Fun With Pistachio Nuts and Other Assorted Nuts

AP:  DA says to avoid pistachios amid salmonella scare

I did get a peace offering of a jar of pistachio peanut butter from an old high school rival while back, I’m wondering if he had ulterior motives :)

AFP:  US backs reconciliation with non-violent Taliban

That would be like Lynne Cheney wanting Jerry Springer to air only high quality trash.

LiveScience:  Why Chimps Are Stronger Than Humans

Give a million chimps a million typewriters and a million years, and they’ll come up with something more cogent than your typical San Francisco poet.

AP:  Miley Cyrus: No more ‘Hannah Montana’ films

With the loss of HM and the coming loss of High School Musical, American cinema will undergo a big time round of detwitification.

AP:  Man fires at McDonald’s window over breakfast menu

Their breakfast is okay, it’s everything else that blows.

Reuters:  Mexico rules out joint border patrols with U.S.

Why should Mexico guard its own northern border when the ATF is going to do it for them?

CNS:  Joe Biden Gets 100% Pro-Animal Rating

His record with humans is not so good.

CNS:  52 Sex Offenders Live Under Bridge in Miami—ACLU Studying Issue

What the hell, they’re used to staring at metal bars.  And what’s the ACLU gonna do, sue the bridge?

CNS:  Mexico Is Not a Failed State, Kerry Says

But you do have to question the credibility of a state that elects John Kerry to the Senate over and over again.

P-D:  ‘Making the census cool’ in Missouri

One, two, three, four … how can you make that cool?

P-D:  Green Party candidate smoldering after van is destroyed by fire

I would be too if I were a Green — all that fire would drive my carbon footprint way up.

CNS:  Mitt Romney Working Toward Another Presidential Run in 2012

Gee, who predicted that?

CNS:  Q&A with Michael Novak: George Washington Urged American Governors to Imitate Christ

In contrast to many of today’s state governors, who think they’re Christ.

Jihad Watch:  Hillary: Yes, the “war on terror” really is over

It is?  Does that mean we don’t have to suffer arrogant TSA screeners anymore?

PJB:  Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?

There are some male professors that are cellibate, and they occasionally talk about some old dead white guy named “Jesus,” but other than that, I can’t find any evidence that they are still.

Modesto Bee:  Officer, dog square off against Modesto mob of 60

The cop and the dog won, but looking at most of the names of the people in the mob, the cop should have yelled “ICE!!!” and asses would have scattered faster than mice after turning a light on.

AP:  Calif. IRS agent admits cheating on his own taxes

Why the hell not?  Being an agent of the Treasury Department and cheating on your taxes is all the rage these days.

KSDK:  Queen Latifah sued for $1 million

Like the old saying goes, you don’t strike a queen unless you can kill a queen.

KSDK:  Sebelius to call for action now on health care

Well duh, ya think a nominee for the Secretary of Health and Human Services would say anything different?

You Know, I Used to Like Jim Webb

I thought he had real potential to be someone exceptional and be the spearhead of a new populist and nationalist paradigm of American politics that would transcend the left-right banality.

But he’s letting the Beltway culture turn his mind into mush.

In the most recent issue of Parade magazine, Sen. Webb complains about overcrowded prisons, claims that they’re overcrowded because they throw people in prison for possessing weed (which is mostly untrue), cites the growth of Mexican gangs in the U.S., (Webb was for “comprehensive immigration reform” in 2007), and then says that problem can be solved by American ingenuity.

And yet, a sitting United States Senator couldn’t use some of that American ingenuity to come up with a solution other than saying we should use American ingenuity.

Destination Lexington, Kentucky (With No Layover in Storrs, Connecticut)

Yes, John.  Your prayers have been answered to the tune of six and two-thirds million times per year.

Thank your lucky stars you’re going to a basketball-crazed program in a basketball-crazed state.  You know the flack that your analogue at the University of Connecticut in the person of Jim Calhoun is taking for making $1.5 million a year in this rotten economy.  And he, unlike you, has actually won championships (as I bite my tongue really hard while thinking about and typing about the success of Uconn basketball, considering what happened this past Saturday).

Former Missouri Gubernatorial Aide in Today’s Special Election to Succeed Kirsten Gillibrand in the House

Her vacating NY-20 to take HRC’s Senate seat necessitated this election today.  Since it was a special election, the party organizations in the district got to choose their nominee, there were no primaries.

The Democrats chose Scott Murphy, who was once an aide to both Missouri Governors Mel Carnahan and Bob Holden.  The Republicans went with State Assemblyman Jim Tedisco.  Tedisco started out with a big lead in the polls, but Murphy has narrowed it to a virtual dead heat.

Tedisco is seen as an establishment machine sort of politician (which is duh if the party’s establishment chose you), while Murphy is young and more energetic.  For that reason, I think Murphy will win.  This election is supposed to be a referendum on President Obama’s first couple of months in office, but I don’t think it will be no matter who wins.  In other words, a Murphy win doesn’t mean that the GOP can’t make gains in November of next year.

Thank Your Lucky Stars

KTVI-2:

Missouri Demographer Urges High Census Count

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (AP) — – Missouri’s top demographer says the state could keep all of its current congressional seats and secure more federal funding if more people fill out a Census form next year. Several population models have Missouri losing one of nine seats in the U.S. House based on the projected results of the 2010 Census. But State Demographer Matt Hesser says local officials have to convince only about 60,000 extra people to fill out forms to keep that seat.

