A Few Reasons Why We Need a Coast Guard

The Dangers of Willfull Stupidity

Bill Whittle has a superb essay up on malignant idiocy.

Read the whole thing.

Skeptico has related thoughts.

Pravda provides an amusing case study.

A Bit of Advice To Mall Kiosk Salespeople

If an American male walks into the mall bleeding, missing one eyepiece in his glasses , with a torn pants leg and limping slightly.... He is unlikely to have any interest in buying exfoliation products.

I hope this helps...

Well...At First I Thought they Were Ninja Turtles....

And not Sleestack....

Bwahahaha!

(But Sleestack are cool)

Well This is Dumb

The Armenian Genocide was a terrible thing...but it was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire...which was OVERTHROWN by the Turks.

So naturally...Congress is thinking about condemning Turkey for it and thereby fanning ethnic tensions in one of the more stable and forward looking Muslim nations.

The whole mess explained at Captains Quarters....where Ed Morrisey's wife has just undergone transplant surgery...please drop them some kind words.

Phil Bowmeister has....THE SECRET!

Heh.

I'm sure Schenectady is involved somehow.

I Would've Asked for Florence King....but Noooooo...

Well, while I was vegging and spaceblogging watching anime and sleeping there was a bimbo eruption at CPAC as Twiggy the Terrible had yet another moment of shock jock assininity.

Thanks for that Ann...

...and the idiot college kids of course ate it up. (Though there were a few boos.)

Fortunately most of the blogging righties were swift to denounce this asshattery for what it was, as were all the Presidential canidates including the one she so thoughtfully endorsed.

Michelle Malkin has a prescient reading recommendation.

I'm happy to see that she is being thoroughly denounced pretty much across the board on the right.

And that is all I'm going to say on that.

'A Particulary Cunning Plan'

Bwahahahaha!

Hat-tip to the blogfather who termed it google suicide bombing. :)

Justice!

Comeuppance even....

In a Dreadful Alternate Universe....

...where Carl Macek and Lou Scheimer got the rights to Sailor Moon....

Nancy Grace....

Heh....




I'll be surprised if this vid stays up long.

Well....duh...

Suburban Banshee explains it to the history channel....

In the first century, a time where most people didn’t believe in the gods qua gods, much less divine miracles — and in which people were very interested in mechanisms, like the water organ — Heron was supposedly aiding and abetting priests by producing false miracles.

Which is why he wrote a book all about ‘em, of course. ‘Cause he wanted to get torn apart by the gullible. Who apparently would be convinced by tiny little archers they couldn’t even see from the back rows. Because people in the past were all stupid, unlike today’s professors and the geniuses who run History Channel.

Yes, indeed....

On Crazy Astronaut Lady....

Rand Simberg has one of the best takes on the deranged and dangerous damsel of diapers.

And that's about all I intend to post on that.

I will not pick flowers in Europe...I will not pick flowers in Europe

Not at all atypical EU Idiocy. Like a lot of these things there is a kernal of sense here, but like a poor chef, beauracracies tend to coat the promising beginnings with layer upon layer of fat, and other asshattery.
Hat Tip: Mysterious Informant in Austin


Update: that is prolly the clumsiest analogy I have ever made

Quick Space Blogging

One of the Brickmuppet's crack team of overworked science babes recovers from falling out of her chair laughing ...and mulls the prospect of Jerry Springer doing a space show...

It seems that a NASA astronaut has just been arrested on kidnapping and battery charges...the astronaut in question Lisa Nowack (who it seems did too wack) may to have been motivated by jealousy regards the affections of another astronaut.

.....nothing to see here citizen...move along....now.

ahem...

she also passes on this report via RLV news that Mini-Mag Orion is showing considerable promise! This was blogged on in passing here 4 years ago but this paper says they are indeed making progress.

There is also considerable progress in Space Tethers, which promise a means of leveraging (heh...) considerable fuel savings within cislunar space. There's video at the link.

Rand Simberg links to this recently updated commercial space timeline for '07....it looks to be a cool year!


At Selenian Boondocks Jeff Foust continues his analysis of Sundancers orbital trajectory.

The You Tube of the Sea Launch explosion is up....no kidnappings seem to be involved.

...and finally...Here is a beautiful picture of Comet McNaught seen with the southern lights....via Defense Tech.

A Message for Mr. Arkin....

Background here, here, here and here...

...and Murdoc notes that Arkin is the same weasel that released a book with over 3,000 military and intel codewords. A rather telling bit of info that is getting virtually no play anywhere else.

Note: Despite my disgust with Arkin's reprehensible comments, I am in complete agreement with Don Subers "update 2" linked in the "ping-pong post" above.

A few “conservatives” apparently want Arkin fired for expressing an opinion they do not agree with. AJ Strata is organizing a boycott of the Post’s advertisers until Arkin is fired.

