The Six Most Important Things You'll Learn At Racing School

Some of these tips I've stumbled onto on my own just through going faster than I ought to have been in various cars over the years but a couple were new to me. And kinda obviously good ideas once you think about them for a bit.

1. Imagine a string tied from your steering wheel to your gas pedal.

This is one of the most fundamental pieces of advice I got about driving fast, and it seems obvious once you hear it, but thinking about it while driving makes a big difference. Essentially, what this business of strings tied to gas pedals means is that you can only really go fast when your wheel is straight. If the wheel is cranked far in one direction or the other, your string will be tight on the gas pedal, and you can't push it much. When the wheel is straight, there's plenty of slack, so you can stomp that gas.

Lots of gas with your wheel cranked will usually just get you in trouble. So, you let up in the turns, and bury it in the straights. As you're driving, keep imagining that string, and you'll be surprised how much easier it is to adjust your throttle to what your car is actually doing.

But of course for driving lessons more attuned to your everyday lifestyle I will point you to PJ O'Rourke's classic educational work, "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink".

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:27 PM | Comments (535)
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I like her and I want to introduce her to mom.

Jets, Falcons, up tonight.

Oh, and! I'd love to be all "Romo and his completely predictable pick" at the end of yesterday's game, but the Dallas defense did give up 51 points too.

So there's that.

ALSO: Detroit sex toy company offers free vibrators to furloughed federal employees.

We're all in this together. Some of us more than others. (via MJ over at The Splitters)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:59 PM | Comments (184)
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So, these two college girls discovered there was a lucrative subgenre of erotica called "monster erotica," where women are, um, raped by dragons and stuff, and so they started writing that kind of book.

I did some research and found that a subgenre called “monster erotica” was starting to get popular. So I decided to write stories that contained monsters that were staples, or at least what I thought were staples, of the genre: shifters (werewolf), tentacle monsters (it was only later I found out shifters weren’t considered “monsters”). I wrote a lot of dragon-erotica stories, BBW romance, a few other things. But after a few months of writing about dragons having their way with busty maidens, I started getting burned out.

So, you turned to more literary ventures, involving less rape and fewer reptilians?

No. Quite the opposite.

I toyed with the idea of quitting and going back to work. But one day, I was walking and I thought about the movie Jurassic Park. My perverse mind immediately went to my work, and I pictured dinosaurs having their way with women. I died laughing. I was about to dismiss these thoughts as the workings of my freaky mind, but then I had an epiphany. Dinosaur erotica was something new that IÂ’d never tried before.

I sat down the next week and wrote my first dinosaur story. I showed my story to Christie and we worked together to smooth out the prose. She liked it, and since then she and I have been writing dinosaur-erotica stories, among our other fiction. And that is how we became the dynamic duo of monster porn!

Is this real?

Yes. It's all too real.

Great, great interview with Justice Scalia at NY Mag, too. He discusses religion, and his belief in the Devil, on page 4. The whole thing's interesting.

Our Genius President has a brilliant new rhetorical tactic in the shutdown fight: calling Boehner a chicken for not holding a vote on a clean CR.

Even more wonderful: George Lucas talks to JJ Abrams almost every day about the new Star Wars, offering him lots of story and script advice.

I hope this is just attempting to manage an idiot. The Star Trek people had to do the same thing with Gene Roddenberry while they were scripting Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which Roddenberry hated. He insisted, for example, that Star Trek was not a "paramilitary" show, so the Naval theme of the movie had no place in the Star Trek legend. (What?) And that Spock could not die. (Roddenberry even attempted to sabotage that element by leaking it.)

Roddenberry insisted on the one Dumb Plotline he had been pitching for years: that the Enterprise go back in time to save JFK from the assassination in Dallas 1963. Oh yeah, that would be a great (and not at all weird and uncomfortable) movie.

All this dirt is revealed in Shatner's very readable "Star Trek Movie Memories."

Jay Carney is willing to tell you about the number of people who visited the 404Care website but insists that he must observe Official Longstanding Protocol I Just Made Up that numbers about actual enrollees can only be reported on a month-to-month basis.

And now, some strange animal duos. I saw a bit of a show called Unlikely Animal Friends last night. I saw the end bit, in which a panther named Paul was best friends with a rabbit named Lily. And a lynx was best friends with a deer.

This isn't that show, but it's got some similar stories. The first one is just preview best-of for those who don't want to spend a full hour watching Animal Best Fweindsies videos.

