A SEAL in Action...

But probably not quite the kind of action you're thinking of (and no, not that kind either!).  Here's a video taken by a SEAL with a helmet-mounted camera as he parachutes into the premier of the movie Act of Valour:

Son of Hitler?

There's some interesting evidence that Adolf Hitler had a son:

Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War.

His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris's Le Point magazine.

Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917.

What a mind-blowing thing it would be, to discover that Hitler was your dad...

Cats...

What they're really doing...

We're Not Here Yet...

...but it sure seems like we're working on it:

Allen West...

...should not quit his day job:

Online Electronics Course and Reference...

Spent a few minutes perusing it, and it looks reasonably good.  And free!

Flying...

Oh, man, would I love to do this! Via my mom:

Allen West...

Man, I just love this guy!  Via reader Aaron B.:


He's on a topic here that just makes me crazy. The progressives have managed to twist history into making them the heroes on ending racial discrimination, while the Republicans become the goats. The truth is pretty nearly the precise opposite. Saul Alinsky would be very proud of his modern acolytes...

Something Went Terribly Wrong...

Consider this story:  Three Iranian would-be terrorists are in a house, apparently working on a bomb, when something goes terribly wrong.  The explosives go off, blowing the house to smithereens.  The three terrorists run out of the house.  Two, uninjured, run away.  The third, bloody, tries to hail a cab.  The cab leaves, and the terrorist throws a grenade after it – and misses.  Then the police arrive, so the terrorist throws a grenade at them.  He misses again – the grenade hits a tree, bounces back, and blows the terrorist's own legs off.

It's like the Keystone Kops of terror.

I'm not sure what your reaction to this story is.  The politically-correct reaction is probably along the lines of “Jeez, we should really feel sad that this poor man was injured, maybe we should demonstrate for U.N. funding of terrorist training.”  Or something along those lines.

My own reaction: BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Why We Non-Progressives Suck...

My own political inclinations are hard to specify with any conventional label.  I'm certainly not what most people would consider a “conservative” (not too many conservatives support across-the-board drugs legalization, for example).  But labels aside, much of what Bill Whittle talks about here applies just as well to me as it does to conservatives.  It's a marvelous little political piece:

Animal Misconceptions...

One of these was a complete surprise to me:

I Want!

I want to be able to do this, in my own house, for my own projects:

Peace Talks...

When I heard that the U.S., Afghanistan, and the Taliban had started up three-way peace talks...I couldn't help but immediately think of the infamous peace talks that ended our involvement in Vietnam.  There are some similarities, but also many differences.  But for people of my age, and especially for those of us who were actually in-theater in Vietnam, the optics are bad and the working assumption that the talks are politically motivated.  Like Vietnam, the risk is that so much blood and treasure will have been expended for...very little.

My expectations are very low.

It's Back!

Dang it – looks like the Jamul Indian Tribe is going to try again:

Jamul Indian representatives told wary community leaders late Tuesday that the tribe is resurrecting plans to build a casino on its postage-stamp-sized reservation near rural state Route 94.

Details of the project are expected to be released early next month, but tribal consultant Steve Davis said it would likely be less than half the size of what the tribe had previously proposed. 

I wonder if they got more funding?  Or if Lakes is still involved?  Anybody know more than this article says?

Lion Queen...

Via my lovely bride, who would give just about anything to have this experience:

Funny Ads...

Via my lovely bride:

Spending: Up, Always Up...

It's the first law of government: spending always grows, even when they say it isn't.  Here's a nice interactive graphic to help you explore what's happened to the U.S. budget over the last 30 years or so.

The perpetual mystery to me is how so many Americans can remain so blissfully ignorant of the disaster that's being visited upon them by the corrupt, incompetent government we've voted into office.  Even with the data readily available, and even with other nations illustrating the future we're careening towards (hello, Greece!)...most of our citizens are somehow unaware of what's happening to us.

I have blue days when I think the human race may be doomed.  Over the past few days, I've been doing a lot of reading about Greece.  Result: this morning, I'm fearing we're doomed...

Rotten Highway Bill...

Jim DeMint is an aberration – a voice of sanity in our Congress.  One can listen to him, or read his writings, and come away with the sense that you're actually talking with a rational person who's interested in our national welfare.  As I said, a Congressional aberration...

He's got a piece in today's Wall Street Journal talking about the latest highways bill.  In it, he reviews the disgusting history of highways bills, and in particular the corrupting Davis-Bacon act that's still operative.  He makes a plea:

Here's a radical idea: Why not pay for new spending by actually cutting wasteful spending in other areas? It's no wonder our country is near fiscal ruin when the option of cutting spending is not even being considered. 

In Congressional Cuckoo-Land, that's just crazy talk.  But it sure sounds good to my ears.

I just wish there was some realistic chance of Congress listening...

Math News...

Terence Tao has just published a paper, titled “Every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes”.  He's also got a blog post describing it.

The notion really is as simple as his title makes it sound.  Pick any old odd number you'd like – let's say, 333.  He's asserting that you can find 1 to 5 prime numbers which, when added together, equals 333.  Let's try:

333 = 331 + 2
333 = 283 + 43 + 7

There it is, in two different ways.

I have a fascination for these sorts of number conjectures that I can't quite explain, and it's so far an unrequited fascination, as much of the math involved is beyond me (there are bits and pieces that I can grasp, but on most of it I'm just taking their word).  But the very idea that one could actually prove something (either true or false!) like the Goldbach conjecture seems pretty darned close to magical to me...

What? We Haven't Done This Already?

That's my reaction to this news...