Poised
adjective
1. ready, waiting, prepared, standing by, on the brink, in the wings, all set.

January 25, 2011 State of the Union Address:

"We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again."

In an interview with Bloomberg's Julianna Goldman, President Barack Obama stated, "I think America is poised to take off."

Despite slight contraction in Q4 GDP, WH/Jay Carney says "we continue to be poised for economic growth & job creation."

"We're poised to be able to finally reverse some of the forces that were hurting middle class families for so long." —President Obama

Posted by: JohnE. at 11:26 AM | Comments (312)
Post contains 173 words, total size 2 kb.

I know this seems like a blow-off post but you have to see the pictures before you render judgment. Genuinely spectacular.

And it's not a sad story, either. While dolphins have their virtues -- they like humans and have even saved them from drowning -- there's a few little secrets about dolphins that most nature documentaries don't tell you about.

They try to rape and drown people; they gang rape their females and sometimes hold them hostage for weeks; they murder baby porpoises for fun; they kill the babies of rival male dolphins, because as soon as her child dies, a female dolphin is ready to be raped and impregnated immediately.

Not only that, but dolphins may like humans a little too much -- they sometimes attempt to rape humans, too, and I'm not just making that up for a gag; it's a documented phenomenon; it's on video. (Although some people do use dolphins' predilection for rape as the jumping off point for parody.)

@adambaldwin, who is on a multiyear quest to Expose the Truth About Dolphins, celebrated this dolphin-kill by stating that "Orcas are the only admirable cetaceans."

Via @anthropocon.

Headline Joke: "And the Middle Class" is a gag I'm trying to get off the ground, explained here.

Posted by: Ace at 02:34 PM | Comments (196)
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.

LIVs, meet LIJs.

She's half-Hispanic and half-black, by the way, or as the New York Times calls it, "White Hispanblackpale."

The only minority on the all-female jury that voted to acquit George Zimmerman said today that Zimmerman “got away with murder” for killing Trayvon Martin and feels she owes an apology Martin’s parents.

“You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” said the woman who was identified only as Juror B29 during the trial. “But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence.”

She said the jury was following Florida law and the evidence, she said, did not prove murder.

JammieWF is slightly confused about how this woman can say that the law and evidence say Zimmerman is innocent, and yet, "in her heart," she still thinks he's a murderer, and that, you know, should be the real take-away here.

At some point, if we're to have this "Honest National Discussion of Race," we're going to have to ask who exactly is thinking primarily in terms of Racial Solidarity and Skin Allegiance. Because it's pretty damn remarkable that this woman is telling us that the law and evidence said that Zimmerman is innocent, and yet still feels the need for demonstrating her Racial Loyalty by proclaiming him a murderer anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (381)
Post contains 264 words, total size 2 kb.

I actually had this theory a while back, and occasionally I've attempted to put it to a test -- if I just faked being happy, cheerful, outgoing, etc., would I wind up being a little happier and cheerful?

Based on my sporadic and non-rigorous experiments, I think the answer is "yes." But oh man, the effort. It is very easy for a natural introvert to completely cut himself off from the world in this Virtual Age, and one always prefers the downward-sloping path to the rising one.

Via Instapundit, a Wall Street Journal writer interviews scientists that say if you Fake Happy you have a good chance of becoming Real Happy.

Extroverts, those outgoing, gregarious types who wear their personalities on their sleeve, are generally happier, studies show. Some research also has found that introverts, who are more withdrawn in nature, will feel a greater sense of happiness if they act extroverted.

Experts aren't entirely sure why behaving like an extrovert makes people feel better... [But:]

"If you're introverted and act extroverted, you will be happier. It doesn't matter who you are, it's all about what you do," said William Fleeson, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

...

A series of studies, which included more than 600 college students, found that introverts misjudge how they would feel after acting extroverted. They often predicted feelings of anxiety and embarrassment, which never transpired.

