Borepatch

Lightnin Hopkins

2012-02-10T20:18:00.000-05:00

Just because it's awesome.

Now where is that Sarah Palin woman?

2012-02-10T18:31:00.000-05:00

One mustn't allow the colonials to forget their place, mustn't one?

Ban lead ammunition to save the wild birds!

2012-02-10T14:31:00.002-05:00

I mean, just look at the suffering!

Oops, sorry - that was Progressive Approved™ "environmentally friendly" power generation. Nothing to see here, move along.

And ZOMG BAN LEAD AMMO!!!one!!!

Maybe I can make a slide deck that describes the situation ...

2012-02-10T10:31:00.003-05:00

I have crazy ninja PowerPoint skillz. Just sayin'.

Hey Minister - Hold mah beer ...

2012-02-10T07:01:00.000-05:00

(Image source)

Seems that a Member of Parliament - the Labour Party's Equalities Spokesperson, no less - objected to the presence of this beer in Parliament's Pub (who knew that they had one?). She made them discontinue it. Hilarity ensues:

Family-run Staffordshire brewer Slater's revealed it has seen sales jump since one of its ales upset a MP Kate Green and attracted headlines around the world last week.
Slater's sales director Fay Slater announced that the firm has been bombarded with phone calls and emails from landlords wanting to get their hands on barrels of Top Totty.
The welcome boost for the popular ale comes after the four per cent beer was removed from sale at the Strangers' Bar, in the Houses of Parliament, after shadow equalities minister Ms Green said the pump clip, which features a half-naked lady, was offensive.

Aside from the whole they have a bar in the Houses of Parliament well that sort of explains things astonishment, this makes me think that someone needs to do a Pelosi Bitters or some such.

Heh

2012-02-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

So all y'all just chill out ...

Comedy Central's new show Key & Peele is pretty funny.

I did NOT say that ...

Otto von Bismark's voice

2012-02-09T14:31:00.001-05:00

It seems that it was recorded. It was lost, but it seems that it's been found again:

Tucked away for decades in a cabinet in Thomas Edison’s laboratory, just behind the cot in which the great inventor napped, a trove of wax cylinder phonograph records has been brought back to life after more than a century of silence.

Thomas Edison, seated center, sent Adelbert Theodor Edward Wangemann, standing behind him, to France in 1889. From there Wangemann traveled to Germany to record recitations and performances.

Adelbert Theodor Edward Wangemann used a phonograph to record the voice of Otto von Bismarck.
The cylinders, from 1889 and 1890, include the only known recording of the voice of the powerful chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Two preserve the voice of Helmuth von Moltke, a venerable German military strategist, reciting lines from Shakespeare and from Goethe’s “Faust” into a phonograph horn. (Moltke was 89 when he made the recordings — the only ones known to survive from someone born as early as 1800.) Other records found in the collection hold musical treasures — lieder and rhapsodies performed by German and Hungarian singers and pianists at the apex of the Romantic era, including what is thought to be the first recording of a work by Chopin.

No MP3 (yet), but I would love to listen to that.

If the Glaciers keep melting at this rate, they will all be gone by ...

2012-02-09T10:31:00.001-05:00

... never. 45er emails to point to this:

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350.

Those pesky satellites are a bunch of darn Deniers, if you ask me. Deniers, I say!

And for anyone who might make the favorite charge of "cherry picking", let me just point out that this is a world wide satellite survey.

Positive vs. Negative Rights

2012-02-09T07:01:00.002-05:00

The United States Constitution in general, and the Bill of Rights in particular, is structured in a very peculiar manner. Most of what's there defines what the Government cannot do. Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: The First Amendment. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed: The Second Amendment.

This has annoyed Progressives for years, as their vision of America 2.0 has been continually thwarted by these Amendments. I mean, how are you supposed to build the Progressive Jerusalem when the Supreme Court keeps striking down your censorship laws?

Progressives use the condescending term "Negative Rights" to refer to the traditional view of the Constitution, reserving the more positive sounding "Positive Rights" for their own collective, centralist view.

The recent Obama Administration decision to force the Catholic Church to provide abortion services in direct violation of Church doctrine is a stark example if this conflict between positive and negative. Progressives have the view that the central government elite can force anyone to do anything, if they think that it benefits society or chosen groups in society. And so they did.

Seems they kicked a hornet's nest, because most of the country still seems to think that the Constitution and the First Amendment means what it says. Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Midwest Chick brings Teh Smart about the whole Progressive failure:

In the fight for the First Amendment, which is the most important part of the Obamacare birth control mandate, something has not been brought into the forefront.

The fact that not only is the Obamacare mandate making private entites pay for insurance that includes birth control, sterilization, etc., they are having to pay full freight--no co-pays for these prescriptions or procedures.

Every other prescription, procedure, or test has a co-pay in today's insurance world. No other prescriptions are being mandated as co-pay free, not even the ones deemed to prevent death. Why is this particular set of medicines and procedures being set up differently?? Probably because Obama's feminist cadre has proven that they can control the narrative on this issue and even bring down one of their own using nothing but social media and misinformation.

The government can force you to do what they say if they think that it's in the interest of society, or favored groups. Pay no attention to that First Amendment behind the curtain, it was written by a bunch of Dead White Male patriarchal oppressors. And that Midwest Chick? I mean, look at her handle - bet she lives in flyover country. Probably clings to her guns and her bible.

The mask slipped, in a big way here. This is only nominally about religious freedom and the Catholic Church. It's about Congress shall pass no law vs. Come the Revolution you'll do as you're damn well told.

Bravo, Midwest Chick. RTWT.

You're the reason we can't have a nice society

2012-02-08T18:42:00.000-05:00

Well, not you. These people:

Some day no one will answer at all

2012-02-08T14:31:00.003-05:00

The last Great War veteran just reported for the Final Muster.

Florence Green, the world’s last known surviving veteran of World War I, died in her sleep Saturday at the Briar House Care Home in King’s Lynn, eastern England. She was 110.

When I was a boy, the old veterans at the July 4th parades were from the Great War. There were quite a number of them, fifty years after the end of the War To End All Wars. 45 years later, they're all gone now.

It brings to mind what may be the greatest song about that war ever written - actually written to protest Vietnam, but a fitting tribute to the futility of the trenches with it's boredom and filth taking up the time between the terror from the terrible lash of artillery.

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

Remember that they were young once, and went rambling the life of a rover. Or like Mrs. Green, waltzed with pilots.

Rest in Peace.

Thanks for the awards

2012-02-08T10:31:00.000-05:00

A few folks have nominated be for the Liebster award. I appreciate this, but must say that my posting has not been up to scratch lately - I seem terribly cranky and ranty, and sort of feel like I've lost a bit of my grounding. Not a good feeling, at all.

And I do appreciate you guys who have sent this to me. Clearly, I'm living on my old stuff, like an aged movie star. The Blog didn't get little, it just got ranty.

Err, or something.

And so I feel that rather than putting up an award, I owe y'all an apology. In future, I shall endeavor to do better. Probably need to lay off the politics. That stuff will make you blind if you drink much of it.

It's over. We're doomed.

2012-02-08T07:01:00.003-05:00

Mark Levin explains why I won't vote for Mitt Romney.

I should not have to play clips of Milton Friedman for Mitt Romney to explain his problem with his position on minimum wage. I should not have to argue with Mitt Romney’s appointed hacks to explain the problem with RomneyCare. I shouldn’t have to explain to Mitt Romney why he shouldn’t feel guilty about his wealth and that he can explain to the American people more broadly why we want wealth creation in this country!

Because only that way can we lower unemployment. Only that way can we save the housing market. Only that way, through capitalism, wealth creation, productivity, can the American dream be returned.

Now if I can explain this in literally 3 minutes, why can’t he?!?!

I wish they let me embed the whole thing, but you'll have to click over and listen. Look, Romney is as bad as Obama, just not as fast. Screw 'em. The GOP is playing chicken with the future of the Republic. OK, then.

I'm not blinking. I'd rather go fast, in a blaze of idiocy than be slowly roasted by the same idiocy. C'mon, GOP - how about a little Joy Ride?

I must be getting old

2012-02-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

Back when I grew up, it was simply unthinkable that the U.S. Government would tell a Church what was permissible doctrine. And it was simply unthinkable that the U.S. Army would muzzle an Archbishop in furtherance of same:

... the statement released by the Military Archdiocese, the US Army is concerned that Archbishop Broglio may be calling US soldiers to defy the legal orders of their superiors, and engage in what Army politely refers to as "civil disobedience."

The Archbishop's letter is here.

Look, it's not like Catholic doctrine changed over the last few decades. And it's not like there's a shadow of a doubt as to whether or not this was a lawful order by the Secretary of the Army:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

If the Republican Party is not the Stupid Party, they should introduce a bill of Impeachment charging the Secretary of violating the First Amendment. Sure, the Senate won't convict, but this is a political issue - whether the Constitution means what it says or not - and should be dealt with as such.

Dallas area April blogshoot

2012-02-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

Here's the list of the folks who have expressed an interest in a Dallas area Blogshoot in April:

U.S. Citizen
45er
YeOldFurt
Dwight Brown
Southern Belle and Kx59
Daniels
Bill in Austin
Shepherd K
TriggerFinger
That Guy
Bob S
Cap'n Jan
John Farrier
Pat St. John
Teke
Mark (from Corpus Christi)
DropCrate
Jennifer

I'd like to narrow the Date window. How does the the first weekend of April (7/8) works for you?

As a reminder, U.S. Citizen has kindly offered to host the shoot at his gun club (location here).

Russ Lindquist is Intellectually Frivolous

2012-02-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

I posted yesterday about baby Landon Carpenter, whose father was killed in action in Afghanistan. A couple of folks left comments asking if there was a memorial or college fund, and so I went looking. I didn't find it, but I did find this:

My caption: this is propaganda purposed to humanize US troops as they war against other people. Akmed’s dad died too; so did Mohammed’s dad. These names might not be as cute, to some, as Landon”–regardless, they matter too. Or, if they do not matter then Landon does not matter either.

Patriotism require more than hypocrisy and cultural-chauvinism: the US international policy is bad; no reasonable separation is given between the policy and the troops; you should not support the troops. The slogan “support the troops” is a red-herring, aimed to humanize US troops as they dehumanize others. Do not support the policy; do not support troops.
Do not support the troops.

The proprietor of that site, one Russ Lindquist, is intellectually frivolous, combining A with Not-A in an intentionally provocative way probably designed to attract attention.

Mission accomplished, Russ.

I left a comment there (stuck in moderation - there's some intellectual courage on display) pointing out the difference between A and Not-A:

We're not the ones who machine gun school girls because they go to school.

We're not the ones who sheltered the people who intentionally attacked civilians (including children) on 9/11.

We're not the ones who ban music.

We're not the ones who used ancient Buddha statues for artillery practice.

Categorizing that with our approach which, while certainly imperfect, acts under ridiculously restrictive rules of engagement is frivolous. Sadly, this has been the Left's stock in trade for quite some time.

If Mr. Lindquist has evidence that LCPL Carpenter engaged in war crimes, or even accidentally killed children, he's invited to leave a comment (or put up a post) with his evidence. Of course, he has none.

You're tested by how you react at the time. He was tested, and fell back on the typical Reactionary Left frivolity. And so, in the interest of getting Mr. Lundquist the attention he seemingly craves, feel free to put up your own post (even with the same title as this one) linking to his. Drive his Google ranking, because it sees all, forgets nothing.

The answer to execrable speech is more speech. You know what to do.

Postscript: I actually agree with him that we should withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, and left a comment to my first post detailing my reasons. The point here is not the policy differences, it's the contemptible and frivolous nature of his comments. The Left at one time would scruple to at least say that while they opposed the war, they supported the troops.

The free icecream is late today

2012-02-07T07:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry, instead of queuing up posts last night, we got into bed early and let Little One Eyed Dog up on the bed.

Posting will get back up to speed later.

Well, crap

2012-02-06T18:31:00.001-05:00

Little One-Eyed Dog has cancer.

I've had quite enough of this cancer thing, dammit.

God save this Honorable Republic

2012-02-06T14:31:00.001-05:00

Yup. The True Grit remake was very good, but it was a remake.

Is Ron Paul angling for a cabinet seat?

2012-02-06T10:31:00.000-05:00

It's quite interesting that Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are not going after each other - both are directing their fire at Newt. What's in it for them?