About $300 billion in federal funds also are apportioned based on Census figures. Hesser spoke Monday to the first meeting of Missouri’s Complete Count Committee, which is charged with publicizing the Census. Census forms will be mailed to houses next March.

Missouri’s population is growing, but not fast enough such that, relative to other states and the U.S. as a whole, the state will keep its nine U.S. House seats.  It barely was able to keep nine after the 2000 Census.

There is a silver lining to this crowd — Missouri might not be growing that quickly, but any state that’s growing quickly enough to keep or gain House seats are growing that quickly for one reason:  H-I-S-P-A-N-I-C.  Outside of southwest Missouri and parts of Kansas City, the state doesn’t have too many Hispanics.

Them That Bank Is Them That Get

Detroit UAW members must be reading my mind:  They, like yours truly, are wondering why the big banks and investment firms got untold tens of billions now running into the hundreds of billions of bailout money grants, almost no questions asked or no preconditions, Chris Dodd explicitly wanted AIG execs to keep their bonuses.  But the Big Three auto companies have to get on their knees and beg and grovel and kiss ass just go get measly tens of billions of dollars of loans, not grants.  That money, of course, just might have the disparate impact of saving the scant few unionized good working middle class manufacturing jobs remaining.

Why the disproportionate treatment?  I have no clue, my only guess is that the American government wants to drive car manufacturing out of the U.S. and into China, using the environment as an excuse.

UPDATE 4/8:   A writer over at Taki mag thinks that the disdain toward the American car industry is a bipartisan matter, both the Republicans’ traditional opposition to the UAW, and the Democrats’ environmentalism.

Don’t Ask

Another ring on the trunk, another notch on the wall, another line on the stone.

This Is the Way GM Ends, Not With a Whimper, But With a Bang

KSDK:  Ethnic press stung by recession, advertising drop

And sometimes their editors and publishers get deported.

CNS:  NFL Star Terrell Owens Receives Award for Raising Awareness About Alzheimer’s

Didn’t know that the Alzheimer’s Association had an award for the best outdoors ab workout.

P-D:  St. Louis County to help Wellston clean up dumping grounds

Again, not a big fan of redundancies.

KVFS-12:  Father, mother use son’s mangled truck to raise awareness of dangerous driving

They knew something had to be done when someone wrote “God Speed” on the wrecked remains of the truck he died in because he was drag racing on public roads.

KSDK:  ‘High School Musical 3′ wins at Kids Choice Awards

Hope for Zac Efron’s character to flunk some courses so that he’ll need a fifth year of high school, otherwise HSM 4 will be the end of the line.

KSDK:  Blogger Perez Hilton throws star-studded party

The good thing about a gossip blogger throwing a party is that he’s got first dibs on pix and gossip from the party, Lindsay Lohan would have gone from puke to publicity in two seconds.

Red Herring:  Microsoft Opens 2-Front Price War

These are wars for which MSFT is sure to have an exit strategy.

AP:  Obama rejects GM, Chrysler restructuring plans

I looked at GM’s and Chrysler’s corporate pages this morning, and they have forgotten to update them to show that Barack H. Obama II is both companies’ CEO.

News Factor Network:  Google Slashes About 200 Jobs in Sales and Marketing

WTF does Google need with a marketing department?  To convince people to use Google instead of all those other search engines?

NPR:  Treasury Secretary: We’ve Done A Lot In 8 Weeks

God took 40 days to flood the world, you can forgive Tim Geithner, someone who has slightly less omnipotence, for taking 56 days to wreck the American economy.

AP:  Obama envoy: Time to act on climate change

You mean that hour on Saturday night of not having your lights on didn’t do the trick?

AFP:  T.S. Eliot nixed Orwell’s ‘Trotskyite’ Animal Farm

It got published anyway, becoming an allegorical classic, so George Orwell did heed Eliot’s advice in that there are no lost causes because there are no won causes.

CBS: Computer Viruses Are the Fault of Neo-Nazis

I mean, don’t you believe everything you see on “60 Minutes?”  Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she wasn’t some Tammy Wynette type to “stand by her man” in 1992.  And she was telling the truth at the time.  Of course, six years later…

Anyway, 60 did the Conficker virus, and took the opportunity to blame all the problems with privacy invading virii of the type that nab bank account numbers on young Russian men that display Nazi and anti-American symbols.  They insinuated that the Russian government was looking the other way, and who can blame them?  For some odd reason that I can’t put my finger on, we seem to be intent on making an enemy out of the Russians again.  We’re practically aiming nuclear ordinance at them (missile defense shield), bringing some of their former SSRs and Eastern European client states into the fold.  Hasn’t any of the foreign policy geniuses thought to bring Russia itself into the SDI alliance?  After all, with all the troubles the Russians are having with the Chechnyans (Muslims), it’s not out of the realm of possibility that some AQ boogie woogie would want to drop a nuke on Moscow.

Perhaps old cold war habits die hard, but they ought to die soon.  Or maybe someone in the American foreign policy establishment has a vendetta on the Russians, I don’t know.

It doesn’t seem like “60 Minutes” could take one second to tell us that a lot of these viruses are coming from East Asia.  I think it was all a political hatchet job and a racial distraction.

