2012 Elections

Right Wing News has a survey of conservative bloggers up on the topic of presidential candidates. Somehow I didn't get included in the survey, which explains why Attilla the Hun didn't get any votes.

Interesting to note, of the top ten vote getters, we have 7 governors, 1 representative, 1 businessman, and 1 career diplomat.

I find this encouraging in that the field is heavily weighted in favor of people with actual executive experience. Of course what 63 bloggers want means little enough, even counting their readers as supporters to some degree. If I were a complete cynic, I'd tell you that Mitt Romney will be the party nominee, and the game is over based on the Republican tactic of nominating the guy who finished second behind the fellow they nominated the last time. Depressing, but over the last 50 years or so, a reliable predictor.

Mad Science

At its best. This fellow deserves a DMSC Peabody Award for extremely clever thinking for designing a clock that catches flies and other insects, and converts the bodies to the energy required to run the clock.

Thinking bigger, at one time I had the conversion factors that allowed you to figure out how many hippies it took to produce the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil. One of my hippie (ex) friends took this personally, and accused me of being a socialist*, this being the worst insult he could come up with.

The thought processes of the left surpasseth all comprehension.

*The German National Socialist Workers Party, specifically.

Castle Doctrine

In the isles where Great Britain used to be:

Residents in Surrey and Kent villages have been ordered by police to remove wire mesh from their windows as burglars could be injured.

The doctrine here is that dead men file no lawsuits. If I had to install hardware cloth over my windows to keep the local lowlifes out, and the police informed me that one of the choirboys might sue me if he was injured trying to break through my defenses, I think I'd amp up the defenses a bit.

In England, standard wall current is 220V, and hardware cloth is conductive. I had often thought that a decent living might be made for an enterprising fellow with a discreet cleanup service too.

H/T to Days Of Our Trailers for the lead.

Contagion Spreads

Iran in flames.

Rioting wide spread.

Obama on golf course.

Clapper assures Iranian administration "peaceful and generally secular".

Good luck to the Iranian people. You are, unfortunately, on your own.

What Do Women Want?

Forget it. There are things that man was not meant to know, and that's right up there at the top of the list.

Way back when wearing animal skins was just becoming fashionable, men quickly learned that the best response to the question "Does this bear skin make my butt look fat?" was to quickly stuff a chunk of mastodon meat into your mouth and smile while mumbling unintelligibly. This would allow his woman to assume he had said whatever she wanted to hear, and not begin beating him with his own club.

Today, some women have discovered a supplement to chicken feed.

Originally they were used by farmers to bulk up chickens - but it was discovered that when taken by women they enhance the size of thighs, hips and bottom.

Now scores of online sites are also offering "herbal" versions of the tablets with names like Star Curves, Big Beautiful Butt Formula, and Brand New Booty pills.

Normally reducing the thighs, hips, and bottoms is a multi-billion dollar business, at least in the West, but who knew there were parts of England where malnutrition was so endemic that this sort of thing might become popular. In places like this, the answer to the question "Do these pills make my butt look big?" might well be "Yes", but given the vagueries of the fair sex, I still recommend the mastodon meat gambit.

Unemployment at 10.3%

Gallup is out with another report on the unemployment rate. Unlike the government, they are not trying to make themselves look good in the face of bad news, so the numbers are not massaged to give a different result. What's interesting to note is how steady the rate has been for the last year, at a pretty constant level right around 10%.

Underemployment is running at 19.7% and has been holding pretty steady for the last year as well, which means there are a lot of part timers and people working below their training out there. The underlying problem with this is that in a lot of cases, if you don't keep your skills up-to-date, after a year, you become noticeably less employable in your preferred position.

I know in my line of work, employers always want 5 years experience using the current year version of the software.

CPAC report

I'm not there, so all this is second hand. Sarah Palin isn't there either, and so far this is sort of looking like a smart move.

So far, Don Trump, erstwhile presidential candidate, has addressed the multitudes to the effect that Ron Paul, as a potential presidential candidate is unelectable. Big Deal. It's not like Mr. Trump is particularly electable.

Think about the characteristics you'd like to see in a President. For example, executive experience. Yes, Trump has that, but being a near absolute dictator in an industrial setting is not the same as being a successful big-city mayor or state governor. This is not to say that Bill Gates might not be a passable president, but somehow I just have a hard time seeing it.

I Get Results

Following my complaint that the Republican party isn't really serious about controlling spending, the party has decided to up the amount to be cut from this years budget from some $32B to a whole #100B.

This sounds great until you look at the situation and conclude that if the government is planning to spent some $1,500B it doesn't have, over and above what it actually does have, $100B still doesn't amount to much. Still, for someone whose place on the internet food chain is probably somewhere near pond scum, it's a good start.

Keep those cards and letters and e-mails flowing to your congressanimals, and remind them that as long as there's ethanol in your gas tank, Daniel Schorr is still employed, or the BATFE still exists, they aren't done.

Caption Contest

Wizbang had a caption contest featuring this picture of traffic on Chicagos Lake Shore Drive:
Being the quick-witted fellow I am, and now that the contest is over it occurs to me that :
"The blizzard highlighted the benefits of mass transit, the passengers having a much higher survival rate due to a better food supply."

See Something, Say Something

Hello, DHS? I'd like to report terrorist threats against a political speech.
-------------------
Yes, the organizers felt they had to cancel the speech, the threat level was so high.
-----------------------
Yes, the speaker? Why Sarah Palin... Hello? Hello?

Gun Stuff

Ever the optimists, the house Republicans have introduced a constitutional carry bill. There's a petition to sign to show support which will be submitted when the bill gets assigned to a committee.

Since the Senate is still under the control of the Dems, and the Governor is a member of Bloombergs anti-gun club, this has little or no chance of passing.

The way political maneuvering works, this could well pass the house, forcing the Dems there to go on record with a position which will be used against them in '12. In the Senate, while the Dems don't like guns, they also don't want to be seen opposing them, so the bill will be assigned to the Veterans Affairs committee where it will never see the light of day, and the Dems will be able to avoid actually having to vote on it.

Still, you gotta keep the heat on.

Advances in Medicine

Dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

No-brainer here. Anyone at Livermore can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria using lots of radiation or laser light to "mess with their genes".

The trick is to not mess with the genes of the host.

Things You Don't Hear...

...surfing around the web.

Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"

Found in an obscure corner of the Peoples Cube.

The National Budget

Here's where the rummer meets the road, or as we say in flyover country, where the tea meets the cup. The initial budget proposal from John Boehner proposes $100B in budget cuts. This proposal has to get through at least 2 committees before it gets to the house floor, and at least one of them wants to "prorate" this to $32B on account of 1/4 of the year having already passed.

Last I looked, 3/4 of $100B was $75B, so there must be some FICA withholding or something included in this calculation.

Frankly, I'm disappointed. In addition to the monies it actually has, the government is proposing to spend some $1,500B it hasn't got, and put this on our tabs. That would be an extra $5000 from every person in the country. But wait, everybody doesn't pay taxes. In fact, only the employed pay taxes, and the current employment figures suggest that only 64.2% of the population is actually employed. And that number is dropping.

At this point, I conclude the Republicans aren't really serious about the spending, being willing to play carefully around the edges, but avoid making any serious cuts that might offend their friends, the Democrats. Until I see cuts in the $750B range, I'm going to be losing a lot of faith in the party.

Unemployment

As usual, it's worse than you're being told.