The Pool Bar

Clowns. They're STILL all clowns.

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 21:53:00 +0000

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) couldn't be bothered to read the article he linked in this tweet to learn that the goods sold he's so up in arms about (see what I did there?) were sold in 2014, under the Obama administration. Way to go, champ.

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1092627434053222400

Link to the CNN article.

And a screen shot of the tweet for when he inevitably deletes it without further explanation.

Bombshell, indeed.

Clowns. They're all clowns.

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 28 May 2018 20:55:00 +0000

Yesterday, the progressive left exploded in outrage over the conditions under which immigrant children were being held by the Trump administration, citing an article from AZ Central. Looking at one of the pics, it's easy to see what set them off:

The only problem was that the article (and accompanying pictures) was from 2014, smack in the middle of Barack Obama's second term. A lot of tweets were very quickly deleted, but not before they were captured for posterity over at Twitchy.

Well, those progressive geniuses are at it again. Today, it's this pic...from a 2016 article during the waning months of the Obama administration:

It's worth noting that, according to the two year old article, this isn't a "prison bus" for babies, but one equipped to safely transport toddlers and small children for field trips. But don't bother telling that to reliable CNN token "conservative" Ana Navarro:

America, this cannot be who we are. https://t.co/RaINBHGh0Y
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) May 28, 2018

And in the likely event that she deletes the tweet, here's the screen shot:

Clowns. All of them.

NFL rules and the first amendment

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 26 May 2018 12:27:00 +0000

National Football League owners approved a rule this week requiring on-field players and team staff to stand during the national anthem. Predictably on the left, there's a 4-alarm freakout over first amendment rights and threats to boycott the NFL.

Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Dawuane Smoot weighed in on Twitter:

Freedom of speech does not exist for NFL players now, we get fined for protesting for something we believe in, FINE ME!!!! You can’t change my opinion, and can’t stop my protest I have a right as an American to protest when I feel there is injustice in this country.
— Dawuane Smoot (@Bigsmoot_94) May 23, 2018

OK, everyone, repeat after me: "This is not a first amendment issue!"

Freedom of speech still exists for Dawuane Smoot and every other player in the NFL. The first amendment to the constitution restrains the government from infringing on your rights to freedom of speech, not your employer.

My employer often sends me to speak at marketing and industry events, and if I opened a talk with "...but first, let me cram my pet social justice cause down your throat", I'd be quickly shown the door, and for very good reason.

Go ahead and use your fame and name recognition to protest, but do it on your own time. Better yet, use some of that fat paycheck and buy some commercial air time during the game to make your statement.

Journalism in decline

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Fri, 25 May 2018 10:33:00 +0000

I read this Reuters article on last night's bombing in Mississauga, Ontario, and the closing paragraph had me scratching my head:

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said in a tweet that the she was in constant touch with the Consul General in Toronto and the Indian High Commissioner in Canada and that the missions would work round the clock.

Um...why? Sure, the bombing took place at an Indian restaurant, but beyond that, there's nothing in the article hinting that that had anything to do with it, or that any Indian nationals were targeted or injured in the bombing.

Whatever happened to who, what, when, where, why, and how? This is lazy, incomplete reporting.

The War On Boys

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 21 May 2018 01:59:00 +0000

Blowing off the dust and clearing the cobwebs here so I can put up a new post. Geez...it's been a while.

There's been another school shooting, which means it's time for another toxic "debate" on gun laws. I use scare quotes there because, as we all know, there's no real debate, just meaningless posturing and moral preening from the gun grabbers and repeated denials that they don't really want to take away your guns when we know that's just not true.

But as always with these incidents, our shitty politics drives everyone into a pointless argument over the tool used by the latest unhinged high school kid while we all studiously ignore the more important point: Why in the hell are so many boys opening fire on their classmates? If over the last 20 years there'd been a rising trend of boys stabbing their classmates to death, what would we all be talking about? Surely not "common sense" knife control. Instead, we'd be having a more useful debate over what's causing boys to act out in such a horrifying way. It's time to separate the debate over why school shooters do what they do from the debate over the tools that they use.

I hate to break out the "back in my day" shtick, but when I was a kid in elementary school, boys were allowed to be boys. We played tag (sometimes aggressively), we played dodgeball (very often aggressively), and we got into fist fights. By the time we were in high school, we'd more or less sorted our shit out. Not that we were all perfectly well-adjusted young adults or anything like that, but we weren't complete and total assholes, either.

