Borepatch

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

2012-01-27T18:31:00.001-05:00

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

Et lux perpetual 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

2012-01-23T07:01:00.002-05:00

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. 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

2012-01-21T07:01:00.000-05:00

(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 wide 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.

Your daily WTF

2012-01-17T14:31:00.000-05:00

That's the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk taking green water over the flight deck. 80,000 tons displacement getting bobbed like a cork. The flight deck is around 100 feet over the water line. Hope that the Infirmary is stocked with plenty of Dramamine.

Via Blogbrother PISSED in an email.

The Presidential ticket from hell

2012-01-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Adversity doesn't build character

2012-01-17T07:01:00.003-05:00

It reveals character:

She said: ‘I want everyone to know how badly some people [aboard the sinking cruise liner Costa Concordia] behaved. It was a nightmare. I lost my daughter and my grandchildren in the chaos.

I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls. It was awful. There was a total lack of organisation. There was no one telling people where to go.

And when we finally got into a lifeboat, people, grown men, were trying to jump into the boat. I thought, if they land in here we are going to capsize.

Compare and contrast:

Update: Reports now say the number of passengers [on U.S. Air Flight 1549, which ditched in the Hudson River in January 2009] are between 140 and 160. A witness says the plane is floating downstream.

So far, it's believed all occupants are out of the plane. A secondary search is being conducted; fire department rescue teams from NJ and other NY are aiding.

A passenger said 1010WINS that the pilot told passengers should brace themselves—the passenger credited the pilot for steering them into the water and he said that they had children and women leave the plane first. The plane has floated down toward 23rd Street. [emphasis mine - Borepatch]

This is the point where I have to tell every Progressive who ever told us that "we need to be more like Europe" to shut up and sit down in the back of the room. Grown ups are talking.

And I mean that. For two generations, Europeans have been coddled by their governments - asked to do ever less (other than support their Ruling Elite) while the Governments do ever more. We saw the result of that, in the icy waters of the Mediterranean, as society went feral and it was sauve qui peut.

Here on this side of the Pond, we saw the same scenario play out - a disaster threatening sudden, unexpected death in the icy Hudson river. Here, it was women and children first*.

There cannot be a more basic condemnation of the Progressive State than the pairing of these two incidents. It is basic that society exists above all to protect women and children - else, what future for society? The way that the State has expunged this instinct from its society is all you need to know of the utter failure of the Progressive dream.

Too bad it took Europe down with it. Used to be a nice place.

* Offer void in Massachusetts, where the dumb as a rock Attorney General Martha Coakley does not encourage self help.

Illegal receiver down field

2012-01-16T19:36:00.001-05:00

You might recall that I tried to hook up my DVD player to my videoconferencing system so I could watch Netflix. It worked great playing the DVD on my laptop and piping it to the Video monitor. Going from the DVD player to the video unit resulted in nothing but a blank screen. The reason is copy protection.

You see, the DVD player uses an HDMI output, which uses HDCP copy protection. The video unit uses DVI. No copy protection.

(Image source)

The DVD player didn't get a copy protection handshake, so the screen was blank. Dark. No output.

Copy protection was implemented so that content providers and hardware manufactures could offer me a far better video experience than I could get over analog composite cable. So far, I'm digging this user experience.

So I guess I'll run over to Good Will, which has a bunch of old tube TVs for $20.

The whole experience, quite frankly, has put me right off all the "content" that I can't see. Maybe I won't bother replacing the TV. Screw 'em.

Mitt Romney's most dangerous opponent this year ...

2012-01-16T14:31:00.000-05:00

... is Mitt Romney.

You know, I could really get behind one of those guys. The problem is that the other is a bigger liar than Bill Clinton. And I hadn't know that was even possible.

You're only allowed a certain number of flips before people doubt your character.

Via #1 Son, who is really paying attention to this election.

Postscript: I'd like to just ask you to pass this message along to a friend.

Anything for you, Mitt. Whichever of you asked.

Compare and contrast: Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on Medical Marijuana

2012-01-16T10:31:00.001-05:00

Both talk to the exact same dieing patient. The exchanges could not have been more different.

I've said before a number of times that I thought that Mitt was a moral man, even though we disagreed on many things. I no longer can say that. To turn back on a sick man because you think that it's in your political interest to do so is grotesque. It reminds me of Bill Clinton in 1992. He allowed a mentally ill man to be executed because he thought it would win him votes from the "tough on crime" crowd. Christopher Hitchens never let that subject drop:

After falling behind in the New Hampshire primary in 1992, and after being caught lying about the affair with Gennifer Flowers to which he later confessed under oath, Clinton left the campaign trail and flew home to Arkansas to give the maximum publicity to his decision to sign a death warrant for Ricky Ray Rector. Rector was a black inmate on death row who had shot himself in the head after committing a double murder and, instead of dying as a result, had achieved the same effect as a lobotomy would have done. He never understood the charge against him or the sentence. After being served his last meal, he left the pecan pie on the side of the tray, as he told the guards who came to take him to the execution chamber, "for later."

This is worse, actually. The man in this video is no criminal. He never shot a cop. He just wants his suffering to be relieved. He's not even asking the Fed.Gov to pay for that, just to not jail the doctors who would help him assuage his pain.

And Mitt turns his back and walks away.

Mitt Romney is a miserable, politically calculating, lying bastard. I don't know about you, but for me, I will never vote for that scumbag.

Via #1 Son, who is (surprisingly to me) paying attention to the election this time around.

Aux armes, citoyens!

2012-01-16T07:01:00.002-05:00

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. Aux armes, citoyens!

* The lovely and knows-her-Soviets Mrs. Borepatch keeps telling me that Massachusetts does not have a proper Soviet. I keep telling her that they have an improper Soviet.

Fourth down and short

2012-01-15T20:18:00.000-05:00

Quite some time ago, the TV here at FOB died the death. That was annoying, because it was only 11 or 12 years old. Now I don't watch much TV anyway, so the problem wasn't there. Rather, it was losing the Netflix-over-Internet and ability to watch DVDs.

