You want scary?

We’ll give you scary.

Read it.

An English “Brigadoon”?

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The medieval castle, seen by millions of Harry Potter fans in the films, is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.

We have the technology.

Read it.

Read it.

And about fargin’ time, too.

Steve Landsburg isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions.

1. Insurance is not part of the solution; it’s part of the problem. Many people—and especially poor people— get too little health care in this country. That’s largely because many other people—and especially rich people—are overinsured. People with insurance demand more health care, which drives up prices. More insurance coverage will make this problem worse, not better.

3. A public option can only make things worse. A government run insurance system can only do one of two things: Mimic the private insurers, or do something different. If it mimics the private insurers, it serves no purpose. If it does anything different, it can only be worse.

After all, what can it do different? Approve more claims? But where will the money come from? Higher premiums? But we’ve already agreed that if people wanted that kind of insurance it would already be offered. A more efficient bureaucracy? But if there were a way to save money by streamlining the bureacracy, why wouldn’t all those greedy private insurers have adopted it already? Does anyone believe that the major insurance companies are too lackadaisical to make an easy extra buck?

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Each team is made up of 15,000 people, pulling a 656 ft rope.

Whenever I read a science fiction story that involves an alien species, I can never get into it unless the alien species is at least as weird as the Japanese.

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And the chickens come home to roost….

Boy, those Zimbabweans are sure lucky they’re no longer under the boot of that oppressive white regime.

Thank God for the U.N. and the international community, or who knows what sort of hell they’d be living in now.

Steve Sailor is always worth reading.

Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods, where it is often important to know what gang controls which block.

Personnel who fit neither category, often young men who grew up in the suburbs and developed a liking for video games, do not seem to have the depth perception and peripheral vision of the others, even if their eyesight is 20/20.

The best troops he’s ever seen when it comes to spotting bombs were soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard, nearly all with rural backgrounds that included hunting.

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In relevant part:

The Fourth Amendment protects our homes from unreasonable searches and seizures, requiring that, absent special circumstances, the government obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before entering. This is strong privacy protection for homes and the items within them in the physical world.

When a person uses the Internet, however, the user’s actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, “private” information is actually being held by third-party private companies.

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I guess there are some things that a single-payer plan can’t fix.

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The wife of the Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has filed divorce demands which include £20,000-a-month for clothes, travel by private jet and her old job back as chief executive of the baseball team.

And women wonder why men avoid commitment.

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No Neighborhood Left Behind.

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Nobody asked, but you know what I’m sick of? I’m sick of the Jean-Luc Picard train o’ thought…that when a peace-loving side meets up with a war-making side, the peace-loving side can simply communicate its thoughts and preferences that war not happen — and unilaterally decide that it is not to take place here.

That’s caused quite a few wars in the past, you know. That’s the biggest out of many reasons why I’m sick of it. FU, Capt. JLP.

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Geoffrey Williams, 53, pedalled across the vast Sahara Desert and escaped from a Hungarian jail during his epic travels on the 1949 touring bike.

He also narrowly avoided being shot by border guards as he travelled from Hungary to the old Yugoslavia with nephew Philip ‘Phizzy’ Middleton, 42.

The cycle has survived numerous crashes including one which was so serious that Mr Williams had to undergo surgery on his back.

But now the yellow bike, nicknamed Celia, has gone missing after thieves managed to negotiate 7ft-high gates, a metal chain and two padlocks.

Britain is becoming a Third World country.

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Well, duh. The 5.56mm round was developed for use in jungles, like – ta da! – Vietnam; it doesn’t have the range for open-country fighting.

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1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to liquor.
2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes.
3. You have more wives than teeth.
4. You wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon “unclean.”
5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.
6. You can’t think of anyone you haven’t declared Jihad against.
7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.
8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.
9. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least four.
10. You’ve always had a crush on your neighbour’s goat.

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Kick his sorry ass OUT.

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And this points up the fundamental flaw with the ‘progressive’ push for mass transportation – the overwhelming transportation need in the modern world is not for moving people but for moving stuff, and things like light rail are really bad at moving stuff. This is why tiny cars with room for two people and maybe a sack of groceries get raves in the press but don’t sell worth shit, and why minivans and SUVs and pickups are the most popular vehicles on the road.

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The Democrats would scream like little girls. And probably blame Bush.

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The Church of Scientology was found guilty of fraud in France on Tuesday and fined more than half-a-million pounds, but judges stopped short of banning the group.

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Today’s Washington Post sheds some light on AARP’s decision, and why it  has spent more than $37 million on lobbying since January 2008.. It emergest that AARP stands to make millions if this legislation is passed. The Post reports that AARP collected more than $650 million in royalties and other fees last year from the sale of insurance policies, credit cards and other products that carry the AARP name, while former AARP chief executive William Novelli received more than $1 million in compensation last year.

