The high point: apparently it takes a special wrench to tighten the (presumably explosive) bolts that hold warheads onto the Minuteman ICBM. That’s not the problem. The problem is that there was only *one* of these wrenches, and the technicians FedExed this single wrench from site to site as needed.
That’s greeeeeeeaaaaaaaat.
In short: the Australian government passed a law saying that you can’t go wandering about the Parliament House with your face covered up. But of course, this offended Certain People who branded it an evil horrible Burka Ban. Western governments being the seats of bravery that they are, the Aussie-gov relented… specifically for the Niqab. So… three guys show up. One wearing a full burka & niqab, one with a motorcycle helmet and one in full KKK regalia, including pointy mask-hat. Hijinks ensue.
Winning an election, Illinois style:
I’ve said it before: never trust an Illinois politician. No politician who has gone through the Illinois machine should be allowed to hold national office. No good will come of that.
The White House floats a rial balloon:
If we want to want to create a robust civilization in our solar system, more of the energy, raw materials, and equipment that we use in space has to come from space. Launching everything we need from Earth is too expensive. It would also be too expensive to send all of the factories required to manufacture everything necessary to support a solar system civilization.
Ultimately what we need to do is to evolve a complete supply chain in space, utilizing the energy and resources of space along the way. We are calling this approach “bootstrapping” because of the old saying that you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Industry in space can start small then pull itself up to more advanced levels through its own productivity, minimizing the cost of launching things from Earth in the meantime. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen overnight, but I think that it is the right long-term goal.
…
Have ideas for massless exploration and bootstrapping a Solar System civilization? Send your ideas for how the Administration, the private sector, philanthropists, the research community, and storytellers can further these goals at massless@ostp.gov.
It would be nice to think that this is the sort of thing the administration was actually interested in doing something with. But let’s just say I won’t be holding my breath on this.
On the one hand, there is a good, rational case to be made for not freaking out, for not panicking, for maintaining a rational outlook. On the other hand, there is a good case to be made for caution. But Ebola seems to make people ignore both of these. And it seems to be making people *stupid.* For example:
Thomas Duncan*knew* he had been in contact with Ebola, yet thought it’d be a good idea to fly halfway across the planet.
Nurse Amber Vinson, who worked with known Ebola victim Thomas Duncan, decided to hop *two* jetliners and fly across the country.
A worker at the same hospital who “may have” handled Ebola samples thought it’d be a good idea to hop on board a *cruise* *ship* and has now been quarantined in the Caribbean.
It’s almost as if one of the symptoms of Ebola is an unaccountable urge to travel and spread the virus.
But at least now President Obama has selected an “Ebola Czar” to deal with the issue. Who? One “Ron Klain,” someone not immediately familiar. So who is this guy? What are his medical credentials? Well, fortunately he has a Wikipedia page:
Ronald A. “Ron” Klain is an American lawyer and political operative best known for serving as Chief of Staff to two Vice Presidents – Al Gore (1995–1999) and Joseph Biden (2009–2011).[1][2] He is an influential Democratic Party insider. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White during the Court’s 1987 and 1988 Terms and worked on Capitol Hill, where he was Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination. He was portrayed by Kevin Spacey in the HBO film Recount depicting the tumult of the 2000 presidential election.
Neato:
Short form: in 2007, Hazle was arrested for meth possession and sentence to rehab. but the only rehab that was available was one of those worthless faith-based things that’re no better than quitting cold turkey. Since Hazle was an atheist, he didn’t want to be involved, but he was made to go. So he was “disruptive, though in a congenial way, to the staff as well as other students” and “sort of passive-aggressive.” As a result he was kicked out and sent to jail for three months.
And now his lawsuit has netted him just shy of $2,000,000.
Good.
Firstly, famed Nobel-prize winning viral epidemiologist Barack Obama on speaking about Ebola assures the world: “You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.”
[youtube gFKMYY-2A2k]
Then those know-nothing untrustworthy anti-science chumps at the CDC posted this, giving advice for Americans who have traveled to Liberia, returned home, and now are displaying the early symptoms of Ebola:
Limit your contact with other people when you travel to the doctor; avoid public transportation.
Clearly the CDC is racist. Or something.
You know how when things are obviously turning to gaFrom the rbage you can rely on government officials to downplay the situation? How the Department of Defense is all about the “we can defend the US, full stop” certainty? Yeah…
From the Defense.gov website:
The potential spread of Ebola into Central and Southern America is a real possibility, the commander of U.S. Southern Command told an audience at the National Defense University here yesterday.
“By the end of the year, there’s supposed to be 1.4 million people infected with Ebola and 62 percent of them dying, according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly said. “That’s horrific. And there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.”
…
“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”
Well.
While the US government is insanely bloated and often just plain insane, it’s worth noting that it’s nothing compare to the Europeans:
Peroxide blondes must now apply for photographic ID to buy the strongest hair bleach, under little-noticed new European anti-terror rules.
Model car buffs are also hit, as chemicals they use for fuel are controlled under the new scheme, run by the Home Office.
Anyone wishing to buy such materials must pay £40 for a three-year licence, or face two years’ jail. Shopkeepers can also be imprisoned if they do not check papers.
Papers, please…
In a sane world, this would be one of the biggest stories in the developed world’s news. But in a sane world, this story would have never happened.
The ultra-short form: Rotherham had a “ring” of men who trafficked and gang-raped girls for a long time. This, sadly, is not an especially novel development… it happens far too often, far too widely, in places where you’d think the people woudl be far too civilized for that sort of thing. But horrible as the generic “sex trafficking of children” label is, it gets worse, due to the sheer *scale* of the operation: up to 1,400 children over 16 years. And the local authorities were repeatedly informed, but over a span of years did little to nothing. Why? Because they were afraid. Not afraid of the sex traffickers themselves, per se, like one might expect… it’s not unreasonable to assume that such a ring would be composed of and associated with dangerous men and organized criminals. But they were afraid of something far, far worse: political correctness. As it turns out, the men involved here were, in the vague terms so often employed, “predominantly Asian.” And by “Asian” they’re not talking about Koreans or Siberians or Chinese or Laotians or Russians or Indians. No, in Brit-speak, “Asian” seems to mean “Pakistani.” The victims were predominantly *not* “Asian,” but dirt-poor actual-ethnic-English.
Don’t you *dare* try to draw any conclusions from that. Don’t even think about it. Put it out of your mind.
And we’re now back to:
