Get your hate on.

You know what this show needs? A couple of blade-slinging zombie killers. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 04:30 PM | Comments (199)
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There was no lengthy battle. The entire operation took only 90 seconds (before Bin Laden died) and 12 bullets. From the sidebar link to The Telegraph:

The men who killed the al-Qaeda chief have decided to speak out because they are tired of their "shabby treatment" by politicians who claim they were on a "kill mission".

They insisted there was no lengthy gun-fight in the compound and claimed they would have captured Bin Laden if he had surrendered, The Sunday Times in the UK reports (behind a paywall).

. . .

He said the men were angry with President Barack Obama for announcing Bin LadenÂ’s death on TV just hours after they completed the mission on May 1.

"There isn't a politician in the world who could resist trying to take credit for getting Bin Laden but it devalued the 'intel' and gave time for every other Al-Qaeda leader to scurry to another bolthole," he said.

"The men who did this and their valorous act deserve better. It's a pretty shabby way to treat these guys."

I made a similar point about the intel last May in the sidebar:

Bin Laden Raid Yields Intel on Ayman al-Zawahiri
Wouldn't it have been nice if the intelligence community had been given a week to work with this "mother lode" of information before Obama started taking bows? He just. couldn't. wait. Of course, the cockroaches scattered immediately. Amateur hour.

And Jonah Goldberg said the same thing in the LA Times after that:

For a week people have been asking, "Why won't the president release Osama bin Laden's photo?" That's the wrong question. We should be asking, "Why was Barack Obama in such a hurry to tell us Bin Laden was dead?"

. . .

I'm no expert on such matters — though I've talked to several about this — but even a casual World War II buff can understand that the shelf life of actionable intelligence would be extended if we hadn't told the whole world, and Al Qaeda in particular, that we had it.

It's a bit like racing to the microphones to announce you've stolen the other team's playbook even before you've had a chance to use the information in the big game.

. . .

Couldn't they have at least tried to give the CIA a week, a day, even a few more hours to look at it all before letting Ayman Zawahiri and the rest of Al Qaeda know about it? Why give him the slightest head start to go even further underground?

Thanks to ArthurK. More at Fox News.

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Posted by: rdbrewer at 02:24 PM | Comments (229)
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This is the perfect YouTube video. Look at all the elements. It has everything.

"Hold my beer, gramma. I feel some moves coming on."

more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 10:08 AM | Comments (236)
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Remember your picks too. Do what I do, just pick em all in 5 minutes. Cause if you don't think too good, don't think too long.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:55 AM | Comments (264)
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The US Government forced gun dealers, against their will, to sell guns to criminals, who then used them to kill 200 people.

Obviously, then, we need new laws, rather than, say, a new US Government.

Posted by: Ace at 08:18 AM | Comments (135)
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PSA: Set your clocks back an hour, kids -- we're off Daylight Savings Time.

On rockmom's recommendation, I am reading All The Devils Are Here on my Kindle. It's an account of all the government regulations, banking mistakes, and unanticipated securities side-effects that led to the 2008 financial crash. So far it's nothing I didn't already know, but it is a valuable weapon against people who say that the government had nothing to do with the meltdown -- Fannie and Freddie were right at the epicenter of the mess. It's well worth a read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a capsule history of the years leading up to the crash. (It's also a pretty good primer on how the staid boring old mortgage became a weapon of mass destruction.)

I'm also reading Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. There's a lot of teeth-gnashing in the public right now about how automation rather than foreign competition is killing may jobs (in both low-skill and high-skill professions). I'm not sure I buy it completely, but the increasing computerization and automation of many jobs does present a challenge for the modern economy. If our GDP can grow at, say, a 5% clip a year while at the same time employing fewer people...what do we do with the millions of unemployed people? It's a huge cultural, political, and sociological problem...and since it's likely to be a structural (and accelerating) process, it may be years or even decades before we find a way to deal with it. It also places even further pressures on our unsustainable welfare-state, and will accelerate the insolvency of programs like SSDI, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. (If people are unemployed, the tax contributed by the employee and employer never gets paid.) I've known people who went their whole lives without ever holding a paying job, and I suspect that story will become more common in the years to come.

On the e-reader front, Amazon is now a library as well as a bookstore: you can borrow books directly from Amazon if you are a Prime member and have a Kindle . (And only if you have a Kindle hardware reader; this won't work with just Kindle software on an iPad or PC.) It's meant as a perq for existing customers rather than a feature to draw casual readers in, but still...it's cool. My $80 per year Prime membership just keeps paying dividends. It was worth it for the free shipping alone; all the extra bennies make it an absolute steal.

Barnes and Noble isn't standing still: they're updating their color Nook tablet to be more competitive with the upcoming Kindle Fire. Competition is good, and the new Nook looks like a worthy competitor. Lots of tech geeks sniff at these small color tablets because they're not technologically cutting-edge, but I don't think that's all that big a deal. If you think of these devices as mere "windows" onto a vendor's digital marketplace, they do fine. They're meant to be cheap ways to consume digital content, not to be general-purpose computing devices as the iPad is.

Posted by: Monty at 05:09 AM | Comments (72)
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"I am prepared to meet my maker; whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter." -- Winston Churchill

Posted by: Monty at 04:48 AM | Comments (80)
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Update: The USGS has revised the number to 5.6.

Oklahoma. The USGS says it was a 5.2. Here's a map. I'm about fifty miles directly west of there, and it was very jerky--much jerkier than my first quake last February. Just guessing here, but the dominant frequency was something like 2hz to 3hz. My first quake was a 4.7, also about fifty miles away, southeast. It had a frequency more like a jackhammer, 5hz to 6hz, seems like.

So, I'm wondering. Any earthquake veterans out there? Do they normally vary that much (subjectively)? Is a 5.2 that much worse than a 4.7? Also, any geologists? What's up with all the earthquakes around here lately? Has there been a surge in this region? Any chance there will be a significantly bigger one?

And when does the volcano break through?

More here, here, here, and here.

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Posted by: rdbrewer at 08:42 PM | Comments (233)
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Don't forget morons to set your clocks back an hour tonight before you go to bed as it is Daylight Savings Time at 2am. So enjoy your extra hour to sleep in. Somehow, my kids haven't figured out that one yet and still get up early.

Now to get the ONT rollin'. Here are 40 Of The Most Bad-Ass, Masculine, Manly, Alpha Male Quotes Of All-Time. I think it's safe to say SCOAMF will never make this list.

Come on, you sons of b*tches! Do you want to live forever? — GySgt. Daniel J. ‘Dan’ Daly, as he led the 5th Marines’ attack into Belleau Wood, 6 June 1918

I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. — Genghis Khan

If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting. — Curtis LeMay

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake! — George Patton

Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (672)
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Two men enter...and two men will leave. It's a debate not a death match.

90 minutes equally divided into three subjects....Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. No moderator.

If like me you're living the dream, you can watch it on CSPAN or their video stream.

It's no secret I haven't been impressed with Cain but I give him credit for going at with Newt. This format is Gingrich's bread and butter.He's been dealing with this kind of thing for over 25 years.

Don't expect any personal fireworks, (nothing about Cain's recent week) it'll be nice and friendly but there should be some clear distinctions.

One other thing...last night in Iowa Newt said if he's the nominee he'll challenge Obama to a series of similar debates. And if Obama says no? Newt will follow him around the country calling him out. That alone is almost worth supporting Newt.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:58 PM | Comments (528)
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