Short answer: Obama's new Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Long Answer: a radical who advocated the following policies:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force.

It gets worse.

How do you ladies like the idea of "Involuntary Fertility Control"? It's in there. They'd give you a Norplant-like device and you'd have to get government permission to have it removed, only to give birth once or twice when allowed, after which you would be sterilized. The man so graciously allowed this because he thinks that while giving men vasectomies is easier, this is more practical.

Read more here, with citations and proof: http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

From Michael Totten via LGF. From a talk with Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic

MJT: You have talked to Hamas people. Should the Israelis or Americans talk to them?

Goldberg: I don't know what they'd get out of it.

MJT: What did you get out of it when you did it?

Goldberg: A first-hand understanding of how they think. People in the United States find it hard to understand how people in Hamas and Hezbollah think. It's alien. It's alien to us. The feverish racism and conspiracy mongering, the obscurantism, the apocalyptic thinking – we can't relate to that. Every so often, there's an eruption of that in a place like Waco, Texas, but we're not talking about 90 people in a compound. We're talking about whole societies that are captive to this kind of absurdity.

So it's very important – and you know this better than almost anyone – to go over there yourself and tape it, get it down on paper, and say "this is what they actually say."

As they say on LGF so often (Sarcastically) "Gee, what nice people, let's give them a country."

That being said, there are a lot of other good insights into what's on the minds of people over there. And it also makes it clear to me that the naive, ethnocentric overtures of our current President will be laughably ineffective, and horrifyingly expensive in lost lives.

A number of years ago, people were linking to this cute Korean animation about a cat boy and a bunny girl.

http://www.sambakza.net/peom/tteotta_eng.htm ("There She is!")

I first saw this years ago, but recently rediscovered it. And it turns out there are sequels too, so I thought I'd share.

[Part 2] http://www.sambakza.net/peom/cakedance_eng.htm

[Part 3] http://www.sambakza.net/peom/dokinnabi.htm

[Part 4] http://www.sambakza.net/peom/paradise.htm

[Part 5] http://www.sambakza.net/peom/imagine.htm

Turns out there something a lot deeper going on here.

I just realized that I had a lot of folks who had friended me back when I used to post openly, before Xydexx started stalking my journal, whom I hadn't friended back because I was in the habit of looking at them when they commented.

Seven months or so later, I was looking at that, and realizing how some of these friends have been cut off from everything except for my public Politics posts.

So I went through the Manage Friends page, and looked at all the blue arrows. If you had common friends with me, I re-added you. If you hadn't posted in a long time, were a russian spammer, or otherwise didn't seem connected to me in any way, I left it off.

If you can suddenly see a post with pictures of a Tesla Roadster in the post below this, you were added, and you probably have a LOT of back reading to do (I hope you're interested).

If you disagree with my decisions one way or the other, comment here and I'll fix it.

Unless you're a Russian Spammer.

In Smokey Point, on the reader board next to a coffee shack:

"Coming Soon. Fully-clothed Baristas."

Went by too quickly to snap a pic.

This jaw-dropping documentary is amazing when you see all the pieces fall into place.

I ran across this in Wikipedia which very nicely circumscribes something I've said for a long time about Euphemisms and political correctness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#The_.22euphemism_treadmill.22

Although it doesn't mention my impression that another of the driving forces is a sort of competition among certain segments of the society to be the first to use the latest term so that they can look down on those who are not quite as hip.

I was watching some Anime, I think it was Ghost in the Shell, and I was considering the CGI they used in the opening credits and it hit me as a concept to have a series where things were mostly done in traditional animation, except for things seen from the POV of a Cyborg character, which would be CGI.

I also had an idea for an ALF fanfic. Well, just a scene. Alf gets a letter from PeTA, but it's not a protest. They're offering him a job at their cat shelter....

Human Kobe Beef (Really fat people)

"I have Tasted (Defeat/victory), and it's Strawberry."

Kneecap and Trade

We don't travel in the same circles. I have a much tighter turning radius.

"The doc put me on Theremin, but it made me all "WooOOOooo"."

Genital Harpies

After watching a clip of the View, I think Whoopie needs a tape delay - a DUCT TAPE delay.

I caught the swine flu. I'm holding it at gunpoint until the police arrive.

I hear the Octo-mom has gotten a zipper installed on her Cesarean Scar.

"Man, I'd tap that like a S.O.S. on the Titanic!"

It has always bugged me how quickly those on the left are to paint any racist or anti semite as being from the Right. This is, typically, untrue. But the rush to make the accusation is vital, thus Salon and CNN have wasted no time in trying to get the first impression out.