"Introverts kind of underestimate how much fun it will be to act extroverted," said Dr. Zelenski. "You don't think you want to go to a party and then go and have a great time." Dr. Zelenski and other researchers also considered whether people acting in a way that goes against their natural disposition might wear themselves out. In two studies, a total of about 150 college students were instructed to behave in an extroverted or introverted manner during a group activity. Questionnaires and cognitive tests measured how much mental energy was depleted.

"We didn't find a lot of evidence forÂ…the idea that acting like an extrovert would wear out introverts," said Dr. Zelenski.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Another scientist doesn't think that sounds right:

...

Dr. Little says some of his students are starting a study to explore the cost of acting out of character. "I'm quite confident that we can show that going against your traits is going to use up resources," such as glucose, he said. "Anything that requires concentration is going to deplete glucose resources," he said.

The article does not give pointers on how to Act Like an Extrovert. The only thing I know about is this: When you're trying not to act like your actual shy self, it helps to just have in mind the idea that you're playing a character, not yourself, who is more outgoing and smiles more and laughs more easily than you yourself actually do. So you don't have to feel embarrassed about it, because it's not you, really, it's this absurd bumptious character you've created.

They can't judge you if it's not really you in the first place. *

I used to get a little freaked out even by podcasts and radio interviews until I started playing a character, a character who's totes eager to talk and who just loves the idea of his voice being recorded. That's what I do when I do the Andy/Drew/Gabe/JohnE. podcast.** Which we're doing tonight; we have NRO's Charles W. Cooke as a guest. I think it'll be available on the weekend.

* Of course you can wind up seeming like a phony, but then, that's because you are being phony. The real me would rather hide in the corner than talk to people, which is just a dreadful experience all the way 'round and I don't recommend it to anyone.

** No, it's not why I call myself "Rick Tempest," that's just a joke; though, I guess, sort of, I am playing the sort of character who would call himself Rick Tempest.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (371)
Post contains 685 words, total size 4 kb.

I noticed this yesterday and Taranto mentions it too, in a sustained attack on all elements of Obama's economic speech, empty of everything except demagogy. (Link fixed.)

This would be a fruitful question for the press to ask Jay Carney, if they're going to bother with the useless ritual of the press conference in the first place. I imagine that they won't, because, like Jay Carney, the press is devoted to not making any negative news for Obama.

With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball," the president harrumphed. There's an image for you. Where exactly is the ball relative to the parade route?

Also, which scandals exactly are "phony"? The biggest scandal is the one that raises serious questions about the legitimacy of Obama's re-election. Here is what President Asterisk himself had to say on the subject way back on May 13: "If you've got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and non-partisan way, then that is outrageous, it is contrary to our traditions. And people have to be held accountable, and it's got to be fixed. . . . I've got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it."

We're sure his outrage over the phony scandal was genuine.

So, was the IRS targeting "outrageous" or is it a "phony scandal"? It can't be both. Did Obama evolve, as he did on gay marriage, from a belief that the practice of selectively targeting political opponents for IRS harassment was immoral and contrary to the Constitution, only to grow more comfortable with the practice and find it salutary rather than sick?

Or-- let's just throw this crazy idea out there -- is it that he was never "outraged" by the practice in the first place, but felt he had to lie about it for political reasons? Taking this one step further -- perhaps he was never "outraged" of the targeting because he was actually a prime author of it.

Perhaps he was merely "outraged" that he got caught.

It's a good Taranto column, snarking at the horrible imagery of the speech and the Frankenstein assemblage of poorly-fitting metaphors from the corpses of long-buried speeches, as well as its central emptiness and dishonesty.

And there's this observation, which @rdbrewer4 highlighted in the sidebar:

Obama's certitude about his own superiority, his utter contempt for his political adversaries, even for those whose priorities differ from his--now that's genuine. It is the central feature of his political character, and the proximate cause of--pardon the cliché--Washington's current "dysfunction."

