U.S. and Russia: “resolving” Ukraine crisis? This article's headline is US and Russia ‘Closer’ to Resolving Ukraine Crisis, and when you read the content you'll find that's a fair characterization.
What I find remarkable here is that the U.S. is the main party to the negotiations for a resolution. The Ukrainians are almost an afterthought, and the European Union is basically excluded. The superpowers (or superpower wannabes) are dividing up the world again. This kind of meddling in another country's destiny always seems to lead, eventually, to war.
I just saw a tweet from Estonia's president Ilves expressing similar concerns.
Apparently it is impossible for politicians to learn from history...
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
I only know a few people I'd call “racist” ...
This video shows Juan Williams (a prominent liberal) expressing his support for his son Raffi (a prominent conservative) in the aftermath of an ugly racist incident. Juan does a great job here, speaking out about the racist underbelly of the liberal movement...
In the part of the country where I live (or anywhere I'd want to live), the social stigma of being overtly racist is quite high. I've noted, though, that when some liberals believe they are in a place where only other liberals can hear them, they're rather more willing to express their racist beliefs. The hypocrisy is strong there...
Philae is awake!
Philae is awake! The Philae comet lander was awakened from its long hibernation and was thoroughly checked out this week. It's all good news. The lander is currently attached to the Rosetta comet explorer, but will detach and land on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko later this summer.
It's another robotic space explorer doing real science on a budget. Unlike, say, the manned ISS, which does little useful science while spending huge amounts of tax dollars and risking lives. So, of course, the government says “Let’s do less robotic exploration and more manned space missions!”
Our tax dollars, hard at work. They're just not working for us.
It's another robotic space explorer doing real science on a budget. Unlike, say, the manned ISS, which does little useful science while spending huge amounts of tax dollars and risking lives. So, of course, the government says “Let’s do less robotic exploration and more manned space missions!”
Our tax dollars, hard at work. They're just not working for us.
Things I didn't know...
Things I didn't know... I do know about the secret “no-fly” list, which keeps over 20,000 people from flying in the U.S. It seems obvious that (a) there aren't really 20,000 people in the world who are trying to hijack or blow up an airliner, and (b) that many of the people on that list are there in error.
What I didn't know is this: in the entire history of this secret list, only one person has ever succeeded in getting his name removed.
That is the kind of statistic you might expect to come out of the old Soviet Union, or North Korea, or Bangladesh. Not out of the United States.
Reading this story made me think, for the umpteenth time, that the 9/11 terrorists really have won. If there's an afterlife, Bin Laden and his buddies are laughing – at us. The America they hated – that land of freedom and opportunity – is being eaten away by a burgeoning security apparatus and by a progressive-pushed journey toward socialism.
Is 10 AM too early for a drink? Ah, well, it's the right time for a drink somewhere...
What I didn't know is this: in the entire history of this secret list, only one person has ever succeeded in getting his name removed.
That is the kind of statistic you might expect to come out of the old Soviet Union, or North Korea, or Bangladesh. Not out of the United States.
Reading this story made me think, for the umpteenth time, that the 9/11 terrorists really have won. If there's an afterlife, Bin Laden and his buddies are laughing – at us. The America they hated – that land of freedom and opportunity – is being eaten away by a burgeoning security apparatus and by a progressive-pushed journey toward socialism.
Is 10 AM too early for a drink? Ah, well, it's the right time for a drink somewhere...
The progressive narrative, part 34,813...
The progressive narrative, part 34,813... Do you know about Oculus being acquired by Facebook? Click on that link for a detailed story. Here are the basics:
Oculus was a startup company whose goal was to develop a new and better virtual reality (VR) headset, named Rift. VR headsets present a 3D image to your eyes, tricking your brain into believing that you are in a different world – one that is completely generated in the computer, and can be anything at all. The main use today for VR headsets is with 3D games, but there are all sorts of other possible uses as well.
