Yup

So if all y'all would kindly STFU, you can listen to the sound of his awesome ...

Bacon hunting

I haven't tried it, but I expect it would be awesome.

Star Wars: The Silent Movie

This is insanely cool.



(via)

The key to (Climate) science

Richard Feynman was one of the great scientists of our day, receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on Quantum Mechanics. This lecture was recorded around the time of that award (1965):



Feynman was not just a great theoretician, he was a great experimentalist. Notice how in this clip he starts with theory, and ends with experiment. The data don't lie. He did this on national TV in the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger explosion:



To Feynman, the data, and observations, don't lie. He only thought that because he didn't work in the field of climate science:

I read the excellent and interesting guest post by Marc Hendrickx about the IPCC and the Himalayas. My first big surprise was the size of the claimed warming. He cites IPCC Table 10.2 which says:

Nepal: 0.09°C per year in Himalayas and 0.04°C in Terai region, more in winter

Well, my bad number detector started ringing like crazy. A warming of nine degrees C (16°F) per century in the mountains, four degrees C per century in the lowlands? … I don’t think so. Those numbers are far too big. I know of no place on earth that is warming in general at 9°C per century.

What do the data say? Fortunately, this didn't come from Michael Mann (of "hockey stick" fame), or the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (of "the dog ate my data" fame). It comes from NASA's GISS database. If you look at the data, what do you see? Well, it depends. There's "raw" data (the temperature that was read from the thermometer), and there's the "adjusted" data (the temperature after the raw data has been "adjusted"):

The raw data ( the blue line) shows a decrease of 0.4°C over 20 years. Once the data has been "homogenized" and whatever else, it shows an increase of 1.1°C (red line). The yearly adjustments increase each year. Whoa. Willis Eschenbach channels his inner Feynman:

They have changed a cooling trend to a strong warming trend … I’m sorry, but I see absolutely no scientific basis for that massive adjustment. I don’t care if it was done by a human using their best judgement, done by a computer algorithm utilizing comparison temperatures in India and China, or done by monkeys with typewriters. I don’t buy that adjustment, it is without scientific foundation or credible physical explanation.

At best that is shoddy quality control of an off-the-rails computer algorithm. At worst, the aforesaid monkeys were having a really bad hair day. Either way I say adjusting the Kathmandu temperature record in that manner has no scientific underpinnings at all.

If you think about my last post about software bugs and the importance of software Quality Assurance efforts, his statement about computer algorithms becomes pretty significant. If this was the problem then we have a non-scientific outcome due to a software problem.

Listen to Feynman again: If it disagrees with experiment [observation], it's wrong. This statement was highlighted by the IPCC, and seems terribly hard to square with, you know, science. This doesn't change, even with a constant IPCC drumbeat of doom-doom-doom.

And speaking of drums and Feynman, here he is playing his own beat of doom:

Climate Glitches

This is said to be the first computer bug:


It's almost certainly not. The term "bug" used to describe strange failures in electro-mechanical devices seems to have been in common use in the 1920s, if not earlier. This bug - an actual moth - was discovered trapped in a relay in one of the very early computers in the Naval Weapons Laboratory in 1947. The operators - well aware of the common use of the term - taped the carcass in the operator's log book, ensuring their everlasting fame.

Very few computer problems these days are due to hardware failures. Sure it happens, but the vast majority of bugs are in software. It's because of this that there's a whole industry that's sprung up around Internet Security - my own field of specialization. The easy bugs are the ones that cause crashes; the hard bugs are the ones that lead to security failures: subtle bugs that are very hard to test in a QA (Quality Assurance) program, that lead not to loss of functionality but to mass pwnage.

It's generally thought in the industry that you can't not have bugs, at least in non-trivial programs. Bugs are generally measured based on the number per 1000 lines of source code. Better and more experienced programmers unsurprisingly write code with many fewer bugs per 1000 lines.

Bugs are sometimes called "glitches" in videogame software, and identifying them is one of the two major goals of beta programs (the other being validation of gameplay balance). There's a whole sub-genre of Youtube devoted to these glitches:



There's quite a debate in the software industry as to whether there are more bugs (security and otherwise) in Open Source or closed source (commercial, proprietary) software. The famous statement that "many eyes make bugs shallow" is somewhat controversial, but it's indisputable that having the source code available makes it much easier for someone to analyze software for correctness.

Much of the "evidence" that the planet is warming comes from computer models (the data is surprisingly dodgy). These models are enormous, complicated software programs that attempt to take a set of historical inputs and generate a set of outputs that match what the climate has been observed to do in the past. Models will contain a set of potential problems that could skew the results:

• Climate parameters may be chosen artificially to produce a sane output, rather than for rational values that seem plausible in the real world.
• Statistical analysis is common - you might even say required - but is subtle and easy to get wrong.
• Error trapping and handling can be critical - if an error that could change the output is not trapped, the model will run to completion with potentially spurious output.
  

So how good are the climate models? Governments seem to be spending a lot of grant money funding the models (the US Department of Energy is said to have spent millions of dollars on the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit software models). Are the models good, bad, or ugly? How many bugs per 1000 lines of source code do they contain?

We just don't know. One of the frequent requests skeptics make is to get software and data. Access to software makes it much easier to see of there are errors that skew the results. These requests (often backed by Freedom of Information Act requests) are routinely turned down. What we do know about the software is horrifying, at least as far as software quality is concerned:

What can we glean from this? Several things, none of them good for the reputation of the "science" of Anthropogenic Global Warming:

1. The climate change data sets are - by CRU's own admission - are filled with decade-long gaps ("the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING").

2. The climate data sets contain - by CRU's own admission - fabricated data ("I can make it up. So I have :-)").

3. The the data is inconsistent to the point of confusion ("the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical") and so - by CRU's own admission - a manual override process was added to the code, allowing the person running the code to make arbitrary changes to the data (this bit:

Please choose one:

1. Match them after all.
2. Leave the existing station alone, and discard the update.
3. Give existing station a false code, and make the update the new WMO station.

Enter 1,2 or 3:)

4. (speculation here) These manual overrides are not logged anywhere, meaning that for any given output of the model, it is impossible to know what was manually changed during the run, or the impact of those changes on the output.