UPDATE:  Here is CBS’s video.  It seems like they’re in the middle of another Bill Burkett documentgate scandal — the “Russian” teenage crackers pictured at 10:40 in the video aren’t Russians (they’re Finnish) and not crackers.  Also, some commenters think that the whole segment was an infomercial for Symantec, the irony of that being that it and McAfee are the worst protection suites, among the reasons is that they want you to use ActiveX controls for program updates and Internut Exploder for other things — computer geek “conspiracy theorists” (i.e. people who use their brains) think that Norton and McAfee want you to use the most dangerous method to use and update their program because they want to keep ActiveX going, thereby not solving the problem, so you’ll run to Norton and McAfee to “keep you safe.”

Though some people making comments still fall for the old canard that Linux, Firefox and other open source OSes and browsers are safer because of their low market share, that crackers (there’s another thing — they’re crackers, not hackers) only target Windows/IE because of their majority market share, in order to do the most damage.  But a majority of servers use Linux as the OS and Apache as the server app, both open source, where are all the attacks targeting Linux/Apache boxes?

UPDATE 9 PM:  Michael Horowitz over at Computer World thinks that CBS missed the elephant in the room.  I say that that Microsoft advertising account, which has been rather prominent during March Madness games this month, means that CBS will ignore the elephant in the room.

A Yuan Kept is a Yuan Earned

AP:

Google, music labels launch China download service

BEIJING – Google Inc. and major music companies launched a free Internet music download service for China on Monday in a bid to help turn a field dominated by pirates into a profitable, legitimate business.

The advertising-supported service will offer 1.1 million tracks, including the full catalogs of Chinese and Western music for Warner Music Group Corp., EMI Group Ltd., Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music and 14 independent labels, the companies said. It will be limited to use by computers whose Internet protocol, or IP, addresses show they are in mainland China.

(snip)

Chinese pirate Web sites offer downloads of unauthorized copies of music despite repeated lawsuits and government crackdowns. Legitimate producers have no estimate of lost potential sales, but some Chinese performers have announced they were no longer recording because piracy made it unprofitable.

LOL — there aren’t really any lawsuits and government crackdowns.  The Chinese government might be many things, and many bad and abusive things, but globalist they are not, and ethnonationalist they are.  They have no intention on cracking down on the downloaders, either of American or European music or of software, because they know that yuans spent by the Chinese on legitimate music and software turn to dollars in the pockets of Bill Gates and Edgar Bronfman.  If they pirate, they can have both the music and the yuans.

Give the Chinese government this much — in a country where many people don’t make enough yuans in a day to convert to a U.S. quarter, they know their people don’t have the yuans to give, and won’t make them give it to some rich white person.  The American government would make us all poor so that Carlos Slim could have another $5 billion.

$59.95 Is Still $59.95 More Than Zero, and In Four Years, It Will Be $620 Less Than $679.95

Red Herring:

Microsoft is using pricing to take on rivals along two product fronts.

The world’s No. 1 software maker has targeted Open Office and other rivals by rolling out a “total steal” promotion that lets college students buy its Office Ultimate 2007 suite for $59.95, 91 percent off estimated retail price.

At the same time, Microsoft has launched a new round of commercials that for the first time take direct aim at the price premium afforded to Macintosh computers from Apple.

Though students have long been able to get Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 for well under the $149.95 list price, the Ultimate package lists for $679.95 and sells for several hundred dollars even after discounts. On Friday, for instance, one Amazon.com vendor was selling the package for $384.99.

(snip)

The price cut comes as free software that duplicate some Office functions gains traction. For instance, Sun Microsystem’s open source OpenOffice.org suite on Thursday recorded its 50 millionth download since the latest version was released in October. Google Docs, meanwhile, offers a free web-based word processor and spreadsheet with collaborative functions.

You can pay $60 for Office, or keep your $60 and have OpenOffice or Google Docs for free.  But if you want to burn money, realize this:  That low price is only for college students, and the EULA for Office versions sold at low student prices state that you have to stop using the software once you stop being a college student.  Only 12 credit-hours per semester, n’est pas?  Except you’ll need at least another twenty grand for that fifth year of college tuition.  Talk about your penny wise and pound foolish.  No bargain.

Otherwise, the retail box for Office Ultimate, which you’ll have to pay once you stop being a student, is $680.  Meanwhile, OpenOffice and Google Docs will still be free for you, student or not.

Related:  “Microsoft Office” on this blog

Sunday Wrap-Up (Or Is That Wipe-Up?)

(1)  The replacement for the WTC won’t be named the “Freedom Tower.“  Just as well, try exercising your 2nd Amendment freedoms in New York, and you’ll see how alien the concept of freedom is to that city.

(2)  The Democrats are the Evil Party, the Republicans are the Stupid Party.  When they get together and do something in a bipartisan fashion, it’s usually something that’s both evil and stupid.  Like the latest compromise trial balloon being floated for illegal alien amnesty — giving amnesty in exchange for reducing the number of H-1B visas.  To affix numbers, give amnesty to 30 million people to get 200 million more here legally through chain migration, so that there are 5 fewer H-1B visas issued every year.

(3)  The Rottweiler, in response to certain advocates of a alternate lifestyle who want you to know and see every lurid detail of their lives, asks them to “STFU, Go Suck A Dick & Buy A Sense Of Humor.“

The only insult I can find here is “S” and “U” in STFU.  Mark Kasen is right, I will never tell anyone to “shut up,” they’re the two ugliest words in the English language.

(4)  A ConnectiNUT middle school (there’s that damned state again) is prohibiting physical contact of any kind among its students.  I don’t know if the still shot in this article is relevant to the story and said middle school, but if it is, it answers a lot of questions.