But something happened starting in the 1980s or thereabouts, and boys were no longer allowed to be boys. Boys became something to be feared and despised and, ultimately, controlled. In the process, boys' natural tendency towards aggressive play became something to be suppressed and stigmatized. These observations are nothing new. Christina Hoff Sommers wrote on this topic 18 years ago.

But it's not just what's happening in schools. In media and pop culture, one of the few remaining acceptable objects of ridicule is the American male. Just watch TV for a while, and watch the non-stop parade of male inferiority. Here's just one example of it in an Allstate commercial currently airing pretty regularly. The open contempt for males is palpable.

It's time we had an honest discussion about the "war on boys" and its links to school shootings.

The Kermit Gosnell case: When politics kills

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:10:00 +0000

It's astonishing that the coverage (or lack thereof) of Kermit Gosnell's abortion house of horrors has become a bigger story than the story itself. But such is the world we live in today. Had this happened 20 or so years ago when things were slightly less polarized, I imagine the story would have received a level of attention approaching that which it deserves. As has been already pointed out elsewhere, this story has so many sensational aspects to it that, under other circumstances, would have had editors everywhere working their entire reporting staff around the clock to cover every angle of it. Even after you get past the horrifying mental imagery of "rain[ing] fetuses" and babies surviving abortion only to have their spines "snipped", there's still the story of the politically-driven systemic failure of even the illusion of any kind of oversight of the abortion industry.

Right-of-center bloggers and commentators have opined that there's a left-wing media blackout on the story, and I think that's true, but only up to a point. The coverage on ostensibly right-leaning Fox News has been pretty thin outside of their opinion programming, and even today, just as the story is really gaining momentum and traditional media outlets beginning to acknowledge their dereliction, the latest item is buried "below the fold" on the foxnews.com web site.

Inevitably the story will turn to how this was allowed to happen. The gun-grabbing left likes to point to some imagined culpability of the National Rifle Association whenever there's a horrific mass shooting like Aurora or Newtown. But at some point, the Abortion Unlimited crowd will have to answer for the very real culpability of groups like NARAL for their militant cowing of politicians to the point that they fail to stop a serial murderer like Kermit Gosnell.

Gun owners...the new drunk drivers

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:31:00 +0000

It occurs to me that the campaign against American gun owners can be compared to the campaign against drunk driving of the early 1980s. I came to this realization during an e-mail exchange I was having with a group of co-workers on the whole gun control debate, and the more I think about it, the more apt I think the comparison is. I'll just paste below a portion of an e-mail I sent on that thread:

...The larger point is that if the gun control lobby’s goal is, truly, to place “reasonable” limits on private ownership of firearms, they’ll have to do so with a Constitutional amendment. As things stand now, they get to hop in front of the TV cameras whenever something horrifying like Sandy Hook goes down, gnash their teeth and rend their garments…and let the donations pour in. But if they got their way, they’d have two choices: Cease operations and hit the unemployment line or…push for even MORE restrictions.

Take a look at MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers). I’m old enough to remember when they came into being. Before MADD, getting popped for drunk driving generally meant having the cops take your car keys and getting tossed into the drunk tank until you sobered up. It was only if you actually damaged property or injured or killed someone as a result of drunk driving that there were any real consequences. Then MADD was founded by a lady after (IIRC) her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. This lady was tireless in her efforts to make drunk driving a national issue, and she succeeded. Pretty soon, every state had laws on their books limiting blood alcohol content to .10. Victory! This lady could now get on with her life, right? Not so fast there, Skippy. MADD eventually decided that .10 was too high, and pushed for levels of .08 as a standard. Once again, MADD got their way, and now just about every state sets the legal limit at .08. Along the way, the penalties have gotten more and more severe, we have roadblocks set up specifically for the purpose of finding tipsy drivers, and there’s talk about lowering the BAC limit to .04.

It. Never. Ends.

Note: At the time of writing that e-mail I excerpted here I was writing off the top of my head, so some clarification is in order. First, it's Mothers Against Drunk DrivING, not DrivERS as I originally wrote. Second, it was, indeed, the mother's daughter who was killed by a drunk driver. The woman who founded MADD is Candace Lightner, and she left the group after five years because they didn't know when to quit.

Monster spray

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:35:00 +0000

I've let this blog go sort of inactive lately, but it's hard to let something as horrific as last week's shootings in Connecticut to go by without comment.

When children are very young, they often harbor a fear of the dark that manifests itself as a fear of monsters under the bed or in the closet. As parents we do our best to assuage these fears, and sometimes play along with those fears with such monster countermeasures as spraying air freshener in the room while explaining to the troubled youngster that it's "monster spray" which keeps monsters out.