Mitt clearly benefits by not antagonizing Paul's supporters, where passion and loyalty runs high. In the General election, he's going to need them, and the Tea Partiers, too. Both dislike him, because he's an establishment insider. But if he gets Paul on board, that sends a powerful signal to both those groups that some sort of change is inevitable. Paul is in his 70s, and so this would be a chance for him to put his stamp on something in the years left to him.

So which cabinet post would Mitt offer up, hypothetically speaking? There's quite a balancing act that has to happen:

1. No scaring the establishment, which means that State, Justice, Treasury, Defense, and (sadly) Homeland Security are out. Too much boat rocking in places where they want the status quo.

2. It has to be important enough to attract Paul and his supporters, which means that Interior and the like are out. Agencies that have grown quickly and intrusively over the past 10 years in particular seem like they might benefit from a Secretary Paul.

So which might fit the constraints? Health and Human Services comes to mind, as the Obamacare legislation vests huge power in the Secretary - he could gut the bill like a trout.

Feel free to leave your suggestion in the comments.

Freedom isn't free

2012-02-06T07:01:00.004-05:00

Landon's father was KIA in Afghanistan a month before he was born. The sacrifices are not evenly distributed across society. Remember Landon, and the other kids who won't see a parent who laid their ultimate sacrifice on the altar of our freedom.

Rest in Peace, LCPL Carpenter.

Via Theo, who I wish would post a link to a fund for little Landon.

Superbowl commercial SitRep

2012-02-05T19:58:00.009-05:00

So far, the best is the Audi commercial with the vampires.

The kids like the Government Motors' commercials, especially the one of the kid who thinks he's getting a Camaro.

The Budweiser and Coca-Cola ads are stupid. The Telefloria ad was so dumb that I actually think I'm stupider having watched it. I sure hope that's temporary.

More as I get around to it.

[20:20] Madonna is entertainment for mutants and farm animals. Just sayin'.

[20:35] Betty White FTW. The show looks dumb, but the commercial made me laugh.

BTW, I'm watching on DVR, so my timestamps may not match real time. Actually, it looks like I'm about 20 minutes behind.

[21:15] The Seinfeld Acura ad was funny once. So far, they've played it three times. And Clint Eastwood sold out to the People's Automotive Collective #2.

[21:21] Matthew Broderick must think he's Jerry Seinfeld. Fail.

[21:34] OK, this made me laugh out loud.

[21:38] The Samsung Galaxy Note commercial may be the dumbest thing I've seen all evening. What a waste of marketing budget.

[21:51] If SPOA wasn't enough to make me think that GoDaddy should die screaming in a fire, their commercials are. FAIL.

[22:20] I don't know how I missed this one. Thanks to Aretae and Ruth for pointing it out. #2 Son and I LOLed.

Simulation

2012-02-05T14:31:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I took both #1 Son and #2 Son to the National Infantry Museum at Ft. Benning. It's both spectacular and free, and well worth a detour if you're in the area.

#2 Son and I dig this sort of thing; #1 Son, not so much. He came along for family time (which was very nice indeed), but also for the simulators. They have the same ones that recruits use and while they're not free, you can go on a Blackhawk mission or go to the virtual rifle range.

Last fall, #2 Son and I did the rifle qualification, and I just barely passed (score: 10 out of 20). I tried again yesterday: 15 out of 20. Seems that would do it for "Expert". I felt Dad smiling down on me - he was proud of his Expert qualification. I'll have to do Appleseed later this year and earn it properly.

How odd that the simplest of things - time out with your boys - can seem worth so much more than mere lucre.

Asteroids can ruin your whole day

2012-02-05T11:11:00.001-05:00

An important lesson for our children, no doubt.

Anton Bruckner - Symphony no. 8 "Apocalyptic"

2012-02-05T07:01:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

It's not often that the terms "Great Composer" and "humble" are joined, but the great Austrian composer Anton Bruckner did. Unlike predecessors Beethoven or contemporaries like Richard Wagner, he was perhaps humble to a fault.

While writing glorious music.

In a sense, he was a provincial boy who found himself unexpectedly in the capitol of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and even decorated with the Order of Franz Joseph by the Emperor himself.

Perhaps it was his awkwardness that kept all this from going to his head. Never married, he kept proposing to (and being rejected by) teenage girls. While verging on scandal at the time, there's nothing suggesting that he ever did more than plight his troth in vain. His strange misunderstanding of basic relationships was captured in the story of one of his conductors who, after a particularly successful concert was approached by a beaming Bruckner who pressed a thaler coin into his hand to drink a beer to Bruckner's health. The conductor wore the coin on his watch chain ever afterwards.

His student Gustav Mahler said that he was "half simpleton, half God". Because he gave us music like this.

Half simpleton, half God. I could be satisfied with an epitaph like that myself.

Remember

2012-02-04T20:49:00.003-05:00

Old NFO tells us that it is Band of Brother's day, and posts with humility on his service:

To the cool men that have touched my life. Here's to you!!! I was never a hero, but I am thankful I served among them.

A real Brother walks with you when the rest of the world walks on you.

Amen, Brother. His post reminds me of the humility so often on display by heros who did simply indescribable feats:

The quote, of course, is from Shakespeare, in perhaps the greatest of all the great Bard's works:

If you haven't watch the Kevin Branaugh "Henry V", get thee hence with all speed. It is perhaps the manliest of manly films, from perhaps the manliest of all highbrow plays. And I don't say that mockingly; defiance combined with recognition of their situation make this inspiring beyond words:

We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field;
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;

Herald, save thou thy labour;
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
Which if they have as I will leave 'em them,
Shall yield them little ..

I posted before on this, on Shakespeare, the 503rd, and on our heroes today in Afghanistan.

Thanks to all our heroes, on this day and on all days.

UPDATE 4 February 2012 21:25: All out heroes.

Via Theo.

Perimeter Secure

2012-02-04T19:21:00.000-05:00

Get Offa my lawn. Srlsy.

Combat Garden Gnome. Via Thisiswhyimbroke, which is simply insanely cool.

Happiness is a clean gun

2012-02-04T14:31:00.000-05:00

Tin Can Assassin's little girl seems to be growing up. His gun collection is fixin' to get cleaner.

Pretty funny interpretation of the song in that video.

See it

2012-02-04T10:31:00.002-05:00

This is the best thing that you'll see today.

Change the focus of the eye, and what you see changes. Today as you go about your daily business of Life, I hope that the focus changes for you, now and again, here and there. The non-canonical (and possibly heretical) Gospel of Thomas says the same: The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the Earth, and men do not see it.

See it. It's a beautiful day.

Via American Digest.

Indigo Girls - Southland in the Springtime

2012-02-04T07:01:00.001-05:00

When God made me born a yankee he was teasin'

When we were exiled to Yankeeland, springtime was the worst. Summer there is a delight, with mild temperatures and no humidity; autumn is simply spectacular; winter is, well, it's a wonderland.

But there's no springtime. You have "dirty snow" season that turns into "mud season" which turns into about 3 weeks of actual springtime at the end of April, and then it's summer.

Yesterday in Roswell, I saw daffodils. February 3rd. The Camellia has been in bloom for weeks. It's glorious.

This song is particularly poignant for me right now, enjoying the first blush of spring here with the family. Thinking about the drive between Austin and Texas, which will come again all too soon but mercifully won't go on too much more.

Though I miss her when I'm gone it won't ever be too long

The Indigo Girls have been around for quite some time - this song is from around 1990, back before I listened to much Country music. But it captures the wistful longing for hearth and home, for the place where you belong, that is so common in Country.

Southland in the Springtime (Songwriter: Emily Saliers)

Maybe we'll make Texas by the morning
Light the bayou with our tail lights in the night
800 miles to El Paso from the state line
And we never have the money for the flight

I'm in the back seat sleepy from the travel
Played our hearts out all night long in New Orleans
I'm dirty from the diesel fumes, drinking coffee black
When the first breath of Texas comes in clean

And there's something 'bout the Southland in the springtime
Where the waters flow with confidence and reason
Though I miss her when I'm gone it won't ever be too long
Till I'm home again to spend my favorite season
When God made me born a yankee he was teasin'
There's no place like home and none more pleasin'
Than the Southland in the springtime

In Georgia nights are softer than a whisper
Beneath a quilt somebody's mother made by hand
With the farmland like a tapestry passed down through generations
And the peach trees stitched across the land

There'll be cider up near Helen off the roadside
And boiled peanuts in a bag to warm your fingers
And the smoke from the chimneys meets its maker in the sky
With a song that winter wrote whose melody lingers

And there's something 'bout the Southland in the springtime
Where the waters flow with confidence and reason
Though I miss her when I'm gone it won't ever be too long
Till I'm home again to spend my favorite season
When God made me born a yankee he was teasin'
There's no place like home and none more pleasin'
Than the Southland in the springtime

This cat is now on the No Fly list

2012-02-03T18:31:00.000-05:00

I mean, srlsy:

It happened this morning in Halifax when a cat named Ripples burst out of his carrier and into the cockpit. A 20-minute search revealed nothing so the crew shut down the plane to "calm the cat." That's right. The cat was calling the shots.

To make matters worse the cat wiggled its way in a sensitive part of the cockpit where it could screw with and possibly disable the plane's avionics. They eventually found the cat but had to delay the flight for hours to make sure the plan was safe to fly.

At least there are no mice in the cockpit any more.

It's, err, "fragile"

2012-02-03T14:31:00.001-05:00

It seems that the mail server at Old NFO's work place decided that it was working too hard (or something), and chewed up 2 years work of email. Ouch.

But that reminded me of an experience with Microsoft that I had, Back In The Day. You see, our development and test procedure included installing and uninstalling our software to make sure it went on and came off cleanly. It did this a number of times (to make sure). After a few months, we started having strange bugs on those computers. Crazy strange bugs. Not crashes and freezes, but Twilight Zone stuff. We called Microsoft's support number.

After most of an afternoon on the phone with the guys there (and getting up to 3rd or 4th or 5th level support), we got to a guy who asked us this curious question: Hey, are you installing and uninstalling software a lot on that computer?

Blink.

Why yes we are. How did you know?

We don't recommend that. It makes the Registry fragile.

"Fragile". I'll say. Inspires confidence, right there. I guess I'm a dinosaur or something - what do you need a Registry for if you have /usr/bin/local and ~/.foorc?

Punching back, twice as hard

2012-02-03T10:31:00.002-05:00

Divemedic is taking a class from The Man:

We were recently in a class on how to conduct an exam, and were talking about the questions that we are required to ask a patient. One of the questions that they said we are required to ask is whether or not they own a gun, and whether or not that gun is kept in a secure location. Then we should use this as an opportunity to talk to them about the dangers of having a firearm in the home. I spoke up and said that I did not feel like that was a valid medical question, and the answer that I got was that this was about safety.

The Man got schooled. RTWT, and bravo, Divemedic.

Hit the SOPA bastards where it hurts

2012-02-03T07:01:00.002-05:00

Good news from Texas: there's a primary challenger to the loathsome Rep. Lamar Smith (R-MPAA), sponsor of the equally loathsome SOPA bill. While only the good folks of his district can actually vote, the rest of us in Intarwebz land can still do something: Donate to his challenger, Richard Mack.

Battleswarm has done the footwork, and there's a lot to like about Mack:

He’s for restraining spending, controlling the border, and against ObamaCare. Not only does he support the Second Amendment, he was a leading opponent of the Brady Bill, was the very first Sheriff (and very possibly the first person) to file suit to get it overturned, and was the second named plaintiff in Printz Vs. U.S., which overturned key provisions. In addition to SOPA, he also opposes the indefinite incarceration of citizens provision of the NDAA.

Nice. Of course, I'd donate even if he ate BBQ puppy for lunch every day. It's a categorical imperative to get bough-and-paid-for jerks like Smith* out of office - it's both required and justified in and of itself.

You can drop him a few bucks here. And bloggers, please pass this on. Show him the power of this Fully Operational Internet.

* Don't Mess With the Internet, Lamar. We bite.

Internet Security LOL

2012-02-02T18:31:00.001-05:00

Security Haiku seems now sadly defunct. There are some good Zen moments over there:

Secret questions are
the weakest link on your site.
My first pet? Your mom.

This one is, err, pungent:

Passwords, underwear:
change often, never share, when
compromised, replace.

Not a lot of them, but they do a good job of distilling security wisdom.

And now for something completely different

2012-02-02T14:31:00.003-05:00

I've been pretty ranty lately, and so will make an effort to lighten the mood some. Like this:

Via #2 Son.

Texas Blogshoot - dates?