5. (speculation here) There is no method to save these changes, so that the next time the model is run it may (probably will?) produce different output.

And so, we hear the predicted results of the models, predictions of dangerous or catastrophic warming to come. We don't know if these results are valid, or are simply the result of tweaking the software until an output with suitably hysterical predictions results. The only way to know is to see the software and the data inputs. So can we see them?

No. Trust us, say the climate scientists. It's peer reviewed.

But not, seemingly, QA'ed. Even with millions of dollars, there wasn't any budget left over for a test plan. Isegoria, commenting on a Wired article about science, sums up how it should (but doesn't) work:

Lehrer’s advice on how to learn from failure:

1. Check your assumptions.
2. Seek out the ignorant.
3. Encourage diversity.
4. Beware of failure-blindness.

Climate science in general, and climate modeling in particular, seems to violate each of these four rules.

Quote of the Day - Failure to learn from history edition

From Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary (published in 1911):

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

You'd think that in a century, we'd have come a little further. Still, it's never too late to start.

Say "Cheese" ...

Via email from frequent commenter Burt.

Heh.

Cats and Dogs, living together

Little One-Eyed Dog did not like it when we brought Crash the WonderCat (the bane of mice everywhere) home. Do not want, she growled.

Well, it's not exactly a peaceable kingdom, but they've developed a mutual respect for each other's defensive armaments. An armed society is a polite society, even when arms take the form of teeth or razor sharp claws.

But Little One-Eyed Dog does not like it when Crash gets up on the bed. She thinks that's her place. But over the weekend it was pretty cool, so we turned off the air conditioning and turned on the attic fan (cool New England evenings are sometimes simply delicious). Crash passed the opportunity for the bed, and hopped up into the open window.

Ebil is now in Window, for ur drive-through convenience (says the dog) ...

Rule 2 FAIL

Remember, the muzzle should never point towards anything that doesn't need holes. Like your dad and aunts:

A bridegroom in Turkey has accidentally killed three relatives while firing an AK-47 in celebration at his own wedding, Turkish media reported.

The groom lost control of the weapon as he tried to fire in traditional celebration in the air at the ceremony in the village of Akcagoze in south-eastern Gaziantep province.

The guests were sprayed with bullets and the groom's father and two aunts were killed.

Our prayers go out to the victims of this needless tragedy.

Remember the Four Rules:

1. All guns are always loaded. I mean, otherwise, what's the point?

2. Never point the naughty end at anything that doesn't need holes in it. In regards things living, bullet holes let the blood out and the air in, and this is A Bad Thing.

3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you're lined up on target, ready to fire. The subject of today's story didn't follow this one, either.

4. Be sure of your target, and what's behind it. Once the bullet starts down range, you can't call it back.

(via)

A Cause worth your while

Albert Rasch emailed me far too long ago to point out Yo-Yos for the Troops, which is trying to help The Guys fight the boredom that comes with overseas deployment. Albert is organizing this, and it's well worth your attention.

And Albert, apologies for taking so long to get this posted.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Via Reason, we find that the BBC World Service radio is running a series on "Useful Idiots", intellectuals who fell hook, line, and sinker for utopian visions peddled by left-wing tyrants:

Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic fervour – to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived.

Reason asks, “why are smart people so consistently fooled by evil regimes?” There's quite a simple answer:

Intellectuals see in the mirror the very image of a Philosopher King.

Their entire intellectual training has led them to believe that it is the Intellectual Class that is fit to rule, by virtue of their very Smart thinking. After all, did not Plato himself say that only the philosophers were virtuous, and therefore fit to rule? And have not our Intellectual Elite been told their entire school lives that they are the "Best And Brightest?"

And so all a tyrant needs to do is to flatter this sense of entitlement, and the Intellectual will convince himself that this is indeed the New Jerusalem. No brainwashing is required; a light rinse will do.

But at every stage, the tyrant must appeal to the Intellectual's sense of superiority. This is why rightist tyrants (say, Peronists) struggle with the Intellectual class. By allowing a more or less unfettered market to run as it will, he offends the vanity of the Intellectual. The Market is a very bad thing indeed, says the Intellectual, because it does not need me a Very Smart Person to run it. The tyrant offers the illusion of access to the Control Room of society - indeed the very goal that the Intellectual has trained for all his life. How could he not be bewitched?

Of course, the tyrant has no intention of actually letting the intellectual control anything; that's why Lenin coined the term "useful idiots". So the answer to Reason's question is quite simple: it's a cheap appeal to vanity. The more interesting question is why do Intellectuals fall for this so often?

I think that it's because Intellectuals have been much more successful in the West, where they tend not to end up in Gulags, Re-education camps, or mass graves. In Europe in particular, and increasingly in the USA, they have captured the media and government, and actually have increasingly found themselves in the Control Room of society. It hasn't been working out so well:

Thomas Sowell in Intellectuals and Society, provides a well-fortified survey of these well connected, often behind-the-scenes lever pullers. According the Sowell, the thing that distinguishes ruling intellectuals from the subservient citizenry, is that intellectuals are not generally held accountable for being wrong. Think about that in the context of real tenure, and tenure that comes from being a "made" member of the group.

Unfortunately, just because you wrote a very well received thesis on gender relationships in sub-atomic electron orbital mechanics, it doesn't mean that you are clearly qualified to define healthcare policy:

But even I was not skeptical enough to predict what actually happened in Massachusetts, which is that emergency room usage went up after they implemented health care reform.

In retrospect, it's obvious. Massachusetts increased access to primary care physicians, but it didn't actually increase the number of primary care physicians. This led to wait times, which meant that some people who used to avoid the emergency room by going to see their primary care physician now ended up in the emergency room. Meanwhile, many of the people who were using the emergency room for primary care still are, because MassCare doesn't pay them for the hours they lost by taking off work.

Huh. This redistribution thing is trickier than we thought ...



Oh, honestly - it's entirely pointless to try to do this if you're going to cheat!

