Theodore Roosevelt Dodged the Bullet ... Sort Of...

This is a story I've read before, though in a much drier form.  It's a great example of the grit for which Roosevelt was justly famous...

The Most Expensive Single-Byte Mistake?

Poul Henning-Kamp makes a good case for it being the UNIX/C style NUL-terminated string...

Two Skinny Lawyers...

An interesting comparison of Presidents Lincoln and Obama.  Via my mom:

For all of you who have made disparaging remarks about President
Obama, please read the following...

I'm sure most of us have read the so-called comparison of Lincoln and
Kennedy, but did you ever consider the relationship between Lincoln and Obama?

You might be surprised...

Parallels of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Hussein Obama:

1. Lincoln placed his hand on the Bible for his inauguration. Obama
used the same Bible.

2. Lincoln came from Illinois. Obama comes from Illinois.

3. Lincoln served in the Illinois Legislature. Obama served in the
Illinois Legislature.

4. Lincoln had very little experience before becoming President.
Obama had very little experience before becoming President.

5. Lincoln rode the train from Philadelphia to Washington for his
inauguration. Obama rode the train from Philadelphia to Washington
for his inauguration.

6. Lincoln was a skinny lawyer. Obama is a skinny lawyer.

7. Lincoln was a Republican. Obama is a skinny lawyer.

8. Lincoln was in the United States military. Obama is a skinny
lawyer.

9. Lincoln believed in everyone carrying their own weight. Obama is a
skinny lawyer.

10. Lincoln did not waste taxpayers' money on personal enjoyments.
Obama is a skinny lawyer.

11. Lincoln was highly respected. Obama is a skinny lawyer.

12. Lincoln was born in the United States. Obama is a skinny lawyer.

13. Lincoln was honest, so honest he was called Honest Abe. Obama is
a skinny lawyer.

14. Lincoln saved the United States. Obama is a skinny lawyer .

Amazing, isn't it?

Holy Herds of Cows, Batman!

Say Good Bye to the Family Farm...

The Obama administration is preparing to promulgate and enforce new rules that would prohibit children from doing many of the kinds of work that kids on family farms have been doing from time immemorial.  Depending on the specific kind of work, the age requirement is either 16 or 18. 

Under these new rules, many of the kinds of things that I did as a “child” on our family farm would now be prohibited.  For instance, I couldn't have used a mower, or a sprayer, or a tractor until I was 16.

The country I was born into – the country of hope and promise in the Eisenhower era – is disappearing before my eyes.

I sure hope we change course in November...

TSA Leads the Way...

Here's yet another story of TSA's security theater run amok, this one involving a four year old little girl.  The little girl's mother wrote this:

My daughter is very shaken up about this, and has been waking up with nightmares. What should have been a very minor, routine security check was turned into a horrific ordeal. All of this could easily have been prevented if the TSO involved had used a little bit of compassion and a smidgen of common sense. There is no reason for any child to go through this. And while I completely understand the necessity of tight airport security, I fail to see how harassing a small child will provide safety for anyone.

The little girl is having nightmares about her experience. The TSA insists their people acted appropriately:

TSA has recently implemented modified screening procedures of children 12 and under that will further reduce the need for a physical pat-down for children. These new screening procedures include permitting multiple passes through the metal detector and advanced imaging technology to clear any alarms as well as the greater use of explosives trace detection. These changes in protocol will ultimately reduce – though not eliminate – pat downs of children. In this case, however, the child had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family had not completed the screening process.

I'm reminded once again of the Harry Potter books in which Dolores Umbridge exhibits all the bureaucratic bullying behaviors that we see routinely in the TSA.  If there were a real Dolores Umbridge, there's little doubt that she would be applying for work in the TSA. 

As someone who travels fairly often through our airports, that's not a particularly comforting thought...

You Know...

Via my lovely bride:

An elderly lady was walking on the golf course on the island of Martha's Vineyard. She slipped and fell.

Obama who was behind her by chance, helped her to get up promptly. She thanked him and he answered, “It was a pleasure to help you, ma'am. Don't you recognize me? I am your president. Are you going to vote for me in the next election?”

The elderly woman laughed and replied: “You know, I fell on my ass – not on my head!”

Psalm 2012...

Via my mom:

Psalm 2012

Obama is the shepherd I did not want.
He leadeth me beside all the still factories and banks.

He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall fear no hunger, for all his bailouts are with me.

He has Anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over.

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.

I'm glad … I am an American,
I am glad … that I am free!

But I wish … I was a dog,
And Obama … was a tree!

Say It Ain't So!

The Cutty Sark is storied Clipper ship, built in 1869.  She's a piece of history that you can touch, as she's been carefully preserved (though not without some ups and downs) all these years.

But in a tragic story of Hollywood-meets-history, the Cutty Sark is about to become a joke.  A bad joke:

In her years of cutting ribbons, Her Majesty has had to smile politely at many brave new mistakes. But few can compete with this clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews–class turkey. One of Britain's most precious maritime treasures now looks like it has run aground in a giant greenhouse.

