Six years of blogging

When I was One, I had just begun.
When I was Two, I was nearly new.
When I was Three I was hardly me.
When I was Four, I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

- A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six

I put my first post up here six years ago.  It wasn't particularly good.  Looking back on it I find myself surprised to find the fledgling blogger refer to "Bore Patch".  In a sense, I hadn't become my blogging self.

I didn't know what this would turn out to be, even.  Certainly not six years and going on 9,000 posts (!) and almost 32,000 comments (!!).

What it's been is an often times saving grace during some difficult times.  It is an old saying of historians that happy is the land that has no history, and there's been rather more history these last six years than I'd like.

But through it all, it's been a great comfort that you keep coming back here.  I never imagined that this would be the greatest lesson of blogging, those six years back, and I'm profoundly grateful for that.

I've also met a bunch of you in real life, and made some deep friendships which I never would have known had I not set sail for that terra incognita aboard the good ship Blogger.  One of those bloggers now blogs here, adding some shooting and martial arts posts that had been sadly lacking.  There's a parable in that - we're none of us as strong as all of us, and I don't say that in the creepy fascist* way but rather in a very grateful personal way.  Thank you all for coming here, for being part of something that is far bigger than any one of us.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

- Goethe

* The fasces was an axe surrounded by a bunch of sticks, used as a symbol of office by the ancient Romans.  Each stick by itself was easy to break, but all of the sticks together made up a formidable strength.  Mussolini was quite taken by this metaphor, in a creepy way.  I'm also taken with the metaphor, but in quite a different - and personal - way.

Oscar Isaac - Fare Thee Well

The U.S. Government's justification for why they can kill you without a trial

Now online, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act filing by the New York Times and the ACLU.

The Security State as a bumbling giant

The Government security apparatus doesn't realize that the key to getting the People's cooperation is to be widely seen as being not just reasonable, but on the People's side.  Because who knows what the People could do if they thought otherwise:

Local police confiscate a suspected drug dealer's phone—only to find that he has called his mother and no one else. Meanwhile a journalist's phone is examined by airport security. But when officials look to see what is on it, they find that she has spent all her time at the beach. The drug dealer and the journalist are free to go. Minutes later the names, numbers and GPS data that the police were looking for reappear.

A new programming technique could bring these scenarios to life. Computer scientist Karl-Johan Karlsson has reprogrammed a phone to lie. By modifying the operating system of an Android-based smartphone, he was able to put decoy data on it—innocent numbers, for example—so that the real data escape forensics. He presented the hack in January at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Governments are filled with not very smart people in positions of power.  Often time their time horizon is short, and no thought whatsoever is spent on foreseeing the unforeseen consequences of their actions.  The security world in particular excels at routing around this sort of drooling idiocy.

The Security State is run amok, and has absolutely no idea what it is creating.

Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?

- Sun Tzu

India cracks down on Greenpeace

Expect to see more of this sort of thing:

Indian Home Ministry places curbs on each foreign donation
Following an Intelligence Bureau (IB) report that alleged foreign-funded NGOs were creating obstacles to India’s economic growth, the Home Ministry has clamped down on Greenpeace, an international campaign group present in 40 countries.

...

In a letter dated 13th June, the Ministry has directed the Reserve Bank of India that all foreign contributions originating from Greenpeace International and Climate Works Foundation — two principal international contributors to Greenpeace India Society — must be kept on hold until individual clearances are obtained from the Ministry for each transaction.

Quite frankly, India has correctly identified the problem, which is rich Progressives in the west trying to keep the Emerging World's populations poor and hungry.  Good for them taking action against Greenpeace.  Now Europe needs to do the same thing:

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), and former premier of Denmark, told the Chatham House thinktank in London on Thursday that Vladimir Putin’s government was behind attempts to discredit fracking, according to reports.

Rasmussen said: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations - environmental organisations working against shale gas - to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”

What - a bunch of Euro dirty hippies in cahoots with Socialist military intelligence?  That's crazy talk.

Park Se Young (박세영) - Shall We Dance

I found this entirely charming.  I assume that Miss Park is a Korean pop singer.  It's still entirely charming, even if it is pop.  Makes me want to foxtrot, actually.

Does the NSA own bitcoin?

Hmmm:

Eventually, selfishness will lead one group to rig, cheat, control, etc. the system so they can get better returns.  That's exactly what happened.  Here's the flaw they exploited.


When a single entity ("a single miner" or "a mining pool") controls over 50% of the transaction processing it can control the entire system.   This means they can "see" every transaction, spend the same coins more than once, and deny transactions they don't approve of. 

That's finally happened.  According to analysis from Cornell researchers, a mining pool called GHash has now reached 51% for large stretches of time (effective "ownership" is likely much less).

I don't know enough about bitcoin mathematics, but there seems to be a fair amount of buzz about this.

Quote of the Day: Higher Education edition

Read it and weep, Progressives:

If ego were marketable, all Ph.D. graduates would get tenure.

RTWT.  Srlsy.  And how is it that I don't have a tag for Hippy Tears?  I really am slacking off.

Soccer musings

It was quite an enjoyable game yesterday, even if I'm American enough to think that a tie is like kissing your sister.  My soccer aficionado friends tell me that there's a decent shot that we'll move on to the next round (just don't lose to Germany).

The local pub was packed - literally standing room only  It was mostly a young crowd, which bodes well for the future of the game in this Republic.  Most of the players seem genuinely American, which is nice - we mostly don't import our World Cup team.

Letting Portugal score in the last 30 seconds of the game is, as they say in New England, a pissah.  Not a Wicked Pissah (which is good), but a plain jane Pissah (which is bad).  I don't make the rules on New England lingo, I just report.

I've actually learned enough about the offsides rule to realize that Portugal had five players offsides at one point during the last two minutes.  Five.  That's like half the team or something.  I guess that Futbol doesn't have a technical foul rule.

I'm actually looking forwards to Thursday and the game against die Deutsche Volk.  Given that Team USA's coach is German, this could be interesting.

My impression so far is that it's more like baseball in the tension you get, but more like basketball in the action (everyone is always running).  The tension wins, which makes it a better spectator sport than basketball.

The idea that the referees can add time to the clock is gay.  And I only say "gay" to redeem my man card after doing a post about soccer ...