Fired for what? That is one of the dumbest things I have heard of in years. I put this on par with the liberal “hate speech” crapola.

You do not win a debate by closing it off — by chasing those who disagree with you away.

I like AJ but he is plain wrongheaded on this. Believe it or not, other people are entitled to their beliefs. Free speech and freedom of the press go well beyond our constitution.

Here, here...

UPDATE: The image has vanished just like all the images in the below post....will be fixed tomorrow or the next day..

Big Fish, Little Barrel, And a Blunderbuss

I blogged previously on the vile piece Dinesh D'Souza wrote claiming that the excesses of our free society inspired the Wahabbists to attack the US on 9/1/01.

Well, Jaimie Glazov from Front Page Magazine, (no leftie publication that)takes him to task in this debate. He pretty much wipes the floor with D'Souza,...who I used to like, and who is all over the field here and pretty damned disingenuous.This is only a little cathartic given its ease in this case...but is certainly a good thing to see.

That Grand Canyon Story...

Remember the story about how the Park Service at the Grand Canyon was forbidden to give the age of the big ole' hole in the ground for fear of contradicting the book of Genesis?

It was fake
false
made up....

Alas it persists....

Big hat tip to both the Kossaks and Skeptic who promptly corrected this and swallowed what must have been a bitter pill for them.

Update: End times watch...I actually agree with the front page story on Kos as I post this. I blogged on this very thing here.

Carnival of the Asshats

Years ago I read a few pieces by Dinesh D'Souza and found him generally inspiring. More recently I've been very put off by his appearances as a talking head...where he comes off rather creepy.... like Pat Buchannan or Ann Coulter, almost as a cunning plot by lefties to defame us righties. That's silly of course, the recent elections were a textbook example of our rightie representatives shooting themselves in the foot. ....and anyway, lefties aren't that smart... :) (he ducks...he covers...he makes good his escape)

Eric Shehei of Classical Values has read D'Souza's latest book so that I don't have to. From said review, it a appears to be that Mr. D'Souza needs a whole book to express the trancendental idiocy that Jerry Falwell was able to articulate in a mere soundbite.

This quote is particularly disturbing....
Instead of trying to unify America and the West, the right should highlight the division between red America and blue America, and also between traditional America and decadent Europe. By resisting the depravity of the left and the Europeans, conservatives can win friends among Muslims and other traditional people around the world.

Emphasis mine.

This is bigotry, stupidity and divisive partisanship of the most poisonous nature. It is even worse than that. The argumnent here is essentially the same as the far left. "They hate us because we are bad, and disrespect them and they were oppressed and we don't appreciate their culture...blah blah blah..." The only difference here is dickering over what exact things we need to change about ourselves to earn the special treat of not being blown up or beheaded.

This is advocating Dhimmitude pure and simple. Turn on the gays, pornographers and un-bhurkha'd women....then we will have peace in our time.

Brickmuppet blog denounces this loathesome ode to bigotry, cowardice and appeasement.

On the other side of the political spectrum, we have Pelosi and tunagate. It seems that the Dems have raised the minimum wage by about two bucks an hour, which effectively means that you, I and everyone else just got a 2 dollar pay cut. This for the first time was applied to the territories and will likely devastate the economy of the Northern Marianas which are in a fairly precarious position economically with competitive labor expenses being one of the few things they can to do make themselves marketable in the western Pacific....

But wait...not ALL of the territories are covered be the minimum wage...American Samoa ,that oft forgotten bit of the US south of the equator, was completely exempt...I'm no fan of the minimum wage, but as Lance and company point out, if there is anywhere in the US where a strong argument that the minimum wage might well be necessary, it is in Pago-Pago which is virtually a company town...exactly the sort of monopolistic environment that the minimum wage wage was passed in response to. Capitalism breaks down in monopolistic settings.

So where raising the minimum wage is useless or damaging, (mos places) it goes up...by a lot. Where it is actually needed the Dems suddenly develop an appreciation for local government..as long as that govt. is run by Democrats and Big Tuna itself is in the Speakers district

Of course, as Pelosi is one of 2 congresscritters at all likely to bennefit from this bassackwards application of buraucratic wickedness, this comes off as rather....fishy.

UPDATE: Pelosi is backtracking and American Samoa may get its raise..which may or may not be good.

Think of the Children....Not...You Know....The Accused

The more I hear Senator McCain talk, the less I like him.

Hat tip: Satharn


Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders

I have no sympathy nor mercy for child molesters. I support the death penalty for them. They are not sick...they are a sickness.

However...

According to the proposed legislation, these types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.


Well....damn! That's not bloody onerous is it? Some troll posts guro in your message board or perhaps links to it in your comment section and you don't catch it? BLAM!
No...That looks bad, very bad.

At least they are going after child pornographers...that's cut and dried right? Oh wait....