(5)  Two hundred “British” teenagers are being monitored as they are at risk of becoming terrorists, according to government beancounters.  But they insist that they’re not picking on Muslims.  Except if there were any non-Muslims on the list, especially if there were one whose parents might have been BNP members, the article would have spent ten paragraphs on them.

(6)  There have been many American elementary schools renamed for President Obama, but an Oakland, Calif. middle school is the first non-elementary school to be so named.

I’m guessing this is the kind of school where you can get promoted from one grade to the next even if you goof off and cut most of your classes, and smoke weed and snort crack while doing so.  Just like…

Prediction:  Not that they’ll ever tell us, but in the next few years, this school will run huge budget deficits.

(7)  Just as I suspected, but Fox News kinda confirms (if you read between the lines) — all this bullshit about “global warming” and the urgent need for cap-and-trade is all a front for big corporations and their urgent need to outsource jobs to cheap labor China.  I’ve said on this medium numerous times that big corps are looking to move jobs that otherwise can’t be moved because of political and union pressure, so they’re hiding behind ecology.

(8)  The Sham-Wow guy got his sham-wow on, on South Beach.  And I suppose he figured that his “date” was a member of the Slapahoe tribe, and did just that and a little more, such that it might rise to the level of a felony.

The Below Pictured Is Your Fault (Detroit and Michigan Also Have Ample Representation in Today’s Fun With Headlines)

The Hill:  Bachmann bill would ban global currency

Good, because the way the world’s going, UN funny munny would be worth less than the Zimbabwe dollar.

WSJ:  More Cities Target Teens With Daytime Curfews

Is that what they’re calling truancy laws now?

CNS:  ‘Wonder Woman’ Lynda Carter Says ‘Right Wing’ Is ‘Spreading Hate’

She said that at a fundraiser at a facility for the mentally ill.  My mother always did say that if you hang around nuts too much, you’ll start thinking like one.

Onion:  Detroit Sold For Scrap

You know all those times I have said that a real news story sounds so crazy that it must have come from The Onion?  This is one time that an Onion story sounds so true that it must have come from a real newspaper.

P-D:  Federal agents raid East St. Louis city hall

This is one of those stories that you can write once and use it over and over again every two months, just change the date.

CNS:  ‘Earth Hour’ on Saturday to Be Marked by Turning Off Lights; ‘Absurd,’ Some Say

It’s not absurd.  Since I’m kinda new to Carbondale, I’ll be able to discern the real screwballs just by seeing if their house is dark.  The ones that are dark and also have an Obama yard sign, and I’ll know to avoid like the plague.

FT:  Brazil’s leader blames white people for [economic] crisis

He might be on to something.  All the dirty dealings among white people in New York have caused the global economy to crash, and that’s why most urban Brazilians now live in cardboard boxes…oh wait, they always have lived in cardboard boxes.

WSIL-3:  Mayor’s Race Stirs Up Controversy

Says the longtime incumbent, “Is it really good for Sesser to toss me out and put someone in whose name has no vowels?”

AP:  Obama: Taliban and al-Qaida must be stopped

And OBL must be captured, but since this the same Obama that wants to close down GTMO, all capturing OBL would do is to give the 7-11 on the northwest end of Detroit a new night manager.

AFP:  Asian-Americans least hit by crime: report

Thinking of painting my face yellow.

Business Weak:  Michigan State University: Admissions Q&A

Run fast, dribble ball, put it in hole.  Otherwise, don’t ask. </Tom Izzo>

AFP:  Artist behind Irish PM nudes turns himself in

News of someone painting nude depictions of Irish heads of state is tee-shocking.

KSDK-5:  New Mexico man behind threats writes of ‘economic warfare’

Except that he sent the threats to those who are actually waging economic warfare.

Libs In Another Catch-22

Part of the reason why children might not be physically active enough such that they are obese is:

Past studies have suggested that, compared with years ago, parents have become less willing to let their children walk to school or play outside — at least in part because of worries over crime and traffic safety, and a general lack of parks, playgrounds and other appropriate places for children to play.

Childhood obesity is a big liberal pet peeve.  And kids might not be getting enough exercise because neighborhoods have too much crime.  However, that means black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and black and Hispanic thugs have civil rights.

So we have childhood obesity versus minority crime.  Where do the good libs come down in this battle?

Beautiful and Snuggied-Up Losers (Lamestream Conservatism Now Has the Mentality of 12-Year Old Suburban Girls)

Once upon a time, conservatism, even in its milquetoast lamestream variety, meant William Buckley, Russell Kirk and Whittaker Chambers.

Now it means:

“Never let it be said that conservatives and libertarians have no sense of humor,” says Americans for Tax Reform’s Derek Hunter, who’s been doing his best to photograph fellow conservatives sporting the trend of the moment: the Snuggie.

And it’s working: So far he’s convinced Joe the Plumber, Tucker Carlson and Andrew Breitbart to adorn the “blanket with sleeves” that has people mocking it while simultaneously wearing it. His boss, ATR President Grover Norquist, was the first “political celebrity” to put it on.

“I was plotting, trying to think of how to ask Grover,” said Hunter. “But a friend of his grabbed him after a Wednesday meeting and said, ‘You have to get your picture taken in this.’ He knew what it was, thought it was funny and slid it on.”

Hunter purchased the Snuggie after a bit too much to drink and later brought it into work simply to prove to his fellow Tax Reformers that, yes, he had — embarrassingly — purchased a Snuggie. Soon, colleagues began taking photos of themselves in it and, eventually, a Facebook photo page — “The Snuggie Cult” — was born.

