#NerdProm

Having lived around Washington, D.C. for four decades, minus a stint in a southern state for college, GorT is familiar with the White House Correspondent's Dinner.  It's had quite a history - good and bad.  Overall, I think it's largely a non-story.  Who really cares?  It's a bunch of Hollywood types, press folks and politicians eating a fancy dinner and telling some jokes - many of which fall flat in one way or another.  But in the end, it really doesn't matter.

However, with all the to-do that's been made of this past Saturday's event, I found one aspect a bit odd.  Journalists and others are referring to it as the "nerd prom".  While I may be making this into a bigger issue than it is - even after saying that the evening doesn't really matter - I'd like to pick on that title.  The term "nerd" has some specific connotations in our society. Let's turn to the all-knowing Wikipedia:

Nerd is a derogatory slang term for a person typically described as socially-impaired, obsessive, or overly intellectual. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular or obscure activities, pursuits, or interests, which are generally either highly technical, or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities.^[1][2][3] Other nerdy qualities include physical awkwardness, introversion, quirkiness, and unattractiveness.^[4] Thus, a nerd is often excluded from physical activity and is a social outsider. In the stereotypical high-school situation, they may be either considered loners by others, or they tend to associate with a small group of like-minded people.

Hmmm, maybe it's not far off in this case.  Maybe these folks are "socially-impaired" or "obsessive".  In many cases, they do "spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular or obscure activities" but they generally aren't about highly technical topics so maybe it's the topics of "fiction or fantasy" upon which they focus.  Clearly the comparison could go on...but I jest.  Sort of.

Nerds, in the American stereotypical sense, are the smart, awkward geeks that tend to focus on computers and electronics or comic books or science fiction and fantasy.  They rarely are epitomized as role models.  So why would these folks label it as such and use Twitter hashtags like #NerdProm to tag tweets about the event?  Maybe they aren't creative enough to come up with a better nickname (although one might ask why "Correspondents' Dinner" or "White House Correspondents' Dinner" doesn't suffice...heck #WHCD was a popular hashtag for the event giving folks 4 more characters in their tweets).  Of course, that doesn't bode well for the professional reporters because as we all know - a good headline makes or breaks an article.

Personally, I think nerds - real nerds: programmers, scientists, RPGers, etc. - should call them out on this.  Retake and own the #nerd tag and its subsidiaries.  The WHCD is no #NerdProm.   You want to see a #NerdProm?  Have a dinner-dance after the next BlackHat conference or the evening event at the next ComicCon or DragonCon.  Speaking as a nerd, we shouldn't let the White House, the press corps or Hollywood abscond with this term.  Go use #PolitProm or something else.

* For those who don't get the nerd humor - Wolf B and Chris M, I'm looking at you - click here.

#FORWARD is more like #BACKWARD

The Obama Campaign and its cyber-surrogates had a couple more twitter #fail s.

Dr. J. and the Czar have both talked about  how the twitter sphere is the domain of the right, while Facebook is more of a home to the left. Now the left is waging war on the right on one of our cyber-fronts.

Apparently there are sinister agents in twitter who are, en masse reporting conservative tweets as SPAM resulting in those accounts being shut down. Michelle Malkin discusses this phenomenon today. One recent victim is Chris Loesch. He can be found under the handle @chrisloesch.  His wife works for Breitbart.com.

This is a pretty chilling turn of events. As most liberals can no longer argue the merits of their positions as they become more and more intrenched in the quagmire of Obama's Progressive agenda (e.g. Debbie Wasserman Schultz), they must turn to shouting down their opponents. This was the case with Chris's account. Dr. J. only fears that more of our conservative twitter friends may face similar attacks. Fortunately it appears the more followers you have, the safer you are from attack because SPAM reports appear to be based on a % of followers complaining. Chris was shut down, but his wife wasn't.

Indeed today, we thought we were hacked, however it was just Volgi up to his regular fun and games.

On to point the second. Team Obama's newest attempt at a catchphrase went up in flames. #FORWARD is the new campaign slogan. The conservatives took hold of that and mocked it with impunity, transforming it into yet another Obama joke.

It will be interesting to see how this cyber-civil war will work out. Conservatives who don't tend to attack in the first place, won't be taking it to the left on Facebook, as these lefties are our friends and neighbors and we don't want them to think us ass-hats. Even then, Dr. J. has lost friends over liking a conservative figure or statement. What he does is offer friendly correction via messaging so as not to embarrass his liberal friends there. Twitter, while anonymity and contact with high profile figures makes it a target rich environment for these attacks really creates communities of like minded individuals. Dr. J. fears that it won't be the best place for net-roots, as how many moderate sheeple tweet, let alone follow conservative pundits?

As long as the war is a war of ideas, and free discourse reigns, the conservative viewpoint will always win out.

Unfortunately, progressives hate to lose, and are willing to play dirty.

Paul Krugman Ignores Facts To Achieve His Preferred Result

Paul Krugman deigns to share his Nobel laureate economic wisdom with us intellectual peons in today's New York Times. And thank goodness Mr. Krugman shared his truthiness with 'Puter, because 'Puter never would've been able to figure out the correct answer on his own.

What economic Gordian knot did Mr.Krugman untangle today? Why, youth under- and unemployment, of course.  And what timeliness, with America's newly minted college genii ready to graduate to their working lives.


Dr. Krugman prepares to vaporize 'Puter
with his Goodriddance-inator vision

 Mr. Krugman correctly identifies a problem: for American youth (workers under 25), unemployment is currently 16.5%. From this point on, however, it gets ugly for Mr. Krugman's mortal enemies: facts and truth.

You see, Mr. Krugman ascribes young workers' high unemployment rate to the poor job market.  Mr. Krugman then trots out the only liberal solution to any problem, including job creation: MOR GUBMINT!1!!!one!!

Mr. Krugman recommends that student loan programs be expanded, rather than limited. Further, Mr. Krugman recommends curing the economy by investing more government dollars at the state and local level.  Essentially, suck more money out of an ailing economy by taxing it today or taxing it tomorrow (by borrowing), and give the money to government, for government is all good and deserving of all our love.

Expectedly, Mr. Krugman goes on to blame the poor economy on austerity policies and tax cuts, which Mr. Krugman (again, expectedly) pins on conservatives.  Mr. Krugman shockingly finds that spending less than one takes in caused the bad economy, global warming, genital warts, Goldie Hawn and college football's BCS ranking system.

But 'Puter comes here not to praise Mr. Krugman, but to bury him.  For, Gentle Reader, it is as foretold: a little child shall lead them. And no one is smaller (in all senses) and more childish than your 'Puter, so hold on to something heavy, like Mr. Krugman's boundless self-regard, because it's going to be a heck of a ride.

There's an old joke where an economist, a lawyer and a priest come to a river, with no way across. Long(er) joke short, the economist's solution is, "First, assume a bridge." And that's what Mr. Krugman does.  He assumes a set of facts not in existence.

Mr. Krugman confuses a demand issue for a supply issue. He looks at the wreckage that is our youth unemployment rate and concludes not that there are too many young people graduating college with useless degrees, but rather that if only colleges churned out more unemployable, illiterate, innumerate Fill-In-The-Blank Studies majors, well, jeepers, surely Big Business would realize the error of its ways and start snatching up our doe-eyed innocents. Better, not only should colleges be churning out more uneducated (ineducable?) "graduates," but taxpayers should subsidize this worse than useless endeavor.

Listen up, Mr. Krugman, and all your fellow travelers.  The very last thing America needs right now is more college graduates.  Well, maybe we need another Kardashian sister less, but you get 'Puter's point.