The racist history of the left is not well known, specifically because they control the schools and bury it.

And so it goes with the media. Fortunately, in the internet age, anyone can get on Google if they are so motivated and find out how they're being lied to.

The latest example is the piece of shit who decided to shoot up the Holocaust Museum this week. Joan Walsh, of Salon.com, got on Hardball to declare the shooter to be right wing.

I don't think you can deny that there is a rising climate of right wing hate, a lot of it directed at Obama. You and I go way back to the beginning of the campaign and the level of craziness. He's a secret Muslim. He hates America. He wasn't born here. Now this guy, Von Brunn, he's, he, he was one of the birthers. He didn't believe in Obama's birth certificate and he was constantly online agitating about that.

Similarly, Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News, got on CNN to say

They absolutely need to be motivated and are being motivated. Each of these episodes in recent weeks- whether it’s the killing of an abortion doctor- whether it was this Holocaust denier today, or whether it was others- whether you’re talking about Tim McVeigh or anti-tax secessionists in Texas- the interesting thing is they’re all separate, but they’re all hearing portions of the same echo chamber, a kind of dialogue- a toxic dialogue that’s subterranean in large parts.

And of course, nobody questions this, because it fits with the left's "All Racists are Right-wingers" Narrative.

But on the other hand, isn't it always the LEFT that is having marches and protests with anti-Israel signs and Palestinian flags and trendy Keffeyeh scarves like Arafat's?

And so, if you do the research, you can find out articles like THIS which tell the REAL story, that the shooter, James W. von Brunn was a 9/11 Truther who hated "Neo-Cons" like Bush and Cheney as much as he hated the Jews (And then again, he apparently believed in just about every nutbar conspiracy theory you could name, from the Rosthschilds to the Bilderburgers to the Illuminanti).

So of course, with loony credentials like that, how could the left POSSIBLY resist the urge to tar their opponents with him? The truth be damned.

Is THIS our future?

Tuesday, for some unknown reason, I felt the urge to rent a couple of movies. In spite of all the unwatched DVD's I have laying around, and the fact that it was a day before I got the call back to work (so financially, it would have been unjustified...).

I picked up two things I was curious about. And since it's been a while since I wrote any kind of review, I figured I might as well.

There may be ARE spoilers.

Jumper: The ability to teleport is right up there with Flying, Telekinesis, and Telepathy as most desired superpowers (Let's ignore the kid over there in the corner who wants to be Mr. Fantastic). But who wants to be a superhero? The protagonist in this story is anything but. We give him a sympathetic background - his mom has left, Dad is a brute, he's a poor geeky kid with a crush on a cutie in his class and the unwanted attention of bullies. The day he discovers he can "jump", he decides now is the time to leave (and incidentally, leaving everyone but the girl with the impression he is dead). And does he use his ability to save the world? Nope, he robs banks, travels the world, and generally lives the good life.

But he still has a crush on his Freshman Year object of desire. So what does he do when he discovers there's an evil organization that knows about his powers, knows how to counter them, and knows where he lives? Does he go to another secret location? No, he goes to see her in his old hometown (Which she's never left, in spite of her dreams to travel the world) picks a fight with the drunken loser who used to be his bully, and REVEALS HIS POWER TO THE BULLY by jumping him into a bank vault to frame him, which gives the badder guys access to him and all the info about who he really is and where he is now. Bright move. And then to compound the error, he takes the girl to Rome and makes a real mess of things. At least he ends up hooking up with another "Jumper" who has a better idea of what's going on, and how to survive it, and who is even more amoral than he is.

Now, I might sound a little like I'm being a conservative stick in the mud with all this talk about the Amorality of the characters, where the best we can say about any of them is that the "hero" is the only one who hasn't killed anyone. And I could rag on the badder guys, the "Paladins" being your typical crazed religious freaks who trace their lineage to burning witches (ancient Jumpers, apparently) at the stake. But you know, in spite of that, it was a fun movie, with great action, great effects, and I don't regret renting it at all.

Paprika: On the other hand, was AMAZING. I'd been seeing it on the shelf at the store for ages, and I've managed to resist the urge to buy it. Now that I want to, it's probably been replaced with something else.... I just want to have it on-hand to show other people (as if anyone ever visited).

Paprika is an anime about Dreams, and Reality, and a device that blurs the line. Advanced researchers at a psychology institute have created a device that allows therapists to enter the dreams of their patients. There are, of course, a few bugs. Now, this isn't a straight out thought recorder like in Brainstorm, but it has similar Pandora's Box issues when abused. The first big bug is that the genius who invented the thing hadn't gotten around to setting up security on them when three prototypes got stolen. There's also a mysterious rogue operative using a set to help a cop with his nightmares outside of the confines of the institute, the eponymous Paprika. The Inventor's assistant, who has also vanished at the same time as the sets is suspected, but that's nothing compared to the real villain.