“From there, it blew up,” said Hunter. “Within the next hour I was inundated with messages from people who wanted to see it, try it on and have their picture taken in it. I figured it could be fun, so what the hell? Rather than give it away, which was my original plan, I thought I’d keep it a while to take some pictures of people in it. … Next thing I knew I had 100 people in it.”

Apropos that I have a picture of a horse in a snuggie.  For this blockquote sure names a lot of horse’s asses.

Naive Slashdotters: Don’t You Know That In the Tech Industry, 35 Is the New 65?

The kind of people that frequent and comment on Slashdot are the smartest people you’ll ever read when it comes to computers and technology, but they’re lost with everything else.

Ibid:

With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35?

GrApHiX42 writes:

“I pissed away my 20s and now I want to go to school and get a bachelor’s degree in computer science. The thing is, I’ll be 35 when I get out of school, and I’ve read on numerous sites that there seems to be some ageism going on in the IT industry when it comes to older geeks. What have some of the ‘older’ Slashdot readers experienced as far as being replaced or just plain not getting hired because IT is a ‘young man’s game’?”

I looked through the comments to this, and as of the time of this writing, not a one Slashdotter could make the link between this and H-1B visas and the certain subcontinent from which many H-1B visa holders come.

In case you’re wondering, 35 is a Rubicon in terms of tech workers, as if you work for a tech giant, they’ll dump you when you turn that age, and certainly not hire you if you are that age or older.  The reason is that once you turn 35, you get too expensive an employee, in terms of your salary expectations (you expect to make more than what you did when you were in your early 20s), and your health care costs (people in their 20s generally are cheap to cover, once you hit your mid 30s, then you’re going to start in on more chronic problems that get expensive to cover), and 35-year olds usually get married and have children since they were in their early 20s, and the company has to pay the health care for the spouse and kids.

Since there is an endless supply of young tech workers in India, and no political will to curtail the H-1B program, big tech corps have no need to keep workers or hire workers 35 and older.  Just slide a 22-year old from India in their place.  Heck, they even do that to 35-year old Indians with H-1B visas, throw them out and cancel their H-1B visa, back to India with you.

GrApHiX42:  Save your time and money.  Also, you’re a man in your early 30s, quit mixing uppercase and lowercase letters in your screen name.

See Also:

H-1B And Age
Obama’s Commerce Picks Are All H-1B Fans
The New Green Card Bill
Why The H-1B Visa Cap Will Increase

We’re Not Included, Not Diverse Enough

Miami Herald:

Leadership Miami presents ‘Melt’ play about diversity

A play about Miami’s multicultural connections and collisions sparked students, teachers and parents to see South Florida’s diversity from a new light.

(snip)

McKeever’s Miamians span South Florida’s myriad cultures: a Cuban-American seamstress who was a Pedro Pan child and her son, a slick operator who works in real estate; an older Jewish man, whose wife left him, and his son, a gay high school teacher who wants to adopt a child; the teacher’s partner, a black nurse who is unsure about fatherhood; and the nurse’s sister, a lawyer and activist who wants to stop real estate developers from displacing lower-income Miamians.

No white non-Hispanic heterosexual gentiles?  They should have been included, Miami used to be full of ‘em, and supposedly there are still a few left.

Yahoo Wants You to Download the Browser Made By the Yahoos

Cropped screenshot of an e-mail I received in my Yahoo E-mail account from Yahoo itself:

“Optimized for Yahoo!” — What that means it’s that it is IE 8 with a Yahoo toolbar, the default search set to Yahoo, and the homepage default is Yahoo.  A clever chimp could optimize IE 8 for Yahoo with about twelve mouse clicks.

What if you use Yahoo Mail and you don’t run Windows?  Not only can you not get IE 8 (“Yahoo optimized” or not), it only runs on Windows, but IE’s EULA states that you can’t use IE in a compatibility layer like Wine for *nix unless you legitimately own a license for the version of Microsoft Windows on which the particular version of IE can run, in IE 8′s case, XP (SP2 or later), Vista or (eventually) 7.  (Not that IE 8 could run on Wine anyway, Wine’s database currently rates it as “garbage” in terms of being able to get it to run.)  Don’t forget, IE is merely a “Windows component.”  Otherwise, here is what you get when you try the “Get It Now” button.  Oh, yes, you can still set your homepage to Yahoo, (I prefer Drudge), download and install the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox (1.5 or newer) on Linux, (I’d rather have the extra screen real estate for actual browsing), and set the Fx search box to use Yahoo. (Meanwhile, I take the search box off my Firefox navigation bar because I use URL bar keyword searches, Firefox’s most under-appreciated feature.)

Uh, no thanks.  I’ll monkey around with something else.

Today’s Headlines Aren’t All Fun and Games

NYDN:  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Mexico, says U.S. to blame for drug wars

Won’t those Clintons ever blame themselves in the individual or the collective for anything?  Between sadistic special prosecutors, mid-level bureaucratic snafus and the precise meaning of “is,” you would think that Bill and Hillary were perfect.

AP:  Postal chief says post office running out of money

Postal rates are going up like they’re magnetically attracted to infinity, and the Post Office still can’t hold on to a buck.

Variety:  MGM gets its ‘Stooges’ – Penn, Carrey, Del Toro part of studio’s plan

They won’t be able to call it “Three Stooges” because Sean Penn will be the only true stooge.

AP:  Mich. baseball park to offer 4,800-calorie burgers

And they’ll serve it with a diet soda.