2012-02-02T10:31:00.001-05:00

U.S. Citizen has offered to host us at his gun club, and even the prospect of a (hopefully) large turn out hasn't been enough to scare them off. The location has some logistical advantages for everyone. It's located south east of Dallas, and so it's convenient for folks in the DFW metro area. Folks in Houston can head up I-45, Austin or San Antonio up I-35.

Location here.

So the question is dates. Let me propose three options:

1. Weekend of April 7/8.

2. Weekend of April 14/15

3. Weekend of April 21/22

Please leave a comment voting on which weekend and also on whether Saturday or Sunday would be better.

Barack Obama just won the 2012 election

2012-02-02T07:01:00.006-05:00

I figure that I'll beat the rush and call it now. The Republican Establishment has proven that they really are the Stupid Party and have handed the election to Obama. They may have jeopardized the House and Senate as well.

Consider 2008. If Republican voter turnout had been what it was in 2004, we'd be talking about President McCain's reelection campaign. People looked at what the GOP establishment put on offer, decided that it was Bob Dole 2.0, and stayed home.

Consider the recent Florida GOP primary, and Mitt's "great victory". Every county that Mitt won had a lower voter turnout than in 2008; every county that Newt won had a higher turnout than in 2008. Every one. (Can't find link, but you'll see more about this over the next few days)

Consider South Carolina. Turnout wasn't just up from 2008, it was way up from 2008. Newt won. Turnout in Florida was way down from 2008. Romney won. The numbers are actually stunning. In politics, they're about the only thing that doesn't lie.

And so to the GOP Establishment and Mitt's "electability" - yes, Newt's negatives are higher nationally (after Newt tried running a positive campaign focused on Obama in Iowa and Mitt buried him with negative ads). Yes, Mitt's negatives are much lower - but the press hasn't yet started in on him (they're keeping their powder dry) and Obama will do to him what he just did to Newt with negative ads.

And a bunch of people are looking at him as the man with no core, with no agenda other than getting elected, and they're fixin' to stay home in November. In their millions:

The Tea Party is a collection of people who felt compelled to transition from citizens to activists in favor of limited government and fiscal restraint. Many sacrifice time away from family, work, and life in a desperate attempt to save the nation they love, from their perspective. My concern is that the Tea Party will recoil from supporting a Republican Party that is headed by John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Mitt Romney.

...

The Republican presidential stakes kicked in, and Rebecca engaged. Her hopes rise with Rick Perry's entrance, but then "he gets hammered for stupid things, and drops." She thought about Herman Cain, "but his lack of campaign management was disconcerting." She never really thought Bachmann would make it to Florida, and says "Erick Erickson has educated me too much to cast a vote for Rick Santorum." She considers Ron Paul's views right on a number of accounts, but thinks his foreign policy is "crazy."

"So here I am, supporting Newt Gingrich," Rebecca says. "I'm not in love with Newt, but I trust him more to stay true to conservative ideals. The guy pushed Clinton right, for goodness sake. I only trust Mitt to stay true to himself."

So, Rebecca, about Mitt: why not Romney this time?

"I don't trust him, and I don't think he can win. He is utterly unaware of how offensive his disconnect with the average American is. He drops $10K bets like it's nothing. He thinks $342,000 isn't very much to make in a year," Rebecca said. "I don't begrudge him his wealth - he worked for it and earned it and that is admirable. But I hate his lack of awareness of how super-wealthy he is. His flip-flops are legendary."

"Oh, and he invented Obamacare."

Mitt and the GOP establishment are making a huge gamble that the voters who caused the historical sweep in 2010 will take any crap sandwich they offer up. Vote for Mittens, or the Republic gets it.

But they're not just betting the Oval Office, they're betting all the House and Senate seats as well. If two million people decide to just stay at home, that not only leaves Obama in the White House, it leaves Harry Reid as Majority Leader and may even put Nancy Pelosi back in as Speaker. Because those two million voters won't be casting ballots for Republicans in the down seat races either.

And so, the question is why would they do this?

The only reason that makes sense is that the GOP is owned lock, stock, and barrel by powerful political interests determined to keep the government feeding them non-competitive rents - like the incandescent light bulb ban that means we'll pay twice as much money for bulbs. That was passed by the Republicans, remember.

And so, people will stay home. I may actually vote - for Obama. At least when he's grotesquely expanding government and driving the economy off a cliff, he'll be happy about it. I don't expect that I'm the only one. Heck, I may even vote in the Georgia primary and write "Obama" in - that might even make the news.

All you people saying "get Obama out at all costs" and "Romney is the electable candidate" are, I'm afraid, sadly mistaken. Romney is Mr. 25%. The base can't stand him. He's a dirty campaigner. He has no core - he's so hollow that if you tapped him he'd "ping". When the Independents learn what he's all about (and make no mistake - the Press and the Democrats will make sure they learn), he's toast.

Other than that, he's awesome. He's just going to take the whole party down with him. At least that way, the Tea Party and Opposition will stay energized during the next four years. And the business interests controlling the GOP establishment? They'll do just fine buying sweet, sweet government imposed rents from the Obama Administration. And right now they're trying to panic you with a "Vote for Romney Or Else" story. Yeah, it's maybe a good time to panic.

Good grief, I sound like a tin foil hatter. Anyone want to point out where I went wrong, please go ahead. This is seriously bad juju, and I'd be delighted to be wrong. I just don't think that I am.

Optimist or pessimist?

2012-02-01T18:31:00.002-05:00

A wag once said that an Optimist believes that we live in the best of times. A Pessimist fears this is true. So is Simon Grey and optimist or a pessimist?

It’s pretty simple: politics is Jersey Shore for the middle class. It’s all a mudslinging mess, complete with petty drama, asinine interviews, contrived situations, and lots of attempt at moral posturing by greasy slimebags. The Republican debates are like the Real Housewives of New York: lots of hissy fits and name-calling coupled with hilarious self-seriousness. There’s so much manufactured drama in politics that it’s hard to see any meaningful differences between it and so-called reality TV.

Politics, like reality TV, serves as a way for all of us to get off on how smart and moral we all are. We’d never go through three wives like Newt Gingrich. We’d never talk crazy like good ol’ Ron Paul (seriously, who cares about The Fed?). We’d never be a weirdo homeschooling Catholic freak like Rick “Santorum” Santorum. We’d never be a sniveling beta Mormon like Mitt Romney. And all our policies would work perfectly from day one.

Well, actually my policies would work perfectly from Day One because my policies would be "Every Department's budget is reduced by 20%. Headcount is reduced by 20%. TSA is reduced by 100%." But his point is a good one.

Got to set up a TiVO Season Pass for "The Real Politicians of the GOP" ...

RFID-based credit card fraud

2012-02-01T14:31:00.001-05:00

This one is nasty, and unlike most credit card fraud, can stick you with the cost of the transaction:

Pull out your credit card and flip it over. If the back is marked with the words “PayPass,” “Blink,” that triangle of nested arcs that serves as the universal symbol for wireless data or a few other obscure icons, Kristin Paget says it’s vulnerable to an uber-stealthy form of pickpocketing. As she showed on a Washington D.C. stage Saturday, she can read all the data she needs to make a fraudulent transaction off that card with just a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, and do it invisibly through your wallet, purse, or pocket.

Paget did a live demo of this at the Shmoocon security conference. She asked for a volunteer from the audience, read his RFID credit card information remotely using equipment she picked up for a song from eBay, and then used the information to place a $15 online transaction. She gave the volunteer $20 to keep everything above board.

As far as we know, the range is limited, so the attacker would have to hang out in a crowd to harvest card information. However, that just means riding the subway or going to the ball game.

And here's the part that I really don't like (quote from the same article):

In fact, contactless cards do offer one security feature traditional cards don’t: Along with the card’s 16-digit number and expiration date, the cards are set to offer up a one-time CVV code with every scan. Those codes can only be used for one transaction, and have to used in the order they’re generated. If a payment processor that detects multiple transactions with the same code or codes being used to make transactions in the wrong order, it will disable the card. So a contactless card scammer can only use each stolen number for one transaction, and if the victim of a the scam uses the card again before the thief has time to make a fraudulent payment, all transactions on the card will be blocked.

“The truth is that consumers should be embracing this technology because it’s making them safer,” says Vanderhoof. “Efforts to try to discredit the use of chip technology in cards is only making the technology more vulnerable.”

That's not true. Today's credit card fraud involves repeated use of a stolen card number, until the fraud detection software picks up that something is wrong and the card number gets frozen. The cost of this fraud is picked up mostly by the merchant or (infrequently) the card issuer. With this technology, the card can only be used once.

That is unlikely to trip the fraud detection software, which means that the charge goes on your account. If you don't pick it up when you go over your bill, you eat the cost of fraud. In other words, this technology doesn't make the system more secure, it transfers the cost of fraud to you.

My recommendation is to stop carrying any credit card that contains an RFID chip. It's probably OK to use them online, from home. Or do some cooking:

Perhaps the simplest solution, Paget advises, is to kill your card’s RFID chip by frying it in the microwave. But that’s a more delicate task than it might seem. “Three seconds in the microwave will kill the chip,” she says. “Five seconds will set it on fire.”

If you have a card that you can wave in front of a reader, it has one of these chips. Here's more on finding out if you have a problem. Me, I like the E-Z Bake option.

Don't become jaded

2012-02-01T10:31:00.001-05:00

Awesome. This is where the Future comes from.

Acceptance speeches

2012-02-01T07:01:00.008-05:00

Mitt Romney:

My fellow Americans,

This great country, which I love, and which you love, and which we love together; which I love because you love; God Bless America.

Thank you, and good night.

Newt Gingrich:

Here are 19 great ideas that I should have come out with a month ago. Internet insurgency. Follow me on Twitter.

Rick Santorum:

Thanks for all your support for my daughter in the hospital [this was very touching - Borepatch]. Here's a bunch of stuff that will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

R0N P4uL!!!1!:

I'm the Howard Dean of the GOP. End the Fed!

I think I got that all about right.

Will Republicans vote for a Mormon?

2012-01-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

No, says a Mormon Republican:

A lot of Republicans hate Romney because he's Mormon, and they've been taught by their ministers that Mormons are an evil cult. This is absurdly false, but it's a serious factor in Republican politics.

They don't dare admit their Mormon-hatred openly, because the Republican Party needs the Mormon vote the way Democrats need and count on the Jewish vote -- a small and much-maligned religious minority, but one that votes as a bloc and contributes time and money far beyond their numbers.

This is an interesting analysis, and goes into why the Left also hates Romney (it's not because it's because he's a Mormon, but because he's rich).

I'm probably not the best guy to analyze this because the whole "I won't vote for him because he goes to the wrong church/wants to marry the wrong person/etc" thing is a divide by zero error for me. I just don't understand what causes the passion. But Orson Scott Card (a Mormon) writes clearly and logically on this.

All I would add is that all those polls showing that Mitt does better in the general election than Newt is strongly related to the fact that nobody knows who Mitt is (except for political wonks) and everyone knows Newt's negatives. In other words, Mitt's negatives will be much higher once the media is done bashing him in the general election; Newt's probably wouldn't be much different.

I am only 10% Smart

2012-01-31T14:31:00.001-05:00

Damn.

I knew who made Sideways. The background of the whole thing is, of course, "smart" vs. "Smart".

Now that's a political ad!

2012-01-31T10:31:00.001-05:00

What, are you part of the 1%?

Like Slick Willard has the stones to run something like this. I'm not sure who this Brian K. Hill fellow is, but I must say that I like the cut of his jib.

Hat tip: The Other McCain.

Shooting Illustrated copies Borepatch

2012-01-31T07:01:00.004-05:00

Well, not really. But they did a review of Dragon Leather Works' Quantum holster:

The Quantum held up without complaint through the steamy North Carolina summer into the fall, and is still going strong in January. It turned out to be resistant to sweat and scuffing alike, a testament to the quality of the leather used and how it was constructed. Badurina’s goal for Dragon Leatherworks was to provide made-in-U.S. craftsmanship at a reasonable price.

Well earned recognition to Dennis, right there. Although sadly no mention of the Way Cool Quantum logo in the article.

Let me just add that I can testify that the Quantum is comfortable even on a 14 hour drive. It's rock steady, and the pistol doesn't move a millimeter. Recommended.

Happy blogiversary to Bob at The Drawn Cutlass

2012-01-30T18:31:00.003-05:00

5 years of snark, BBQ, and treasure hunting. Here's hoping for many more.