Read the details here. I thought the English had more sense than this...

Flight From California...

Debbie and I will likely be amongst the droves of people leaving California – once the most coveted destination state of all.  This article does a good job of summarizing why so many have left California, and why so many more – like us – are considering doing so...

Awesome People...

Two videos showing incredible feats.  There are only a few in here that I would even consider...

Please Tell Me This Is A Hoax!

Not Your Ordinary Politician...

Found on the Intertubes...

No commentary required:

Profit is a Good Thing?

An educational video on the power of profit, with Professor Walter Williams presenting.  Perfect for the “progressive” ninnies you might know who are attracted to profit about as much as we're attracted to a steaming pile of vomit...

Global Warming in Oz...

The Australians are getting increasingly skeptical about global warming for some reason.  It might have something to do with the utterly failed predictions of the warmists.  For example, in 2005 they predicted that the reservoirs supply Sydney's water might be dry within two years.  The actuality?  Sydney's reservoirs are now at record levels, with more than two and a half times the water they had in 2005, and without enough remaining capacity to contain floods like they've experienced over the past three years.

Oops...

Steyn on the Secret Service Scandal...

As always, Mr. Steyn delivers a slightly different perspective with his trademark wit:

Cartagena’s most famous “escort” costs $800. For purposes of comparison, you can book Eliot Spitzer’s “escort” for $300. Yet, on the cold grey fiscally conservative morning after the wild socially liberal night before, Dania’s Secret Service agent offered her a mere $28.

Twenty-eight bucks! What a remarkably precise sum. Thirty dollars less a federal handling fee? Why isn’t this guy Obama’s treasury secretary or budget director? Or, at the very least, the head honcho of the General Services Administration, whose previous director has sadly had to step down after the agency’s taxpayer-funded public-servants-gone-wild Bacchanal in Vegas.

All over this dying republic, you couldn’t find a single solitary $28 item that doesn’t wind up costing at least 800 bucks by the time it’s been sluiced through the federal budgeting process. Yet, in one plucky little corner of the Secret Service, supervisor David Chaney, dog-handler Greg Stokes, or one of the other nine agents managed to turn the principles of government procurement on their head. If the same fiscal prudence were applied to the 2011 Obama budget, the $3.598 trillion splurge would have cost just shy of $126 billion. The feds’ half a billion to Solyndra would have been a mere $18 million. The 823-grand GSA conference on government efficiency at the M Resort Spa & Casino would have come in at $28,805.

Chaney-Stokes 2012! Grope . . . and Change! Red lights, not red ink.

Go read the whole thing...

A Window into the Entitlement Mindset...

If you'd like to peer into the mind of those who feel entitled, you'd be hard-pressed to find something better than this video of New York Times union members whining about proposed changes to their pension plan.  They're better than the rest of us, you see.  They're entitled to their defined benefit pensions, and business realities be damned.  These are the people who are trying to kill this country.  That's not, of course, how they would word it – but it certainly is how I would...

“If I Wanted America to Fail”...

This is an awesome piece, with a devastating punch line right at the end.  It would be wonderful if every American watched this just before heading to the polls this November:

Incarceration Rates...

I read an article the other day that mentioned an interesting factoid: the U.S. has a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world.  I'd seen this before, but hadn't checked into it.  So yesterday, just poking around a bit, I did a little research and came up with this list of incarceration rates by country.

I find this simple list quite sobering.  The U.S. incarcerates (jails or imprisons) 730 people out of every 100,000; a rate of 0.73%.  By itself, that number doesn't really convey very much.  But consider this: Finland – a very modern society – incarcerates just 59 per 100,000 – twelve times fewer than the U.S., and Japan incarcerates even fewer.  Or this, from the other side of the spectrum: the repressive despots of Burma incarcerate just 120 per 100,000 – a sixth the U.S. rate.

Amongst the other countries with high incarceration rates (though none are particularly close to us): Russia, Rwanda, and Belarus.

I know that drug-related incarcerations account for a high fraction of our inmates: between half and two-thirds, depending on who's doing the estimating.  But our incarceration rate is so high that even if you removed two-thirds of them, we'd still be in the top 15% of all countries.

I don't really know what this means, other than that there's something about our society that is in fact quite different than the other countries we think of as our peers.  My long time readers will know that I favor legalization of drugs (I know, I'm a radical – but I have trouble seeing any actual value in the “war on drugs”).  But even with the effects of drug-related crime removed, there's still a very large difference that comes from other causes.  What those are, I haven't a clue.  It's clearly not as simple as our freedom to buy firearms, because other countries with liberal firearms laws have low incarceration rates.  Most likely there isn't any simple explanation. 

A look at U.S. incarceration rates over time (the graph at right) shows that our incarceration rates have been quite high at least since 1925.  With the onset of the war on drugs, the rates increased very quickly.

I'd like to learn more about the causes of our high incarceration rates, so I've started a search for reliable sources of information.  Drop me a line if you know of any, please...