I've been unplugged for a bit

I have plenty of blog material*, but it's actually been quite nice not to be on the 'net for a bit.  I've gotten quite a lot done around the house, and read hundreds of pages in this:

Will probably finish it today.  Two volumes down, ten to go.  There's blog material in there, too, but the Muse** does not call.  So instead I'm going to putter around the place, and maybe watch some of the World Cup with #1 Son.  I dare say I'll be back soon, just don't know when.

* I have something like 18 open tabs on blogable topics.  The problem is not coming up with the subjects.

** Blogable trivia: "Museum" is from the ancient Greek.  It was the first temple to the Muses, in the Alexandrian library.  The story's actually more interesting than I just told, which is kind of my whole point.

Whither Iraq?

I certainly don't know.  But there's a sordid history on the Left.  Christopher Hitchens was a passionate man of the Left, and was excommunicated from the Left, for precisely this sort of attack on Leftist hypocrisy.



Would he say this today?  Who knows.  But his loss was a huge loss, because he was true to his self.

Yeah, I've been slacking

Peter hasn't.  Boy, howdy.

My brain is brained out

At least for a bit.  Back in a bit.

There's hope for me yet ...

This was their finest hour

74 years after the "Miracle of Dunkirk", Sir Winston's words still inspire.

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest

One hundred and ninety nine years ago, the Old Guard refused to surrender, and died.

It was a near thing, as Napoleon came within a hair's breadth of defeating the allies in detail.

Give me night or give me Blücher  ...

- Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington at 5:45 PM

While Wellington has a reputation for being a cold fish, he deeply regretted the loss of blood that day.

My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

L'Empereur no doubt regretted the loss of the Empire, and being hustled away to a remote island in the South Atlantic.  It is not known whether he regretted more the loss of the Old Guard's charge, or of the men. But Europe (mostly) was at peace for a century after the blood splattered day at Waterloo.

Frank Zappa plays the bicycle on The Steve Allen Show

From 1964.

Quote of the Day

From Comrade Misfit:

If this doesn't bring a tear to your eye or a lump to your throat, then I don't even want to know you.

Yeah, me neither.  Click through for the best thing you'll read this month.

Time to buy a lottery ticket

Motorcyclist hits moose, walks away:

A motorcyclist has suffered minor injuries after her bike clipped the back end of a moose on a Vermont road.


Vermont State Police say 44-year-old Christina Hansen of Dallas, Ga., outside Atlanta, was traveling east on U.S. Route 2 in Lunenburg on Monday night when she struck the moose.

Hansen, who was wearing a helmet, was treated for minor injuries at a hospital. The motorcycle had minor damage to its side.

Woah.  People die all the time when their truck hits a moose.  Ms. Hansen is a very lucky biker.

You think the World hates America now ...

... just imagine what things will be like if we win "their" World Cup:

This World Cup isn't letting us down, is it? Iran and Nigeria tried to wreck it but it fought back with vengeance with that superb USA victory. At times it wasn’t pretty by Klinsmann’s side, and Ghana wasted so, so many promising positions, but it was the kind of gutsy display that will give the US hope that they can topple Portugal on Sunday night to book their place in the last-16

And we don't even give a damn about soccer anyway.

JP visited Camp Borepatch ...

... and all he got was a bunch of pictures.

Environmentalists: still trying to kill children

Greenpeace and the other Big Green orgs are still trying to keep golden rice from being distributed:

Agenda 21 not withstanding, everyone is living longer. In the U.S., where about 70 percent of the food in our supermarkets contains ingredients from genetically engineered crops, life expectancy has increased from 76 years in 1996 (when large-scale cultivation of GE crops took off) to nearly 80 years today, and global life expectancy has increased from 66.4 to 71.0 years in the same time period.

As one wag wrote, “If we're less healthy, we sure are coping with it more effectively.” And compared with Europe, which has virtually banned GE crops, there is no discernible difference in cancer rates or lifespans.

Meanwhile, there is a need for what Golden Rice can deliver: vitamin A. According to the World Health Organization an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight. “These are real deaths, real disability, real suffering, not the phantom fears… none of which have held up to objective scientific scrutiny,” risk-perception expert David Ropiek writes.

Allowing Golden Rice to be eaten by populations prone to vitamin A Deficiency means that blindness could be prevented (it cannot be cured once it has happened). Less than a cup of cooked Golden Rice provides children 6 to 8-years-old with some 60% of their daily vitamin A needs, not 7 pounds as claimed in the letter to the editor.

Emphasis mine.  We've proved that this is safe, over the course of the last couple decades.

Chalk up more millions of deaths to the Progressive agenda.  But remember, they're nicer than you and I.  They keep telling us that.

Is Sitemeter working for anyone else?

It seems like it's entirely wedged for me.  Not collecting data, and I see weird authentication popups from it.

I'd hate to pull the plug, but broken is broken.

Everything that is wrong with the way this society treats men ...

... is on display today at Postsecret.  Don't click through unless you have a strong stomach. All I can say is that there's no way they'd do something like this on Mother's Day.

You can find something to take the taste out of your mouth at Judgy Bitch.

UPDATE 15 June 2014 17:15:  This really has me steamed. Sure, some people have crummy fathers.  Some fathers have crummy, spoiled, self-indulgent kids.  Some great fathers have great kids.  And yet Postsecret ran 100% bad dad on Father's Day.  That's as clear a reflection on the degraded state of society as you can make.

In the meantime, here's a great father, with #2 Son Back In The Day.

I sure miss you, Dad.

Seen in the downtown

Even in Red State Georgia, you still find pockets of resistance ...

Here's a bigger view of the, err, decorations:

Yeah, OK then.

R. I. P. Shaggy

Casey Kasem - the voice of Shaggy - dead at 82.  Thanks for all the laughs, Casey.

Johan Strauss Jr - Vienna Blood Waltz

Who was the greatest father in classical music history?  An interesting intellectual challenge for Father's Day.  You could pick J. S. Bach, with four children who carried on his musical tradition.  You could pick Leopold Mozart, composer, musician, and father of the greatest composer who ever drew breath.

Unfortunately, I've already posted about them, and so they're out.

But Johan Strauss Sr. was the patriarch of a musical clan that nearly approached Bach's.  Strauss Sr was a great popularizer of the Waltz, setting the stage for Strauss Jr and his two other composer sons (and grandson).  Sadly, Johan Sr was not a model father: he had a mistress with whom he fathered a number of children (leading to his divorce by his long suffering wife); he was a bit of a tyrant to his sons, trying to suppress their emergent musical talent; and he was explicitly competitive with Johan Jr once that son began to establish his reputation as a musician.  A sad lesson for this Father's Day indeed.  And so we must conclude that Johan Strauss Sr wasn't the best father in classical music history, not even close.