To be specific, 'Puter means liberal arts college graduates and lawyers, and 'Puter's got an A.B. Philosophy and a J.D.  Yet, Dr. Krugman's solution is to turn the amplifier up to 11, or use more cowbell, whichever inapposite metaphor works best for you.  That is, Mr. Krugman looks at what actually exists, doesn't like what he sees, and plants his head firmly in the sand.  'Puter was going to say "up his arse," but @ProfMondo always grades 'Puter down when 'Puter uses profanity, especially British spellings, in his essays.

'Puter has experience in interviewing and dealing with today's liberal arts college graduates.  For the most part, they are lazy, pampered, ill-mannered, poorly read and unprepared for the work force.  Public education and our colleges and universities have failed them, and America.  These young men and women would have been better served by a stint in the military or in the private sector work force before attending college, or in lieu thereof altogether.

It is a lie, and a supremely damaging lie, that all American children should go to college. This lie damages our youth as well as our national economy.  First, no matter what parents would have you believe, not every kid is mentally equipped to go to college.  We all have friends who thinks their Precious Q. Snowflake is the next Dr. Salk, when it's obvious to all that little Precious is as dumb as a sack of door knobs.  Second, even assuming special, lovely Precious is of average intelligence, most jobs today (yes, even most of the good ones) don't require a college degree in reality.

'Puter means it.  Give 'Puter an 18 year old high school graduate who can read for comprehension well, perform basic math quickly and accurately, speak well and write in complete sentences, and over time, 'Puter can teach that person to do approximately 90% of the financial sector work his company does. That is, provided the candidate is otherwise employable, with a decent work ethic and good hygiene. The jobs 'Puter's company offers are precisely the sort of entry level, new economy jobs Mr. Krugman seeks to create: jobs with benefits, sick leave, vacation, health insurance, 401ks, etc. So why does 'Puter's company require a college degree for certain jobs?

'Puter's company uses college degrees as a proxy for employability.  Employers can't use IQ tests to sort candidates because the Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power decided employers' use of such tests had a disparate impact on minorities, specifically Blacks. This case, in addition to making it vastly more difficult for employers to effectively screen employees also bequeathed to the United States the legal disparate impact doctrine. We can thank the disparate impact doctrine not only for making trial attorneys rich, but also for creating an environment in which racial hucksters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson thrived.  "The Supreme Court's Made-Up Disparate Impact Analysis: Screwing America Since 1971."

Also, employers aren't allowed to ask job candidates a litany of questions that could be useful as a result of EEOC rulings, poor Congressional legislation (ADA, anyone?) and litigation fears generally. For example, you can be sued for asking an applicant about his family, or when he graduated college or any number of innocuous queries. Certainly, anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time, regardless of how foolish.  The difference is that this particular foolishness states a legally cognizable cause of action, for which an employer may be liable for damages, as well as increased regulatory scrutiny.

 If Mr. Krugman insists on subsidizing college degrees with other people's money, let's at least subsidize the proper degrees: science, technology, engineering and math degrees, narrowly defined.  America has an under supply of graduates in these fields, and employers have an ever increasing demand for such graduates. This, in 'Puter's mind, is money well spent. Make it easier for students to receive an education for which there is demand, both at the moment and projected into the future.  'Puter can't envision a future where America will not need engineers to build our bridges and equipment, or programmers to write code, can you?

But 'Puter finds it quite easy to imagine a future without jobs for Fill In The Blank Studies majors. Heck, we're already living in 'Puter's posited future.  Just look at all the unemployed/unemployable liberal arts majors associated with Occupy Wall Street, Hell-bent on lashing out at the productive citizens who thanklessly subsidized their piss-poor education in a made-up and worthless field of inquiry.

The problem, Mr. Krugman is not that there is an under supply of college graduates generally. It is rather that there is an under supply of a certain kind of college graduate; namely, college graduates with economically useful knowledge, such as graduates with degrees in physics or chemistry. Further, the solution Mr. Krugman expounds leads inexorably to an increase in the oversupply of the former and an under supply of the latter.

If government subsidized and guaranteed student loans were only available to students studying science, technology, engineering and math, 'Puter's betting it would take about 2.47 nanoseconds for colleges and universities to revisit their business model, slowly starving non-subsidized programs such as the ever-popular kinesiology in favor of hard sciences. That, in turn, would lead to more graduates with skills in needed areas, and fewer kids graduating with useless degrees.  Better yet, it would lead to fewer students attending college in the first place.

When the world needs more folks who leave gainful employment to pursue master's degrees in puppetry to survive, let 'Puter know.  He'll be happy to subsidize their education then.  But until that day comes, Mr. Krugman, and every person receiving student loans while working towards a bullshit degree they'll either never finish or never use, can shut their damned pie-holes and get their grubby, patchouli smelling fingers out of 'Puter's wallet.

There's No Free Lunch

As I started writing this I noticed that the Czar just penned a post on climate change so this one is timely and the two together are strong points to consider.

As my middle school and early high school children have learned, there is the Law of the Conservation of Energy - basically stating that within a system, energy cannot be destroyed or created but only changed in form or transferred.  There are nuances here but the broader implication is that the creation of energy cannot happen - it's only a change or transfer of energy.  There is no ultimate power source that our Huckleberry is out to steal and then protect while making out with Elizabeth Shue.  So when the Big Environment people push for "green energy", how does this law apply?

Well, solar panels change light energy into electricity and sometimes the solar panels are heating up water.  Hydroelectric plants use the force of the water to turn turbines to create transform kinetic energy into electricity.  Wind farms use the force of the air molecules on the blades to spin turbine to likewise generate electricity.  But in each case, something lost - the light from the Sun didn't warm the surface under the solar panels, the river's water is slowed and/or diverted from its natural course and the wind is likewise slowed and altered.

A recent study took a look at the latter case:

Usually at night the air closer to the ground becomes colder when the sun goes down and the earth cools. But on huge wind farms the motion of the turbines mixes the air higher in the atmosphere that is warmer, pushing up the overall temperature. Satellite data over a large area in Texas, that is now covered by four of the world's largest wind farms, found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost 1ºC as more turbines are built. This could have long term effects on wildlife living in the immediate areas of larger wind farms.

It could also affect regional weather patterns as warmer areas affect the formation of cloud and even wind speeds.
Liming Zhou, Research Associate Professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of New York, who led the study, said further research is needed into the affect of the new technology on the wider environment.
...

The study, published in Nature, found a “significant warming trend” of up to 0.72ºC (1.37ºF) per decade, particularly at night-time, over wind farms relative to near-by non-wind-farm regions.
The team studied satellite data showing land surface temperature in west-central Texas.
“The spatial pattern of the warming resembles the geographic distribution of wind turbines and the year-to-year land surface temperature over wind farms shows a persistent upward trend from 2003 to 2011, consistent with the increasing number of operational wind turbines with time,” said Prof Zhou.

Of course, I'm sure the IPCC has taken this into account in their climate models much like they've taken clouds, water vapor, oceans and solar activity into the models.

Science Does Not Equal Skepticism

If the Czar could wish anything for your survival, it would be the gift of skepticism. When someone runs up to you with a stunning claim (“I just saw Bigfoot! And eleventy!”), your first response really should be “How good is the evidence?”

Note the phrasing there. You never ask where the evidence is; there will be plenty of it. You instead ask how good it is. Under that lens, most scrutiny exposes the weak arguments and the whole thing falls apart.

You know who ought to be skeptical? Professional scientists. And almost by definition, you think they should be; however, skepticism is a learned personality trait, not necessarily a discipline. Many scientists are now willing to play a leftist non-thinking game than be true to their own discipline.

Two examples from the May 2012 issue of Scientific American. The Czar loves the articles in this magazine, but concedes the editors take a considerably non-skeptical look at what topics to cover.

Here is one particularly galling example. In the excellent article “A Better Eye On The Storm,” (which concerns the history and future of using radar to predict violent weather) the Czar spots the small “In Brief” abstract at the bottom of the page.