Yeah, I could watch the DVDs on the laptop, but even with the 17" laptop screen it just never was worth the bother.

And then today, I had this thought: what if you plug the laptop into the videoconferencing system I have here? Turns out it works great. So self, I said to myself. What if you could plug the DVD player directly into the videoconferencing unit?

Well, the video unit is DVI, and the DVD player is HDMI. No problem - Frye's Electronics had just the thing. And so everything actually connects, I just don't get signal. Phooey.

My plan is to call a timeout and bring in the special team (ask the engineers at work tomorrow). I must say, it'd be nice to have Netflix and DVDs back, and instead of buying a $400 TV, I only paid $16 for the DVI-HDMI adapter. We shall see.

Oh well - scored a John Lee Hooker CD at Half Priced Books. $5. Wh00t!

Harry Potter and the Ring Of Power

2012-01-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

This Trailer has been rated PG for violence. Viewer discretion is recommended.

Opus 5000

2012-01-15T10:31:00.002-05:00

This is my 5,000th post. As you well know, it's hard to get me to shut up.

For a while, I was tracking things like how many words I wrote a month. The average was about 25,000, in around 120 posts each month. If that still holds (and it sort of feels like it's in the ballpark), then I've probably written a little over a million words here.

Well, it seemed like a cunning plan at the time.

Paul Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

2012-01-15T07:01:00.002-05:00

Go on your way,
do not tarry,
water carry,
let it flow abundantly,
and prepare a bath for me!
- Goethe, The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Fame can be annoying. Paul Dukas was a late 19th/early 20th Century French composer, life long friend with Claude Debussy, and a complete perfectionist. Rarely satisfied with his compositions, he destroyed many - perhaps the majority - and hid others. One of his compositions was only found in recent years; its first performance was in 1995.

And so imagine the horror he felt at the fame that this piece rapidly achieved. Inspired by Goethe's 1797 poem, it became a Parisian favorite. And this was years before Disney's Fantasia made it even more popular. It made Dukas somewhat cross, actually.

He was really no more than a journeyman composer and teacher, famous enough that he was buried in Paris' Père Lachaise cemetery with all the other artistic movers and shakers. But not more famous than that. Today, he's all but forgotten except for this song.

You can't always do what you want

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Even when you really want to.

Dial 911 and die

2012-01-14T18:31:00.003-05:00

I'm currently at FOB Borepatch in Austin, Texas. Local law and tradition is that is some jerk assaults the perimeter here, and actually breaks in, inside the wire, I can shoot him graveyard dead. I don't have to wonder, or ask myself if he's suffering from a life of deprivation - depraved because he's deprived. The Castle Doctrine - recognizing that my home is my castle as recognized by ancient Common Law - allows me to assume that a housebreaker is up to no good and very likely has murderous intent.

The same is true in Georgia. I'm not there to help the lovely and dangerous Mrs. Borepatch defend the Camp Borepatch secure perimeter. But I pity the fool that puts her Sig to the test. Because she'll give covering fire to #2 Son to get his SKS. Outguned, the Bad Guys will be.

Maybe they can get the drop on me, or my family. But if they don't, we'll try our best to make sure that they don't go home that night fully staffed. Of course, all Right Thinking People™ are appalled by this. "We don't recommend self-help" says Massachusetts' dumb as a rock Attorney General Martha Coakley. Call 911. Lie back and think of (New) England.

Well, here in the free part of the United States of America, nobody believes that. But even in Canada, the population is straying from Approved Opinions™:

That's not Texas. That's Canada.

The Gun Control crowd is in a deep pit of fail. The government is incompetent, courts repeatedly say that the government has no need to protect the likes of you, the gun control laws (surprise!) don't prevent prohibited persons like felons from getting guns.

And still they keep bleating for more gun control. Not effective gun control. Not making existing laws actually do what we were told they would. Not requiring the Police to actually protect us within a certain time frame.

No, no, no. They wake up in the morning knowing the answer - more gun control. They just don't know which question they'll be asked that day.

But even in Canada that message doesn't fly. What an oddly incompetent group - Baldr Odinson, Joan Peterson, and the rest - that keep playing a broken musical instrument, thinking it sounds beautiful. Even the Canadians don't listen any more.

Let's all call her Ma'am

2012-01-14T14:31:00.001-05:00

Even if we have to work really hard to call her ma'am.

Via Theo.

This is so awesome that it draws blood

2012-01-14T10:31:00.002-05:00

I think that this must be the "Tea Partiers are Terrorists" President of the Civility Project trying to make amends. It's very, very well done and if I'm right, very gracious by Ms. Harrop.

Popehat to Advice Goddess to me to you. Nuthin' nut 'Net.

UPDATE 14 January 2011 11:57: Bah, embed FAIL. You'll have to click through to Advice Goddess to watch. Helpful Ptotip to the idiots doing the Daily Show's web marketing: if you want to allow people to embed this - you know, to get web presence - then it helps to give people embed code that actually, you know, works. Love, Borepatch.

Vernon Dalhart - The Wreck of the Old 97

2012-01-14T07:01:00.000-05:00

(Image source)

What does a New York City opera singer have to do with country music? Don't judge a book by its cover.

You see, Vernon Dalhart was originally from Texas. That wasn't even his real name - when he first performed in a production of Puccini, he made up a pseudonym to be listed in the program. Vernon and Dalhart were the Texas towns where he rode on cattle drives in the 1890s. He may have been singing in H.M.S. Pinafore, but he came by his cowboy chops honestly.

By the nineteen teens, phonographs were beginning to take off, and he auditioned in front of no less a figure as Thomas Edison. By 1920, he was recording records - 12 inch 78-rpm disks with a single song on each side). He recorded everything, from opera to Irish songs to Negro spirituals. But everything changed in 1924.

The wreck of the Old 97 was a popular song about the 1903 wreck of a fast mail train. It was country, not the other styles he sang, but since Dalhart recorded everything, he did this one too.

This record sold seven million copies. It was the best selling record until the 1950s, other than Christmas songs.