Proposals before congress would significantly increase AARP’s already bulging coffers. An insurance-mandate is the most obvious of these – forcing people to buy insurance they don’t want and don’t need will increase insurance companies profits, which will flow onto AARP. What’s more however, is that the Senate Finance Committe Bill specifically excludes AARP from limits on the tax tax deductibility for all insurance company executive salaries over $500,000. Other parts of the proposal, such as the “windfall profits” tax, also would not apply to AARP, once again making it more attractive for insurance companies to funnel campaigns through the AARP. Most insiduously,under the Democrat bill, seniors could pay as much as 20 cents more out of every premium dollar to fund “kickbacks” to AARP-sponsored Medigap plans.

Cringely peers behind the curtain.

Is Windows 7 really worth $70 more than Snow Leopard?

The better question to ask is why Microsoft decided to set the price point where they did? And the answer to that one is quite simple: Microsoft doesn’t actually want you to upgrade to Windows 7 at all.

Microsoft wants you to buy a new Windows 7 PC instead.

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

Most people are familiar with the system of sharia courts which has been established in Britain. Similar systems have been proposed in the USA, Canada, and Australia, as well as other European countries. According to the orthodox multicultural rationale behind such courts, they will act as arbitration boards similar to those used by Orthodox Jews, will be used for civil cases only, and will never be allowed to supersede the secular law of the land.

On closer examination, all of three the above assumptions turn out to be false.

Unlike sharia courts, Orthodox Jewish courts recognize the supremacy of the laws of the nations in which they function. Islam never recognizes any law superseding Islamic law. According to its core texts, such recognition is not possible.

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No, it wasn’t. One side was English, the other French. Nothing fair about it.

Arnold Kling discusses some inconvenient truths.

The obvious sociological point is that the top finance people live in a bubble, with secret entrances, isolated offices, chauffered automobiles, and private jets. Even the top government officials inhabit this world. Sorkin describes Geithner arriving at the airport in DC and losing it over not being met by a driver. Forced to take a taxi, Geithner turns to his colleague and says that he has no cash. Perhaps this would have been a moment to teach the head of the New York Fed how to use an ATM.

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We have the technology.

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Developers have reproduced All Saints Church, Brockhampton, Herefordshire, to cater for a demand from Japanese couples to marry in Western-style churches.

Whenever I read a science fiction story that deals with an alien species, I always have a hard time getting into it unless the alien species is at least as strange as the Japanese.

Read it.

The ungrateful swine.

Read it. And watch the video.

Nancy Pelosi and others on the Left have proposed a value added tax as a way to feed the federal beast. The VAT is familiar in Europe but little known to most Americans. In this video, Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute analyzes the implications of a national VAT.

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But what has me annoyed is that every time I’ve seen this question posed, people blather on and on about the relationship between a college education and future earnings. Usually we learn that yes, if you finish college you are likely to earn more money than someone who doesn’t finish college. Whoo-hoo.

The truth is that what you pay for a college education is only part of what you put into a college education, and arguably not the most important part. Call me crazy for saying this, but: how much you care about education matters, too. Like all teachers, I have students who pore over assignments and get inspired and take risks and attend extracurricular lectures and discover new skills and passions. I also have students who don’t do that so much, despite all sorts of institutional and personal encouragements to do so. There are students, in other words, who really seem to embrace a spirit of education, students who are spirited about education. And in my experience, those students who put so much of themselves into college are the ones who come out of college with more internships and fellowships and professional school acceptances and – I have to throw something all mushy and unquantifiable in here – better senses of themselves and what they have to give other people and what it means to lead a good life.

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Well, I’m glad that’s settled.

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Many executives were driven away by the uncertainty of working for companies closely overseen by Washington, opting instead for firms not under the microscope, including competitors that have already returned the bailout funds to the government, according to executives and supervisors at the companies.

At Bank of America, for instance, only 14 of the 25 highly paid executives remained by the time Feinberg announced his decision. Under his plan, compensation for the most highly paid employees at the bank would be a maximum of $9.9 million. The bank had sought permission to pay as much as $21 million, according to Treasury Department documents.

At American International Group, only 13 people of the top 25 were still on hand for Feinberg’s decision.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

One in five primary schools are rejecting Government demands to identify their brightest pupils because teachers have “philosophical issues” with giving extra support to the most able children, a senior civil servant said.

Of course — that would undercut the myth that Everybody Is Special In Their Own Way, and that there’s no such thing as one kid being smarter than another.

