Gitmo Fun

I like the Rolling Stones. Here's a tribute to them featuring Gitmo and Barny the dinosaur.

I liked it.

Secret Master Of The Universe

Headlines shamelessly swiped from Drudge today:

SHOW THEM THE MONEY: Dealers Still Waiting For 'Clunker' Cash...

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Obama aides see need for more troops in Afghanistan...

Senate Dem Push Back Climate Bill's Schedule Amid Health-Care Debate...

White House blasts Cheney in interrogation feud...

RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Approval New Low at 46%...

Blame Bush for woes...

Evidently when Bush left the white house, he took the Sooper Sekrit All-Controling remote control with him without telling Barry, and is now down in Texas pushing the buttons amid gales of maniacal laughter from Cheney and Rove.

Fiddling With The Tax Forms

I met with my federal Representative today, and listened to discussions on several topics, mostly health care. I also dropped a suggestion that should be easy to impliment, and make him fairly popular as well.

On every federal 1040, there is a line where you are encouraged to donate to a generic campaign fund for candidates for federal office. As long as the real estate is available on the form, why not let us make the same donation to the agency of our choice? A simple 3-digit code, and zap! $5 out of your taxes is earmarked for NASA, the Marine Corps, the Border Patrol, ACORN, ABC news, or whatever other agency of the Federal Government you feel is most worthy.

The marketing info alone would be worth a small fortune, letting congress-critters know what to stand for, party platform permitting, or against. Somehow I'm not seeing the IRS, for example, getting a lot of love in this.

So what's your favorite agency? Me? I favor NASA, although DARPA is a very close second.

Lucky Kid

A daddy in W. Va. made his kid really happy for his birthday:

Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he has spoken to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as well as the National Security Agency. Though Daugherty said he is still stunned that he had to get clearance from the NSA for the archaic artillery piece, it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin or is breach loaded. He said the government does not consider the weapon a threat.

The approach of a neophyte who knows nothing about the regulations is to assume the worst and proceed from there. This is not without its virtues, as government agencies are notorious for not speaking to one another, or the peasants either, if it can be avoided. In case you didn't know, the federal government considers black powder firearms to be curios, and beneath their purview. Most states, excepting New York, that I know of, go along with this.

I have more than one BP cannon myself, and have nearly finished a paper of how to tell a black powder cannon from a pipe bomb, the latter being illegal in most states. As cannon aficionados will tell you, having one end open does not guarantee that your projectile will fly merrily down range. You need to do a bit of math first.

Rally and Counter-Rally

I can't call these things demonstrations, I've seen real demonstrations back in the 60's ant this isn't it. The Obamanauts held a pep-rally for nationalized health care, and various citizen groups showed up to provide a counter-weight.

The organizational effort by the left is impressive. They schedule a rally to be held on a college campus downtown, most notable to me for its lack of parking within a mile or so of the site. Word of this quickly got out to a number of groups including the Tea Party, and a number of bloggers, and sentiment for a counter-rally quickly built.

At the last minute, around noon on Friday, a venue change was announced, moving the event from downtown to a local high school, but not out front, facing the main street, but around back, in the parking lot, which was closed off to all but VIPs. The venue was filled with a couple hundred folks with pre-printed signs and t-shirts in a peanut gallery who applauded on command. A sound system with music, and a TV truck were also conveniently located.

The rest of us were not allowed within half a block of the speaker, but occupied the sidewalk where some people were trying to enter the small, but filled lot. The traffic on the street generally approved of us, and pictures were taken, but none by me. We had about 75 on hand, but were handicapped by a lack of available charter buses.

The OFA charter buss arrived quite late, which I attribute to no one telling the driver about the venue change either. All in all, pretty low-key.

Update 1: Pics here.

Update 2: More and better pics, with a detailed writeup here. My readers will be able to identify my sign.

Kennedycare

So the Dems want to rename the health control bill for Teddy K. Sounds good to me, just put it and the late Senator in an Oldsmobile (made by Government Motors) and bury both at sea.

3 clunkers, none of my cash.

Fiddley detail; GM quit making Oldsmobiles before the government takeover.

