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

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From 1876 to 1992—116 consecutive years—the Mississippi lieutenant governor was a Democrat. This year, the Democrats haven’t been able to find anyone to run for that office. Nor, for that matter, have they been able to find candidates for state auditor and secretary of state.

Party switching has become rather common in statewide offices in Mississippi: since this past December, three state representatives and two state senators have changed their affiliation from Democratic to Republican.

TechCrunch decides to have some fun.

Now that’s comedy.

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Which is perfectly reasonable, if you think about it.

Most people give that artificial construct of the law, ‘intellectual property’, all the respect it deserves – 0%. Calling it ‘piracy’ merely debases the language — real pirates steal stuff; when somebody steals stuff, the original owner is deprived of its use. If somebody copies a file, the original owner is not deprived of it’s use, therefore IT ISN’T STEALING, no matter how many legislators can be bought by lobbyists to say that it is … and people of common sense (at least 70% of the population, it says here) understand that.

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Produced by Nanolux, an arm of AIST, the camera uses a series of algorithms to read and process wavelengths reflected by objects lit with infrareds, allowing it to successfully reproduce reds, blues, and greens in the darkest of conditions.

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With Facebook, recruiters see the “real” you – not the “interview” you. They also see your “real” family, friends, pets, old sweethearts, ex-wives… everything.

The see how you handle conflict and confrontation. They are witness to your conversational style and ability to communicate. They see what you’re passionate about, and the areas in your life where you may be a bit passive. They see if you are ready for the next stage in your career development, or still have pictures of the intoxicated you with your shirt off in 23 degree weather with the ‘A’ from “WILDCATS” painted on your chest during a football game (not exactly their idea of a “team player”).

Yet another reason to steer clear of Facebook.

An Informative Picture.

In classical mythology, the Hydra was a beast with multiple heads; every time the Hero chopped one off, several more grew in its place.

Modern government is Jabba the Hutt with multiple tails; every time one is chopped off, several more grow in its place, and they all try to wag the body, often at the same time.

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Which immediately poses the question: Why do we still have troops in Germany? Do they need protection from the Russians and Poles? Still?

The Other McCain, unlike the LameStream Media, is on the case.

Watch the video for left-wing thuggery in action.

I guess this is the new ‘civility’ that the Obamassiah keeps droning on about.

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Perhaps it’s because the median age in a Starbucks is about 19.

That’s mentally, of course.

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The inner workings of solid state storage devices are so fundamentally different from traditional hard drives that forensic investigators can no longer rely on current preservation techniques when admitting evidence stored on them in court cases, Australian scientists said in a research paper.

Data stored on Flash drives is often subject to a process the scientists called “self-corrosion,” in which evidence is permanently erased or contaminated in ways that bits stored on magnetic-based hard drives are not. The alterations happen in the absence of any instructions from the user. The findings introduce a “grey area” into the integrity of files that are forensically extracted from the devices and threaten to end a “golden age” of digital evidence gathering offered by older storage types.

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Huckabee is an idiot. I’d vote for McCain before I’d vote for him, and I’d vote for a dead rat before I’d vote for McCain.

The Other McCain actually put some thought into this one.

It’s weird how some parts of hippie culture survived and some parts didn’t. Fashionable people are all into food that is organic and natural (being “natural” was a big thing with the hippies), but the same fashionable people do not object to women dosing themselves with synthetic hormones in order to maintain an artificial sterility.

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The Intel Science Talent Search is considered the nation’s most elite and demanding high school research competition, attracting the crème de la milk-fats-encased-in-a-phospholipid-and-protein-membrane of aspiring young scientists. Victors and near-victors in the 69-year-old contest have gone on to win seven Nobel Prizes in physics or chemistry, two Fields Medals in mathematics, a half-dozen National Medals in science and technology, a long string of MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants — and now, an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role.

The Natalie Portman Story — soon to be a major motion picture, no doubt.

Robert Samuelson draws back the curtain.

Labor’s fall has been stunning. In 2010, unions represented 6.9 percent of private-sector workers. That’s lower than the 12 percent in 1929, before passage of the 1935 Wagner Act – the National Labor Relations Act – which gave workers the right to organize and required employers to recognize unions that won a secret ballot.

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Remember, in Liberal World, it is all about intentions, not outcomes

1. Have a gripe, Someone needs to do something
2. Pass a law based on feelings
3. Unintended shit happens

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In the long history of the Islamic empire, the wide gap between delusions of grandeur and the forces of localism would be bridged time and again by force of arms, making violence a key element of Islamic political culture. No sooner had the prophet Muhammad died than his successor, Abu Bakr, had to suppress a widespread revolt among the Arabian tribes. Twenty-three years later, the head of the umma, Caliph Uthman ibn Affan, was murdered by disgruntled rebels; his successor, Ali ibn Abi Talib, was confronted for most of his reign with armed insurrections, most notably by the governor of Syria, Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufian, who went on to establish the Umayyad dynasty after Ali’s assassination.

Mu’awiya’s successors managed to hang onto power mainly by relying on physical force to prevent or quell revolts in the diverse corners of their empire. The same was true for the Abbasids during the long centuries of their sovereignty.

Violence and oppression, then, have not been imported to the Middle East as a byproduct of European imperialism; they were a part of the political culture long before. If anything, it is the Middle East’s tortuous relationship with modernity that has left physical force as the main instrument of political discourse.

Unlike Christianity, Islam was inextricably linked with empire. It did not distinguish between temporal and religious powers (which were combined in the person of Muhammad, who derived his authority directly from Allah). This allowed the prophet and his erstwhile successors to cloak their political ambitions with a religious aura.

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The problem with blue collar careers that seem fun is that like anythimg, after the novelty wears off, it becomes a job, and any kind of manual labor is just plain hard work, and the pay is not commensurate with the effort.  The reason men like me pick comfortable, cerebral careers instead of manly outdoor jobs like lumberjacking is because to me, what I do is pretty easy, and I can get paid several times more than than I’d get for lumberjacking doing something easy in air-conditioned office.

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Which is nonsense, of course, because such premiums are actuarially-based and females have statistically proven lower insurance risks.

Once again, PC comes to the European Union.

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One of today’s under-reported stories is Canada’s steady movement to the right. My impression is that most businessmen now regard Canada as a better place to do business than the United States. And compared to Mexico, it has the advantage that people don’t get kidnapped and murdered.

One of the “Ms” in 3M used to stand for Minnesota. No more. The company still has its headquarters here, but it has moved much of its operations to the more profitable environment of Texas. Companies that are engaged in global competition can’t afford to humor politicians who are ignorant of economics. Like Barack Obama.

John Hinderaker of Power Line takes a tour of the coming revolution in Wisconsin.

Big Government posted this funny video of Communists in Madison, Wisconsin, who are convinced that the revolution is just around the corner. First Tunis, then Cairo, then Tripoli–and now, Madison! Christian Hartsock traveled to Wisconsin on behalf of Big Government and was invited to a meeting of the local chapter of the International Socialist Organization. Some of the Communists at the meeting turned out to be representatives of public sector unions.

The video actually reminds me of my youth; I attended meetings a lot like this. Very little has changed, although I don’t think the radicals of the 1960s and 1970s were quite this dim.

Wisconsin has always been the Massachusetts of the Midwest, so this isn’t really news, but it is a useful reminder. I guess socialism requires proximity to large bodies of water.

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There’s a dog-bites-man headline if ever I saw one. I guess the ‘news’ here is, that it isn’t trillions in federal waste — which it undoubtedly is, but the government’s investigators aren’t any more competent than the rest of them, so they’ve surely missed a lot. Still, it’s something.