But his son went on to be known as the Waltz King, and to far surpass his father in reputation and admiration.  This piece was written at the request of the Austrian Imperial family for the celebration of the marriage of Archduchess Louise Maria in 1873.  However, the waltz form, while no longer considered scandalous, was still not something that the Emperor would allow in his court opera house, and so the celebration had to be moved to accommodate the (wildly popular) festivities.

#WarOnWomen

You can't get a more stark example of how the Patriarchy crushes the hopes of aspiring young women professionals.  Reporter called "tacky" because of her outfit:

ATLANTA – A driver crashed a car through the lobby of the CNN Center early Friday morning.

Police responded to the Marietta Street side of the building at about 4:15 a.m. A Mercedes convertible with a Florida tag had crashed through the glass entrance. It ended up all the way inside the lobby.

It is unclear if it was done on purpose or if it was just an accident.

Except the person being interviewed is a woman, too.  The reporter is taking it with a fair amount of grace:

“Clearly if this woman says I look tacky, it has to be true,” she tweeted.

Hack this, biatches!

P. F. Chang's restaurants have announced that their Point-Of-Sale system was hacked.  Any of you who have used a credit or debit card there in the last 2-3 months should monitor your accounts (and change the PIN on your debit card).

Naturally, there's turmoil at P. F. Chang's, since identifying all the malware is a tedious and time consuming process.  A restaurant can't survive going weeks without accepting credit cards, so what do you do?  This:

They're using manual card imprinting at all their restaurants:

After saying earlier this week that it was investigating reports of a data breach related to payment cards used at its locations, P.F. Chang's China Bistro confirmed on Thursday that credit and debit card data has been stolen from some of its restaurants.

Interestingly, the company also said that it has switched over to manual credit card imprinting systems for all P.F. Chang's China Bistro branded restaurants located in the continental United States. 

...

In an FAQ posted to its website, the company explained that it has temporarily ditched its electronic Point-of-Sale System in favor of old-school “imprinting devices” to process payments while the company gets the situation under control and understands the scope of the attack.

“All P.F. Chang's China Bistro branded restaurants in the continental U.S. are using manual credit card imprinting devices to handle our credit and debit card transactions,” the company said. “This allows you to use your credit and debit cards safely.”

From a security perspective, this is exactly the right thing to do.  Unplug from the matrix.

Sam Bush - Howlin' At The Moon

This weekend is the full moon, and since it's now summer, local authorities everywhere are getting ready for silliness of all stripes.  Sam Bush coined the term "Newgrass" for his bluegrass style (which has won him three Grammys), but mostly it just sounds like fun.  This weekend if you want to howl, you can do a lot worse than this.



Howlin' At The Moon 

Take a little time for sunshine,
take a whole lotta time for love.
Take time to praise and thank
heaven up above.

Take your life as it may come,
cause boy it'll be gone soon.
Take a little time for Howlin' at the Moon

Somebody said keep your eyes open
gotta keep your feet on solid ground.
Ya gotta take time to take a real good look
at everything you found.

Gotta make music....
gotta make music...
Raise your voice with Joy every day.
Got a lot to live for,
you got a life time to stay.

So I'm trying to keep my eyes open
Gotta live my life from day to day
But seems that life's unhappiness
can't but lead me astray.

Take a little time for sunshine,
take a whole lotta time for love.
Take time to praise and thank
heaven up above.
Take your life as it may come,
cause boy it'll be gone soon.
Take a little time for Howlin' at the Moon

Russian Express. Don't leave home.

The People's Cube delivers.

Restored Whaling ship raises sail once again

The Charles W. Morgan puts to sea under sail for the first time in nearly a century:

“The ship exceeded all expectations and performed wonderfully. She is faster than we thought she would be, she turns easier, and she handles really well. We could not be more pleased,” said Capt. Kip Files, the 22nd master of the Morgan. “There is no one alive today who has sailed one of these whaleships who can tell us how they perform, so we really learned a lot today. We have a great voyage ahead of us.”

The National Historic Landmark vessel has been a static exhibit at Mystic Seaport since 1941 and has not sailed since the early 1920s.

We visited her in Mystic seaport back in 2009, and the restoration work had been under way for quite some time even back then.  This has been a labor of love, but the result is magnificent:

Not much beats a full rigged sailing ship for nostalgia.



Hat tip: Comrade Misfit

Bits and pieces

Who in the Atlanta area would be up for a blogride?  Where we all gather on our motorcycles and go to some place interesting?  Tons of places around, and the 150th anniversary of Beast Sherman gives a bunch of opportunities.

It's been a little over a week since my Brother-from-another-Mother ASM826 started posting some righteous shooty goodness here.  I'm tickled as can be about this, not just because he's someone who I never would have met without this whole blogosphere thing, but because it seems that all y'all like his stuff.  So far there are 42 (!) comments on his posts, in only a week.  And he hasn't even posted pictures of the totally cool reloading stuff that he has secreted away in his undisclosed bunker location.  If you like what he's doing, I encourage you to leave a comment.  Those are like crack to a blogger.

Damnitall, I need to start reloading.  This is inspiring me (at least a bit) to get off my butt.  And I have hundreds of .303 Brit bullets, courtesy of ASM826's network if clandestine operatives.  Maybe Differ can break away sometime and we can do some reloading, and then retire to a fine English bitter or two ...

Reading Brigid's book is a reminder on just how rare her talent with words is.  She has probably had the biggest impact on improving my own writing (yes I know, damning with faint praise).  Every once in a while, though, this influence rises to near her level.  I could not have written this without her influence, and having seen Dad's reaction to that post, I'm profoundly grateful for that gift from her.

A bunch of folks have emailed in the last month or two, and I've been so caught up in a family life that is talking in its Outdoors Voice that I've not replied.  Things are (hopefully) quieting down some now, and so I shall get right to this.  I shall endeavor in future to suck less.

And shamelessly stolen from Claire Wolf, here's an insanely clever cat food commercial with the guy who did the Sad Dog Diary and Sad Cat Diary on Youtube.  Very, very well done.

A Koan on Obama's foreign policy

SMARTEST. PRESIDENT. EVER.

No doubt the defenders of the Left (*cough* Ezra Klein *cough*) will say that it's impossible to understand this reference because it was 200 years old.  Or a hundred.  Or ten. Or two.  YOU HATER!!!!!

