Extended family member hit by IED

We spend a lot of time with my son-in-law's family, the closest of whom is his cousin Jason and Jason's wife Julie.  Julie's brother, Josh, sent this to his mother yesterday:

"today was a bad day mom. two of my marines were hit with ieds. i cant tell
you the specifics yet but know that i am okay. i was 7ft from one of them
when it went off so you might be getting a call or something telling you im
hurt and somewhere getting treatment. dad should have called you and already
told you this. but know that i am perfectly fine and nothing is wrong with
me. i am just mentally scared from watching one of my best friends get blown
up. in time that will heal as well. sleeping tonight wont be easy though.
one of my junior marines lost both his legs above the knee. my buddy lost
his left foot and his right leg was gashed open pretty badly. i had to shove
my hand in his leg to keep him from bleeding out. i fucking hate this war
and i want to come home mom. only a few more months and i think i might be
done with this shit. but we'll see. i love you very much and i miss you.
cant wait to see you when i get home. i love you mom."
Prayers would be appreciated.  Josh is 25 years old.

Politically correct Portland rejected feds who saved city from terrorist attack

Examiner: In 2005, leaders in Portland, Oregon, angry at the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror, voted not to allow city law enforcement officers to participate in a key anti-terror initiative, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.  On Friday, that task force helped prevent what could have been a horrific terrorist attack in Portland.  Now city officials say they might re-think their participation in the task force -- because Barack Obama is in the White House.

The Triumphant Return of Hayek

At Newsweek (?!):

"From Europe to the United States, as voters started to reward candidates focused on fiscal discipline and less government intervention, Keynesianism quickly fell out of favor.

One key exception was U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. Dissatisfied with the gradual recovery and a high unemployment rate, he let it be known that he thought more stimulus was in order, and realizing that was not in the congressional cards, he decided to take monetary activism to a new level."

Spengler on the Wikileaks diplomatic cables

Read the whole thing.

"The initial reports suggest that the US State Department has massive evidence that Obama's approach - "engaging" Iran and coddling Pakistan - has failed catastrophically. The crisis in diplomatic relations heralded by the press headlines is not so much a diplomatic problem - America's friends and allies in Western and Central Asia have been shouting themselves hoarse for two years - but a crisis of American credibility."

April 11, 1954: The most boring day in the 20th century

Every day something of significance happens, a person is born who is destined for fame, there is an event in the arts or sports, history is created. With 300 million of these facts fed into the “brain” of True Knowledge, Tunstall-Pedoe’s Cambridge company, the computer was asked: “What was the most boring day in the 20th century?”

via Hot Air.

Must read: Fascinating story re Stuxnet

Links and comments at Hot Air, but be sure to follow the link to the full story.

"...not only did the coders need a mind-boggling degree of knowledge about the vulnerabilities in more than one software platform, they needed intelligence on Iran’s program so deep that not even the UN had all the details. On top of all that, the worm was programmed to disguise what it was doing so that the engineers on the premises would think the problem with the centrifuges was in the hardware, not the software."

Mark Twain on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.  Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and to extend the usual annual compliments.  

~Mark Twain

Lincoln’s Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Holiday

From 1863.

Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010

A retrospective.

via Instapundit.

Some science of Thanksgiving links

•The Genetics of White Meat and Dark Meat from Scientific American
•Tyrannosaurus Rex Had a Wishbone from Smithsonian's Dinosaur Tracking blog
•Why Arsenic is Used in Turkey Processing, and Why It's Not Worth the Risk, an LA Times essay by Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner's Handbook
•A Genetically Modified Thanksgiving from Popular Science
•The Genetic Origins of Snood Erections from The Annals of Improbable Resarch
•A 3-Dimensional Cosehedron-Shaped Pecan Pie, and other Thanksgiving DIY projects from Popular Mechanics

•Animation, based on CT scans, showing how the snood (the weird floppy thing on the face of a male turkey) is connected to the blood vessels that allow it to engorge. 

via BoingBoing.