This is, in effect, what the anti-gun crowd is doing with all the gun laws they'll be proposing over the coming weeks. What happened last week in Newtown, CT was as awful an event as we're likely to see for some time, and it goes without saying that nobody on either side of the gun debate wants to see anything like that happen again. But while the anti-gun crowd is clamoring for monster spray, the pro-gun side of the debate is begging to do something about the monsters.

But don't take it from me, take it from St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch:

If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.

Chief Fitch advocates arming school personnel much like many airline pilots are now armed as a last-ditch defense against skyjacking.

Doug Ross points out the futility of gun-free zones in this post, and Gateway Pundit points out that besides gun-free zones, the other thing all these recent cases of mass shootings have in common is undiagnosed (or untreated) mental illness.

But this won't stop politicians from rushing out useless legislation rooted in emotional response and wasting everyone's time and energy on equipping us all with monster spray.

Update: Oh, and by the way...don't count on the media's vast expertise in firearms to correctly frame the debate.

Outsourcing and offshoring

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 03:22:00 +0000

One of Obama's favorite attacks on Mitt Romney is that Romney "outsourced" jobs while he was in the private equity business at Bain Capital. That may be true, and in fact, it's pretty damned likely that it's true. But let's not confuse "outsourcing" with "offshoring".

If you decide to hire a plumber to fix your sink instead of fixing it yourself, you've outsourced that job. If a company reassigns a business function to an outside contractor, that's also outsourcing. It doesn't matter whether that outside contractor operates inside our outside the United States, it's outsourcing. If that contractor does operate outside the US, then it's offshoring, as well as outsourcing.

Let's take the example of two fictitious banks...Security First Trust, and Fred's Bank. Both banks have decided they can save money by focusing on their core competencies - banking - and letting someone else handle the IT business.

Fred's Bank is a regional bank headquartered in the Southeast United States. They own a single data center in Columbia, South Carolina supporting all of their operations but have entered into an agreement with Joe's Global Systems under which all of Fred's IT employees will transfer to Joe, and Joe will operate Fred's Columbia data center for a fee. Fred has outsourced his IT business.

Security First Trust is a global concern with subsidiaries all over the world, and they have a major data center in Mumbai, India. By consolidating all their IT functions in Mumbai, they can eliminate the bulk of their US-based IT staff and move all the US IT services to India. They've offshored their IT business, but because they own the Mumbai data center, they haven't really outsourced it.

There's a difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring", and when Obama and his minions bring up the "outsourcing" charge, someone needs to make them explain exactly what they mean.

Gadget review: Archos 80 G9 Android Tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:15:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've done a gadget review, so I figured it's time.

Mrs. Pool Bar decided it was finally time to make the jump to an e-reader. She's not exactly a Luddite, but she is a little resistant to gadgetry. We read a lot of the same authors, so for her to catch up on the books I've already read that she also wanted to read, her only alternative was to go out and get the dead tree edition. I have a rooted Nook Color running both the Kindle and Nook apps for Android, as well as Kobo (old Borders) and Sony Reader apps. I have a handful of titles on the Nook, Kobo and Sony apps, but the vast majority of my e-book collection is on Kindle. Still, I wanted my wife to have access to any of the books that I'd already purchased.

As it happened, I had a fair amount of Amazon gift card credits parked in my account, so I figured I could do something on the cheap. And by cheap I mean free or nearly free, depending on how much I spent. I was tempted to go with the Kindle Fire, but that locks you into Amazon-only content, and even if you root it, the lack of external SD card storage makes it a non-starter. So during my poking around on Amazon's site, I stumbled upon the Archos 80 G9 tablet, which was right within the price range I was looking at (right around $250 with shipping).

I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with this gadget, and find myself suffering a bit of tech envy as a result. The display is very crisp, performance is snappy, and there's very little to complain about. There are plenty of detailed reviews available elsewhere online (try CNET and Engadget, for starters), so I'll just post here some of my own observations. First the bad:

Camera: The 80 G9 sports just a single, front-facing camera. OK, I get it, it's intended for video chat and is really more of a web cam, but...still. Just try snapping a picture when you can't see the picture frame.
SD Card Slot: When you insert a Micro SD card into the slot, it protrudes from the case by about a millimeter, maybe a little less. The slot's positioned right next to the power switch, which protrudes from the case by about a millimeter, maybe a little less. You can surely see the problem that potentially represents.

And to top it off-- actually, that's about it. I have no other real complaints about the tablet. Sure, I can see the built-in kickstand (a very convenient feature) breaking off at some point, but short of making it from tungsten steel, I don't know how much can be done about that.