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Posted by: Ace at 04:19 PM | Comments (257)
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Seriously good.

Now, this is almost certainly an attempt at viral advertising for the reboot of Carrie. (Seriously? Was their a great clamoring for that?)

In fact the uploader is called "CarrieNYC," and I don't think that's a Sex & the City reference.

And yet... it's awesome. I think the reactions are real. I know that would be my own reaction.

Update: Well, I finally watched it all the way through. I guess the 20 second advertisement for Carrie at the end of the clip is a minor clue that this is in fact a viral ad for Carrie.

And yet... it remains Awesome.

Thanks to Chad. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:16 PM | Comments (199)
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Via WeaselZippers.

DHHS claims there are legends of myths of people who have been able to sign up successfully. And yet no one seems to be able to locate such persons.

Three and a half years.

The Party of Government and Bureaucracy also fails at Government and Bureaucracy.

Noah C. Rothman wonders if the disastrous roll-out of ObamaCare will wind up saving the GOP from backlash for the shutdown.

Republicans have done a rather spectacular job of mismanaging the communications effort over this shutdown. The GOP appeared to hope that by refusing to prosecute the conflict they started, it would simply resolve itself. Indeed, reports indicate that the GOP in Congress has spent more time attempting to position their particular faction as bearing the least responsibility for the shutdown than seeking an advantageous position in negotiations with Congressional Democrats and the president.

But events might just be conspiring to redeem the GOP in the eyes of voters. This shutdown will be inextricably linked to the roll-out of the ACA. And, if ObamcareÂ’s public debut does not improve, voters may look back on the shutdown as being partially justified.

Which might be while Peter King, the laughable leader of the Clean CR Caucus, now says he actually won't support Nancy Pelosi in her attempt to file a discharge petition to end the shutdown.

Oh My God: I see commenters talking about "waiting rooms." I don't know what they mean, and they're all so cryptic. So I look it up.

Oh dear Lord, even the website is going to have long lines for waiting.

This is a cosmic joke. This is a cosmic joke.

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Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (308)
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I don't want to reveal things that were said in emails but I think the cobloggers were pretty unanimous in giggling about this.

I cannot stress to you enough how much you must Read The Whole Thing. But I'll do my best to excerpt it. But realize I'm leaving a lot of delicious meat on the bones.

Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.

But now their premiums are going way up -- by $1800 per year for an individual policy for Vinson, and by almost $10,000 per year for a family policy for Waschura.

"Welcome to the club," said Robert Laszewksi, a prominent health care consultant...

It's those who were already buying their own insurance on the open market who are being hit the worst -- or at least hit the first. Wait until millions of people are dropped off employer-paid coverage and left to the exchanges.

Which will happen.

In California, 1.9 million people buy plans on the open market, according to officials with Covered California, the state's new health insurance exchange. And many of them are steaming mad.

"There's going to be a number of people surprised" by their bills, said Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of ValuePenguin, a consumer finance website. "The upper-middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill, and that's true across the country."

A shill from Covered California pops in to claim that it's always been said that there would be both winners and losers under ObamaCare.

Um, no. Nancy Pelosi guaranteed that everyone's rate would go down. Obama promised a $2500 per year reduction in premiums. He campaigned on it.

While sick people (those who bought insurance when already sick, and thus pay elevated premiums) are paying less, people who bought insurance during periods of healthiness are now being shellacked.

But people with no pre-existing conditions like Vinson, a 60-year-old retired teacher, and Waschura, a 52-year-old self-employed engineer, are making up the difference.

"I was laughing at Boehner -- until the mail came today," Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.

"I really don't like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family's pocket each year, that's otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy."

Well! Look who sounds like a Republican all of a sudden, speaking of "my family's pocket" and "our local economy."

[W]hile both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn't realize they would rise so much.

"Of course, I want people to have health care," Vinson said. "I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally."

Oh My God. Yes, you thought yourself very virtuous, self-righteously declaring "Everyone should have health insurance!"

But you never expected to have to sacrifice anything except for mouthing that ego-pleasing slogan.

And you always put yourself morally above those who you thought would have to pay for all this -- even though those people were the only ones who would be doing any sacrificing at all, in your mind.

And now you find out that You have to pay for your folly -- and suddenly you're not quite so self-righteous, are you?