Oh, and he discusses the respective, err. pulchritude of J. Lo, Kim Kardashian, and Nina Hartley. Did I mention snark?

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight

2012-01-30T14:31:00.002-05:00

Bring a gun knife!

And Zombies and beer, too. But I think that even I could shoot the 'splody zombies better than he did. I guess there's a lesson there - with an M4 you have a lot of shots, so I guess you can miss a lot.

A new Republican candidate?

2012-01-30T10:31:00.001-05:00

Sonic Charmer throws his hat into the ring:

Frustrated with the current slate of options faced by our country, and after zero lengthy discussions with my family or soul-searching, I have decided to do the right and responsible thing by my country and throw my hat into the ring to be the evil (R) party’s nominee for President of the United States. Please vote for me, like by writing in “Sonic Charmer”, or (if you’re a broker at the convention) please broker the convention for me. Or however you call it, I’m not sure how that part works.

Key facts about me, Sonic Charmer, and why I am qualified to be the next President of the United States:

[snip]

Wife count: < 2 (strict inequality).

Would be cool with Warren Buffet’s secretary’s tax rate being lowered by special Act of Congress. (I’d overhaul the tax code to be flatter for the rest of us, but Warren Buffet’s secretary, she’s a special case, we’re all very concerned about her)

Visionary. I think we should build a giant space station next to a wormhole. An AMERICAN space station.

Read the whole thing. There's actually a lot of great renewable, green energy you can get from a wormhole.

On the love of Sons for their Father

2012-01-30T07:01:00.002-05:00

My daddy, he was somewhere between God and John Wayne.
- Hank Williams, Jr.

The bond between a Father and his Sons is something that defies description. This almost - almost - describes it.

A sixty year search. I hope it brought them peace.

By profession, I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father.
- Douglas MacArthur

My Five fantasy guns

2012-01-29T18:31:00.004-05:00

Like His Newtness, I think big.

76mm HEAT M4 Sherman main battery (with tank as gun platform). The 76mm was a big improvement over the original 75mm - much more so than the trivial extra millimeter would suggest. The Sherman is still simple enough to be (vaguely) practical for private ownership. I'm guessing that this would be classified by the ATF as a "Destructive Device", so the cost will be higher because of the extensive legal work to get all the licenses.

Ma-Deuce (P-51 as the gun platform). Because what's more awesome than Ma-Deuce? Six of them riding on the greatest propeller fighter of all time. These planes are popular at air shows all over the land, but this would take that to a whole 'nother level. Not just low passes, but strafing runs. Like with the Sherman, I expect that you'd need to budget extra for legal fees (or ~~bribes~~ political contributions) to get the right licenses. Hey, it's my fantasy, right?

Mark 8 Torpedo tube (PT Boat as gun platform). Yeah, it's a wooden boat, and so upkeep will be a pain (buy stock in Valspar), but let's face it - if you want to play one ups-manship at the local marina, this would about do it (note to self: make sure that proper grey camouflage paint job is done before taking it into harbor). New England residents will get bonus points if you paint a number "109" on the bow. And if you dock it in Hyannisport.

Siege of Constantinople bombard. There's a reason that the city is called Istanbul, and this is it. The old Theodosian Walls were no match to the firepower of these monsters. Yeah, it took a team of oxen to haul it and you were lucky to get off three shots in a day, but those old Roman fortifications just couldn't take the pounding. Bonus points: this is likely not covered by the NFA (worst case, it's classified as a Curio and Relic firearm). Downside: local meth-addled thugs will want to swipe it for the scrap value.

A 2.7 mm (10 caliber) Kolibri, simply because it's about at the opposite end of the size spectrum from the Sultan Mehmet bombard. The whole pistol isn't much bigger than a single .45 ACP cartridge (shown in the picture for scale), so this is a mouse gun that might only make the mouse mad if you hit him. Actually, I couldn't think of anything else, but this is goofy enough to add to the list.

I'm thinking I could score this sweet list for $20M or so - $30M tops. Might have to look at one of the former Soviet Bloc countries for an old bombard, but I understood that the rules stated that money is no object. I expect that this is the strangest list posted in this meme, but you guys know that any incoming transmission from Planet Borepatch is going to be weird. It was actually fun asking myself what will dial the weird up to eleven. Sure, it's really not what Robb was getting at in his meme, but like Newt, I pride myself on being visionary. And unlike a Moon Colony, this isn't idiotic.

Well, it is, but it's not that idiotic.

A note about exercise

2012-01-29T14:31:00.001-05:00

My 17 year old self would kick sand in my face. Just sayin'.

The GOP Establishment and the Reckoning

2012-01-29T10:31:00.004-05:00

Mark Alger has an interesting post that captures much of my feeling this election cycle:

In short, the couch thing with Bela Pelosi: FAIL. The JohnKinging of the media (note how quickly that became a transitive verb): EPIC WIN.

And that, I think, is the point. Tired of taking it on the chin from rude, gibbering, little homunculi of the Left, and then being laughed at for wimps when making a measured and proportionate response, We in the Right have long demanded a more muscular response -- a retaliation... a punishing retaliation -- from our soi disant leaders.

Newt seems bent on giving that to us, in word and in deed -- without much regard to what may be drudged up out of his record to smear him with.

And that is why he is liked by the groundlings.

Yeah. It's like Lincoln's reply when the Union Military Elite told him to get rid of Grant early in the war: I can't spare him. He fights.

But that got me thinking (as Mark is wont to do), and I went to leave a comment over there. Unfortunately, I'm not registered or something, and so can't leave a comment. And so I'll inflict it on you:

I recall that scene in Tombstone, where Val Kilmer says "It's not Revenge he wants. It's a Reckoning."

That's what the Tea Party is about. That's what the anybody-but-Romney crowd is about. I dare say that's what your post was about.

So if Romney gets the nomination, when comes the Reckoning? Because come it will.

People are fixated on get Obama out of office at all cost. They're missing the Reckoning:

And so we come yet again to the stupidity and short sightedness of the Elites. Do they really not see the Reckoning, after the rallies and election of 2010? Really? If they really ram Slick Willard down everyone's throats, do they not inflame this feeling, rather than tamping it down?

And then I think on how the Elite is handling the financial crisis in Europe, where reasonable changes early would likely have defused the situation. But those changes would have cost the Elite control, or money, or embarrassment, and so the Elite kept doubling down, hoping against hope to cheat their way through.

The GOP Establishment have lived up (down?) to the Progressive's scolding that we all need to be more like Europe. Watching this, it's the same incompetence, mixed with equal measures of arrogance and desperation. And so again: when comes the Reckoning, what happens? Does it sweep Ron Paul to power? Whatever it will be, it will be the more extreme for being thwarted so often in the past.

Tagged "GOP sucks" because, well, you know.

Jeremy Soule - Overture to Skyrim

2012-01-29T07:01:00.007-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

For those of you who aren't blessed with teenage boys, Skyrim isn't an opera, it's a best selling fantasy computer game. And this music isn't the overture (the traditional opening musical piece to an opera), it's the "Skyrim theme".

Whatever. Skyrim is an interactive opera with you as the main character, set in a barbarian mythos worthy of Wagner. This is the overture.

In a comment to last week's Prokofiev post, reader Dave H pointed out the really excellent classic music being composed for games these days. He's quite right. Video games have passed Hollywood in sales; the Call Of Duty franchise of games has a much higher gross than the Star Wars franchise of motion pictures. These are big budget products, with serious actors for the voice parts (Skyrim has Christopher Plummer) and music budgets to attract serious classical talent.

And since we're happy lacking in a landed aristocracy that would commission the talent of the day to produce music to glory their name, we at least have a market that supports quite interesting - if commercial - new classical music. In fact, the commercial appeal is what makes the music accessible: since it's not funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, it has to appeal to a public much broader than the SWPL types who sit on NEA Grant Committees.

And so you get a barbarian overture hinting of Gorecki or Carl Orff, with a strong flavor of a rougher Wagner or Mahler. Is this great music? Beats me - I'm no music critic, nor am I a music historian (although I play one on my blog). But this is listened to my literally hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise might be putting some rap on their iPod.

Time will tell Jeremy Soule's place (if any) in the pantheon of classical music greats, but Dave H is absolutely correct. Classical music is alive and well. You can pick it up at Game Stop.

I got nothing

2012-01-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Well, other than I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed listening to the kids bicker. I dare say that it will get old, but it's quite odd what can suddenly seem like the Music of the Gods.

Too slow

2012-01-28T14:52:00.007-05:00

On her maiden voyage in 1952, the S.S. United States won the Blue Riband prize for fastest Atlantic crossing by a passenger ship, crushing the previous record set by the S.S. Queen Mary. To this day she still holds this record: no other passenger liner was ever able to wrest it from her. She averaged over 35 knots speed, crossing an entire ocean.

She was essentially constructed around her massive engines. Designed for speed, her all-aluminum superstructure was at the time of her construction the largest aluminum fabrication effort ever under taken.

She's been mothballed in Philadelphia since 1996, nearly three decades since she was retired.

You see, she was too slow. The 1960s saw an explosion of air travel, all at the expense of the liners.

The S.S. United States' speed came at a fearsome cost in fuel. The fares were expensive, and passengers found that they could spend less and arrive three days earlier. And so in the space of a decade all the grand old liners were mothballed, or found themselves (like the S.S. France) renamed, re-engined (with a third the horse power) and doing permanent duty as Caribbean Cruse Ships.

Many people have tried to breathe new life into the old ships, but alas, their glory was in the trans-Atlantic crossing. They're too big (at nearly a thousand feet long), too fast, and too expensive for the only use that people will pay cash money for today: vacation cruising. Racing through the cold, grey North Atlantic has little attraction for most, especially when compared with sun and palm trees.

Teletubbies vs. Zombies

2012-01-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

T-Bolt made me.

Kellie Pickler - My Angel

2012-01-28T07:01:00.000-05:00

(Image source)

Sometimes Angels watch over us. They watched over Kellie Pickler. Her Dad was in and out of jail. Her Mom wasn't there for her.

But her grandparents were. She lived with them, and grew up, and became who she is under their wing. She grew up, a "normal" small town girl - church choir, cheer leading, basic growing from childhood to adult. Without Mom or Dad.

But with her Grand Parents, and with an extraordinary talent. Pickler hit the big time with American Idol, where Simon Cowell said that the should be singing Country. Her ninth place finish gave her a chance to record, and her "High Heel Shoes" song got her to the charts, and her "I Wonder" song - about her Mom, who abandoned her - kept her there.

But this one is the one that I think that cements her place (with me) as one of the few songwriters who can capture the time, and place, and emotion of what's happening. The "sophisticated" music critics have passed this by, but only because they've passed by the type of emotion that is common, but uncommonly captured in song.

I'd like to think that most people would do this for their flesh and blood. Mostly, perhaps, it doesn't. But sometimes you even see this happening, before your eyes.

There is an outside chance Little Bit's mother, her birth mother, will visit on Little Bit's birthday next month. That is if the stars are in alignment, the earth's crust doesn't shift, and purple rain showers develop out over the Gulf of Mexico. Little Bit hasn't seen her mother in over three years, so I'm not sure how I feel about this visit. What effect will it have on my grandchild when she has to say, goodbye.

Her mother has promised so much over the years and, as is her way, failed. She never follows through. This hurts Little Bit. I hope this isn't another. Little Bit is so excited.

I hope that she gets her birthday wish - to see her Mom. But even if she doesn't, she has Angels watching over her. Her Grand Parents.

Little Bit has had a raw deal, but she's also been given some Angels. I hope that in the fullness of time, she realizes that.

Back home

2012-01-27T23:07:00.000-05:00

Under 14 hours, which is a record. No traffic delays at all, good weather, traffic streams going fast.

And Aqua Tean Hunger Force with the kids is awesome. And Crash the Wondercat has rediscovered my lap. That's awesome, too.

For Steve

2012-01-27T18:31:00.002-05:00

I'm in awe about the strength you had to bury your son. I think that would destroy me.

Et lux perpetua donna eis, Domine. And save me from having to go there.

Amen.

"Bring back the smoke filled room"

2012-01-27T14:31:00.001-05:00

Seems that some of Romney's people think that if he loses Florida, they need to get rid of all this messy democracy and voters who don't do as they're told.

Because there is such a desperation by the so-called party elites, but that’s exactly what Gingrich is playing against.