But the music business was a tough one even then, and Dalhart's singing career was over by 1940. He worked odd jobs including security guard during the War, dieing of a heart attack in 1948.

The Wreck of The Old 97 (songwriters: G.B. Grayson, Henry Whitter)

Well they gave him his orders at Monroe Virginia

sayin' Steve you're way behind time
This is not 38 this is old 97
you must put her into Spencer on time

Then he turned around and said to his black greasy fireman
shovel on a little more coal
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain
watch old 97 roll

But it's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville
With a line on a three mile grade
It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes
see what a jump he made

He was goin' down the grade makin' 90 miles an hour
his whistle broke into a scream
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle
A scalded to death by the steam

Then the telegram come to Washington station
and this is how it read
Oh that brave engineer that run old 97
he's a layin' in old Danville dead

So now all you ladies you better take a warnin'
from this time on and learn
Never speak harsh words to your true lovin' husband
He may leave you and never return

Vernon Dalhart was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981.

Blues Harp

2012-01-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

Just because.

I missed one

2012-01-13T14:31:00.001-05:00

The Independence Day Quiz. I didn't know which of the Presidents they showed was the one who was born in Texas. Kind of obscure, though.

All in all, it's not hard for someone who grew up in my day and age. We learned most of this in school. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case.

The Republicans are drooling idiots if they cannot run candidates at all levels - local state, and national - on a platform that says schools that cannot or will not teach should be shut down. That says schools that cannot or will not teach this American history - who we are, where we came from, and why we are who we are - those schools should be shut down, too.

This will be wildly popular, except with the Intellectual Elite and the public sector unions. If the GOP isn't willing to pick a very public fight with groups held in such deep contempt by the vast majority of this country, well, then they really are the Stupid Party.

Bridges, home

2012-01-13T10:31:00.001-05:00

1990 say the release of a fairly obscure album by Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro, Walking On A Wire. It's one of my favorite albums, and deserves much wider play than it got. Lowen and Navarro wrote Pat Benatar's smash hit, We Belong. Talented songwriters, they began writing and recording for themselves.

One of that album's songs is Seven Bridges. It is astonishing in how it captures the cycle of our own growth, maturity, and old age. Particularly astonishing is that it avoids the faux profundity of so much rock music. Looking back after nearly a quarter century, the song still speaks deeply of that voyage from youth to the end of the road. It combines hope, and defiance, and mature recognition of just what Life is about in a way not often seen.

I'd embed a video, except there doesn't seem to be one. The album and the song were pretty obscure, and now that Lowen has come down with Lou Gehrig's Disease and retired from performing, it seems that there won't be one. That seems to add to the poignancy:

Now Life's sometimes a battle,
you just try to get what you're after:
A World filled with stories you won't live to tell.
But going on is all we know - like rivers always flow.
It seems the years just fly right past
while the days go by so slow.

But the feeling that surrounds me
brings the heart back from the stone
and shines a light that lets me see
to cross the seven bridges home.

And it goes like this forever
so don't ever feel alone.
The same old road that brought you here
crosses seven bridges home.

I think that I'll be able to wrap things up at FOB Borepatch in Austin over the nest three or four months, and return home permanently to hearth and home and family. For the first time in a while, the light in the distance is maybe - maybe - not an oncoming train, but instead shining to let me see to cross the seven bridges home.

A man knows that one day
there's always an end to the Highway.
He knows what's before him
he won't run away.
Because away is never far enough,
and freedom's just a bluff.
But from somewhere down deep inside
comes the peace he's always dreamed of.

And the feeling that surrounds me
brings the heart back from the stone
and shines a light that lets me see
to cross the seven bridges home.

It's not an end, it's a beginning. But it's true: a man knows what's required of him, and won't flinch from his duty. You do what has to be done, because it has to be done - despite the cost in heartache and treasure.

Women do this, too, as Mom would be quick to remind me.

Thank you for this song, Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro. It has been a comfort to me through the years, and especially in the last twelve months. We can pray for a miracle of modern medicine to stop the ravages of Lowen's affliction. If that hope is in vain, then may this song of his have as much meaning to him on his journey as it has been to mine.

15,000

2012-01-13T07:01:00.001-05:00

All y'all have left over 15,000 comments here. Well done, all. I see that I'm not the only one who's a bit chatty ...

But seriously, thank you. The last year in particular hasn't always been easy - moving, losing Dad, and then living so far from the family for so much of the time. The comments you've left here has been a very real lifeline during this time. I'm more grateful than I have words to say.

I must admit that I am not very good at answering comments, certainly not as good as you deserve. But from my heart, thanks to everyone who comes here. I look forward to the next 15,000.

Hitler was right about America

2012-01-12T18:31:00.000-05:00

Hitler was contemptuous of American society, seeing us - quite rightly, as it turned out - as a mongrel race. Americans were descended from peoples from all over the globe, and America did a workable job of assimilating them into a whole, back in the days when the Intellectual Elite wasn't oddly embarrassed to utter the words "melting pot".

That mixing was most obvious to Europeans of the 1930s and 1940s in the music of the day - Jazz and Big Band. Hitler dismissed it as judenmusik und schwartzmusik - Jewish and Black music (no, he didn't like Benny Goodman or Louis Armstrong). When Duke Ellington went on a European tour, they needed to get from Belgium to Denmark, and the train went through Germany. The train had mechanical problems, and the band spent a nervous six hours with the train surrounded by Hitler's soldiers before finally moving on to Scandinavia. Hitler simply refused to allow these American Schwartze Mongrels to set foot on deutsche boden - German soil.

In a sense, though, Hitler was right to be suspicious of this modern art form as infectious of native European tropes. More and more in the post war years jazz and blues sound began to seep into native European style. Edith Piaf was a fairly pure example of French entertainment that would have been familiar to Der Fuhrer, although I never knew that she recorded this in both French and English, around 1950.

