000 people in Mexico.
Ah. Yes. The Mexico thing. How hard would it be to create an incident in Mexico that stayed on the front pages for weeks? Not too difficult.

So was the Commission a typical left wing operation? No. Former Secretary of State Under Reagan George Schultz was also on the Commission.

Of course the Russians are against any change that would cut into their mafia's profits.
Russia's narcotics control chief has slammed an international drug policy report as propaganda of drug abuse and accused its authors of lobbying the interests of narcotics mafia.

“We have to realise that we are dealing with global propaganda of illicit drugs here,” said Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov, commenting on a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

The report, released on Thursday, said the global war on narcotics was a failure and recommended that governments decriminalise drug use and give addicts access to some drugs, especially marijuana, to undercut organised crime.

Mr. Ivanov hinted that the former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who leads the Commission, could have links with international drug cartels. He recalled that drugs production in Afghanistan had increased threefold when Mr. Annan was the U.N. head.

This propaganda campaign is linked to the huge profits [from sales of illicit drugs] that are estimated at about $800 billion annually, Mr. Ivanov told reporters on Friday.
What Mr. Ivanov conveniently fails to mention is that without Prohibition there would be no excess profits. Prohibition is why a pile of vegetables is worth its weight in gold. So maybe it is Mr. Ivanov who supports the cartels.

Of course we have some geniuses in America who know the "truth".
The office of White House drug tsar Gil Kerlikowske rejected the panel's recommendations.

"Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated," said a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Let us get something straight:

People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers.

Can some one please tell me how a war on pain relievers is going to fix a chronic pain problem? If addiction is caused by pain (trauma) how exactly does Kerlikowske intend to prevent that? Obviously he doesn't say.

In any case the winds of change are blowing. A little under half the people in America are against the Drug War. It wouldn't take much of a shift to make it a little over half. And that is all you need to win an election. Every single major Republican candidate for President and most of the minor ones are vulnerable on the issue. If I was George Soros I'd be cooking up a plot. There is evidence that he may very well be.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Say, Doesn't This Sound Familiar?

Turkey has just had an election and it looks like Muslim fanaticism is on the rise. But according to our wise ones:

Erdogan has provided the Turks, even those who can't stand him, with a self-confidence they lacked before.
Weren't people saying similar things about the Austrian Corporal at one time? Yes they were.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Can't Buy A Clue

Diana Olick was discussing the state of the housing market and it wasn't just current bad news that bothered her.

I have to say, leaving yesterday's conference, I felt a strange unease, not because we talked about the same barriers to recovery that I talk about every day of the week, but because all these experts who are supposed to tell us when it's all going to be alright...don't have a clue.
So what does that mean? It means that a turn around by June of 2012 is very unlikely. The prospects for November 2012? Real Estate will be a dead weight on Democrat prospects.

Traditional Values

Even before we knew the details of embryo and sperm we could see the mother's belly fattening.

So why wasn't personhood declared when gestation was visible?

Why do we have naming ceremonies at birth (well paperwork any way) rather than when gestation is visible?

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Name Just One

I just keeps coming up. It came up again in a Hot Air thread. A commenter said:

I can’t think of a person who identifies as a social Conservative who isn’t automatically a fiscal Conservative
I can think of one. The former leader of that gang, Mike Huckabee.

Compare and contrast his record with that of Gary "Mr. Veto" Johnson who is very socially liberal and VERY fiscally conservative. What I like to refer to as the libertarian persuasion. He has the added valued that when given the opportunity he walked the walk.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Palin E-Mail Dump

In case you haven't heard of it by now, a bunch of Sarah Palin e-mails that were available by a Freedom of Information Request have been released. The big deal with the e-mails? There was no big deal.

WaPo’s also chasing a hot lead that Palin really is Trig’s mother. Matt Welch of Reason surfed around this afternoon and found that her e-mails were the top story at the websites of the New York Times, the LA Times (“The archive will continue to grow”!!!), the Post, USA Today, and even the Wall Street Journal, thus prompting the question of whether this is a slow news day which the media is using Palin to fill or whether it only seems like a slow news day because the media simply isn’t covering anything else.
The post is link rich so click on the site to get more.

Lefty UK rag The Guardian promises all the details.

Conservatives 4 Palin has an open thread.

Conservative Media Figures Weigh in on “Operation Get Sarah”

CNN Concedes Governor Palin Was a Hard-Working Governor

Cross Posted at Classical Values

FDR Was Under The Influence Of Fascism

I found an interesting FDR quote while perusing NewsRealBlog. From Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.Excerpted from the chapter on FDR:

“But the New Deal was a product of the impulses and ideas of its era. And those ideas and impulses are impossible to separate from the fascist moment in Western civilization. According to Harold Ickes, FDR’s interior secretary and one of the most important architects of the New Deal, Roosevelt himself privately acknowledged that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But were were doing them in an orderly way.”"
I liked that. Because it is in line with what was actually done.

