Jamul Casino news: The San Diego Daily Transcript reports:

Improvements along state Route 94 associated with the proposed Jamul Indian Village casino are scheduled to be discussed during a Caltrans-sponsored meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Cottonwood Country Club Tuesday.

The Jamul Band of Mission Indians, which has a six-acre reservation, plans to develop a 203,000-square-foot gaming facility.

The casino building is expected to also include a bank, administrative facilities, food and beverage service, a child-care facility, an arcade area, some retail, a tribal center, a human resources facility and about 2,000 mostly structured parking spaces.

The casino, which will have 2,000 slots along with assorted table games, is projected to employ about 1,800 people. Penn National Gaming will be managing the facility.

The development is also expected to house a new fire station, a wastewater treatment plant and a catch basin system for stormwater.

Proposed highway improvements include widening highway 94 to four lanes between Melody Road and the band's property line and a new traffic signal may be installed at the Highway 94/Lyons Valley Road junction. New turn lanes would be also be added at Highway 94 and Jamacha Boulevard.

Here we go again!

Speeding tickets are for the little people.  Definitely not for Washington politicos...

Not as bad as the press made it look...  Big surprise there, right?  Friend Aleck L. alerted me earlier today to the news reports about “lots of people” making racist tweets about the selection of an Indian-American for Miss America.  Reason's Shikha Dalmia (self-proclaimed “Indian American in residence” at Reason) has a sober and positive take on it.  Big take-away: the “lots of people” reported in the press turns out to be exactly 16 people.  Just 16 tweets out of hundreds of thousands...

Excellent illusion!

You just never know... what you're going to find on Amazon.  They have entire product categories I had no idea existed!  I stumbled across this article and went looking for the product on Amazon to see if it was for real.  I couldn't find it – but I did find this at the top of my search.  My favorite review:

Thanks to this product my anus now actually glows in the dark. It helped me find my way during a black-out, though I had to walk backwards and bent over.

California, boldly going where nobody else is stupid enough to go – enabling illegal immigrants to become licensed lawyers.  As if our lawyers weren't problem enough already!

Strange ghost towns, all around the world.  I'd never heard of most of them...

What's wrong with the NSA, and what we need to do about it.  Bruce Schneier's roll – and leadership – continue...

“Trapped in their porcelain prison.”  I have conflicting responses to watching this.  Part of me wants to roll around on the floor, laughing.  Part of me admires the clever ad.  Part of me wants to claw out my eyes.  Part of me marvels at the entrepreneurial spirit that's obviously still alive.  And yes, it's a real product...

How Obama should have replied to Putin.  But he didn't, so Jim DeMint did it for him.  Thanks, buddy...

For some reason, I'll bet he didn't vote for Obama.  And I'll bet his wife is darned happy about that!

California is at the forefront again.  Of idiocy, that is...

This pretty much sums up the situation, says friend, former colleague, reader, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S.  Yup, sure does.

A hidden message.  The two graphs at right, from a WSJ article, tell an interesting story about union membership.  On the left, you see that overall union membership has declined to almost half the level it was just 20 years ago.  On the right, you see steep declines in the private sector, while public sector union membership rates are basically flat.  I read this as evidence that unions no longer serve a compelling purpose in the private sector, but in the public sector they've got a very effective racket going – and their members know it.

The future of education.  The story of a Mongolian boy genius who is learning electrical engineering by taking (free) online courses by MIT.  If education is the true goal, this is the way to do it.  Combine this with certification decoupled from university attendance (IOW, prove you know your stuff and you can get a degree without even attending a university) and you've got something industry would slaver over.  Which means, of course, that they'd help pay for it, if someone can figure out how to organize it...

Like you've never seen it before...  Here's a short movie of our moon, rotating so that you can see the entire thing.  You can't see this from Earth (because the same side of the moon always faces us), so NASA made this with images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite.  Make it full screen and you'll get a nice 3D effect.  Via APOD, of course.

You think this would work with politicians???  Man fends off a grizzly bear by punching it.