The tablet shipped with Android 3.something (Honeycomb) installed, but Archos was already in the process of rolling out Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS) as a downloadable or over-the-air (OTA) update. Sure enough, about 10 days after it arrived, a notification popped up saying that the ICS update was available. The update went seamlessly, but post-update, there were intermittent WiFi drops and some truly awful slowdowns. These issues were pretty widely experienced, and Archos was quick to issue another update, which also went smoothly and seems to have cleared up the issues. This is important because it's indicative of Archos's level of commitment to the product and sustaining support.

You can pick up the 8GB Archos 80 G9 for under $250, and at that price it's definitely worthy of serious consideration if you're looking for a decent Android alternative to the $500 (and up) iPad.

UPS: When it absolutely, positively has to be there some day

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Last week I ordered a new gadget for Ms. Pool Bar from Amazon, and opted for the standard shipping since there was no big rush for it. Amazon estimated deliver for today, 2/29. So far so good, right? Well, a few hours later I get an e-mail saying the item had shipped, so I figured maybe it would arrive a day or two early. Since I'm one of those who'll keep pushing the elevator call button in the hopes the elevator will get there faster, I checked the UPS tracking link that Amazon provided and saw that the package had left Phoenix, arrived in Tempe and arrived...back in Phoenix. I kept checking the progress over the next few days and was vaguely amused. Today it shows that it's out for delivery, which is on schedule so I'm not really complaining, but check out this shipping history (click for larger image):

I'm particularly amused by the package's stopover in Louisville. What did it do, run out for a pack of cigarettes while it was there? It's almost as if UPS had to go to extra effort NOT to provide 2-day delivery.

Ending the gay marriage drama

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:34:00 +0000

I have a plan for putting an end to the gay marriage debate once and for all. A laughably simple plan. I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure there are holes in it, but I think it would be a great start.

Since marriage is rooted in our history and culture as a religious construct, let's just get the state out of the marriage business altogether. Within public law, marriage would be replaced with...I don't know...let's call it "domestic partnership". Any consenting adult would be allowed to enter into a domestic partnership with another one, subject to the following constraints:

A domestic partnership may consist of no more than two people.
No party to a domestic partnership can be related by blood to another party of the same partnership.
Nobody can be party to more than one domestic partnership at a time.
If a state decides that rules against polygamy constitute unjust intrusion on religious doctrine, it can just drop that first rule.

Within the law, the word "spouse" can be retained as a term describing any party to a domestic partnership, but someone will need to fire up Word and do a global search and replace to change all occurrences of "husband" and "wife" with "spouse". And hey, if the law specifically refers to a husband or wife anywhere, then that section of law probably needs to be reviewed, anyway.

This eliminates the stickiest part of the debate - that of redefining "marriage" - and allows adherents of a given faith to preserve the definition of marriage as their religion sees it, and lets the law provide equal protection to all spouses without regard to sexual orientation.

Yeah, I know...it won't be enough for those activists of no religious affiliation who'll say they want to be married, dammit! They'll say that because for them the issue isn't about legal status, it's about wanting to feel included and accepted. But the law is concerned only with equal protection, it doesn't really give a crap about our feelings.

Having solved that problem, let me go take a look at that national debt thing...

Liberal bias goes pathological

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:06:00 +0000

I've gotten pretty used to seeing liberal bias in the media, but at least it's usually fairly subtle. Not so with this breathtaking example by Emily Sohn in Discovery News:

Still don't see the bias? Ok, here...I've highlighted it for you:

I'm not sure why this piece hasn't picked up more traction on conservative blogs or conservative Twitterdom. In fact, I lifted this from one of my favorite righty blogs, Ace of Spades HQ, which doesn't even remark on the obvious bias. Maybe they've become so accustomed to this type of bias that they don't even notice it any more.

The bias is so deep and widespread now, it's become a pathology. When I tweeted a link to the Discovery article inviting people (sarcastically, I thought) to spot the liberal bias, I received this response from @LouYoungNY:

So pathological is this bias that it's taken by liberals as an absolute truth that conservatives are intolerant and close-minded. Keep in mind that this article (presumably) got past fact-checkers and editors before publication.

Oh, and you may want to keep an eye on what your kids are reading for science.

Desperate times call for desperate candidates

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:26:00 +0000

Pardon me while I clean up a bit...a blog collects a bit of dust and debris when it's not used for a while. I can't believe I haven't posted anything since September.

