Open thread to keep you busy until the head Ewok shows up.

In honor of Stevie Ray Vaughan who died 23 years ago today. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:46 AM | Comments (311)
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• VDH: American Satyricon
  
• Father Of Suspect In Delbert Belton Murder: "He's A Good Kid"
  
• Lobbyists Sneak Onto Public Pension Roles
  
• Sowell: A Poignant Anniversary
  
• Russia And China Warn The US Against Attacking Syria
  
• Convicted Of Insider Trading, Obama Donor Enjoys A Manservant In Prison
  
• Tolerance, Health And Fascism
  
• Jail Becomes Home For Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony
  
• Navy Vet Finishing College Murdered During Mid-Afternoon Robbery
  
• Another Race Hoax
  
• Why Should Chemical Weapons In Syria, Or Anywhere Else, Be A Red Line?
  
• India Dives Into Africa With Huge Mozambique Gas Deal
  
• Affirmative Action Failure
  
• Golden Rice, Green Idiocy
  
• Rogue IRS Shamefully Targets Nations Veterans
  
• The Bad News Is Wrong
  
• Yup, Kids Are Still Idiots
  
• Don't Try To Swim Across A Crocodile Infested River
  
• Dog Saves Cat Through Blood Transfusion
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:25 AM | Comments (351)
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I bet that Nobel committee is scratching its head as it watches President Dronestrike weigh his options on what kind of weaponry to lob at Syria.

Another victim of Hopenchange.

Posted by: andy at 03:18 AM | Comments (139)
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The Surprisingly Young Ages of the Founding Fathers in 1776

Well revolutions are pretty much a young man's game.

Andrew Jackson, 9  (possibly the youngest fighter in the revolution, certainly the youngest POW)
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
John Marshall, 20
Gilbert Stuart, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Nathan Hale, 21
Betsy Ross, 24
James Madison, 25

And then you had the 'old men' of the war:
Thomas Jefferson, 33
Nathanael Greene, 33
John Penn, 35
Ethan Allen, 38
John Adams, 40
Paul Revere, 41
George Washington, 44
Samuel Adams, 53
Benjamin Franklin, 70

The oldest prominent participant in the Revolution, by a wide margin, was Benjamin Franklin, who was 70 years old on July 4, 1776. Franklin was a full two generations removed from the likes of Madison and Hamilton. But the oldest participant in the war was Samuel Whittemore, who fought in an early skirmish at the age of 80:

On April 19, 1775, British forces were returning to Boston from the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the opening engagements of the war. On their march they were continually shot at by colonial militiamen.

Whittemore was in his fields when he spotted an approaching British relief brigade under Earl Percy, sent to assist the retreat. Whittemore loaded his musket and ambushed the British Grenadiers of the 47th Regiment of Foot from behind a nearby stone wall, killing one soldier. He then drew his dueling pistols and killed a grenadier and mortally wounded a second. By the time Whittemore had fired his third shot, a British detachment reached his position; Whittemore drew his sword and attacked.[3] He was shot in the face, bayoneted thirteen times, and left for dead in a pool of blood. He was found alive, trying to load his musket to fight again. He was taken to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who perceived no hope for his survival. However, Whittemore lived another 18 years until dying of natural causes at the age of 98.

Meanwhile you have today's Democratic Party of 'Youth':

Let's look at our two top Democrat contenders for 2016, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Hillary (born in 1947) represents the party's youth wing and Biden (born in 1942) represents the party's ability to stick hair plugs and dentures on a learning-disabled sea urchin and address it as "Mr. Vice President."

Take the ages both will be in 2016 and add them together, and the result is 143.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:27 PM | Comments (453)
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And then there is this bitter racialist.

1) Macklemore won best hip hop music video for his popular single ‘Can’t Hold Us’ over Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky among others. He also won best song with a social message for ‘Same Love’, a ballad in support of same-sex marriage that reflects on the relationship between his queer uncles. And yes, while ‘Same Love’ is beautiful, it has received attention and sold albums mainly because Macklemore is a white dude. Many young, queer women who are artists of color—like Angel Haze and Azealia Banks—have stepped into the spotlight over the past couple years. It’s difficult to shine when you’re in always in the white, heterosexual man’s shadow.

2) Miley Cyrus’s minstrel show ‘Can’t Stop’ filled the room with the sounds and sights of the cultural appropriation of working class Black culture. Her music video, which has been criticized for using Black women’s bodies (her backup dancers) as accessories for white profit by major culture blogs on the internet, proves once again that she needs a racial justice consultant. She finished her on-stage performance by triggering me (and from the looks of it, the Smith family) by “dancing” with rape anthemist, Robin Thicke.

3) Justin Timberlake, who has been busy whitewashing R&B for over a decade, walked away from the VMAs with the Michael Jackson Vanguard Video Award as well as the top honor of the evening...

So, it's racist if Black People Don't Win at the VMAs. And also, it appears black people have some degree of ownership over R&B, such that anyone white who works in that medium is "whitewashing" it and stealing from the black man.

