The big meeting resulted in nothing but a photo op for Obama, which was his goal.

Despite claims he would offer a counter-offer, he did no such thing, and simply demanded that Boehner pass his original offer.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (369)
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This rant is a bit unedited, but I think I still agree with it, despite it being more of a cri de couer than a precisely argued point.

His point seems to be this: The internet has created simple ways to measure penetration/popularity of an article, or a LOLcat picture: Number of pageviews, number of likes, number of video views, number of RTs. Because these standards are so ubiquitous and everpresent, we're beginning to be have as if page views equal actual quality, as if hit-whoring represented something besides hit whoring.

I think we're starting to care more about popularity and financial success than legitimate quality. All right, so that's hardly news; that's always been the case, as a general rule, for most of humanity's reign. But now the smart people are doing it: People who should know better. I'm talking about you, dear reader: You, me, all of us.

You see this everywhere, from box office results to online pageviews to Nielsen ratings to freaking Twitter followers. More people watch the NFL on television than any sport so therefore IT IS THE BEST SPORT. You have fewer Twitter followers than the person you're criticizing? YOU'RE A HATER. You don't like that album that went platinum? YOU JUST JEALOUS. BuzzFeed has put a bunch of pictures of kittens together in a way that is easily passed around by idiots? THEY HAVE FIGURED OUT THE INTERNET THEY ARE SUCH BRILLIANT PACKAGERS OF CONTENT THE FUTURE OF MEDIA. We have become a culture that, because we can quantify things in a way we've never been able to before, are acting as if those numbers are all that matter....

.Just because a bunch of morons and teenagers are watching The Voice doesn't mean that the rest of us have to give a shit.

But we do! ... Because we can see the numbers, and everyone has collectively decided that this is what we should be doing, that this is the point of all this....

We have all lowered the bar for ourselves. There was a time we didn't give a shit how popular something was, by the way; there was a time that "selling out" was considered the worst thing you could do. Now, we were all pretty stupid about that back then, too—eventually, it turns out, money does in fact come in handy—but there was at least a principle behind it. There was a recognition that you should at least try to follow your own muse. But why would anyone do that now? The pageview counter and Twitter followers and Nielsen ratings tell what is Working, and what isn't. Quality and passion, there's nothing wrong with them, necessarily ... but they're sort of beside the point.

I think he's basically right (I think). "Creating Buzz" or "setting the narrative" used to be the province of PR strategists, advertisers, and of course the idiotic liberal media. But now we can all join in.

But should we? Did anyone ever establish as his life's ambition to "create some buzz" over something? It's actually an extraordinarily trivial and shallow thing, when you consider it.

thanks to @comradearthur.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (262)
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Good Lord.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase – and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

What? They claim that chefs claimed that chefs' knives were without usefulness?

Um, I use a chefs' knife. So too do I imagine the chefs. In fact, I'm almost 80% sure of that, given that they're called chefs' knives, and I see chefs using them on TV cooking shows.

This is getting pretty scary, huh? They truly are determined to control people to the point where they can't (their theory goes) do anything bad, ever, simply because their freedoms and permitted choices are so limited.

This logic ultimately runs to this: Since no human being needs to do anything besides work and eat, we might as well mandate that people take a powerful narcotic sleeping pill immediately after their evening meal, so they simply slumber until the next work shift.

That way, you're pretty sure no one can really do much of anything at all in their non-working hours. And then at last we will have Paradise on Earth.

via @joethefatman1

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (400)
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Meghan McCain is, by comparison, a much more fluid and accomplished author.

His worldview is odious and evil -- but so too is his grammar.

And also, his ability to properly choose between "illusion" and "allusion."

Indeed, the actor now also self-identifies as a writer. In his 2009 paean to Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez published on the Huffington Post, Penn begins with typical humility: “The disadvantages of being a writer, who is often written about, are numerous.” And another disadvantage is that, because you are often written about, certain editors allow you to write.

Reading Penn’s journalism is not unlike consuming a Castro speech: it’s unbearably long, always rambling and tedious, and frequently incoherent. Take this latest dispatch from Penn’s Huffington Post blog, where he coughs up this furball: “Ostreicher, whose innocence was maligned by an arrest where only vague illusions to money laundering have been shown to be fabricated by corrupt officials within the Bolivian judiciary, whose motivation has proven to be extortion.”

Or how about this stew of words, which is apparently related to the shootings in Newtown, Conn.: “This can, and is, being very easily exampled with newly invigorated discussions with attention on the recognition and treatment of mental health, and certainly that is a priority. And to be responsible to that priority, we too have to recognize its applicability to the mental health of our American community at large.”

But I'm told it all reads much better in the original Retardese.

Posted by: Ace at 10:13 AM | Comments (354)
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I have this thought a lot -- deficit spending allows a lot of hiding of the true cost of Obama's mega-government. Those who'll pay for it aren't conscious of that. Either they're not of voting age yet, or -- this is the bigger category -- they are of voting age, and just don't realize that in four or five years the tab they're running up comes due, in one way or another.

So maybe we should be deficit hawks first, prioritizing that over tax-cutters. If the public votes for big government, they at least should be required to understand the cost of it all.

How can we expect people to care about the growth of government if it doesnÂ’t cost them anything?

Instead of paying for the current miasma of spending, we’ve been borrowing the money from our children and grandchildren. The national debt has grown by nearly $6 trillion in the four years since Obama took office. That generational theft cannot continue. We must not keep financing big government by passing the bills on to the next generation. Ideally, we would stop the spending binge and live within our means. But if the nation is not up to that, then we should all pitch in and pay for it — all of us.

