Before Kurt Cobain ruined rock

Ducks

LA Times: 'Gun crime has plunged, but Americans think it's up'

Ahhh, of course. Witness the good work of the American media, which is not only sensationalist, but far-left. They're working hard to get people to give up their rights, and it's working -- slowly. From the LA Times:

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

DUI after celebrating reinstatement of license from previous DUI

AZcentral.com has a story (video) about a woman who got her license back after losing it over a DUI. She celebrated the reinstatement with booze, naturally, and promptly lost her license again.

SOUNDS A LOT LIKE SOMEONE I KNOW, who shall not be named (but you know who you are).

Two European villages, two windfalls

I found two interesting stories about people coming into money in Europe. One is in Belgium, where safe robbers lost the safe out of the back of their veihcle during the getaway, spreading half a million euros in the street. Townspeople turned in some of the found money, but not all of it. Everyone holding money in this small town now, a week after the fact, is a criminal. Funny story and video here, and another video here.

The other story is about a small village in Spain that recently won the largest lottery in the world -- close to 3/4 of a billion euros. In light of Spain's massive economic problems and high unemployment rate, the windfall means a lot to the locals. The story is fascinating and well written. At GQ via Longform. GQ, btw, has a lot of great writing.

A 'do you know who I am?' moment in Mexico

I just read an entertaining story at the BBC about a wealthy young woman who got her father to shut down a popular restaurant in Mexico City -- apparently because she couldn't get the table she wanted. The focus of the story was that the incident "reveals a lot about Mexico's sharply stratified society." No doubt this is true. What interested me more was the technological angle. People in the restaurant at the time took photos and tweeted about the situation, and it immediately backfired on the woman and her powerful father (who is in the government). Without twitter, the incident probably would not have become known in Mexico City, let alone Mexico at large, and around the world -- instantly.

This story comes a week after Reese Witherspoon was arrested for disorderly conduct. She used the "Do you know who I am?" ploy with the arresting officer. Thanks to the lightning speed of the internet, I knew about this within hours of the arrest. Within a day I was watching the officer's dashcam footage on Liveleak, which includes the damning audio.

So, my interest in these stories is the way technology is being used by ordinary people to keep the ruling elite in check. I'm less interested in the angle of a "sharply stratified society." I happen to believe all societies are sharply stratified, and have been throughout history. Patricians vs. plebs, and all that. There will always be rich people and powerful people, alongside the poor and downtrodden, but people can be held to account now in ways that were never before possible. Go technology!

Fat cop with a sense of entitlement busted by 12-year-old kid

The cop breaks the law and gets called out on it, and he won't respond. The kid then asks for the badge number, and the cop refuses to give it. I hope the cop's supervisors see the video.

Liveleak vid here.

Video of plane crash near Baghram military base in Afghanistan

Hard to say if the footage is real. The dashcam is showing an earlier date. Stunning, if it is real. Here's a BBC story about the crash, and here's the LiveLeak link.

Good joke

A Russian, an American and a Frenchman were asked, "Excuse me, what is your opinion about the food shortage in Africa?"

The Russian answered, "What's an opinion?"

American: "What's a shortage?"

Frenchman: "What's 'excuse me'?"

Privacy wins as CISPA dies

CISPA denied hearing in the Senate, effectively killing the proposed legislation, via ZD Net. Of course, this was Round II for CISPA; expect a third. Also, warrantless email searches died, apparently, via Ars Technica.

Spain is in serious trouble

I didn't realize just how bad the struggle goes in Spain. The BBC is reporting they're at 27.2% unemployment. If their government is like our present federal government, they're probably lying about the figure. You can add a few percent.

I wish them the best, and I think time may fix the problem, but I also think that with a population that has been indoctrinated on massive handouts and entitlements from cradle to grave, they will be unwilling to do what's necessary to get their economy going again. They need to induce people to start businesses, and existing businesses to increase hiring. They need to become more capitalist, which is the greatest job-creation engine humanity has yet discovered.

Socialists who are used to earning more than the job is worth, getting an obscene amount of paid time off, and "free" healthcare and other subsidies, are unlikely to see the light.

Steven Seagal at his finest

The guy's channel is worth a look.

'Most Earth-like' worlds discovered

Aside from Boston, the media, worldwide, is excited about the discovery of two new planets, far away from us. These worlds are being called the "most Earth-like" ever discovered. This is BS. A great deal is being inferred from a really small amount of information. There is absolutely no way we can say they are similar to Earth. Typically a powerful telescope observes tiny oscillations in the light from a star, which means a planet is orbiting and tugging at the star. That's it. Nothing else. We don't know if there is water, we don't know if there's atmosphere -- nothing at all.

Boston and the War on Terror

The lefty response

The White House is calling the Boston Massacre an act of terror. Well, that's odd, because Obama's State Department declared in April 2012, "The war on terror is over." This is going to be interesting to watch, after the recent Benghazi cover-up. Will there be more subterfuge from the prez? Not if the perpetrator is a Christian or white or an American, you can bet. Will the media immediately -- and erroneously -- try to connect the perpetrator to the Tea Party this time? Will they immediately -- and erroneously -- try to say the perpetrator listens to right-wing talk radio this time?

If an Islamist is behind the bombing, you can be sure the "terrorism" label will quietly fade away, to be replaced by laughable nonsense like "broad strata" and "vicarious trauma". The theory of the "tiny minority" will be trotted out because Americans are so uninformed they don't know the Muslim Brotherhood took control of Egypt with 53% of the vote (ah, that would be a majority, folks), and they don't know what the Muslim Brotherhood is. The falsehood that terrorists are poor, and made so because of conservative foreign policy, will get dusted off and allowed to warm up under the spotlights. At the end of the day, if Islamic terrorists are behind this, you can bet the lefty media will blame not the perpetrator, but us.