People shouldn't think this way, but they do. That's what makes them racist. They have little reason for valuing themselves apart from their race, and therefore they view everything in terms of Stuff My Race Made, rather than Things I Myself Made, which is of course what actually matters.

It is strange and horrifying to see that those who are the most stridently "anti-racist" are in fact those most infected with racism. "This belongs to our tribe. We, The Collective Based Upon Our Slightly-More-Similar DNA, have collective ownership rights to this."

Noah Rothman found another example of this idiocy at Vulture magazine, perpetrated by some no-account named Jody Rosen.

“[T]he shock that Cyrus was peddling wasn’t sex. It was all about race,” Rosen wrote, priming his readers for maximum shock.

“Cyrus has spent a lot of time recently toying with racial imagery,” he adds, revealing the disturbing fact that he sees racial imagery everywhere.

“Cyrus twerking her way through the video for her big hit ‘We Can’t Stop,’ professing her love for ‘hood music,’ and claiming spiritual affinity with Lil’ Kim,” Rosen continues. “Last night, as Cyrus stalked the stage, mugging and twerking, and paused to spank and simulate analingus upon the ass of a thickly set African-American backup dancer.”

It's interesting that she (or he, I don't know) is fixated on the racial angle and overlooking the somewhat more present angle of "Lesbian Analingus Pantomime for Tweeners." Oh and by the way, it was performed on a bear.

But of course no judgments on that.

If you’re keeping score, Cyrus is “toying with racial imagery” by virtue of her being a fan of and collaborating with African-American artists and by performing hyper-sexualized dancing with one of her black backup dancers. But this workmanlike presentation of damming evidence continues:

“Her act tipped over into what we may as well just call racism: a minstrel show routine whose ghoulishness was heightened by Cyrus’s madcap charisma, and by the dark beauty of “We Can’t Stop” — by a good distance, the most powerful pop hit of 2013,” Rosen adds.

By the way I've never heard that song. I'm just saying this so those of you thinking "I've never heard that song" know that you're not alone.

Rothman analyzes this through a prism similar to one I've suggested, the notion of the tribal shibboleth, the exchange of passwords and countersigns indicating allegiance to a tribe or cult.

And you can read that take at the link. However, it occurs to me that another useful analogy is to the idea of connoisseurship. These three sad mugs are all connoisseurs of Racism You Guys..

What is the point of connoisseurship? Well, as a primary matter, to develop a refined, cultured, and sensitive palate for detecting the most subtle effects of a thing. The wine connoisseur trains himself to pick out "smoky notes" and "hints of blackberry" and wines that profited from "good ash in the soil."

Of course connoisseurship is not restricted to the physical sense of taste; art connoisseurs are fond of saying things like "It's the colors that aren't present that really stand out!"

And connoisseurs of music are given to saying things as "What wonderful silences are in this piece, where you can simply enjoy the room's tone, the vibrations and echoes in the walls themselves."

The connoisseur is trained to sense things that no one else can sense, or, at least, no one but an elite cadre of dedicated Detectors of the Subtle and Sublime.

The secondary value of connoisseurship is, of course, impressing other connoisseurs, intimidating non-connoisseurs, and, by these effects, gaining a Social Advantage which maximizes one's chances for financial and sexual success.

I actually think the secondary value is really the primary one but let's be generous and just say it's a nice unintended consequence.

Now maybe I was goofing on connoisseurship a little bit there, but I have to admit, I'd like to pick up that kind of skill. So long as it does not take a great deal of time and effort, I mean.

But of course it would take that. One can fake these things, as one can fake most things, but there's nothing more embarrassing than a fake connoisseur outed as a poser.

I am suggesting, of course, that people of little talent and little liking of hard work and training have created a new connoisseurship, a connoisseurship rather easily achieved, requiring, as it does, so very little practice and so very little reading; they have created a connoisseurship of Racism, savoring (or so they say) each note so delicate as to be imperceptible to the proletarians whose sense are too unrefined to detect anything but the boldest, most obvious flavors.

And by demonstrating their connoisseurship of racism, they gain a social advantage, that of impressing the other would-be racist connoisseurs, and the various stooges and goons stupid enough to be impressed by this shabby parlor trick.

And, as with any fake connoisseur, as with any bluffer, they gain the most when they make the most ludicrous claims: "I can virtually taste the post-war global depression in this wine; there's a character in the sweat of the grape-stompers that imparts to it a sadness that is almost transcendent."

For connoisseurs, noting that a wine has a chocolate aftertaste is rather elementary and crude. No, to really impress people -- or to really bluff -- you have to really commit to it and claim that your tastes are so refined that they can perceive flavors which exist only on an atomic level:

"Mmm.. those d-orbital electrons are really a kick, aren't they? The complexity of flavors he's managed to achieve while working within the confines of just a few electron states is simply magnificent."

