Oh My....

Gov. Palin-

If you doubt that that she's REALLY been knocked out into the Far Beyond That Shall Never Run because she resigned in the face of doing more harm than good, check out the comments here. This is a short version of most of them; though it lacks in detail, it gets the point across:

lewisge Yesterday 09:02 PM "In all three scenarios, Palin is unfit for high office, and certainly unfit to be the vice president or the president of the United States. " This is the biggest bunch of horse-hockey I have seen to date on this topic. Gary Lewis

There's a fallacy called "false choice"-- you know, "either you're for abortion, or you hate women!" type thing. While Power Line's post isn't nearly that bad, it does display a pretty powerful set of blinders: the poster can't seem to allow for the possibility that someone in politics would act for good outside of their own interests. Paul's offered choices are: she's hiding from a scandal, she can't handle 'criticism,' and she got a better offer than 'fulfill the duties associated with the position the voters of Alaska entrusted to her.' Now, I'm just a dumb pregnant lady, here, but I can come up with several more options: She's protecting her babies from the sick bastards that seem to be showing up more and more as they notice that anything they do that's vaguely against Gov Palin is A-OK. She's protecting her family because they've already spent far, far too much personal money on harassment-lawsuits, and they're not rich. It's possible, you know, that someone might put their family's economic well-being in front of satisfying a bunch of politics-as-a-sport folks. Or, shocker, she looked at what good she can do in the last few months and compared it to how much it's costing Alaska for her to stay on, and decided it was best for her to leave. You know, like she said in her speech? Given that most of the good political minds I'd usually go to for stuff I hadn't thought of are fixated on running around screaming "off with her head," I highly doubt these extra three options even cover all the reasonable options for why Palin is resigning.

Just Apply Existing Laws....

Heard about Micro UAVs yet? Think robotic birds, and that's about right. Maybe even dragonflies. Kinda cool. Like most cool things, though, it can turn off folks' good sense..... Listening to a podcast of The Dark Secret Place from KFI-AM, and he just displayed that short-circuiting of common sense.... Wondering if police could send these into folks' homes without a warrant. Um, no. That's unlawful search. Same as sending a cop in, full stop. This stuff drives me nuts... same way I can't stand "cellphone laws" for driving. There's already laws against hazardous driving. So apply them!

Funny Defintion of Justice.....

But Gary is not a terrorist, he's a mild-mannered computer nerd with Aspergers syndrome who won¹t survive a year, let alone 60, in a US high security prison.

Wait, wait. Put aside for a moment that "computer nerd with Aspergers" is mildly redundant. Rather than argue for leniency because we don't know of much harm done, they're arguing that he shouldn't be tried in the country whose military he hacked because they don't think he'd survive prison? Note there's no reason given for why he wouldn't survive in max security-- which, from what I can find, involves being separate from other inmates. No, he's just a poor wimp, so he shouldn't be punished for breaking laws, it might be too much for him. A recap: he hacked into a foreign country's military computers. This is REALLY not a good thing-- I'm not surprised GB is handing him over. He's a forty-something year old sys admin. That's the same job Elf does. Amazingly, for a guy who was "just looking for proof of aliens," he found time to leave some notes:

“US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days . . . It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year . . . I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels . . .”

At the link is further information:

Having gained access to these computers the appellant deleted data from them including critical operating system files from nine computers, the deletion of which shut down the entire US Army’s Military District of Washington network of over 2000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting Governmental functions; 2,455 user accounts on a US Army computer that controlled access to an Army computer network, causing these computers to reboot and become inoperable; and logs from computers at US Naval Weapons Station Earle, one of which was used for monitoring the identity, location, physical condition, staffing and battle readiness of Navy ships, deletion of these files rendering the Base’s entire network of over 300 computers inoperable at a critical time immediately following 11 September 2001 and thereafter leaving the network vulnerable to other intruders. 14. The appellant also copied data and files onto his own computers, including operating system files containing account names and encrypted passwords from 22 computers comprising: 189 files from US Army computers, 35 files from US Navy computers (including some 950 passwords from server computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle); and six files from NASA computers. 15. The appellant’s conduct was alleged to be intentional and calculated to influence the US Government by intimidation and coercion. It damaged computers by impairing their integrity, availability and operation of programmes, systems, information and data, rendering them unreliable. The cost of repair was alleged to total over $700,000.

Buuuuut he's just looking for little green men! Ignore that he shut down Washington Army computers shortly after 9/11. Repeat after me: he's just a poor nerd!

