Light content warning for profanity, bras worn as tops.

Eh. This is kind of like Feminist Halloween now. Everybody gets dressed up in their Sexy outfits and parades.

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (126)
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• Despite Receiving Authorization From No One, Kerry To Deliver Ultimatum To Syria
  
• Charlie Rose Interviews Assad (autoplay)
  
• The Constitution, The Sour Spot, And The Great Syria Train Wreck
  
• Collapse Of American Influence And Power
  
• US Gas Ready For World Domination
  
• Man Pays Over 7,000 Dollars In Taxes With One Dollar Bills
  
• VDH: If It Wasn't Syria, It Would Have Been Something Else
  
• Benghazi Whistle Blower Claims He's Been Punished For Speaking Out
  
• Van Gogh Painting found In Norwegian Attic
  
• Cooke: Democracy In Colorado Springs
  
• Our Isolated Military
  
• Russian Carrier Scheduled To Sail To Syrian Coast
  
• A Lesson From Australia's Election
  
• How Europe Just Made Obama's Syria Strike More Complicated
  
• Missouri Liquor Store Robber Almost Wins Darwin Award
  
• New IRS Policy Taxes Automatic Tips For Waiters
  
• Fourth Porn Actor Test Positive For AIDs
  
• Another Person Dies In A Fall At An NFL Stadium
  
• 107 Year Old Killed In SWAT Team Shootout
  

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  Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:40 AM | Comments (556)
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Happy Monday.

Recap the birth of a hashtag, #NoBloodForO, which is much cleverer than the signs those folks were carrying at yesterday's antiwar protest in Hollywood.

Clinton will make her first public remarks on Syria today from the White House. Boy, isn't that a gift (and I wonder what VP Biden thinks about it). Do you think Dems reluctant to line up behind lame-duck Obama for another war will be more willing to do so behind the presumptive 2016 nominee?

In case you missed it over the weekend, Obama's ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power (yes, that Samantha Power) announced late last week that she thought a UN report would cause Russia and Iran to abandon their support for Assad. Smart Power.

The fifth IPCC global warming report is being delayed because governments are complaining that it fails to address the recent decade-long "pause" in global warming.

In 2016 news, braying jackass Rep. Pete King says that he is indeed running for President, so you can kiss your dream of a clown-free GOP primary goodbye.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (166)
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Clear-Cut Stupidity on Syria

I understand the attraction the buddy system has for a man who, as a state legislator, perfected the art of voting "present" on hard questions. But it's hard to see this as anything other than rank political cowardice.

The buck stopped with Truman. For Obama, the buck is kryptonite.

In Stockholm on Wednesday, the president said that the credibility of the world, America, Congress, and the international community is on the line. Everybody is on the hook for his red line, except for the one person who actually drew it.

I'd love to see the genius in that argument, but it looks like clear-cut stupidity to me.

In other words it's just Obama following the classic Obama M.O. that got him into the White House twice.

Quote of the Day

By no means do I profess to speak on behalf of all of our men and women in uniform. But I can justifiably share the sentiments of those inside the Pentagon and elsewhere who write the plans and develop strategies for fighting our wars. After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals who have been intimate witnesses to the unfolding events that will lead the United States into its next war.
...
They are tired of wannabe soldiers who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare. "Look," one told me, "if you want to end this decisively, send in the troops and let them defeat the Syrian army. If the nation doesn't think Syria is worth serious commitment, then leave them alone."

They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration's attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.
...
Over the past few days, the opinions of officers confiding in me have changed to some degree. Resignation seems to be creeping into their sense of outrage. One officer told me: "To hell with them. If this guy wants this war, then let him have it. Looks like no one will get hurt anyway."

Soon the military will salute respectfully and loose the hell of hundreds of cruise missiles in an effort that will, inevitably, kill a few of those we wish to protect. They will do it with all the professionalism and skill we expect from the world's most proficient military. I wish Kerry would take a moment to look at the images from this week's hearings before we go to war again.

-- Ret. Major General Robert Scales, USA

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:08 PM | Comments (469)
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OK, so here's an open thread you morons can use to complain about the crappy late NFL game going on right now.

Hopefully, the ONT will be up presently.

Meanwhile, people who attended a public Right to Work discussion event in Portland, Oregon were given a lesson in respect and tolerance of different opinions by a mostly peaceful gang of union goons and thugs.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:18 PM | Comments (76)
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Message received?

There's a fairly large anti-war protest going on right now at Hollywood and Highland (in Hollywood). Livestream below the fold.

more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:44 PM | Comments (278)
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Greetings again and welcome to the Spaced-Out Challenge, the weekly astronomy post here at Ace of Spades. Last week's edition offered some great tips for those living under urban lights, and this week we will focus on a few more tips to help you on your first night observing.

But before that, a public service rant. Ace's tale of woe over Kaboom cereal reminded me of something truly depressing from my own childhood. His daily discouragement came from a breakfast cereal, whereas mine came from a horror that can only be described as a red tube of pain. Sure, the cheap red plastic toy for the "budding astronomer" may not seem so awful, but read on. more...

Posted by: CAC at 01:37 PM | Comments (54)
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Moral support and participating are two different things, but this WaPo piece suggests the Saudis are willing to participate

...Saudi Arabia has strongly indicated in recent weeks that it would participate in a U.S.-led strike against Syria, but has not said so explicitly...