Stronger or more frequent weather extremes will likely occur under climate change, such as more intense downpours and stronger hurricane winds.

Improved weather prediction, therefore, will be vital to giving communities more time to prepare for dangerous storms, saving lives and minimizing damage to infrastructure.

New radar technology will allow forecasters to better “see” extreme weather, as will potential improvements to satellite technology, as well as computer models that run on more powerful supercomputers.

Longer warning time is only effective when paired with better understanding of how to get people to response to the warnings, all part of an effort to build a “weather-ready nation.”

Likely occur under climate change? What happened to the certainty of Al Gore’s fifteen hurricanes a month?

Okay, here is the real kicker: if you read the story, there is nothing in here about climate change. Nothing! Not even a passing reference. The story, by two NOAA scientists, is a straight-up review of the history of using weather in forecasting violent storms, how we use it today, and imminent improvements in technology in response to slow warnings issued at Joplin, Missouri. That’s it.

But that isn’t good enough, evidently, for the hippies who now run the masthead at SciAm, and they decided—what the heck—to throw in a promo for climate change fear-mongering that has nothing to do with the story. Just so you don’t forget!

This is product placement of the worst kind: the product placement of ideology. The Gormogons’s views on climate change are well-documented, and many liberals acolytes are shocked to discover we acknowledge the validity of much of it; however, this is beyond the pale.

Here is another: the very last page of the magazine usually has some sort of more compex USA Today infographic. The same issue has one entitled “High And Dry in the Food Desert.” What’s there? Four maps of the US, showing the distribution of low income families, car-free households, obesity, and diabetes. Apparently, you are supposed to overlay these maps on each other or something to discover that low-income families - cars x (obesity + diabetes) = food deserts are designed to kill the poor! ZOMG! Republicans!

There is no correlation between these maps: they are simply four maps of the US. A skeptical mind would ask “Why were these four maps chosen? Why were others left out? Where is the data behind them? Where is the correlating evidence that shows linkages?” Without that information, we have four maps that the reader, evidently, is supposed to assume link together when indeed they may have nothing in common except geography.

All right, so how good is the evidence? Well, a “2006 study” is mentioned but not cited that says—follow us here—people who live near supermarkets tend to have lower rates of obesity. Is there a link between the two? Not necessarily, and no evidence is supplied. And here is a money quote not from a scientist but from a Chicago-based consultant who specializes in geographic reach of grocery store chains. Not a shred of evidence that food deserts are a legitimate social problem.

Which is too bad, because the last bit of real science done on the popular Lefty subject of food deserts shows that “food deserts” are a largely imaginary problem, created by assuming links exist between unrelated data. And, unlike Scientific American, the Czar will happily provide his citation.

This is sad and pathetic. So desperately do Progressives cling to their reformist science that they will readily violate good skeptical analysis to promote their pet social causes. And, in what must surely be the grossest insult of all to a scientist, that isn’t science. It’s pure BS politics, and it is time for the scientific community to begin policing itself of the worst confirmation bias possible.

World Changers

The Czar and family have recently joined the millions of iPhone users. In short, the Царица’s old push-button cell phone was becoming too difficult to do more than rare text message. Recently, her school district’s teachers have begun to text each other like mad with school news and events because the union has no way to monitor texts, as opposed to emails which are evidently scanned for content once in a while. Since 82% of the teachers in her district are opposed to the union, texting is the way to communicate without too much fear. As such, the iPhone has a fantastic speech-to-text feature that allows her to text hands-free while driving. And Siri is positively awesome for the Czar, and he tolerates comments from her that would warrant instant decapitation from an actual serf. And don’t our serfs love my use of her to get stuff done?

With all the iPhone nuttiness in our house, and the Царица’s and the boys’s use of iPads day in and day out, the Czar got to thinking about topics normally reserved for GorT. Specifically, what has Apple done?

Look, the Czar is no Apple enthusiast. As much as folks rave about the Macintosh, the fact is that the Czar owned and used Macs for many years. And despite the religious defensiveness their users uphold, the Mac is just as problematic and irritating a computer as any Windows machine. While Macs tend to work a little more uniformly—the Mandarin and Czar each have identical Windows 7 laptops, configured 100% the same way, but we each suffer completely unique problems the other does not—they still cannot run all the same applications nor as well. Sorry, Macheads, but that’s the reality: there is much more out there for Windows, in terms of quantity and power. The real difference is that Windows users expect and promote how irritating their machines are; Mac owners tend to look the other way and deny all the weirdness they in turn endure.

But hang on—let us look at what Apple did right. Start with the iPod.

This is a product nobody wanted, nobody understood, and nobody endorsed. The entire idea is stupid. You could summarize the history of the iPod like this: Steve Jobs suggested that Apple take a long-dead product, like a Sony Walkman, and repurpose it. Apple would not make any of the hardware, but would simply reuse existing technology in a new, odd combination.

Take a song off a CD, compress it into a format nobody uses, and store it digitally on this device. You could take a bunch of your CDs and put them on it, or mix and match whatever songs you liked. Then you listen to it through ear buds, which are terribly uncomfortable but less dorky than headphones (and less pure a sound and far less hygenic), and off you go.

The executives at Apple would have reacted the same the Czar did when he heard about it: good luck with the record industry. No way will they allow you to do that, because you lose control of the sales revenues. You want to legitimize Napster? Hah! But Jobs pushed this idea to the breaking point: “I bet you,” he must have said, “that if we sell the songs for less than a buck, piracy will stop. People would rather buy a legal copy of a song, even one they already own, than beg, borrow, and steal them from friends.” Plus, the upshot turned out, the artists would not only make more money, but be forced to produce better quality music.

That last point is essential. For decades, artists produced one or two good songs but then filled out an album with dreck merely because they would get paid for it anyway. When you want to buy an album to get the top ten hit on it, you were being forced to buy the rest of the crap on there. But with iTunes, you could buy only the songs you liked; the rest languished in non-sales hell. Artists now understand this, and are generally working toward unleashing five or six really good songs instead of one or two along with ten boring ones. Why? Because the others can make millions, too! So there is a long way to go here, but overall iTunes is pressing for quality more than quantity. Just as a market system should.

Now how do the artists make more money? Because millions of people would rather buy the song or two they liked rather than shell out $15 for an otherwise bad album. Given the opportunity to buy only the songs they liked, consumers did just that. Millions of us bought individual singles of songs previously unavailable except on a worthless album. The Czar would never buy Panorama by the Cars due to the cost; but he did drop a buck to get “Touch and Go,” which is the only redeeming song on there. Well, maybe “Don’t Tell Me No,” which cost the Czar another buck. And Ric Ocasek made two bucks off the Czar he was never otherwise going to.

But Jobs pushed, and he was right, and finally did what all the technology manufacturers tried to do since the cassette tape appeared: he proved the music industry is a collection of dim-witted morons who could have made billions but were obsessed with saving thousands in piracy. The record industry? Oh, they love the iPod now, baby. And iTunes? Greatest record store on the planet. But it took Steve Jobs to move the mountain.

Not to be outdone, Apple came out with another product nobody wanted: a telephone. Cell phones were cheap, and they did everything you needed them to do (which was make or take a phone call). But Jobs was aware that people hated cell phones because they were too difficult to use to their full potential. Make or answer calls? Easy: but try saving your contacts, creating speed dials, or conferencing people. It took hours to learn to do it, and you spent more time creating a contact than you would ever spend speaking to him. And just look at texting!

So Apple came out with a phone that had one freaking button on it. But that button could pretty much do what you needed it to do. Once again, the iPhone featured nothing new—but it made cell phones smart...and just as a flurry of inexpensive .mp3 players came out, a wave of smart phones followed. And the world changed again: today, hundreds of millions of people now have easy access to phones, the internet, GPS, and online shopping thanks to their phones.