Ted Kennedy

Teddy has a lot of history, enough of it well enough publicized to keep him out of the White House, but not enough to evict him from the Senate. He was the kind of man who made me wonder why moral turpitude was such a selling point in Massachusetts.

So here's the quote of the day:

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

" —Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)

I'm sure there will be plenty of them to read, some of them accurate, too.

The Future of Transportation

This is perhaps less likely to be seen anytime soon as it is an exercise in modern chic done by students at an industrial stylists school in Austria:
At the site you'll also see how well this desin will fit in to the relatively uncrowded streets of Calcutta, where it easily shares the road with an elephant. In Austria, presumably, doors would be added for winter use, although I'm not sure how much I want to ride across Vienna in the winter time, even with some studly fellow in lederhosen pumping away in the back seat.

If you want to know where this came from, here's a picture I took in Viet-Nam:
Not as stylish as the carbon-fiber wonder from Austria, but what it lacks in looks, it more than makes up for in excitement. Note the brass foot rail, which doubles as the front bumper. Note the passenger, who doubles as the airbag in an accident. Better yet, ignore all that and take a ride. In the Saigon traffic, where Newtonian Law (My vehicle has more mass than your vehicle, therefore I have the right of way) is supreme, this thing was better than any e-ticket ride Disney has to offer.

I would love to lay my hands on one of these.

Statics, Polls, and Art

And while I'm at it, I should probably include lies, and damn lies too. Polling data can, of course, be jiggered to produce whatever result the customer is asking for, especially if the result is to be published as gospel for the customers benefit. The results on this one have a certain air of truth to them though:
This sort of thing could well be the inspiration for this:

Which is nicely animated on the original site. What it really needs, though, is the red lines running down to form a puddle of blood, as the administration hemorrhages approval.

The media like to think they can influence a persons approval ratings as much as 15% either direction, and Lord knows which way they've been pushing their boss. Of course the collective management are, at bottom, a bunch of capitalists with an interest in keeping their jobs, and there's a limit to how far down they're willing to go on this ship.

Crime Problem

Solution: Put everybody under house arrest.

OK the solution isn't quite that draconian, but a universal curfew is something usually reserved for war zones and the aftermath of major natural disasters.

(AP) — PATERSON, N.J. - Curfews might not be just for kids anymore in one city in northern New Jersey.

Officials in Paterson are considering one for people of all ages in a bid to curb violence after a spate of deadly shootings.

Makes you want to spend your next vacation in the garden state, doesn't it? In Chicago, they threaten to call in the National Guard, which has slowed their rate by 11 percent so far this year. One wonders if the decline in the murder rate might be due to the movement of the criminal upper management from Chicago to Washington.

The Future of Transportation

One of my friends found this and passed it along. If you think about it, the problem with the Segway was that it takes up a lot of space, and mixed into a pedestrian environment, can make the rider rather intimidating.
This
solves that problem by producing the most compact Segway imaginable. The builder is currently trying to get production off the ground, and doing the multi-country patent dance at the same time. This thing has a range of 30 km and a top speed of 15 km/hr. The first question I had when I saw a Segway was "What happens when the battery goes dead enough to be unable to balance that thing?" The same question comes to mind here, but the potential exists to fall in any direction at all.

Still, this thing appeals to me, which should tell you something about a really sick and twisted mind.

H/T: John. The link goes to a nice movie of the prototype being trundled about. It weighs 28 kg, so slinging it into a car trunk may not be everybody's idea of fun, but it's small enough it could probably be convinced to trundle up a small ramp into the passenger seat where it can be connected to the power outlet (does anyone light cigarettes with that any more?).

Fun Stuff

OK, here's a time waster that appeals to the demolitions man in us.

Demolition City!

Kamikazi Democrats

I have not been following the minute details of the health-care bill, since I assume the Obama brownshirts will come and beat me to shovel-readiness before I actually need any real health care.

What's interesting about the process is the use to which the administration is putting the "majority maker" democrats that got elected in otherwise Republican districts when the Republican base stayed home in a fit of pique last election. These folks make up a good number of what are being called the "blue dogs" on the theory that they were, in fact, as moderate as they said they were. Believing any democrat on anything is an iffy proposition at best, but one can safely assume that these folks want to get re-elected.

