The Daily Brief

… cops in Cobb County, Ga. — one of the wealthiest and most educated counties in the U.S. — now have an amphibious tank.

The picture shows an LVTP-7, with Marines and gear hanging out all over it.  It’s not a tank.  But is amphibious.

I could not see what the cops would do with a 30-ton amphibious vehicle that seats 25 combat loaded troops.

Even for cops who are buying all kinds of military hardware that seemed excessive.

I googled.  The reality is the cops in Cobb County, Georgia have acquired themselves an LAV-25.

Which is a 12-ton amphibious vehicle, crew of three, sports a 25mm chain gun, two 7.62 machine guns. 

The coax gun, of course, is for those times on the mean streets when a 25 mm bullet is just a leetle bit overkill.

See?  That’s all kinds of better.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.

It’s not The Onion.  It’s at whitehouse.gov.

You should sign this. 

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

A sign telling all Bad People where victims may be found, helpfully provided by the City of Madison [1]

http://www.cityofmadison.com/police/documents/NoFirearmsPrint.pdf

I have no problem if you want to hang this up.  Your property, your business.  You gotta do what you gotta do.  Live and let live, maaaan.

If I had a shop in Madison I would put one up [2]: it’s expected.  Not having one would be like slapping up a ‘I love Ronald Reagan’ sign on your window.  You’d be a fool to do that and expect people to patronize you in that town.

But the expectation of some on the left is that everyone who hates-hates-hates concealed carry should put these up at their house.  No, really, I seen it with my own eyes.

Why would one go out of their way to advertise one’s helplessness?  If someone gets killed with that sign on their door, can we call it suicide?

[1] Insert the obvious ‘X square miles of crazy surrounded by Y’ joke, here.
[2] Not that I’d heed my own sign.  When in Rome do as the Romans do but keep your sidearm handy.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

– Steve Martin

Saw lefty guys I know posted this on Facebook.  I call shenanigans.

As long as we’ve got a state, and it does stuff that needs to be done, it has be paid for.  Taxes are a way.  Not the only way, perhaps not the best way, but it’s what we’ve got.

One objection I’ve got to paying taxes is all the dumb stuff the government spends that money on. 

Paying teachers for two days of time off to attend a state-wide teaching convention that (drum-roll) was cancelled months ago.  Paying for a crack-team of SWAT cops to handcuff someone’s grand-ma in the Denny’s because she had a moon rock.

And for the Eff-Bee-Eye to spend God-knows how much money to write a report that declares that Juggalos are a threat to law, order, and the American Way.

Them fellers is weird and dresses funny and listen to god-awful music and fetish off-brand soda.  Danger-Will-Robinson-Danger.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I slept for maybe five minutes last night.  Then work’s help desk called, and I spent the next eleven hours fighting a mother-lovin’ fire at work.  I got a great deal done today but not much of what I planned on doing.  Not complaining – I’m well compensated for what I do and I like it.  Just .. man it’s been a day.

So .. links.

The Roots of Lisp – Paul Graham.    In 1960, John McCarthy published a remarkable paper in which he did for programming something like what Euclid did for geometry. He showed how, given a handful of simple operators and a notation for functions, you can build a whole programming language. He called this language Lisp, for “List Processing,” because one of his key ideas was to use a simple data structure called a list for both code and data.

Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Part I   I don’t know if I’ll understand this, but I’m going to give it a go.

Progress and its Sustainability – John McCarthy.  With the development of nuclear energy, it became possible to show that there are no apparent obstacles even to billion year sustainability.

The Sayings of John McCarthy.  When there’s a will to fail, obstacles can be found.

US Air Force grounds the F-22 fleet (again).  I sure hope the Air Force kept the receipt for the F22. I want cash back, not store credit.

disable/enable dtlogin.  Work.  You don’t think I’d run CDE at home do you?

AIRcable – Serial5x.   Saw one of these at work.  Sitting next to a rack, which is next to a machine blowing a hurricane of cold air across one’s head, is an awful way to work.  This lets you get out of the room and into the hallway, while talking serial to the equipment.  I need this.

Dreamsongs – Blending Art & Science.  I don’t know why I opened this up.