But he didn't build that--which is to say that to understand him, you have to understand the subculture of which he is a product. He is what he is because he has been molded by contemporary left-liberalism. His Manichaean worldview is reinforced every day by media apparatchiks like Sargent and his Washington Post colleague, Matt Miller, who offers this "analysis" of ObamaCare:

At bottom, Obamacare is a moral assertion that it is wrong when a wealthy nation has 50 million people without health insurance, when medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy for families and when millions of luckless souls are unable to get coverage because they have preexisting conditions. The House GOP today says these are not real problems.

See how that works? ObamaCare isn't a law at all, it's something better: a "moral assertion." If you oppose ObamaCare, you disagree with that assertion, and that makes you a bad person.

As Tore Kjeilen has explained: "Central in the Manichaean teaching was dualism, that the world itself, and all creatures, was part of a battle between the good, represented by God, and the bad, the darkness, represented by a power driven by envy and lust."

There's a gnostic idea at the heart of Manichaenism, too: The idea that the world is a false world, merely a illusory construct in which spirits of light and darkness, in which none of our crimes against others matter very much because our bodies are artificial and unreal.

Only The Battle matters, and one needn't shed any tears for genuine Evil one may make against others, because "others" don't actually exist, at least not in the form they appear. Rather exactly like the case in the movie The Matrix, where no one even acknowledges gunning down security guards posted in a lobby as an action whose morality might be of some concern.

"Lives" are false, artificial, ephemeral and meaningless, and count only to the extent they advance the goals of the spirits animating them.

Are Obama and his other Marxist fellow-travelers really gnostic Manichaens? I doubt they really subscribe to the religion, but they sure seem to accept its central principles as true. When you accept all major premises of an ancient cult and act in accordance with it, it seems to be a mere formality as to whether one consciously subscribes to the cult's teaching.

But always remember: it is conservatives who are ideological maniacs, and traditionalists who are blinkered religious morons who believe in all manner of silly things.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (335)
Post contains 893 words, total size 6 kb.

As you can imagine. Of the 247 passengers, 78 were killed.

The impact was so huge one carriage flew several meters into the air and landed on the other side of the high concrete barrier.

"We heard a massive noise and we went down the tracks. I helped get a few injured and bodies out of the train. I went into one of the cars but I'd rather not tell you what I saw there," Ricardo Martinez, a 47-year old baker from Santiago de Compostela, told Reuters.

The train driver was under formal police investigation, a spokeswoman for Galicia's Supreme Court told Reuters, without naming him. The train had two drivers and one was in hospital, the Galicia government said.

The driver took the sharp turn at a very high rate of speed-- 120mph. The speed limit was 80mph (which itself seems pretty fast). I don't see how anyone could blow through this turn at 120mph thinking he'd somehow stay on the tracks.

I think the drivers may have survived because there was nothing to slow the engine from skidding along the track on its side; they wouldn't have gotten the massively fast stoppage that could kill a man. But the cars behind them, the ones whose momentum was blocked by overturned cars, would have gotten the worst of it, the sudden stop that's little different than falling from 70 feet (or whatever the math works out to).

I'm really linking that as an excuse to relink the video of the derailment that @benk84 linked in the headlines. It's incredible, awful. It's not gory in the tape itself, as you see no human beings, but it's terrible in the imagination, as you can visualize in your mind what a crash of this speed could do to a human body.

Posted by: Ace at 09:19 AM | Comments (300)
Post contains 315 words, total size 2 kb.

Of course.

In a surprise move, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a legal effort today that could force the state of Texas to again submit any election law changes to the federal government for pre-approval, as the Justice Department tries to move past a recent Supreme Court ruling that set aside such a regime for Texas and other states in the South.

"This is the DepartmentÂ’s first action to protect voting rights following the Shelby County decision, but it will not be our last," the Attorney General told a conference of the National Urban League in Philadelphia.

