I'm shivering from all this global warming.

From Tami, a North Dakota weather advisory (mild content warning).

Oh, and one more thing, Instapundit: Some of you were asking, "Hey, where's my nightmare fuel?"

Just got the delivery now. Sorry, it got delayed on the GWB.

So here now are some men (overweight) who dress up like... not females, mind you.

They dress like female dolls.

Oh, it's as horrifying as you might imagine. Except from the BBC documentary "Secrets of the Living Dolls" below.

Update: Maet covered this fetish -- "FemSkin" -- in last night's ONT.

This is going to be in a lot of Buzzfeed listicles.

Like so:

And Then You're Watching Game of Thrones and You're All Like, "Ned's Dead?!! Uhn-Uhhhn!!!"

And Then You're Getting the Snow Off Your Car And You're All Like "WTF, Snow?!!"

That Time That Guy Who Stinks of Body Odor Sat Next To You on the Subway and You're All Like "Eww!!! Stinky!!!"

And, Open Thread. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (706)
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The Japanese love the cute and weird.

What's cuter than a bunny?

What's weirder than eating in a café peppered by rabbit turds?

In Japan you have to pay extra for the privilege of dining amongst rodent feces.

No but seriously I'd love to go drink tea and pet rabbits. Why not?

So now that that that's out of the way... Yeah, this Christie thing is going to get worse before it gets better. (Or, for some of you anti-Christie folks: It's going to get better before it gets even better still.)

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

The woman later died, borough records show.

In at least two of those instances, response time doubled, noted EMS coordinator Paul Favia, who documented those cases in a Sept. 10 letter to Mayor Mark Sokolich, which The Record obtained.

...

It also took EMS seven minutes to reach an unconscious 91-year-old woman who later died of cardiac arrest at a hospital. Although he did not say her death was directly caused by the delays, Favia noted that “paramedics were delayed due to heavy traffic on Fort Lee Road and had to meet the ambulance en-route to the hospital instead of on the scene.”

I imagine these EMS workers are government union workers: So expect lots of details and interviews.

Corrected: I wrote that the woman died in the traffic snarl. That's just not true. She died at the hospital. It is suggested that the delay in traffic contributed to this.

Though I doubt it did.

But that's not a headline you want to see.

Thanks to @comradearthur for bunnies, @drewmtips for Republican Doom tips (of course), and BCochran for the correction.

Posted by: Ace at 02:31 PM | Comments (243)
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Interesting article by Theodore Darymple about the Dieudonné controversy in France.

What is that? Well, there's a comic. He's half-French, half-Cameroon by descent. His name is Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala, but he is only known by his first name. ("God-Given," it means.)

This guy is literally in the French papers every day. Because, you see, he is accused of being Anti-Semitic, and brazenly so. And the anti-semitic flavored act he performs at his own theater in Paris is -- now I want you to sit down before I shock you with this -- quite popular in France.

Now, he claims he's not anti-semitic per se. He says he's "anti-systeme," against the controlling powers that run the system generally. You know, a populist, a rabble-rouser. But a lot of his "anti-systeme" stylings seem to be directed against the Jews.

For example -- this is what is the French papers constantly -- he and his legions of fans make a gesture called une quenelle, which is judged to be, as Darymple says, a forme frustre (incomplete or arrested form) of the Nazi salute.

This is Dieudonné doing the quenelle:

I mentioned the gesture being a forme frustre of the Nazi salute not to show off but because when I write a term I tend to remember it, and it's a useful term. And also, until Darymple described it this way, I could never understand how the gesture was supposed to resemble a Nazi salute.

But now I can see it -- if it's a forme fruste of the full Nazi salute, that means it's arrested before completion. And now I can see, the hand pointing down like that seems poised (as Barack Obama might say) to come up into the Sieg Heil position.

Among the other things he says which are perceived as anti-Jewish is his use of ananas -- pineapples -- as provocations. The reason an anana is considered anti-Jewish is that he's linked the anana to the Holocaust, referring to Jews as Shoahanas. Belittling the Shoah.

I think... I gotta confess, my French is not very good and I barely read this torrent of Dieudonné stories I see on Twitter every day.

People pay actual money to see this form of "comedy" in France...
No but this stupid pantomime code-gesture
(which he always does) is supposed to mean something
about always attacking the forces above us...
Please don't ask me why it means that

At any rate, the French Interior Minister, Vallis, wants to forbid him from performing in France. The PM is a socialist, and, as you might have guessed, the socialists are in favor of government control over speech. The right (or what passes for the right in France) finds the anti-freedom impulse to be alarming.

