Ace of Spades HQ

June 24, 2013

Top Headline Comments 6-24-13
— Gabriel Malor

Happy Monday.

Leakers are saying the Chinese government made the decision to let Edward Snowden go after hoovering the contents of the four laptops he took to Hong Kong, of course. Oh, and reporters are tweeting that they're on the Aeroflot from Moscow to Cuba . . . but Snowden isn't. Durrr.

Once again, the Supreme Court is going to issue decisions at 10am. There are 11 left to go this term, including affirmative action at colleges, section 5 of the VRA, section 3 of DOMA, and Prop 8. Although, as my pal Chris Geidner points out, when you get down to it the justices could dodge the central issue in all four big cases, if they choose.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:47 AM | Comments (407)
Post contains 126 words, total size 1 kb.

June 23, 2013

Overnight Open Thread (6-23-2013)
— Maetenloch

The Amnesty Bill Just Gets Better and Better

And by better I mean shittier. Reid is calling for a cloture vote tomorrow despite the last minute addition of the 1200-page Corker-Hoeven amendment. So we can be almost certain that no human being has actually read the complete bill that they're about to vote on.

Oh and don't expect any illegal to be deported after this bill is passed. Ever.

The bill is otherwise riddled with clauses that would help illegals avoid removal, get into the country to begin with, seek "provisional" status, apply for naturalization, ask stays of judgment, and game the system in general. One of the words appearing most often in the bill is "waiver," closely followed by "appeals," "stays," "reviews" and "exceptions" : A thicket of legalisms that could and undoubtedly would be used to thwart enforcement.

It's of course unlikely that a Spanish-speaking immigrant who walks across the border from Mexico would know anything of these legal complexities, but the drafters have foreseen that problem also. The bill sets up a fund, amounting to $50 million (with more money to be added as needed), to represent illegals in every phase of the process - seeking provisional immigration status, filing appeals, blocking efforts at deportation, obtaining naturalization, and so on.

And if you disagree with all this, then ~~you're worse than Hitler~~ you're rejecting Reagan's vision. At least according to Peter Wehner:

My second observation is that many of the most ferocious critics of immigration reform claim they are the sons and daughters of the Reagan Revolution, the true of heirs of Reagan. But they are-in both policy and tone-most un-Reagan like.
As this post documents, Reagan himself not only signed legislation granting amnesty to three million illegal immigrants in exchange for relatively weak enforcement measures; he never demonized illegal immigrants. In 1977, for example, Reagan criticized "the illegal alien fuss" and said illegal aliens may "actually [be] doing work our own people won't do."
...Ronald Reagan's views on immigration, legal and illegal, were connected to a broader vision and conception of America. The fact is that this capacious, generous and hopeful outlook has been replaced by rhetoric that is, from some quarters at least, jagged edged and sends a signal to Hispanics: We don't really want you; and we don't much like you.

There are so many fallacies in Wehner's article that I'll just summarize the top 5.

Opposing illegal immigration != opposing all immigration
We've learned a lot the hard way in the 27 years since the 1986 amnesty - the 2013 Reagan would likely feel quite differently than the 1986 or 1977 Reagan
There was A LOT more illegal immigration after the 1986 amnesty.
Illegal immigration is low right now because of the economy - that won't last forever.
Legalized illegal immigrants and their legal kin aren't going to vote for the GOP - didn't happen in 1986 and won't happen now.

more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:10 PM | Comments (761)
Post contains 1646 words, total size 16 kb.

Fun Factoid: 2013 Amnesty "Penalty" Less Than The 2007 Version
— DrewM

$3,000 for a "Z-Visa" in 2007.

$500 "Fine" in 2013.

But don't call it amnesty.

This is a great example of why I'm done with the GOP.

Corker: This is the 1st time IÂ’ve had the opportunity to vote on a bill that spends $46 billion..and..returns $197 billion to the Treasury
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 23, 2013

That's Senator Bob Corker, co-author of the Corker-Hoeven faux security amendment.

The margin of difference between the Democrats and Republicans in too many areas simply isn't big enough to cower to the "but the Democrats are worse" line anymore.

Oh, one other fun factoid. Hoeven of Corker-Hoeven? Yeah, he got into the race for the Senate in 2010 when Democrat Byron Dorgan retired. Dorgan was a stanch opponent of amnesty.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:01 PM | Comments (440)
Post contains 148 words, total size 1 kb.

Top 10 list -- what to do with a dead fish
— Purple Avenger

Car heating systems have been previously suggested.

I'll add, the ceiling of particularly unpleasant persons at work.

Add your own suggestions...

I'd be particularly interested in things involving blenders and spud gun fish launchers

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 12:35 PM | Comments (246)
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.

July 06, 2013

The stupidity of sustainability: part 13,934 -- Composting [CBD]
— Open Blogger

Composting is a wonderful thing if you have your own garden, or you are a farmer, or just enjoy keeping the organic detritus from your kitchen in a bin until it rots. But making it mandatory in an urban setting, as New York City seems to be planning, is a stunning waste of resources. A cursory examination of the cost of transporting compostable materials separately from other garbage will yield an unsustainable (without taxpayer subsidies) system. The value of compost plummets the farther it is from the soil into which it will be mixed, and it isn't very valuable to begin with. The last time I checked, there were no farms in NYC, other than the tiny vanity farms of the terminally hip.

So NYC is in the process of forcing restaurants and, ultimately, private citizens to separate their organics to be composted and sold or distributed to those who are worthy of the special and valuable compost from the Big Apple. This is in addition to the already ridiculous and expensive programs for separating recyclables, only one of which -- aluminum -- makes financial sense.