And last but not exactly least, Apple came out with an iPad. The Czar distinctly remembers his reaction to this: what the hell is it? It seems to be an iPhone without the phone. What possible product niche does this fill?

But the Czar did not nix the product, but rather watched it. And saw it filled a variety of needs. You know that very few people use a computer in their house to write a huge novel, develop complex research experiments, or chart lunar events? No, they browse the web to see what products to buy, look up that actor on IMDB.com to see where they know her from, and play games. So Apple came out with a very inexpensive, intensely portable version of a computer. And the Царица bought one, and all of us fought over it until we got a second one. The Czar still uses his Windows 7 laptop for nearly everything, but admits that the iPad is the best solution for reading the news at the table, looking up that actress’s name on the couch, or checking a hockey score while sitting out in the backyard.

Now, there is a rush by product manufacturers to sell similar products. And some, yeah, are faster, cheaper, better, and richer in features than the iPad. But none of them are selling; the point is, the market is dictating, as it should. And Apple changed the world yet again with a product that nobody foresaw.

When the final chapter on Apple is written, the odds are that no one will remember the Macintosh as much as they will remember the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Or, more likely, whatever happens next at Apple. Yeah, it will be tough without Steve Jobs: he had a gift for looking at products that everyone likes, and then proving that nobody really liked them until he fixed the interface. But remember that Apple hasn’t made anything new in decades except for software: so they could easily keep that brillliance coming by using existing hardware.

It will be worth watching. But the Czar must admit: if Apple announce they were coming out with a new baseball glove tomorrow, he would bet that it would be the best the world has ever seen.

Rain Out

The boys’ baseball games were rained out today here in Muscovy, so this is what we are spending our day watching:



Parry Gripp is a genius.

Where Has He Been, Anyway?

Well, here is a total surprise. Most of us thought Uncle Jay walked off the edge of the world, but here he is, writing us this message:

Most Dread & Awful,

I’ve been quite busy of late, and due to a tedious business with a certain drag queen in Pocatello Idaho I have had to shut down my website for a bit and go low-drag in order to avoid the Dogs of Law…

However, I really need to plan a little getaway before my summer schedule begins, and with the need to avoid my normal haunts and local bars I was planning on making another run at visiting the Plateau of Leng and Castle G…

One thing I am particularly looking for is an abyss for gazing into, and in a typical Nietzsche-esque fashion, be gazed into…

So, y’all got a Bottomless Pit of Despair, or maybe just one of the regular sort?

TBG, 2012 vacation planning.

We have a hippodrome. That isn’t quite an abyss. Nor indeed would be our menegarie.

We have ‘Puter. You can gaze into him.

Incidentally, we are still putting together our Visitor’s Guide that will answer most of these questions. And we are getting close to releasing it to you minion types.

JAB Delivers Another Right Cross

Yes...yes, of course we had everything to do with it! And so says JAB:

Dear Your Czarness:

Dang, you fellers in the Castle do work most swiftly! I don't know if a time-traveling trick or a mind-control-ray was deployed, or if you just sent Mr. Puter to make 'em an offer they couldn't refuse, but those meddling ninnies at the Dept. of Labor ran away crying like little girls!

The decision to withdraw this rule – including provisions to define the 'parental exemption' – was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms. To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.

[Translation: Run Away!]

Instead, the Departments of Labor and Agriculture will work with rural stakeholders – such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, the Future Farmers of America, and 4-H – to develop an educational program to reduce accidents to young workers and promote safer agricultural working practices.

What's especially amusing about that last sentence is that the Farm Bureau, 4-H and Future Farmers of America have ongoing programs focused on farm safety. I should probably have explained this better in my original missive, but my niece, a.k.a. Miss Hell-Raising-Anarchist, spent months feeding and caring for that afore-mentioned prize hog, before it was taken to the county fair for its day of glory. All of those steps took place within the context of her high school FFA program.

Your Czarness rightly wondered where the outcry was from the "...our major political candidates." If you were referring to Romney, I wouldn't expect that he could correctly identify the business end of a bull any more that Obama. I mean, you don't learn that stuff at Harvard Law, do you? You learn that on a...farm. I saw lots of Republican congressmen, as well as Senators Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tester (D-Montana) come out strongly against this, but what about other Democrats from farm states? Anybody?

You reckon the Dept. of Labor apparatchiks might should have consulted with "rural stakeholders" BEFOREHAND??? Then we "rural stakeholders" might, I say might, not develop the strong urge to hoist heads on stakes. Lucky for us hicks that this here is an election year, and that Axelrod & Co. can crack heads within the Democratic ranks.

I suspect that those who visit the Castle and who were not priviledged to grow up on farms might wonder what the big fuss was about. After all, who would want a 15-year-old maimed by farm equipment or gored by a bull???

But if you live on a farm, you must learn from a very early age that, in fact, farm equipment and some farm animals are dangerous. You can get hurt. So you cannot "play" around grain-augers, walk up behind tractors, etc. My father didn't plop me on a tractor when I was 13 and say "drive." It was a years-long training process.

The other thing that I reflect on is how ingrained FFA, 4-H and the Farm Bureau are in rural lives, although they seem to be foreign to our betters in the higher reaches of government. My mother first came to my father's attention at a 4-H cow show. His steer kicked her, and there she was in the show-ring, trying not to cry. My brother and sister both raised Hampshire hogs for their FFA projects, and used the very same sign that our late uncle hand-painted years before any of us were born.

When the Labor Dept. issues regulations that would prohibit kids from carrying on these traditions, they show just how completely out of touch they really are.

With Gratitude from the Double-wide, JAB

Glad we made you happy. All the same, we might just stay out of your frying pan-throwing range for a couple of days.

The Bully on the Pulpit

One of Dr. J.'s biggest complaints about President Obama and his administration is the willingness to call out private citizens who disagree with his worldview or handle a situation in a different manner than he would. Specific examples include Joe the Plumber, Officer Crowley, the Koch Brothers, the SCOTUS and now donors to the Romney campaign. Generic examples include doctors, oil companies and Wall Street. His favorite enemy is Some May, is a recent chinese immigrant who is his most vociferous opponent, and he even makes fun of her grammar when he calls her out (Some May say...).

Kim Strassel, political columnist for the Wall Street Journal takes the president to task today on this very issue.

She writes:

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans." 

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having "outsourced" jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a "lobbyist") and Thomas O'Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a "bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

The President of the United States is the most powerful office in America, really, it is. The President's most powerful tool is the Bully Pulpit. Historically the Bully Pulpit has been used to persuade Congress, and if not them, to persuade the American People of the President's policies. And even then, it has been more of a colloquial term than a pedestal from which true bullying is going in.

Sadly, as the 2012 race heats up, the office of the presidency and the campaign for re-election appear more blurred than ever.

Given that the Democrats are unable to revoke the First Amendment through the legislative process, despite the best efforts of former Speaker Pelosi, Dr. J. expects the Bully Pulpit to be used, as Mayor Daley would say, early and often.

Ignore The Democrat Behind The Curtain

We have another example of the democrats spinning what the republicans propose to do as evil while having done themselves exactly what they are against.  Courtesy of Katrina Trinko over at The Corner.  I'm sure we've all heard that the republicans are out to raid Medicare but President Obama has already raided it to the tune of $500M to help defray costs for the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Now, Nancy Pelosi is spinning the following tale: “In order to pay for it, [republicans] are going to make an assault on women’s health, make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health, ” Pelosi said, per ABC News, “and pay for this with prevention initiatives that are in effect right now for childhood immunization; for screening for breast cancer, for cervical cancer; and for initiatives to reduce birth defects – a large part of what the Center for Disease Control does in terms of prevention.”