Up to this point, it sounds like a fairly straightforward police procedural. But it's not that at all. The author of the book the film is based on was much more interested in psychotherapy and dream imagery, and the story becomes much more metaphysical. That is to say, in terms a friend of mine who hates how so much anime gets metaphysical towards the end, it gets all glowy.

People who have used the device long enough no longer need to actually be asleep, or even be using it to access a separate dream reality and the lack of access controls means that the bad guy can use it offensively. And eventually, the line between the dreams and reality are erased. The villain has amassed enough power by controlling others and absorbing their dreams into a gestalt that he gains power over the real world. Even Paprika, who was revealed to be a dream-world avatar manifests as real, and joins with her other half to defeat him.

Now, a word about the animation. Two words, actually. Fucking amazing. The studio and director that produced this is Mad House and Satoshi Kon, respectively. Just before this, Kon wrote and directed "Paranoia Agent" and if you liked that, you will LOVE Paprika. There are scenes where you know they had to have used CGI to pull it off, but nothing LOOKS like it came directly out of a computer, except maybe the confetti.

Even the music design is a bit similar to, and more advanced than the music from Paranoia Agent. The sound directors have managed to take voice manipulation so far that it goes from being something bad, to something new and good again. I'd be looking for the soundtrack just because it's so wild and unconventional.

Edit: Apparently the title track has been released free. Here's one of many sites to host it. http://www.teslakite.com/freemp3s/e/paprika/

Even without being able to speak French, this is worth sticking out. (A bit slow in the beginning if you don't speak French. But the story comes through at the end.)



If you DO speak French, a translation or summary would be appreciated.

My friend Sebastian drew a picture of Lincoln fighting Zombies. This lead to the following conversation:

Mauser712: But wouldn't he be using his mad rail-splitting skills to lop off Zombie heads with an axe? *grin*

---
~madpuffins: Second person to bring up the axe. Going to have to add that in the revision. hehe

Need to add Teddy Roosevelt with his elephant gun. Job of every president in history, to fight zombie threats.

---
~Mauser712: Oh man, I'm suddenly coming up with SO many ideas, some of which would be SURE to start flame wars....

Washington Crossing the Delaware recreation, only instead of fending off ice floes, the rowers in the boat are beating off Zombies trying to climb in.

Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson with flintlock pistols. (Aaron Burr - Jefferson's VP, famous for the duel with Alexander Hamilton)

Franklin Roosevelt in his wheelchair hiding behind Eleanor, whose face is scaring off the Zombies.

Eisenhower would probably unlimber a Tommy Gun or a BAR.

Bush Sr. in the cockpit of a Grumman Hellcat doing a strafing run....

(And in the flame-worthy category)
Bill Clinton throwing Hillary to the Zombies and running away.

George Bush standing there with Cheney with shotguns:
Cheney "You just shoot them in the head, it's EASY."
Bush "You sound like you've done this before."
Cheney "Lawyers, Zombies, close enough."

Obama going down in a pile of Zombies "Can't we just negotiate? Diplomacy is the answer! Argh!"

Impact wants to recall me....

I think I'll go back, but keep looking.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574180442354457688.html

Mike Judge does a Lefty Environmentalist family....

Another video from the fellow who brought you that great one on "Open Mindedness"

So I'm totally stuffed right now. I made burritos again.

One improvement to my technique was inspired by what I saw a Taco Bell. If you've looked at the minions in the back assembling your 5 ingredients served 15 different ways, you'll see that they have a device that resembles a caulking gun for dispensing sour cream. That's a brilliant idea. Because if you've ever tried to spoon out sour cream into a burrito, and I have, it's a pain in the butt and at least as much stays on the spoon as you get into the food.

So I picked up a squeeze bottle.

The problem was, getting the sour cream into the squeeze bottle. The same difficulty in getting the sour cream off the spoon and on to the tortilla applies to getting it into the narrow neck of the bottle. But of course, resourceful critter that I am, I came up with a solution.

Enter the Funnel.

Now it was easy to glop off huge spoonfuls of sour cream into the mouth of the funnel. Only one problem, it's too thick to run down the spout. It just stayed there. My solution was incomplete.

Part 2 of the problem. How to force sour cream through a funnel? Pushing it down with the spoon didn't work well. My first thought was air pressure. But a means of covering the mouth of the funnel and finding a way to blow through that cover was not readily at hand, and it would have been unhygienic anyway. However, the solution was easy when you approached it from the other side.