The quote is an excerpt from an argument with a leftist. Go read it for the humor value.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Friday, June 10, 2011

Improving Your Brain

It looks like a simple computer program can help train the brain in areas that were thought previously to be untrainable. The method used is n-back training.

...University of Michigan psychologist John Jonides presented new findings showing that practicing this kind of task for about 20 minutes each day for 20 days significantly improves performance on a standard test of fluid intelligence—the ability to reason and solve new problems, which is a crucial element of general intelligence. And this improvement lasted for up to three months.

Jonides, who is the Daniel J. Weintraub Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, collaborated with colleagues at U-M, the University of Bern and the University of Tapei on a series of studies with more than 200 young adults and children, demonstrating the effects of various kinds of n-back mental training exercises. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Office of Naval Research.

According to Jonides, the n-back task taps into a crucial brain function known as working memory—the ability to maintain information in an active, easily retrieved state, especially under conditions of distraction or interference. Working memory goes beyond mere storage to include processing information.
There is an open source training program that I haven't yet tried. It is hosted on SourceForge.

Holland Meets China



My favorite beer. Although Rolling Rock is a decent substitute if the budget is tight.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Body Shots

The first mate and I were trying out a digital camera she had after getting a larger memory card for it. She wanted to try something a little risque - which is unusual for her. I usually have to use Jewish foreplay on her for things like that. I got her to tone it down some ("pull the jacket in a little tighter") and then I only took a body shot of her. She saw the pictures and said to the effect, "No head? Must be a porno affectation." Well I do like pictures of naked women and sometimes even body parts. My mate knows me. But I explained to her, "No. It is for your safety. These things have a way of getting out." And so we copied the pictures (both of them) on to the computer and deleted them from the memory card. We thought.

Well. She went to get some pictures printed and what are the first two that show up on the screen? Yep. You guessed it. Well this mostly shy woman was mortified. Subsequently I deleted the pics from the chip another way and they no longer show up on the chip.

With Weinergate now in the news she is so glad I made her tone it down and only do a body shot.

Kids. Let this be a lesson to you. Or not. After all I do like looking at pictures of naked women. Especially pictures of naked women with faces.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Bird Calling

Eric had a post up at Classical Values discussing birds and bird watching. I'm a bit of a bird watcher myself. I’m usually on the look out for big breasted white throats. If you want to call one they usually respond to “can I get you a drink honey?”

Palin X-Rated

The producers of the Palin Campaign (not yet) bio film “The Undefeated,” plan to release an X-rated version.

The director of “The Undefeated,” a glowing new film about Sarah Palin, said he plans to release an “X-rated” version of the film to better convey “vile” comments about her from sources including celebrities and obscure Twitter users.
Dang. I was hoping for a teachable moment. Her and Todd giving baby making lessons. In my dreams. I guess.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sleep On It

I found an interesting fact about decision making in an article on the determinates of poverty.

Researchers have found that exerting self-control on an initial task impaired self-control on subsequent tasks: Consumers became more susceptible to tempting products; chronic dieters overate; people were more likely to lie for monetary gain; and so on. As Baumeister told Teaching of Psychology in 2008, “After you exert self-control in any sphere at all, like resisting dessert, you have less self-control at the next task.”
Put off important decisions until "tomorrow" and when you wake up make that decision the first of the day. Even before any other insignificant decisions (orange or grapefruit?).

Dating Advice - Don't Date

Instapundit linked to an article that listed 5 things women believe about men that aren't necessarily true. The first thing was the no sex on the first date "rule". "He won't respect you." I had an answer for that.

I had sex with a woman I wasn't dating. But first I had to sleep naked with her - no sex. The sex didn't happen until a few days after that. We have been together 37 years. Four children.

So yeah. No sex on the first date. In fact no dating. Just sleep with them.
That should solve a lot of problems on both sides of the equation.

Girl With No Eyes



Margaret Keane



It's A Beautiful Day


Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Hey - Don't They Know I'm Jewish Too?

Police in Israel mistakenly break into a swingers party while chasing some pot growers.

The volunteer police officers raided Moshav Beit Hanan in central Israel, finding a hydroponic marijuana growing operation and two suspects, reports Yaniv Kubovich at Haaretz.

The suspects took off on foot and the police gave chase, all the way to a closed area where they stumbled upon dozens of scantily clad party-goers.

A brief investigation revealed that the turned-on revelers were in the throes of a swingers' party.

The red-faced police made their excuses and quickly left, with the two pot suspects in custody.
I know it is long distance but I didn't even get a courtesy invite.

And I'll bet the clothed pot growers were easy to find among all that flesh. If the police didn't get distracted.