Professional Educators (I am the only one professional enough to teach children (BOOM)) [1]  told kids there was an intruder, go, run, hide.  They lied.  They lied so they could search the school for drugs.  They didn’t find any drugs.  Anyone with a passing acquaintance with high school knows how friggin’ improbable this is, can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of treating children like inmates.  And that of the Great Drug War.

Confessions of an Actual Man.  Men are like little boys, always wanting to go higher and faster, to explore jungles and invent exotic aircraft. Always childlike, we love to race alone across the late-afternoon deserts of Arizona on a Harley, with the air furnace-hot and sunset burning out from incandescent reds to rolling waves of oranges on celestial beaches, the night rising from behind distant mountains. Women want granite counter-tops. These last, and are easy to clean.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] That never gets old.

Government can’t take out the trash efficiently. Solution: get rid of the trash cans.

The idea is to reduce the load on the authority’s overtaxed garbage crew, which is struggling to complete its daily rounds of clearing out 40 tons of trash from the system.

An idea only a bureaucrat or committee would embrace.

Look.  One person is going to be a good guy and carry his trash out of the subway.  A dozen people might.  Tens of thousands of people are a mob.  A mob will leave all kinds of crap behind.

Asked what waiting passengers would do without a garbage bin, Bianca Thomas, 22, waiting for a Brooklyn-bound train at Eighth Street, pointed straight at the track. “Right there,” she said, noting several plastic water bottles strewn by the third rail. “They’ll more than likely toss it. Nobody wants to walk around with trash in their hand.”

Duh.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I arrived here in 1995, a broken down vaudevillian from the old country. When I arrived in America, here is what America asked of me:

Nothing.  I was free.

Free of my own past, free to succeed, free to fail.  America did not even ask me to be a citizen. I choose to be a citizen.

Whatever mistakes we make along the way we, the People, always correct them. We the People, the citizens of the United State of America, are it’s voice , we are it’s soul, we are it’s expression. Our leaders are but servants to our voice.

That is our Glorious Revolution.

Craig Ferguson – Prologue from ‘A Wee Bit O’ Revolution‘

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Wisconsin Department of Justice sez in regards to the 2011 Wisconsin Act 35 (aka we get to tote guns around, now)

Act 35 requires applicants to provide proof of firearms safety training. Any one of the below listed documents will be accepted as proof of meeting the law’s training requirement:
 
(snip)

3. Proof of military, law enforcement, or security firearms training.

• Former military: DD214 or DD256 form showing either “honorable” or “general under honorable conditions” discharge
  or release from the US military.

Hey – I got me one o’ them.

And?  Does the lege think that being in the service confers small arms proficiency?

In theory everyone who gets out of the service is a certified friggin’ Rambo.  Death from above.  Etc.  In practice … not so much.

Your average guy or gal learns the basics of firearms safety, knows how to carry and utilize a rifle.  They may fam-fire a pistol. [1]

There is nothing that says a former service member knows how to safely carry and use a concealed firearm, nor that they understand the legal and ethical ramification of using deadly force.

It’s a stupid requirement. [2]  Either the regs should say ‘pass a proficiency test meeting metrics X, Y, Z’ or it should stay silent and let everyone carry.  

A kind of wink-wink-nudge you’re in the club deal is flat-out retarded.

[1] Grunts will know all about shooting a variety of weapons.  Squids think that anything that doesn’t take a team to prep and fire and a ship to carry it around and isn’t really a weapon a’tall.

[2] I confess to an internal conflict.  I can carry concealed without having to pay: cool.  But I know deep in my heart that I’m never done that, have no idea what I’m doing.  Training is called for.  I guess that’s what ‘be a responsible citizen’ is all about.  Thrift vs Responsibility is a terrible conflict to throw at an anglo-celt.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Everlasting Phelps

It’s been nagging at me how useless and nihilistic this whole Occupy Whatever “movement” (more like a fit) has been about,

Hold that thought.  Nihilists.  Demands.  Hey …

Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Nihilist: Ve don’t care. Ve still vant ze money, Lebowski, or ve fuck you up.
Walter Sobchak: Fuck you. Fuck the three of you.
The Dude: Hey, cool it Walter.
Walter Sobchak: No, without a hostage, there is no ransom. That’s what ransom is. Those are the fucking rules.
Nihilist #2: His girlfriend gave up her toe!
Nihilist #3: She thought we’d be getting million dollars!
Nihilist #2: Iss not fair!
Walter Sobchak: Fair! WHO’S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?
The Dude: Hey, cool it Walter. Look, pal, there never was any money. The big Lebowski gave me an empty briefcase, so take it up with him, man.
Walter Sobchak: And, I would like my undies back.
Donny: Are they gonna hurt us, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny. These men are cowards.
Nihilist: Okay. So we take ze money you haf on you, und ve calls it eefen.
Walter Sobchak: Fuck you.