This is stupidity on a grand scale. New York's infrastructure is decaying, it's municipal services are mediocre at best, crime is rising, traffic is awful (thanks to Bloomberg's bike paths and other assorted anti-car nonsense), and the city is going to spend nonexistent resources on a program that will benefit....who?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:57 AM | Comments (299)
Post contains 252 words, total size 2 kb.

June 23, 2013

CAC's Spaced-Out Challenge: Galaxy Guide (Part 2)
— CAC

Part One of our Milky Way Guide focused on the intriguing features of the core. This week, we begin to move gradually away from the heart of our galactic home and more towards our own back yard, but with the plethora of objects in the Sagittarius-Scorpius-Serpens region, we will spend several weeks before moving further outwards and Â“NorthÂ” along that ghostly spectre arching across the summer skies.

Photo Credit: NASA/ASU/HST
Arguably, the "Pillars of Creation" is the greatest image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Released in 1995, it focuses on a small patch of the larger Eagle Nebula in Serpens. That "small" patch features three trunk-like columns of gas and dust, the largest over six light years high, dwarfing anything our minds can comprehend in relatable size. Inside, hot young stars are turning on. It is the moment of birth on the largest scale we have yet witnessed in beautiful detail.

But what if I told you that you didn't need a billion dollar instrument to witness this wonder? What if I told you patience, an amateur-grade telescope, and a filter can bring this elusive sight right before your own eyes?

And that not just one of these star factories, but four are visible within a few degrees of each other, each of which revealing themselves in virtually any telescope from even suburban skies?

Read on. more...

Posted by: CAC at 04:00 PM | Comments (143)
Post contains 1052 words, total size 9 kb.

David Gregory Wonders Why Glenn Greenwald Shouldn't Be Charged With a Crime
— rdbrewer

On Meet the Press David Gregory had a contentious exchange with Glenn Greenwald in which he asked if Greenwald should be criminally liable for "aiding and abetting" Edward Snowden.

You are a polemicist here; you have a point of view; you are a columnist; you're a lawyer. You do not dispute that Edward Snowden has broken the law, do you? . . . To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?

It's clear Gregory is fairly un-self-aware. He attacks Greenwald, while suggesting Greenwald has a point of view, before assuming a criminal "aiding and abetting" relationship in his question. Greenwald responded:

I think it's pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies. The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence--the idea that I've "aided and abetted" him in any way. The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about that fact that the Obama administration was trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the emails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced: being a co-conspirator in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information, is a criminal.

Gregory didn't like being steamrolled, and went back to his ad hominem attack.

Well, the question of who is a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you are doing; and, of course, anybody who is watching this understands I was asking a question. That question has been asked by lawmakers as well. I'm not embracing anything.

No, the question hasn't been asked by serious people, and asking Greenwald about it on Meet the Press gives it undue weight. But that's what you do when you seek to discredit someone who is damaging the party/administration you support. He's right about one thing, though: there is a question here about who is a journalist, although I don't think it cuts in the direction Gregory thinks.

Gregory immediately started taking a beating on Twitter, and--maybe surprisingly--most of it was from the left. First, a tweet from Greenwald, followed by some of the reaction to the interview:

Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 23, 2013

If ever there was a moment when the press showed itself too close to government, it was David Gregory's attack on @ggreenwald
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) June 23, 2013

Is there a more self-satisfied, self-righteous, Obama-enabling media figure out there today than David Gregory? http://t.co/XQ1sixvyS3
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) June 23, 2013

I was jailed by Mugabe's Zimbabwe for "practicing journalism". Is David Gregory saying Obama's America should do the same to @ggreenwald?
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) June 23, 2013

David Gregory asks journalist @ggreenwald if he's a criminal for doing journalism: http://t.co/GHTDc2hUjD
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 23, 2013

We still can't quite believe what David Gregory asked Glenn Greenwald just now http://t.co/BLywF53Tj5
— HuffPost Media (@HuffPostMedia) June 23, 2013

I have never seen a "journalist" be so anti-journalism as @davidgregory interviewing @ggreenwald on Meet the Press.
— Judy Berman (@judyberman) June 23, 2013

.@DavidGregory Not sure you should be suggesting criminal charges for a journalist. http://t.co/AkOIvnVkry #irony http://t.co/nJeSwPMYf2
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) June 23, 2013

Video below the fold. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 09:47 AM | Comments (324)
Post contains 643 words, total size 8 kb.

Gun Thread (6-23-2013)
— andy

Bloomingidiot

First, as I said yesterday, John E.'s work on MAIG's website has been picked up by, basically, everybody. Here's CBS (web).

What prompted this research was the stupid MAIG rally in New Hampshire where they listed Speedbump Tsarnaev as a "gun violence" victim.

Now, the reaction to the Speedbump thing was swift and MAIG apologized for being insensitive ... or whatever ... but I think this episode is really instructive for the pro-gun side. When your opponent has to include justifiable homicides, suicides, etc. on their list of "gun violence" victims to pump up the stats, they're pretty clearly not winning.

"Knock-down" power revisited

CDR M linked this piece in Friday night's ONT, and it's a must-read.

I've shot lots of deer with high-powered rifles and handguns at point-blank range. The number of immediate incapacitation events could be counted on one hand. They usually run a pretty decent distance after they're dead (as described at the link) and if they had a gun (and fingers), they'd most likely have time to get off some return shots.

The immediate-incapacitation-in-one-shot wound is as much the stuff of Hollywood as the exploding gas tank is. You can't depend on it.

Bottom line: if, God forbid, you ever have to use a firearm in self-defense, shoot and keep on shooting. When you go to the range with your carry piece, don't practice hitting dead center of the bullseye so much as putting 5 rounds in the black quickly.

Also, this is why "high capacity" magazines are a must. All the anti-gunner "who needs 10 rounds?" crap is belied by the fact that you most likely need to put at least half of them into a single attacker.

Gun Of The Week