More on this habit of Thoughtless Sloganeenering Leftists -- people who want to preen as if they're Doing Something for the poor so long as they're not actually required to Do Anything for the poor -- at Legal Insurrection, from Neo-Neocon.

Schadenboners... will erupt in my pants when media companies -- already unprofitable and losing money -- dump all of their employees onto the exchanges.

Of all the companies in America, media companies are among those least able to suddenly cough up thousands more per employee for health insurance.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (418)
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They're going to be doing the speed limit, 55, which is its own sort of joke, but if that's what The State says the legal limit is, well. You can't arrest someone for doing 55 then can you?

Organizers of the three-day ride want to call attention to a litany of trucker frustrations and express their disapproval of national political leaders.

Earl Conlon, a Georgia trucker who is handling logistics for the protest, told U.S. News tractor-trailer drivers will circle the beltway "three lanes deep" as he rides with other participants to Congress to seek the arrest of congressmen for allegedly disregarding the Constitution.

[EARLIER: Truckers Say Their D.C. Shutdown Is Full-Speed Ahead]

The truckers circling I-495 will keep the left lane open for emergency vehicles, Conlon said, but "everybody that doesn't have a supporter sticker on their window, good luck: Nobody in, nobody out." The trucks will be going the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit.

D.C. commuters who wish to be allowed past the convoy must have "T2SDA" – an acronym for the event's original name, "Truckers to Shut Down America" – written on their vehicle, he said.

"It's going to be real fun for anyone who is not a supporter," Conlon said, "[and] if cops decide to give us a hard time, we're going to lock the brakes up, we're going to stop right there, we're going to be a three lane roadblock."

Zeeda Andrews, a former country music singer helping promote the protest, said last week participants would present demands to congressmen – including the impeachment of President Barack Obama – and give the congressmen an opportunity to agree to the demands in exchange for canceling the ride.

They seem chiefly animated by what they claim is Obama's "unconstitutional" arming of rebels in Syria, which is like one of the few things he's done that isn't unconstitutional, but forget it, they're rolling. I support their general F.U. attitude.

This will be an interesting thing: The left does things like this all the time and they claim a legal right to do so. The judges who sentence them to time served seem to agree.

And what will The State's attitude be when people who are not leftwing assert the leftwing privilege of disruption?

We'll see.

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Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (327)
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Just a fun little thing.

I'm going to blow out the margins slightly below the fold so you can really get a sense of the over-the-toppedness of it all.

Update! A video tour of the new Breaking News Battle Bridge can be viewed here.

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Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (426)
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Right.

Susana Flores, a spokesperson for the rally, confirmed for the Washington Examiner that the Park Service will allow the event to take place under the group's rights granted by the First Amendment.

Oh really? I wonder if this may be because Democrats see political advantage in the rally.

About 30 members of Congress are expected to attend the rally, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

How crazy I was to suspect that. Oh well, at least it's not as if Government Workers are deciding whether or not the public can enjoy spaces the public owns according to whether or not Government Workers favor the group seeking access.

The event is hosted by several immigration activist groups, together with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO.

Oh. Ohhhh.

Thanks to Krakatoa.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (277)
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@rdbrewer4 had this in the sidebar, noting that the the J-school students all get their information from liberal media outlets. That's not too much of a surprise (they intend to join that particular Guild, so it's natural they'd be Guild-oriented), but they go on to get very excited talking about their non-news news habits -- one guy can barely contain himself in declaring that "Jon Stewart is on fire!!!"

But that's not what I want to underline. What I want to underline is this new crop of Loud and Proud Leftists declaring that they believe it's the media's right and responsibility to embargo stories about conservatives, and/or "call them out" and/or "set the agenda."

From Newsbusters.

The whole thing is worth watching, but you can skip to 2:50 to see them start to rev themselves up about the prospect of calling out conservatives for their "blatant" falsehoods.

"I wouldn't let Them proseltyze," one guy says, referring to Ted Cruz, and then says he wouldn't even cover Ted Cruz.

The next guy totally disagrees with that -- he says you have to cover Ted Cruz, to call him out for his lies.

The next chick just declares that it's the media's job to "set the agenda."

Not a one of them appears to rock more than a 103 IQ. There's not a thoughtful, surprising, or smart answer on a single question.

But these are the people who feel they need to "set the agenda" for you, because you do not have the intellectual means to do so yourselves, and they do.

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Posted by: Ace at 10:35 AM | Comments (304)
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