Oh, Big Lebowski – you are always there for me.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Node.js is Cancer. Node.js is a tumor on the programming community, in that not only is it completely braindead, but the people who use it go on to infect other people who can’t think for themselves, until eventually, every asshole I run into wants to tell me the gospel of event loops. Have you accepted epoll into your heart?


Warren Buffet wants to pay more taxes.  Perhaps he should start by having Berkshire Hathaway paying the taxes that it already owes.  “The rough translation of the report is that Berkshire Hathaway did not pay all the federal taxes that it was required to for 2002 through 2004.  The IRS examination team caught Berkshire Hathaway on at least some issues.  Instead of paying up, Berkshire Hathaway is threatening the IRS with protracted litigation and is in the process of cutting a deal with the IRS Appeals office.”

Keith Ellison (DFL-MN) is an ignorant pus-weasel.  I have spent time working to comply with regulations.  Most recently this very weekend where a application that calculates regulatory compliance got a bit of bad data from ERP and threw up all over itself. In the end fixing it is going to involve four people @ several hours each.  Not counting the time Friday and Saturday that three of us spent holding up it’s hair while it threw up in the toilet and whimpered.

There was nothing productive about it.  It was wasted time, time during which I neither delivered value to my employer, nor made life better, nor built a product, nor had a lot of fun.  The only thing I did was ensure that somewhere an auditor is happy.

Op-Ed: Obama ‘Devastating’ for Civil Liberties. (NPR).   (The) purpose of this column, is to address the fact that President Obama is a perfect nightmare when it comes to civil liberties. He not only adopted most of President Bush’s policies in the civil liberties areas when it comes to terrorism, but he actually expanded on them. He outdid George Bush.

Obama has taken everything that Bush did and dialed it to ’11’.  We wanted change …

Evolve. A case for modernization as the road to salvation. Technology got us into this mess. Only technology can get us out.

The sound of capitalism. Hip hop music was blamed for the August riots. But behind the celebration of “bling” is a culture of entrepreneurship.

Markets Not Capitalism is a powerful and long-overdue compilation of Market Anarchist thought.  And although editors Charles Johnson and Gary Chartier seem to have made the farcical mistake of including a couple of my pieces they have done an amazing job on the whole.

Vive La Revolution!  The US is probably getting ready for a revolution. Back in the Cold War days, the CIA was asked to do a portrait of a country that might have a revolution. It decided that such a country would have three characteristics:

Occupy Wall Street: Fighting Capitalism, One Food Cart at a Time. And while the occupation has been compared to the Arab Spring and Tahrir Square, the mostly Egyptian kebab cookers and breakfast sellers who are losing their livelihoods aren’t too sure.

Co-lateral damage, maaaaaan.

Alert readers – having got this far – might wonder what this is. What it is … are items that were lurking in the open tabs on my browser. Too interesting to dismiss, not worth a separate post. From my short-term memory to yours.

Also – The ol’ Brief isn’t seeing much posting these days. No posting means no readers. No readers means there isn’t much point to having it around. I like it too much to see it limp into the darkness, unloved and unread.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Take Back Your Government!: A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work
Robert Heinlein

From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind, and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses – but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.

(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living; dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself- or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remain.

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbours prefer it that way – prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of “benevolent” monarchy or dictatorship – there ain’t no such animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Anwar al-Awlaki is dead.  Fine: he wasn’t a nice guy.

I have some serious issues with how he was killed.  And you should, too.

The Executive, all by it’s lonesome, just murdered a  U.S. citizen, without pesky krep like due process, a speedy and fair trial.

Whacking a citizen with a drone is no different than executing him in the street.