They sure act like a bunch of idiots, for really smart people. But apply Sowell's maxim - they are not held accountable for their failures - and you start to see the inevitability of the direction:

• Of course the Intellectual Elite hates the market - socialism offers the dream of power and control for them and the market doesn't, so it doesn't matter that socialism has in fact failed in every instance it's been tried.
• Of course the Academy tilts far to the left - tenure can be denied by a single blackball vote, and ideas from the right-of-center do not nearly flatter the Intellectual Elite's egos the way left-of-center ideas do. So long, right-of-center PhD students; hope you like living on a lecturer's salary. Meanwhile, academic fraud is explained away because the fraudster is fighting the good fight.
  
• Of course the media will suppress news damaging to the left-of-center agenda. After all, the right-of-center philosophies have less need for the Intellectual Elite - free markets are less convivial for the elite.
  

Al Fin asks the question di tutti questions:

But undeniably, they hold the reins firmly in their grips for now. But as I may have mentioned, this ruling class is quite stupid, despite the broad areas that it controls. The seeds of its destruction -- the impending burning down of the royal house -- is inextricably contained within the stupidity of its policies. That, of course, is the fatal flaw for any intellectual. When they finally achieve absolute power and are forced to put their ideas into action. Without having had any experience contending with the unforgiving hand of reality before this point, the ruling class stands helpless before the cascading failures of its ill-founded ideas and prescriptions.

...

All we have to do is to learn to take care of ourselves throughout what is going to happen next. The ruling class is going find the appeal of burning down the house themselves to be beyond their powers to resist. [my emphasis]

You might call it a Bonfire of the Vanities.

The stupidity of the Smart Crowd is really astonishing to behold, and in the age of the Internet, it's no longer possible to cover up. I've been saying for some time that as the left has seized control of the Intellectual institutions, all they've done is destroy the institutions. When you add the fact that the system of government by redistribution is running down, and there's a crisis. If the deal is that the People let the elite rule because they're smart (and presumed to be better to solve problems), then the People will expect the elite to solve the crisis.

The problem is that the elite is stupid - bovine*, really, out in leftie field chewing the cud of marxism-lite - and news of this reality is not longer able to be suppressed by a broken media. The Obama polls are no mystery: a bunch of people let themselves be convinced that he would be a Philosopher King President, by appeals to their intellectual and moral vanity. They're finding out that they were sold a bill of goods. Of course the polls are dropping, and will never recover.

My gentile disagreement with Al Fin is that, while the Elite might want to burn down the house, most probably won't dare, and most of the rest will be too stupid to know how. They're unhappy, and know that it's a Bad Moon rising, but don't know what to do.

The Dinosaurs sniff a change on the wind, and roar their defiance.

* Yes, cow-like. You want proof? Fish, barrel:

[The millions whom Stalin ordered] EXECUTED OR SENT to Siberia went wondering if Uncle Joe knew the horrors being committed in his name...

"I feel really confused, I don't understand how something like this is possible. I can't imagine that at the top of the Obama administration that they realize that something like this is happening," Jamieson told CNN.

UPDATE 9 August 2010 13:39: Welcome visitors from American Digest! More on the thrashing of the Dinosaur Class here.

Oops

It seems that I missed pointing out that I've posted over 3,000 times (3,004, to be precise). Seems I'm a bit of a Chatty Cathy, or something.

How we were

The Great Lakes Steel Corporation, Detroit, 1942.

This is a world away from our current Intellectual Elite's ken, but it's not so very long before I was born. We used to think big, then - the train is dwarfed by the coal piles. Now the Elites make everyone file Environmental Impact Statements and ask approval. Now Detroit is withered:

But most people think of it as an effect without a cause. Well, as a student of history: when a country's fourth-largest city becomes a ruin, it is not an effect without a cause. People argue all the time about the fall of the Roman Empire. But nobody argues that it was an effect without a cause - a random event, a black swan, not correlated to any other event.

The fall of Detroit is an objective observation. Most people (even on Fox News) do not really connect it with the history of the 20th century, the FDR administration, the tradition of progressive government, the Great Society, John Lindsay, etc, etc. In fact, they try not think about it at all. Why would they? Their history is made of cardboard. Red, white and blue cardboard. So the American TV audience has the choice of (a) the CAP version, which (IMHO) is entirely opaque and meaningless, or (b) brightly colored cardboard. This by itself is more than enough reason for rage.

The Intellectual Elite is incompetent, even by the standards they set for themselves. A reverse Midas touch, turning gold into lead.

The pictures at the link are incredible, color photographs from the late 1930s and early 1940s.

There's cake for breakfast

You need to read Alan. Right. Now.

There is a lot of doom and gloom on the Interwebs these days but I’m not feeling it. I think it’s based on faulty premises and wrong conclusions.

Yes, the economy sucks.

Yes, our elected morons in charge seem to be stupid and clueless.

And yes, the Mexicans are invading. (oh noes!)

But you know what? The country has been through worse.

Me, I have cake for breakfast. Another reason to be optimistic.

Libertarianism FAIL

A while ago I wrote about why I'm not a libertarian - basically, you find a philosophical overload that takes you down the road to madness. That madness is on display at Reason, about the Wikileaks classified documents incident. It seems that the good editors don't like that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (rightly) said that Wikileaks had blood on their hands - the blood of Afghans killed by Taliban terrorists for cooperating with the USA.

If you have a strong stomach, go read. Pay attention especially to the comments; the word "collaborators" makes a prominent appearance, as does the word "Hiroshima". I'm probably with them 90% of the time, but this moral equivalence Bravo Sierra is dumb as a box of rocks.

Dudes, the Taliban are terroristic, murdering bastards. They stone women to death. The fill soccer stadiums for public executions. They sheltered al Qaeda. We are nothing like that. You actually need someone to tell you that?

So let me rephrase why I'm not a libertarian: lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Blog birthdays

Seems I'm not the only one celebrating another lap around the sun today. Dirtcrashr is celebrating his sixth (!) blogiversary today. That's not far from the days of 56k modem ...

Stop by and leave him some commenty goodness. And if you don't read him every day, you should.

I can now be a Grumpy Old Fart

"Now?" I hear you mutter. Don't think I didn't hear that ...