That background out of the way, I want to quote Darymple's general thoughts on "spontaneous order" (order arising from free market, capitalistic, individual-authored decisions) and the allegedly "rational order" dictated by the central superstate. (And in France, the state is indeed super-sized-- more than half of the GDP is due to government "production").

He notes that Dieudonnés coalition of the angry is made up of elements of the far right and far left.

What unites the Third-Worldists and the National Front is the desire to suppress the effects of whatever spontaneous order still exists in France and in the entire world. They share this desire with socialists of all stripes. And while it may be true that in a spontaneous order the vast majority do better in aggregate than they would do under a more centrally-organized (or supposedly ‘rational’) order, it cannot be denied that, in such a spontaneous order, some will do better, even much better, than others. A winner in an abstract aggregate may be a loser in a particular situation, and his status as loser will almost always be more real to him that his status as winner. He is then on the lookout for a scapegoat because a) we tend to assume that everything that happens in the human realm is the result of someone’s intention and b) hatred is by far the strongest, longest-lasting, and most gratifying of all political emotions.

For those who both hate spontaneous order for the ill it has done them but who also believe that such an order cannot really exist because everything that happens does so because of someoneÂ’s wish that it should, the fact that Jews should be so successful in France (and, of course, elsewhere in the western world), and the North Africans so comparatively unsuccessful, can only be explained on one hypothesis: conspiracy. To an age-old prejudice is added a reinforcing paranoia, and it is that MÂ’Bala MÂ’Bala both evokes and panders to. Here I must add that the structure of socialist economic thought is exactly the same as the structure of ant-Semitic economic thought: if anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools, socialism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals.

I don't know what that means but I like it.

I've cut out the various bits about the illusion the statists are possessed by, believing they can order the world properly. I can't quote the whole thing, but I think it might be worth a full read.

Another Good Quote: Walrus Rex made me laugh:

Forty years ago when I was a foreign exchange student in France, a French professor told me that the situation in the Middle East is very complicated for them because the French are antisemitic and they don't like Arabs.

It's funny because it's true.

Posted by: Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (323)
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"For the first time," he makes sure to say.

I didn't think this story was going anywhere, that it was just yet another concocted lefty-blog bit of nonsense.

The allegation against Christie is that he attempted to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, NJ, for not endorsing him for re-election. And that he did so by ordering lanes of the George Washington Bridge shut down, making havoc of traffic.

Christie has previously claimed this was part of routine traffic administration or something.

Well, an email from one of his top aides seems to confirm that some political motive was afoot.

This will probably sink Christie.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a top Christie executive at the Port Authority, on Aug. 13, about three weeks before the closures. Wildstein, the official who ordered the closures and who resigned last month amid the escalating scandal, wrote back: “Got it.”

Other top Christie associates mentioned in or copied on the email chain, all after the top New York appointee at the authority ordered the lanes reopened, include David Samson, the chairman of the agency; Bill Stepien, ChristieÂ’s re-election campaign manager and the newly appointed state GOP chairman; and Michael Drewniak, ChristieÂ’s spokesman.

I'll direct you to Hot Air to read the second quote, which is Nuclear.

No, Christie is not in the email chains. But these are his aides, all in agreement on this tactic. Enjoying themselves over traffic snarls, smiling about schoolbusses full of kids stuck in traffic.

AllahPundit sums up Phase 2 of the scandal:

. The next step will be for Kelly to resign (as well as everyone ccÂ’d on her messages?) followed by the requisite Christie statement of ignorance and disappointment.

Well, per my headline, Christie has just issued a statement of ignorance and disappointment.

"What Ive seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable, and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.”

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (393)
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A general call for a detente in the War of Outrageous Outrage, and absolves Melissa Harris-Perry of the charge of intentional mean-spiritedness towards the newest Romney.

Needless to say, BeckÂ’s graciousness towards an opponent wonÂ’t be repaid the next time he says something controversial. Which he knows, of course. This is an argument about decency for its own sake, not some proposed truce in the outrage wars which everyone understands wonÂ’t last a day.

Right, there's not much to be gained tactically here -- the Left doesn't honor truces; they are forever at war with the society that shelters them -- but there is always the matter of virtue for its own sake.

One thing I'd continue to point out, however, is per Melissa Harris-Perry's own rules, what she said was racist. I don't believe that, of course. Yes, we do notice a single black face in a sea of white ones. It's human nature. And Melissa Harris Perry proves that even minorities notice this.

And use it as the jumping-off point for race-conscious jokes. Every joke they made was goofing on the baby for being different.

Does anyone doubt that, roles reversed, Melissa Harris Perry would have called Glenn Beck a racist for noticing, say, that the very-white Elizabeth Warren family had adopted a black kid?