OK, that's better. Now, where was I? Oh, right...I was going to opine on the Republican primary race. It's pretty damned hard to get excited about it and I guess I'll just have to assume I'll be voting for Mitt Romney this November. I had to laugh this past weekend during coverage of the GOP primary circus in New Hampshire. A reporter made reference to some "energized Romney supporters", and all I could think was "Energized? Resigned maybe, but definitely not energized."

Anyway, I was pretty excited about Rick Perry's entry into the race right up until the time he started to flame out. Then I started paying more attention to Gingrich, and when he started to surge in the polls after some strong debate performances I thought, hey...here might be a guy who could totally dismantle Obama in a one-on-one debate. But I started to sour on Gingrich when he went batshit crazy on the judiciary.

And this past week, when both Perry and Gingrich went all Occupy Wall Street on Mitt Romney over his tenure at Bain Capital, I knew they were both pretty desperate. I don't think Perry and Gingrich have suddenly decided they're 99%-ers, but I do think they're counting on people's ignorance of just what private equity firms do in an effort to paint Romney as a corporate raider.

Sure, private equity firms sometimes shut down companies and lay people off, but that's not their main goal. In fact, that's generally something they try to avoid. They don't just buy up troubled companies, either. As a case in point, the company I work for acquired a company some years back, but after a few years, it was decided that the smaller company's product really didn't fit into our larger portfolio. It would have been very easy for my company to just kill off the product and layoff the staff associated with it, but the product had value so it was decided to sell off that business unit to a private equity firm. That was at least four years ago, and that company is still alive - and growing - today as an independent software firm.

So, thank you Newt and Rick, for making Romney's inevitability a self-fulfilling prophecy, and for making free market capitalism a topic of debate...among conservatives.

Fun with math

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:08:00 +0000

Courtesy of my brother (and sometimes co-blogger) Mark, here's a fun exercise that revolves around a simple mathematical formula.

Movie test:

Be honest and DON'T look at the movie list below until you have done the math!

Try this test and find out what movie is your favorite.

This amazing math quiz can likely predict which of 18 movies you would enjoy the most. It really works!

Pick a number from 1-9.

Multiply it by 3.

Add 3.

Multiply by 3 again.

Now add the two digits of your answer together to find your predicted favorite movie in the list of 18 movies below.

The Movie List:

Gone With The Wind
E.T.
Blazing Saddles
Star Wars
Forrest Gump
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Jaws
Grease
The Obama farewell speech of 2012
Casablanca
Jurassic Park
Shrek
Pirates of the Caribbean
Titanic
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Home Alone
Mrs. Doubtfire
Toy Story

Liberty's last gasp

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:21:00 +0000

Attention: If you live in Indiana and home invasion robbery is your thing, start dressing like a cop.

This past Thursday, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled 3-2 that citizens are not allowed to resist a police officer's unlawful entry into their homes. The fourth amendment to the US Constitution is dead, at least in Indiana:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The language is pretty unequivocal, but those three Hoosiers feel that the language is a bit dated, saying (emphasis mine):

We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

Stunning. The reference to "modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" implies that the nature of our rights as enumerated in the Constitution is adaptable and subject to change over time, yet I'm not sure what part of "shall not be violated" the justices fail to understand. As for the "public policy" language, I'm not even sure where to begin except to say that I'm pretty sure public policy has little to do with our rights under the Constitution. The bottom line, though, is that this is what happens when liberals' notions of a malleable Constitution meet reality.

OK, so the Indiana justices didn't actually rule that cops can enter anyone's home without a warrant or probable cause, but that's the end result. Further in the ruling they say that the proper course of action when a cop commits an unlawful armed home invasion is to take it up with the courts. The same courts, presumably, that issue shit decisions such as this one.

I, for one, wouldn't physically resist an armed man forcibly entering my home. I would, however, grab the phone and dial 911 and tell them that an armed man has just forced his way into my house. Even assuming the dispatcher was aware that a cop was already at my home for some reason, the ensuing confusion might be amusing.

But far better that this craptastic decision never needs to be tested and is brought to the US Supreme Court and struck down. Better yet, maybe Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels will read Alex Kauffman's open letter to him and act before it even gets to the Supremes.

Slut walk? How about a pimp walk, too?