Summers out, markets up.  I'm writing this 15 minutes before the markets open, and the Dow futures are up over 150 points – mainly on the news from last night that Summers has withdrawn as possible replacement for Ben Bernanke.  Apparently the Wall Street crowd didn't think much of Summers, either!

Ta da!  Martin Kleppe gives us the world, spinning – in ASCII, rendered via JavaScript...

Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.  Emails from Lois Lerner show that she was very involved in targeting Tea Party non-profit applications.  Both the original skulduggery and the subsequent coverup are jail-worthy events – but just think how much more effective my solution would be!

That might just be Obama's desired outcome.  Assad is the big winner in the U.S. – Russia chemical weapons deal...

Bruce Schneier is starting to sound like a leader: Take Back the Internet and How to Remain Secure Against the NSA, both excellent (and classically Schneieresque) pieces.  Bruce is working with the Guardian on the Snowden disclosures, which is somehow quite comforting to me.  I would love to see him take the helm of a non-governmental, well-funded effort to guard our online liberty – that would be even more comforting...

It's a brave new world: a Chicago woman forces a man to have sex with her girlfriend.  They robbed the poor bastard, too.  Is it really that hard for a girl to get laid these days?  Or was that just an added bonus for the ladies, who were primarily robbers?

Obama thinks he's playing chess, but Putin is playing poker.  And winning.  This sounds right to me, but I'd take it one level further: Obama is playing chess poorly, and Putin is playing poker like a champ...

It won't be Summers.  Good.  Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of room for Obama to make a bad choice to replace Ben Bernanke...

What scares me most is just how many people think this is a good idea...  “Drink up!”, says The One's better half.  I have no plans to change my behavior on her advice.  One would be better off seeking counsel from a retarded dead squirrel than from her...

I wish the leader of my country was half as clever and effective...  An imaginary encounter with “Vlad” (Putin, not the Impaler)...

She's thankful now, but at first she didn't like the idea of having a gun in the house.  Her husband insisted that they get the gun, and that she learn how to use it.  That gun, and her knowledge of how to use it, came in awfully handy when two men broke into her house...

“Listen to me, goddamnit!”  Charles Cook, writing at NRO, has a great piece up on the recent successful Colorado recall elections.  The lead:

Despite the media’s insistence that the Colorado recalls were the first skirmish in a new proxy war between the National Rifle Association and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the simple truth is that Tuesday’s stunning elections were prompted and won by forces on the ground. At the Stargazers Theatre last night, I sat with those forces as a famous victory unfolded. Speaking after Senator Morse conceded, the recall’s founder, Tim Knight, told the crowd that “you must own your freedom in order to protect and pass it on to your children.” He has spent the last few months doing just that.

Amen, brother.  Indications in Washington are that the progressives are taking careful, if dismayed, note of the events in Colorado...

It's the cycle.  For some people, the traditional seasonal cycles of farming are comforting and attractive.  As an engineer, I'm more into creative destruction :)

Water changes everything.  A photographer finds beauty in the myriad ways that humans have affected our planet using water...

Wings of a Butterfly.  Nice name for a beautiful nebula, officially known as M2-9.  Via APOD, of course...

Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year.  Really!  “High noon” is when the sun (wherever you happen to be) is at its highest point in the sky.  The time between one high noon and the next day's high noon is the “apparent solar day”.  The length of that day varies during the year, depending on where the Earth is in its orbit, and (especially) on how fast the Earth is moving.  Because the Earth is in an elliptical (not circular) orbit around the Sun, these things vary.  And tomorrow is the shortest day of all!

Nobody said Mother Nature was fair.  Some tentative indications that having tooth cavities protects against head and neck cancers...

It's an asymmetrical war, but this asymmetry favors us.  A peek at how al Qaeda sees American UAVs (drones)...

How the world sees Putin and Obama...

There are useful idiots, and there are useless idiots.  The latter are in the majority.  Students create a memorial to the people killed on 9/11 by planting 2,977 flags in the ground.  Five protestors then come along and remove the flags, falsely claiming desecration of Native American burial sites.

Well, progressives would call this progress.  In public policy, the scientifically verifiable facts don't matter any more...

I thought they meant The One and his Obsequioids!  White House full of vermin.