And that's why Newt's winning. And so we get to the real problem with Romney and his staff. Sure, he looks Presidential. Sure, they're making all the Approved™ moves. Yeah, they may be a little old, but hey - nobody says you can't get a nip her and a tuck there and be good as new! Oh, wait ...

We may have found the trouble with Mitt's campaign. Just sayin'.

"But ..."

2012-01-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

This is the most slippery of words, uttered by the most slippery of people as they try to turn our eyes from the charnal house of their philosophy.

Sure, 50 million babies are dead from abortion since Roe v. Wave, but women now have the right to choose.

Sure, millions are jailed in the War on (some) Drugs, but we think that maybe we've kept someone from getting addicted. Maybe.

Sure, Stalin killed millions in the Gulag, but he saved the Glorious Revolution. Didn't he, Comrade?

Moldbug is at it again, about how the USA is a Communist Country. I actually agree with him (I think, in the main), but am digesting his post - as indeed all his posts require digesting. In the mean time, we need to be unflinching in how we view the World, and its history. Unlike so many Progressives, we need to shun the slippery but, to see the past - and its actors - for what they truly were. Even such a pretty Philosophical Construct as Soviet Communism. Moldbug quotes Fyodor Mochulsky's memoirs, Gulag Boss:

For his decisive action, he was offered a transfer to a new job. At this new job, he would be carrying out "special commissions," that is, he would work as an executioner, shooting the enemies of Soviet power. He agreed to the transfer, and after some special training, he was sent with his new specialty to the ancient Russian city of Uglich.

For days at a time, he said, from mission to mission, he sat around doing nothing. He rested. Then, when the prison had accumulated a large number of condemned prisoners, the authorities would set an execution date. A specially trusted group from the security department of Uglich's prison was then sent out to carefully select a place in the woods and dig a pit. The pit was guarded until the executions took place. Starting at night and working until the morning, the prison officials would transport the condemned prisoners in a closed truck to this pit. Besides the security men and the person who would ensure that the executions took place, he said, there was always a doctor on hand. It was his duty to certify the death and write up the necessary documents.

One at a time, they led a condemned prisoner from the truck to the edge of the pit, and forced him to get on his knees with his face toward the pit. The executioner than shot him in the back of the head, and the dead man fell in. From the blow to the head, the executioner told me, the body would turn over facing up, and straighten up on the bottom of the pit. The doctor then went down into the pit and certified that the body was dead. Then they went to retrieve the next condemned prisoner.

He told me that from time to time, there was a prisoner who would not do what he was told and go submissively to the edge of the pit. In these cases, the security guys had to help out, and the job for the executioner would be more complicated.

When the mission was finished and the pit was filled, they covered it with soil and tried to make it look unobtrusive. After every mission, he told me, he got drunk and tried not to think about what he had done until the next time they called. For a long time, though, he was convinced that his job was important and honorable, because he was destroying the enemies of Soviet power. He believed that not everyone could be as trusted as he was with such a job.

But then one day, he had to shoot a fourteen-year-old girl. The executioner was told right before he had to kill her that not only was she the daughter of an "enemy of the people," she was also a "German spy." Suddenly and involuntarily, questions sprang to his mind. He was to kill a fourteen-year-old girl in an ancient Russian small town far from the front, in a place that had no classified establishments? Where had this adolescent girl done her spying, and for whom?

When they brought her to the execution place, she held herself up firmly and was silent. But when they led her to the pit, she spoke up. She said that she did not understand why they were depriving her of her life. "Even Stalin said that children do not answer for their parents, so why me?" she asked. She was unaware, he added, that she was also accused of being a "German spy."

In the words of my unit boss, after this execution he drank himself into a stupor so profound that he felt nothing.

The next time some leftie rolls out the slippery but to you when the subject is the murders performed by the Left, mention this. Mention Arthur Keostler's Darkness At Noon, and listen to the leftie spew contemptuous dismissal. No slippery but there.

Scientific Socialism. Progressive.

Ooooh kaaaay. Hey Lefties: Sitting Bull called. He wants his tribal thinking back.

And I for one am unwilling to consider someone my intellectual and moral superior when he talks about the State murder of a 14 year old using that slippery word.

... but ...

A stupor so profound that they feel nothing. There's a metaphor for you.

On my way back home

2012-01-27T07:01:00.001-05:00

It's time - wheels pointed towards home once again, and this time with the promise that this won't be going on too much longer. I have posts queued for the day while I drive the 900 miles towards where hearth and home (and bacon) beacon.

It's a good day.

Confession time

2012-01-26T18:31:00.000-05:00

All right, I have to come right out and admit it. I don't much like shotguns.

There, I said it.

They're big and bulky. They kick like a mule. The ammunition weighs a ton: that's bad, bad Zombie juju. Remember, zombies travel in hordes.

But here's the kicker - I can't hit a barn door with it, even standing inside the barn. Not much fun there.

For all the talk I do about my modest marksmanship, Ican keep the groups serviceable with a pistol. With some instruction and practice, I know that I can be a passable marksman with a rifle. Now that I'll be able to spend time at the range (rather than driving between Atlanta and Austin on I-20), I may be able to take a run at that "Expert" badge that Dad earned back at Uncle Sam's Summer Camp.

But a shottie? The clay pigeons, they mock me. Actual pigeons laugh at me. Fine, then - I'll get my fowl at the supermarket.

Sure, I know that the sound that a pump action makes as you rack the slide will make the home invader go weak in the knees. That's about the only thing I see as useful in the scattergat.

Uncouth, that's me. Feel free to help couth me in the comments.

Why do you practice drawing what you carry?

2012-01-26T14:31:00.001-05:00

Because sometimes you might carry a different gun. Different gun, different draw.

Well thought out and discussed.

I don't think I'll bring this to the attention of the HR team here next time we're discussing "Concealed Carry Tuesday". It would just muddy the waters.

The Universe

2012-01-26T10:31:00.002-05:00

It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.
- Isaiah 40:22

Via NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe to match your nature with Nature.
- Joseph Campbell

If World War II reporting had been done via Facebook

2012-01-26T07:01:00.000-05:00

The whole thing is pretty funny.

How I might - gasp! - vote for Romney

2012-01-25T18:31:00.003-05:00

Ace with quote of the day:

Romney has to make the right enemies and burn the right bridges.

Because Romney has the reputation of a flip-flopper, moderate, and side-winder, voters have the suspicion that he will drift to the left while governing, or govern straight from the middle, ignoring conservatives.

When the Cortez set out about conquering the Aztecs, he burned all of his ships so that his band of adventurers knew the only possible way home was through conquest. Conquer the Aztecs, and then force them to cut new timber for new ships. Only way out. Conquest and glory, or death in the malarial swamps, far from Spain.

Romney may have some illusions that the media considers him a bright, rational, non-crazy Republican and will be nice to him. Yeah, McCain thought that too.

I would not say Go out of your way to alienate the media if I thought such a strategy carried a cost, if it could wind up losing media support.

But it can't. If Romney gets the nomination, he will be the most demonized Republican in history (each new Republican nominee becomes the most dangerous lunatic the party has nominated in history).

So alienating liberals (not moderates-- liberals) and the media cannot hurt Romney; if he thinks he has an in with them he's a fool who should not be president.

Do it, Romney. Do it.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Ramadan

2012-01-25T14:31:00.004-05:00

So, we once again just had the hottest year EVAH!!!one!!! So just how hot is it? So hot that it's snowing in the Sahara desert:

But fear not, faithful Progressive. There is in fact, a scientific explanation: Global Warming causes everything:

Yeah, yeah, weather, climate. Whatevs. If it were actually hot you and I both know that the Press would be screaming "Global Warmeningz" rather than "Weather, not Climate". Enjoy your cup of steaming hot hot hot mockery, Lefties.

And this is the time for everyone who ever said the words "Republican War on Science" to wipe the drool from their chins, sit down in the back of the room, and shut up. Grown ups are talking here.

I haven't posted on Global Warming for a while, but this mockery is just too sweet.

If cats ran teh Intarwebz ...

2012-01-25T10:31:00.000-05:00

... deh Error codez would be like this.

The Most decorated American Soldier of World War II

2012-01-25T07:01:00.001-05:00

Via A Large Regular, we run across the astonishing story of MSG Lewellyn Chilson. The citation for his second Distinguished Service Cross reads like it should be a movie script:

Notice the dates - almost a year had passed since the action. The reason that it took so long is because he was submitted for so many medals that the Army put extra effort into investigating them - they didn't believe it at first. It was such a story that President Truman himself pinned seven combat decorations on him in a White House ceremony.

It took a lot to kill MSG Chilson: he survived the crash of a C-124 Skymaster in 1961. But as with many of his age, the larger than life bit never translated to civilian life, and he died too young (at 61) in 1981. It seems that he was truly a warrior, and running a gas station just didn't need that skill set.

Among his awards are the Distinguished Service Cross (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Silver Star (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Bronze Star (with Combat "V" and two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Purple Heart (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), and the French Croix de Guerre (with Palm). And he was recommended - twice - for the Medal of honor.

Holy cow.

Texas Blogshoot?

2012-01-24T19:45:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official: in the next 3 months or so I'll close up FOB, declare Mission Accomplished, and retire back to Camp Borepatch in Atlanta. I'll be working remotely (well, from the company office there).

And so the heart turns lightly to thoughts of a blogshoot, probably some time in March before logistics begin consuming the weekends prior to PCS.

The conundrum is that Texas is not like the other, lesser States - there are bloggers from Houston to San Antonio to Dallas (and likely beyond - IIRC, Blackfork is in Tyler). That's perhaps a 4 hour radius.

So, who's up for a blogshoot in March? Is it possible for an uber assembly of Lone Star gubbloggers to meet at a single venue? That would be distilled, 101 proof awesome, but may not be practical. If not, is there interest in a southern blogshoot and one in Dallas?

Leave a comment with your thoughts.

What the well dressed H4X0r is wearing

2012-01-24T14:31:00.000-05:00

USB/WiFi cuff links.

2 GB storage space. Bet you could make it autorun.

Glurk

2012-01-24T10:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a day an day and a half, and that's for sure. I'm just a bit wrung out, and so I'll do a bit of cheap toss-a-cute-kitten blogging.

More later. You know that it takes a lot to shut me up.

Dewey Beats Truman

2012-01-24T07:01:00.000-05:00

I wonder if this will go down in MSM history with that?

Via Joel.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

2012-01-23T18:31:00.000-05:00

Srlsy. I grew up reading that sort of thing (no, not that sort of thing,not that there's be anything wrong with that).

Dang, no 12 gauge

2012-01-23T14:31:00.001-05:00

Oh, foo. Leave him a comment on what the best round for that particular game animal is.

2 + 2 = 4

2012-01-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

Truth is simple, uncomplicated. Trying to spin truth is complicated. This isn't complicated:

Newt Gingrich and the Left's Thought-terminating clichés

2012-01-23T07:01:00.003-05:00

Robert Lifton's 1956 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism is one of the definitive analyses of brain washing. One of the techniques that Lifton described was the Thought-terminating cliché:

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism popularized the term "thought-terminating cliché". A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance. Though the phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating. [emphasis in the original - Borepatch]

Partly this is a defense mechanism designed to protect the thinker from Unapproved Thought™, but mostly it's a means to enforce group-think and suppress intellectual challenge. As the Left - the institutions of the University, and Dinosaur Media, and Hollywood - have become the Establishment, this has been a very useful club for them to marginalize potential opposition.

The tropes are well known, if tired and boring: "Republicans are racist." "Republicans are sexist." "Republicans hate gays." "Republicans want the poor to starve in the street." "Republicans are warmongers."

Yawn.

But yawn no more - maybe. What causes Newt to electrify the audience is that he takes on these thought-terminating clichés head-on, unapologetically, and destroys them before our eyes.

Williams leads with a thought-terminating cliché - several, actually:

1. "Jobs not food stamps" is insulting to Americans, especially minorities.

2. Janitorial work is demeaning, particularly to minorities.

3. Even speaking these thoughts is belittling to Americans, especially minorities.

Newt's reply is simply devastating: No, I don't [see that].

That - and his detailed explanation that follows - brings the crowd cheering to its feet. No, it's not insulting - the Obama administration has vastly increased the food stamp rolls. No, it's not demeaning - Newt's own daughter did that work as a youth. No, it's not belittling - only liberals think that getting paid money when you're poor is a bad thing.

All of these are, of course, entirely logical, but Politically Incorrect and therefore anathema to the Left. And so Williams - a fully paid up member of the Liberal Media (redundancy alert) is utterly incapable of replying.

