“Americans”

The Pentagon

NYT:

U.S. Admits for First Time Drones Killed 4 Americans

One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.

In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm or deny it.

The letter also said that the United States had killed three other Americans: Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike; Mr. Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was also killed in Yemen; and Jude Mohammed, who was killed in a strike in Pakistan.

“Anwar al-Awlaki,” “Samir Khan,” “Abdulrahman al-Awlaki” and “Jude Mohammed.”  All good nice sounding Yankee Doodle Dandy names, for sure.  And notice that this took place in Yemen and Pakistan, not Iowa or Oregon.

You people too worried about drones for your own good can come off the ledge now.  This wasn’t the Pentagon flying a drone over Cedar Rapids to kill Tom Smith for having run a stop sign.  We’re not to that point.  Yet.

And also…if drones over Whackistan mean that we don’t have to send 400,000 troops to occupy Whackistan, meaning Mohammed al-Terroristiqua gets killed but Pfc Tom Smith from Cedar Rapids doesn’t get killed, that’s perfectly fine by me.

Low Information Bumblepuppy

Santa Clara, California

MIT Technology Review:

Intel Fuels a Rebellion Around Your Data

The world’s largest chip maker wants to see a new kind of economy bloom around personal data.

Intel is a $53-billion-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs.  [Which doesn't say much for AMD -- Blogmeister Ed.] But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to “return power to the people.”

Intel Labs, the company’s R&D arm, is launching an initiative around what it calls the “data economy”—how consumers might capture more of the value of their personal information, like digital records of their their location or work history. To make this possible, Intel is funding hackathons to urge developers to explore novel uses of personal data. It has also paid for a rebellious-sounding website called We the Data, featuring raised fists and stories comparing Facebook to Exxon Mobil.

Intel’s effort to stir a debate around “your data” is just one example of how some companies—and society more broadly—are grappling with a basic economic asymmetry of the big data age: they’ve got the data, and we don’t.

“Power to the people.”  Power to what people?  The same dorks who post everything about themselves and their lives on Facebook and Twitter?  God love you, Intel, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.  You can put all the protective thigamagigs you want on your CPUs and other electronics, but it won’t make a difference if the people who buy them willingly spew everything about themselves on social networking.  So what some dork I went to high school with likes Wal-Mart?  No wonder I wasn’t friends with him while we were in high school, and I’m certainly not going to start now.  Yeah, like that’s so special, he and 60% of the country swarm into Crap Mart at least once a week or month or something like that.  So what you’re telling everyone that follows you on Twitter that you just bought deodorant?  If you haven’t done that on a monthly basis since you were about 12 years old, then all you’ve been doing since then is wasting oxygen and poisoning the atmosphere.  It’s bad enough that you’ve gotta tell all your Twitter followers that you’re buying deodorant, but one of them is damn fool enough to go and retweet it to all her followers, as if I want to read second hand tweets about someone I don’t even follow buying deodorant.

This all goes back to the debate about Huxley versus Orwell.  Orwellian dystopians fear that some strong man would take power and become Big Brother because he would force his way into our lives and watch our every move.  Huxleyite dystopians fear that people are so desirous for fame and celebrity, that they’ll spew everything about themselves to as many people as possible, and out of that morass, some Big Brother type institution would germinate to exploit that information to their advantage.  To put it another way, Orwellians fear that Big Brother would watch you against your will, while Huxleyites fear that Big Brother would be a consequence of your pleasure.

I Grokketh Not

IRS

I’m not liking this meme I’m starting to hear develop all over conservative talk radio, that IRSgate was the proximate causation for Romney not winning.

While I definitely believe that IRSgate came straight from the top, i.e. the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and was designed to bog the TPM down in Mickey Mouse paperwork to keep it from being effective, and to harass big donors to Romney and Republican organizations and TPM organizations, I do not think that that can totally explain why Romney didn’t win.  That’s because the TPM was never too hot for Romney, and he wasn’t exactly hurting for money, either.  What explains Romney not winning is that incumbent politicians are very hard to beat, and not enough white conservatives were jazzed to show up and vote for an open borders RINO.

Related:  Stupid and Evil

 

Sunday Wrap-Up

LOCAL AND REGIONAL

*  Uh oh.  Graffiti wars are usually a pretext to real ones.

*  “It includes workforce training, G.E.D. classes, drugs sweeps and increased police patrols.”

Gee, like nobody has ever thought of THAT before.

And, not surprisingly:

“…the plan will require approval and funds from the city.”

Oh, I see.  It’s one of these deals where they came to do good and wound up doing very well indeed.

*  Why did he tackle the fireman who tried to rescue the last person in the house?  Maybe King Kong here wanted that person to die.  Maybe he set the fire in the first place.