Presumably the Saudis obtained all that trick cruise hardware and Typhoon launch platforms to keep Iran's aspirations at bay. Whether they'd be willing to expend some of it elsewhere is an open question at this point since obtaining it wasn't exactly non-trivial political exercise.

(1) ALCM = Air Launched Cruise Missile
(2) TLAM = Tomahawk Land Attack Missile

Bonus: a classic Boris Johnson rant about Brit swimming pools and how they were installed in response to global warming fears. When Boris stinks, he stinks bad, but when he's on, he's really on. He's in top form this time.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:10 PM | Comments (335)
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That's the UK Telegraph's headline. Mine would've been something like, "Oops! Climate 'Deniers' Right All Along, Owed Huge Apology".

There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, they equivalent of almost a million square miles.

In a rebound from 2012's record low an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia's northern shores, days before the annual re-freeze is even set to begin.

The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year, forcing some ships to change their routes.

A leaked report to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seen by the Mail on Sunday, has led some scientists to claim that the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century.

If correct, it would contradict computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming. The news comes several years after it was predicted that the arctic would be ice-free by 2013.

For well over a decade, people who have looked at the "science" behind global warming with a critical eye have observed that the models used to forecast Carbon Dioxide Driven DOOM! have been force-fit to match history (and an altered history at that) but begin breaking down at first contact with reality. These observations are met with shouts of DENIER! while the "scientists" fiddle with the dials on the models and pull the levers on the observed temperature history like so many Wizards of Oz.

The real "deniers" here, of course, are the scientists who refuse to acknowledge that there are many more questions than answers about climate and that their certainty about catastrophic anthropogenic climate change has been dramatically overplayed.

The IPCC says it is “95 per cent confident” that global warming has been caused by humans - up from 90 per cent in 2007 – according to the draft report.

However, US climate expert Professor Judith Curry has questioned how this can be true as that rather than increasing in confidence, “uncertainty is getting bigger” within the academic community.

Long-term cycles in ocean temperature, she said, suggest the world may be approaching a period similar to that from 1965 to 1975, when there was a clear cooling trend.

At the time some scientists forecast an imminent ice age.

If you read Climate Audit, Watts Up With That, etc., none of this will come as a surprise to you, but we may just be on the verge of evidence against the "consensus" becoming overwhelming.

With any luck that will open the door to the scientific method making a big comeback: SvensmarkÂ’s cosmic ray theory of clouds and global warming looks to be confirmed

Related (from BuzzFeed of all places): Al GoreÂ’s Incredible Shrinking Climate Change Footprint

Now, discussing their efforts online, Gore staffers say the effort isn’t smaller — the group has just found its “niche,” said Dan Stiles, the chief operating officer of the Climate Reality Project, in a wide-ranging interview with BuzzFeed on the organization’s history. “I don’t think what we’re doing right now is any less expansive than what we were doing before,” Stiles said. “Our appeal is just becoming more selective.”

That last quote may have been altered a bit. more...

Posted by: andy at 11:30 AM | Comments (152)
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Epistemic Closure On Campus, But No Guns

This is a pretty funny piece from a newly-minted Indiana University professor in the HuffPo. The former President of the Brady Campaign to Ban Guns doesn't believe guns should be on college campuses. Who could've guessed that?

But wait, his argument is compelling and rich.

After I hired Colin Goddard to work for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, I heard him speak many times about the April 16, 2007 morning at Virginia Tech when 32 of his classmates and teachers were murdered, and four bullets were shot into his body. Two weeks ago I heard the story again - this time for the first time as a Professor at Indiana University with 66 first-year college students who are part of a new Civic Leaders program that I direct.

One of the questions after the presentation was whether Colin could have done anything to stop the carnage, particularly if he'd had a gun with him.

Colin's answer was clear. Everyone wishes that the story could have ended differently. Many people -- including Colin -- wish they could have been the hero we see in movies. But even though Colin had been in ROTC and was familiar with guns, he felt that if he had a gun that day, it would have been difficult to get to it in time, would have made him and others around him even more of a target, and could have led to other students being injured or killed. In Colin's analysis, the main lesson from that morning is that we need to strengthen our weak to non-existent background check system for gun purchases and make it a lot harder for people like his shooter (who had earlier been found to be a danger to himself or others by a Virginia court) to get dangerous weapons so easily.

I wonder how hard the Prof. looked for a different speaker who might present an opposing view? (actually, I don't wonder that at all)

It would've been easy to find someone to point out all the flaws in the thinking just in the excerpt above. How is it difficult to get to a gun in time if it's on your person? How does having a gun make you more of a target when you're already being targeted? What new law is needed to get the Seung Hui Cho's of the world entered into NICS (answer: none)?

But when you're trying to mint 66 new gun grabbers, you can't have their minds being filled with such conflict. Way to go, Indoctrination U.

News You Can Use

From the tip line, here's a link to AmmoRecall.com, a centralized source for gun and ammo recall notices. They have an email notification feature, but you can also just do what I did and follow them on Twitter.

Gun Of The Week

(answer below) more...

Posted by: andy at 06:25 AM | Comments (122)
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