To be clear, this will be done under a section of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court didn't touch in its landmark Shelby County decision. As a reminder, in that case the Court ruled that the formula Congress used to determine which jurisdictions were the subject of "pre-clearance" was out of date. Holder's announcement is that the DoJ will try and have a federal court "bail in" Texas to a pre-clearance program because of current discriminatory acts.

Part of Section III of the VRA:

SEC. 3. (a) Whenever the Attorney General institutes a proceeding under any statute to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment in any State or political subdivision the court shall authorize the appointment of Federal examiners by the United States Civil Service Commission in accordance with section 6 to serve for such period of time and for such political subdivisions as the court shall determine is appropriate to enforce the guarantees of the fifteenth amendment (1) as part of any interlocutory order if the court determines that the appointment of such examiners is necessary to enforce such guarantees or (2) as part of any final judgment if the court finds that violations of the fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred in such State or subdivision: Provided, That the court need not authorize the appointment of examiners if any incidents of denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color (1) have been few in number and have been promptly and effectively corrected by State or local action, (2) the continuing effect of such incidents has been eliminated, and (3) there is no reasonable probability of their recurrence in the future.

While this isn't a lawless decision by Holder in that he's ignoring the Supreme Court's decision, it's clearly harassment meant to gin up Obama's base of racial grievance mongers.

It's going to take a long time to get this to court, let alone through any appeals regardless of which side wins. Hopefully long before then a new President and AG will drop the whole thing.

In the meantime, the process is the punishment.

Defending Texas in this suit will be state Attorney General Gregg Abbott who happens to be running for Governor to replace Rick Perry. I'm pretty sure getting to fight Eric Holder in court to defend the honor of Texas counts as an in-kind contribution to Abbott's campaign.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:29 AM | Comments (231)
Post contains 529 words, total size 4 kb.

Yesterday evening I sat down with The Law of Self Defense author Andrew Branca to bullshit about guns and self-defense over a pint interview him about the second edition of his book, the Zimmerman trial, and related topics.

The following is a condensed version of the conversation:

HQ: It seems like your book is really taking off, but I notice it's the second edition. Was this something you updated for the Zimmerman trial, or was that just a coincidence?

AB: I put out the first version of the book about 15 years ago, but it was written in a way that wasn't very user-friendly unless you were an attorney. For example, I'd refer to the Castle Doctrine generally and depend on the reader to know that Castle Doctrine laws are particular to a jurisdiction and that the case in question may have relied on that jurisdiction's interpretations or precedents. So, about a year and a half ago, I began revising the book to make it more accessible for the layman.

HQ: I just started the book, and it seems like a lot of work went into the tables covering the laws in all 50 states. Having lived in several states, I find that to be one of the most helpful parts.

AB: Yes, a lot of work went into that, and it's one of the big updates in the second edition. It's really necessary, though, to make the book as useful as possible for everyone no matter where they live.

HQ: Shifting to the Zimmerman trial, your reporting on it at Legal Insurrection and Twitter was indispensable. What did you think of Zimmerman's chances for acquittal when you first noticed the case?

AB: You know, I really didn't pay much attention to the case until the trial was about to start and the pre-trial motions were being reported on. When the prosecution basically led off with trying to get experts in to testify about whose voice was on the 911 call, I thought, "wow, these guys have nothing". So I kept watching and they never did present much of a case ... certainly not enough to convict on, or really even charge, second degree murder.

HQ: One thing you stress in the book is that the best self-defense weapon a person has is his brain and that it's always important to think a few steps ahead tactically, especially if you're carrying a firearm. What'd you think of Zimmerman's tactical thinking?

AB: Well he certainly put himself in a bad position. If you go by his version of events and the best evidence at trial, he lost sight of a person who wound up jumping him and getting him pinned. That didn't have to happen, but once it did, you know, he's a survivor. And he survived his brush with the legal system too, which threw all it could at him.

HQ: There's a new case out of Houston where a woman shot a man who was harassing her and it's caught on camera. In the left's war on "stand your ground" it looks like she may be the next one they go after. Have you seen that video?