But times were changing. The American cultural advance was relentless, and only fifteen years after the suicides of Hitler and Eva Braun in the Fuhrerbunker, John Coltrain recorded this in Berlin itself:

This song, of course, became Yves Montagne's signature tune. He was perhaps the first to fuse the old French Piaf style with the new American blues/jazz sound. This was from probably the late 1960s, at the height of his interpretative powers:

Duke Ellington, of course, had the greatest version of this song, perhaps his revenge on Hitler:

This is actually my favorite version, because of the soft touch approach. The voice and violin parts are allowed to stand out in front of the orchestra, to sink or swim on their solo talents. Ozzie Bailey offers a simply spectacular performance in both French and English, and Ray Nance on violin gives what is perhaps the ultimate jazz violin solo of all time. Quite a performance when you consider that Nance was known for his trumpet work. Of course, Georgia's own Johnny Mercer translated the lyrics into English.

C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble.
Toi qui m'aimais, et je t'aimais.
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble
Moi qui t'aimais, toi qui m'aimais.

Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment.
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit.
Et la mer efface sur le sable
les pas des amants désunis.

The falling leaves drift by the window.
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses.
The sunburned hands I used to hold.

Since you went away the days grow long.
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
when autumn leaves start to fall.

Maybe that's why I like this version best - it really captures the America Mongrel culture at it's apogee.

Strangely, Google Translate (with a bit of polishing by your humble host) does a fair job of the French - perhaps better than Mercer:

It's a song for us.
You who loved me, I who loved you.
Once we lived together
You who loved me, I who loved you.

Life separates those who love.
But slowly, without a fuss.
And the sea erases from the sand
the footsteps of those who were in love

If you've read this far, then you're perhaps as strange as I. But thanks. Chacun à son goût, and all that.

Yeah, I have a hard time winning at Calvinball, too

2012-01-12T14:31:00.001-05:00

Thank you, random Internet person!

2012-01-12T10:31:00.002-05:00

It's meme time! Here's mine:

Click to embiggenate.

The link takes you here, to the younger #2 Son, a Mosin, a bayonet, and a Pokemon. I actually kind of hope that my nieces don't browse there (well, on my brother's side; the nieces on Mrs. Borepatch's side are all out of college and would laugh).

So what J. Random Visitor from Al Gore's series of tubes made you laugh out loud?

See through LCD display

2012-01-12T10:31:00.001-05:00

Samsung has one of these that is as big as a living room window.

Cool, but whatever it costs, it costs a lot. So make your own:

The big one is insanely cool, with touch screen capability, the ability to go completely dark, and a day/night option (backlight). I'd embed it, but the geniuses who run CNN Money's marketing group have embedding disabled. And so what is a fabulous interview and demo has 166 views. Awesome marketing.

In which I challenge Baldr Odinson to an Internet duel

2012-01-12T07:01:00.018-05:00

I apologize in advance for my language in this post. I endeavor to keep this blog PG-13, but some times a man has to say what a man has to say to other (I think) men. You've been warned.

Everyone, please stop feeding the troll. He won't post your comments, he controls everything on his blog to make sure that only the Right Thoughts™ appear there. You'll never win this way. Here's how you win.

Baldr Odinson (whoever you are, assuming I spelled your pseudonym correctly, which I don't care if I did or not), I challenge you to a man-to-man contest. I will prove by blog combat that you are a pussy, and that you are also an idiot. Your ideas are weak, yea, weak unto death. They make your blog weak, and everyone knows it.

I will prove this, to the Internet's satisfaction, or I will grovel and ask for mercy and forgiveness. As the Knights of old did, I offer to prove this, risking my body (well, err, traffic and Internet reputation) against yours. Not that I want your body. Ewww*.

You are a pussy** ***.

You moderate comments, not because you get so much traffic that you attract spammers (you wish), but because you are, y'know, a pussy. You can't actually take real criticism. Pussy.

You leave comments on the gun blogs, but flee when people reply to your comments. Your intellect is weak, and you take the safe but cheap route of tossing a grenade, troll-like, into a comment thread and then Sir-Robin-like scampering away. Pussy.

Your traffic (for someone who's backed by the Brady crowd) would best be described as "pussy-like", but that would be an insult to honest pussys throughout the Internet. You, on the other hand are a dishonest pussy.

And I can prove it, in front of everyone on the Internet. Here's my challenge:

- Open your comments, as mine are open here. I delete comments, but only if they are spam. For the purpose of this challenge, I will agree to delete *no* comments, even spam.

- Put up a post in reply to this post, accepting the challenge like a man. Someone who refuses to hide behind comment moderation.

- After seven (7) days, whoever has the most comments (on your post or mine) wins. If you win, I shall apologize handsomely, both in a comment to this post and in a separate post. When I say "handsomely", I mean "will exceed your expectations". As the Knights of old said, I will prove this at the risk of my own (blog) body.

- If you lose, you will post a simple "Borepatch was right" post. That's all I ask of the likes of you. Pussy.

You won't take me up on it, of course, because you're a pussy. You know that your arguments are weak, and can't convince anyone - as indeed the entire Gun Ban lobby has found to their dismay. Your practice of avoiding conflict and discussion has made you weak, and you know it. Even against a nobody blog like me.

And because you know you're weak, you're a pussy. You know it, I know it, and everyone on the Internet knows it. So put up or shut up. You've been called out. Man up, or crawl away to hide under a rock. And no whining about what a "brute" I am - these are words, dude. Sticks and stones, and all that. We'll never meet In Real Life, so don't piss your pants and everything. Or email me, and if we meet up, I'll buy you a beer and we'll talk about this (not fight, duh) man to man.

Let me say that again, so all the Internet can hear: man up to this challenge, or STFU and crawl away like a pussy to hide. There are no other choices.

To the Gun Blog community, that's how you deal with pussies. Stop feeding the troll. Stop putting up well reasoned arguments against what they post, when you know that they're too pussy to reply. Pearls before swine, and all that. It's making me cross to see such a waste of fine intellectual horsepower. It a stupid game, and we should stop playing - unless Baldr is (unexpectedly) willing to act like a man for a change. Which he isn't, because he's a pussy.