So – we set a precedent.  Act against the interests of the United States, or threaten to,  and the government can order you to be killed and fuck due process. [1] [2]

[1] Who defines what is a threat?  Why, the guy with the gun.  Don’t worry – if you done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear [3]
[2] Not my words – that’s what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on the radio this morning.
[3] If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale, cheap.

Cross Posted to Space For Commerce.

An Open Question [1] [2] for the 2012 candidates for President.

This letter has been sent – or will be sent – to most of the candidates for the presidency in the Democratic and Republican parties in 2012. Some won’t get it – their web site utterly lacks ‘contact me’ email or a web form.

I have no pretension that I’ll get anything but a form letter back. If that.

It would be instructive if they would answer the question. But that will have to wait until a person with more umph asks the question at a debate, or a member of the press with some brass ones pitches it to them. Or, possibly, if a lucky member of the public finds themselves face-to-face with the candidate.

Or maybe you could re-blog, pass it along, send it to the candidates, put a bug in the ear of a reporter.

Sir / Ma’am,

I am asking this question of the announced candidates for President.

The answer will be very instructive, will tell the voters a great deal about your philosophy, how you will perform in office.

I will publish the results on my blog, Space For Commerce, and a mil-blog that I contribute to, The Daily Brief.

Amartya Sen wrote in ‘The Idea of Justice’ this thought experiment;

Take three kids and a flute. Anne says the flute should be given to her because she is the only one who knows how to play it. Bob says the flute should be handed to him as he is so poor he has no toys to play with. Carla says the flute is hers because she made it.

Sen argues that who gets the flute depends on your concept of justice.

Bob will have the support of the economic egalitarian.

The libertarian would opt for Carla.

The utilitarian will argue for Anne because she will get the maximum pleasure, as she can play the instrument.

Who gets the flute?

R/s

Brian Dunbar
Neenah, Wisconsin

[1] On review I see the summary owes a great deal to – if not an outright theft from – Eric Falkenstein at Falkenblog.

Sorry about that.

[2] Tip o’ the hat to SouthBend7 for sparking the idea.

“You were a Marine?  Oh, I could never do that, X.”

Where X is a phrase like ‘I could never stand the discipline’ or ‘I could not stand being yelled at’ or ‘I hate it when people tell me what to do’.

This is bullshit.

All of us put ourselves under discipline for one reason or another, and we do it willingly. 

If you can make the team, hold down a job, graduate college, learn a skill, you can certainly stand four years in the military.  Don’t have to be an automaton, don’t have to loose your individuality, neither.  Me, I had a problem with authority [1] for  few years, until I settled down: I did okay.

It’s just that the consequences of screwing up in the military are more immediate.  Present a failure to adapt in the office, the consequences are slow or no promotion, loss of pay.  It’s all very slow and gradual.  Failure to adapt in the military and you will find yourself doing many, many, push-ups with a metaphorical boot up your ass.

Funny – I have only heard this from younger people who have not found themselves, or older folks who are clearly losers.  Adults making a living . . . not so much.

[1] And I have the Page 11 entries [2] to prove it.

Progressives are vampires.  I can prove it.

Accept that vampires are real. Ignore the mystical mumb-jumbo krep about souls: merely hyper-intelligent apex predators.

Being not complete dummies, they wish to conserve their stock of prey, homo sapiens.

Western Civilization is about progress. More social integration, better technology, members are citizens, not serfs.  There are more of us, we’re healthier.  But we’re better armed, now, and can effectively fight back.   A society that can effectively organize to eliminate blood-sucking ghouls is, from vampire-kind’s point of view, double-plus un-good.

Western Civilization is a danger to vampire-kind.

Eliminating this threat is tricky.  Push one way, anniliation and mass die-off.  Push too hard in another, you get a stronger culture.

The prudent thing for Vampires to do is slowly devolve this civilization into a mass of superstition, gullibility, and malleability.  People who will depend not on themselves for their needs and their thinking: the President, the pop star on teevee, someone.  They require prey smart enough to feed themselves, but not so smart they question what goes on around them: dumb down the schools, eliminate critical thinking.  

The end-game is a gentle decline into fuedalism and a new Dark Age.  Ideal hunting grounds for vampires. 

Serfs, not citizens.  Prey, not competition.

I submit that the actions of certain elements of the Progressive wing of politics in America are indistinguisible from the actions of blood-sucking ghouls.