Breitbart Savages The Media



Breitbart's opinion of his news conference.

Big Journalism - Revenge of The Nerds: ‘Big’ Blogs Scoop the MSM Yet Again

Big Government - Breitbart on TODAY: Big Gov’t Publisher Tells the Incredible Story Behind the Weiner Presser

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Refilling Your Printer Cartridge - Canon

My printer (Canon MP160 all in one) has been out of wack for the last few months due to lack of ink. I had a cartridge refill kit available but I hadn't used it because the refill requirements seemed so stringent. I was way overestimating the difficulty. I used the single version of the following refills. But if you buy them 3 at a time you save money on shipping.

First - drilling the holes with the drill provided is not difficult or critical. Second - you can in theory leave the cartridge out of the printer for 24 hours without it clogging. So if it takes you 2 hours for a first time filling - no harm done. Be sure to do the work on newspapers and if possible use lint free absorbent cloth to wipe up any excess spills on the cartridge. I got away with paper towels and facial tissues. Watch out for lint.

3-Pack of Black Ink Refill Kits for Canon PG-30 PG-37 PG-40 PG-50 Cartridges

3-Pack of Color Ink Refill Kits for Canon CL-31 CL-38 CL-41 and CL-51 Inkjet Cartridges

Since the cartridges had been out of ink and out of use for so long it took 7 or 8 heavy duty cleanings (explained in the printer manual) to get them working again. But work they do. Quite well I might add.

Here is another refill kit I haven't tried that should be good until the printer dies. What looks like 3 bottles of 100 ml each for the black cartridge and 3 bottles of 100 ml each for the color cartridge. Under $25 with shipping.

20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo Canon Printer Ink Refill Kit Color & Black

One reviewer suggested a package of syringes would be very helpful to avoid contaminating the colors. So here you go:

6 pcs of 10-ml ink refill syringes and 6 pcs of 2-inch long blunt needles

They also have ink for other printers.

Lots Of Ink - Different Printers

Now you only need to buy cartridges when one breaks.

You have to admit that advice on how to economize on your computer printer supplies is proof that this is one heck of a Depression.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Monday, June 06, 2011

Hacksaw Bow

Hacksaw Bow? Sounds like a small river town in Michigan. But that is not what I'm talking about. It is a criticism of Jennifer Rubin's opinion of Palin's political status. Rubin thinks Palin is interested in the kingmaker/pundit role. She doesn't want to be President. I said:

Let me explain what Palin is doing to you commentators. She has you convinced that she is not in. Fine. You write a bunch about that. Palin is a top political story when many other Republican candidates are announcing. She just used you to suck up the oxygen.

When she announces there will be another flurry of articles. Sucking up more oxygen.

She is playing you like a fiddle. Only she is using a hacksaw as a bow. That has got to hurt. She is now living rent free inside your mind. This coming campaign is going to be so much fun.
What has Palin said on the matter? She has a fire in her belly. I have no doubt of that. And I heard her say a few days ago that she still has a few weeks to think about it before she commits. What are her themes of late? The Revolutionary War period. Given all that I'm going to go out on a limb and say Palin will announce on 4 July 2011.

Of course you will be on me (deservedly) if I'm wrong.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Why Isn't Gary Johnson Included?

Here is a little ditty I got by e-mail.

Republican Liberty Caucus Advisory Board member Gary Johnson, the former two-term Governor of New Mexico, is being excluded from the upcoming CNN/WMUR/New Hampshire Union-Leader Republican Presidential debate taking place in Manchester on Monday, June 13.
Maybe it has something to do with the criteria for being in the debate.
According to these criteria, the following invited candidates should not have been:

Former Ambassador Jon Huntsman (who declined the invitation)
[snip]
Former Senator Rick Santorum:
[snip]
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who declined the invitation):
[snip]

Gov. Johnson, who was included in last month’s debate in SC and has already been accepted for next month’s debate in NV, and who has consistently polled alongside Santorum and above Huntsman, however, did not receive such special treatment. The several declined invitations proves that Gov. Johnson was not excluded for want of space on the debate stage.
Read the whole thing to get all the details.

What can you do about it? I'm glad you asked. You can contact these folks:
CNN
(404) 827-1500 or (202) 898-7900
Text: CNN (space) and your news tip to 772937 (don’t forget the space after CNN).
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html
Twitter: @CNN or @teamCNN

WMUR
http://www.wmur.com/contact/index.html
(603) 669-9999
Twitter: @WMUR9

Union Leader
publisher@unionleader.com
http://www.unionleader.com/tip
(603) 668-4321 Twitter: @unionleader

With Twitter, use hashtag #GJ2012 or #GJinNH.
There is also a petition to sign. I was #392 (roughly). It is going to take at least 10,000 sigs to draw any attention. Get busy. And get your friends.

