Feb 232018
 

Two stories from worlds apart that illustrate the same basic flaws in the human operating system:

Muslims burn piles of Pampers nappies and call for a ban because cartoon cat’s whiskers printed on them ‘look like the Arabic spelling of Mohammed’

Apparently this:

Looks like this:

And thus idiots in India are protesting, burning stuff in the streets, demanding not only boycotts but also arrests.

Stupid, you say? Too dumb to happen here? But wait! There’s more!

Student Faces Expulsion for Joking that Square Root Symbol Looks Like Gun

Apparently people thought this:

Looked like this:

Because, well, sure. And of course, the cops were called and searched a students home. And it gets better:

KATC reported, “Any student accused of talking about guns or school shootings will be investigated by three entities: the school board, the sheriff’s department, and the district attorney’s office.”

The student who made the joke is banned from campus and will enter a hearing to determine if he will be expelled from the entire school system.

TALKING ABOUT GUNS CAN GET YOU EXPELLED.

And yet somehow, the Left’s army of child soldiers can protest and howl and disrupt school all they like and not face expulsion… even though their whole schtick is based on the fear of guns being hammered into them by the media and peer pressure.

 

 Posted by at 1:11 pm
Feb 222018
 

A few decades ago, South Africa worked with Israel to develop their own nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. This demonstrated not only technical competence but also a good working relationship between two distant and very different nations. But now…

Cape Town May Dry Up Because of an Aversion to Israel

Short form: Israel has been in a drought for some years but due to their skills with water management and desalination the Israelies aren’t suffering major water shortages. Israel offered assistance in that area to South Africa; the leading political party in SA, the ANC, decided instead to seek help from the Iranians. The Israelies sent experts to Cape Town; the mayor and major  municipal leaders refused to see them.

You know, I’m not one of those who sees the Jews as “the Chosen People” or any such. My religious views, such as they are, make no such distinctions. But looking back on the last hundred years it’s reasonably clear that establishing anti-Semitism as a government policy often leads to serious trouble for said government. The Germans under the Nazis drove out Jews; that cost Germany considerable treasure and talent (as well as wasted effort), and gave the US the A-bomb while the Nazis tried to make a go of the World Ice Theory. The Arab world has spent about a century wasting effort, lives and resources on driving Jews out of their lands and trying to drive them out of the tiny speck that is Israel; had they done otherwise, the Arab lands might today be as green and prosperous as Israel is. The Israelies are quite good at what they do because they have to be; to ignore their skills is Teh Dum.

The irony here is that if Cape Town reaches Day Zero, the taps shut off and things go even more downhill, it’s not unreasonable to expect a whole lot of people to blame Da Jooz for the problems.

 Posted by at 10:34 pm
Nov 252017
 

This story reminded me of the years of wild hedonism that defined my youth:

IUP to remove 170,000 unused books from its libraries

The  Indiana University of Pennsylvania library says that about half of its 486,000 books haven’t been checked out in 20 years, so it’s going to get rid of them.

Hmmm.

I spent *years* visiting the libraries of Iowa State University in Ames and the University of Colorado in Boulder, slowly and methodically scanning through the stacks of books in the science, engineering and aerospace sections. I found a *lot* of stuff (oddly, I didn’t seem to find a whole lot of parties, booze and women there, but oh well). The stuff I found formed the beginnings of my aerospace history collection… vast piles of photocopies made from books I’d pull off the shelves, go through page by page, copy what I wanted, then put back on the shelf. A minuscule percentage of what I found useful was actually checked out.

I understand that the engineering library  at UC Boulder has removed the bulk of the books, moving them to an off-site location. Students can still access them… you simply need to put in a request for said books and they’ll show up some time later. That’s fine, *if* you know what book you want. But how much useful research has been done by simply browsing? How often does someone find something useful in the book *next* to the one they were specifically looking for?

The claim for the Indiana University of Pennsylvania library is that they are going to focus their cleanout on books that are available digitally. But how many books, periodicals, papers and such are available as scans that are just *horrible* in quality? The NASA Tech Report server is filled with old reports that were scanned by people who clearly thought that diagrams, photos and artwork were wastes of space, best reduced to 2-bit B&W images that if you squint real hard while at a great distance might vaguely resemble the ghost of the original.

If the library needs money, fine. Take if from the athletic program. Hell, cut the coaches salaries by ten percent, that alone should just about do the trick. Every year have an auction to sell off the naming rights for the next years football team. Charge double tuition for grievance studies courses. Open an on-campus liquor store and pot dispensary, all profits going to the library. Cut the pay of all Socialist teachers to minimum wage. There are better solutions than getting rid of books by the truckload.

