Sunday, October 28, 2012

Benghazi...


Bumped for Update the Second:

Commenter Anonymous forwarded this video, thinking it might be the one I couldn't find.  It's not, but it's certainly of the same ilk:


Bumped for Update:


Mark Steyn weighs in on this topic, and you really don't want to miss it...

Original post:

It just keeps on getting worse.  Yesterday we found out that:
  • as the Benghazi attacks were underway, our Ambassador and his staff repeatedly asked for military assistance – which was denied
  • we had the right kind of military assistance within range of Benghazi
  • we apparently had a Special Forces Spectre (AC-130 gunship) overhead (this is inferred from the fact that one of the guys on the ground was “painting” a target with a target designator, something one would do only in the expectation of support from a gunship)
Now this morning I read these three things:
This leaves me very suspicious of the very worst: that we lost four good men because someone up the chain of command decided not to support them.  Who could that someone be?

CIA?  Petraeus makes it abundantly clear that it wasn't the CIA, and I believe he's an honorable man (though someone could, presumably, be lying to him).

Pentagon?  Panetta's “no information” claim seems laughable, based on what we've been told by other sources.  It's the kind of thing you'd say to cover up the real reason.  If some person under his command made the decision not to supply military aid, that person would have been fingered by Panetta and Obama weeks ago, to cover their own butt.  If Panetta made that decision himself, Obama would have thrown him under the bus.  That leaves one alternative: Panetta is covering for Obama – and damn it, that's plausible.

White House?  Imagine being in the White House on 9/11, as the Benghazi attack was unfolding.  Obama was in Washington that day, and so presumably able to easily communicate with his staff.  The calls and emails from Benghazi, asking for military assistance, come in.  What does the staff do?  Does nobody notice?  Does a staff member decide not to inform the President?  Does a staff member respond directly, denying the request?  Or does a staff member forward the requests to Obama, who either doesn't respond or who denies the request?  Those are all the possibilities I can think of, and every one of them is completely unacceptable for a Commander-in-Chief and his staff.  Their reaction (or lack thereof) killed four Americans.  They must be brought to account.

You'll note that several of those links go to Fox News, which is the only mainstream media outlet working this story.  Of course, if something like this had occurred during President Bush's administration (or that of any other non-Progressive President), the mainstream media would be all over it.  There would be giant headlines and “Breaking News Alerts!” every time another piece of the story emerged.  Dozens of reporters would be working just as hard as they possibly could, diligently tracking down every lead.  But this is a Progressive administration, and the mainstream media studiously ignores every sour note – even on a story like this, involving downright criminal (perhaps even treasonous) behavior on the part of senior administration officials.  Most of the media are co-conspirators in the Progressive efforts to tear up our Constitution and “evolve” into a Progressive, socialist state modeled after Europe.

Of course, even worse is that most Americans don't care enough about this to even inform themselves.  Even the carefully edited sound bytes from the mainstream media are heard by relatively few Americans.  The other day I saw a video of an on-the-street survey of a couple dozen randomly-selected people, each asked just one question: “What can you tell me about Benghazi?”  I can't find it now, dang it.  From memory, just one person answered in a way that made it clear they knew Benghazi was in Libya, that Americans had been killed there, and that there was controversy over the events there.  Several people thought “Benghazi” was a musician; one even rhapsodized about the glories of his lyrics.  Two or three others knew it was a place (one thought it was a country; another a city in Turkey).  Most had never heard of it.  Just one person in a couple dozen had a clue –  roughly 4%.  Ay yi yi...

Remember These Folks...

...when you vote on November 6.

Secure Java Coding...

I just ran across an excellent resource for secure coding practices in Java.  For example, it contains very detailed examples for how to deal with overflow/underflow on integer operations – something that often introduces insidious bugs in Java programs...

A Bump in the Road...

Ex-Special Forces folks and their OPSEC PAC are airing another anti-Obama ad:

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Ouch!

They Kind of Blame Us...

...as well they should:

Bubbles...

This morning I read a post on marco.org (a blog by Marco Arment, the founder of Instapaper) about a Microsoft store on the day of the Surface launch (yesterday).  The post was mildly interesting for its depiction of the difference between adjacent Microsoft and Apple stores in a mall.  But one passage really jumped out at me, for reasons that had nothing to do with the ostensible subject of the post (emphasis mine):

I broke character slightly. “I don’t know, I saw the Retina iPad upstairs and I can’t see the pixels at all on it. On here, I can see the pixels clearly.”

“No you can’t. Where can you see the individual pixels?”

“Right there. See, the left stroke on that capital ‘D’ has one solid pixel on the left and a half-shaded pixel on the right.”

He scaled the icon up to “zoom in”, which, of course, changes what the physical pixels display. “I can’t see any pixels!”

I gave up. It was like arguing with a Tea Partier. But I figured, now that I had broken character a little, I’d risk a bit more. “Did you apply to work at the Apple Store upstairs first, or did you always want to work here?”
Like arguing with a Tea Partier?