Soyuz landing on September 10.  This is the same landing pictured above, but this time in video.  There was a glitch, but the crew wasn't endangered.  Chuck Yeager would hate the Soyuz – monkeys in a can, he'd say...  

Clinging to the teats.  David Thompson on Australian scientists reacting to the news that the newly elected (relatively) conservative government is going to cut off their grant money...

Well of course not!  It's for the little people...  Federal workers don't want Obamacare.  For thee, but not for me (if I'm a Federal employee)...

Well, if I were a Jew in Syria, I'd have left long ago!  Almost all the Syrian Jews are gone...

Sad sushi scoop.  The best sushi near Jamul is at Yuki Sushi, in the Rancho San Diego Target shopping center.  Jenny (the owner) tells us that she's losing her lease there (for reasons she's not sure about), as of September 30th.  We're going to go back there as often as we can before then; I hope you will too.   Jenny's not sure what she's going to do after that.  She looked so sad as she relayed this news to us. BTW, for those of you who remember Tatsu's, where Ranch Feed is now – Mr. Tatsu, the former owner, now works for Jenny a couple of days a week. We've seen him there the past couple of Fridays; very nice to see our old friend...

Baby sea lion makes itself at home.  Cute.  Via my lovely bride!

Bravo Cafe is the best!  Just sayin'...  Manoli, Rosio, and their kids are a joy to meet and talk with – a true family business, even in this day and age.  And of course the food – simple, good, honest fare ... in stunningly huge portions.  I took a quick look around, and I'm glad to see that others share our opinion: here, here, and here.  Go grab a (giant) bite to eat there, and tell 'em we said hi!  Debbie just had a Caesar chicken salad, and I had a beef brisket sandwich.  I don't think I'll be hungry until around Thursday...

Tiny little gyroscopes.  They're at the heart of inertial guidance systems in modern rockets, satellites, weapons, and many other places.  They're also in your iPhone and other smart phones.  They're made of silicon, using processes much like integrated circuits – so they can be manufactured cheaply in high volumes.  They're also quite beautiful under a microscope...

Sharp shadows...  I was looking at some of the recent photos from the Curiosity rover on Mars, and noticed the shadow of the rock looked extraordinarily sharp.  The apparent diameter of the sun causes a fuzzy edge to shadows (the “penumbra”), and there wasn't much of one there at all.  But the apparent size of the sun on Mars is substantially smaller than it is on Earth.  So I did the math: from Earth, the sun's apparent diameter is about 32 arc-minutes, while from Mars it's about 21 arc-minutes.  That's enough to make shadows visibly sharper on Mars than they would be on Earth.  It's also enough to make the sun look considerably smaller...

You just gotta love our soldiers.  The finest in the world, bar none.  But sometimes I wonder what they think of the citizens they're defending!  Via friend and reader Simon M...

Don't park in the driveway!  Not if you live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, anyway.  It's an old law they've decided to start enforcing again.  They'll say it's “for the children,” but of course it's really for the money.  It's always for the money...

World parrot rescue headquarters.  In Jamul, thanks to Jamulian Brooke Durham.

Tequila – is there anything it can't do?

See where the rich people live.  It's no surprise that many of them are in the Washington D.C. area, living off the federal teats (there are lots of them!).  Move the income slider bar at the bottom of the map...

The wrong Texan.  These thugs got more than they bargained for...

A surprising thing about Japan.  It's a tech-crazy culture, and the people are well-educated and wealthy.  What the hell is up with these ads?  They seem completely out of character to me, which I suspect means there's something about Japanese culture that I am profoundly ignorant of.  I used to think they were a spoof until I saw them myself on a Japanese cable channel...

An ode to Claude Shannon, by Charlie Martin, who calls him “The greatest genius no one has heard of.”  He's fairly well known in my field, especially to anyone working with error-correcting codes or data compression.  My favorite Claude Shannon quote: “Information is the resolution of uncertainty.”

More NSA scandal fallout: a font designed to be hard to scan to text, yet still be readable by humans.  I don't think this accomplishes anything useful from a technical perspective, but it does raise some attention...

In debt.  Listen to why George Will says he owes his happiness to Barack Obama...