I think that it's because the thought-terminating cliché, while of course present on the Right, is vastly more prevalent on the Left. Case in point, the reaction to this exchange by Chris Matthews: Newt calling Williams "Juan" is code for racism, and that's what the audience was reacting to.

Translation: Republicans are racist. And if you don't understand that you're racist, that's just proof positive that you're racist. [rolls eyes]

What Newt has going for him - uniquely among all the candidates (including Obama) is that he is able to articulate ideas. I think that this is why he's gaining strength during the debates - he gets ideas out there, and particularly ideas that hammer Progressive's thought-terminating clichés. Every time he does this, he ticks up in the polls. If he can stay disciplined on this matter - admittedly a big "if" with Newt - he will continue to tick up in the polls. The reason is simple addressable market analysis.

Consider the breakdown of self-identified political persuasion in this country. It's something like this:

40% - Conservative
35% - Moderate
20% - Liberal
5% - Leave me alone/no opinion/gone fishing

Newt won't appeal to the Liberals, because their thought-terminating clichés are well established and they simply won't listen to his arguments. They'll roll their eyes, and this will be 90% of what you'll hear and see from the Liberal Media (redundancy alert). But they're only 20%.

He doesn't need the Conservatives, assuming that he gets the nomination - they'll crawl across broken glass to vote against Obama. They're sick of being told that they're racist, sexist, ignorant rednecks, clinging to their guns and religion and so this may be the path to the Nomination for Newt, but they'll likely hold their noses and vote for Romney if that's the choice.

But the self identified Moderates are the ones who like to think that they think for themselves. They like to think that they have open minds, and take some ideas from the Right and some from the Left. In other words, their thought-terminating clichés are weak (note: this is a good thing). They'll listen to him.

And as long as the Left spouts nonsense ('"code" for racism') and as long as Newt keeps hammering away the way he did, he'll keep them listening. And this cunning plan isn't a new one, and I didn't think this up. I got it from Newt:

2 + 2 = 4. The 20% can't stand the Truth, which is why they try so hard to suppress it. The 40% is thirsting for someone to vigorously defend the Truth, and the 35% are willing to listen.

Will Newt be disciplined enough to do what Newt says? In the past, he frequently hasn't been. But the Oval Office is a big prize for one who - like Newt - has spent his life chasing that particular golden ring. The Establishment won't help him get there. The Media won't help him get there.

But ideas? And an attack on a rotted out ideology still shambling, zombie-like, unaware that its brain has been devoured by the virus of Progressive thought-terminating cliché? Well, that's an advantage that only Newt has right now. Maybe this is premature, but if Newt wins, it will be because he hammers this home every day between now and November:

The Progressive ideology that so grips this Republic was not established over night. It will not be banished over night. But it is so over-extended, so wrapped up in desperate attempts to bend 2 + 2 = 4 to preserve its voting coalition that this is a rich target environment for anyone who will bring firepower to bear. Romney won't, because it's too risky (not to mention anti-establishment). Ron Paul actually is, and his support reflects this - but it's much too narrow a base, and he's a walking tl;dr*. People will tune him out.

But Newt won't let them. He has shown that he can hammer simple 2 + 2 = 4 concepts in a way that the Progressive Media (redundancy alert) simply can't cope with. Certainly Barry can't, because he's nothing but thought-terminating cliché. I mean, it's what he does: says a lot of big, pretty, empty nothings.

Will Newt make a good President? I haven't the slightest idea. Certainly he won't do some things I'd like to see: end the War on (some) Drugs, and end the War on a Verb (end the Patriot Act all other "Terror" related things). If he stays focused on breaking the moribund Progressive ideology with simple, repeated 2 + 2 = 4, he'll go down as transformative - despite the expected flightiness, venality, and general piss everyone off that we can expect. If he can't do this, he simply won't win.

But the game can no longer be played at the margins. The clichés are killing this Republic. It's time to find someone who will kill them. Maybe we've found him.

Maybe.

* No offense to Ron Paul, but I know tl;dr when I see it. Heck, I make a practice of it here. If you've actually read this far, you might follow Paul's arguments to their admittedly logical conclusion. The other 95% of the population won't.

Geekin' the 1980s way

2012-01-22T18:33:00.000-05:00

ASM826 emails this (well, emailed, past tense, a million years ago) flashback to by youth:

Reading it, I was suddenly 25 again. I thought I was the hottest guy in town, because my PC had a 5 MB (removable!!!) Syquist hard drive! Three Letter Intelligence Agency loved them, because you could get all classified and Top Secret and everything all day long, and then lock it in the safe when you went home. Yeah, it wasn't a proper Winchester Drive (the original name came from the nickname of IBM's dual 30 MB Mainframe drives - 30-30, get it?), but it was on a PC!

Of course, they wrecked me for life there, introducing me to Multix (the precursor of Unix) and then Xenix (Unix for IBM PCs) and we were off to the races.

Over the years, I've had Coherent (a Unix for PCs from the late 1980s), PC-VMS (I can still probably whack together a DCL script; back in the day I could read DECnet traces), and then on to Slackware and a 0.99 Linux kernel. 25 floppy disks, and you had to build your own kernel.

But I love this ad, from back when Boston's Rt-128 really was "America's Technology Highway" and giving Silicon Valley a run for its money. And yeah, we wore neck ties, with three piece suits. Err, and had hair, and everything. Must have been even a little bit dashing, because that's around the time I sweet talked the lovely and yet-to-be Mrs. Borepatch into going out with me.

Good days, good days.

These leftie NGOs are really getting out of hand

2012-01-22T14:31:00.001-05:00

Hipster Hitler finds out about the do-gooders at Oxfam, and starts his own NGO.

I must confess that this is one of my guilty pleasures. Go ahead, buy the frisbee. It's organic!

The greatest visual pun of 2012

2012-01-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

It's early, but this now officially has pole position.

Well done.

Sergei Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky

2012-01-22T07:01:00.003-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

It's not true that Classical Music is dead, it's just gone to the theater. Specifically, the Motion Pictures. Every year sees new compositions, commissioned not by Old World Aristocrats, but by Hollywood moguls. Some of it is quite good.

This tradition goes back a long time. Sergei Prokofiev is one of the Twentieth Century's greatest composers, and his music in many ways led the charge to the cinema. Prokofiev composed most of his greatest works in Soviet Russia immediately before and during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The Soviet regime was desperate to build patriotic feeling in the masses, and the new film medium gave them a mass propaganda outlet.

Just as Adolf Hitler had his film maker Leni Riefenstahl, so Stalin had his in Sergei Eisenstein. 1938 saw the release of Eisenstein's great Alexander Nevsky, featuring Prokofiev's score. The film told the tale of the Teutonic Knights, and how their invasion was turned back by the early Russian hero Nevsky. This is a scene from the film.

The entire Film art was still half in the old stage theater production mindset, and so this looks stiff to our modern eye - much as Laurence Olivier's Henry V seems stiff and staged. But the music is grand.

No, Classical Music isn't dead at all. It just goes with popcorn these days.

George B. McClellan's Presidential Campaign

2012-01-21T21:05:00.001-05:00

George McClellan was in charge of the Army of the Potomac from July 1861 until November 1862. An able administrator, he turned the post-Bull Run Army of the Potomac from a rag tag mass of whipped militia into a professional fighting force. It's probably not going too far to say that he laid the foundation upon which the ultimate Union victory lay.

But he was cautious to a fault. While nicknamed "The Little Napoleon" (from his preferred poses for the new fangled photographers of the day), he refused to implement Napoleon's dictum for success on the battlefield: l'audace, l'audace. toujours l'audace!*

And so Robert E. Lee was able to play him like a fiddle. Lee took over command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June of 1862 when its former commander Joseph Johnston was wounded. Lee was not then held in high regard, his stock having fallen from its pre-war heights. Lee soon put that to rest. In a stunning series of tactical assaults called The Seven Days, Lee essentially lost eight battles in seven days, at which point McClellan loaded his entire army on naval transport and sailed back to Washington, defeated.

Lee wasn't attacking the Army of the Potomac, he was attacking McClellan. No matter how good an administrator and organizer McClellan was, he couldn't fight effectively.

Actually, that's not true - he was very effective in fighting his own organization, and especially his commander in chief. His insubordination was the least of it (he once kept Lincoln waiting 30 minutes when the President came to call, and then had Lincoln informed that he had gone to bed and couldn't see him). He wouldn't fight. There was always a reason why - he didn't have enough men, he didn't have enough supplies, the weather was bad. Lincoln once summoned a council of war of McClellan's generals - pointedly without McClellan himself - saying that if McClellan wasn't using the army he'd like to borrow it for a while.

Finally, McClellan went too far, and Lincoln fired him. Whether for revenge, or because of his weakness for flattery, he ran against Lincoln in the 1864 elections. Grant and Sherman won that for Lincoln. Unlike McClellan, they would fight.

Newt Gingrich just handed Mitt Romney his tail end, utterly demolishing the myth of Romney's inevitability. Watching this unfold, and looking at Romney's impressive organizational skills, his rich war chest, and his support from the entire GOP establishment, I cannot stop thinking about George McClellan reviewing the Army of the Potomac. Crisp new uniforms, polished brass, snappy salutes, and brave martial music from the marching bands made for a pretty - and a pretty impressive - sight.

(Image location)

It was a sight that contrasted with Ulysses S. Grant, whose appearance was slovenly, and whose personal faults almost lost him his command. Everyone in the Union Army establishment wanted to get rid of him in 1862. Everyone but Abraham Lincoln who said I can't spare him. He fights.

Ulysses S. Gingrich just won a lopsided victory against all odds. He did it because while he possesses many personal faults when compared to his opponent, he possesses one outstanding virtue.

He fights.

It's a long, long road to the Republican Convention, and anything can happen. It's hard to say who will be the nominee. But it's not at all hard to see the Obama Campaign attacking not the GOP, but their General should the timid and overly calculating Romney get the nod**. If Newt is the standard bearer, then it will be a real rumble.

Shelby Foote, in his incomparable history The Civil War: A Narrative writes about the Union Army after they had been thrashed at the beginning of the Wilderness Campaign in 1864. Dejected - they always knew that Bobby Lee drove them back after a single battle - they prepared to march back to Washington. Instead, the order came down the line to turn south. A cheer rose up, as men who had been whipped squared their shoulders and turned to chase their foe. That's the kind of leader Grant was.

That's the kind that Newt is, too.

To the surprise of the V Corps men, the march was south, in rear of Hancock's portion of the line. At first they thought that this was done to get them on the plank road, leading east towards Chancellorsville, but when they slogged past the intersection they knew that what they were headed for was not the Rapidan or the Rappahannock, but another battle somewhere south, beyond the unsuspecting rebel flank. Formerly glum, the column now began to buzz with talk. Packs were lighter; the step quickened, spirits rose with the growing realization that they were stealing another march on old man Lee. Then came cheers, as a group on horseback - "Give way, give way to the right," one of the riders kept calling to the soldiers on the road - doubled the column at a fast walk, equipment jingling. In the head was Grant, a vague, stoop-shouldered figure, undersized on Cincinnati, the largest of his mounts ...

McClellan looked ever so much more the General than did Grant. Romney looks ever so much more Presidential than Gingrich. But neither McClellan nor Romney would fight. The troops know it.

* Boldness, boldness, always boldness.

** Apologies to all true Sons and Daughters of Dixie for casting Obama in the role of Robert E. Lee.

Your Saturday evening grin

2012-01-21T18:31:00.001-05:00

Brought to you via PJ Media's Scot "Scrappleface" Ott.

UPDATE 21 January 2012 19:29: Thanks to Sean Sorrentino for pointing out that Scott Ott is Scrappleface, not IowaHawk.

Always trust content from Borepatch!

2012-01-21T14:31:00.001-05:00

Sometime back I wrote about how I'd switched from Google to Bing as my default search engine:

I made the switch, in all of my browsers. Bing is now the default search engine for me. No, this isn't because of Google's long and sorry neglect of American patriotic holidays, although that's always been an annoyance.

It's because I don't trust the search results.

I list my reasons there, but it boils down that that most critical of words when you deal with customers: trust.

Reader Ron emails to point out that I'm not the only one:

I just switched the default search engine in my browser from Google to Bing. And if you care about working efficiently, or getting the right results when you search, then maybe you should too. Don't laugh!