Observe the collapse of the Progressive Sense of Self, and the collapse of their (self derived) sense that They Should Rule Us  Because IVYLEAGUECOMPETENCE!!!!!

Their tears are sweet.  Don't forget to rub this in to your Progressive acquaintances.  And ask them to explain that whole "Smart Diplomacy" thing.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

- Sun Tsu

Joe Bonamassa & Beth Hart - Sinner's Prayer

Greenpeace celebrates shutting down zero emission, renewable power

The mask slips:

Greenpeace activists are celebrating today, after their protests led to the halting of plans to build a massive renewable powerplant which would have supplied clean, green, low-carbon electricity in huge quantities.

"Today, we celebrate," Greenpeace chief Matías Asún told reporters, following a decision to withdraw government permission for the Hidroaysén project. The project would have generated as much as 18,430 gigawatt-hours annually - roughly six times as much as the huge offshore London Array windfarm planned for the Thames Estuary.

...

“The big winners here are the environmentalists but the big losers are the consumers,” Chilean Senator Iván Moreira told press including the Santiago Times following the government’s decision on Tuesday. “Currently there are few energy projects in the country so electricity costs will rise and these will affect ordinary people most.”

It seems like that's the point, or something.  You know, I'll start taking this whole CO2 climate change thing more seriously when they do ...

Look on my works, ye mighty

Time waits for no man:

In the dark recesses of the world, under the cover of jungle, underwater, are cities, cultures and beings that vanished for no known reason. The dinosaurs, creatures so large that it seems only plausible that they would only have died out by something as major as an asteroid, gone, only to be brushed from the earth by those that study the bones.

There are Mayan cities that emptied overnight, the way a chrysalis of a butterfly is left behind, empty, stark in it's primitive beauty. So much still there, the monuments, and granaries, terraces and temples, structures of empiric power and small dwellings formed by families united by generations. Emptied with no anthropological clue as to riot, invasion or deadly disease carried in on silent winds.

It's the blink of the eye from Senatus Populusque Romanus to Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.  Our miserable political class fiddles while the Res Publica burns.

The Mirror of Barkley

I was going to do some deep thinking last night, but got side tracked.  My sister-from-another-mister Brigid emailed me a copy of her book, The Book Of Barkley.  As you can imagine, I got distracted.  It's about Barkley, but much more it's about the mirror that we hold up that's called "memory", and what that mirror shows to us.  With her permission, he's a taste:

I spent much of my early adulthood as a jet pilot, learning very quickly that, not only can't you always save the world, sometimes you cannot even save yourself.  But the effort is often worth it. If you're lucky, your brushes with life will only leave a few small physical scars. If I raise up my bangs, right at the hairline, there’s a tiny, faint scar from a tumble off my bike down a hill as a kid. There's a small ding in my forehead where the bungee cord of the J60-P-3 turbojet engine cover whacked me on the ramp at warp speed when I lost the wrestling contest with it.  But for most people, like me, the bigger scars are internal, and you only touch them softly, with trepidation, not remorse, in the late night hours of "what if’s."

Pilots get that.  Adventurers get that.  So, usually, does anyone who has challenged their fears. There are times when it seems as if the world is going to pieces around you, a sense of this enormous elemental power beyond your reason or control.  You think "what am I doing; this is nuts!"  As you squeak past the reaper one more time, you say “well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought” already planning on when you will chase the experience again.  For you are called to the altar of the infinite, the bread of life on the tongue, tasting faintly of salt, the sweetness, just underneath.  It's reaching your hand out to receive glory even as your world cranks up to red line with the knowledge that if mistakes are made, there will be no saving grace; you may be lost.  But if are not, then the world will, for that instant, have one moment of equilibrium, of order, of peace.

Actually, this captures motorcycling precisely, and may explain the overlap between the pilot population and the biker crowd.  That moment of equilibrium - to me at least - often comes when you roll that power on.



Pilots get that.  Adventurers get that.  So, usually, does anyone who has challenged their fears.

But challenging your fears doesn't mean forgetting your memories, or putting down that mirror that shows us who we are - scars and worry lines and all:

A quiet morning walk doesn't just carry you across the local landscape, it takes you across the landscape of memory, to places long past which we can only visit in our dreams.  Jack has been gone these twenty years now, but I still hear his deep throated bark, outraged at the swimming otter's insolence.  #1 Son hasn't been eight years old for ever and ever, but I still hear his child's voice rising with outrage that the bird is back at the pond.  I hear the frustration in the voice of young #2 Son, asking where the beaver is, knowing he is about to be delighted when he finally catches a glimpse of it.

Ivan the Terrier loves these walks.  The chance to sniff around, to catch new smells and sights from a place that's not his yard keeps him mentally sharp.  The walk through old but cherished memories is good for me, too.  Even if the path is crowded with Jack and some small children.

This mirror of Barkley isn't about him, at least if we read it for what it says to us.  About us.  Brigid sure has a rare talent to write a book about me and Jack, and a young #1 Son, and a younger #2 Son, and Ivan the Terrier.

And you.  Yes, and Barkley too.

Her's is an astonishing gift, and those of you who have yet to read this are lucky indeed.

This is why you pay attention in Math class

This is why you pay attention in geometry class

Hat tip: 2cents via email.

Righteous Global Warming beatdown is Righteous

Go get popcorn, and enjoy.

Now hear this

Go, read. The Internet Expects everyone to do their duty.

House Majority Leader learns the meaning of the word "accountability"

Eric Cantor Goes Down in Flames; Will He Take Amnesty With Him? 

Short answer: yes.  There's quite a lot of the country that is sick of having things rammed down its throat by an unaccountable elite in Washington, D.C., "for your own good".  Astonishingly, this group of citizens turns out to be voters, and can (unexpectedly!) coalesce into a voting bloc.

Nobody ever said that education was inexpensive, Eric.  Enjoy your time with your family "pursuing other interests".  And Amnesty is dead as a doornail because the rest of the House Republicans (and Democrats) are reading this same dictionary tonight ...

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Happy Birthday, Howlin' Wolf

Born this day in 1910.  This song won a Grammy.

indiana Cop: "The United States of America has become a war zone"

Says Pulaski County (Indiana) Sheriff Michael Gayer:

"The United States of America has become a war zone," he said. "There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that's what I'm going to do."