Successful launch.  Japan's newest rocket – the Epsilon – was successfully launched for the first time, putting a research telescope payload into orbit.  Of note: no complex, expensive “command center” was needed for the launch.  Instead, a couple of engineers with ordinary laptops did it.

Dialing back.  Matt Ridley got a preview of the upcoming IPCC report, and he says it dials the global warming alarm rhetoric way back.  Perhaps preparing for a walk-back down the line?

Lucky dog!  A stray for at least 10 years, Sonya has been rescued, and has a home where she's happy and cared for...

Boys would be boys, if only they could...  A good roundup of the painful – and dangerous – consequences of the feminization of American schools.  Progressives just love to deny actual gender differences, despite the clear evidence that it exists.  My own field is a great example: computer science is dominated by men, worldwide, despite widespread availability of computer science education for women...

A shattering experience.  What happens when you freeze flowers in liquid nitrogen, then shoot them with a bullet.  Martin Klimas wanted to know this.  What I want to know is this: what did someone do to Martin when he was a kid, that caused him to wonder things like this?

Incremental ensnarement.  Millions of drivers use E-ZPass when they travel on toll roads or bridges.  Electronic readers see that they pass by, and their credit cards are automatically charged.  Very convenient.  But ... now administrators are setting up E-ZPass readers in New York City (and maybe other places as well) to collect information for other purposes – we don't know exactly what.  But what is alarming to many is that one can easily see how this could turn into a network that knew where you were, all day long.  Anyone with access to that system could find you anytime they wanted to.  Much more like this is coming, as location technologies mature and are dispersed.  Mobile phones, nearly all of which have GPS, are a major security concern for some...

Touchdown!  The photo at right shows the recent landing of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three astronauts on board, on the plains of Kazakhstan.  To cushion the landing, small retro-rockets fire very briefly when the craft is one meter (3 feet) off the ground.  U.S. capsules always splashed down in the ocean, whose soft embrace eliminated the need for the retro-rockets.  When Soyuz was developed, the Soviets were afraid of landing anywhere other than their own territory – enough so that the cost and trouble of developing the retro-rocket system seemed worth it.  I wonder how the Russians would make that decision today?

Syria agreement: Russia and the U.S. agree on a plan to relieve Assad of his chemical weapons – but they explicitly leave out the possibility of backing up the demand with military force.  Obama reserves the right to intervene militarily, unilaterally – but not right now, sometime down the road.  If you were Assad, how would you be feeling all this?  I suspect he's spending more time laughing at the bozos in Washington and Geneva than anything else...

Dilbert is awesome!  And so is his mom...  Scott Adams makes me think, makes me laugh ... what more could an Internet citizen ask?

I'm experimenting with some layout changes.  If you see something you don't like, or that doesn't work, please let me know.  Of course, I'd always be happy to hear about it if I managed to accidentally get something right :)

Links of the Day...

Syria roundup: indecisive, holding fire, and the global joke (us).  Mark Steyn on Putin: “In reality, Putin finds his thrill by grabbing Obama’s blueberries and squeezing hard.”  Summary: bad, and trending worse.  Winners: Iran and Pooty-Poot.

Obama administration obeys the law – unexpectedly!  Robert Zimmerman has this exactly right: the big surprise here is that the Obama administration didn't simply ignore the Obamacare law to do what would make their supporters (the unions) happy.   The details are interesting.  But I'm not buying the notion that Obama did this simply because he thought it would be illegal not to.  That's never stopped him before...

Oh, I sure hope so!  Will McCain retire in 2016?

You tell 'em, Rush!  When you want to educate a receptive mind about American Exceptionalism, Rush is the big gun.  He's in fine form here...

Polarization...   This time, we're talking about rural vs. urban.  We see it out here in rural San Diego County.  Physically we're just 35 miles from the big city.  Politically and culturally, we're a million miles apart.  We often feel like we're traveling to a foreign, unfriendly country when we go “down the hill” into town...