Sorry, taxing the rich won’t solve our problems — that’s nothing but fiscal snake oil the president has been selling. He is demanding $1.3 trillion in higher taxes on the wealthy over 10 years. Imagine he got it. We are adding nearly that much to the national debt every single year. Taxing the rich would not put even a minor dent in our debt. It would pay for less than three weeks of federal spending every year. The only way to pay for the current expansion of government is to raise taxes on the middle class.

So letÂ’s do it. LetÂ’s all of us experience the true cost of big government in the form of a bigger tax bill.

He argues that it was a strategic mistake for Republicans to force Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts -- they were the only thing keeping the economy from going into another nosedive, due to his policy choices, and they're popular. Obama got the benefit of them while continuing to argue against them and blame everything on Bush.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (191)
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I have heard from numerous Media bien pensants that if one's intentions are good, and in the public interest, you get to ignore the law.

n attorney for Hobby Lobby Stores said Thursday that the arts and crafts chain plans to defy a federal mandate requiring it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill, despite risking potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day.

Hobby Lobby and religious book-seller Mardel Inc., which are owned by the same conservative Christian family, are suing to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.

The companies claim the mandate violates the religious beliefs of their owners. They say the morning-after pill is tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in a woman's womb.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (284)
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Just like in Aurora, the press heard that the shooter was wearing a vest and prepended "bulletproof" to it. I blame the demise of the three-piece suit.

[He] went into the Sandy Hook Elementary School wearing a utility vest, not a bullet proof vest, state police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said Thursday.

“It was a fishing type vest, a jacket with a lot of pockets; it was not a bullet-proof vest,” Vance said.

Here's an example from Orvis, the well-known purveyor of Semiautomatic Assault Vests:

So. Scary.

Dwayne Harrison, a Bridgeport police officer and president of the National Association of Government Employees, R1-200, International Brotherhood of Police Officers in Bridgeport, noted the utility style vest that Lanza wore is readily available, and not something that would have aroused suspicion.

Ummm. Yeah.

But that doesn't keep super-geniuses like this guy in The Atlantic from thinking that all we need is some serious monitoring of every item everyone purchases to find a pattern that will lead us to the brave new world of pre-crime interdiction of the next mass killer.

Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek. But it didn't, because there is no national database of gun owners, and no national record-keeping of firearm and ammunition purchases. Most states don't even require a license to buy or keep a gun.

That's a tragedy, because combining simple math and the power of crowds could give us the tools we need to red flag potential killers even without new restrictions on the guns anyone can buy. Privacy advocates may hate the idea, but an open national database of ammunition and gun purchases may be what America needs if we're ever going to get our mass shooting problem under control.

As Ben Domenech said in the Transom, which is where I got that link, marketing guy should learn the term "false positives". Hell, every time I go anywhere that sells ammo, I pick up a few boxes. Couple this with that dangerous accumulation of school backpacks for the kids from L.L. Bean, and data guy would have the cops camped out on my doorstep.

But, hey, what's a little invasion of privacy for such a laudable goal. And by little, I mean massive.

And all in an effort to solve a problem that appears to be a completely random event (again, from the Transom).

What does this mean? It suggests that there is no evidence of clustering beyond what you would expect from a random process. In other words, the occurrences of mass shootings from 1982-2012 are consistent with the assumption that shootings are independent events, occurring at an average rate of 2 per year.

Gee, maybe if people were also randomly allowed to be armed in the "gun free zones" where all these events seem to occur, they might have a fighting chance. Crazy talk, I know.

Posted by: andy at 05:58 AM | Comments (496)
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Thank God it's Friday. Time to enjoy the weekend. So git yer drink of choice and let's get the ONT started.

OMG, someone Turned In Two Rocket Launchers for cash earlier this week in the Los Angeles gun buyback program. Funny thing is, those are empty, used launchers that are nothing more than nice souvenirs. They did publish an update after realizing how ridiculous it was to make it sound like folks are turning in live, ready to fire rocket launchers although they still try to make it sound like they could still be dangerous if only they were loaded with projectiles. These are fire and forget weapons. Once the weapon has been fired, they're discarded. They can't be reloaded.

Oh, BTW, you can Buy One if you want to.

more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:36 PM | Comments (598)
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Happy Friday.

For the second time this month, a man was pushed onto the tracks ahead of an approaching NYC subway train. He's dead. Authorities are looking for the "mumbling woman" who pushed him.

Iowa will not be giving driver's licenses to aliens who were allowed to remain in the U.S. only through the DHS "deferred action" program that is modeled on the failed DREAM Act legislation. "State law does not allow it to issue driver's licenses or identification cards to people who are in the country illegally."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (301)
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One article
Another article
And another

CAR President appeals to France/USA to help stop rebel advance. UN staff appears to be bugging out too.

President Francois Hollande said Thursday France would not use its troops stationed in the country to interfere in the conflict.

"If we are present, it is not to protect a regime, it is to protect our nationals and our interests, and in no way to intervene in the internal affairs of a country," Hollande said. "Those days are gone."

US Dept of state issues travel warning same day they bug out.

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against all travel to the Central African Republic at this time. As a result of the deteriorating security situation, the U.S. Embassy in Bangui suspended its operations on December 28, 2012, and therefore cannot provide protection or routine consular services to U.S. citizens in the Central African Republic.

So where is this joint anyway?
Wiki entry
CIA World Factbook entry

Hard to get to, screwed up, and bordered by equally hard to get to and screwed up places. Bunch'a folks at State/DoD not getting any sleep tonight...

Its 3:00am and the phone is ringing...
...again.

UPDATE2 Central African Republic has OIL, Gold, URANIUM, and Diamonds.

UPDATE3 US ambassador and staff have fled to Kenya.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:53 PM | Comments (151)
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