Oculus chose to fund its startup through a Kickstarter campaign. They were massively over-funded, meaning that they succeeded in raising far more money than they were asking for. People contributing small amounts of money got nothing but a sincere “thank you” for their money. If you contributed more, you might get a T-shirt, an early version of the Rift, or (for lots of money contributed) various other perks. What you didn't get was any stock in the company – so you weren't investing in the usual sense. The only rewards you got were the pleasure of funding something successful, and possibly (depending on how much you contributed) a copy of the product – if the development was successful.
As it happened, the Rift development every was successful – very much so. Facebook, last week, acquired Oculus in a $2B deal, making the founders fabulously wealthy. The people who funded Oculus – those Kickstarter contributors – make nothing at all on the deal.
The progressives were quick to respond to this. This article, on Bloomberg View, is entirely typical. It takes the view that those Kickstarter contributors are blooming idiots, and they were screwed by Obama's unwise decision to deregulate crowdsourcing – thus allowing the “sheep” (stupid Kickstarter contributors) to be “shorn” (cheated of the investment returns they should have received). The culprit is that perpetual Progressive punching bag: deregulation.
But, as usual, the Progressives have got it all wrong – exactly backwards, actually. This wasn't deregulation at all. Kickstarter (and the similar crowdfunding sites) would like nothing better than to sell stock shares to funding contributors – but existing investment regulations forbid it. Those regulations are the direct result of Progressives meddling with capitalism. The “screwing” that the Progressives are screaming about happened not because of deregulation, but because there wasn't any deregulation. The Progressive regulations that prohibit ordinary Americans (those with a net worth less than a million dollars) from making speculative investments is what “screwed” the Kickstarter funders.
Progressives: destroying freedom and opportunity everywhere they go...
Oculus was a startup company whose goal was to develop a new and better virtual reality (VR) headset, named Rift. VR headsets present a 3D image to your eyes, tricking your brain into believing that you are in a different world – one that is completely generated in the computer, and can be anything at all. The main use today for VR headsets is with 3D games, but there are all sorts of other possible uses as well.
Oculus chose to fund its startup through a Kickstarter campaign. They were massively over-funded, meaning that they succeeded in raising far more money than they were asking for. People contributing small amounts of money got nothing but a sincere “thank you” for their money. If you contributed more, you might get a T-shirt, an early version of the Rift, or (for lots of money contributed) various other perks. What you didn't get was any stock in the company – so you weren't investing in the usual sense. The only rewards you got were the pleasure of funding something successful, and possibly (depending on how much you contributed) a copy of the product – if the development was successful.
As it happened, the Rift development every was successful – very much so. Facebook, last week, acquired Oculus in a $2B deal, making the founders fabulously wealthy. The people who funded Oculus – those Kickstarter contributors – make nothing at all on the deal.
The progressives were quick to respond to this. This article, on Bloomberg View, is entirely typical. It takes the view that those Kickstarter contributors are blooming idiots, and they were screwed by Obama's unwise decision to deregulate crowdsourcing – thus allowing the “sheep” (stupid Kickstarter contributors) to be “shorn” (cheated of the investment returns they should have received). The culprit is that perpetual Progressive punching bag: deregulation.
But, as usual, the Progressives have got it all wrong – exactly backwards, actually. This wasn't deregulation at all. Kickstarter (and the similar crowdfunding sites) would like nothing better than to sell stock shares to funding contributors – but existing investment regulations forbid it. Those regulations are the direct result of Progressives meddling with capitalism. The “screwing” that the Progressives are screaming about happened not because of deregulation, but because there wasn't any deregulation. The Progressive regulations that prohibit ordinary Americans (those with a net worth less than a million dollars) from making speculative investments is what “screwed” the Kickstarter funders.
Progressives: destroying freedom and opportunity everywhere they go...
California leads the way!
California leads the way! Few other states would keep paying state politicians accused of gun-running...
I guess I should be grateful that they even suspended him...
Justice is for the little people!
I guess I should be grateful that they even suspended him...
Justice is for the little people!
The EU provoked the Ukraine crisis?