And so it is with the Connoisseurs of Racism.

By Jove I Think He's Got It! @empireofjeff is now expert in the New Connoisseurship:

The peanut was invented by George Washington Carver, a known black man.

I go to the store these days, and what do I see? Cans of Planter's peanuts. You know where Planters do their business?

On plantations.

When I pop the top on that can of peanuts, that hiss of air sounds to me like the sharp intake of breath made by an enslaved black, as he clings to the whipping post and bears down on the pain the lash inflicts on his tortured flesh; rebelling in the only way he knows how - by denying his cruel overseer the music of his screams.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (666)
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Earlier I saw a tweet, specifically reporting a "rumor," that Russians were getting on to their ships and withdrawing from Syria. Russia denies this, but I'm starting to think it's true:

Whoops! Syria, Libya, Yemen. It's hard to keep track of the Nobel Peace Laureate's manifold wars, kinetic actions, and drone assassinations.

I guess Obama got bored reading about Miley Cyrus so he's gonna Bomb Something.

Posted by: Ace at 03:49 PM | Comments (427)
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Unexpectedly, you understand.

The durable goods report for July showed a 7.3% decline in output, the worst in several years, and itÂ’s not just limited to a hiccup in reporting.

The Jam-Man highlighted this article on the "5% recovery"-- a recovery for 5% of the population, and stagnation and decline for 95%.

He pointed out that somehow Barack Obama's name was entirely missing from the dour piece, despite claims made elsewhere that Obama is responsible for every good thing that happens.

The article relies heavily on the analysis of this writer, though also includes a bunch of other evidence:

Huge leaps in the income and wealth of the top 5 percent mask the decline of income and wealth of the bottom 95 percent. Average all wealth and income and it appears that the economy is expanding to the benefit of all, when it fact only the top 5 percent have escaped the recession; the recession never ended for the bottom 95 percent.

...

An even better way to create an illusory expansion is to simply not measure trends that would reveal a deepening recession. For example, what percentage of student loans are purposefully taken out as a substitute for income, i.e. used to pay basic living expenses rather than education? Anecdotally, there is plentiful evidence that a great many people are signing up for one class at the local community college in order to get a student loan to live on.

I denounce this post as racist.

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (218)
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Yeah I was just saying the other day, without any evidence for it (evidence is for fairies), that what the NSA wasn't yet copping to was all the spying agents did on their exes, just to keep tabs on them, or to see who they're dating now.

They do this so often there's a word for it: LOVEINT, like "HUMINT" (human intelligence) or "COMINT" (communications intelligence).

But of course no one ever gets fired. This is the US Government. This is a place to live life to the fullest, as Michael Scott would say.

In the wake of revelations last week that NSA had violated privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions in a one-year period, NSA Chief Compliance Officer John DeLong emphasized in a conference call with reporters last week that those errors were unintentional. He did say that there have been “a couple” of willful violations in the past decade. He said he didn’t have the exact figures at the moment.

NSA said in a statement Friday that there have been “very rare” instances of willful violations of any kind in the past decade, and none have violated key surveillance laws. “NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities” and responds “as appropriate.”

The LOVEINT violations involved overseas communications, officials said, such as spying on a partner or spouse. In each instance, the employee was punished either with an administrative action or termination.

Either one or the other. Hm, I wonder which one it was.

This is why you have to fire such people: The minute they do this, they're telling you that they will in fact use billion dollar intelligence infrastructure to settle personal agendas.

And if you give them only an "administrative action," you're telling them that's understandable.

Most of the incidents, officials said, were self-reported. Such admissions can arise, for example, when an employee takes a polygraph tests as part of a renewal of a security clearance.

That's not really self-reported; that is confessed under polygraph. Further, that means the NSA itself isn't catching these things.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (187)
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And he says that NSA stuff is coming out too, saying what we know now is just "the tip of the iceberg."

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (184)
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Then: NO WAR! NO BLOOD FOR OIL! FIGHTING FOR PEACE IS LIKE F**ING FOR VIRGINITY!

Now: It's all rather complicated! There are issues of international credibility to consider!

"What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world," said Kerry. "It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable."

I liked it better in the original Colinpowellese.

There is one difference between the two, of course:

Bush sought and received an authorization for the use of military force in Iraq from Congress, as the constitution requires. (I don't really want to entertain the semantic argument favored by the Paulites that the piece of paper must specifically call itself a "Declaration of War.")

Obama, of course, will be ordering US troops into harm's way with out any such authority. He'll do so based on his own authority.

In 2002, the left contended the US could not go to war in Iraq despite having Congressional approval for it; they claimed that France's veto had more weight than Congress' approval.

Now they make the same argument: It doesn't matter that Congress won't be approving this war. France approves it. Apparently France is some kind of Constitutional Alternative to Congressional Authority to the left.

I don't have to get into all the 2001-2005 France-bashing to simply note that France is not in fact a fourth branch of the United States government.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (214)
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