So who is scheduled so far for the debate?
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum...
Maybe if Johnson remains obscure he will have a better chance of being picked by Palin. Maybe not.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Paul Launches Assault On RomneyCare

(Note that the time shown in the image is GMT - heh)


Ron Paul is launching an all out attack on Mitt Romney and the socialized medicine plan he devised for Massachusetts.

This could be just round one for Paul.
It looks like Paul is only beginning to hit Romney on health care. Sandwiched between the title and the money on Paul's website are the words "Round One."
I'd love to see Romney knocked out early.

And just as a completely wacky aside I think 4 July 2011 would be a good day for Palin to announce. Something about America's birth certificate maybe.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Howard Dean: Palin Is An Obama Beater

This is some news. Howard Dean says Palin can beat Obama. And not just when it comes to making news.

Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election contest next year.

“I think she could win,” Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. “She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win.”

Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.

“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean said. “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” Dean said.
Yep. Just about anybody could beat Obama.

So the question is: who will the Rs nominate? At this point in time my money is on Palin. I think the TEAs will break very favorably towards her once she announces. Once the TEAs have a candidate it is all over for the rest of the field.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Looting Has Begun

What does social breakdown look like? Spengler has a few thoughts about Egypt.

From Arab-language online media, it appears that Egypt's economic troubles have metastasized. Last month, rice disappeared from public storehouses amid press reports that official food distribution organizations were selling the grain by the container on the overseas market. Last week, diesel fuel was the scarce commodity, with 24-hour queues forming around gasoline stations. Foreign tankers were waiting at Port Said on the Suez Canal to pump diesel oil from storage facilities, as government officials sold the scarce commodity for cash.

This is the sort of general breakdown I observed in 1992 in Russia, following the collapse of the communist government. As an adviser to finance minister Yegor Gaidar, I heard stories of Russian officials selling unregistered trainloads of raw materials on foreign markets and depositing the proceeds in Swiss banking accounts. Anything of value that could find a buyer overseas was sold. I didn't last long as an adviser; looting and pillaging wasn't my area of competence. Russia, it should be recalled, is largely self-sufficient in food and is among the world's largest oil producers, while Egypt imports half its food. Russia had enormous resources on which to draw. Egypt, Syria and Tunisia have nothing.
So how are things going in Syria?
Robert Fisk wrote in the London Independent on May 30 that Turkey fears a mass influx of Syrian Kurdish refugees, so that "Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a 'safe area' for Syrian refugees inside Assad's caliphate." The borders of the affected nations have begun to dissolve along with their economies. It will get worse fast.
I think what Spengler meant by fast was like today.
Israeli forces fired on a crowd marking the anniversary of the 1967 Middle East War by trying to enter from Syria, where human rights groups said Syrian troops killed 25 protesters in a village in the country’s north.

A general strike took place for the second day today in the Syrian city of Hama in mourning for dozens of people killed there by security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad last week, according to the independent Web site Syrian Observatory, which is monitoring the unrest.

“The city is completely closed and the army has pulled out, but the people are scared” that the army may attack again, Mahmoud Merhi, the head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said by telephone from Damascus.
Ah yes. The Israelis fire on a crowd - top of the news. Syrians kill 25? Not quite so important.

And the people of Hama are scared? Why not? There is some history there.
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian army, under the orders of the president of Syria Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad. The Hama massacre, personally conducted by president Assad's younger brother, Rifaat al-Assad, effectively ended the campaign begun in 1976 by Sunni Islamic groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, against Assad's regime, whose leaders were disproportionately from president Assad's own Alawite sect.
The death toll estimates run from 10,000 to 40,000. I wonder how many boy Assad will bag this time?

And of course I wonder what kind of plan our esteemed man from Chicago ne (Hawaii) has developed to cope with coming events. We shall know in time. I'm betting that it will be - borrow money from China to give to the crooks in the various Middle East governments.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Start With Powdered Sugar

According to Hill Buzz, "Cupcakes are da bomb!"

The British intelligence agency M16 has managed to hack into Al Qaeda’s online magazine “Inspire”( which “inspires” jihadists to make bombs and plan terrorists attacks against infidels). The brilliant Brits replaced the magazine’s bomb making recipe section with cupcake recipes. Ingenious. It’s like something out of a Monty Python movie and I love Monty Python.
And just in case you were wondering, many bomb making recipes start with powdered sugar too. And that is all I'm going to say.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Friday, June 03, 2011

Sweet Jane - Poddighe Power Trio



As you can tell English is probably their second or third language. No matter. This is one of my favorite versions of "Sweet Jane". Italy’s Poddighe Power Trio is reviewed in English. Along with some nice Lou Reed mp3s.

www.Poddighe.com

Cross Posted at Classical Values