The administration, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be worried about re-election as much as getting the important parts of the agenda passed. To this end, they seem to expect their new members to vote against the wishes of their constituents, and against their own interests in getting re-elected. What this resembles is the behavior of the WWII Japanese or the modern Taliban. Recruit newbies, tell them what a difference they're going to make for the cause, then tell them they're going to do this by committing suicide. Presumably they will, at some point, promise them an eye-catching memorial.

As of today, the trend is toward a Republican-majority in the house after 2010. The big hope on the left is the knowledge that nothing that is passed ever gets repealed.

Posting

Sure I post mostly anonymously here, I have to work for a living, and there's no point in annoying people at work with my individual foibles. I annoy them plenty already with work-related ones. Still, get a load of the commenting rules over at NPR:

Sign up for the NPR Community

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– Any comments you post to the site will include your full name, so please be aware of this before contributing to the site.

There are inquiring minds that will want to know. They pay us here. We also belong to their union.

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A front and side photo will be added later.

– Visitors to NPR.org can view this profile, but it will not show up in external search engines.

A certain amount of denyability is required.

– The profile will display your comment history. Comments cannot be changed or deleted after you post them.

Everything will appear on your PERMANENT record, and can and will be used against you. What do you think you are, a Senator?

Unlike here. I don't like spam in the comments, but you may, at your own discretion, "spit on the floor and call the cat a bastard".

Worthy Cause

Everybody should have a worthy cause to promote. Tom Leher announced his at one of his concerts as being "Obscenity" (polite smattering of applause). "I'm FOR it." he continued (Huge round of applause), and proceeded to perform his promotional song "Smut!"

Worthy though it is, I've decided to tilt at a local windmill, in the form of the HOV lane designation on Sante Fe Blvd, from Littleton to I-25 in Denver. I'm against it.

Originally, Sante Fe was 4 lanes, no divider, lots of truck traffic, and many stoplights. A popular route from an industrial area to all points south, it had gotten to the point that it barely moved fast enough to provide multiple daily accidents. The local confab of municipal governments, DRGOG, noted its notoriety, and applied to get some of out tax money back from Washington to widen and improve the road. Which they did, widening the corridor to six lanes, and eliminating several connecting intersections, but at the cost of being required to designate one of the three lanes HOV at times of peak demand.

Right. When we need 3 lanes the most, we have to cur back to 2, just like before, to help subsidize the buses and the handful of carpoolers using the roadway. Well, OK, but shortly after this was imposed, the bus company branched out into trolleys, and ran their flagship line, you guessed it, along Sante Fe, and to encourage usage, essentially halted all bus service on that route.

The last time I had to use Sante Fe, it was winter, so I had to drive my pickup, and the government had assigned nobody from my neighborhood to work near my employer, so no carpooler. While parked in the #2 lane, waiting for the next light to change for the third time, I had time to count the cars, both in the HOV lane, and in the #2 and 3 lanes, reserved for the transportationally handicapped. It appears, that absent bus traffic, the HOV lane serves about 4% of the traffic during peak demand. This means that the road is reverted to the same state it was in before we got to spent some $23 million / lane mile on the improvements.

I am back commuting on Sante Fe, this time on my motorcycle, and I can report that the HOV lane, which I am permitted to use by virtue of being on a 2-wheeler, is empty enough to allow speeds (ahem) noticeably above the posted limit. This alongside a crowd of PO'd solo motorists, some of whom vent their frustrations by merging into the HOV lane.

I haven't seen them yet, but I expect to eventually. The city of Englewood has, in the past, enforced the HOV lane to the point that 4 cops standing at one of the traffic lights, can write $40 tickets as fast as writers cramp permits, which, to my estimation while parked in the #2 lane like a good boy, is about $2000/hour. This effort has been successful enough to traumatize the rest of the population into staying out of the #1 (HOV) lane, even when they would otherwise be allowed to use it. This, of course, increases the maintenance required on the other 2 lanes by about 50%, your tax bux at work.

So far the alphabet soup collection of agencies that I have contacted seem to favor eliminating the HOV designation. I am now contacting individual politicians from the bergs along the road, where I expect to find more resistance, at least initially. We'll see.