Someone found a use for Jerry Brown's California: a place to dump people with mental health issues.  Dave Blount: “Not only will they feel perfectly at home in a state that would react to an economic crisis by putting Governor Moonbeam back in power, but it is suitable revenge for the previously sane parts of the country that have been infected with moonbattery by Californians escaping the mess their liberalism made of their own state.”

Cats and dogs...  Hackers and the FBI – it's getting more difficult to tell them apart.

The inverse-square law rules!  Two big radio-telescopes have imaged Voyager I, whose transmitter emits a mere 22 watts.  Despite being over 11 billion miles from Earth, Voyager's transmitter still looks very bright compared with anything nearby it in the sky.  That's the inverse-square law at work!

Klepto Kitty.  I hear it's applied for a job with the IRS...

More like minimum jobs, you idiots!  Reason's Scott Shackford takes note of California's new $10-an-hour minimum wage, and notes that it's likely to let out what little steam our “recovery” has...

Some speech would be more free than the rest...  A Senate panel yesterday approved a bill that would establish a special class of citizens: journalists.  Without knowing anything more, that's already terrifying!  The bill goes on to enshrine special protections for journalists, most especially protecting the identity of their sources.  That necessarily implies that all us non-journalists won't enjoy such protections.  But ... who, exactly, would be considered a “journalist”?  Well, that's not clear at all.  Some reaction: James Lileks, Matt Drudge, and James Taranto.  They're no happier about it than I am.

The climate models need decades of work, says the National Academy of Science.  But the science is settled?   Maybe they're just trying to figure out how to keep the taxpayer-funded grant money coming.  In which case we need to figure out how to make it stop!

Not good.  NIST is telling people not to use it's elliptic-curve based random number generator standard.  Random numbers matter.  Given the Snowden revelations about the NSA, my first thought is: “What else has been compromised?” 

I can't decide.  This is either the best campaign ad evah, or it's an unambiguous sign that the end times are nigh.  Jeff Wagner is running for mayor there, and he wants you to “Wake the fuck up!”

It's a map-a-palooza!...  Go here and click on“PROJECTS” to get started; lots of good things to waste some time with...

Mainstream media to Republicans: “You're obsessed with Obamacare!”  I've got news for you, lamers: it's not just Republicans – we libertarians and independents think it's a crock of bovine fecal material, too...

There, but for the NRA, go we...  Two burglars walk into a jewelry store in Nice, France and threaten the owner with a gun.  The owner pulls out his own gun, chases them off and shoots one in the process.  The burglar dies on the scene.  The jewelry store owner is arrested and charged with voluntary homicide. This is controversial even in France, but it's not at all clear how things will turn out...

They're a good thing – abusers, addiction, and social problems notwithstanding, the doc proclaims.  Our own family doc has much the same attitude, much to our relief.  Of course, Obamacare may change all this.  Just ask any Canadians how easy it is for them to get pain killers.  Unless they come to the U.S., of course...

Well, duh!  What did you think would happen when you hire a bunch of high achievers and put them to work teaching?

Progressive hypocrisy?  Color me totally unsurprised.  Progressive media queen Tina Brown's charity collects millions in donations, then makes a single grant of $10,000.  They're better than us, though.  Don't forget that.

“Get ready.”, said the judge, to release some NSA-related FISA court proceedings.  Basically, he's calling bullshit on government assertions about the need for secrecy in all these matters.  About time!

You feel lucky, punk?  Then go invest in the Twitter IPO, says Megan McArdle (the world's tallest female economics blogger)...

Oh, goody.  The Obamacare health insurance exchanges aren't even open for business yet, and already there's a security breach that exposed private information for 2,400 insurance agents.  But that's ok.  You ain't seen nuttin' yet, buddy...

Phrases Commonly Found in Science Research Papers...

...along with translations into ordinary English:

This list of phrases and their translations (definitions) might help you understand the mysterious language of science in general and medicine / biology specifically. These special phrases are also applicable to anyone working on a Ph.D. dissertation, academic paper or journal article at a university anywhere on earth.