Cato's Plan to Cut Spending and Balance the Federal Budget

Comprehensive and detailed, with links to further details.

Gore: U.S. corn ethanol "was not a good policy"

Well, duh.  Think he'll apologize for his part in imposing it?

"He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.""

Obama's foreign policy would have made sense in 1983

Jackson Diehl: So has nothing changed in the past quarter-century? In fact, almost everything has - especially when it comes to nuclear arms control and Israel's national objectives. What hasn't changed, it seems, is Barack Obama - who has led his administration into a foreign policy time warp that is sapping its strength abroad and at home.

Monday stuff

The evolution of cranberries.

Massive plagues of rats swarm across India every fifty years.

 

Every Arnold Schwarzenegger Scream From Every Arnold Movie.  Also, Defenestration the movie.

 

Unfortunately not yet available in the US: The Flush Tracker.  "Hidden underground, it’s easy to take the sewer systems for granted, but now you can find out where yours goes."

Frog bites more than it can chew.

 

How to Win a Coin Toss.

 

Partygoer dressed as sheep saved by Jesus after being set alight.

 

In the Glorious Future, Could Space Travel Be Poop-Powered?

 

GALLERY: Capturing The Atom Bomb On Film.  Also, Morning Dew Photography.

 

Turn your elevator into an express elevator.

 

The Origin of Familiar Symbols.

 

11 Prisons Turned Into Hotels.

 

Seeing Where the Microwaves Are in a Microwave Oven.

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about the mating habits of crickets, including but not limited to Cricket Sets Testicle Size Record. 

Gloria Allred On TSA Pat-Down

Video.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: "Did they touch your body parts?"

GLORIA ALLRED: "Yeah, they did and it was a first time anybody touched them in a long time and frankly, I liked it," Gloria Allred."

Inside the White House the night of Nov. 22, 1963

The Miami Herald. 

By a twist of fate, Miami native David Pearson -- then a Peace Corps press officer, later the operator of a South Florida public relations and marketing firm -- was called to help at the White House on the evening of Nov. 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was shot. His observations, first published in 1983, are reprinted here in abridged form, on the eve of the 47th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

Lameduck Iowa Governor Gives State Workers $200 Million Pay Raise

No negotiation - the state accepted the union's proposal as is.

Name that party: Local politician calls cops on kids selling cupcakes

A politician in a New York suburb called police on two 13-year-old boys for selling cupcakes and other baked goods without a permit, according to a report Monday.

Shockingly, few (none?) of the many stories online mention that he's a Democrat.

Under ObamaCare, some animals are more equal than others

On the growing number of businesses getting waivers from the requirement to participate in Obamacare, some comments and links at HotAir's Greenroom, and a link to a video on the subject at Protein Wisdom.

Radiation Risks from TSA Scanners?

Radiologist/blogger Dr. Paul Hsieh says no (he's not addressing the privacy concerns) and has comments and links on the subject.

California's environmental arrogance

California seems intent on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of state while discouraging new job creation. A prime job-killing, business-punishing scheme is the insistence on achieving radical environmental goals, despite their real-world economic liabilities.

WSJ: Embarrassment in Seoul

The world won't follow slow-growth, weak-dollar America.

Run, run as fast as you can...

You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread person!

How the EPA cripples the American economy

Reason: It’s not China that’s responsible for American job losses; it’s Washington’s fault for shutting down whole industries and preventing new jobs from being created.

China leads attack on US at G20 summit

Backed by Germany, Brazil and other G20 powers, China accuses the US of forcing the dollar down to trade its way back to prosperity, and says this could trigger a 1930s-style trade war if other countries respond in kind.