* Not that there would be anything wrong with that, of course, except that the lovely and thinks-I'm-hers Mrs. Borepatch would kick your sorry ass from one end of the gun blogosphere to the other and back. Don't think that she wouldn't, you pussy.

** No offense to honest women everywhere. Except Joan Peterson, who manages to be simultaneously an actual, you know, woman and an a weak, disengenious, two-faced lying comment-moderating pussy just like Bladr. I'd challenge her to a duel, too, except that a Man doesn't go after a lady that way.

*** I try to keep this blog PG-13, but enough is enough. If I can say that Mitt Romney is gayer than Twilight, I can say that Baldr Odinson is a pussy. Unless, of course, he mans up. Which he won't. Pussy.

Why do you need a gun in your home?

2012-01-11T23:38:00.000-05:00

Republican Governors Gone Wild.

I wonder who paid for what. And RTWT, especially the "finish what he started" bit.

Trio

2012-01-11T20:31:00.000-05:00

Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Sheryl Crow in what looks like the mid-1990s:

So, will it be awesome or awful?

2012-01-11T18:31:00.000-05:00

We'll know when it opens, on March 9.

Bad ass computer

2012-01-11T14:31:00.006-05:00

I used to work around Big Iron, back in the day at Three Letter Agency. The basement there was filled with stinking huge IBM 3090 mainframes, and different flavors of Cray Supercomputers (each painted a different color so you could recognize at a glance the one you were working with; we called the purple one "Barney"). But the most bad ass of all the computers there was this:

(Image source)

Of course, the rooms were dark, so walking past this always made me feel like I was near the warp core of the Death Star, or something. The lights would be continually in motion; I'm not sure what it was for, but I suspect that each LED mapped to one of the 64,000 CPUs in this beast. Rumor was that it was so fast, it would answer your question before you asked it.

What I hadn't known was that Richard Feynman was the first employee hired at Thinking Machines, Inc. It's quite a story:

That man was so smart that he left smartprints when he walked across the carpet. Figures he had to have been involved with one of the most bad ass computers ever made.

Postscript: it seems that you can go see that very same computer, now on display at the National Cryptologic Museum.

Forget "What's the matter with Kansas" - what's the matter with the Nanny State?

2012-01-11T10:31:00.011-05:00

Thomas Frank wrote the famously clueless book, What's The Matter With Kansas, mewing doe-eyed* about why the voters of Kansas kept voting for Republicans when it was "clearly in their economic interest" to vote for Democrats. He didn't understand that the people of Kansas knew what he didn't, which is that this is nonsense on stilts. The Democrats are terrible to the working class, speaking in economic terms.

As Reagan liked to say, there they go again:

Medical scientists in San Francisco have sent a chill wind blowing through the IT industry as they issue a call for swingeing taxes on "soda, fruit punch, sweet tea, sports drinks, and other sweetened beverages".

A collection of health profs and other researchers led by Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo (associate professor of medicine and of epidemiology and biostatistics at California uni's San Francisco campus) say they have now put numbers on the horrific toll exacted as Americans poison themselves with no less than 13.8 billion gallons* of disgustful pop annually. Furthermore they say that huge numbers of lives would be saved if only the government would slap a hefty tax on the sugar-laden beverages of death - to the tune of a cent per fluid ounce.

They estimate that such a "penny-per-ounce" tax on sweetened beverages would prevent nearly 100,000 cases of heart disease, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 deaths every year. It would deliver a hefty $13bn in revenue to the hard-pressed US exchequer, and save $17bn in medical expenses.

"You would also prevent 240,000 cases of diabetes per year," says Bibbins-Domingo, whose team has just published a paper outlining their ideas in the journal Health Affairs.

Bull. The science is a guarantied cinch to be junk, with the study flawed to the point of meaninglessness and the statistics cooked. Probably funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, too, although it's I'm sure entirely unexpected that it supports yet another Big Government, Nanny State power grab tax on poor people. A complete coincidence. Didn't see that one coming. No siree.

The only mystery, really, is why Thomas Frank and other Right Thinking People™ are mystified as to how those moronic redneck hicks in flyover country, clinging to their guns and religion and antipathy to people (like Frank) who are different from them, actually understand their own economic self interest better than a PhD like Frank.

* I have got to stop milking this dead horse about the intellectual left.

Muffole! Muffole! Muffole!

2012-01-11T07:01:00.001-05:00

Well, it looks like Mittens has it all sewed up. Oh, well - it's unlikely that I shall be disappointed*. And 2cents is probably correct that Romney is the least scary Republican in the General election. Newt? Scary. R0N P4U1!!1!? Heck, he scares me some of the time. Mittens? Aw, so cute and cuddly.

Oh, and the post title? Well, a while back I said that Mussolini could beat Obama this year.

But "Duce" has a harsh, scary sound to it. Romney is all cute and cuddly. Maybe Simon Grey is right: Romney needs Game.

* Because my expectations are so pathetically low for him that it would be fail of truly epic proportions for him to, err, "exceed" them.

Moonlight

2012-01-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

- Percy Bysshe Shelly, To The Moon

Backwards in high heels, baby!

2012-01-10T18:31:00.000-05:00

With a baby. Awesome.

Via Theo, who's on fire. You do read him every day, don't you? Err, from home, as some of it is NSFW.

Knock it off, Mittens

2012-01-10T14:31:00.002-05:00

He thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for that drivel. Newt takes him to the woodshed for as satisfying a thrashing as I've seen in a while. Good grief, what a maroon. He thinks he's as good a liar as Bill Clinton. He's not.

And I think I figured out what's so gay* about Mitt. Look at the goofy grin he has at around 1:40, while Newt is ripping him a new one. Just level with the American People is damn right.

* Not in a, you know gay sense (not that there is anything wrong with that), but in a gayer than Twilight sense. I have got to photoshop some sparkles onto Slick Willard.

Via Theo.

Look, Robin! The Bat signal!

2012-01-10T10:31:00.005-05:00

Any gunnie web designers out there willing to do a bit of pro bono work on a secret (but insanely) cool project For The Cause? Drop me an email: borepatch, gmail, you know the drill.