Research Phrases	Translation / Meaning
It has long been known ...	I didn't look up the original reference.
A definite trend is evident ...	These data are practically meaningless.
Of great theoretical and practical importance ...	Interesting to me.
While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions ...	An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.
Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study ...	The results of the others didn't make any sense.
Typical results are shown ...	This is the prettiest graph.
These results will be shown in a subsequent report...	I might get around to this sometime, if I'm pushed / funded.
The most reliable results are those obtained by Jones ...	He was my graduate assistant.
It is believed that...	I think.
It is generally believed that ...	A couple of other people think so, too.
It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of the phenomenon occurs ...	I don't understand it.
Correct within an order of magnitude ...	Wrong.
In my experience ...	Once.
In case after case ...	Twice.
In a series of cases ...	Thrice.
According to statistical analysis.	Rumor has it.
A statistically oriented projection of the significance of these findings.	A wild guess.
Thanks are due to Joe Blotz for assistance with the experiment and to George Frink for valuable discussions ...	Blotz did the work and Frink explained to me what it meant.
A careful analysis of obtainable data...	Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of wine.
It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field ...	I quit.

Links of the Day...

Syria roundup:  demanding, devilish, anchorless, deceptive, lost, and exploiting.  Summary: bad, trending worse.  Winners: Iran and Pooty-Poot...

All things Feynman.  Richard Feynman, that is.  Lots of videos, photos, links and more here.  One of my personal heroes, taken by cancer after just 69 amazing years on this planet...

Better be quick!  At least in Arkansas, where if you want an investigation of a police homicide, you'll need to file your request within about 30 minutes of the death...

This is just wrong.  Forensic labs get a bonus when the evidence they produce convicts you...

You can't please 'em all...  Labor unions were one of the key supporters of Obamacare – until they figured out what was actually in it.  Many unions are now calling for “fixing” Obamacare (translation: lard it up with more free goodies), and some are actually calling for its repeal.  Hard to know where all that noise is going to lead...

Who's that?  Megan McArdle has an interesting post about the impact of changing demographics on the economy, but it's the photo she chose that caught my eye.  Who are those people with President Ford?  That's Billy Preston on the left, and George Harrison in the middle...

As unions gain power ... they tend to evolve into racketeers and shakedown artists.  We've seen that here in the U.S. in the past, and today with public sector unions.  But in Mexico, unions have elevated the art of the racket to epic proportions.  Teachers there effectively “own” their positions, freely selling or bequeathing them as they please.  Nowhere in the teacher employment criteria does competence appear.  The government is trying to change that, and the unions are fighting back by shutting down Mexico City.  It's not clear who's going to win.  It's very clear who's losing now: the kids.

What the hell is happening to my country?  It's abundantly clear now, even to the most pig-headed of progressives, that Lois Lerner grossly abused her position at the IRS.  In a just world, she'd be prosecuted, and jailed if convicted.  Instead, she's still at the IRS, still being paid, being considered for promotion, got a bonus, and ... isn't being charged, much less prosecuted...

Don't tell Al Sharpton!  Migaloo, the white (albino) humpback whale from Australia...

Talk about redundant systems!  Jonathan Trappe is trying to fly across the Atlantic, slung under 370 helium balloons.  His Facebook page is streaming his log and diary...

Ya think?  Parents are pulling students out of the Michigan school system whose teachers, administrators, and even board members supported a teacher who admitted pedophilia and was convicted and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.

Unexpectedly!  “G” – the gravitational constant – appears to have changed.  Just a little, but still – that's not supposed to happen.  Growing by 0.02% may not sound like much, but in the world of physics that's big change – especially when zero was the expected change...

Another nail in California's coffin...  California's legislature passed an increase in the state's minimum wage, to $10 an hour.  Governor Moonbeam has indicated he'll sign it.  Of course they're completely ignoring the recent instance proof that raising minimum wages causes employers to lay people off.  The “optics” are all those self-serving politicos care about...

Knaves or fools?  Oh, knaves for sure – though they may be fools as well.  Via Moonbattery...

Smoking is bad, part 3,408,622: The cigarettes handed out to WWII troops killed more of them than the enemy did.  And that's not even counting the indirect effects of smoking on physical fitness, which surely killed even more...