Pulaski County has a population of 13,402. Here's where you find this domestic Fallujah:

Sheriff Gayer perhaps needs to get into a safer line of work, if he's not feeling up to policing without the ninja gear.

Google's doodle on June 6

Seems some Japanese Go Master was born on June 6.  Good thing nothing else of note happened that day.

Computer Scientists discover that the Turing Test is pretty useless

A computer can pass it if you lower your standards enough:

Eugene Goostman, a computer programme made by a team based in Russia, succeeded in a test conducted at the Royal Society in London. It convinced 33 per cent of the judges that it was human, said academics at the University of Reading, which organised the test.

It is thought to be the first computer to pass the iconic test. Though other programmes have claimed successes, those included set topics or questions in advance.

A version of the computer programme, which was created in 2001, is hosted online for anyone talk to. (“I feel about beating the turing test in quite convenient way. Nothing original,” said Goostman, when asked how he felt after his success.)

The computer programme claims to be a 13-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine.

Nothing in the story as to whether the program claimed to be a Nigerian Minister of the Treasury.

XKCD blows the call on climate change

First, the cartoon:

The relevant text is: Without prompt aggressive limits on CO2 emissions, the Earth will likely warm by an average of 4°-5° by the century's end.

The source is given in the popup that appears when you hover the mouse over the cartoon, and is given as the latest IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).  That's where XKCD goes wrong.

What is the IPCC projection based on?  Computer models.  So how are the models tracking climate?  Very poorly:

I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH):

Whether humans are the cause of 100% of the observed warming or not, the conclusion is that global warming isn’t as bad as was predicted. That should have major policy implications…assuming policy is still informed by facts more than emotions and political aspirations.

The models are simply terrible - two out of 90 are close to the actual recorded temperatures over the last three decades, and they're getting worse over time, not better.  In fact, AR5 weakens the case for global warming:

Figure 1 shows that observations particularly since 2005 are on the low end of the envelope that contains 90% of the climate model simulations. Observations in 2011-2012 are below the 5-95% envelope of the CMIP5 simulations. The trend in the model simulations is substantially larger than the observed trend over the past 15 years.

• Figure 1. After expecting an increase of 0.2^oC per decade in the early decades of the 21^st century from the AR4 statements, the rate of warming over the past 15 years is only ~0.05C.
•  The IPCC AR5 bases its projection for the period 2016-2036 of 0.10 to 0.23^oC per decade on expert judgment, rather than on the climate model results
• The IPCC does not have a convincing or confident explanation for the hiatus in warming.

Emphasis mine.  The observed temperatures are no longer within the error bands of the model projections.  The idea that this unexplained hiatus will suddenly end and temperatures for the rest of the century will increase even faster than the IPCC projected is certainly novel but is hard to justify.

And so XKCD disappoints.  Wherever we will be in 86 years, it's certainly not going to be where XKCD and the IPCC say we will.

UPDATE 10 June 2014 18:27: Goober opens up a righteous can of whoop-ass on the topic.  Recommended.

The gun in the attic

Tacitus' brother was closing up the old family homestead and found an old gun in the attic.  An old gun.

He has a lot more pictures, with a more detailed view.  He's looking for any ideas about what the rifle (shotgun?) might be and where it might have come from. Dad told me about our old family rifle, but Tacitus doesn't have this.  Cool mystery.

UPDATE 9 June 2014 13:06: Link added.  Oops.

Your Monday Morning Zen

Remember, there is no spoon ...

Crikey! Motorcycle camping stoves get damn hot!

This guy cracks me up, in that Ozzie sort of way.  But there's some good info here.



I sort of like the wood fired one.  Pretty much everywhere I'd go camp likely has a lit of deadfall wood available, though.

Take a moment to look at this

I don't know what's going on, but Jennifer knows more than I do.  It doesn't sound like there's any part of that which isn't filled to overflowing with teh suck.

Good cop, bad cops

There's a discussion forum that is quite illustrative of how many in the law enforcement community view us.  One cop posted about the no-knock raid where a flash bang grenade was tossed into a toddler's crib.  He is appalled, and in my book is the good cop.

He's maybe the only one.  The sense of entitlement that oozes all through the thread is quite stunning.  Here's an example reply to him:

Carbon how many years you been in LE?
How many Warrants you serve?
Do you know why LE uses no knock?

I'm glad with all of your years of experiance [sic] and training you have such a strong oponion. [sic]

Parents did that to their child not the officers.

As a point of fact, the baby was visiting with this parents from out of town.  No drugs were found in the house.

As I said in a previous post, it's important that some of the cops go to prison over this:

But I disagree that nobody should go to jail.  Prison is designed not only as a punishment, but to set an example that will deter other fascist scum.

If you have a strong stomach, read the Law Enforcement Forum thread to get a sense of just how many "Peace Officers" could use some deterrent.

UPDATE 8 June 2014 11:32: Here's another good cop.  More like him, please.

Hans Leo Hassler - Various Organ Works on the Huss-Schnitger Organ

This is very early music, played on a very old organ.  Hans Leo Hassler was active in the 1500s - around the time of the Spanish Armada and Shakespeare - writing and performing church music ask the Nuremberg Kapellmeister.  Trained in the Italy of the Renaissance, the music he brought back across the Alps was some of the earliest Baroque ever written.

The Huss-Schnitger Organ is nearly as old, dating to 1675.  This is likely very close to what the music would have sounded to Herr Hassler.

Edmundo Rivero - Los cosos de al lao

I have a soft spot in my heart for tango.  Partly it's the over-the-top flamboyance of the dance, partly it's just plain fun to dance to, but mostly it's the music which can only be described as "lush".  The late, great Argentine singer/composer Edmundo Rivero is perhaps the best that ever was.

I put 200 miles on the motorcycle today

Hot day, but fun for a ride.  But I've only put 700 miles on it since buying it in February, so I need to up my game.

But man, I'm a little wrung out from the ride.  Need to up my game.

Visiting a friend

Muscle and brainwave activity during shooting

Isegoria finds this look at how Olympic shooters train.

Little Texas - What Might Have Been

Sometimes what would be over the top can fit a particular moment.  I would usually write about what the moment meant, but I just did.  The number of moments that might have been, but which were sacrificed, those bear thinking on.