Think about that.  Arment describes his little debate with the Microsoft Store employee, who displayed his technical ignorance and his profound bias toward Microsoft.  Arguing with someone like that is clearly futile; the only way to win would be to re-educate the lad.  Then Arment says that's like arguing with someone in the Tea Party – clearly implying that such people were ignorant and biased.  Further, he makes that statement in a way that assumes his readers will understand that Tea Partiers are ignorant and biased.

This is precisely the kind of thing I hear repeatedly on NPR and read on progressive political blogs (I torture myself so you don't have to!).  It's a fascinating glimpse of the walls of the “bubble” these folks live in.  Arment, and millions more like him, have completely dismissed the Tea Party as a collection of ignorant and biased fools.  They don't even hear the issues the Tea Party raises; they aren't worthy of their attention.

I find this very sad, personally.  I can't see a way for a democracy to stay healthy when most of its (voting) citizens are willfully ignorant.  I say “willfully” because people who live in a political bubble (whether conservative, progressive, or libertarian) are choosing not to engage with the ideas and issues raised by those outside their bubble.  Instead, they live the righteous life of a bubble-denizen, with all of their friends heartily approving of their bubble-ness.  It's so much easier that way – one doesn't have to actually think, as the bubble already knows the answer.

What's the cure?  I'm not sure there is one...

Antique Sounds Recovered...

Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have recovered the sound from the oldest playable American recording – by Thomas Alva Edison in 1878.  The recording was made on an entirely mechanical phonograph that worked by pressing a needle into soft tin foil.

The way that the sound was recovered is interesting: the scientists didn't recreate the player.  Instead, they photographed the antique foil with a high resolution, 3D camera – and software analyzed the needle's indentations to recreate the sound.  No device ever even touched the foil.  I'm sure Edison would have been delighted by this!

Here's what the recovered recording sounds like.  Though it's very scratchy, you can hear a cornet playing and a man reciting portions of a couple nursery rhymes (Mary Had a Little Lamb and Old Mother Hubbard)...

Friday, October 26, 2012

Rongorongo, et al...

Rongorongo?  What's that?

It's an ancient system of writing, and it's one of the few that have not been deciphered.  Modern science has done an amazing job of figuring out the meaning of ancient writings with no living readers, but some still remain a mystery...

It's Popcorn Time!

I don't actually like popcorn, but I just might take up the habit as I watch this one unfold.  Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann has gone where nobody thought he was actually stupid enough to go: he's filed a slander and defamation lawsuit against CEI and Mark Steyn.  Anthony Watts, we can be sure, will follow this diligently, with his own (very large) bag of popcornMegan McArdle and Jonathan Adler have some thoughts as well.

Just like everyone else, I can scarcely wait until the discovery begins...

Who Is This Supposed To Appeal To?

Watch this, a new Obama ad:


It's hard to imagine the demographic that would consider that an effective appeal to vote for Obama.

Matt Welch (at Reason) gets my quote of the day with his reaction:
Twelve more days, people. Twelve. More. Days.
Exactly, Matt.  By the way, the headline on his post is also pure gold: “Lie Back and Think of Mother England, America...”

Joshua Keating (at Foreign Policy) notes that Obama's new ad looks like a direct ripoff of an ad for Vladimir Putin in his last election campaign.  Lovely. 

You just can't make this stuff up...

Like Shaking Hands with a Dead Fish...

This isn't pretty.  Charles Woods is the father of Tyrone Woods, an ex-SEAL who was one of the four Americans killed on 9/11 in Benghazi, Libya.  Just a few days later, Charles Woods attended a memorial ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base.  There he met Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden.  Here's some of what Mr. Woods (during an interview with Glenn Beck) had to say about those meetings:
Vice President Biden, as he has become known to do, reportedly made a wildly inappropriate comment to the father who had just lost his hero son.

Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”

“Are these the words of someone who is sorry?” said Woods.

The grieving father also described his brief encounter with President Obama during the ceremony for the Libya victims.

“When he finally came over to where we were, I could tell that he was rather conflicted, a person who was not at peace with himself,” Woods said. “Shaking hands with him, quite frankly, was like shaking hands with a dead fish. His face was pointed towards me but he would not look me in the eye, his eyes were over my shoulder.”

“I could tell that he was not sorry,” he added. “He had no remorse.”

...

Hillary Clinton’s comments to Woods raise even more questions about the White House’s official story on the Benghazi attack, which has already been extremely inconsistent.

After apologizing for his loss, Woods said Clinton told him that the U.S. would “make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”
More here and here.

George W. Bush had many faults, but this kind of disrespectful and inappropriate display was not amongst them...

Remarkable...

Here's a piece of art by DiegoKoi, a picture of model Federica Ferragine – but it's not a photograph.  This picture was created by pencil, on paper.  Follow the links on this page to see the work in progress.

Amazing.  This is the most realistic piece of art I have ever seen...

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Dude!

Via my lovely bride:


The Plane, the Plane!

Via my lovely bride:


Good-Looking Fellow...

Who's this good-looking fellow?  Go see, with much more...

Deadbeat...

American Hero, 2012...