Now, if ABC News had any journalists, they would have followed up with a questions like the following - at least the Associated Press noted it:

"What about the vote supported by the democrats to take money from the same preventive health fund in order to keep doctors' Medicare reimbursements from dropping?"

or

"What about President Obama's budget which proposed cutting $4B from the same fund in order to pay for other priorities?"

How much press did that get?  Oh right, ignore what they are doing and focus on the republicans.

The Double-Wide is Double-Mad

This urgent message arrived by exhausted courier, who raced it to the Castle in a combination of on-foot, by-auto, par avion, and sure-footed camel, where its lime green color indicated most-critical status. Our revivified Egyptian mummy major-domo, Inetef-Te-Henqet, accepted it at the door, recognized its importance, and rushed it to Sleestak. The nasty lizard-faced guy literally dropped what he was doing (stacking china), sprinted to the elevator, and brought it to the Czar’s chambers where it sat for a week because we were watching a re-run of Godzilla.

Anyway, it was a serious warning from long-term minion, JAB:

Your Czarness:

We out here in the boondocks of fly-over country NEED HELP from you Gormogons up in yon Castle!

Seems as though the "war on womyn" wasn't working out too good for the Dem's so they up and picked another target...us. Yessir, what we here is a "war" on hicks. And speaking for hicks everywhere, we're none too pleased. Sharpening up the pitchforks, as I write.

Wait a minute. Even the dullest pitchfork is sharp. Somebody could get in a mess of trouble with the gubmint if a frail, delicate youth under the age of 18 were to go and cut themselves on a pitchfork. Your US Dept. of Labor would forthwith sic a passel of lawyers on us (as per attached rule http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm).

Read it. They want to prohibit those under 18 from working on farms. Seriously. Might chip a nail, mighten they? Now they say that any chilluns working on farms owned by their parents are exempt. But now don't you dare go and work for your uncle. Or granddaddy. Or your second-cousin once removed.

My dear 14-year-old niece won the market hog prize at the county fair last year. In the future, if these rules go through, she'd be violating a whole passel of rules and provisos:

The department also is proposing to create a new nonagricultural hazardous occupations order that would prevent children under 18 from being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials. Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.

I had no idea she was such the hell-raising anarchist she really is.

Additionally, the proposal would prohibit farmworkers under 16 from operating almost all power-driven equipment.

Where were these guys when I was growing up? Yeesssh. I was driving a tractor before I was out of middle school. My daddy, being a HUGE proponent of womyn's equality, would hear non of my protestations. Where was Hilda Solis when I needed her???

The proposal would strengthen current child labor regulations prohibiting agricultural work with animals....

So, logically, the next step we can expect whould be banning the reading of Charlotte's Web. Might give the younguns all kinds of nefarious ideas.

I do wonder if it will still be OK for urban-yuppie types to keep hens for organically/locally/sustainably produced eggs. Will their children be prohibited from feeding the Aracaunas and Buff Orpingtons? Well, I do have trouble keeping all the different standards straight. Like you know when Barack Obama writes in his book about his youthful experimentation? [No, not with "blow."] When he wrote about trying snake and dog back in Indonesia, he was describing the upbringing of a worldly sophisticate. When we hunt game and eat it, well, we're just blood-thirsty rubes.

Different folks, different standards?

Or maybe there's a war on hicks. Care to join us?

Yours from the Doublewide, JAB

The Czar wishes that JAB was expressing anything like paranoia or libertarian goofiness here, but the fact is she is interpreting the ruling correctly.

This is one of a few blatant over-reaches happening at what must surely be a disastrous time for the Obama re-election march. In addition to this nonsensical piece of legislation, we saw the Liberal Progressives introduce a House bill to severely curtail 90% of the First Amendment. That stands no chance of passage, but the gall to do so is nauseating.

And now we hear government control of your automobile is pending. Okay, fairly, the Democrats are tired of being compared to 1930s Germany, which we understand. So let us simply highlight that government control of labor, restriction of political speech, and restrictions on internal travel are quite familiar to anyone familiar with 1950s Russia. There. Better?

The most outrageous thing about this spate of scary legislation is the incredible disparity between those screaming on the Right and the apparent silence from our major political candidates. Folks, stop making Glenn Beck right all the time!

Update: JAB wins. The Obama administration is rumored to have killed the bill due to the severe backlash of people like our own dear JAB. But keep your eye on this: no stupid progressive idea ever truly dies; it often is re-branded and re-submitted.

Leadership

Dr. J. received a holocron from the Headmaster of the Jedi Academy today. Among the various and sundry announcements in his missive there was one particularly worthy of notice.

All of the independent schools of New Atlantis historically have enjoyed the same spring break since before of the first Sith War. This has been done to facilitate family vacations as spring break is the big vacation time for New Atlanteans. The Alderaan Academy, one of the schools that receives the younglings from the Jedi Academy after τ Grade is moving its Spring Break date for the 2012-2013 academic year. 


The Alderaan Academy is one of four schools that the Jedi Academy sends most of its younglings to.  Dr. J. estimates that about 1/3 of the students from the Jedi Academy move on to the Alderaan Academy. About 1/2 go to the remaining 3 schools and 1/6th go to on to public school or elsewhere. Also of note, Mrs. Yoda works at the Alderaan Academy and half of Yoda's children are in attendance there.

After careful consideration, the Jedi Academy has decided to continue to have its spring break at the same time as the other independent schools and not move its date to be in alignment with the Alderaan Academy.

The Jedi Academy is blessed to have a leader such as Yoda who puts the interests of the majority of his school's families ahead of his own potential self interest.

The leadership in Washington could learn a lot from him.

Scooby Doo vs. Doctor Who

h/t Neatorama.com and Dr. J.'s spooky witchy Facebook Friend

Blame Game, again

One of the popular themes you'll hear from liberals these days is how the "Bush tax cuts" and the spending on the war in Iraq/Afghanistan have driven us into this recession.  Aside from the fact that this is clearly wrong as we've pointed out the causation of the recession and the massive national debt were not these but rather other events, some of which were set in motion decades ago.

But a quick reply to your liberal friend should include the following:

1.  Really?  So which arm of the federal government controls the federal spending?  The president?  Nope.  Congress.  We've looked at this before.  The president proposes a budget as little more than a starting point for Congress.  From there, it's all in Congress' hands until the very end when the president can veto the final budget bill.  So recommend that your friend look at the controlling party in Congress and the federal deficit/debt by year.  Here, we'll help:

2.  If the democrats were serious about the debt and deficit, then why hasn't the democrat-controlled Senate passed a budget since April 29, 2009.  Almost THREE YEARS.  By law, they should be doing this annually.  They have failed repeatedly for almost THREE YEARS and yet, they still have jobs.  How many of us can punt on a core part of our job for THREE YEARS and still be employed?

3.  If one wants to look at the presidents and wants to tag the tax cuts on Bush, let's see how the democrats in Congress reacted.  In 2003, the bill enacting the tax cuts passed the House 222-203 and the Senate 50-50 with VP Cheney breaking the tie.  These were set to expire in 2010.When it came to a vote under a democrat president and a democrat-led Congress, it passed the House 277 to 148 and 81 to 19 in the Senate.  Wait a minute, that is a load of democrats on board with extending the tax cuts.  In fact, if you look at the 277 number in the House, 139 democrats voted for it and 138 republicans.  Maybe the dems should tout that rather than continue the bashing.

4.  Finally, if we are to look at the Presidents and maybe we should in the sense that they are the head of the executive branch, then one should keep in mind that President Obama's FY2012 and FY2013 budgets have received ZERO votes.  Not one senator - democrat or republican - were willing to support the president's proposed budget as a starting place for the federal budget process.  Not one.  What does that say?  Are his budgets that bad?  Likely.  Is he taking his budget rhetoric serious?  Not likely.