 Posted by at 7:51 am
Nov 032017
 

Memphis police put ankle monitor GPS devices on dozens of domestic assault victims

Yes, you read that right: they’re putting the GPS trackers on the *victims.*

Now, it’s not quite as bad as you might be thinking. In fact, on a certain level it’s a good idea: the system alerts the victim if the person who assaulted them, who is also wearing a GPS tracker, comes within a specified distance. But… there is a more obvious, less distressing way to go here: instead of tracking a monitor strapped to the ankle of the victim, just track their *phone.* These days it’s a reasonable assumption that just about everybody has a GPS-equipped phone of some type and keeps it near them. If the villain gets too close, the victims phone starts going buggo with warnings and text messages. Perhaps authorities would even call or Skype to speak to the victim and warn them and check on them. No answer, or a lack of the proper code response, and the cops are sent to apply a beatdown to the villain.

 

 Posted by at 11:09 pm
Sep 162017
 

Venezuela’s dreams are dying

Some basics:

Socialism: the state controls the means of production.

Communism: the state owns everything.

Nanny/welfare state: could be free market capitalist, fascist, socialist, communist.

Venezuela has been pursuing socialism since Chavez; the state nationalized not only Venezuelan oil companies but *foreign* oil companies (and people act surprised when foreign investment dried up). The state has put price controls on things like food and toilet paper… prices *below* the cost of production (and people act surprised when people stopped making and selling those things). The state decided to create a massive welfare state to raise the standard of living of the truly, shockingly poor… by nationalizing everything, confiscating wealth and making enemies of businesspeople and people act surprised that the wealthy and skilled of the Venezuela have been leaving the country in droves).

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 11:29 pm
Sep 022017
 

Last few days the local news has been blowing up over the release of body cam footage showing a cop arresting a nurse. In the end, who’s in trouble here? The cop. Oh, boy howdy, the cop. Every bus the governor, mayor and chief of police can find, they’re preparing to throw him under… and for good reason. Here’s the short form:

1: On July 26, there was a high speed pursuit. The idjit being chased managed to hit a semi truck near Wellsville, resulting in an impressive explosion; idjit was killed, truck driver – who *everyone* acknowledges was doing nothing wrong – was injured.

2: Injured truck driver was taken to University Hospital in Salt Lake City.

3: For some reason, detective Jeff Payne decided that he needed to have a blood sample from the unconscious truck driver, and he needed it Right Now. Presumably this was to test for booze or drugs or some such in the truck driver… reason able enough, I suppose, under the circumstances, but his need fr it seems to have been excessive.

4: On-duty nurse Alex Wubbels knew the law and Hospital policy: they’re not allowed to draw blood from a patient for the cops unless:

A: The patient consents – which he couldn’t, being unconscious.

B: The patient was under arrest, which he wasn’t.

C: The police have a valid search warrant calling for a blood sample… which they didn’t have (but could have obtained easily enough)

5: Detective Payne was having none of it, and threatened the nurse with arrest for obstruction of justice.

6: Nurse contacts her supervisor via cell phone with a speakerphone

7: Supervisor tells the detective that the nurse is right, and that he’s making a mistake in threatening the nurse.

8: Detective goes ape and aggressively arrests the nurse.

9: In the end no charges are filed because, duh, nurse broke no laws

10: And then in late August the bodycam footage is released to the public and the detectives career hits a bit of a speedbump.

The truck driver patient is reportedly a reserve police officer in Rigby, Idaho; the going assumption is that detective Payne wanted that blood sample Right Friggen’ Now in order to absolutely clear the reserve police officer of any taint of guilt in the incident (even though, again, there’s no suspicion that anyone but the original idjit was responsible for the crash). The truck river is still in the hospital in serious condition.

Oy.

Video shows Utah nurse screaming, being handcuffed after refusing to take blood from unconscious victim

And so now…

SLC mayor, police chief apologize for officer who arrested nurse; criminal investigation to follow

Ruh-roh, Raggy.

 

Here’s the full near-19-minute footage.

Hard to come up with a better representation of detective Payne than this…

Here are some other angles:

 Posted by at 3:34 pm
Aug 202016
 

On the one hand…

Bin Laden raid bestseller’s author to pay $7m

Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonette  wrote a book about whacking Osama Bin Laden. But he didn’t submit the book for review by The Authorities, and was therefore in violation of non-disclosure agreements. As a result, he has to pay back seven *million* dollars and forfeit all future profits, royalties, film rights and speaking fees.

So on the one hand, it seems like if you are a government employee and you break the rules, you can get thwacked *really* hard.

But on the other hand…

Hillary-Faces-Header

Hmmm.

tyranny

 Posted by at 7:07 pm
Aug 202016
 

An autistic Native American kid was spat on, yelled at and struck because of the political message of his shirt. Under other circumstances, this would be a clear case of a “hate crime.” Will that be the case here? Let’s watch!

Oklahoma Native American Says He Was Attacked Over Redskins Shirt

The actual narrative of events, who threw the first punch, differs between the two people involved. But given that the other guy is the Executive Director of the White House Initiative of American Indian and Alaska Native Education, you’d at least *think* that one of them would have had the maturity to not get in a fight over a shirt. but then… it’s *this* White House.

Just wait till the *next* administration. Hoo boy.

 Posted by at 1:14 pm