Daily Mail:  Council uses spy plane with thermal imaging camera to snoop on homes wasting energy

They’re spending the time and money for robotic aviation — not to snoop on black gangs or AQ sleeper cells, but to look for people who have too many lights on.

P-D Race:  Blame the media for racial stereotypes?

I do, I resent being portrayed as a common murderer while that brilliant black forensic pathologist solves the caper.

CNS:  Archbishop Burke: Catholics Who Voted for Obama Is a Form of Cooperation with Evil

He used to be St. Louis’s Archbishop.  Oh for the good ole days when Catholic Bishops were actually for Catholicism.

Conservative Times:  Meghan McCain is Really Starting to Get on My Nerves!

Like father like daughter.

Blue Collar Republican:  Global Currency?

Now I’m scared to open up the issue of The New American I just got in the mail in fear of what’s coming in the next decade, because it has been predicting a push toward UN funny munny for as long as I’ve been reading it.

CNS:  EU Leader Says Obama’s Economic Policies Are ‘Road to Hell’

They also could be called the ‘Road to Rio’ because they’re turning us into Brazil.

SEMO:  Gamers get sneak preview at annual conference

Median age of the conference attendees:  36.

AP:  Bob Barker returns to ‘The Price is Right’

Good, I never liked Drew Carey anyway.

AFP:  Mathematical model to forecast divorce

I’m waiting for the first spouse of a mathematician for file for divorce and s/he responds by saying that the potential divorce is inconsistent with the models.

P-D:  Ex-superintendent barred from Missouri casinos

I’m trying to think of a nearby state where he can go and gamble…oh, I know. Illinois!

Lemonade Out Of Lemons

Time:

Kids with ADHD May Learn Better by Fidgeting

Like nose-picking and a preoccupation with feculence, the inability to sit still for long periods is a defining characteristic of childhood. But children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often squirm constantly, even when other kids can remain still. Many parents and teachers respond by trying to get ADHD kids, at any cost, to stop fidgeting. The assumption is that if they could just stop wriggling, they would be able to focus and learn.

But a new study suggests that a better approach for ADHD kids (at least those who are not hyperactive to the point of breaking things) is to let them move all they want. That’s because many kids use their movements – like swiveling in a chair or folding a leg underneath themselves and bouncing in a desk seat or repeatedly lolling and righting their head – the way many adults use caffeine: to stay focused. In other words, it may be that excessive movement doesn’t prevent learning but actually facilitates it.

I slightly disagree with the notion that the purpose of ADD drugs is to keep children (especially boys) from fidgeting around in their desks.  The reason reason, IMHO, is to de-boy boys based on kook feminoid ideology.   Otherwise, this is some groundbreaking research.

I agree with the notion that boys respond better to kinesthetic education.

Everything Old Is Wise Again

Today is the 150th Anniversary of the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

Did you know?

The original ordinance creating the police department allowed the identities of officers on the force to remain secret from residents, giving only the city marshal and mayor the right to know who served the captain.

Something I wish they would bring back, especially with all the black professional police haters in big cities, not to mention the increasing presence of Hispanic drug gangs and MS-13.  I censor the names of all but the highest level of judges on this medium, and I’m going to start doing the same for cops.  If I have problems with the judiciary or LEAs, I mention them as collective organizations, not the names of trial level judges or street-level cops.

Why I Have Little Use For Lamestream Conservative Blogs

AP (H/T John Lott):

Bill allows Texans to keep guns in cars at work

Texans, who love guns and pickup trucks with equal fervor, could soon have the right to keep them together all the way into the company parking garage.

The Texas Senate gave unanimous approval to legislation Wednesday that would allow people to carry firearms to work and then store them in their parked vehicles outside. Businesses could still keep guns out of their offices and company-owned vehicles.

But the bill, a top priority of the National Rifle Association, would no longer let employers ban guns in company parking facilities — as long as they remain locked up inside an employee’s vehicle.

“Here in Texas, people like their firearms,” said Republican Sen. Glenn Hegar, author of the legislation. State law already allows Texans to carry concealed handguns in their vehicles, with some restrictions.

The bill drew criticism from business leaders, who called it an affront to property rights. Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, warned that it could also spark more workplace gun crimes — particularly at a time when more and more people are losing their jobs.

This last paragraph is why I stopped reading the lamer blog Red State, because one of their bloggers agrees with that logic.  Oh yes, they’re for private property, as long as  (and meaning that) big corporations can do whatever the hell they want.  That the employees of big corporations have the right to life and self-defense does not occur to any of them, because lamestream conservative ideology and the stink tanks where it is developed are financed by big corporations.  I don’t know if big corporations are buying off bloggers at Red State, but if they’re dumb enough to carry their water for free, why pay them?

No civil liberty is absolute.  The ongoing question in societies like our own that feature generous civil liberties is what how to balance them out when they come into conflict.  In the battle between a corporation’s right to private property and their employees’ right to self-defense and bearing arms, this Texas bill is a good compromise.

Tea Party

This time, it’s parking meters.

Sorry, Paul.  I think the CPD will devote many more times the officer-hours to apprehending parking meter vandals than they will murderers.  After all, parking meters mean money, and you don’t mess with the King’s taxes.

BTW, five minutes for a quarter, and a buck an hour?  I remember when a St. Louis parking meter costs five cents for 15 minutes and 25 cents got you two hours.

We Know Who Won That Debate

ESR says that the GPL is now unnecessary.