Google changed the way search works this week. It deeply integrated Google+ into search results. It's ostensibly meant to deliver more personalized results. But it pulls those personalized results largely from Google services—Google+, Picasa, YouTube. Search for a restaurant, and instead of its Yelp page, the top result might be someone you know discussing it on Google Plus. Over at SearchEngineland,Danny Sullivan has compiled a series of damning examples of the ways Google's new interface promotes Plus over relevancy. Long story short: It's a huge step backwards.

This Gizmodo story - and the links it cites - make for fascinating reading. Why would Google play games with people's trust? I mean, if you get a critical mass of people like me, then the number of searches collapses, the ad revenue associated with those searches collapses, and Google's earnings per share collapse. What could possibly cause them to act this recklessly with the company's future?

I think that it's the Law Of Large Numbers.

As an example, assume that company X has a market capitalization of $400 billion and company Y has a market capitalization of $5 billion. In order for company X to grow by 50%, it must increase its market capitalization by $200 billion, while company Y would only have to increase its market capitalization by $2.5 billion. The law of large numbers suggests that it is much more likely that company Y will be able to expand by 50% than company X.

Google's Market Capitalization is $190 billion. To grow by even 10%, they need that to turn into $209 billion. At a current P/E of 20, that means that they need to increase their revenue by $19B/20, or an extra Billion dollars. Where does that come from?

It's hard to see them growing their market share, which seems to have maxed out at around 66%. The search advertising market seems to have settled into the typical high tech pattern of a dominant company (the "gorilla"), a primary smaller competitor (the "chimp"), and a bunch of small players (the "monkeys"). Bing is picking up share from monkeys like Yahoo, while Google seems stalled. But even if their market share is stalled, is there an extra 10% there? Good luck with that.

But it's even worse than that. As more effective competitors emerge, you see what you would expect in a competitive market - the price Google can charge for its ads is dropping:

NEW YORK (AP) - Shares of Internet search engine Google Inc. fell in premarket trading Friday after it revealed that it got less money for each ad in the fourth quarter.

The stock was down $49.46, or 7.7 percent, at $590.11 per share in trading ahead of the market opening. The shares haven't been below $600 in regular trading since Dec. 1.

Investors had expected that the surge of online holiday shopping in the U.S. would let Google charge more for its ads. Instead, the average price fell by 8 percent from the same time in 2010.

So they need to grow their market share by more than 10% to get that extra Billion. How?

By selling the trust they've developed with their customers, is what it seems. I've used Google since they were a beta, way back in 1998. I switched from Yahoo and Altavista to Google because I believed that the search results were more accurate. I've now switched from Google to Bing for the same reason. And so did the author of the Gizmodo story.

I'm not sure that I'm ready to short Google, but someone is going to make a ton of money doing that some day. Because when Google has The Big Miss, their stock will drop by 50%. The market rewards Tech companies with ridiculous P/E rations, but only when they perform. When they miss, the market overcorrects. Sorry, I don't make the rules here.

It's odd that a company like Google seems to blind to the realities of new media.

Thanks to Ron for triggering a post where I tread onto Silicon Graybeard territory.

It's still better than a vacation to Disney World with Obama

2012-01-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it is.

Hawkshaw Hawkins - Lonesome 77203

2012-01-21T07:01:00.001-05:00

(Image via Wikipedia)

Hawkshaw Hawkins lived a life that's hard to believe isn't out of a Hollywood script. He got the money to buy his first guitar as a kid by trapping rabbits. He enlisted in the Army in World War II, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. And he made the big time with this song three days before his death in the plane crash that killed Patsy Cline, leaving behind a pregnant wife with a small child.

The song spent 25 weeks on the Country charts.

It was a different world back then. This is old fashioned honky tonk music, although it was close enough in sound to Patsy's "Countrypolitan" that he fit into the tour. But looking back, it strikes the "New Nashville" as being as out dated as trapping rabbits. Or leaving your singing career to enlist.

ProTip to "New Nashville": that's why we like it.

Lonesome 77203 (Songwriter: Justin Tubb)

Had our number changed today, although I hated to
But each time the phone would ring,
They'd want to speak to you
And it hurts to tell them, you're not here with me
Maybe now, ole telephone will let me be.

It's not in the book now, so you'd better write it down
Just in case your love for me should ever come around
You might want to call and break the news to me
Just call Lonesome 7-7203

I keep the telephone beside me all the time
Hopeing you might want to call and say you've changed your mind
If you do, then darling you know where I'll be
I'm at Lonesome 7-7203

You're the only one I've given our new number to
So now if the telephone should ring I'll know it's you
If you ever long for love that used to be
Just call Lonesome 7-7203

Just call Lonesome 7-7203

Just like Hawkshaw Hawkins, they don't make 'em like that anymore. Too bad.

Etta James, Rest In Peace

2012-01-20T18:31:00.000-05:00

One of the great artists of our day has passed on. Over a career spanning half a century, she became unquestionably the greatest female blues singer - and possibly the greatest blues singer, period. With six Grammys and a fistful of other awards, it's impossible to pick a favorite, and so I'll leave you with this gem from her last album, released only two months ago.

... show some appreciation for me, Baby.

We'll miss you, Etta. And envy the Lord's choir, which has now kicked things up a notch.

Etta James, 1938 - 2012. Rest in peace.

The Progressive State owns you

2012-01-20T14:31:00.025-05:00

They want your soul, but they'll settle for your body:

Earlier this month, a Norfolk [Massachusetts] probate judge declared a pregnant woman with schizophrenia incompetent and ordered her to undergo an abortion, stating she could be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed’’ into the hospital for the procedure.

Unbidden, the judge further directed that the 32-year-old woman be sterilized “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.’’

Via Stephany, we find the most appalling abuse of the Mentally Ill by the State that I've ever heard of, at least since the bad old Progressive days of Eugenics. Back then, they had no hesitation to sterilize the "feeble minded" for the greater good of the American Race.

Ah, but if we only get "really Smart regulation" written by "really Smart people", all will be for the best, as together, shoulder-to-shoulder, we build the New ~~Soviet~~ Progressive State!

Fortunately, this madness was stopped, but it took an Appeals Court to do so. Think about that. A Court of Law in the Commonwealth actually ruled that a woman be sterilized and her baby killed, against her will. I mean, we don't want any breeders like that Sarah Palin woman, do we?

Or old people:

Under Obamacare, an “ethics panel” will convene to determine whether your life is worth saving or not. But you will not be a “you”; you will be a thoroughly de-humanized “unit.” And the reason you will be a “unit” is because if this enlightened sort of “ethics panel” discussed you as a male or a female, they might be tempted to think of you as a human being — someone’s mother or sister or wife — a person who is beloved, and whose life is valued, even if the brain and body aren’t functioning at optimal levels.

So if you are a 70 year-old Nancy Pelosi, or Paul Krugman — with a potent private health insurance plan such as the one enjoyed by Members of Congress and other bureaucrats — you will get every appropriate surgery and treatment applicable.

But if you are a 70 year-old former bookkeeper or waitress on Medicare, well — you have swung your last golfclub or danced your last waltz, because the “ethics panel” that assesses your unithood will have no problem inventing a equation that goes something like, “Potential-Tax-revenues-minus-potential-cost-divided-by-social-and-political-value-equals…a negligible unit.

And (via The Anchoress) in case you think that I'm exaggerating that this is precisely what Realy Smart People™ think is Really Smart Policy™, here ya go:

The only two truly unavoidable things in this veil of tears are death and taxes, and Paul Krugman rolls them both together into one neat package for you.

And so, gaze upon your State, ye Progressives. No, these aren't mistakes - or if they were, the "mistake" was that the mask slipped, we got a glimpse at the man behind the curtain.

But you will obey - the State will decide decide your health care choices, from cradle to grave. It's all done by such cleverly Smart people, don't you know? And if the time between cradle and graze collapses to zero, well, just think of all the money that the future Fed.Gov has to distribute to favored political interests! A single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths help balance the budget! And nobody would ever take this too far:

Nazi pro-Eugenics poster via Wikipedia

Onward to the New Progressive State, Citizen! And right now, if you know what's good for you.

Postscript for those who think that I am being too harsh to the Progressives: This isn't a one-off, a "black swan" (from the same Boston Globe article):

Daniel Pollack, a professor at Yeshiva University who has studied the issue of consent in such cases, said it is not clear how often such orders are issued.

“My guess is it happens a lot more than we know,’’ he said.

The Judge who made the original (now overturned) decision is named Christina Harms. If I still lived in Massachusetts, the following (First Amendment protected) opinion would risk me losing my guns*: Judge Christina Harms should not be impeached for this grotesque and illegal abuse of her authority. Rather, Judge Christina Harms should be horsewhipped through the streets of Norfolk, Massachusetts.

* The Commonwealth of Massachusetts can ~~kill~~ kiss my ass. [Thanks to commenter Rick C for pointing out a rather unfortunate typo.]

What? The public hates the SOPA/PIPA "shut down the Internet" bill?

2012-01-20T10:31:00.000-05:00

Inconceivable!

Another reason for Congress, K-Street, and the Media to hate them:

A new poll taken of the political class elites reveals that the public's approval rating has fallen to a new low with only 3% of the cream of society expressing satisfaction with the public's performance. This is down from 97% in January 2009, when the transformative President Obama took office.

Everything in the "News" media is "shut up, he suggested." Whatevs. I got The People's Cube for all my Party Organ™ opinion.

Riddle me this, Mr. ABC News "Sanctity of Marriage" Man

2012-01-20T07:01:00.001-05:00

Weer'd brings up a great point about the Mrs. ex-Newt thing:

First, Newt’s ex is an idiot. He was plugging her while he was married to wife #1, and suddenly she’s surprised when he treats his marriage to her with the same respect and reverence as he did wife #1? This is the same stupidity of Maria Shcriver being “unaware” that Arnie was impregnating the help. The dude was a wild cocksmith when he was courting her, and she thought she could tame that beast?

And that got me thinking. Where's a whole school of Country music for "done me wrong" songs. Case in point:

The lyrics cut to the heart of the matter:

If I had your name
I'd be changin' it right now

Why is her legal name still "Gingrich"? If what she says about him is true, she must have been mad as an ol' wet hen at him. Srlsy. So why didn't she change her name and be done with him.

I'm sympathetic to the "wronged woman" idea*, but come on. This is 15 minutes of fame, nothing more. Good thing that she isn't the wronged Mrs. ex-Obama, though, because then this would clearly not be newsworthy.

Prediction: nobody cares. Just as the public began suffering scandal fatigue during the Clinton years, the last few months of media hyperventilating over the scandal du jour is creating antibodies in the Body Public. If they really want to get people's attention, they probably should bring a real scandal.

* I like me some Country Music, if nothing else.

CNN just won the South Carolina primary for Newt Gingrich

2012-01-19T21:09:00.001-05:00

Man, like when did those dudes decide to start helping out a conservative? /mockery

Smartest kids in their class, right there. /mockery

Newt's not running against Romney. He's not running against Obama. He's running against the Media. Look at how many standing ovations he gets.

CNN - the most trusted name in television. /mockery

Bill Millin, rest in peace

2012-01-19T18:31:00.001-05:00

I don't do a good job answering comments, not like I'd like. Case in point: reader knottedprop left a comment a month ago telling of how Bill Millin had passed on. Don't give me that "Bill Millin who?" bit - you know about what he did on that Day of Days.

In one hundred years your children and grandchildren will look back and say "They must have been Giants in those days."

Sure were. Rest in peace.

Thanks to knottedprop for passing along something that I'd missed.

The three faces of the Republican Party

2012-01-19T14:31:00.001-05:00

The Antiplanner has a very interesting post up, about the fractured coalition that is the GOP:

The Iowa caucuses highlighted a little-known fact about the Republican Party: it is really a coalition of three different groups. First and best-known are the “conservatives,” represented by Rick Santorum and the 25 percent of Iowa caucuses who voted for him. Conservatives tend to be fiscally conservative, but are more reliably socially conservative, meaning they tend to oppose such things as gay rights, abortion, and recreational drugs.

The second group is the libertarians, represented by Ron Paul and the 21 percent of the caucuses who voted for him (although Gary Johnson, who was ignored by the media and the party, is closer to being a true libertarian). Perhaps even more than conservatives, the libertarians are hard-core fiscal conservatives. But they are social liberals, favoring gay rights, legalization of recreational drugs, and (for the most part) legalized abortions.

...

Advocates of the latter view call themselves neoconservatives and form the third group that makes up the Republican Party. This is a strange name because historically it was liberals, starting with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who advocated U.S. military action that was not strictly for self defense, while it was conservatives such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft who opposed such actions.

