Archive for May, 2008
13th May 2008
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Where have I seen this before? Oh, yeah — Star Treck, one of those episodes where Kirk or Spock or somebody gets court-martialed.
He looks really happy to be wearing it, doesn’t he?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Lord Chief Justice models new gown for judges
13th May 2008
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And you’re paying for all this. Be proud.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on State Department Outreach to Terror Groups
13th May 2008
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Washington Today
12th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Facebook Can Be Fun, But It’s Also Useful
12th May 2008
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And about time, too.
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Lumeta’s “peel & stick” solar panels can blanket a roof in under 35 minutes
12th May 2008
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Information is power. Who could doubt it?
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Electricity-powered Datastorm data transfer device is retrolutionary
12th May 2008
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Nanohealing substance stops bleeding in seconds, vampires protest
12th May 2008
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Money may not buy happiness, but it can rent Harvard and Jimmy Carter for a good long while.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Saudi Money for Harvard and Jimmy Carter
12th May 2008
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And they can’t draw the obvious conclusion. None so blind as those who will not see.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Young Saudis, Vexed and Entranced by Love’s Rules
12th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on How Defense Research Is Making Troops More Effective in Wartime
12th May 2008
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Megan McArdle points out some common threads of “alternative medicine”.
I love the ionic foot baths that use salt ions and your skin fat to create lye while telling you that the disgusting looking brown stuff is “cleansing your liver”.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Detox
12th May 2008
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(Is this a trick question?)
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Why Is The FCC Subsidizing The Least Efficient Providers Of Rural Telco Services?
12th May 2008
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Oh, no!
Wait for the enviro-nazis to mandate it.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Cost of thatching up by 150 pc
12th May 2008
Megan McArdle has been discussing the minimum wage. This post is particularly excellent.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Even more on the minimum wage
12th May 2008
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Consider this tough talk from UN chief Ban Ki-moon: “I want to register my deep concern and immense frustration on the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis.” The problem is, something is only unacceptable if it’s not accepted. So, eleven days into the unacceptable, we’re still pretending that the UN is going to get around to caring about corpses that can’t be linked to the American military or the Israeli Defense Force.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »
12th May 2008
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Time to invade Burma?
Remind me what use the U.N. is.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »
12th May 2008
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We have the technology.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Speedboat crashes into Scottish golf course
12th May 2008
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Iraqi artists and singers flee amid crackdown on forbidden culture
12th May 2008
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I am not making this up.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Pagan convicts allowed magic wands in cells
11th May 2008
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Okay, new technique that differs from what everybody else is doing, and it demonstrably works —
Chances of it getting widely adopted: None.
Amount of time between now and when it is in general use: Approximately 100 years. And homeschoolers will have been doing it for 50 of them.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on ‘Short school lessons more effective’
11th May 2008
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I’d want to specify “No socialists need apply.” But that’s me.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on One Hundred Thousand Dollars For Ideal Egg Donor?
11th May 2008
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Great. When New York and Los Angeles go under water, we can move to Australia. They’ll have enough food for us.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on WARMING CAUSES FOODING
11th May 2008
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Palestinian Work Accident Watch
11th May 2008
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Also, organically reared cows burp twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle – and methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.
Huh. Organic food is … wait for it … bad for the environment. Who knew?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can’t afford
11th May 2008
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Yeah, he talks a good fight, but talk is cheap — can he deliver?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Economists who have endorsed John McCain’s economic plan
11th May 2008
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Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.
Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand’s two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
This in an Iraq that is supposedly suffering under the Iron Boot of American Imperialism. Where are Dick Durbin or John Murtha when you really need them?
Your future under Islam. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on ‘My daughter deserved to die for falling in love’
11th May 2008
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I still have my copy of the Compact OED. Wouldn’t part with it for anything. And the magnifying glass came in handy for many occasions, too.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Lexicographical Longing
11th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Tony Stark’s Iron Man Dream Lab
11th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on The World’s Spookiest Weapons
11th May 2008
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Thefts Rise With Copper Prices
11th May 2008
Megan McArdle thinks so that you don’t have to.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Oil Company Profits
11th May 2008
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I think teenagers ought to be encouraged to injure themselves. Saves the rest of us some effort.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Growing Wave of Teenage Self-Injury
10th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Terrafugia hopes to showcase drivable airplane this summer
10th May 2008
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Lebanon’s Third Civil War
10th May 2008
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And reality, apparently.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Holistic moms shun commercialism
9th May 2008
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Invade? The international community cannot “protect” the Burmese people from a military government without employing military means.
And long past time, I would say.
The United Nations, of course, is not prepared to use force. So Burmese by the tens of thousands will perish.
Remind me what good the U.N. is.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Time to Invade Burma?
9th May 2008
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Can you say “Mystamation”? If you can, and know what it means, then you’re an old fart just like me.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds
9th May 2008
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Aw, isn’t that cute….
Posted in News You Can Use. | 2 Comments »
9th May 2008
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“You can make a mainframe / from the things you have at home.” Jeez, I haven’t thought about that song in years.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on E-Fuel’s Micro Fueler creates Ethanol from sugar in your backyard
9th May 2008
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“Want to ship American jobs overseas? Ask me how!”
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Bank of America’s We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinking-America Patent Application
9th May 2008
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I can’t think of any place in Africa or South America that wouldn’t profit from a large influx of Chinese. Hell, I wish we had more of ’em here.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Wilds Of World To Get Converted To Farm Land?
9th May 2008
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Boy, those guys really look British, don’t they?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Armed gang raid gym during police visit
9th May 2008
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It has long been common for assassins to target local and state police chiefs in Mexico, but this year, cartels have been increasingly going after some of the biggest names in the federal law enforcement structure.
No wonder they’re crossing the border.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Mexico’s Police Chief Is Killed In Brazen Attack by Gunmen
9th May 2008
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Microsoft has been under huge pressure from its hardware OEMs to dump XP, thus forcing millions of customers who have been avoiding Vista and Vista’s inevitable hardware upgrade to finally buy new computers. Dumping XP will help Dell and HP AND Microsoft, big-time. It won’t do anything for you or me, though, since Vista still sucks, but we obviously don’t matter.
Time to buy a Mac.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Cringely explains it all
9th May 2008
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Washington Today
8th May 2008
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But that conclusion must of course be interpreted to make conservatives look bad. So the assumption is injected that they SHOULD be angry! No argument is offered to say why.
“Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives,” the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, “apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light.”
Obviously a serious character flaw. Liberals are just too sensitive for their own good.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Conservatives are happier because they are less angry
8th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on More details about the Triac highway-capable three-wheel electric car emerge
8th May 2008
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on PEAK PlasmaBlade electrosurgery scalpel is amazing, disgusting
8th May 2008
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The corporate recruiters have a pretty easy time of it, as they can offer higher pay, better working conditions and bonuses.
And it’s not as if there’s any patriotism there to motivate people the other way.
I love these left-wing fantasy movies in which the CIA is staffed by brilliant people with the latest in electronic equipment that can monitor what everybody does all the time. If only….
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Corporate Spies Killing The CIA
8th May 2008
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Gangs of youths loyal to Zimbabwe’s ruling party beat to death 11 opposition activists in a remote town this week in an escalation of post-election violence, opposition party officials and witnesses said Wednesday.
Sounds like the sort of ‘activists’ that are attracted to the Democrat Party.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Zimbabwe Youths Kill Opposition Activists