So democrats, feel free to try to blame the Bush and the republicans for the tax cuts for the deficits and debt, but be careful, you might be facing some hard pushback.

They're Not Illegal Aliens, They're Alternatively Present Noncitizens



Your Gormogons attempting to smuggle 'Puter back into the U.S.

 Dana Milbank of the ever-entertaining Washington Post provides evidence of what 'Puter has long suspected: WaPo opinionators exist in an alternate reality, akin to Bizarro World.

Mr. Milbank, commenting on Supreme Court arguments regarding Arizona's illegal immigrations laws, accuses Justice Scalia of being a simple-minded, partisan moron, akin to the simple-minded, partisan morons marching outside the Supreme Court in support of the Arizona laws.

That's just awesome logic.  "I, a stunningly insightful and popular (and handsome) WaPo commentator, disagree with your position, Justice Scalia.  Therefore, you are wrong." 

'Puter for one is pleased to see such a distinguished jurist as Mr. Milbank giving a lesser legal mind the old what-fer. Wait, what? Mr. Milbank isn't an attorney, much less a judge? What?  Well, at least we know Mr. Milbank's intellect is far superior to Justice Scalia, since Mr. Milbank's an Eli, a member of Yale's Political Union Progressive Party, and Skull and Bones.**

Justice Scalia's Georgetown undergrad degree, Harvard Law degree, years of private legal practice, professorship at University of Chicago law, work in the Nixon and Ford administrations and time sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (arguably the most prestigious non-Supreme Court judgeship), not to mention his quarter-century spent as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court are clearly no match for the legal argument witnessed in Mr. Milbank's misinformed back-bench bomb throwing.  After all, Mr. Milbank's liberal, and Justice Scalia is not.  What further proof does one require?

'Puter's intrigued as to how two men with the same education (except that President George W. Bush actually has more education than Mr. Milbank) are perceived so differently by the Left solely because of the individuals' political bent.  But that's a thread for another post.

Mr. Milbank takes great offense to Justice Scalia interrupting the government's attorney arguing against Arizona's immigration laws to inquire:

"The state has no power to close its borders to people who have no right to be there?” he asked incredulously.

And: “What does ‘sovereignty’ mean if it does not include the ability to defend your borders?”

And: “Are you objecting to harassing the people who have no business being here? Surely you’re not concerned about harassing them.”

And: “We have to enforce our laws in a manner that will please Mexico?”

From Justice Scalia's questioning, Mr. Milbank deduces that Justice Scalia is hyper-partisan and wrong.

'Puter's not so sure, but then 'Puter merely has a law degree from a top-20 law school and 15 years in government and private practice, so he's cautious in challenge such an astute legal logician as Mr. Milbank.  'Puter meekly suggests to Mr. Milbank that it's an equally possible conclusion that Justice Scalia doesn't suffer fools lightly, and Justice Scalia believes Solicitor General Donald Verrilli's argument is patently illogical and without merit.

The United States' argument, put forth by the Solicitor General, is that states have no right to determine for themselves who is and is not legally present according to federal law provided such person is within their state borders, and to act in accordance with such findings.  As Justice Scalia succinctly put it, “Arizona is not trying to kick out anybody that the federal government has not already said do not belong here.”

It seems Justice Scalia believes as 'Puter does.  Laws should mean something.  If a person is illegally present, and that person is caught, then that person should be subject to the penalties of the law.  If the federal government is not interested in enforcing the law, then the federal government should repeal the law.

But to Mr. Milbank, such positions conflict with his myopic liberal elite insider world view, and as such are void ab initio.

**Let's see.  Who else is went to Yale and was a member of Skull and Bones, though probably not the Progressive Party?  Hmmm.  That's right! President George W. Bush, the president ridiculed as a sub-literate cretin and pretender to the throne by the left-leaning punditocracy. It's interesting that Mr. Milbank's educational pedigree imparts a veneer of intelligence, while President Bush's does not.

News Media Dumber Than Kids Who Drink Purell

So the news media is afire with reports of kids—yes, ordinary, good stay-at-home kids like yours... especially like yours—drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk! And many are ending up in a hospital! And here is a video we pulled off YouTube to prove it!

The Czar knows BS when he sees it, and this, folks, is it.

Here is the more probable trajectory (or what Doc would call the etiology) of this story:

Some kids come up with a nutty idea for a joke video. They thoroughly wash out an empty bottle of hand sanitizer and fill it with a harmless substance, and video themselves drinking it and reacting as if it tastes really bad, and then they upload that to the Web.

They make ridiculous claims at school which no one believes, and then reveal there is video of them doing it...here, here’s the URL. Check it out, dude.

This gets forwarded around outside the immediate circle, and eventually skyrockets up in popularity at YouTube, where most local news teams get about half their stories (the other half is from Facebook). And the story goes viral. ZOMG! The kids these days! Out of control! Some of them as young as eleventy!

A few kids see or hear about the original video, and then try it—after all, the kids in video seem all right. And naturally they get sick, thereby fulfilling the news-media-generated fantasy that kids are doing this by the millions and gettng sick.

In two weeks, you will never see or hear about this story again except in a lame late night television opening monologue bit, and only then as a passing reference to explain Joe Biden. For this is because the story shall have run its course, and the news media will quietly realize they were originally duped and possibly led to the actual problem of kids getting sick by promoting it in the first place.

Some pointers: obviously, the alcohol in hand sanitizer is fast-evaporating isopropyl-based, which you not only cannot drink, but would taste horrific. Even a slight amount would do it; however, Purell-brand sanitizer, however, contains a dose of ethyl alcohol, and in one documented case, an eight-year-old kid ingested enough to raise her blood alcohol level to intoxicated levels. With Purell being 126 proof ethyl alcohol, it didn’t take much.

When did this happen? Back in 2007. Since then, cases have been desultory at best, and you know why? (a) Hand sanitizer tastes incredibly bad, (b) it makes you sick in seconds, and (c) there are incredibly easier ways to obtain alcohol. Any one of the three of those is enough to quash this story beyond a few extreme idiots. And hand sanitizer has all three.

Chalk this up to a media-fueled hysteria with little basis in reality.

#IfIWantedAmericaToFail - I'd insure that our kids couldn't feed themselves...

Apparently the Obama administration wishes to revise child labor regs such that children under 18 are restricted as to what activities they may participate in on their parents' farms.

That being said, a couple of blog posts by Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sarah Palin gave Dr. J. pause.

Mrs. Palin writes:

The Obama Administration is working on regulations that would prevent children from working on our own family farms. This is more overreach of the federal government with many negative consequences. And if you think the government’s new regs will stop at family farms, think again. 

Our kids learn to work and to help feed America on our nation’s farms, and out on the water. 

Federal government: get your own house in order and stop interfering in ours.

Mrs. Campos-Duffy writes:

As a parent, I can’t think of a more cautionary example of the perils of big government. The sense of purpose gained from contributing to a family enterprise harkens us back to a traditional American model of self-reliance, precisely at a time when nearly half of US kids and 90% of African-American kids are being raised on government food stamps.

Dr. J. and Mrs. Dr. J. are city mice. Dr. J.'s a good chef, and Mrs. Dr. J. an excellent baker, but neither of them have a green thumb, and find that their spayed cats take their animal husbandry skills to the limit and all the cats need are a full food bowl, fresh water and a clean litter box. Any attempts at home agriculture have resulted in weeds and insect ridden produce.

The Lil Resident and the Lil Med Student have classmates at the Jedi Academy named Almanzo and Royal. They, along with their middle sister Eliza Jane live on a 100 acre farm. In addition to reading, writing, ciphering, and learning the ways of the force at the Jedi Academy, they are being educated at home, learning farming, animal husbandry, fishing and hunting skills.