His conclusions about the Tea Party, and whether a Romney victory would be a defeat for him are spot on but you'll have to RTWT. Smart stuff.

The utter security disaster that was the SOPA DNS restriction

2012-01-19T10:31:00.007-05:00

The most interesting part of the whole SOPA/PIPA debate is the original restrictions that the statutes placed on DNS, the Internet Domain Name System. The first objections were raised by the White House, and the DNS clause was quickly dropped. None of the media outlets are looking into this at more than a cursory level. They should.

This provision was so bad that the behind the scenes Fed.Gov security establishment (almost certainly the NSA) pushed the President to block the provision [note: this is speculation, but informed speculation]. The reason is that the clause would have good news and bad news.

The good news: computer viruses would almost cease to exist. The bad news: they'd cease to exist because they wouldn't be needed by the Bad Guys.

I'd like to explain why, but you'll want to read an early post of mine, How to hack a classified network. This post builds on that one. The gist was that end users want interesting or funny content, and will figure out how to get it even if the network architecture intentionally tries to stop them.

And so to the DNS block. DNS is the communication exchange that translates names (google.com) into IP addresses (numeric identifiers that the Internet uses to deliver your messages). The original bill would allow the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to basically block the DNS entry for infringing sites, making it hard to get to them. Not impossible, mind, because if you know that Google.com's IP address is 10.1.2.3, you can just type "http://10.1.2.3" into your browser's address bar and you'll get there fine.

But the reasoning was that it's too hard to keep track of the IP addresses, which is probably right. And so, more and more sites would begin to disappear from the 'Net, and more and more interesting and funny content with them.

And so to my old post, and to frustrated users:

The problem is that what you want (security) and what your users want (information on Al Gore's Intarwebz) inherently is in conflict. You can't win unless they lose, and vice versa.

And now to the threat scenario that (presumably) brought the NSA calling at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Suppose that someone set up an uber DNS server in Moscow, a server that didn't block any addresses at all. Remember those frustrated Internet users? All they'd have to do is change their computer's configuration so that their computer used that Moscow DNS server, rather than the one their ISP gave them. Sure, you'd have to manually configure Windows to do this, but you'd only have to do it once. Soon, people would be writing scripts that you could click on that would do it for you.

In a matter of months, a large part of the United States would be relying on the Moscow DNS server. Presumably, this would include a lot of computers in the US Federal Government itself.

So what, you say. Well, remember - DNS tells you the address of where you want to go. What if it sends you somewhere else? They'd have to be clever doing this - you'd have to transparently end up at your intended destination, but DNS could cause all your traffic to go through servers in Russia which would silently read everything that you type.

Security gurus call this a "Man in the Middle" attack, and it's hard to see how the Russians (or Red Chinese, or a whole bunch of other folks) couldn't entirely pwn everyone's traffic.

The Russians wouldn't need computer viruses to plant on your computer to get your data. You'd be sending them all your data all by yourself.

Just how much of this traffic is encrypted strongly enough that it couldn't be read? Quite frankly, nobody knows. What everyone does know is that number is way less than 100%.

Remember that a lot of this traffic would be coming from senate.gov, treasury.gov, state.gov and whitehouse.gov.

Oh, and for the traffic that does have decent encryption? Well, roll out the computer viruses. They know that you're going to your bank (they have the DNS request, duh), and so why not pass down a "Click here to access your bank" fishing link. You only get that pop-up when you actually go to your bank - probably 95% of everyone will click to install. Next -> Next -> Next Oh for God's sake just install already!

Game over, man. Smart bit of legislation, right there.

And so the White House made them take it out. This is all speculation, of course, but I'd bet cash money that this was how it played out.

The punchline? SOPA and PIPA probably can't actually work without blocking DNS. And so they have to rely on overly broad (and likely unconstitutional) measures like if there's a single link, the entire site goes down. But I'm not a lawyer, and so won't speculate on the intimate constitutionality of this piece of craptacular legislation.

But this is the part of they story that you hadn't heard. Some things seem like a good idea, but aren't.

Looks like the MPAA didn't climb a mountain, they climbed a mountain lion.

The Second Amendment: the Political is Personal

2012-01-19T07:01:00.001-05:00

The 1960s saw the battle cry The Personal is Political, as a rallying cry for social agitation. Personal preference gave rise to political movements, some for the better and some for the worse. Well, that street runs both ways - political actions can - and should - lead to personal acts in response.

A year ago today, I began a post describing the political actions of the Town of Arlington, MA:

I've linked several times to posts over at the blog Dispatches from TJICistan. TJIC is an outspoken (some might say extremely so) advocate of smaller government. He's also a firearms owner in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. While he owns guns, it appears that he's no longer allowed to possess any

Massachusetts' gun control laws are in my opinion unconstitutional, since they give each town's Police Chief complete discretion to decide who can possess firearms, who can't, and why not. Arlington revoked TJIC's enumerated right to keep arms, without so much as charging him with any crime. Indeed, they could not, because the words that they objected to are clearly constitutionally protected.

It was a political act, intended to make an example of him. Well, the Political is Personal:

Brad_In_MA emails to point out that Thursday is the anniversary of the epic screwing of TJIC by the People's Soviet of Massachusetts*. He has a call to action that is filled with win:

I propose a Jan 19 BUYcott of anything 2a related, in support of JTIC. Mind putting up such a post? I plan on getting a few targets and a brick of some .22lr range ammo for my ruger 22/45, aka Miss Cherry. The idea is to BUY something. Anything. Price does not matter. Quantity does not matter. In short, a simple request for a simple action to support a Brother in Need.
I would go one step further, and suggest a buycott (the opposite of a boycott, 'natch, where you purposely buy from someone as opposed to refusing to buy from them). As it turns out, TJIC is an entrepreneur, and has a company that makes this easy for everyone: Smartflix.

Think Netflix, only for learning DVDs. Want to learn CNC milling? Introduction to gunsmithing? Combat Pistol University? M1 Garand Armorer course?

This is an opportunity for everyone to learn some skills that will likely appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts while helping to offset TJIC's legal costs (which will also appall the Usual Suspects™ in Massachusetts).

And so the call goes out. Pass it on. And look at SmartFlix, and point it out to your friends. There's good stuff there. Let's all stress his servers on January 19.

Let's put our own money where it will do some good defend the Second Amendment. TJIC is fighting our battle.

Make it Personal.

Postscript: reader Stretch emails to tell us that he's taken direct Second Amendment action:

He describes this sweet heater's virtues, which are legion:

Browning Hi-Power/P-35
Belgium made.
A finish unknown to me. Possibly ceramic.
3-dot sights.
13 rounds of 9mm goodness to say "Up yours." to officious ... um ... officials everywhere.

The Arlington Police Department - arming citizens all over the country!

Newt Gingrich, the GOP, and the Battle of World Views

2012-01-18T20:07:00.001-05:00

I keep saying that this election is about a conflict of world views. Obama came into office determined to fundamentally change the country, reshaping it to match a strongly leftist philosophy. This is why it is such a danger to succumb to the "any Republican" (translation: Mitt Romney) trope that the establishment is trying to hammer down our throat.

Offered as Exhibit A in the case of the Republic vs. Big Government Republicans: George W. Bush. He ran as a "compassionate conservative", which means "I'll spend your money for you almost as fast as Al Gore would."

What's needed is to crush the leftist ideology. Not to show merely that it is wrong, but that it is illegitimate. Ron Paul gets that:

The problem with Paul is not that he's loopy on foreign policy, but that he's too much of the kindly old uncle, rambling his way to something that makes sense instead of hitting you between the eyes. He's a walking tl;dr, and his delivery is so laid back that half of the electorate will stop listening before he gets to his point.

Newt knows how to bring the ideas, hard, to where they make you stop and think. Here he shreds Juan Williams. His answer starts with a simple, blanket denial that he agrees with anything that Williams said. Then he takes 90 seconds to flay any legitimacy that anyone thought Williams' question might have had from the bone, and then chews the bone to small pieces. Williams is left utterly defeated, and the crowd is left on its feet in a standing ovation.

I realize that in Politically Correct circles it's not allowed to raise uncomfortable facts. That's not Reaganesque, it channels the best of Margaret Thatcher, breaking the British Labour party.

Crush your enemy's ideology. The crowd booed Williams. Booed. And this isn't just a one-off, either:

We actually think that work is good. But remember, the enemy ideology lives not just in the Democratic Party. George W. Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism" also falls under is icy glare.

Crush the enemy's ideology. See it driven from the airwaves. Listen to the lamentation of his professors. Newt does it, over and over.

Ron Paul does, too. But Paul is incoherent on foreign policy. That might not have made a difference in 2000, but it does in 2012. Newt brings the ideological hammer down:

Andrew Jackson had a good idea about what to do with America's enemies: kill them.

There are many things that I do not like about Newt, but one advantage that he has over the entire GOP crowd is that he knows how to deflate the Democrat's ideology, to show not that it is mistaken, but that it is immoral. Four years of that hammer will leave the political discussion in this country profoundly different. The Republic needs that, and someone who will not flinch from repeatedly telling the opposition that they hate the poor:

It's the same conflict of visions. Today's UK is profoundly different than it was in 1979, because the Iron Lady refused to back down in the face of a left - unions, the media, the universities - that held her in withering contempt. By returning that contempt with equal fervor and backing it up with unarguable facts, she wrenched the Realm off of the track to ruin, to the point that "Red" Ken Livingston is a curiosity, and not the head of the Labour Party.

Newt is probably the only one here who can do the same.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
- Winston Churchill

UPDATE 19 January 2012 08:52: Thanks to Bob Owens for pointing out it was Juan Williams, not Juan Cole.

And a great darkness descended upon the land

2012-01-18T00:01:00.006-05:00

Then Hashem said to Moshe: Hold out your arm towards the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched. Moshe held out his arm toward the sky and thick darkness descended upon all the land of Egypt for three days.
- Shemot 10:21-23

Pharaoh (Austin's own [Republican] Congressman Lamar Smith) has hardened his heart, and intends to bind us to the RIAA with the mighty chains of the SOPA and PIPA legislation. And so a great darkness descends upon the land.

Peter rounds up the SOPA legislation Internet General Strike. I agree with him - this is important. The Internet has become mission critical, and has revolutionized politics throughout the world. Turning the keys of the greatest communications medium ever devised by the mind of man over to Dinosaurs stuck in a dieing business model (that would be both the RIAA and the Dinosaur Political Parties) is madness.

It is, indeed, ceding the Promised Land to Pharaoh.

And so today I join the Internet General Strike. This is a taste of what the Internet will be, should SOPA and PIPA become law of the land. The Internet Ice Cream Machine is clenching its fist in Solidarity with Peter, Wikipedia, and all believers in truth and freedom.

I would gently remind my readers, though, that they should gaze upon Rep. Lamar Smith. See, with eyes of seeing. The GOP is not your friend. Yea, they bring down darkness across the land.

I will be back tomorrow, after our Industrial Action. I urge my fellow bloggers to join me in going dark today. Join us, and shoulder to shoulder we will face down the Moloch State. Show Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) that we will not go gently into that good night of central control. We don't think it is for our good, or society's.

For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.
- John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration

The Dinosaurs smell a change on the breeze. They roar their defiance, but we don't care.

UPDATE: You need to watch this.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

There is a form here that you can enter your address and email, and it will email your Senators. If you do this, you should change the wording in the body.

Robb also has good advice.

Support a four-footed veteran

2012-01-17T18:31:00.000-05:00

Adopt a vet:

This program makes me wag my tail:

1/31/2008 - LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, TEXAS -- Most people go to the local pet store or animal shelter to find their new pet dog. But on Jan. 29, John and Jackie Yarborough from Phoenix flew to Lackland to adopt a 3-year-old German shepherd named Jenny. She was up for adoption after failing to meet the requirements necessary to become a military working dog.

...
First Lt. John Farmer, 341st Training Squadron Logistics Flight commander, supplied the Yarboroughs with Jenny's diet plan and proper transportation materials.

"Part of my job is to make sure the dogs that don't work out for our program find a good home," said Lieutenant Farmer. "We rely on people like John and Jackie to give these dogs that home. Just because these dogs don't work out for us, doesn't mean they won't make a great pet for someone else."

Sadly, the dogs become classified as "excess equipment" at the end of their careers. Well, readers here will know of my love affair with old Mil-Surp. This just gives it some added depth.

The FAQ for the program is here.