But but but...  It's illegal for them to be here, but we'll give them driver's licenses just the same.  Even though I support open legal immigration, and oppose government licensing of almost every kind ... I can't make any sense out of this sort of incremental, ignore-one-law and enforce another nonsense.  We need to straighten the entire mess out, but there's no political motivation to do that – so we get idiocy like this, instead.  California's dominant low-information voters will probably love it.  Along with the illegals, who (thanks to the equally idiotic “motor voter” law) will now be able to vote...

Much clumpier than I expected.  This map, used by Abraham Lincoln, shows the distribution of slaves (as a percentage of population) over the slave states, by county.  Some counties were over 90% slaves!

Eeeeww!  Strange things people do to themselves...

Kermit is not happy.  NASA doesn't just launch rockets these days – it seems they're launching frogs as well!  No word on how this worked out for the frog, but I'm betting the rocket won...

This was completely predictable.  Obamacare supporters want to get rid of ERISA.  Of course – more people contributing to ERISA plans means less people paying Obamacare insurance.  All those promises not to touch ERISA?  Crickets...

You didn't build that.  Bugs did.  Gears, that is...

Calling George Orwell...  Obamacare requires your doctor to collect sexual histories (and much more) from their patients.  And they haven't even started yet!

The mom is at fault, not the zoo.  This seems pretty clear to me.  But I'll bet my opinion is in the minority.  What a collection of ninny-pies we're turning into!

Hopeful signs.  North Korea is starting to look like Eastern Europe in the late '80s.  Maybe it will collapse in a similar manner.  Can't happen too soon for me...

Preventing amputations in our wounded warriors.  Awesome!

The 2013 IgNobles have been awarded.  Beer goggles.  Watch the ducks.  And much, much more...

In the “Surely you're not surprised?!?” department: tenured professors make worse teachers.  Any business manager can tell you that incentives matter...

Tradeoffs.  Google's Android system for smartphones automatically backs up your phone numbers, contacts, WiFi passwords, etc.  But...that means Google has your phone numbers, contacts, WiFi passwords, etc.  Bruce Schneier has written a lot about these sorts of security vs. convenience tradeoffs.  They're only going to get more common, and more difficult to navigate.  We need transparency on these things, and we need liability attached to the right players.  So far all we've seen in the U.S. is reactive, largely ill considered moves...

The CEOs?  Why aren't the politicians in jail?  This article bemoans the lack of Wall Street CEOs in jail for “causing” the latest financial crisis.  The author bemoans the wrong thing – the real problem is that the politicians who enabled the housing bubble (especially) and other systemic problems have never been held accountable.  Nor, most likely, will they ever be...

Unintended consequences...  Apple's newest phones identify you with a fingerprint scanner.  Google pronounces “Passwords are dead!” and pushes biometric identification.  If this stuff works (itself a very dicey assumption), there's a legal issue with biometric identification that may bother you.  In the U.S., the government cannot (not yet, anyway) compel you to provide a password.  They can, however, compel you to provide your fingerprints or other biometric source data.  I don't know about you, but that's enough to prevent me from using it...

Links of the Day...

Now you've done it, Pooty-Poot...  Putin's got an op-ed in the New York Times that mercilessly mocks The One and his policies.  Some of the commenters get it, some don't.  A selection of reactions to Putin and Obama's Syrian posturings for your delectation: nausea, chagrin, plagiarism, hypocrisy, more hypocrisy, deflection, and confusion.  My take?  Up is down, left is right, and most likely we're screwed and Iran is the big winner...

Molasses kills!  Fish, that is.  But this is just a tenth the size of the Boston Molasses Disaster...

A failure.  What do you call a university that graduates just 16% of its students in 4 years?  Oh, and where only about 25% of its staff is faculty (more are administrators!).  Welcome to California State University, the product of years of progressive efforts...

Rope, tree, some assembly required.  Congress hasn't passed a farm bill yet, and the bought-and-paid-for congress-critters are not happy about this, as their masters are not happy.  So they've come up with a “new” tactic to force the issue: threatening to double milk prices.

First, kill all the lawyers.  That's Megan McArdle's proposal to clear the path for robotic cars in the U.S.  The real problem isn't the lawyers, though they certainly are a tempting target.  The real problem is the entitlement culture that says someone has to be on the hook for anything at all that goes wrong...