AB: Sure. I wrote a piece about it earlier today at Legal Insurrection and explained why I don't think it's going to be a stand-your-ground case. Of course additional facts could come out to change things, but what I see on tape looks like traditional self-defense. Her actions after the shooting - leaving the scene, not calling the police, etc. - don't go in her favor, but that's not dispositive either way.

HQ: We were discussing guns on Twitter over the weekend and are both fans of the 1911, and your bio's filled with a pretty extensive background in handgun shooting. Any tips or tricks you'd like to pass along to our readers.

AB: I grew up with long guns, and living in New York I never had much of an opportunity to fire handguns. Surprisingly, when I moved to Massachusetts I found it much easier to get a concealed carry permit. I started participating in IPSC and IDPA matches, but it really took me a while to get the hang of it. Everybody says "look at the front sight" and I was doing that - or thought so anyway - until one instructor, George Harris at the Sig Sauer Academy in NH, pointed out what seemed like a small mechanical issue with my follow-through that really made a huge difference. As far as tips go, I guess it would be just that having a good instructor can make a world of difference, especially for a new shooter so they don't ever even develop bad habits, and that if you're going to carry a concealed weapon, no matter what you carry you need to be as familiar with it as possible. You don't want to even need to think about how to take the safety off if your life's on the line, for example.

HQ: In your experience, what's the biggest misconception people have about concealed carry?

AB: I'd say the biggest misconception is that if you're carrying a gun you get to take shit from fewer people. The reality is exactly opposite. When you're carrying a gun you have to take shit from everybody. Except, of course, the guy actually trying to kill you. You can shoot him. That's the tradeoff. The gun gives you the practical means to end the life of anybody in your immediate vicinity. In exchange for that power it is your moral and legal responsibility to conduct yourself in such a way as to make that outcome as unlikely as possible. The last thing you want to do if you're carrying is to be the one who even inadvertently escalates a non-deadly encounter to a deadly one. Confronting the drunk loudmouth who's making a scene at the table next to you in a restaurant, for example, may be seen as a potentially very bad idea if you think a few steps down the line. Best to just let it go, and just go, leave. One of my primary tactical rules of self-defense is to vacate the area at the first sign of a red flag. Let the bad stuff go down while you're safely somewhere else

HQ: Thanks for your time. Other than "buy the book!" is there anything else you'd like me to pass along to our readers?

AB: Well, first, thanks to the HQ for mentioning it and don't forget the discount offer. But also, I've been doing seminars too, and if your readers' gun clubs or whatever are interested in hosting a seminar, they can contact me at seminar@lawofselfdefense.com for details on making that work.

###

I'm in the middle of the book now, and it's excellent. If you carry a concealed firearm (or are thinking of doing so), you should get a copy and think of it as the owner's manual for your concealed carry permit.

Posted by: andy at 12:56 PM | Comments (135)
Post contains 1205 words, total size 8 kb.

Representative Justin AmashÂ’s (R-MI) amendment that would have reformed and limited the NSAÂ’s collection of data from nearly every cell call in the country was defeated in a vote that crossed party lines.

A $512.5 billion Pentagon appropriations bill cleared the House Wednesday evening after the leadership narrowly beat back efforts to curb the National Security AgencyÂ’s authority to collect private call records and metadata on telephone customers in the U.S.

The pivotal 217-205 vote was the first real test of political sentiment since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents that revealed the secret program.
Â…
“Have 12 years gone by and our memories faded so badly that we forgot what happened on September 11,” asked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). But former House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), answered as bluntly: “The time has come to stop and the way we do [that] is to approve this amendment.”

The “But September 11th!” defense for intrusive surveillance is always going to be with us. It’s a ridiculous “argument” because it isn’t one. Either the programs that are in place stand on their merits or they don’t. No one seems to be bothering to actually make the case. You’ll hear “but it’s stopped a bunch of attacks!” Which ones? How? Why didn't it stop the Boston bombing when we had advanced warning that the older brother was connected to terrorists?