Progressives are vampires, man.  The majority of humans in that wing are, at best, deluded dupes.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Mr. Nadler’s bill would “require the IRS to adjust tax brackets proportionally in regions where the average cost of living is higher than the national average.”

In other words, the various tax brackets would apply to residents in certain regions at higher income levels versus other parts of the country. A family with an income of $50,000 or even $1 million in Manhattan would pay less federal income tax than a family with the same earnings in Omaha. The bill is called the Tax Equity Act …

A more accurate title is ‘Hey Out There In Fly-Over Country: F**k You’ act.

Representatives Nadler, Bishop, Israel, Lowey, Maloney and McCarthy:  you are associated with a pack of thieves, liars and cheats 535 strong who, nearly to a man, deserve long stretches of time in jail for the laws you’ve flouted, the bribes you’ve taken, the damage you’ve done to this country.

You are a pox on this land, a disease in the body politic.  Y’all aren’t even very smart except for the low cunning needed to come up with ever more inventive ways to cheat the public and lie your way to another term in office.  You deserve neither re-election nor pension, nor any job that does not involve the phrase ‘Would You Like Fries With That’?

You should be turned out of your office to make your way by your scant wits in the world you insist the rest of us live in.

Representative Nadler – f**k you.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Charles Bolden.  Graduate of the Naval Academy.  100 combat missions in an A-6.  Test pilot.  Astronaut, flew twice, mission commander twice. Commanded 30,000 marines in Kuwait.  Retired as major general.  Selected to lead NASA.

A very accomplished man, a very smart, savvy leader, a man who mastered a difficult career.

Gibbs, at his daily news briefing, was asked why Bolden had made the comment.

“It’s an excellent question, and I don’t think — that was not his task, and that’s not the task of NASA,” Gibbs said.

Stabbed in the back.  That has got to sting a little, ya know?

What’s a big green weenie?  When you’re due for a weekend of liberty, and the gunny calls you out for a working party, that’s a big green weenie.  Have the CO tell you to enforce an unpopular policy, only to have him change his mind a week later when it proves unpopular with the troops, and you look like a tool?  Green Weenie Time.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Thanks, America!  Your generosity (in the form of federal stimulus money) paid for a street reconstruction project downtown. It’s done and looking good.

From the dead-tree version of this article ..

The $450,000 street reconstruction project … replaced the asphalt pavement with concrete between Main and S. Commercial streets. [1] Stamped colored concrete was used for the crosswalks.

Advocates of stimulus spending who envisioned this money putting America back to work will be happy to hear that hundreds upon hundreds of area unemployed were busy at work with hand tools, chipping up the old asphalt, carting the rubble away in wheelbarrows, making themselves useful and getting an honest day’s wages for hard work done well.

The stamped concrete is pretty cool – looks like brickwork.  I’m sure it was more expensive to do it this way and of course we’d have paid for it if we had to pony up the funds ourselves.

Makes a fella proud to pay his taxes, it does.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Weirdly, the main road downtown is not Main Street but Wisconsin Avenue. Main is the road in from the freeway. It’s an okay road but it’s not a stereotypical small-town Main Street.

I was going to rant about President Obama sending Joe Biden to Arlington for Memorial Day, while he spends a well deserved weekend in Chicago.

When you care enough to send the very best you send your second banana in your stead. 

But then Richard Fernandez did it for me and he did in a very non-ranty way and it is an actual pleasure to read.

So go read ‘Memory and Survival’.

Besides – he’s going to lay a wreath at Lincoln Cemetry.  And hey, that’s okay.  One national cemetary is just like another.  Just a buncha dead guys in a stone garden.  The headstones look the same.  Hey lay a wreath here, lay one there, it’s all the same.  Just some ceremonial foolishness – hand salute, lay the wreath, hand on the heart, moment of silence then back in the limo.  Who gives a fuck, really.

Tell you what: just to keep the Commander In Chief from being bothered with trotting out to Arlington or Lincoln or where-the-fuck ever … next year we can lean a headstone against the fence in his backyard.  Monday when he feels up to it he can mosey outside, toss on a wreath and call it a day.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

From the video description: Against GySgt Wallgreens request I recorded his speach in secret….. the result is this awesome video with the last words we heard before boarding helos and heading into the heart of Marjeh. Have you ever wondered how Marines get pumped up? This video will show you how true leaders inspire their Marines to do the unthinkable.