I have a big post that - for once - I quite like. Usually I'm ambivalent, but you seem to like them. Since I like this, I expect you'll like it less (Murphy's Law). But it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and Sitemeter tells me that it's beautiful where you are, and so I'll post it Monday.

Besides, it's by birthday, so I actually am a grumpy old fart, in a very real and legally binding sense. So I'm heading off with Clan Borepatch to enjoy the day. But I'd like to wish many happy returns of the day to all y'all, anyway!

Christopher Walkin dancing

Last night's post on great dance scenes drew an interesting comment that  Christopher Walken started his career as a dancer, not an actor.

A tap dancer.

Oh ho, I said to myself. I'll bet Youtube has something on offer here, and it does indeed:



From the 1981 Steve Martin film "Pennies for Heaven". Three years after his entirely bad-ass role in The Deer Hunter.

My only comment is that you could make this video even more awesome, by a judicious application of cowbell ...

Chet Atkins - Birth of the Blues (with Les Paul)

Chet Atkins needs no introduction here - not only one of the greatest guitar players of all time, but a great record producer as well. As a recording executive, he was instrumental in establishing the "Nashville Sound" and launching the careers of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Charlie Pride.

But he's most remembered for his stunning virtuoso guitar. His signature "show off" number was "Yankee Doodle Dixie", where he'd play "Yankee Doodle" on the low E string at the same time he's play "Dixie" on this high E string.

"That ain't nothing," he'd say. "I know a guy who can do that and sing the 'Star Spangled Banner', too."

Nine times CMA Instrumentalist of the Year, 14 Grammys, Country Music Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, White House performances for every president from Kennedy to George H.W. Bush, he also maintained his HAM radio license (WA4CZD).

No lyrics today, just a set of very different songs to show the breadth of his talent.

Greatest modern flim dance scenes

Via Insty, there's not a bad list at Armchair Commentary. Mostly what you'd expect from a Top Ten - Flashdance, the Tango scene from Scent of a Woman, Saturday Night Fever, Chicago, etc. But they left out what in my book is the single greatest dance routine since Fred and Ginger, from Blast From The Past:

Shall We Dance? - More amazing video clips are a click away

This is one of the great sleeper films of all time in my book: Christopher Walken in a great comedic role, smart (if sometimes pretty contrived) dialog, one of Alicia Silverstone's two credible performances (the other being Clueless), and Nathan Fillian before he got his spaceship.

But the dance scene, where Brendan Frasier did his own moves, is simply outstanding. It isn't heavy, but it sure is fun.

The audio has been disabled because of a copyright claim (grr), but this will give you the flavor of it, anyway.

UPDATE 6 August 2010 20:55: Replaced broken audio Youtube embed with Metacafe. There's an advertisement, but you get audio.

What does air look like?

Sometimes you have to see what something looks like using a different set of senses.

The Atomic Bomb

Every year at this time, there's much discussion in the newspaper about the anniversary of the last atomic bomb. This typically is a pretty one-sided discussion, as you'd expect from the poorly educated, leftie inhabitants of the MSM.

Offered for your consideration, and in the spirit of the subtlety and nuance that we're constantly reminded by that same MSM always tells us we need to exercise (*cough*Cowboy Bushitler*cough*), here are three exhibits that (a) you never read about in your newspaper, and (b) entirely explain the decision to drop the bomb. Entirely.

Exhibit A: 10,000 Japanese civilians commit suicide on Saipan, rather than surrender to the Americans. Not Japanese soldiers, almost all 30,000 of whom fought to the death. Civilians.

Exhibit B: Okinawa civilians were used as human shields by the Japanese army, and then ordered to kill themselves. Between 42,000 and 150,000 died as a result. The largest political protest in Okinawa history occurred three years ago, when the Japanese education ministry tried to airbrush this from school textbooks. Over 100,000 people took to the streets.

Exhibit C: The War Department ordered the manufacture of 500,000 Purple Heart medals in 1945, in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. There are still well over 100,000 in government warehouses: two thirds of a century of war has not exhausted this stock.

My biggest problem with the modern education system (up to and including the Universities) is that so many people emerge from the system entirely uneducated.

UPDATE 6 August 2010 11:45: More here. And here. And here.

Quote of the Month

Over at ChicagoBoyz, ZenPundit put up something that started out seeming stupid, but the threads wove together and wham here was this:

The primary problem with the American political economy is that in the last 10-15 years, elite, moderately liberal technocrats have made common cause with the elite, moderately conservative rentiers of the financial and corporate world to form an incipient oligarchy. One sees their fellow Americans paternalistically as children. The other sees us as sheep to be sheared. It’s a common enough ground on which to unite and it is the reason you see a very liberal Democratic Obama administration and a Pelosi-Reid Congressional leadership counterintuitively putting corporate regulation in impenetrable shadows not seen since before the Stock Market Crash of 1929 as if they were the minions of Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan.

I've said before that the Democrats aren't so much the problem, and the Republicans really aren't the solution. The problem is an entrenched ruling class that is contemptuous of the rest of us. I keep saying "Vote 'em out", and mean vote both of them out. A new set of faces may not change things, but we know for damn sure that the old faces (*cough*Lindsey Graham*cough*) won't.

If they don't fear us, they won't even think of changing.

Quote of the Day - Baseball Records edition

From A Large Regular:

It took Alex Rodriguez 46 at bats to hit his 600th home run. It's taken Jason Giambi 126 AB to hit his last 3 HR. Steroid testing is a bitch

Heh. And based on an old suggestion from A Large Regular, here's a musical salute to the 46 At Bats:

What comes after "Twilight"?

Answer: It isn't "Night" ...



I have to say, though, that I find the whole "Twilight Moms" thing to be really creepy. After a while, you'd think they'd stop getting infatuated with emo kids.

Via #2 Son, for your amusement.

The Lady doth protest too much

Why the Derangement Syndromes? The Left was positively unhinged about George W. Bush, making the most astonishing claims about him: a village is missing its idiot, etc.

I use the word "astonishing" in the clinical sense here, because the speaker - presumed to be so very much Smarter than you or me - makes an assertion that seems to be provably incorrect. Harvard Business, etc.