Dr. and Mrs. Dr. J. know and love their parents. Pa Wilder is an absolute hoot. He is a salt-of-the-earth guy who runs his own business in addition to managing the homestead. Ma Wilder is as sweet as can be and works at the Jedi Academy during the day.

To some degree, Dr. J. is envious of their lifestyle in that they have a tremendously valuable skill set that it would take Dr. J. a second lifetime to cultivate, let alone pass down be able to the next generation.

There is nothing more critical than our food supply, and we should have nothing but pride and admiration for those proud Americans who grow and provide much of it for us. Fortunately, we have skills that are sufficiently valuable, that should the 'night of the comet' come, we are prepared to barter, at least for food.

The fact that the Obama administration wishes to cripple our children's generation by hindering their ability to learn first hand, from their parents, how to provide sustenance for themselves is not only foolhardy but shortsighted. Do you know who can't grow their own food? North Koreans and folks who live on the Upper East Side.

Do you want to be like them? Dr. J. thinks not.

Like everything else his administration and the Progressive movement has done before him, it is nothing more than a set up for America to fail.

Dr. J., for one, refuses to let that happen.

Location, Location, Location

Location is everything.  At least that is what many companies are banking on - from various IT companies providing location-based services (LBS) to retailers hoping to woo customers through location aware advertisements to social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).  Location is innate to how we live and what we do.  Everything happens at a time and place so it is a familiar construct.  Just witness the explosion of Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Mapquest, Google Earth, Bing Maps and all the specialized uses of each:  driving directions, mass transit route planning, jogging/running course planning, business searches, etc.  GPS is becoming commonplace in cars and portable GPS devices are popular options - to the point of being popular targets for smash & grab thieves.

Thanks to the GPS and GLONASS systems - a network of orbiting satellites (no, not the Mandarin's mind-controlling satellites) that are used by terrestrial navigation devices to calculate a position on the globe - positions unobscured from the sky, or only mildly shielded can be determined.  Your cellphone may have a GPS chip or might make use of GPS-A.  This is assisted GPS which usually refers to a cellphone's ability to triangulate its position using the same concept of GPS satellites but employing cell phone towers.  Again, great if you have decent cellphone signals.  These systems break down a bit once you move indoors.

You may have noticed (at least on Google Maps for Android) that they have introduced floor plans for a number of large commercial areas including shopping malls and airports.  A variety of technologies are being employed: WiFi positioning (much like GPS or the cell tower triangulation), Bluetooth, etc.  Newer systems are augmenting the positioning through other sensors.  The device will use the last good GPS fix and then make use of inertial navigation sensors to determine where it is.  You can think of it as a super pedometer: it can measure steps taken, turns made, altitude changes (elevators, stairs, etc.).  Some of these systems are already in place for first responders so that they can be tracked as they enter dangerous situations like burning buildings. 

It will be interesting to watch this evolution and how people react.  I do find it amazing that many friends and coworkers are willing to advertise the fact that they are away from home:  "Day 1 of our two week vacation in Timbuktu!  Yeah!"   And the number of folks that are mayors of some place or other on Foursquare.  

If I Wanted America to Fail - Four Minutes of Absolutely Required Viewing - Seriously

Dr. J. was about to change the station from the AM PM guy to the FM PM guy when he heard him broadcast the audio of this video.

All he could say was wow.

Inspired by and surpassing Paul Harvey's 1965 essay 'If I were the Devil,' this video from Free Market America is a powerful and concise indictment of the insidious and deliberate evil of the modern Progressive movement. It is far better than anything of its kind that Dr. J. has seen in quite some time (or at least since cocktails with The Czar, Mandy and The Volgi at Gormogonicon XII, those guys are truly impressive).

This is the battle cry of conservatism in 2012. 

More than any other time in his tenure as a Gormogon, Dr. J. requests that you take 4 1/2 minutes, and watch the video, then share it with everyone that you know, and he means everyone.

Doctor's orders!

Quoth the Bard

And when today is dubbed by Mayor Rahm
A Day to Speak Like William Shakespeare thus,
So all Chicago musters its aplomb
To group its iambs into fives or plus.

Perhaps a cabbie growls about the Bears,
Or wonders if the Cubs will ever win.
He might soliloquy to all his fares
A sonnet on the toddlin’ town he’s in.

But heark, what twist of fate is this,
What madness is this motion of King Rahm’s?
How dare he snake out more than just a hiss
When half of what he speaks are pure F-bombs?

Perhaps some good will come when day is done;
Old Daley spoke like hell as did his son!

Better than Battleship the Movie?!?!?

Lil Med Student loved the game...and can't wait for the big screen presentation.

When you've lost SNL, you've lost Middle America

Dr. J. first heard a heavily bleeped version of this on the radio, this AM, and yes he had the AM station on this AM, and not the FM station this AM. He will have to switch the AM to FM in the PM.

Nevertheless, SNL Vet John Lovitz, who used to be on when the show was it was transitioning from funny to unfunny now has a podcast during which he was interviewing director Kevin Smith, who also hasn't done anything worthwhile since the end of Silent Bob's sermon in Chasing Amy. Dr. J. has blocked out of his memory everything that happened in the last 15 minutes of that flick.

Anyway, John discusses tax policy with Kevin Smith during his podcast (WARNING, STRONG LANGUAGE):

“This whole thing with Obama saying the rich don’t pay their taxes is f*****g b*****t, and I voted for the guy and I’m a Democrat. What a f*****g a*****e,” Lovitz said. “First they say … ‘You can do anything you want. Go for it.’ So then you go for it, and then you make it, and everyone’s like, ‘F*** you,’” 

Lovitz said. “[Obama] is the perfect example. He’s amazing. He had nothing … and the guy ends up being at Harvard. He’s the president of the United States. And now he’s like, ‘F*** me and everybody who made it like me.’”

Yeah, that's it...that's the ticket...

We've been a little less free since March 8th...

H.R. 347 - known by the Orwellian title "Federal Resticted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011" was passed into law with a vote of 388 to 3 with 42 not voting in the house. Apparently it was supported with no dissenting votes in the Senate.

The law gives the Secret Service the latitude to more aggressively restrict protesters in areas where individuals under their protection are in attendance.

Now if Dr. J. recalls correctly, there is something, somewhere that says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Given that there was overwhelming bipartisan support of this law, there there was an equally vocal bipartisan response. This has caused Ron Paulites to scream !!!!211!!!!ELevQ!nTY!!!!!!!!!! Interestingly there is bipartisan dissent as the ACLU of all people have concern for abuse (presumably when someone they don't like is in power, but nevertheless they are given pause as well:

Also, while H.R. 347, on its own, is only of incremental importance, it could be misused as part of a larger move by the Secret Service and others to suppress lawful protest by relegating it to particular locations at a public event. These "free speech zones" are frequently used to target certain viewpoints or to keep protesters away from the cameras. Although H.R. 347 doesn't directly address free speech zones, it is part of the set of laws that make this conduct possible, and should be seen in this context. 

Rest assured we'll be keeping an eye on how this law will be interpreted and used by law enforcement — especially in light of the coming elections.

When there is support for taking your freedoms along both sides of the aisle, Dr. J. happily will side with both sides of the opposition.

Rest assured, your Gormogons will be paying attention issue along with freedom loving Americans everywhere.

Ice, Ice, Baby

NOAA put out its "state of the climate" report.  It is interesting to note a few of the points that are buried in the report:

The average Arctic sea ice extent during March 2012 was 3.4 percent below average, ranking ninth smallest March extent since satellite records began in 1979. This is the largest March Arctic sea ice extent since 2008 and one of the largest March extents of the past decade. Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent on March 18^th, 12 days later than average. 