This is classified, burn-before-reading stuff, but has the potential to have a huge marketing release with very high Internet visibility.

Matter of fact, any Marketing/PR types, send me an email. We want to make a splash, and while I have done a fair bit of marketing in my day, I'm not a real Marketeer - I only play one on TV. With a face made for radio.

Unlike you, with your Internet skillz. Let's show those ~~fascitsts~~ gun grabbers what good old American know-how can do!

UPDATE 10 January 2012 19:50: Thanks to the League of Superheros who responded! Looks like our subversive army is fully staffed.

Now that's a snowstorm!

2012-01-10T07:01:00.001-05:00

Holy cow:

National Guardsmen were recruited to help dig an Alaskan fishing town out from under record-breaking snow, the Associated Press reported.

Dozens of troops arrived Sunday evening in Cordova, the small coastal town hit hardest by the snow, which has triggered avalanches and even trapped some people in their homes. At least three buildings have collapsed and six homes are deemed “severely stressed” by wet snow.

“We had no alternative but to declare an emergency,” said Cordova Mayor Jim Kallander. “It became a life-safety issue.”

Southeast Alaska has been crushed with weeks of persistent snow, kicking off one of the snowiest winters on record. More than 18 feet of snow has fallen in the past weeks, the Guard reported, and another storm is expected to hit Cordova on Tuesday.

I grew up in Maine, and so am no stranger to snow shovels. But this is over the top. Best wishes to the good people of Alaska.

Of course, it's all caused by Global Warming. What's that you say? Why is it caused by Global Warming? Simples: everything is caused by Global Warming:

I hope that it's soon hot hot hot in Alaska - maybe even up into the 40s ...

Fear and dependence, hope and courage

2012-01-09T23:48:00.005-05:00

One of the arguments that I often use - an indictment, really - of the Intellectual Left is that while in the first half of the twentieth century they convinced many conservatives to cross over to their side, that never happens now. On the contrary, the Right (and the Libertarianosphere) is filled with people like me, formerly liberal, now thinking for ourselves.

Their arguments and philosophy have become tragically weak, weak unto the death of their movement.

The Gun Control crowd are squarely in this death spiral. People cross over, but it's always from the anti-gun side to the pro-freedom side. But it's not often done with this from-the-heart eloquence:

You, you who hate guns, you gave me nothing.

No hope.

No tools.

All that was offered me was a life of fear, of resentment, of bitterness, of dependence...

The gun community has offered me hope and strength, and courage.

They have taught me to have belief in myself.

They have asked nothing of me in return and, yet, I would give them my life.

Funny thing is, they would never ask me to.

This struck me, for a couple of reasons. First, Older Brother adopted three kids from Russia. That journey wasn't about the years, but about the miles over unpaved roads. Agirlandhergun has driven those same roads. It's doing the Lord's work, and I don't say that lightly.

Second, her journey to the gun side is in may ways like mine. It is a psychological voyage, of leaving behind an old world view and choosing freedom. I wrote of my own journey down that road, a year ago:

But the meaning goes beyond the (quite modest) firepower of the rifle. It's a statement of freedom, the mark of a citizen, not a subject. We could use more citizens, not more subjects.
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...
This is my rifle. There are none like it, because it marks the transition from a subject to a free man.

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.
- James Burgh

To agirlandhergun, we need more citizens, like you and me. We ought to have arms, by right as free citizens. Hope and Courage never live precariously, or at discretion.

Welcome, citizen.

To everyone else, go read her post which will be the most moving thing you will read all day.

Drink like a Real Man

2012-01-09T19:05:00.001-05:00

Not a bad list, although I don't like his Old Fashioned recipe. But that's just me, and it's traditional to argue over the Old Fashioned recipe.

There's a punchline, too, in the comments, along with what he left out of the recipe.

Hat tip: Foseti.

Someone is stealing my posts

2012-01-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Google Blogsearch tells you interesting things about who's linking to you. It led me to someone who is stealing each and every one of my posts. No link, but if you go to audrey.zoko.in you'll find it.

Strangely, it seems to tweak the words every now and then, in a bad Google Translate sort of way. But it's clearly posts from here: Camp Borepatch, the lovely and fill-in-the-blank Mrs. Borepatch, #1 Son and #2 Son.

I tried leaving a couple comments which were never passed through moderation. So a question for all y'all - has anyone ever seen something like this? I can't believe that they're making any money off of blog adds, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious spam there, so I'm kind of at a loss for the motivation behind this.

Random photos

2012-01-09T10:31:00.011-05:00

The Missus has a post up that's quite a trip down memory lane, from back before we had kids (B.C. - Before Children) and took some vacations in the south of France. She has some spectacular photos - so spectacular, in fact, that I suspect that she didn't scan them but rather found them on The Intarwebz. Ah, for the days of two incomes and no kids in College ...

But it got me thinking about days gone by, and how it had been quite some time since I'd posted random photos. So here you go.

I haz a tired ....

Little One-Eyed Dog. Good thing she's so cute, because she's quite the hellion.

Little One-Eyed Dog did not like it when Crash came to live with us. Neither did the mice. Crash got one under #2 Son's bed one night, chasing it between the toy bins stashed under there. #2 Son said it was a hair raising racket. Crash caught the mouse, and then proudly dropped the carcass outside #1 Son's door. Groggy and barefoot in the morning, #1 Son stepped on it. Good times, good times.

#1 Son and #2 Son. Man, that was a long time ago. I have this picture with me here at FOB Borepatch. They roll their eyes at me, but I don't care.

Why SOPA is unnecessary

2012-01-09T07:01:00.000-05:00

People will pay for content:

Comedian Louis C.K. recently self-released a video of his stand-up special, “Live at the Beacon Theater,” for $5 online. He personally paid for the production costs up front in an experiment to see if this was a cheaper, more efficient, and less restrictive method of getting his content to his fans. In doing so, he cut out paying the middlemen — including the marketing team — and avoided the red tape of working with studio executives.

In twelve days, Louis C.K. earned more than $1 million from people downloading the special — far more than the $170,000 it cost to produce the video ...