Personally, “trust us” isn’t good enough. Promises that almost all of the data collected is never analyzed aren't good enough either. Distrusting the government isn’t a sign of nuttery (unless taken to an extreme of course) but rather a healthy necessity in a republic.

Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden comes close to making a case but he underplays the value of the data and just how intrusive it is.
Most disturbing is the reality that collecting data on EVERY call violates the terms of the PATRIOT Act no matter what the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court says (presumably thatÂ’s their ruling but amazingly there are secret court rulings and case law we donÂ’t know about).

Security state advocates like Andy McCarthy are reduced to arguing for a ridiculously wide reading of the PATRIOT Act section authorizing that is plainly at odds with the statute.

In fact the only check McCarthy seems to recognize on the power of the state to collect 3rd party records is the good will of the executive branch.

The problem here is not government power. It is the government officials weÂ’ve elected to wield it.

Yes, thatÂ’s exactly what the founders were worried about when they wrote the Constitution in order to limit the power any person or government agent could wield. Checking ALL power centers, ones we like and ones we donÂ’t like, is a feature not a short coming of the American system.

How off the rails is McCarty? He thinks a proper reading of the 4th Amendment would make it legal for the government to listen and record your actual phone conversations without a warrant.

The Constitution was not deemed to be violated absent some form of government trespass. That is why, under the Fourth Amendment as originally understood, it would be a violation for police, without a valid judicial warrant, to attach a GPS tracker to a personÂ’s car and monitor his movements (the situation in the Jones case). On the other hand, it would not be a violation to wiretap a personÂ’s conversations by physically attaching a monitoring device to the phone companyÂ’s line on a public street, without any entry into the personÂ’s home or trespass on his property.

(Emphasis mine)

In the age of ObamaCare coupled with Supreme Court decisions from a supposedly “conservative” court that allows massive intrusions into market place and personal freedom and an out of control politicized IRS, I’m not comfortable in trusting the good will of any President or bureaucracy. Government wants information and power. Sometimes it will be used wisely but not always. That’s why a healthy skepticism of claims of vague and open ended needs must be maintained. Again, distrusting the government is a feature, not a bug of our republican form of government.

I think it was good to have the debate on the Amash Amendment (though it got far too little attention). Even in failure it will set the stage for a more serious look at either reforming or replacing Section 215 of the Patriot Act as it currently interpreted.

We gave the government an inch and of course they took a mile. ItÂ’s time to take it back.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:34 AM | Comments (611)
Post contains 788 words, total size 6 kb.

• CO Gun Buyback Cancelled Due To Absurd New Gun Laws
  
• Our 20th Century Future
  
• Obama Calls For More Spending
  
• Video Of The High Speed Train Crash In Spain That Killed At Least 77
  
• Obama Barely Edges Zimmerman In New Poll
  
• Woman From Temper Tantrum Video Tells Her Side Of The Story
  
• GAO Report: Obama's Green Jobs For Stimulus Plan A Bust
  
• Amash Amendment Fails 205-217
  
• New Graphic Claims About Weiner You Can't Unread
  
• Doctors: It's Our Job To Profit, Not Lower Healthcare Costs
  
• Why Don't Greens Like Shale?
  
• Judge Orders Police To Return 1 Million Dollars Confiscated From A Stripper
  
• US Suspends F-16 Shipment To Egypt
  
• Drunk Canadian Sorry For Swimming Across The Detroit River
  
• Issa Proposes Ruralizing Mail Delivery
  
• Andrew Branca On The Houston Gas Station Shooting
  
• The Politics Of Contempt
  
• Video Of Nikki Haley Firing Guns
  
• Judge Freezes Challenges To Detroit Bankruptcy
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:51 AM | Comments (155)
Post contains 164 words, total size 3 kb.