Ok, so largest extent in the past decade and its maximum extent was 12 days later than average.  If you check out this graph, you'll see that the trend is towards a growing Arctic sea ice extent.  I might even question whether the data point for 2011 is in error as the broader trend is heading the other way.

On the opposite pole, Antarctic sea ice during March was 16.0 percent above average and ranked fourth largest March extent in the 34-year period of record. 

Hmm, where is all this sea ice receding and polar bears clinging to melting ice for their lives??

Some of the climate change folks are starting to change their tune a bit.  Less doom and gloom and, to use his phrase, "All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

Indeed.

Perspective, My Good Man!

In, not surprisingly, The Huffington Post, Richard (RJ) Eskow writes that the Left should brace itself for another round of hysteria from the right.

Because here come those nutty conservatives, all crying about Medicare and Social Security running out of money. Morons! Even Doom-and-Gloom Geithner says there’s plenty of money left, right up until 2050 2045 2036 2033! But that is not Mr. Eskow’s main point; no, he says the real problem is that the Right is ignoring The Big Crises!

Like apparently the War on Women. Or this ridiculous idea that Catholics have any say in their own religious beliefs. Or giving illegal immigrant students easy citizenship. Or gay marriage. Or Mitt Romney’s dog.

Or giving guns to Mexican drug lords. Or giving an inconceivable sum of money to a company everyone knew had neither product nor competitive pricing. Or why a 30-plus-year-old college student can’t get thousands of dollars in free condoms every year. Or ensuring health care costs skyrocket.

Or why Obama administration members owe millions in unpaid taxes. Or why our country is worsening any eventual war between Israel and Iran. Or continued unemployment numbers that exceed any explanation.

Or the recently introduced Democrat-led bill to replace the First Amendment with something more progressive because the Constitution as we know it isn’t working anymore. Hear about this? Totally true. Nancy Pelosi wants to eliminate free speech for anyone except an individual speaking off the cuff. And speaking only: published works of a political nature would be subject to censorship by Congress.

But for Lefties, the only Real Crisis out there is that Conservatives are Crazy.

Don’t forget which way to vote in November.

Sabotage - A Fifth Column in the Obama Campaign

Dr. J. has always said that two points make a straight line, but 3 or more points lets you get a better picture of what is really going on. The Obama Campaign has had a rough week or two since Mitt Romney has been declared the Presumptive Nominee™ for the Republican Party, as their mudslinging non-sequitirs seemed to miss their target.

Now what have we learned about Romney courtesy of Obama Campaign surrogates:

• Ann Romney is a stay-at-home-mom who should STFU because SAHM's are ignorant of things such as economic matters. Furthermore, she's not a real SAHM because she is rich. Real SAHM's have to cook hamburger helper to make ends meet.

• Mitt Romney hates dogs because he strapped his dog carrier to the roof (with a windshield in place) when there was no room in his car.

• Mitt Romney's great-grandfather was a polygamist. Gasp, CULT! MORMON! ELEVENTY!

• Mitt Romney was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Now the right hit back on each of these issues, countering with the glaringly obvious:

• The FLOTUS is, ostensibly a SAHM and a rich one as well. (Does the FLOTUS get a paycheck? No. So like many rich SAHM's, she does volunteer work.) In a manner of speaking, the FLOTUS is the ultimate stay-at-home mom. More importantly, most SAHM's are such by choice and many working moms wish they had the financial ability, and if so, the courage and patience to do so as well. Besides, each time someone attacks Mrs. Romney, a mental contrast is made in the listener between her and the FLOTUS. Does the Obama campaign really want that?

• President Obama ate dog in his youth. It is documented in his autobiography.  Dr. J.'s never had dog, but he has enjoyed snake during a trip to Australia a few years ago.

• President Obama's father was a polygamist. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

• We know Mitt Romney was born with a silver spoon, only petty class-warfare Marxists care about such things. (Stretch, yawn, stretch). Last time Dr. J. checked President Obama didn't grow up poor (Punahou much?), though unlike Mitt, he wasn't wearing a monocle, top hat and cigar as a youth. Such things just make him sound like a small, empty, insecure man.

For the Obama Campaign to go from Hope and Change to not only name calling, but name calling regarding things that your candidate has the worst poker hand for is either incompetence, or a conspiracy.

Perhaps some of the Obama Campaign's finest have even lost faith in our Commander in Chief.

Americans' Faith In Institutions: Bad News for Liberals

Your news media is at it again. Despite evidence showing the economy is in really bad shape, and possibly getting worse, they are reporting that things have never been hap-hap-happier. Recent stories make it very clear that Obama is polling well in critical electoral swing states, even though 7 in 10 voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. You won’t see much on that last statistic, because even J-school dropouts know that an incumbent president cannot be re-elected with numbers like that. So let’s simply ignore them.

Gallup, generally no friend to conservatives, has released a most interesting graphic based on some recent polling. The questions related to belief in American institutions. Take a look.

This chart, if anyone would care to look at carefully enough, should give Axelrod and the Dem Gang sleepless nights. See a pattern? Generally right-wing institutions are up, or have declined very little. Largely left-wing areas suffered tremendous decline.

Some interesting tidbits can be easily explained. Why has faith in the SCOTUS dropped? No, not because of the review of Obamacare—faith in the SCOTUS has fallen because of recent appointments in the present administration. Note that small business is incorrectly colored as a massive decline; in reality, it has never been polled (the notes clarify this explicitly). Of course, there is small confidence in small business simply because the economic outlook for them is particularly grim.

A most curious climb in confidence, you may see, goes to the HMOs. However, Gallup clarifies that although this is a steep climb in confidence, the actual amount of confidence Americans have for HMOs is still pretty low. It is, however, improving.

Anyway, take a look at that chart: none of this is good news for liberals.

Thump Thump Thump

One of the truly awesome things about being in the Gormogons is the expansive sweep of centuries from which we draw our collections. Take the Dixieland Jug Blowers, who will entertain you with “Banjoreno.” Curtis knew some of the dirtiest jokes out there. We met the weekend this was recorded.

Gormogonicon '12

As many of you know, most of the Gormogons got together this past Wednesday to catch up, speak off the record, and basically plot your total destruction. And what fun we had! Hundreds of famous celebrities, some living, some dead, and some undecided, came to Chicago to celebrate Gormogonicon 2012. “Three days of thrombosis!” was this year’s theme, perhaps a bit odd because it was only 24 hours and no thrombosis was involved...deep vein or otherwise. There were some legitimate grumblings on Twitter that none of our minions were invited, but that is something we may reconsider for next year.

So you do not feel left out, here is a bit about what went on all day.

Here is Dr. J having breakfast with Menachem Begin and Alexander Haig. Yes, that’s our Doc, having breakfast with Begin and Haig. Begin and Haig! This stuff practically writes itself.

Lunch time was a genuine treat, as the Inscrutable Mandarin coaches the Czar on making some traditional foods, including his favorite, endocrine chicken. Sleestak peeks out in the back, just to make sure we aren’t cooking any of his family members. Don’t laugh: with enough Cholula’s, they are surprisingly passable.

This brings us right to dinner. Here is our 13th Imam, our One True Huckleberry (ایمام سیزدهم), sharing dinner with the Grand Mogul and our own Œcumenical Volgi. Most of you folks will not recognize the Grand Mogul, who is one of the more unknown Gormogons—he prefers not to write for the website, but pops in once in a while for special events. Like the hilarious poker game that followed. Hold ‘Em will have a whole new meaning for a few weeks, at least until he loses that limp.

Meanwhile, back at the Castle, GorT amused himself by popping in and out of other people’s time machines and basically scaring the crap out of them.

Not much going on with ‘Puter, who gave yet another series of boring anecdotes on union reform on late night television. He now comes with an FCC warning about younger or more sensitive viewers.