Without the luxury of stardom, Louis C.K. sold $1 million of video downloads by trusting his audience. He showed this by selling DRM-free videos, then gently asking them to purchase, not pirate. This openness built a relationship of mutual trust and respect with his fans. Companies looking to create successful online marketing campaigns should try to build similarly long-term relationships with customers based on trust and direct communication.

It's harder to treat your customers as, well, customers than it is to tell them to take what you serve up and like it. It's no mistake that the MPAA came out of the Film and TV world, where their customers are expected to passively sit back and watch. But treating their customers as being a bunch of thieves has not developed a relationship that lasts.

And so, the MPAA has bought a bunch of Congressmen, to make institutionalized contempt and suspicion the law of the land. Compare that to Louis C. K. He put up his show with no DRM, and people downloaded it on the honor system. After paying for it.

Can someone please explain to me the "problem" of piracy?

In re: the Election

2012-01-08T18:31:00.000-05:00

Philip Greenspun brings the Quote of the Day:

We know that a country of people who earn a median wage of $16.27 per hour (source) cannot afford to pay $100,000-200,000/year pensions to policemen and firefighters who retire at 42 or 50. We know that we can’t afford our massive military or unlimited payments to Medicare providers. We know that we can’t afford to pay working-age people to sit at home and collect 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. We know that China is growing 10 percent per year because businesses find employees there who have a better education and work ethic. We know that countries like Singapore now enjoy a higher per capita income than the U.S. does partly because they’ve figured out how to deliver basic government services as a tiny fraction of the cost (as a percentage of GDP). We know that our public schools are set up to benefit employees rather than students and therefore the outlook for competitiveness is not improving.

We don’t want to do anything about these issues, however, which is why reelecting our current crop of politicians, including Obama, is the most sensible thing to do.

Certainly the elites see it this way. My sense is that much of the country doesn't, which explains the wide spread discontent (both the Tea Party and the #Occupy movement). But as long as the establishments think that they can trim their way to a tactical victory (*cough* Mitt Romney *cough*), they will continue to refuse to address any of these problems.

When I sailed through Wood's Hole

2012-01-08T14:31:00.006-05:00

And by "sailed", I mean "drove through at 20 knots". Not exactly like this, which was 15 miles north of Wood's Hole on Buzzard's Bay, and was probably only 10 or 15 knots, not 20.

And #2 Son's secret Super Power is not falling off the tube, even when I goose the throttle.

But Wood's Hole is no joke. The tidal current runs up to 6 or 7 knots at times, and there are BIG ships that dock there, on a regular schedule that I expect the Captain is paid to keep to. I was glad that my Mercruiser V8 (likely the most powerful engine of any vehicle I ever owned) let me go where I had to, when I had to, when I went through Wood's Hole harbor.

And I only drew about 18" draft. Paul took a lot bigger vessel into Newport. Seems some rich dudes (not "The 1%" - more like "The 0.01%" decided to take a regatta of antique yachts across the harbor channel as his ship headed in to dock. Of course, the "Rules of the Road" say that a vessel proceeding only under wind power has right of way.

Ya know, when I was active in the Coast Guard Axillary (recommended), I learned the "Rule of Tonnage":

A bigger ship will crush you like a bug, if it ever hits you. If you had the Right Of Way, I hope that you're wearing your Personal Flotation Device.

And Buzzard's Bay is damn cold. Anyway, the Newport Rag Baggers decided to cut off a large ship in a narrow channel - which also has Right Of Way, even over sailing vessels.

Hilarity ensues.

But I guess that you can't really blame those rich Newport guys. I mean, after all they're on a boat:

Oh, and I would so like to drink beer with Paul and Uncle Jay, even if I have to pick up the tab ...

Camille Saint-Saëns - The Carnival of the Animals

2012-01-08T12:29:00.000-05:00

(Image source)

I had a date last night, even though I'm here in Austin. But don't worry, it was with the lovely and telegenic Mrs. Borepatch. You see, my company builds high definition video conferencing systems that communicate over the Internet (think Skype on steroids). There's one of these devices in my office (the Arms Room) at Camp Borepatch, and there's another here inside the wire at FOB Borepatch.

And so I lit some candles and got dinner, and so did she, and we had a high definition dinner date. It was très romantique.

And if you think très romantique, you think Camille Saint-Saëns, the late Romantic French composer. If he'd been American, he'd likely have served in the War Between the States. Of course by then he was recognized - by Franz Liszt, no less - as being the greatest organist in the world. He was a musical prodigy - perfect pitch at age two, reading music at age three, his first composition (now lovingly preserved in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale) at age four.

Image via Wikipedia

But he was more than just a musical prodigy; he was an intellectual prodigy as well. Not content to limit himself to music, he wrote scientific and historical papers on acoustics and ancient Roman theater design - while he wasn't composing or wowing the jaded Parisian audience with his weekly organ improvisation concerts at the Church of La Madeleine in the heart of Paris (a block from our favorite hotel, as it turns out).

But while he missed the American Civil War, the Atlantic didn't shelter him from the Franco-Prussian War which was a disaster for France. Saint-Saëns founded a group to preserve and advance French music, much like Pierre Curie did for French science. Science and technology seemed intertwined with his life: he wrote the first score for a major motion picture (in 1908). He outlived the Great War, living to see the New World (sailing through the newly completed Panama Canal to conduct an orchestra in San Francisco). Quite a life, all 86 years.

He's best known for his Carnival of the Animals, which is a diverse suite of 14 short movements. Some are whimsical (L'elefant), but the best are heartbreakingly romantic. In short, the perfect music for a candle light dinner. The Swan (Le cygne) is the most famous of these:

While not as famous, I expect that Saint-Saëns - with his film background - might like this video of another movement, The Aquarium:

Neat-o Torpedo, you might say. Ogden Nash in the 1940s wrote some verses to go with each of the movements - often, they're preformed that way today. Nash did quite a good job of capturing the music and reflecting it back in his half doggerel, half profound poetic style. The Fossils:

Those of you lucky enough to be with your sweetheart might think about a candle light dinner (Valentine's Day is only 5 weeks away). Saint-Saëns is the perfect musical score to go with your French Champagne. What, your sweetheart isn't worth the real thing?