*  “Nuisance Abatement Vehicle.”  Is that what they’re calling paddywagons these days?

*  Uh, pardon me, but two hit records is not a lifetime of achievement.

*  The C-e-C in question is in St. Charles, but the day care center in question is from Moline Acres, i.e. solid Bell Curve City.

*  He emptied out his nephew’s piggy bank so he himself could be a pig.  BTW, he’s only 31 but looks 50 — Too much “fun,” IMHO.

*  Which is why I say:  If you win The Big One, (and someone in Florida did last night), take the lump sum.

*  P-D looks back at the 1863 forced exile of Pro-Southern St. Louisans.  This part is interesting:

It was the city home of Margaret McLure, whose politics became fearless after her son was killed in Confederate service in 1862. Union leaders suspected that Pine Lawn, her country estate on Natural Bridge Road (and inspiration for the suburb by that name), was a communication post for rebels. McLure was put on the Belle Memphis.

So, what would become the Bell Curve hell hole that is now Crime Lawn was once the estate of a Woman of Dixie.  How ironic is that?  Also, I’m wondering if the surname McLure is where the McCluer High School in the Ferguson-Florissant District gets its name.

IMMIGRATION

*  An American asking “is it good for Americans?”  When was the last time THAT happened?

*  Nice knowing ya, Marco.  Notice his support even among Hispanics is dropping, even though they’re telling us we need to pass amnesty to appeal to Hispanics.

*  While everyone’s paying attention to the Senate Gang, there’s a House Gang that just reached a deal on an immigration bill.

NATIONAL

*  There are good ID thieves, and then there are bad ID thieves.  However, give these two their due:  They’re probably a notch or two above out and outright ghetto, because if they were, they wouldn’t have gone out for steak, they would have hot footed it to the 365BellCurve fast feeder.

*  This kind of scenario is good news for the headhunters, because their intended targets can’t put up any real resistance.  But it’s bad news for the headhunted, because it means a naked perp walk.

It’s also bad news for the other patrons, as their gay group orgies are interrupted.

Ooh, I didn’t just say that, did I?  Have I gone too far, or have I not gone far enough?

*  Oh well, it means we have one fewer world citizen in our midst.  If a car didn’t get him in Oregon, a drug thug would have gotten him in Central America.

*  “Giang Nguyen” — Kind of a strange name for your friendly USPS letter carrier from northern Wisconsin to have.

*  Eric Holder out, Deval Patrick in at DOJ?  That’s like going from the frying pan to the fire.  OTOH, it would probably set up Patrick as the next great mulatto hopeychanger.

*  Lost the desire?  When did they ever really have it?

*  “Showcasing African culture.”  Well, isn’t that pretty much all of Detroit already?

*  Don’t worry.  It’s just Oregon getting more vibrant.

*  And I doubt the “teens” in question were Asian.

INTERNATIONAL

*  It’ll be just our luck that one of them finds their way here and runs for President.

*  The net consequences of their actions were that Somalians were returned to Somalia.  They should give them a Congressional Medal of Freedom, not a Federal prison sentence.

*  No can fly the flag of England in parts of England.  It’s that whole “demography is destiny” thing.  Or it could be that whole “useless white traitor truckler” thing.

*  His first name is “Goodluck.”  Is his older brother named “Goodnight?”

*  Looks like India is screwing us over on generic drugs.

MISC STUFF

*  Okay, so when do I get to carry one around in my pocket?

*  Nagging HBD:

In all hunter-gatherer societies there is a sharp difference between the foraging strategies of the two sexes. Men generally travel far in search of mobile prey that they need to bring down with well-aimed projectiles. Women generally go out in groups and search for good sources of roots, ripe berries or nuts, which they use their acute powers of observation to spot and collect.

Without knowing it, golf-course designers are setting up a sort of idealized abstraction of the hunting ground, while shoe retailers are setting up a sort of ersatz echo of the gathering field.

Now you also know why the LPGA tour is heavily lesbian.

*  Turns out that humanity might have taken up agriculture to keep up with the Joneses more than anything.

*  “MLB improves senior staff diversity.”

And the dork in Orlando with a fax machine just popped a boner in earnest.

Guess Who

Yeah, I know.  It’s amazing that there was once a time when there was actually more than one spreadsheet program to be found in productive environments.

Now, Excel is so dug-in to that market that even law offices, which could easily use Quattro Pro for spreadsheets because it’s part of the Corel Office bundle, which most have because Word Perfect rather than MS Word is the standard for legal document compilation, use Excel for spreadsheets.

R.I.P.

I mentioned him one other time before in this medium.

You’re Nobody ‘Till Obama’s IRS Audits You