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:44:00 +0000

Just a little while ago on Twitter, Brittany Cohan tweeted this bit about an upcoming "Slut Walk" in DC:

So this is the first time I am seeing this...... http://www.slutwalkdc.org/about (Late, I know- but WOW)

I've been hearing about these events for several weeks now, most recently about one in Boston. The link Brittany tweeted provides background on the rich history of the Slut Walk, which goes back, gee...nearly four months:

SlutWalk Toronto started because of a statement made on January 24th, 2011 by the Toronto Police advising young women not to "dress like a slut" in order to be safe. Toronto's Slutwalk was an organized response on April 3, and many cities have followed in its wake, including the upcoming Washington DC participation scheduled for August 13th of this year.

So maybe the Toronto police were a bit crass with their advice, but were they wrong? Is it really wrong to advise people to engage in a little common sense to avoid crime?

For as far back as I can remember we've been advised not to advertise wealth when out and about, especially in strange locations; leave the Rolex watch at home, don't flash lots of cash, that kind of thing. Should there also be a PimpWalk in DC, then? You know...everyone put on their finest Armani suit, wear lots of expensive bling and parade around SE Washington DC at night?

I don't subscribe to the notion that a woman asks to be raped by the way she dresses any more than a wealthy-looking man asks to be robbed by the way he dresses, but there is such a thing as sensible risk management.

Credit where it's due

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:23:00 +0000

My friends will hate me for this, but here goes...

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Yes, the cocksucker is dead. I'm thankful to President Obama for the method in which Osama Bin Laden was dispatched. We've been waiting for this day for a long time, and I was never sure I'd see it.

Barack Obama could have taken the easy way out and allowed the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan to be leveled by Predator drone missiles and a few JDAMs dropped from B2 bombers, but he made the right choice in authorizing a special operations team to go in and do it "by hand". So, yeah, I'm giving Obama some props for this.

Yeah, I know...it's not like Obama himself went in with guns blazing and blew Bin Laden away. That shit happens only in the cheesiest of movies. But once the military and intelligence community pinpointed OBL's location, Obama would have been presented with a menu of options for how to deal with him. The selections at the top of the list would have included air strike or insertion of a special ops team to take him out. Reportedly, Obama wanted incontrovertible evidence that we'd gotten the bastard and opted for door number two.

The decision was a risky one not just operationally but politically, and could very well have ended up being yet another event to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter had things gone wrong, but he took the chance anyway. So the man has more balls than I thought.

This is not to say that I'll vote for the man in 2012, but I'm willing to give credit where it's due.

On the critical side...

The administration went to great lengths to stress that Bin Laden's remains were given proper treatment in accordance with Islamic custom and that he was properly buried at sea. My reaction to that is...who the fuck cares? The same bed-wetters who worry about stupid shit like that are the ones who say that OBL and his ideology don't represent Islam. So, again, who the fuck cares if his burial was properly Islamic?

With heroes like this, who needs villains?

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:51:00 +0000

Nothing brings into sharper focus the enmity the American Left has for their own country than the case of US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of passing reams of classified documents to the anarchists at Wikileaks. Since his arrest nearly a year ago, leftist bloggers have taken up Manning's cause, and at least one Democratic member of Congress has jumped on the Manning bandwagon. Most recently, a group of Manning supporters paid big bucks to attend an Obama fundraiser just so they could interrupt the President and sing a song about Manning:

Twenty-one members of the Bradley Manning Support Network—some donning shirts that read "Free Bradley Manning"—interrupted the president's speech at a $5,000-a-seat event at the St. Regis hotel in San Francisco.

They broke into a song protesting his treatment in military custody: "Alone in a 6x12 cell sits Bradley / 23 hours a day is night / The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain't right / We paid our dues, where's our change?"

For all their posturing about due process, Constitutional rights and allegations of mistreatment of Manning, it's clear that this is really all about the fact that in the eyes of his supporters, Manning did nothing wrong. To them, what Manning is accused of doing is honorable. If all they were concerned with was due process and his treatment before a trial, they'd have taken up the cause of these guys, too, right?

Traveler's hell

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:35:00 +0000

I was out in the San Francisco Bay Area all last week, and by yesterday morning I was really ready to get home.

My day started yesterday with a 4AM wake-up for a 6AM flight (I was staying at the SFO Marriott so no need to get up ealier). Weather's good, and I get my rental car returned in short order and get through security with no problem. Delta starts boarding the flight about 35 minutes before scheduled departure, so all's good. I've even got first class upgrades for both legs of the trip (SFO-ATL and ATL-RIC). The trouble started about 10 minutes before scheduled departure when the captain came on the PA and announced that we had to wait for a de-icing crew to come and de-ice us. Shouldn't set us back by more than a few minutes, he says, and that he should be able to make it up en route. That's all well and good, BUT...it was 55 fucking degrees outside (that's about 13 sodding degrees to my Brit friends). To top it off, there was no evidence of ice, frost or even a little bit of dew ANYWHERE.

