As the English language leans forward into a brave new world of byzantine nomenclature, some individuals who have not been brought up to speed on the changes in terminology might come to the conclusion that certain recent statements are actually feckless dissembling rather than enlightened and inoffensive specificity. 

^{Dude..This is a [expletive deleted] of [expletive deleted]  pollyanish [expletive deleted] newspeak. You interrupted my [expletive deleted] vacation to [expletive deleted] show me the English language being [expletive deleted] up the [expletive deleted] by a bunch of [expletives deleted] incompetents using Orwellian [expletive deleted] to distract from their [expletives deleted]. This [expletive deleted] is why I TOOK the vacation in the first place. I'm gonna [ remainder of correspondence deleted after consultation with standards and practices]} 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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  This evening, my friend BOB! and I were discussing...current events ...when suddenly he broke into verse (as he is occasionally wont to do). He thus summed up the situation perfectly.

"Please don't let this be about politics...or Kipling." 

 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The President just gave a speech.

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In 1973 revelations that 18 and a half minutes of a recording on a reel-to-reel tape recorder had been erased dealt the death blow to an already struggling administration. In 2014 the revelation about the loss of every single E-mail pertinent to the investigations into the IRS political targeting of American citizens is being described as 'just one of those things'. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:16 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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There is a bit of political news from my home state that is worthy of comment. 

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While I share some of the frustrations Neil DeGrasse Tyson has with those who endlessly debate inane philosophical points, l a bit am wary of those dismiss all philosophical inquiry or ethical questions as pointless inhibitions on the road to progress. Such admonitions bring to mind the utopian efforts of the eugenicists, a group who surely were not questioned enough about the details and implications of their premises, objectives and methods.  Those involved in the experiments upon Albert Stevens and others could have benefitted from "asking deep questions". Elsewhere, similar avenues of research, divorced from any inhibiting tendencies that philosophical reflection and debate might have produced, resulted in Buchenwald. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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....Venice just voted to secede from Italy.


It's not just one very wet town either, it's a chunk of northern Italy that includes cities as big as Trieste and Trento.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:40 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1

That map is strange, because it doesn't show the Adriatic. What in hell is "Istria"?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Mon Mar 24 11:20:56 2014 (+rSRq)

2 I'm waiting for Catalonia to start raising hell again.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Mon Mar 24 11:21:30 2014 (+rSRq)

3

Ha!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_self-determination_referendum

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Mon Mar 24 12:07:14 2014 (+rSRq)

4

That map is strange, because it doesn't show the Adriatic.

Here is a map with actual relief:

What in hell is "Istria"?

A peninsula that juts into the Adriatic.


Here are two maps I couldn't find last night that do a better job with scale and position:



It's a bit smaller than West Virginia., but it's on the Adriatic...and a good chunk of it is in the Alps. It also , encompasses a good bit of the fertile Po Valley, borders the Po river and contains, in addition to the tourist centers like Venice and Alpine ski lodges, Trieste, a major deepwater port and shipbuilding center. There is a a good deal of hydroelectric power, as well as there are established timber farms as well as various mines in the Alps.the area, especially around Trieste is a major trade corridor for eastern Europe,  This little lot of land just generally seems to have been designed by geographers for maximum "win"on minimum space.

_{(Or is a set designed by Hayao Miyazaki. )}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 24 13:32:59 2014 (DnAJl)

5 Well....THAT last comment of mine could have used some proofreading.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 24 13:35:09 2014 (DnAJl)

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In compliance with FCC requirements that a certain percentage of our content be educational, we feel we should point to this...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:53 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I've never really groked Touhou. Then I blundered across this primer which explains everything...

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This is interesting.
We've discussed amusing Mercator follies before, but this really drives home just how freaking huge Africa really is. As it straddles the equator, Africa (like South America) tends to receive maximal Mercator minimization.



Note that there is still space left over... I'm sure that one could squeeze Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and some of the Balkans in there at least.

The map is nicked from this article which touches on the rather surprising great game pantomime between China and Japan in Africa.

Interestingly, while it does note that they are "playing different games", with Japan looking to open new markets and China focused on 'soft power', China's goal is expressed mainly in obtaining African support for Chinesse policies in the United Nations.

However, China's big goal seems to be resource utilization. Of course Africa is exceedingly rich in minerals and China's buying up mines is fairly well known, however there is a more basic resource that China is very interested in that Africa can provide....food.

China has been buying up arable land in Africa to compensate for their lack of such back home and setting up plantations.  More on that here, here and here. This is all going on with little notice due to the unfortunate tendency to ignore the vast and underdeveloped continent.


more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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...disquisition on Edmund Burke's views on morality and how it ties into traffic safety and the philosophy of John Ford, let this be it.

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Ace has thoughts on the alpha intellects who struggle mightily with the Sisyphean task of dragging us ungrateful fools kicking and screaming into the future of blissful yet responsible nirvana that they have so benevolently chosen to bestow upon those of us, who, due to our profound ignorance, are unaware that we are part of the unworthy, ungrateful and barely sentient hoi polloi, and who, without our better's magnanimous guidance would have long since perished by aspirating our own foetid benightedness.

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Many however, don't want to believe this.
For them we provide a comforting lie:
"That asshsat that Buzz Aldrin punched didn't know the HALF of it!"

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've been struggling for some time with a couple of half written posts. However, while there is grist aplenty for them, words are failing me...there is just so much to address.

Don however, has summed it all up in one sentence.

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I'll just leave this Drudge-ism here....

more...

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In keeping with the carefree and optimistic tone of the previous two posts, I find myself asking recently why the story about the Stingers has gotten so little coverage except in overseas papers and certain partisan circles here.

^{"Oh God. Did you say "partisan? 'cause I was kinda' hoping to make friends!"}

Indeed. Not only does my inquiry involve the "P" word it focuses on the particular "B" word that people just don't seem quite fearful of looking at too closely, and that "B" involves another "P" word which is Politics and so it goes below the fold.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, the verdict in the Zimmerman trial came down. It was not the result most in the media desired.

As I type this there seems to have been only the most sporadic vandalism, and then in locations where any excuse will foment mischief so that hardly counts.

This relative calm was despite considerable efforts by certain parties in the media and elsewhere to fan the flames of violence.

Those incitements were in vain and I feel pretty damned good about that.

UPDATE: The prosecution receives some harsh words from 'The Dersh'. WOW!

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...when one has to conclude that they are just trolling us.

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