And that ain’t no crap, Suzy Sunshine.

Where do we get men such as these?

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Boycotts are awesome.  A very American [1] institution.  Economic freedom rocks!

 Until the boycotted fire back.  Arizona Corporation Commission member Gary Pierce to the City of Los Angeles

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.

I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.

I bet Los Angeles would miss 25% of it’s electric power way more than Arizona will miss the revenue Los Angeles sends to Arizona.

[1] Yes, the boycott was invented in Ireland.  So what?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

‘We don’t want offshore windmills,’ they said. ‘They ruin the natural beauty of the island.  And they will interfere without sunrise ceremonies.’

I had found these to be reasonable objections to the windmill farm off Cape Cod.  My mind’s eye pictured hundreds of the things whirling away in the surf, casting shadows over the beach, harshing the mellow of a sunrise ritual … yeah I can see that.

Then I found this.

Are you f***ing kidding me?

This is not a spoiled view.  This is not going to interfere with a sunrise ritual. 

This is people who want teevee, ipods, cheap electricity in a never-was 18th century New England Shangri-La.

Life is not a Maxfield Parrish painting.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Ladies and Gentleman: Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) articulating (for some values of ‘articulate’) his concern that the island of Guam will “actually tip-over and capsize.”

Forget – if you can – that this guy writes laws the rest of us must obey.

Note the iron discipline the Admiral demonstrated. Not a snicker, not a smile.  He did not cover his mouth. He did not glare at the Congressman for wasting his valuable time.  He did not turn to his aide and mutter ‘Geez Louise, can you believe this guy?”

Bravo Zulu, Admiral.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Health Care Reform, Henry Waxman issuing a subpoena to private citizens to account for why they’re following the law, demagoguery on the right and left, politicians making promises to get elected then making a u-turn in office, Abscam, Iran-Contra, Monica-Gate, Watergate ..

There are two ways to take the long view on this.

a. Politicians have always been this way.  What we learned in eighth-grade Civics was lies and whitewash.

b. The guys sitting in the D.C. are degenerate and not worthy of our heritage.

I’m not sure which bothers me more.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

He counted loud he counted long he waited for the shock.
He felt the wind he felt the cold, he felt that awful drop.
The silk from his reserve fell out and wrapped about his legs,
WOOF ARF WOOF WOOF ARF WOOF ARF!

“Dogs don’t perceive height difference, so that doesn’t worry them. They’re more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we’re on the way down, that doesn’t matter and they just enjoy the view.[1] It’s something he does a lot. He has a much cooler head than most recruits.”

Blah-Delta-SAS-Afghanistan-blah-HALO-dog scouts-blah.

The important part: Airborne Dogs. That is AWESOME.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] You know there is a whole of tail wagging going on at this point.

Bruce Bartlett on The Oregon tax vote and Tea Party Membership

I can easily see many tea party goers becoming rabid tax-the-rich folks if the alternative is higher taxes on them. Let us not forget that just about a year ago many of the House of Representatives’ most conservative members voted to impose a 90 percent tax rate on bank bonuses. As I noted at the time, those supporting this confiscatory tax measure included Eric Canter, Peter Hoekstra and Paul Ryan.

I think Bruce is making the mistake of thinking that Tea Party = politicians.  My understanding is that guys doing the Tea Parties are fed up with everybody we’ve elected whose solution to fiscal shortcomings in the capitol is not to trim the budget but to levy more taxes.  In this regard conservatives in the House are just as guilty as liberals.

I do not know any Tea Party members in person. But hey, our own Sgt. Mom has been a busy bee down in the Tea Party down in San Antone – what say you, Julia?

The White Goddess

Palin takes John Kerry to task for his joke about those who don’t study getting “stuck in Iraq,” but the story of her own son proves that he was right. Track joined the military after deciding that he didn’t want to bum around after high school like his friends. This implies that he wasn’t smart enough for college.

We’ve managed a neat trick in this country: to raise up generation upon generation who never know what it is to sacrifice for something bigger than themselves.  People whose biggest inconvenience is a long commute to an office.  People who see and read a great deal but understand nothing about how the world works.

Richard Hoste, you will never know, nor understand how profoundly ignorant you are.

You have my pity.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.