The U.S. Justice Department, for instance, indicted an Alabama man named Jeff Pierson last week on child pornography charges because he took modeling photographs of clothed minors with their parents' consent. The images were overly "provocative," a prosecutor claimed.

Yes, someone in Alabama decided that fully clothed children photographed with their parents consent were provocative....now assuming the clothing was not clear plastic bags we may be dealing with serious repression issues here....that now have Mr. Pierson on kiddie porn charges.

Well perhaps there is more to that particular case....perhaps not. Cory Maye and the Duke Rape case don't instill limitless confidence in the prosecutors...nor are all accusers in good faith.

I know, I saw this overreach come close to happening to a friend.

Some years ago there was a fellow we will refer to as Doctor Lizardo...not because he had a degree in anything, but because...well...Doctor Lizardo was EEEEEVIL and MAAAAD...

Doctor Lizardo was a well known secret master of fandom, a cornucopia of eclectica and obscure trivia. Everybody loved Dr. Lizardo. I certainly thought he was a fairly cool cat for several years.

Well the Doctor fell on hard times. He got kicked out of the Navy, had no job no prospects and lived in his car. His skillset seemed to pretty much consist of Anime trivia.

Fortunately, a friend of his we'll call "Biff" took him in loaned him $4,000 bucks, put him up for a year....helped get him a job (which was like pulling hens teeth)....got his car fixed...you know..."did stuff". Dr. Lizardo repaid him by ....ummm....well he didn't....he mooched and went to sci-fi cons and bought >$4000 dollars worth of stuff. "Biff "got quite justifiably peeved, demanded his money back and threw him out.

Dr. Lizardo was a petty man and he had but one thing going for him...everyone (including me) knew he was a "nice guy". The existence of Biff was a reminder that he was anything but....so he plotted, he nurtured his mad-on and talked bad about "Biff" behind his back.

Meanwhile, Biff took over a failing comic book store, just as the comics market was collapsing... however, by diversifying and going big into anime, RPG's and video rental....he completely transcended the odds and made it quite successful. (Full disclosure: He hired me as a clerk.) He also became quite a hub of local anime fandom as fan-clubs would meet at his shop.

Given that much of Doctor Lizardos Fanboy mojo came from video piracy (for "free" of course)this infuriated him more than the eviction did. He made a big deal of not patronizing the store. at the time I considered both "Biff" and "DL" friends so I just wracked it up to some fan thing.

"WHAT DOES THIS DIGRESSION HAVE TO DO WITH INTERNET KIDDIEPR0N LAWS?" Is the question on all readers lips....well here...

Our conniving Doctor was (and is) small and petty...but he is a patient bastard. He wouldn't set foot in Mr Biffs Comix and whispered vile whispers about him for years.....then he acted.


Now given that Dr Lizardo would not set foot in Mr Biffs Comix...the good doctor asked your's truly to go to Mr Biffs Comix and rent all of the Hentai (Animated Pr0n) Laserdiscs (remember laserdiscs?) that were for rent in Mr Biff's back room. This was awkward...."I'll get some comic boxes and......"

Now the age of consent in Japan is 16... so some of these pictures of drawings of cartoon girls might conceivably be pictures of drawings of cartoon 16 year olds.....there was at the time a great hysteria over kiddie pr0n and the local govt. was waging war on it...and needed a victory, hence the evil Doctor Lizardo hoped to capitalize upon this.

Soooo...AFTER COPYING ALL OF THE ANIMATED PR0N FOR HIMSELF. He got the titles of the ones he thought could destroy Biff and called the vice squad. He tried to get me to back him up but when I realized that he was....well...EVIL I went straightaway and talked to Biff.

Fortunately the cop he called was familier enough with Japanese animation, and sane enough that he knew this was not actual kiddie pr0n...he was also ethical enough that he did not give his career a boost from a bogus kiddie pr0n bust. By a sheer fluke o' fate, the cop also was famillier with free speech issues and the CBLDF as well as the destruction of several comic book stores by hyperzealous community standards movements ....he investigated, determined that pictures of cartoon possibly 16 year olds did not constitute kiddie pR0n and confirmed that a complaint had been filed. A quick comparison of notes with "Biff" and myself convinced him that this was not an organized movement but rather one bitter, vengefull Otaku....and thus the DA did not get his piece of flesh
...and Biff did not lose his business,
...nor did he end up with AIDS in prison,
...nor did he end up on a sex offender database.

...But not for lack of trying on the part of one pathetic, looser fanboy.

One good cop is all that stood in the way of those things happening to "Biff"....and that is WITHOUT federal reporting laws.

Keep that long, rambling story in mind when contemplating the McCain bill.

UPDATE: John Lithgow is not "Doctor Lizardo"....he just played him OK and it's not even the same guy...so back off!

Update2: Fixed that incoherent paragraph and most of the spelling.