Ethanol Could Go on GOP Chopping Block

"Contrary to popular belief, ethanol fuel does little or nothing to increase our energy security or stabilize fuel prices," wrote Kenneth Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Instead, it will increase greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollutant emissions, fresh water scarcity, water pollution (both riparian and oceanic), land and ecosystem consumption, and food prices."

via Lucianne.

European biofuel plan will cause rise in carbon emissions

Links and comments at Legal Insurrection:  The study, from the Institute for European Environmental Policy, found that far from being 35 to 50 per cent less polluting, as required by the European Directive, the extra biofuels will be twice as bad for the environment.

STD? There's an app for that - just pee into your cell phone

British health officials are hard at work on a new app that will allow users to pee into their cell phones and find out within minutes if they have an STD.

 

via Hotair.com. 

The Day The Earmarks Stood Still: Republican senators propose a low-pork diet.

The author formerly known as Dr. Zero: "Republicans will have a fairly low bar to hurdle in finding places to cut spending, since Democrats felt the gigantic State contained exactly zero dollars of excess fat, and never tired of feeding it billion-dollar bon bons."

Big Brother: New Traffic Camera Checks Taxes, Insurance

Investors.com: "With cameras becoming cheaper and software ever-more sophisticated, governments are likely to rely more and more on Big Brother-type surveillance in the coming years. It’s a lot cheaper than hiring new police officers, with their budget-busting pensions and other benefits."

US Companies Welcome Power Shift

Financial Times:  "...the development could lead to less regulation, taxation and government oversight."

California: The Lindsay Lohan of States

"Listen up, California. The other 48 states—your cousin New York excluded—are sick of your bratty arrogance. You're the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it."

via Althouse.

Monday links

What would you taste like to a cannibal?

 

Best Micro-Photos of 2010.

 

Japanese Coast Guard sailors, dressed as schoolgirls, sing and dance for the entertainment of passengers on a nearby ship.

All the world loved the swastika before WWII.

 

Google Maps Error Leads to Nicaraguan Invasion.

 

How telephone directories transformed America.

 

Mass panic as twenty five men suffer from 'retracting' genitalia.

Airline to avoid: Officials at Nepal Airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft.

 

Top 10 Bizarre Weapons of the Allies.  Also, the 10 Weirdest Bands and 8 Disgusting Animals That Can Live Inside You.

 

Taxonomy of the logical fallacies. Click on each for examples.

 

Three people were indicted after using a woman's bacterial infection to rob a Cleveland convenience store.

 

Got a flesh wound? Why not print some new skin?
Mild electric shock to the brain boosts mathematical skills.

Attack of the food police

The government tells us what medicines we may take and what recreational substances we may ingest, but when it comes to food, we decide what goes down our gullets. Gun-owning barbecuers coexist peacefully with Humane Society vegans. To paraphrase the old adage, your freedom ends where my stomach begins.

But not everyone is keen on emancipated eating. Public health puritans, appalled at the spread of excess weight, think the government should forcefully guide our dining choices. And when it comes to policy, they are getting a place at the table.

Hitchens: A guide to cancer etiquette

I love the exchange at the beginning of this story.

Keeping Uncle Sam Out of Your Amazon Account

Time: The war over sales taxes has North Carolina (I'm sure others will follow) seeking data from Amazon on the specific items delivered to any NC address.  A federal court has ruled against NC, for now.

Related, also at Time: See what your cell phone could be telling the government.

Hayek vs. Keynes-- The Sequel

Hayek vs. Keynes-- The Sequel

via Newsalert.

Dave Barry's Halloween column from 1996

Better late than never....

"This means that you pass the long night alone, hour after hour, just you and the miniature candy bars. After a while they start calling seductively to you from their bowl in their squeaky little voices. "Hey, Big Boy!" they call. "We're going to waste over here!""

Must read: Barb Boxer’s Indian tribe

Boxer Resurrects Indian Tribe Deemed Defunct in the '50's, Son Profits $8 Million Off It.

For the past 10 years Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has been playing a game that would make Jack Abramoff blush.