Specifically, I squeezed the bottle, pressed the mouth firmly against the bottom of the funnel, and let go. The bottle sucked the sour cream through the funnel until a hole opened up in the mass of sour cream. Then I just pushed the cream back into place and repeated the process.

Voila! One squeeze bottle full of sour cream. And fortunately, it proved easier to get it out than it was to get it in. Neat and easy.

In fact, they fired up the Lie Machine before it even opened.

A Fascinating article in Commentary digs into what REALLY happened at Guantanamo, and the plot by certain leftists to discredit the US and side with the terrorists all along.

It's amazing how all the stuff "Everybody knows" about Guantanamo is, in fact, a complete lie, and the media and lefty "Human Rights' groups are fully complicit.

Hell, one admitted terrorist is now a spokesman for Amnesty International.

Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich - Wall Street Journal

This really NAILS the problem of what will happen with Obama's tax policy, showing what happens at the state level when they try to tax the Wealthy. The Wealthy leave. And they take their money, and the jobs their money would create with them.

Here are a few Money Quotes:

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

---

Finally, there is the issue of whether high-income people move away from states that have high income-tax rates. Examining IRS tax return data by state, E.J. McMahon, a fiscal expert at the Manhattan Institute, measured the impact of large income-tax rate increases on the rich ($200,000 income or more) in Connecticut, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 5% from 4.5%; in New Jersey, which raised its rate in 2004 to 8.97% from 6.35%; and in New York, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 7.7% from 6.85%. Over the period 2002-2005, in each of these states the "soak the rich" tax hike was followed by a significant reduction in the number of rich people paying taxes in these states relative to the national average. Amazingly, these three states ranked 46th, 49th and 50th among all states in the percentage increase in wealthy tax filers in the years after they tried to soak the rich.

---

...They say that tax cutting inevitably means lower quality schools and police protection as lower tax rates mean starvation of public services.

They're wrong, and New Hampshire is our favorite illustration. The Live Free or Die State has no income or sales tax, yet it has high-quality schools and excellent public services. Students in New Hampshire public schools achieve the fourth-highest test scores in the nation -- even though the state spends about $1,000 a year less per resident on state and local government than the average state and, incredibly, $5,000 less per person than New York. And on the other side of the ledger, California in 2007 had the highest-paid classroom teachers in the nation, and yet the Golden State had the second-lowest test scores.

Or consider the fiasco of New Jersey. In the early 1960s, the state had no state income tax and no state sales tax. It was a rapidly growing state attracting people from everywhere and running budget surpluses. Today its income and sales taxes are among the highest in the nation yet it suffers from perpetual deficits and its schools rank among the worst in the nation -- much worse than those in New Hampshire. Most of the massive infusion of tax dollars over the past 40 years has simply enriched the public-employee unions in the Garden State. People are fleeing the state in droves.

I've probably quoted too much, but it's just so fully of common-sensy goodness. You really should follow the link and read it for yourselves.

... is a website that FUCKING WORKS!!!

So I'm browsing craigslist for jobs, and instead of the typical "Email us your resume", I ran into one of those "Here's our job listing, but instead you have to go to our site, register, and then jump through a bunch of hoops, and then, Maybe, just maybe, we'll pass you along to the actual employer because we're just an agency." processes.

That's one of the things I hate most about the software industry. The layers of interference.

The site even had press releases about their wonderful new website.

Which, by the way, FAILS under Firefox. I eventually had to fire up explorer just to upload my resume (They have you upload a PDF, THEN paste a copy of the text into another box).

And of course, you had to do this crap into one of those javascript or maybe flash pop-up pseudo windows that grays out the rest of the browser. And failure in the file transfer section means you have to type in all of the other info over again.

Earlier this week I ran into the same thing with a Microsoft listing on Dice. You don't submit through Dice. No, you're redirected to Microsoft's careers site, where you have to create yet another profile, etc. But even worse, you have to search yet again through their entire jobs database because the fucking referral link that Microsoft themselves posted to Dice fails. (At least under Firefox, you know).

THIS is the best summary of Obama's accomplishments to date I have ever read.

Bill Whittle rips John Stewart a new one big enough to turn him inside out, and digs up some history about the atomic bombings of Japan that I had never heard before, busting myths dearly held by people like Stewart who prefer ideology to facts.

http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_/Jon_Stewart%2C_War_Criminals_%26_The_True_Story_of_the_Atomic_Bombs/1808/6628/

Video is free. The Java player (advanced) seems a bit more stable than the Flash one.

Definitely worth the 16 minutes.