Of course, Glenn Beck wouldn't have done this -- not because doing so would have been racist, but because doing so would have been falsely and absurdly alleged to be racist.

The Left doesn't bother to observe the rules they inflict on everyone else, obviously. And we must always point this out. For example, only someone comfortably on the Left could possibly write, and then have published, an article essentially accusing Catholics on the Supreme Court of dual-loyalty to the Vatican.

This sort of general anti-Catholic attack -- How can we trust Catholics to abide US policy when they're acting agents of the Papist Peril? -- has been considered rude and intellectually bankrupt since at least the mid-sixties, and yet here's a Leftist In Good Standing impugning Catholics' ability to discharge their duties as government officers owing to a spiritually allegiance to a foreign power.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (322)
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Via @rdbrewer4 in the sidebar, you've actually met this guy before-- Richard Lindzen, who a sharp skeptic of Global Warming Hysteria and is inconveniently a Credentials-Carrying Climate Scientist. The Weekly Standard's Ethan Epstain talks with him.

Lindzen doesn’t deny that the climate has changed or that the planet has warmed. “We all agree that temperature has increased since 1800,” he tells me. There’s a caveat, though: It’s increased by “a very small amount. We’re talking about tenths of a degree [Celsius]. We all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All other things kept equal, [there has been] some warming. As a result, there’s hardly anyone serious who says that man has no role. And in many ways, those have never been the questions. The questions have always been, as they ought to be in science, how much?”

...

[L]indzen rejects the dire projections. For one thing, he says that the Summary for Policymakers is an inherently problematic document. The IPCC report itself, weighing in at thousands of pages, is “not terrible. ItÂ’s not unbiased, but the bias [is] more or less to limit your criticism of models,” he says. The Summary for Policymakers, on the other hand—the only part of the report that the media and the politicians pay any attention to—“rips out doubts to a large extent. .  .  . [Furthermore], government representatives have the final say on the summary.” Thus, while the full IPPC report demonstrates a significant amount of doubt among scientists, the essentially political Summary for Policymakers filters it out.

...

If Lindzen is right about this and global warming is nothing to worry about, why do so many climate scientists, many with résumés just as impressive as his, preach imminent doom? He says it mostly comes down to the money—to the incentive structure of academic research funded by government grants. Almost all funding for climate research comes from the government, which, he says, makes scientists essentially vassals of the state. And generating fear, Lindzen contends, is now the best way to ensure that policymakers keep the spigot open.

Science was flush with government money after the success of the Manhattan Project, but science budgets have been cut now for decades. And that's the real Global Warming Crisis.

“It was recognized that gratitude [for the bomb that ended the War with Japan] only went so far,” Lindzen says, “and fear was going to be a much greater motivator. And so thatÂ’s when people began thinking about .  .  . how to perpetuate fear that would motivate the support of science.”

A need to generate fear, in LindzenÂ’s telling, is whatÂ’s driving the apocalyptic rhetoric heard from many climate scientists and their media allies. “The idea was, to engage the public you needed an event .  .  . not just a Sputnik—a drought, a storm, a sand demon. You know, something you could latch onto. [Climate scientists] carefully arranged a congressional hearing. And they arranged for [James] Hansen [author of Storms of My Grandchildren, and one of the leading global warming “alarmists”] to come and say something vague that would somehow relate a heat wave or a drought to global warming.”

...

In a 2012 public letter, Lindzen noted, “Critics accuse me of doing a disservice to the scientific method. I would suggest that in questioning the views of the critics and subjecting them to specific tests, I am holding to the scientific method.” Whoever is right about computer models, climate sensitivity, aerosols, and water vapor, Lindzen is certainly right about that. Skepticism is essential to science.

Skepticism is essential to science -- but poison to a political cause. And thus Lindzen is despised by the Left and the politicized "scientists" of the United Apocalyptic Church of Global Warming Somethinging.

Meanwhile, also thanks to @rdbrewer4 in the sidebar, Everything Old Is New Again.

The polar vortex is a permanent polar cyclone of low-pressure cold air. When it moves south from the North Pole (or, I guess, north from the South Pole), it plunges habitable areas into miserable cold.

And it's always been doing that, obviously. Every winter that I can remember featured cold air blowing down from the Pole.

Time magazine now claims that the shifting of the polar vortex is due to Global Warming.

But in 1974, Time made an equally dire claim: that the shifting of the polar vortex was due to, yes, Global Cooling.

Some scientists are disputing this lunacy -- see, for example, Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Harper notes that polar vortices have been around "forever" and have nothing at all to do with carbon dioxide. They're caused by simple fluid dynamics -- the earth's rotation, the fact that the polar latitudes get almost no sunlight.