That brief wait for the de-icing crew turned into around 45 minutes because -- wait for it -- there was another aircraft ahead of us for de-icing. When the guys finally show up, there's no de-icing truck, just a scissors jack used for loading cargo and a guy standing on it with what looks like a garden hose. He proceeds to sort of nonchalantly spray both wings of our plane, and we're on our way from the gate an hour behind scheduled departure. But hey, I'm not worried...I've got a 2.5 hour layover in Atlanta which has just gotten shorter.

Fast forward 6 hours or so. I've had my drink and a smoke at the Heineken Bar & Grill (Concourse A, upper level at ATL for those who like to drink AND smoke while awaiting connecting flights) and I'm at the gate for my flight to RIC. Boarding is running slightly late because the aircraft got in 5-10 minutes behind schedule (your attention is invited to Saturday's violent weather along the east coast), but we're still looking good for an on time departure. Brats and wheelchairs board, then first class. Just as the first couple of coach passengers are getting on, the gate agent runs down the jetway and on the plane to tell the flight attendant that she had to halt the boarding process. It seems they had the wrong aircraft type loaded in the computer they'd have to reload it and reboard those pax who'd already been boarded. One rather unhappy camper (not me) loses his first class seat during the reshuffle, and we push back from the gate about 50 minutes late and start taxiing to queue up for the runway.

But wait! The captain gets on the PA and says that due to severe weather in the Richmond area they may have to hold us on the ground for a while. No, wait! On second thought, if we can takeoff RIGHT FREAKING NOW! we might beat the weather! So...high speed taxi to the head of the line, hard turn onto the runway, and off we go. I thought I saw the pilots of about 17 airplanes behind us giving us the finger.

A couple glasses of wine later, we're starting the initial descent into Richmond. Did I mention they were forecasting violent weather in the Richmond area? Yes, I believe I did. Our MD-88 proceeds to get tossed about like a kite in a gale, and because that's so much gosh-darned fun, we enter a holding pattern at around 5000 feet just so we can enjoy it a little while longer while the REALLY violent weather clears the area around the airport. Unfortunately, nobody thought to tell the guys who fueled the plane that we'd be stopping at an amusement park so we started running low on fuel. Evidently, this storm had already passed through Raleigh, so off we go to RDU for refueling before heading back to RIC.

In retrospect, I guess I shouldn't complain that after all that, we only arrived 2.5 hours late in Richmond. Scheduled arrival time was 17:02, and we arrived at around 19:30.

A (hypothetical) conversation with a climate alarmist

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:14:00 +0000

It's hard when you're a climate alarmism skeptic to carry on a conversation about global ~~warming~~ ~~climate change~~ climate challenges with a true-believing climate alarmist because once they find out you're a skeptic they invariably end the conversation and storm off in a huff, presumably to breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes before dashing off to an Al Gore seminar to have their fears validated. So here I'll try and speculate how such a discussion might go if an alarmist ever stuck around for a discussion.

SCENE: Office break room in April, with snow falling outside the window.

Me: Wow...I could really use some of that "global warming" right about now.

Climate Alarmist: It's not called global warming any more.

Me: Oh, that's right, excuse me...global climate change.

CA: No, it's called "global climate challenges" now.

Me: So we've gone from the fairly specific "global warming" to the rather nebulous "global climate change" to the totally amorphous "global climate challenges"?

CA: Um, yeah.

Me: But what does that even mean?

CA: That we'll be faced with desertification, rampant flooding and other forms of climate extremes.

Me: You mean half the planet will be desert while the other half is under water?

CA: Well, not exactly. It's complicated.

Me: And how do we know this? I mean, just how do we know that weather patterns and cycles are significantly different now from, say, ten thousand years ago? It's not like we have concrete global historical weather data going back more than 150 years or so.

CA: Climate scientists use proxy data to figure that out.

Me: And just what are the proxies for precise historical weather data?

CA: Well, it's complicated, but they look at tree rings, among other things.

Me: Ah, tree rings. Well I guess that settles it. So everyone living in coastal areas should immediately move to higher ground, which will soon be desert?

CA: It's not quite that simple--

Me: No, of course it isn't.

CA: --but it's generally accepted that sea levels will gradually rise over the next 50 to 100 years and that some areas will experience drought while some very dry areas will see increased rainfall.

Me: And that's never happened before in the history of the planet? Ever?

CA: Well, um, yeah. It has.