What Might Have Been (Songwriters: Dwayne O'Brien, Porter Howell, Brady Seals)

Sure I think about you now and then
But it's been a long long time
I've got a good life now I've moved on
So when you cross my mind

I try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
We can't go back again
There's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

We could sit and talk about this all night long
And wonder why we didn't last
Yes they might be the best days
We will ever know
But we'll have to leave them in the past

So try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
We can't go back again
There's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

That same old look in your eyes
It's a beautiful night
I'm so tempted to stay
But too much time has gone by
We should just say goodbye
And turn and walk away

And try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
We can't go back again
There's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

No we'll never know
What might have been

Hitting the beach on D-Day meant that you hadn't drowned, your kit and weapons dragging you down under the rolling sea.  Surviving that meant that you had to only deal with German machine guns and mortars and artillery.  That day saw the death of not just thousands of lives, but thousands of dreams.  It's a sad statement on the degraded state of this Republic that it needs a schlocky Country music song to make us think on that.

Four years apart.  Think on that, what that meant to young lovers.   It doesn't sound so sentimental when you think on that.  If you're any damn good at all.

Try not to think about what might have been, if the dead had come home.  Or if they never would have had to go at all.

Remembering Ste. Mère Église

It was early June, 1990, and we were vacationing in Normandy.  We used our base at Bayeaux to go all over the D-Day sites; somewhere I have a picture of us drinking the local hard cider on Utah Beach.  I was thinking that if I had to land somewhere that day, Utah would have been a million times better than Omaha.

Our excursion took us for dinner in Ste. Mère Église, just inland from the beach.  We sat outside at a table on the square, with a view of this:

Image via La Wik

As someone who grew up in the '60s, I knew the story of the paratrooper who landed on the church bell tower, but I had no idea how that had turned out.  Had he survived the experience?  Did he survive the war?

I mentioned to our (very young) waitress that it's not every day you see someone in full combat gear hanging from a church.  She brightened up and we had a chat about all the American veterans who came to the town each year.  I asked about the paratrooper, and if he had lived.  Bien sur, she replied.  Comes back each year to visit.

Alas, that was only partly true.  The paratrooper John Steele did survive the town and the war, but died from cancer in 1969 just short of the 25th anniversary of the invasion.  I was misinformed.

But the town and the area is worth the journey.  And they like Americans there, or at least they did back then.  It's peaceful, and a long time removed from the day that the telegrams started coming in Bedford, Virginia:

On the morning of July 17, a 21-year-old telegraph operator named Elizabeth Teass went to work as usual. The telegraph office was located in Green's Drug Store. She switched on her machine, pressed a key that rang a bell in the hub office at Roanoake, and typed a "Good morning" message.

Back came a message from Roanoake, "We have casualties," and then the machine started printing a telegram. A sequence number, a name and address, and then the sinister words THE SECRETARY OF WAR REGRETS TO INFORM YOU.

Elizabeth had received casualty telegrams before. But this time, when the telegram ended, the machine did not stop. Another message header and then again THE SECRETARY OF WAR REGRETS TO INFORM YOU.

As the teleprinter clacked out telegram after telegram, she sat there in increasing horror, taking the narrow strips that emerged from the machine and glueing them to the message forms.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.  Amen.

Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?

Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  Remember the men who waded ashore through machine gun fire to assault the Atlantic Wall.

Today is also the 72nd anniversary of Midway where the tide was turned in the war in the Pacific.  The torpedo bomber squadrons sacrificed themselves to a man, but that gave the dive bombers unmolested opportunity to rip the heart out of the Imperial Japanese carrier fleet.

It is also the 96th anniversary of the battle of Belleau Wood, one of the costliest days in Marine Corps history, but one where they blunted the German advance towards Paris.  Their spirit was captured precisely by Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, in the quote that makes this post's title.

A bloody day, one filled to overflowing with sacrifice and well worth our remembrance.  Hoist a beer to their memories sometime today.

Protect your email

It's been a year since the Snowden revelations of pervasive NSA monitoring.  The Free Software Foundation is recognizing this anniversary by promoting the use of Open Source email encryption software.  It's an easy step by step set of instructions, and it will annoy the NSA's Eye Of Sauron program, which sounds as close to a Categorical Imperative* as anything I can think of.

* An idea introduced by Immanuel Kant, describing something that is both absolutely required and absolutely justified.

Rory Gallagher - Bullfrog Blues

He was a bit of an odd bird, as the first 45 seconds or so will show.  But he cooks it.

Just how bad is the economy?

Even a Sith Lord Emperor can't keep a job.



Man, those HR Departments are picky ...

J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf

Reviewed with relish:

So for those fascinated by Tolkien the artist, the commentary is sheer delight. It also (and perhaps most importantly) contains some passages of writing in Tolkien's best and most profound style - where his deepest personal concerns come very close to the surface (from pp 349-50):

But the special situation of the English - a people amid the ruins, cut off from their old lands, the lands of the heroes of their ancient songs, and gradually as their knowledge grew feeling themselves to be in the Dark Ages after the departure of the glory of Rome - gave special poignancy to this feeling, and special pictorial vividness to it. 

Both of the passages from Beowulf... are filled with the vision of deserted and ruined halls... "he sees... the hall of feasting, the resting places swept by the wind robbed of laughter - the riders sleep, mighty men gone down into the dark..."

Nobody would have better understood or been better able to play Hrothgar's part than [King] Alfred - who won his mother's praise for... the lays of his northern heroic fathers - and yet felt himself almost alone in the Dark Age, attempting to save from the wreck of time some sparks surviving from the Golden Age, from Rome and the mighty Caesars and builders of that fallen world.

If you're a fan of the Master, RTWT.

The Democrats are using the Constitution as a political football

Yeah, I know - shocking to find politics in Washington D.C.  But the Democrats used to stick up for the First Amendment; now they're trying to gut it:

Last year Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 19, a proposed amendment to the Constitution.  Describing the amendment as an effort to “advance the fundamental principle of equality for all,” and “to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral processes,” it would in substance modify the First Amendment.  Specifically, it would give Congress the power “to regulate the raising and spending of money” in federal elections, including by limiting contributions to candidates for federal elections and expenditures by, in support of, or to oppose those candidates. 

Fortunately, there are still a few of the great First Amendment lions left to call this for what it is.



Floyd Abrams worked on the Pentagon Papers case, among many, many others.  This is speaking truth to power.  In fact, this is a time warp, a view across four decades to when the Left were firmly opposed to thought control.  Different times, same voice. 

The breakfast of Champions

Last Kiss keeps delivering.