This has since been extended to Sarah Palin. Were Gov. Palin to be the typical blandly liberal Democrat - pro-abortion, pro-Affirmative Action, etc - then we would expect that her accomplishments would be sung to the heavens by the Left. Political reformer, working mother who does not sacrifice her shot at the levers of power, etc. Instead we get "I can see Russia from my house!"

Why? The biggest mystery to me is that this derangement comes from people absolutely convinced that they are much, much smarter than we. Nicer, too, but "smart" is the key. The sot of people who think that if only the right sort of people were in charge, All Would Be For The Best.

Lexington Green asks what on earth is up with this?

Why does an elite that is actually not admirable in what it does, and not effective or productive, that has added little or nothing of value to the civilizational stock, that cannot possibly do the things it claims it can do, that services rent-seekers and the well-connected, that believes in an incoherent mishmash of politically correct platitudes, that is parasitic, have such an elevated view of itself?

The old British aristocracy could at least truthfully say that they had physical courage and patriotism and cared for their shires and neighborhoods and served for free as justices of the peace. The old French aristocracy could at least truthfully say that had refinement and manners and a love for art and literature and sophistication and beautiful things. The old Yankee elite could truthfully say that it was enterprising and public spirited and willing to rough it and do hard work when necessary. This lot have little or nothing to be proud of, but they are arrogant as Hell.

Roger L. Simon shows up in the comment with what I think is the right answer:

I would suggest, however, that they are not nearly as confident in their “cultural confidence” as it would seem. And the world is slowly turning against them.

Almost none of them actually know how to think, as a true Intellectual (note that I use the term here in the non-pejorative sense) should. The Academy did not teach them how to think, but rather how to regurgitate pre-digested pap. When confronted with something from outside the fishbowl, they don't know what to do.

And so they fall back on bluster, and false confidence, and name calling. And most especially, conscious living inside the Fishbowl. From Journolist to the ClimateGate emails, we see the creation of an in-group/out-group world view. The in-group is loudly defended, even when indefensible (see Clinton, Bill).

Hamlet contains a much mis-understood passage that deals with this. It's mis-understood because the language has changed subtly in the last 400 years. It's pretty obvious when you find an archaic word in Shakespeare - we no longer use it, so these are the ones we typically have to look up. Words like avaunt, for example. The danger in Shakespeare is when he uses a word whose meaning has changed over the last four centuries. A word like protest:

By "protest," Gertrude doesn't mean "object" or "deny"—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of "protest" in Shakespeare's day was "vow" or "declare solemnly," a meaning preserved in our use of "protestation." When we smugly declare that "the lady doth protest too much," we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent.

And so we see the Ruling Class condemned by both old and new meanings of the word. Their protests - Bush Derangement Syndrome and Palin Derangement Syndrome - show them to be unthinking drones. And their protests - Obama the World Healer, for example - also show them to be unthinking drones.

It would probably be best for this Republic if there were a strong, vigorous Intellectual Left. There isn't, and no amount of braggadocio will change that. We might borrow our reply to them from Shakespeare, even:

Dauphin: I stand here for him. What to him from England?

Exeter: Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt and any thing that may not misbecome the mighty sender, doth he prize you at. Thus says my king.

All I can say about the TSA Airport Perv Scanner ...

... is told you so.

Tens of thousands of nekkid photos stored by U.S. Marshals at Miami Airport Federal District Courthouse. Security Guru Bruce Schneier was once asked what he'd do with the TSA's budget. "I'd give it back," was his reply. Hard to see that we'd be worse off.

Tar and feathers, people. Tar and feathers.

Cheap antivirus on sale today

I don't usually point to sales, but Insty says that Kaspersky antivirus is on sale for $19.95. That's quite a good deal, and I've always thought that Kaspersky was one of the better products. They release new signatures quicker than the other major vendors (Symantec, McAfee), and I haven't heard complaints that they're a resource hog like the others.

If you're looking for a new antivirus anytime soon, this seems an unbeatable price.

And note to FTC: drop dead.

... and not to yield

UBS has a fabulous series of short readings from the greatest literature, by some of the greatest actors of our day.

John Gielgud, Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses:



What got this all started, Ben Kingsley, Shelley's Ozymandias:



And my favorite, Alan Bates, William Earnest Henley's Invictus:



There are a couple dozen. You can do much, much worse than spending a half hour here.

The Bagster is Teh Awesome

If you have a lot of junk, this may be just the thing: a foldable, woven, non-water collecting bag that you can fill with 3,300 lbs of junk. You buy it at your local hardware store ($30 or so), fill it up, and then call Waste Management, who send a truck out to collect it for $140.

Rather than $600 for a dumpster, you clear things out for a couple C-notes.

Chez Borepatch is looking much better now. Recommended.

Note to FTC: Waste Management hasn't offered me any consideration for this post.

Note to FTC [2]: You are a waste of taxpayer money, and should all be fired.

Note to FTC [3]: That's just me, exercising my First Amendment rights. As I am here: Do your Mothers know what you do? You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Ozymandias

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alexander the Great is not lightly called "The Great". He took on the greatest Empire of the Ancient World, and overthrew it. Outnumbered three to one or more, he routed the Persian's vast armies, burned their capital of Persepolis, and marched his rag-tag army to the banks of the Indus river. We are told by the chronicles that then he wept that there were no more lands to conquer. Out of the ashes of Persepolis grew a new Hellenistic culture blending Greek with middle eastern which was perhaps his greatest legacy, and which spread far beyond the borders of his empire - even into the India of Ashoka the Great.

The Romans simply thought him the greatest general of all time. Julius Caesar wept at the sight of Alexander's statue, thinking himself unworthy by the comparison to Alexander's feats. Not least of these was undoing the fiendishly complicated Gordian Knot, of which it was said that whoever untied it would rule all Asia. Alexander drew his sword and hacked it apart. The Romans much admired this approach.

Alexander was able to conquer because he knew three key facts:

1. His army, man-for-man, was better than the Greeks'. Since the Greeks had defeated the Persians, his army must be much better than theirs.
2. The Persian army was a swarm, huge and fearsome to behold, but unwieldy. A single point of decision on the battlefield will be the scene of the breakthrough, and once broken, the enemy would rout.
3. The point of decision would be at the location of Darius, the King of Kings. Personal courage will win - or lose- the day.
   