The EU provoked the Ukraine crisis? Interesting alternative narrative by two people I admire: Delingpole quoting Nigel Farage. Hmmm...
We never felt a thing!
Last night at 9:09:42 PM, there was a magnitude 5.1 earthquake whose epicenter was near La Hambra, California (21 miles ESE of Los Angeles). About 28 seconds later, at 9:10:10 PM, the shock waves reached our seismometer, which recorded the results shown at right (click to embiggen). Here's the shakemap...
Friday, March 28, 2014
I've been in this meeting!
Whoever made this captured the essence of those meetings from the engineer's perspective absolutely perfectly. Awesome!
A clever ad for Taco Bell...
So God made a ... lawyer?
I've known some lawyers I thought were good people. Both of them are retired now. The other bazillion lawyers I met in my career were putzes, suited-up criminals, or worse. Most non-lawyers have a similar experience. And yet the majority of our elected officials are lawyers. What's wrong with this picture?
Old age is hell!
Old age is hell! Via my mom...
The doctor gave the man a jar and said, “Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow.”
The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day.
The doctor asked what happened and the man explained, “Well, doc, it's like this – first I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing.”
“Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing.”
“We even called up Arleen, the lady next door, and she tried too, first with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing...”
The doctor was shocked! “You asked your neighbor?”
The old man replied, “Yep, and none of us could get that damned jar open.”
How to get along well with your neighbors...
The stuff of Cold War nightmares...
I have vomited three times in protest...
What would light do?
What would light do? That's the question you need to ask yourself when you're trying to save a drowning person. Because, Feynman. And ants on green felt...
Beautiful photos of an older America...
Next IPCC report to be much less alarmist...
Next IPCC report to be much less alarmist... Matt Ridley, in the Wall Street Journal, notes that the next IPCC report has drastically toned down it's alarmist rhetoric. His conclusion:
Indeed, a small amount of warming spread over a long period will, most experts think, bring net improvements to human welfare. Studies such as by the IPCC author and economist Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University in Britain show that global warming has probably done so already. People can adapt to such change—which essentially means capture the benefits but minimize the harm. Satellites have recorded a roughly 14% increase in greenery on the planet over the past 30 years, in all types of ecosystems, partly as a result of man-made CO2 emissions, which enable plants to grow faster and use less water.The warmists are being beaten down!
There remains a risk that the latest science is wrong and rapid warming will occur with disastrous consequences. And if renewable energy had proved by now to be cheap, clean and thrifty in its use of land, then we would be right to address that small risk of a large catastrophe by rushing to replace fossil fuels with first-generation wind, solar and bioenergy. But since these forms of energy have proved expensive, environmentally damaging and land-hungry, it appears that in our efforts to combat warming we may have been taking the economic equivalent of chemotherapy for a cold.
Almost every global environmental scare of the past half century proved exaggerated including the population "bomb," pesticides, acid rain, the ozone hole, falling sperm counts, genetically engineered crops and killer bees. In every case, institutional scientists gained a lot of funding from the scare and then quietly converged on the view that the problem was much more moderate than the extreme voices had argued. Global warming is no different.
Putin's world view...
Putin's world view... Peggy Noonan dissects his recent speech. It's not comforting. Her conclusion:
What does this remarkable speech tell us? It presents a rationale for moving further. Ukraine, for instance, is a government full of schemers controlled by others—it may require further attention. It expresses a stark sense of historical grievance and assumes it is shared by its immediate audience. It makes clear a formal animus toward the U.S. It shows he has grown comfortable in confrontation. It posits the presence of a new Russia, one that is "an independent, active participant in international affairs." It suggests a new era, one that doesn't have a name yet. But the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union were one thing, and this is something else—something rougher, darker and more aggressive.
It tells us this isn't about Crimea.
It tells us this isn't over.
Rat invade Swedish home...
Rat invade Swedish home ... and one of the kids names him “Putin Rat” because it invaded their home.
Awesome. That kid has a future in politics!
Awesome. That kid has a future in politics!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)