‘No Child Left Behind’ works on the same premise; no child left behind means, in effect, bright kids being held back to match dumb kids, with the result that they get bored and cause trouble and the school environment gets worse and worse and worse … not to mention general educational attainment levels.

Read it. Worse than Swine Flue: Affluenza!

The latest polls show Obama sinking among independent voters (and a few Democrats as well, though possibly for different reasons). They bring to mind an epiphany I had last summer while driving through the residential suburbs of Chevy Chase, Maryland. I was overwhelmed by the abundance of Obama lawn signs, many more than you might see in my own neighborhood of Dupont Circle in downtown Washington, which probably has the highest rate of Democratic registration in the nation.

And now the Savior Obama is threatening to raise their taxes. How else is he going to finance his various projects?

My question is: what were these people thinking back in the middle of last summer? That the outcome of a presidential election as ideologically polarized as the last one would make no difference whatsoever to their lifestyle? That voting for Obama was more of a style choice than a political decision? That they thought this would establish beyond all doubt that they weren’t racists? Who knows? Maybe even they couldn’t answer these questions now.

This is actually a book review by Mark Steyn. Presumably he didn’t pick the headline.

In his new novel Heart of the Assassin, Robert Ferrigno recreates the Saudi school burning in every particular except one: the madrassa is now in America.

I’ve got the two earlier Assassin books by Ferrigno, and they are well worth the price.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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Oh, the humanity!

Where’s Rosie O’Donnell when you really need her?

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Be the first on your block … not that there’s much competition. There certainly wasn’t a lot of it in the ‘news’.

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First, and as is most evident in Atlas Shrugged, Rand turns Marxism on its head.  While Marxists argue that “capitalists” make their profits on the backs of the working class, Rand illustrates that the working class, as such, makes almost no contribution to wealth, but relies on the efforts, risks, sacrifices, and most of all the genius of the entrepreneurial class.  Consider, as a thought experiment, what living standards would be like if every person in the world had an IQ around the median of 103, and otherwise had average talents and ambition.  Does anyone seriously doubt that “workers,” and everyone else, would be a lot poorer than they are today, and indeed would likely be living as poorly as our hunting and  gathering ancestors?

Alex Tabarrok reveals the clay feet of the Pay Czar concept.

There is no way this will work as advertised.  If the administration actually follows through, most of these executives will quit and get higher paying jobs elsewhere.  Executives not directly affected by the pay cuts will also quit when they see their prospects for future salary gains have been cut.  Chaos will be created at these firms as top people leave in droves.  Will the administration then order people back to work?

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Many people are confused when rich people call for higher taxes.

No need to be. Think it through.

If Bill’s income is a million quatloos a year, and Ted’s income is a hundred thousand quatloos a year, and the tax rate is 25%, Bill winds up with 750,000 quatloos, and Ted winds up with 75,000 quatloos. Bill lives well, and Ted gets by.

If the tax rate goes up to 75%, Bill winds up with 250,000 quatloos, and Ted with 25,000. Bill still lives well (although perhaps not as well), and Ted’s family start eating a lot of pasta. (That’s presuming that Bill’s tax accountant, one of those people that Ted can no longer afford, is so stupid as to have Bill pay Full Price at tax time, the likelihood of which is so small that even Bayes can’t compute it. Remember, Mr Tax Accountant is deductible and gets paid from the 1,000,000 quatloos, not whatever is left.)

More to the point, Ted and family can’t afford to go out any more, and so Bill and family don’t have any competition at their favorite restaurant/concert/resort/marina/ski lodge. Ted also winds up sending his kids to Local Community College rather than Ivy Snootiversity, so Bill’s kids can get in without having a lot of tedious competition. Kids like Bill’s aren’t used to competition; striving is just so middle class, don’t you agree?

Even more to the point, when Ted dies, all he can afford to leave his kids is this old guitar and an empty bottle o’ booze, so Bill’s kids have no fear of them being in the way, unto the fortieth generation.

I’m not saying that’s their motivation; a lot of them have gone to Propaganda Camp for college and may actually believe this horseshit. But that’s the effect, and the more intelligent ones (like Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffet … and Al Gore) absolutely know what the tune is and how to play it.

And don’t think that Barak Hussein Obama (mmm mmm mmm) doesn’t want to be there in that number when the Crust go marching in.

Read it. And watch the video.

Gotta love Australians. Even their seagulls have attitude.

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Can’t say that I blame him. Were I an ice-skating bear, I’d dream of a brighter future than Kyrgyzstan, where about the best you can hope for is to run into Borat some day.

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Probably to make sure the government isn’t screwing them out of royalties.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Well. There it is.

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I guess this is the next step beyond Susan Boyle….