Archive for 2012

ANYTHING THE GOVERNMENT GIVES YOU, the government can take away. “A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS‘s growing use of ‘lifestyle rationing’.” I recommend a growing use of “tar-and-feathers discipline.” It’s an Anglo-American tradition!

HMM: Mysterious Objects Punching Holes In Weird Saturn Ring. “The discovery comes from detailed photos taken of the Saturn system by NASA’s Cassini orbiter. In these images, researchers spotted strange objects about a half-mile (kilometer) wide tearing through Saturn’s F ring, the thin outermost discrete ring around the planet.”

It’s the aliens again. Beware.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that Footfall started this way.

DESPERATION IS THE MOTHER OF CREATIVITY: Dick Lugar to target cell phones near Mourdock events. “Dick Lugar has announced that his campaign will target cell phone users browsing the internet in zip codes where Richard Mourdock events are taking place. The targeted ads will repeat the misleading claim, already debunked by FactCheck.org, that Mourdock cheated on taxes.” Nice job, Dick.

MORE DAN SAVAGE BACKLASH. I wonder if Obama will distance himself? Heck, I wonder if MTV will? Will Savage’s college visits be met by protesters denouncing bigotry? You never know what those bitter-clinger slopehead types might get up to . . . .

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T TRUST TWITTER.

UPDATE: On Facebook, Alex Pournelle has a suggestion:

Business plan! Escrow accounts for your Twitter followers. When your account gets suspended, and they blink, and reinstate you, it auto-adds your followers back.

Permissions based, and allows you to watch for slamming, spoofing, and abuse.

Michelle Malkin should get working on this ASAP.

Well, she should.

SOOTHING: Walker Gains in Wisconsin: NYT Shields Readers From Distressing News. “Sometimes I wonder if the Times hasn’t been infiltrated by a group of stealth conservatives, a sleeper cell dedicated to making the left stupid and ineffectual. For liberals to be basking in a dream world in which OWS is effective and unions are fighting back and winning in Wisconsin is exactly what conservatives want. Look how it worked on Obamacare: not a serious liberal in the country thought the individual mandate could possibly be thought unconstitutional until, quite horribly, the Supreme Court justices started asking all those questions that the press had done its best to ignore.”

THOUGHTS ON THE SPIN, from reader Michael Brendzel: “The way the apparatus are pushing the idea that Obama is ‘cool’ reminds me of how they parroted the idea that he was ‘smart’. I guess they feel they can’t sell that bill of goods anymore.”

MAMAS, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE paleontologists.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: It’s Cool To Be In The Tank For Obama. “Reporters normally cast a jaundiced eye at a political campaign’s PR strategy. Yet they are eagerly parroting the Obama campaign’s talking point about how “cool” the president is.” Their first loyalty is to the apparat.

ANNALS OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: Hundreds of 5-year-old municipal vehicles found in Miami that were never used. “The county ‘discovered’ this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a Spanish-language newspaper there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of Toyota Prius hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.”

But remember — if you complain about government or taxes, it’s because you hate teh children.

AFRICA’S WAR OF RELIGION heats up. “Attacks apparently directed against Christians by radical groups claiming the mantle of Islam in Kenya and Nigeria yesterday illustrated the increasing polarization along Africa’s Christian-Muslim divide.” Very sad to see this. My brother spent a lot of time in Kano back in the 1990s and remembers it fondly. But then, I guess, the Saudi money came in.