His reasoning reminds me of the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists after the 1787 Constitutional Convention about the necessity of a Bill of Rights.  AFs demanded one or they would essentially sit on the Constitution, i.e. preclude its ratification.

Fs responded not by saying that they didn’t believe in civil liberties, indeed they did.  But their argument was that a formal BORs had two problems:  (1) It was superfluous — since the proposed Constitution enumerated all of Congress’s powers in Article 1 Section 8, the enumerated powers they did give were few and specific, they did not have any 1/8 power to violate civil liberties because they were not authorized to do so.  (2) It was potentially dangerous — Fs and AFs believed that human civil liberties were numerous, but Fs thought that compressing the whole of human freedom to a dozen bullet points would be tantamount to painting a target on the backs of said civil liberties.

In other words, if you explicitly prohibited Congress from abridging freedom of expression, religion, right to bear arms, and so on, such enumeration would instantly make a target out of the freedom of expression, religion and right to bear arms for tyrants.  If you stayed with the implied BORs per Article 1 Section 8, then civil liberties would be virtually infinite, with none specifically stated so as to become a target.

If the Federalist faction of the American body politic of the late eighteenth century could have borrowed a a piece of jargon from our early twenty-first century, they might have phrased their (2) argument above by deriding the powerpointization of civil liberties.

ESR’s argument about the GPL seems to be a mix of both contentions by Fs about the AF demand for a BORs.

We all know how that argument turned out — the AFs were very much correct, that Congress has stretched its 1/8 powers, especially interstate commerce, to do anything.  About the only firewall we have left to knock back Congressional action square with 1/8 but violating civil liberties is the BORs.  In other words, if Congress passes a bill prohibiting the interstate transportation of Bible tracts, it would be perfectly constitutional just using the 1787 Constitution without a Bill of Rights, because Congress is regulating interstate commerce.  But it would be unconstitutional with the 1787 Const plus the BORs, because Congress shall pass no law restricting the freedom of religion.  Can regulate interstate commerce, but not in such a way that it violates civil liberties.

This is why I don’t buy into ESR’s arguments.  He’s thinking like an enlightened altruistic human being, and not a predatory capitalist and/or a lawyer.  Get it in writing.

Gained In Translation — Don’t You Wish We Had This In Real Life?

“I once had a romantic rendezvous with your biological mother in which fellatio was performed forthwith and without explanation.   The encounter lasted several hours, and many unspeakable acts were implemented.  I paid her for her services, and no subsequent contact either verbally or physically has been made.”

LOL — That’s how “yo mama” translates from Ebonics into English.  Give them credit for verbal efficiency.

Perhaps this is the same Ebonics-English translator that worked for Neal Boortz about ten years ago:

Dig Hole, Pour Gasoline, Light Match.

A self-described sadomasochist, anarchist, extremist, Satanist and knife collector gets high on cocaine and drunk on Vodka with his Craigslist tryst.  How else did you think it was going to end?

And all before he turned 17.  When did he decide he was a sadomasochist?  At 12?

He also said he liked listening to his iPod.  That must be one fucked up iPod, both literally and in terms of its contents.

The most relieved person in New York today is A-Rod, whose freakiness all of a sudden seems so sublime.

NYP
NYDN
Gawker

UPDATE 9 PM:  One aspect that slipped right past me is that the victim, a 49-year old man, solicited and did a 16-year old.  That’s stat rape in New York, and also contrib/delinq.  Unless Mr. Katehis lied about his age on CL.   Of course, the rendezvous didn’t work out quite so well for him, and as far as Mr. Katehis, a juvenile charge for prostitution or for lying about his age are the least of his concerns right now.

A Nickel For Your Thoughts

AFP:  US sperm bank offers stimulus deals

It damned well better offer stimulus, if it expects donations.

AP:  Denise Richards booted from Dancing With the Stars

Was Charlie Sheen one of the judges?  That might explain why.

KSDK:  NY senator now supports gay marriage

Good, now maybe A-Rod and his new squeeze can tie the knot.

NPI:  UK population must fall to 30m, says Porritt

Is this “Porriott” someone who wants open immigration into the UK?

KSDK:  ACLU alleges corruption and abuse in St. Louis jails

What would you expect of a jail that’s run by mostly blacks and populated by mostly blacks?

P-D:  Upscale grocery stores lose customers to Kroger, Wal Mart

Hello, Post-Dispatch?  Kroger left St. Louis the same time the Globe-Democrat did.

Reuters:   Sudan’s Bashir in Egypt despite ICC warrant

No stupid, that’s why he’s in Sudan.  He can’t cross over into Chad without Abu the Bounty Hunter nabbing his ass and taking it to Brussels.

AP:  Oakland shooter unable to escape cycle of violence

Not shooting cops and not raping 12-year old girls is an easy thing to do, so you have to be pretty evil or stupid not to escape the cycle.

NPR:  Laid-Off Architect Sells Advice For 5 Cents

That great psychiatrist Lucy Van Pelt showed the way.

Reuters:  Sydney summers by 2060 could be deadly: scientist

A Sydney of 2060 full of violent non-whites will be deadly.

LiveScience:  Why Toddlers Don’t Do What They’re Told

Because they’re toddlers.  Not doing what they’re told is what they do.

E!:  Kanye West: I’m Done Spazzing

You’re done whating?  Whatever that its, it might explain why he’s so screwy.

Reuters:  Woman arrested after shackling self to husband

Why do we assume that she had criminal intent?  Maybe she just wanted it.

