I think we can do without NPR. And PBS? WTF, make Sesame Street merchandise pay for PBS.
Ace on the same story.
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WTF is up with BATFE? ATF is allowing illegal gun sales to occur--doing nothing about "straw" purchases which are destined for Mexico--because they want to follow the guns; but they're not arresting anyone and the flow of guns continues.
So far, from my admitted outsider perspective, the news surrounding all this has made it look as if ATF is trying to inflate the numbers to make the problem look worse than it actually is--and the fact that they're flat-out refusing to provide documentation to the Senate only makes it look more suspicious to me. ATF has traditionally been hostile to private ownership of firearms anyway.
"Maybe we're trading guns for tips."
...remember a little scandal in the 1980s called "Iran-Contra"? It arose because certain elements in the government were supposedly selling weapons to Iran and using the money to fund the anti-communist Contras in Honduras. (The Democrat regime in Congress had denied any further funding of the anti-communists, because the Democrats love communist dictators.)
It's corrupt and it's not doing anything about the core problem, which is the border with Mexico is too damned porous and needs to be secured. That solves all your problems: it seriously hinders illegal immigration, it seriously hinders drug trafficking, and it seriously hinders terrorist plots. It also seriously hinders the flow of guns across the border in any direction.
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This just defies belief. That's right, England! Embrace third-world living!
But it's even better than that: "Under the so-called “smart grid” that the UK is developing, the government-regulated utility will be able to decide when and where power should be delivered, to ensure that it meets the highest social purpose." Emphasis mine.
Do you know what "highest social purpose" ends up meaning? It means that high government officials never have to worry about having electricity. The hoi-polloi can freeze in the dark because there's so many of them, but those politicians, what they're doing is important, so your sacrifice is much appreciated now just go away.
[This douchebag] has for several years been predicting that blackouts could become a feature of power systems that replace reliable coal plants with wind turbines in order to meet greenhouse gas targets. Wind-based power systems are necessary to meet the government’s targets, he has explained, but they will require lifestyle changes.Yeah: you can't use nuclear power or anything drastic, you know, to generate electricity without greenhouse gases. No! The only viable alternative is windmills! Get used to it!
...all this for the farcical notion that human carbon emissions can have any effect whatsoever on world climate. Ludicrous!
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Having heard examples of the music I think this guy's misnomers are actually more accurate than the proper names. "The Enema Man" certainly describes Marshall Mathers to a T, doesn't it?
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2010 entries: over 1,000. 2011 entries: 68.
Man, Obama's numbers have tanked so bad, he's not even doing well with his target demographic: idealistic young skulls full of mush who just spent four years in government indoctrination centers learning how to use condoms and how to save the planet from global warming. (Instead of, you know, outdated things like math and science and language and history. Useless stuff.)
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This Alan Caruba piece is headlined with a graphic I intend to steal and use elsewhere.
In text: 1-20-13 < /obama>
Heh.
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Speaking of which...
Last week's ep of House, MD contained a line which--at first--looked like typical liberal BS, until I thought about it...and then I laughed out loud.
The patient of the week was a former real estate executive who had lost his business and run up sizable debts trying to "extend and pretend". He'd been lying to his wife about it for quite some time, and he's talking to Martha Masters (Amber Tamblyn) about it.
Guy: ...who knew the recession would last this long?
MM: So it's Obama's fault you're lying to your wife?
At first it looked like MM was sneering at a man who lost big money blaming his misfortune on Obama...but then I realized what the underlying assumption of the statement was: the bad economy is Obama's fault.
And I laughed.
I laughed because the issue of the bad economy isn't even in question: there's still a recession, and it's Obama's fault. That's a big, big turnaround from the kind of stuff one normally sees in prime-time television. Even Fox.
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Amber Tamblyn, I realized, is not skinny.
She's always looked extra-hippy in skirts, even back in the Joan of Arcadia days (which were 7 years ago already). But looking at her in House, MD I see that she's got the barest indication of a double-chin, and she's virtually chunky.
None of this is bad. I like real women. There's too much emphasis on actresses being perfect as it is, and it seems as if some really talented people end up doing bit parts because they don't precisely match society's expectations for physical beauty.
Martha Masters isn't supposed to be chiseled perfection, anyway; she's a young med school student who's absolutely brilliant but socially awkward, and she's spent her youth learning everything she could, to the exclusion of all else. It makes sense that she'd be a bit chunky.
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I stubbed the hell out of my toe yesterday.
I don't even remember what I was going to the kitchen for; my little toe on the left side intersected the television set with a bang.
Hopped on one foot, growling and cussing; pulled my sock off and--sure enough--it was bleeding, so I turned towards the bathroom to get a bandage and the stupid cat attacked my leg!
Not in the mood for nonsense, I turned around and screamed at her, "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?"
I shouldn't have hollered at Luna; it's the kind of thing she does. There was a time in 2000 when I was getting ready for work and stubbed my toe that badly, and--same thing--she batted at the offending foot. I really don't know if she was trying to protect me, or what.
Anyway, 12 hours later I took the bandage off and the thing was still bleeding. Basically it knocked the epidermis off a small patch of toe. The blood is coming out where the loose patch tore a hole in the skin, right at the nail bed--there's no toenail involvement, thank the Maker. It hurts enough as it is--and so it took its own sweet time about stopping.
This morning, as I got the paper and fed the cats, I noticed that I am still limping. I think I jammed it pretty good, too; that TV set is heavy and my little toe absorbed all the kinetic energy of my leg, which is not exactly slender.
The end result is that I didn't get anything done yesterday--things like watering plants, taking out trash, dishes, laundry, etc. After bandaging my toe, I gave up and went back to bed.
Sometimes, that's all you can do.
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I hopped over to Aggramar and played Gunbunnysmit for the first time in forever.
I don't know why I picked that character; but after a couple of hours I'd added a level, gotten a new pet (a bear named "Woonsocket") and rearranged bags and bank tab to clear out useless junk and make room for other stuff.
I also leveled engineering and mining a bit. Gunbunny's now got 326 in engineering, and added the ability to smelt adamantite and eternium.
If I had $25 to spare for a character move I might ship Gunbunny to Hellscream and team up with Sailor V's hunter. (If, that is, he ever bothers to upgrade to BC and LK.)
Gunbunny's cat, Sprocket, was still in the stable; she was running around with Menchi, her wolf. The Cata upgrade changed how pets are handled, so you can summon any one of them on the fly; but I hadn't picked up Sprocket from the stable. Then I went and found a white bear (well, white-ish) because bears make great tanks.
Gunbunny's pets and mounts are all white: Sprocket is a snow leopard and Menchi is a white wolf of some kind or another; her flying mount is white and I believe her ground mount (a ram) is also white. So I had to stick with the theme and find a white bear.
Yeah, it's just racism in action.