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

2012-01-08T10:31:00.013-05:00

On December 7, 1941, the United States was deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Nobody had seen that coming, and the US Military personnel had to adjust as best they could. The attack took place early on a Sunday morning, soon after reveille. The defenders scrambled to their battle stations, plans for the morning Church service in shambles. Some of the ratings asked Chaplain (Ensign J.G.) Forgy what they should do. His reply is famous:

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Sometimes death seeks you out unexpectedly. Sometimes, you're caught off guard, or unawares. Chaplain Forgy tells us that you have to do the best you can with what you have. Of course, it's better to make sure that what you have is something worth having.

Today the gun banning crowd wants everyone to light a candle for the people who have died from gun violence. It's not a bad sentiment, as far as it goes, and I'm actually sympathetic to a lot of the thought. People who found themselves facing sudden death, unexpectedly, deserve our remembrance.

But we should also remember Chaplain Forgy. Violence can sometimes appear out of a bright morning sky. At that point, good men and good women should praise the Lord, and use the tools that the Lord and human ingenuity have given them. If some Meth addled thug pulls a knife on me as I walk back from the supermarket, I will put my faith in the Lord, in jacketed .45 ACP hollow points, and in 19-by-God-11.

I lit a candle for the innocent victims, praying that the gun banners would stop trying to disarm them. And to those who would unleash violence unexpectedly on good people, I agree with Col. Cooper:

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

To the innocent victims, I pray: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

And to the animals who brought unexpected violence to then, I offer this:

Or the 1911. It'll kill the goblin just as dead. Think of the muzzle flash as lighting a candle.

Connection

2012-01-07T18:31:00.001-05:00

Things change a lot in 75 years, and a lot has changed for the better. This great old song never fails to make me cringe:

The casual racism of the 1940s is on full display. Boy (certainly referring to a fully grown man). You can give me a shine. We've come a long way in those decades.

I say this not to put down those who lived then - different times, and I am a product of mine, not theirs. Rather, it's to recognize that as a product of my own time, there are parts of theirs that I don't mind seeing fall by the wayside.

But the connection is still there. Music today also contains the echo of the steel rails and the power of the locomotive. It's just been updated a little.

Thanks to RobertaX for kicking over a trip down memory lane today.

When I road the Super Chief

2012-01-07T14:31:00.000-05:00

It was 1964, and we went from probably St. Louis to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe Super Chief. Grandpa had just died, and Mom and Dad used the little inheritance money to take us to California to see her parents. While this commercial is over the top in that 1950s marketing way, it's exactly how I remember it - I was 5 at the time, so it really stands out in my mind.

While we were in California, we took the Southern Pacific Coast Daylight train to San Francisco, and then the California Zephyr back east. There was a kind old gentleman in the Vista Dome observation car who taught older brother and me how to play pinochle. And the tunnels that you see at about 8:30 here were etched in sharp relief in my five year old memory.

That was a different world age. The fare for the trip cost $592.10 in 1964 dollars - about $4500 today. But the memories are priceless, from a world long gone. A world that had its own music, now long gone as well.

Of course, I wouldn't want to go back to that as my only transportation choice. Instead of two days from Chicago to San Francisco, I can now get a Jet to take me there in 4 hours. Instead of $4,800, I can go for around $400. But there's still something lost, something finer than the flying bus of today.

Image from the Northern Pacific Cookbook.

Nothing could be finer. Cheaper, yes. But not finer.

Choo Choo Ch'Boogie

2012-01-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

There are just too many great songs about trains - they are caught up in the musical history of this nation as perhaps nothing else. And so offered for your approval, more trains:

Little Richard - Rock Island Line

2012-01-07T07:01:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipwedia

Roberta posts, wondering what is it with Progressives and their habit of throwing tons of money down the rat hole that is trail mass transit. The instinct isn't rational, carefully thought out, weighing the costs and benefits. It's romantic.

The first effective land transport was steam trains. Suddenly, people and freight could move where they wanted, when they wanted, faster than the wind or waves would carry them. The Iron Horse gave the world freedom from geography. It was a bright line divider - before was a static population, effectively bound to the land; after was the lure of the Open Spaces. Go west, young man.

This runs deep in the Western spirit, and so music has picked this up and lovingly preserved it long past the days when passenger rail is all but dead. The songs have an excitement to them, one that lets us imagine life on a Kansas farm. Holding up the plow team to watch the train go past. The Rock Island Line is one of the storied railroads of this land, old enough that Abraham Lincoln acted as legal counsel to them in a lawsuit.

And storied enough to have one of the great old songs written for it. Pretty much everyone has covered this one. Here's Little Richard, who pours on extra coal and opens all the valves.

Rock Island Line (Songwriter: Kelly Pace)

The Rock Island Line it's a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.

Oh cloudy in the west and it looked like rain.
Around the curve come a passenger train,
North bound train on the south bound track.
He did alright leaving but he won’t be back.

Whe Rock Island Line it's a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.

Oh I may be right and I may be wrong
But you gonna miss me when I’m gone.
The engineer said before he died
Tthere where 2 more drinks that he’d like to try
Conductor said "what could they be"
A hot cup of coffee and a cold glass of tea.

he Rock Island Line it's a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.

The railroad has been passed by, at least for passenger traffic. Short trips are handled more conveniently and less expensively by automobiles. Longer trips are handled faster and less expensively by plane. The railroads are doing a booming business, on freight - but on freight alone.

But the distant whistle still stirs the wanderlust, and not just in the souls of Progressives. I don't want to have to pay for the boondoggle that is high speed rail or mass transit light rail, but the romance is still there. Just look at the songs. You don't get songs like this for airplanes.

Best video game mashup EVER

2012-01-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

It only starts with the cute Kinectimal kittens ...

You might want to turn the speakers down on this one. Via #2 Son.