Sign That You've Heard "Change" Too Much:

-it takes you well into chapter six of the Chaos Lands in Warhammer to remember/realize that Tzeentch is the god of "change." (Warhammer: proof that there ARE worlds far more depressing than anything you can come up with.)

Made Me Smile

It wasn’t supposed to be so - the great early modernists were convinced that the Prole would be happy to insert himself into his cube in a great glass hive, sit in a rational chair and study a Mondrian before going down to the Worker’s Center on the ground floor and hear a lecture. The bourgeois desires of the Lower Orders must be such a disappointment to their betters. If only they knew!

This is why Mr. Lileks gets the big bucks. Amusing: I know of most of these things via scifi or other non-historical books. (Data tried to paint some Mondrian stuff at one point.) Once you know the theories, you can see them elsewhere-- but the words are different, now.

We The People

of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. If you don't have the option of visiting family, living or gone, why not watch Iron Man, or Independence Day? Elf is off for his duty weekend, and family is a bit too far to travel to reach, so I'll probably watch that, or Stargate: SG1, and thank God for the great nation I had the incredible luck to be born into. My choices are all of the geek type, and I can't stand Saving Private Ryan type movies-- FAR too close to home-- but feel free to drop suggestions for good movies! Can't be worse than some of the suggestions sci-fi wire offered for the best moments. Happy ID, troops. Hope your good times shine as much as mine do.

The What If Game....

This is of a piece with the Dubya-hate. Had a Democrat president kept the nation safe for 7 years after a heinous attack, kept the economy running and unemployment numbers low, even after that attack; had he taken out a murderous despot who gave sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Abbas, liberated millions of people and helped warring tribes forge a tenuous democracy in a region where it was thought impossible, we would have heard that the inevitable mistakes and difficulties of war were “inevitable mistakes,” and there would be talk about Mt. Rushmore. We’d be hearing that “the president did not overspend, the congress overspent,” (though the whole Sallie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle that upset the markets would still be underreported). But because a Republican president did those things, well, we know the rest.

All I can think of is this: There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church. Another version was used in the preface to the book here -- it seems the good Archbishop phrased the thought quite a few times!

Exactly The Point

In Iran the principle was very clear. The Iranian people were standing up for free and fair elections and many were losing their lives because of it. The thug regime in Iran, knowing it was on the losing side of the election, took the steps necessary to fake the vote and suppress the consequent outrage. Contrary to what Obama tried to sell days later, this was not about whether Ahmadinejad or Mousavi was a better candidate. They are probably two peas in a pod. Rather, this was about the Iranian people standing up for their rights to fairly elect their leaders. Obama's silence was cold calculation, nothing more.

A great many things make me tired these days-- mom says it's a side effect of pregnancy, and should pass in about 20 years-- but the argument that we should be silent and not condemn governments murdering, on the street, their citizens, should said citizens object to a pretty obviously rigged election* .... Should hold silent.... Because we're not sure the guy that got elected is a whole lot better than the Mad Midget? Golly, you mean that an Iranian Politician might NOT be a moderate social-liberal Democrat? (This seems to be the "acceptable" option for most places I've seen the objection. Insert whatever the preferred "alright" candidate is-- a nice Jewish boy, a loyal Knight of Columbus, Gov. Palin of Iran, etc.) Ah, alright, if principals such as "elections shouldn't be rigged" and "killing non-violent protesters is bad" aren't worth speaking up in defense of, let alone actually defending, should we not object to tell lies when they're for a good cause? Cold-blooded murder when the target deserved it, or at least didn't do enough to not deserve to be murdered? Rape, if the girl is really pretty? How about theft, if you're stealing from someone or something big enough, or you think you can get away with it? (Ooops, wait, that's the current Congress' main objective-- my bad.) *(all the polls favor the other guy, reporting irregularities including hand-done ballots being turned in faster and in larger numbers than ever before, the nearly unheard of part where a very popular candidate hugely lost his home area...I'm sure I'm leaving some out)

Dog Sues Man-

at least, that's what the guy Obama wants to regulate, well, everything, wants to make possible. No, really:

More specifically, he wrote: “Laws designed to protect animals against cruelty and abuse should be amended or interpreted to give a private cause of action against those who violate them, so as to allow private people to supplement the efforts of public prosecutors.”

In English: if I want to harass you, I want to be able to claim standing on behalf of your pigs, cows, chickens or dog and sue the daylights out of you.