The picture at the top of this post shows Alexander and his Companion cavalry cutting through Darius' Immortals (the Imperial Guard) at the battle of Issus. Polybius relates that Alexander got so close to Darius that the Great King threw his Javelin at him before fleeing the field - soon followed by his army. They met two years later at Gaugamela, with precisely the same results. Darius fled, this time for good, and his empire was gone as if it had never been.

There is a mighty empire ruling this land of ours, and Imperial Bureaucracy numbering nearly three million souls. Guided by the multitudes of K Street, they make rules and regulations that bind us with many chains, and like his late Majesty King George have sent hither swarms of officers, harassing our people and eating out their substance. Our only recourse is the 535 Senators, Representatives, and Delegates, whom we may choose to re-elect or not. Many people look at this horde of Imperial power and despair.

I do not. While no Alexander, I believe three key facts that will gain us our freedom:

1. While numerous, the Federal hordes are unwieldy. Risk-Adverse, they lack our passion and like the Persian hordes of old will not stand battle for long. They have in the past co-opted new Congressmen, but can only do so if the field of battle is ceded to them.
   
2. There is a single point of decision on this battlefield. The hordes are fearsome to behold, and we need staying power to defeat them. Congressmen will go wobbly, and to prevent this the message must be simple and sustainable. That message is Jobs and standard of living.
3. Message control is no longer possible for the left. The Long March Through The Institutions has destroyed the Institutions, and the Internet is bypassing the former gatekeepers. This signal about jobs and standard of living can no longer be jammed. All we need is a leader to get on message, stay on message, and bypass the gatekeepers to get the message out.
   

The Imperial Bureaucracy in all its numbers will not stand before an enraged American Public demanding the Fed.Gov stop screwing up everyone's jobs and livelihood.

We're told that the size of government cannot be reduced, as if there's some sort of Brezhnev Doctrine that says once hired, never fired, and nothing but pay raises forever. We're seeing a repudiation of that:



This repudiation is not coming from the Barbarous fringes of the empire, but from one of the bluest of Blue States. Listen to the crowd react when Gov. Christie tells the teacher that she doesn't have to stay in that job. That crowd doesn't accept the old "you have to suffer higher taxes - reduced standard of living". Chris Christie understands our three key facts. Sarah Palin does, too.

Christie uses Youtube better than any politician today. He's direct, blunt, easy to understand, and he keeps on-message. The gatekeepers cannot jam his signal, and he's routing the Imperial Bureaucracy in New Jersey. Palin has two million fans on Facebook. While her message discipline isn't as good as Christie's, she is doing something very interesting: her "Mama Grizzly" strategy is likely to attract a lot of latter-day feminists - those who believe in equality but who reject the "Feminist" label, building a coalition that cuts into the normal Democrat power base. Facebook means that the gatekeepers can't jam the signal here, either.

We are entering a decade of opportunity, as the key pillars of the Left collapse. First will be Health Care, as the mandates bite and people find out that it threatens their jobs and standard of living. Now that Nancy Pelosi got the House to vote for it, we'll see what's in it, and what we'll see will be very ugly indeed:

Last year, the administration grew fond of "double counting" the savings from the Medicare cuts in health care reform--claiming that they'd reduced the deficit, paid for reform, and extended the life of the Medicare trust fund. Eventually, Republicans got around to asking for an analysis from the CBO, which told us what anyone who ever took first year accounting already knew: this is not true. If you used the savings to "pay for" the new spending, you can't also say that you've used them to shore up the finances of Medicare.

...

During the election, I supported Obama's candidacy in part because he seemed to be serious about producing good numbers for his programs. It's extraordinarily dismaying to see his Health and Human Services Secretary so firmly committed to making obviously misleading claims about his largest legislative achievement. [*]

After this, we'll see the collapse of Medicare and Medicaid, around the middle of the decade. By late in the decade we'll see the collapse of Social Security. In each of these cases, the response of the Imperial Bureaucracy will be to reach deeper into America's pocket, costing jobs and reducing everyone's standard of living.

Someone will come up with the idea of cutting a million headcount from the government rolls, saving enough money to "save" one or more of these programs. The American people will like this idea. That's the opening, the critical point of decision on this battlefield.

And that's why it's so terribly important that we vote out the incumbents. They've all been co-opted by the Imperial power structures. Republicans are just as co-opted as Democrats, so simply replacing the Tweedle-Dee party with the Tweedle-Dumb party won't change anything. Replacing anyone who shows the slightest sign of joining the Zombie Horde will keep the 535 in fear of us - and they need to fear us more than they are tempted by them. Only at that point can a Chris Christie or a Sarah Palin lead the charge that will break the Imperial Power.

Because only then will the offer of big campaign cash from the Public Employee Unions, or the K Street Lobbyists be seen as poison. To see the old appeals that it's a crisis, and we have to do it again only harder as poison. And that is the point that the Imperial Hordes will break and rout. First they'll throw their javelin, but if we have them scared, they'll run. And dissolve into dust.

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

- Horace Smith

* I'm usually a McArdle fan, but this last confession beggars belief. I expect that the outcome of the Obama experience for many voters will simply be to distrust the Democrats on anything dealing with finances or taxes.

UPDATE 4 August 2010 11:55: Typo fixed. Thanks to roy in nipomo for doing the proofreading that I should have. And in answer to his question, it was unintentional. I typically quite like McArdle's work, but this admission of hers was just stunning. I mean, she actually expected a Democrat to tell the truth about the actual cost of new social spending programs? Srlsy?

UPDATE 5 August 2010 10:51: Mark Alger has a very interesting riff on this at Eternity Road.

Ceiling Cat prays for more Mousies

So Iz can preys on dem. Amens.

Windows users, get your emergency patch

Microsoft has released the emergency, out-of-cycle security patch I talked about last week. What's interesting is that it seems that it works even on Windows XP/Service Pack 2. Microsoft ended support for XP/SP2, but it seems the patch is good on it.