If I understand this right, the polar vortex forms a mostly-permanent front, the cold air abutting on the warmer air of the temperate zone. Any front is "unstable" in the sense that it's going to move, as warm air pushes into the cold area, and cold air into the warm area.

What does this have to do with carbon dioxide?

And, by the way, a polar vortex Saved America.

Like any fluid system at “high Reynolds number,” the jet stream is highly unstable, and from time to time it develops meanders to low latitudes, like the one we have had the past few days. About this time of year in 1777, just before the Battle of Princeton, there was a similar sequence. On January 2, Cornwallis’s men marched south from New York City through cold rain and muddy roads to try to trap George Washington and his little Continental Army in Trenton . On the night of January 2-3, a polar vortex swept across New Jersey, with snow and a very hard freeze. Aided by the extremely cold weather, Washington was able to evacuate his troops and artillery over newly frozen roads and to avoid Cornwallis’s encirclement. Reaching Princeton on the viciously cold morning of January 3, Washington won another battle against the British and escaped to winter quarters in Morristown. Thank you polar vortex!

And thank you, Global Somethinging.

Podcast: The Weekly Standard has a podcast in which Michael Graham talks with Ethan Epstain about his article.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (425)
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From the Smoking Gun, She drew it right out of her P-Holster.

A domestic dispute over space aliens escalated Saturday morning when a lingerie-clad New Mexico woman allegedly pointed a silver handgun at her boyfriend, a weapon she retrieved from her vagina, where it had been placed while the accused was performing a sex act, police allege.

...

McCarthy’s boyfriend told investigators that following the argument McCarthy departed her Aventura Road residence. Upon returning to the home, he told deputies, McCarthy went into her bedroom and later emerged “wearing lingerie and a silver handgun in her vagina.” She then proceeded to “have inner course with the gun,” according to the court fling.

While using the gat as a sex toy, McCarthy reportedly asked her boyfriend, “Who is crazy, you or me?”

After removing the gun from her vagina, McCarthy pointed it at her boyfriendÂ’s head, investigators charge. Fearing that he could get shot, the man grabbed the weapon from McCarthy and put it in the toilet.

Because all you care about is the Would You Hit It...? question:

Ehh... I'm sure she's looked better but. Eh. What really bothers me is that while the story tracks the location of the gun meticulously throughout the incident, they never explain precisely what the space aliens argument was about.

I'm kind of curious. Sounds interesting!

Certainly Jennifer McCarthy was animated by the discussion.

Thanks to @gabriel_malor.

Oh, since this is a blow-off post, a slumpbuster, why not check this out too -- plans for a superyacht meant to look like a Las Vegas theme-nightmare version of Monaco.

It is large, though. It's not really a yacht; it's an enormous barge with expensive engines.

A classy superyacht will have classy guests,
and few, if any, vaigzsh guns

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (435)
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So, this happened:

As Ace reminded us some time ago, there comes a time to put away childish things... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:55 AM | Comments (261)
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Apparently the polarvortex sucked up all the cobloggers, so here's a fresh thread for you to play in while we wait and watch the snow fall.

Speaking of snow, it is snowing here now. We've blown past the two inches predicted and look to be headed to some real accumulation. I favor doing a quick shovel after a few inches (TWSS!) and spreading out some salt. Makes the second round of shoveling go much better.

Mercifully, none of my neighbors use snowblowers, which I hate with the cold of a thousand Al Gore winters. That reminds me... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:48 AM | Comments (358)
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• Are There Parts Of Obamacare That Obama Can't Suspend?
  
• Gun Victories In The Midwest
  
• Is Obamacare Bending The Cost Curve Upward Or Is It Something Else?
  
• Former Gitmo Detainee Implicated In Benghazi Terror Attack
  
• Son Of Conservative Boston Columnist Goes Missing
  
• Four Million Medicaid Enrollees Under Obamacare? Doubtful
  
• Cost Of Political Posturing In Iraq
  
• Global Warming Activist Ships Finally Break Free Of Antarctic Ice
  
• Political, Economic Power Grow More Concentrated
  
• Could California Split Up?
  
• The Ignorant Left
  
• What Mike Bloomberg Has In Common With Guns And Ammo
  
• If You Like Your Light Bulbs, You Can Keep Your Light Bulbs
  
• Hitchcock's Unseen Holocaust Documentary To Be Screened
  
• Rodman Sings Happy Birthday To Kim Jong Un
  
• New IPhone Case Uses Gun Grip Material
  
• When Sexting Gets Ugly
  
• Trademark Office Rules Redskin Derogatory
  
• How?
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:20 AM | Comments (730)
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