Who rules us?  Reader Jim M. passes along this answer:

Yesterday's Elections...

The New York Democratic pervs (Weiner, Spitzer) lost.

The nannies lost (Morse and Giron, Colorado's two Democratic gun-controlling state Senators) – recalled from office and replaced with gun rights Republicans.

We won!

Ouch!

And:




And (Hugh Hewett via Twitter):

Caller just now: "The president's problem tonight is he had to give a speech with John Kerry's foot in his mouth"

22 Times Too Cute!

Via my mom:

Quips...

Said by Steven Wright, via reader Jim M.:

I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

Half the people you know are below average.

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

If you want the rainbow, you have got to put up with the rain.

All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I almost had a psychic girlfriend...But she left me before we met.

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

I intend to live forever... So far, so good.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

Links of the Day...

Creepy, yet engaging.  With animation and special effects, a few minutes of video can show decades of aging.  It happens slowing enough to be almost imperceptible, yet still all within just a few minutes...

Michael J. Totten has a new Kickstarter project running, to finance a reporting trip to Cuba.  I'm in – he's one our best independent journalists, a refreshingly blunt observer in the dark corners of the world.  As I write this, his project is just $365 short of its tiny $8,000 goal.  If you can, and are so inclined, go support him – he's a resource we need in this crazy world...

Maybe it can be unseen?  Scientists come up with a way to selectively erase memories.  Man, I've seen some things I'd love to be able to forget!  Where do I get some?

Because Obama.  Hybrid Prius tanks and your own senator for a year!  Oh, my.  I can't decide whether to laugh or cry – this spoof is funny, but also too damned close to reality...

Judge OKs TSA lying.  This is how we all get enslaved to the bureaucrats.  Dolores Umbridge would feel right at home there. 

We're going to see many things like this.  As drone technology evolves, people are going to find more and more useful ways to leverage eyes in the sky.  Farmers today, who knows what tomorrow?

When you've lost Bruce Schneier...  The crypto community is a-buzz over a comment by Bruce Schneier that strongly implies he no longer trusts NIST's elliptic cryptography standard.  Presumably he's concerned about the existence of an NSA backdoor. 

He should have canceled the speech.  So says Peggy Noonan, and I agree. He didn't have much to say, and he said it badly...

I don't even like Jello.  So why is this so fascinating?

So wrong, on so many levels.  The WSJ editorial board weighs in with a good analysis of Putin's rescue of The One.  You just can't make this stuff up!

The missing symbol.  An evocative artifact of 9/11 that won't be in the 9/11 museum.  Why not?  Short answer: progressive political correctness...

man ascii and four other very useful *nix commands.  Three of these were new to me.  I'll use them, if I can remember them :)

Ginormous aquifer discovered in Kenya.  They sure need the water badly in many parts of Africa.  I worry, though, about aquifer depletion as has happened in the western U.S....

Amazing acrobatic duet.  Via my mom...

12 Years Ago...

Twelve years ago this morning, 2,977 innocent people, mostly American, were killed by al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four aircraft.  Two were crashed into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, one was crashed into the Pentagon, and one went down into a field in Pennsylvania (presumably because the passengers overpowered the hijackers).

Like most Americans, I will never forget the shock and horror of that day, or our fears in the days immediately following.  I mourn those 2,977 innocents, and each year on this day I take a few minutes to remember them.

I also will never forget how this nation came together in response.  I celebrate that American spirit each year on this day.  But that sure didn't last long, did it?

As the years go by and our ineffective, intrusive, and downright un-American response to 9/11 congeals into institutional concrete ... I'm beginning to think that the cure was worse than the injury.  The TSA appears to be nearly completely ineffective, but costs billions of dollars each month and is as entrenched as any bureaucracy I've ever heard of.  The NSA revelations, still slowly and painfully rolling out, collectively reveal how precious little our government doesn't know about us.  The only thing that seems to have truly been improved is our intelligence capabilities, and I'm really just hoping for that – inferring from the lack of successful follow-on attacks that our intelligence gathering must be working...