This is nasty, and is being widely exploited, so wander on over to Microsoft for the security goodness. You'll need to reboot when you're done.

UPDATE 4 August 2010 10:11: If you run Windows Update and your computer rebooted last night, you almost certainly have the patch. If you don't run Windows Update, you should.

Memo to Paleontologists: Knock it off!

First, you took away my Brontosaurus. Now you're after my Triceratops:

... according to research done by scientists at Montana's Museum of the Rockies, the familiar triceratops is really just the juvenile form of the more-elaborately be-frilled and be-horned torosaurus.

This extreme shape-shifting was possible because the bone tissue in the frill and horns stayed immature, spongy and riddled with blood vessels, never fully hardening into solid bone as happens in most animals during early adulthood. The only modern animal known to do anything similar is the cassowary, descended from the dinosaurs, which develops a large spongy crest when its skull is about 80 per cent fully grown.

How to put this gently? Almost all of you rely on the public to pay your salaries. The "Big 3" dinosaurs are (were?) Brontosaurus, Tricerators, and T. Rex. One's gone, and one's on the Endangered Species List. Keep this up, and your paycheck will join them.

Bah.

Hat Tip: A Large Regular.

Book your vacation today!

Do you like the idea of a Dude Ranch vacation with the family? Do you like to travel and see the world? Now you can combine these at El Rancho Western Park outside Beirut, Lebanon:

Situated in the middle of the 250,000 square meters of El Rancho’s estate, bungalows, tipis, and tents are on hand to have a natural, casual stress free break or to enjoy a great weekend with your family and friends. Exquisite steaks, mega burgers, healthy barbecues and “toss your own salad” are on the menu.

El Rancho offers a myriad of activities starting with horseback riding, paintball, tennis, archery, children playground, animal feeding, vegetable picking, campfires, mountain hiking and much more. Fill your day with many activities or just relax out in the arms of nature.

This seems to me to be entirely Made Of Win, and covered with Awesomesauce. No word on whether they offer Cowboy Action Shooting, but they are planning the Middle East's first rodeo, August 14-21.

This whole idea has just kicked over my giggle box. What an outstanding idea.

Via SauerkrautCowboys, a German web site dedicated to Sturm, Twang and the Imaginary Wild West in Europe. Well played, Ma'am! She brings news of the Wild, Wild West in Brazil, Italy, and the UK. Italy seems to have a branch of the Single Action Shooting Society.

Oh, and she also covers the international Country Music scene. If this is your bag, baby, then go check it out.

Incumbents delenda est

Every day, we get another story about the whooping that the Democrats are fixin' to get this November. It's so bad that they think that George W. Bush's soon-to-be-published memoirs will stem the tide:

Democrats will receive a late campaign boost when the memoirs of former President George W. Bush are released in early November and voters spend October remembering the good old days of Republican recession, Republican corruption, the bank bailout that was begun by a Republican president and the countless failures under a Republican president and Republican Congress.

...

Imagine the mass depression and anger management problems on the Republican right when Democrats keep control, as the nation is reminded of the presidency of George W. Bush and the causes of the crash and the joblessness and the deficits and the bailout that began the last time Republicans had control.

I dunno. Maybe Brent Budowsky is writing for The Onion now. Whatever.

But a huge turnout of Democrats does not solve the problem. To be sure, it's a help, but focusing on Republican-Democrat is short term, tactical thinking. Strategic thinking is Incumbent-Challenger. Remember who some of the incumbents are, and what they've done:


You paid for that beautiful painting of a sea kitten fish on that plane, courtesy of Alaska's Rep. Don Young. To pay off his cronies At the request of the Alaska fishing industry, he inserted a $500,000 earmark into the 2005 budget.

Representative Young is a Republican. He's a porkmeister, and an incumbent.

Remember: Incumbents delenda est. Only when they fear for their seats will we break them to our will.


Hat tip: The Antiplanner.

Blogroll Additions

It's been a while since I've updated things, so there are a few new names here.

Salamander over at Armed and Amphibious is another guy into guns and country music. My sort of guy, actually. He also dabbles in the field of Security Kabuki every now and then, for example in his post about how American Airlines lost the Israeli Prime Minister's bodyguard's guns. Oops.

God, Guns, and Grits is pretty self explanatory. He serves up some nice Gun Pr0n, with the occasional side of NASCAR jokes. If that's your bag, baby, you should check it out.

Al Fin brings Teh Smart, and very smart it is. It was surprising and a bit humbling to find myself blogrolled over there - that list of his has some pretty respectable brainpower on it. I shall endeavour to step my game up a notch. You'll pick up more than a couple IQ points reading him regularly.

One change is that Gator has a new site for A Gator in the Desert. You'll want to update your bookmarks.

Welcome to the blogroll, everyone! And a quick note to anyone who has been kind enough to blogroll me: if I haven't added you here, it's because I'm a little oblivious and haven't noticed. Shoot me an email to borepatch at gmail dot com or leave a comment, and I'll add you.

Outcomes

Two of the ancient world's greatest battles were fought on this date. Both were decisive. One is well known; the other all but forgotten. But the forgotten battle changed the course of history; the well known one ultimately meant nothing, other than the death of its participants.

Cannae is one of the great battles of history, still taught in military academies throughout the world. In 216 B.C. Hannibal and his outnumbered Carthaginians annihilated a much larger Roman force. Eight legions were destroyed, along with hundreds of Noble Romans including a Consul. This triumph, coming on the heels of two other spectacular successes (Trebia in 218 B.C. and Trasimene in 217 B.C.) allowed Hannibal to separate Rome from its client city-states in southern Italy. It was perhaps Rome's darkest hour.

A century earlier in 338 B.C., Macedon's king Philip II and his son Alexander the Great fought an alliance of Greek city states at Chaeronea. Philip's new phalanx formation - combined with the recklessly aggressive tactics of his son - annihilated the Greek hoplite army. The Theban Sacred Band - the most elite troops of the day, and the ones who had finally broken the Spartan army - died almost to a man. It was almost the same result that the Romans would face.