Me: And why is this a crisis now?

CA: If we don't stop the warming of the planet soon--

Me: Wait a second...didn't you just say it's not called "Global Warming" any more?

CA: Uh...

Me: First it's warming, then it's not, then it is again. What is it, exactly, that's causing these "global climate challenges"?

CA: Greenhouse gases.

Me: Which do....what?

CA: Um, raise temperatures. Like in a greenhouse.

Me: So, the problem once again is global warming.

CA: It's complicated.

Me: Yeah, so you've said.

CA: Could you hand me that empty paper bag over there?

Closetgate: What if Cheney did it?

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:54:00 +0000

Yeah, I know...the whole "what if Bush/Cheney did it" thing is getting rather threadbare, and generally speaking, the answer is always the same: the media would be howling about [insert latest outrage here] for days.

But with "Closetgate", as the story of the hapless press pool reporter confined to a closet during VP Joe Biden's appearance at a fundraiser has become known by some on Twitter, the answer I think would be "it wouldn't have happened in the first place".

During the eight years of George W. Bush's administration, I don't recall this kind of deliberate isolation from the media. In the little more than two years that Obama has been in office, we've heard one story after another of "the most transparent White House in history" holding the media at arm's length or being prevented outright from covering White House activities.

The story of Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers being confined to a closet -- and guarded -- during a fundraiser at which Biden was to speak is just the latest example of this administration's contempt for the media. This White House is like a college fraternity with a passel of pass-around chicks (if you'll forgive the crudity) who hang out for parties while the frat brothers take their turns with them in a back bedroom. This is effectively what happened to Powers...a low-level White House functionary kept him hidden away while all the beautiful people swilled cocktails and fed on delicacies until Joe Biden wanted to take him out and play with him for a few minutes, after which he was once again hustled off out of sight. But you can bet that just like the pass-around chick, that reporter will be back for more.

Maybe the reason there was so much media coverage of the Bush White House's various fumbles compared to those of Obama's is that the Bush White House actually let the press cover them.

Noted Democratic loudmouth dumps on middle America

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:39:00 +0000

It's no secret that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is often a hysterical douchebag in Congress. The guy obviously loves the media attention he gets from his temper tantrums, and in fact I often find him pretty amusing. But maybe it's time his handlers kept him away from Twitter:

Weiner's smear was directed at Iowa Republicans who booed him when Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) mentioned his name at a conservative conference in Iowa.

A word of advice to Mr. Weiner: You're not in high school any more. You're not tweeting anonymously at night about the ruffians who doubtlessly doled out daily wedgies and swirlies to you. You represent New York's 9th fucking Congressional District in Washington and need to start acting like it. I've no doubt that with this tweet you managed to offend the 40% of your constituents who didn't vote for you in the last election, but who you still represent.

Grow the fuck up, Weiner.

About that "Odyssey Dawn" thing...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:13:00 +0000

As a long-time military guy, I've always hated military operation names that seemed hand-crafted for public consumption and subsequent printing on t-shirts and bumper stickers. "Desert Shield" and its follow-up "Desert Storm" come immediately to mind. "Just Cause", the operation to invade Panama and capture Manuel Noriega, was to me a particularly unsubtle bit of salesmanship, and operations "Iraqi Freedom" and "Enduring Freedom" are particularly egregious examples of bad names for military operations.

World War 2 saw such cryptic names as "Market Garden", which was the Allied operation to secure bridgeheads and strategic positions along rivers in Germany and the Netherlands. Now that's a good name for an operation. The Allied invasion of Normandy was called simply "Overlord", another good name for a military operation. In more recent history, Israel dubbed its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip "Cast Lead".

In the 1980s, we had names for exercises under 9th Air Force that all seemed to begin with the word "Coronet" followed my some apparently random noun. They were all horribly boring and mundane, and therefore good names.

As operation names go, "Odyssey Dawn" doesn't completely suck by my standards. While I suspect some general officer somewhere thought it sounded cool (and thus potentially t-shirtable), at least it doesn't smack of some PR flak's idea of a marketable name.

Fair wages

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:58:00 +0000

Courtesy of my buddy "Big Dog" Mike, who sent this via e-mail:

The Alabama Department of Labor discovered a dairy farmer was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate.

"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," the Department of Labor employee said to the farmer upon arriving at his dairy.

"Well, there's my farm hand who has been with me for three years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board," the farmer explained. "Then there's the mentally challenged worker. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."

"That's the guy I want to talk to, the mentally challenged one," the Department of Labor employee said.

"That would be me," the farmer replied.