AP:  Police say woman used fake ID to get fake breasts

Are the cops going to do asset forfeiture?

ICE, ICE, Baby

Did you know?

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Denver is trying to fire one of their own agents?

Tom Tancredo, writing in the Washington Times:

Denver Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Cory Voorhis thought the citizens of Colorado should know about the practices of a former Denver District Attorney, Bill Ritter, who allowed 121 illegal aliens to minimize their risk of deportation through generous plea bargain deals. Mr. Ritter demanded an investigation and ICE Agent Voorhis was prosecuted in federal court. The jury saw through the political character of the prosecution and took only two hours to acquit Mr. Voorhis of all charges. The story should have ended there, but Mr. Voorhis lost his job because the federal government would not accept the jury verdict.

Evidence presented at his trial showed Mr. Voorhis had never revealed any information not already available in public records, yet his actions in spotlighting that information was unforgivable in the eyes of powerful politicians and the ICE bureaucracy.

In both cases, the United States Department of Justice chose to spend millions prosecuting law enforcement officers whose actions offended powerful political interests – in the El Paso case it was the government of Mexico, and in Denver, the governor-elect of Colorado. In both cases, lives were ruined because of an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and in both cases, the only people who benefited were Mexican drug smugglers, green card counterfeiters – and the high priests of sanctuary for criminal aliens.

For Mr. Voorhis, the injustice did not end with his acquittal. After his acquittal, ICE bureaucrats spent a year contriving reasons to fire him for “administrative misconduct,” threatening and intimidating Mr. Voorhis’ colleagues to change testimonies given under oath at the trial. Five weeks ago, on Feb. 13, Mr. Voorhis received his letter of termination. He is appealing the firing to the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, but that appeal will be expensive and may take a year to adjudicate. In the meantime, a highly trained, veteran ICE agent will be working as a private security guard to pay his mortgage.

Cory Voorhis was no ordinary ICE agent. A former Border Patrol agent and U.S. Army veteran, he was one of two lead agents in a five-year investigation that broke up the largest document fraud ring in the nation’s history. The Denver-based operation run by the Castorena family syndicate based in Guadalajara, Mexico, sold more than 18 million fake driver’s licenses, green cards, work permits and Social Security cards to illegal aliens across 18 states.

Even while Mr. Voorhis was still under investigation, the agency flew him to Washington, D.C., to brief agency brass on the Castorena case. He was so important to the case against the syndicate leader, Pedro Castorena, that when ICE management refused to let him participate in the prosecution of the case, the U.S. Attorney’s office chose to strike a plea agreement with the syndicate mastermind instead of going to trial.

Mr. Voorhis is still fighting to get his job back and still struggling to pay off horrendous legal bills of more than $500,000. The irony is that Mr. Voorhis never divulged information about ICE’s dirty linen. Mr. Voorhis “outed” not ICE management’s screwed-up priorities but Denver’s sanctuary city practices and Bill Ritter’s plea bargaining policies. But to ICE bureaucrats embarrassed by Mr. Voorhis’ revelations, that made no difference.

The message sent to ICE agents was the same: If you take immigration enforcement too seriously, you risk losing your job.

That’s true for the Marines in Iraq, and white cops in the black ghetto.  The civil rights of Hispanic illegal aliens, Iraqi terrorists and black thugs are more important than safety, because Hispanic illegal aliens, Iraqi terrorists and black thugs are all diverse.  And our diversity is our strength.  Isn’t it?

Bill Ritter is now the Governor of Colorado, and TT is thinking about challenging him next year.

Nobody Else Can Do Their Job In Chicago

The cops can’t do their jobs, because black thugs have civil rights.  Teachers can’t teach, even if they wanted to, because black students have low IQs.  The only institution in public Chicagograd that could actually do its job and take itself seriously was the CPS high school sports programs.

Until now — coaches, too, won’t be allowed to do their jobs, especially if it involves showing a little bit of anger, under the pretense of not allowing coaches to hit their players.  Of course, they would have no idea what it feels like to be hit, as they certainly don’t play sports where body contact is part of the game.

Reading Is Fun. My Players Can Read. Any Questions?

Southeast Missourian:

Central athletes celebrate Reading Across America

“It’s cool to read”– that’s what Cape Central Football Coach Micah Janzow wants kids throughout Cape Girardeau to think, so he sent some of his athletes to Jefferson, Clippard, Franklin and Schrader elementary schools to read books to kindergarten kids in the school libraries. Janzow observed, “Our football athletes are intelligent individuals, and kids look up to them. How better to celebrate Reading Across America?”

By having 17-year olds read books with a kindergarten reading level to 5-year olds.  Imagine, Rush Limbaugh is an alum of this team.

Anything about actually teaching these children how to read using phonics?  Something I don’t get is that there are untold millions of dollars spread among numerous literacy organizations, but none of them come off sounding like Phyllis Schlafly in saying that children should actually use the only literacy method that works.

Truth be told, the official literacy-industrial complex doesn’t actually want literacy, because all you have to do is scratch its surface to find kook neo-Marxist professors that think that reading and literacy are “bourgeoisie” and therefore unnecessary, and indeed a hindrance to neo-Marxist designs for dominance over the population and social experimentation of the same.  The literacy-industrial complex says they want to teach people how to read when they want your money, but they don’t actually teach anyone how to read (i.e. they use whole language methods) because they use the same failed bullshit that most public schools use, all originating from those who really don’t want people to know how to read.