New Co-Blogger

It's been a long time since I've made any real changes to this blog, other than minor tweaks around the edges.  However, it's seemed a bit stale lately, and it's also suffered from a distinct lack of gunnie content.  And so a change is in order.

I've asked blog friend (and meatspace friend) ASM826 if he would start posting here.  He has kindly accepted, and will do posts here on shooting, and reloading, and maybe some martial arts as well.  Who knows, maybe something on bourbon as well.

This place could use a whiff of cordite from time to time.

It's a bit odd to have a co-blogger, but he and I started blogging at almost exactly the same time, and click on a lot of different levels.  I'm pretty thrilled to have him picking up the slack here.

If Architects designed buildings the way that programmers write software, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization

Peter finds a real humdinger of a security post: why is software security so broken?

Libpurple was written by people who wanted their open source chat client to talk to every kind of instant messaging system in the world, and didn’t give a shit about security or encryption. Security people who have examined the code have said there are so many possible ways to exploit libpurple there is probably no point in patching it. It needs to be thrown out and rewritten from scratch. These aren’t bugs that let someone read your encrypted messages, they are bugs that let someone take over your whole computer, see everything you type or read and probably watch you pick your nose on your webcam.

This lovely tool, OTR, sits on top of libpurple on most systems that use it. Let me make something clear, because even some geeks don’t get this: it doesn’t matter how good your encryption is if your attacker can just read your data off the screen with you, and I promise they can. They may or may not know how to yet, but they can. There are a hundred libpurples on your computer: little pieces of software written on a budget with unrealistic deadlines by people who didn’t know or didn’t care about keeping the rest of your system secure.

My only criticism of this post is that it isn't terrifyingly pessimistic enough.  If you boot it, they will come.  Remember, you're reading this from a computer screen right now.

Software secure is wretched.  Sometimes it's wretched because nobody cares.  Sometimes it's wretched because, well, because you recompiled a program for a 64 bit architecture (rather than a 32 bit one) and without changing a line of code now everyone can pwnz0r you*.  It's a little known fact that Nazi Germany fell because of a failure of cyber security.



But back to the post that Peter pointed us towards.  This is absolutely correct:

Security and privacy experts harangue the public about metadata and networked sharing, but keeping track of these things is about as natural as doing blood panels on yourself every morning, and about as easy. The risks on a societal level from giving up our privacy are terrible. Yet the consequences of not doing so on an individual basis are immediately crippling. The whole thing is a shitty battle of attrition between what we all want for ourselves and our families and the ways we need community to survive as humans — a Mexican stand off monetized by corporations and monitored by governments.

Even classified networks get hacked.  I'm still the #1 Google result for "How to hack a classified network"**.  If the Defense Department - with all their skilled security d00ds and financial resources - if they can't keep themselves safe, then what chance do you have?

The answer, of course, is slim to none.  And Slim just left town.

I've worked in this technology space since 1985.  Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to tell you to help yourselves out.  I wish I had a better answer, other than "never do anything consequential on the 'Net".  And that absolutely, positively means never bank online.  Or vote online.  Of have a car with a computer in it.  Or a "smart" gun.

Riddle me this, Security Man: what do you get when you cross a car with a computer?  Answer: a computer.  Go read the post that Peter points us to.  Re-read it until the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and a shiver runs up your spine.  At that point, you will understand the situation precisely.

If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.

- Sun Tsu

Good morning.  ;-)

* I'm actually pretty proud of this post, which is from when I'd only been blogging a couple months but already a distinctly Borepatchian style had emerged.

** Another pretty good security post from the early days of this blog.

Nina Simone - Sinnerman

She kills on the piano, too.

15 things you didn't know about Caddyshack

Via Chris Lynch, this is pretty interesting.  For example:

13. The owners of the country club were not happy about the explosions on the golf course.

The climactic scene of Murray’s gopher-killing plastic explosives knocking in Danny’s putt to win the un-friendly wager between Al Czervik (Dangerfield) and Judge Smails (Knight) were real pyrotechnics set aflame at Rolling Hills. To pull off the effect, an artificial green was rigged with several incendiary packs and put into place between two fairways.

This was news to the owners of the country club, who had made it clear to filmmakers that the outrageous climax couldn't be shot anywhere near their golf course. To get them to “comply,” producer Jon Peters invited them out for a swanky lunch away from the country club to “thank them for letting the film use the location.” Ramis then had the special effects crew blow up the fake green while they were away. The fireball from the explosion was so large that a pilot landing a plane at nearby Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport radioed in to air traffic control that he thought he might have witnessed a crash. 

The others are as good.

Your home Internet router: the second circle of Security Hell

It's why we can't have nice things on the 'Net:

This unpatchable hell is a problem with many fathers, from recalcitrant vendors to customers wary of -- or hostile to -- change. But with the number and diversity of connected endpoints expected to skyrocket in the next decade, radical measures are fast becoming necessary to ensure that today's "smart" devices and embedded systems don't haunt us for years down the line.

Trouble close to home

The problem of unsupported or undersupported devices hits close to home for millions of broadband users in the United States and Europe. Broadband routers humming away peacefully in attics and home offices have become the latest targets of sophisticated cyber criminal groups.

A string of incidents in recent months have underscored the vulnerability of this population of loosely managed and configured devices. In March, the security consultancy Team Cymru warned that hackers had compromised some 300,000 small- and home-office broadband routers made by firms D-Link, Micronet, Tenda, and TP-Link, among others.

This is a real problem.  As desktop security has improved over the last decade (and improved it has, despite being spotty at best), the Bad Guys have looked for easier targets.  A home router is a natural target, for several reasons:

1. There is typically very little (or no) effort put into security by the manufacturer.  Security work costs money, and that raises the price in a market where profit margins are wafer thin,
2. ISPs are notorious for having terrible technical support, because good tech support costs money and a support call can easily burn through an entire month's revenue from that customer.  Support personnel who understand security raise this cost, and very possibly increase the number of calls. 
3. "If it's working don't screw with it" is everyone's preferred approach - the manufacturer, the ISP, and the subscriber.

The Bad Guys love this - it's a target rich environment that is institutionally resistant to security improvement.

So what do you do?  Probably the only thing that you can do is to assume that the Internet router is already compromised.  Get your own router and put it between your home network and the router your ISP sent you.  Disable WiFi in the ISP router, and use your own.  Run an Open Source OS on the router (these projects will almost always be more responsive to security issues than the manufacturers).

Oh, and read this post from way back.

Baby burned by cops gets worse

The baby burned by a flash bang grenade in a 2:00 AM no knock raid raid by the Habersham County Sherrif's department is getting worse, and surgery has been postponed:

“We believe they were criminally negligent because of the children,” Mawuli Mel Davis said.“This isn’t police work. This is cowboys.”

Davis and others held a midday vigil for the child, Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, outside Grady Memorial Hospital Monday. Worsening health postponed surgery to repair the deep chest wound caused when a flash-bang grenade landed on thew child’s pillow in the play-pen where he was sleeping. He also suffered severe burns on his head and face.

Meanwhile, the Governor's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have gotten involved:

Gov. Nathan Deal said Monday he’s awaiting an investigation of the botched drug raid in Habersham County that left a child on life support to determine if any executive action or state legislation is needed.

“Any time you have bad facts like this one, it does give you cause for concern,” Deal said. “It’s one of those things that require a thorough investigation … to know what if anything we can learn from it.”

Habersham County District Attorney Brian Rickman said he is investigating whether any officers violated the law when they used a controversial “no-knock warrant” for a raid on on Cordelia house Wednesday.

A criminal finding would require officers to have acted recklessly or illegally but he said he expected the raid will prompt an investigation into no-knock warrants and tactics, Rickman said.

Translation: everyone in the area is fixin' to throw the Habersham County Sheriff under the bus.  Can't blame them, really; the baby has a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Meanwhile, the District Attorney categorically denied the Sheriff's earlier statement that the DA had said nothing untoward had happened:

I had a very interesting conversation with Mountain Circuit District Attorney Brian Rickman on today’s show, starting with his take on this statement from Sheriff Joey Terrell:

Terrell said both the district attorney and Georgia Bureau of Investigation have said there was no wrongdoing on the SRT’s part.

“I’ve talked to the D.A., I’ve talked to the GBI,” Terrell said. “I’ve given them the whole information and they say there’s nothing else we can do. There’s nothing to investigate, there’s nothing to look at. Given the information given, GBI’s SWAT team would have done the exact same thing – they’d have used the exact same scenario to enter the house.”

Uh…no. DA Rickman told me on the air today he never said anything like that to the sheriff. According to Rickman, he had a brief conversation with Terrell, had been given virtually none of the facts and was awaiting all the details before making any judgments. And he unequivocally denied ever giving the Habersham County cops a clean bill of health.

That last link is from talk radio host Michael Graham's blog, now in Atlanta* on News Radio 106.7 FM from 8:30 to Noon.  I listened to him in Boston, and he's very smart and very funny.  I'll tune in when I can, and program 106.7 into my car radio.  Graham asks some questions that need answers:

Say what you want about Barney Fife, but he never got anyone killed.

So what agency in Georgia is going to answer the REAL questions?

1. Why a “no-knock” warrant on a low-rent meth dealer well-known to the cops?
2. Why bust in at 2AM? What’s wrong with 2pm?
3. Why throw incendiary devices into a home when the perp isn’t even there? Did the cops have ANY intelligence before acting?
4. Why throw a flashbang into a bedroom? Into a crib? Did the cops not know a family was in the house? Did the cops have any ACCURATE intelligence before acting?
5. Why was the “no-knock” warrant issued in the first place? What did the cops tell the judge? Or is the judge a “Let’s Roll!” type, too?

Once again, the goal isn’t to turn these cops into criminals. It’s to hold them accountable for their actions, policies and consequences.  Nobody needs to be prosecuted, but someone definitely needs to be fired.

The answer to all those questions is the same: because it's fun to dress up like Navy SEALs and form a stick.  Or maybe the Sheriff's department just read blogs.  But I disagree that nobody should go to jail.  Prison is designed not only as a punishment, but to set an example that will deter other fascist scum.

In this country we find it useful from time to time to hang an Admiral to encourage the others.

* Hat tip to Bob for pointing this out to me.

This is why you don't give the government more power

Because you end up with a bunch of dumb-ass laws enforced by, well, by Melba.



All the Cool Kids watch Graham Norton, because he does stuff like this.

Facebook listens to you

OK, then:

A new opt-in audio recognition program listens to what mobile users are hearing — via TV, radio, etc. — and suggests a status update when it recognizes the sound.

...

Facebook could use the data to recognize a TV show, for example, in order to deliver related ads on the social platform. On the flipside, Facebook could offer that data to TV partners that want to deliver targeted ads in real time based on when users on Facebook are watching.

What could possibly go wrong?  Even a marketing rag considers the downside:

Still, there's also the possibility that the idea that Facebook is listening in could creep out a significant number of users.

Gee, ya think?  I'm not even a user (can't remember the last time I logged in to Facebook) and I'm totally creeped out:

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

But fear not, Citizen.  Facebook doesn't share data with the NSA.  Oh, wait:

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

...

In the document, the NSA hails the Prism program as "one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA".

It boasts of what it calls "strong growth" in its use of the Prism program to obtain communications. The document highlights the number of obtained communications increased in 2012 by 248% for Skype – leading the notes to remark there was "exponential growth in Skype reporting; looks like the word is getting out about our capability against Skype". There was also a 131% increase in requests for Facebook data, and 63% for Google.

Wonder if they'd want to know if you listened in to "right wing hate" talk radio, or maybe "domestic terrorist" Squirrel Report?  I don't.

But it's awesome how it's free, isn't it?

You know, I'm reminded why I can't remember the last time I logged into Facebook.

It's a civil right

Disabled Americans for Firearms Rights.

The only word that describes those who would disarm someone in a wheelchair is, well, evil.  I'm afraid that I'm terribly unimpressed with the Left's conceit that they are nicer and more moral than others - especially us.  Au contraire.

Seven guns in one

An advert from when I was 6 or 7.



The past is another country, foreign in its strangeness.  This is from the same era:



This is what we talked about at school.  Try that these days ...

I hadn't realized that the NSA was interstellar

They're monitoring the galaxy:

To keep us safe from Galactic terrorists, no doubt.

Mel Tormé - Don't Get Around Much Anymore

With cheerleading support from Judy Garland.  Dang, he was funny.  Don't make 'em like this anymore.

Well May sure stank

Didn't even get 100 posts - a new record low for me (you know how chatty I am).  Quite a difference from May 2010 which is probably the best month I ever had, at least as far as quality posts are concerned.

Bah.

Looking for sugar and water.  Or vodka.  That'd work, too.

This is cool

Man sculpts hedge into a dragon.