2006 post about the Boston Marathon

This is my second post about the marathon. Here is the first one.

Democrats will...

Dems will do what they do whenever anything, anywhere in the world happens -- call for higher taxes, an expansion of the federal government, and a reduction in freedom. They're like a finely crafted Swiss watch, freshly wound. If a bird lands on a tree branch in Uganda, the Dems will call for higher taxes, an expansion of the federal government, and a reduction in freedom. Same thing if there's a light rain in Sri Lanka or a man takes a drink of tea in a London cafe.

Leftist press immediately after the bombing

Chris Mathews, MSNBC: Domestic terrorists tend to be far-right.

Huffington Post blogger: First thought was anti-government groups.

Luke Russert, NBC News: May be a Waco connection.

Esquire magazine: Speculated it is domestic terrorism.

CNN analyst: Right-wing extremist could be responsible.

Michael Moore tweet: "Tax Day. Patriots Day."

Nicholas Kristof, NYT, politicizes bombing immediately, attacking Republicans via Twitter: "explosion is a reminder the ATF needs director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment."

Missing Soviet mars lander turns up after 40 years

According to The Verge, NASA, and some Russians, the missing lander may have been found. I wonder if it will threaten mankind as a strange hybrid of the machine and a bald woman, demanding to see Brezhnev.

Welcome to India

North Korea prepares for war against USA

Tony Trischka and David Grisman

Colorado Democrat knows nothing about guns

Here we get to the nut of the gun problem in America -- Democrats banning guns, accessories for guns, and making it more difficult to obtain guns, while knowing absolutely nothing about guns. This particular lawmaker is clearly governed by fear and ignorance, which is something all too common for people who want to remove our right to overthrow tyrannical governments and protect ourselves from criminals. Watch and enjoy, if that's possible:

New York Times v. Renata Adler

Renata Adler has a story in Harper's detailing her harsh treatment at the hands of the New York Times.

It turns out Renata is not very bright. Or, if she is bright, she willingly made herself appear the fool by sidestepping an issue larger than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. She's a writer who has come under fire from The New York Times for a criticism of Judge Sirica. The criticism was a single sentence, and demonstrably true, and the Times decided to devote no less than eight stories to bashing her. Here's the sentence in question:

Contrary to his reputation as a hero, Sirica was in fact a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime.

Close ties to McCarthy? Let's begin there. Why does the left have such a white-hot burning hated of McCarthy? He fought communists in America. He fought the people who today work in the press. Of course McCarthy is hated. To say Sirica had "a close connection to" the man automatically brings Renata in the cross hairs -- just as fast as you can snap your fingers. In effect, poor Renata announced: "Sirica was in league with somebody who tried to destroy us." And, more generally, how dare she say something negative about somebody who played a role in bringing down the Nixon administration?"

Why do I think Ms. Renata is not very bright? Her analysis of why the Times is going after her is so far off the mark it made me sit up and laugh out loud. She thinks it's because she criticized the press. Wrong. Wrong, and wrong.

Sirica is a hero of the far-left. C'mon, Renata. He's the judge who tried the Watergate perpetrators. Anybody who brings down a non-Communist is immediately a superstar in the eyes of the Times and all champions of communists. WTF? Look at what is happening to Woodward right now -- precisely the same thing. Woodward, a far-left hero, had the gall to criticize a communist, and now he's being ruthlessly attacked by the far-left. Seeing a child being eaten by its own parents is a sad thing.

Renata is being eaten by the leftist machine and doesn't even seem to know why. What's happening is a tragedy all around, but what Renata has done is far worse than anything the Times could ever do. It is never about informing the public with leftists, it is all about pushing communism and destroying anyone who stands in their way. MSNBC is a fairly good example. This is the "news" organization that labels people bigot whenever they speak against a communist. This is not news. This is pushing a far-left (i.e. communist) agenda.

I recommend that everyone read the Harper's article. The writing is clumsy, but it's entertaining.

This is why we have the internet

Okay, this is why I have the internet...

Cluck Schumer backfills

Every time Cluck Schumer opens his beak and chirps, freedom is ever so slightly eroded. Cluck, a far-left politician I began following closely during the early days of the Iraq War, is up to his old tricks. This time he's fiddling with upcoming gun legislation. Old Cluck is backfilling a shell, an old -- and usually devious -- trick in Washington. Breitbart:

Schumer's new Section 202 will make it illegal for an unlicensed person to transfer a gun to any other non-licensed person. The law would require that a licensed gun seller perform an NICS check and fill out a Form 4473 before a transfer would be legal.

That's not all. Read the whole story for the other amendments.

Laura Marling

Laura Marling appears to be Sandy Denny's successor. Denny was a British folk singer-songwriter many decades ago, and Marling is the current generation.

 

Speedometers and top speed

Ahhhhh, another revelation about the American public that justifies the name of this blog. From AP:

The speedometer on the Toyota Yaris says the tiny car can go 140 miles per hour.

In reality, the bulbous subcompact's 106-horsepower engine and automatic transmission can't push it any faster than 109.

So why do the Yaris — and most other cars sold in the U.S. — have speedometers that show top speeds they can't possibly reach?

The opening line is pure idiocy. Class A idiocy. It's a false statement. You know, when you put three apples in the scale at the supermarket, there's still room left on the gauge. They're lying, because the apples don't weigh six pounds! This is almost beyond belief.