And yet Cannae had almost no long term impact at all, and Chaeronea opened the door to a new age. Seven years later Alexander crushed the mighty Persian Empire of Darias, and shortly after that stood on the banks of the Indus river weeping that there were no more worlds to conquer. Seven years after Cannae, Hannibal found himself stalemated in Italy while a resurgent Rome squeezed Carthaginian Spain. A couple years after that, he was recalled to protect Carthage itself from a Roman invasion force.

Why the different outcomes? The key to unlocking the puzzle comes from an old, cynical saying: The world is run by "C" students.

Hannibal was a brilliant tactical commander, who consistently pulled victory from defeat by brainpower. Always outnumbered, typically with less reliable troops, he nonetheless deployed them in ways that overmastered his opponents. He lost very few battles - Zama really was the only one, and the war was all but over by then. But there was only one of him.

Philip created a system, which put different troops and organizations into formations that many commanders - he himself, Alexander, and a whole family tree of Hellenistic potentates - could use effectively to dominate the ancient battlefield. While Alexander is considered one of the great generals of all time, other lesser followers were able to subdue large kingdoms using this system.

Hannibal needed another Hannibal to hold off the Roman juggernaut in Spain. Instead, he had his brother, Hasdrubal, who lacked the requisite brilliance. And so Carthage fell, it's walls pulled down and its fields plowed with salt. Alexander died young, but great Hellenistic kingdoms rose under Antipater, Seleusis, and Ptolemy. Lacking Alexander's (or Hannibal's) brilliance, they effectively used Philip's system.

New England Blogshoot After Action Report

You can never have too many friends!

- Hello Kitty

Especially in a bayonet charge!

- Borepatch

Well, that was fun. The 3rd Annual New England Blogshoot convened at the Sooper Sekret™ location, courtesy of the uber organizational skills of JayG and Doubletrouble. The weather was perfect, with a delightful mix of cool temperatures, partial sun, and intermittent clouds of cordite smoke. We had a special guest:


Hello Kitty came out to hang around with us. Seems that nobody had mentioned that the place to hang out was at the end of the firing range:


Last year's episode with Pikachu was repeated. The exit wounds drove so many threads into the backstop that Hello Kitty was literally stuck to it.


That did make it convenient later on, as she couldn't get away from the bayonet charge:


That's #2 Son leading the largest ever group of New England gunbloggers in a spirited charge. Last year and the year before it was just him. Now he was joined by three others. This being New England, the "Rebel Yell" was pretty feeble, but we witnessed an enthusiastic display of cold steel.

It's always fun to get together In Real Life with folks that you know from Teh Intarwebz, and when you toss in enough firearms to invade Canada, it becomes pretty special. Thank you to JayG and Doubletrouble for getting this set up, and to all the gunbloggers who shared their firearms, knowledge, and time especially with #2 Son.

Update on school administrators spying on students in their bedrooms

Long time readers remember me posting about the shenanigans of the Lower Merion (Pennsylvania) School District, who issues students laptops with pre-loaded spyware that the administrators used to take 55,000 pictures of the students in their bedrooms. There's a class action lawsuit against the district, and the Discovery phase of the suit is leading to, well, exactly what you'd expect:

Student Jalil Hasan reported his laptop lost December 18, and it was returned to him three days later, according to the suit.

But the LanRev Theft Track program, which the district activated when the computer was reported missing, was never turned off after the computer was given back to Hasan, according to the lawsuit.

The tracking software on Hasan’s computer wasn’t turned off until February 18, when Robbins filed suit, the suit alleges, claiming that at least 469 photographs and 543 screenshots were taken by Hasan’s computer without his knowledge.

Hasan’s suit said the images “were taken without Jalil’s knowledge, without his authorization and to his utter shock, dismay, panic, embarrassment and disgust.”

The student has field suit against the School District, its Board of Directors, the Superintendent, and the district's two administrators. He seems to have forgotten to sue the town itself, its Mayor, Selectmen, Town Council, and anyone else with fiduciary duty over the school system.

"Gosh, Borepatch," I hear you ask, "this is a whole World Of Hurt for Lower Merion. Seems it was caused by the administrators. What's happened to them?"

Glad you asked. They're on paid vacation:

Two school district employees who controlled the LanRev activation process have been placed on paid, administrative leave.

The Wheels of Justice are fully engaged, I see. That will put government bureaucrats on notice that engaging in the creation of potential child pornography will be met with the sternest measures available to the school district.

You and me: Felony charges, jail until we make extortionate bail.

Them: Paid leave and "no comment" from the government PR Flack.

John Edwards was right after all. There really are two Americas. One is inhabited by you and me. The other is inhabited by government bureaucrats who seem to be able to commit felonies that would have you and me in jail facing 20 years, and looking at a million dollars for bail.

The Federales are on the case, although the over/under on a serious prosecution is probably 5:1 against.

In a more vigorous and less degenerate stage of This Honorable Republic, the administrators, their supervisors, and the School District Board of Directors would have been tared and feathered. The best that we can hope for is that the students each and individually sue the town i
nto bankruptcy. To let other towns know that they should exercise tighter supervision.

Hello Kitty Bayonet

Today is the 3rd annual New England Blogshoot. This year, the entire Clan Borepatch is coming, which will be very nice indeed. While we haven't exhausted the kids supply of old stuffed toys, we went shopping for this year's Guest of Honor:


Some how we managed to raise two sons without ever getting a Hello Kitty ...

JayG expects a huge turnout, which is great. As Hello Kitty likes to say, "You can't have too many friends!" Or .223 ...

As with previous years, we expect the carnage to be brutal. More feline, perhaps, but brutal. Pictures later.

But since this is the 3rd annual New England Blogshoot, that means there were two others previously. For new readers, here are some of my favorite Blogshoot posts:

Shooting Plush Children's Toys

LaLa will not be up for Tubby Toast.

The Teletubbies strike back.

Pikachu, I choose you!

Shooting Non-Plush Grown-up Toys

This may be the funniest security advisory ever written (even if I did write it myself). It's the #1 Google result for "NT vs. Solaris security". Heh.

General Goofy Blogshoot Stuff

A Blogshoot haiku

The greatest blog post title ever