Brickmuppet Blog 2.0

March 28, 2016

So Very True...

(Some of her typings not subject to the 'Trust and Safety Council are here)

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February 16, 2016

Is a Red Guard in a Grey Suit of No Concern?

One troubling kerfuffle that is getting short shrift outside of right leaning blogs. involves a small time author who got cut by his publisher because his villains motivations were impolitic. This says more about the publisher than anything else, and it would be a non story, if not for the reports of the very pervasive nature of a monoculture in a lot of the publishing industry.

One argument that I hear regarding stories like this is that it is not news and there is nothing wrong with it because the 'policing' is being done by a corporation and it's not a government doing the censoring, so it's not actually censorship.

By that logic, the Hayes Code and the Comics Code Authority which were instituted not by the government, but by trade associations and agreements between corporations were just peachy keen. Even the Hollywood Blacklist, though initially a reaction to contempt of congress citations, was not a government pogrom but was initiated voluntarily by the studios. If that sort of thing appeals to you then fine, enjoy your homeowners association and live happily in your chosen dystopia. However, for the rest of us, when virtual monopoly that controls a good chunk of public discourse silences viewpoints the effect can be the same in many ways as a government doing it. The differences can be reduced further when these entities quietly collude with the government in suppressing viewpoints. Of course, having the government barge in and force these entities to allow the speech they are banning would unambiguously be a 1st amendment violation. However, the situation as it is developing is deeply troubling. Thus it is wise to ensure that people are aware of these things and encourage alternate venues for online socialization and different outlets for publication.

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December 31, 2015

Even Those On The Side Of The Angels

who take too many shortcuts in pursuit of their goals often end up in a different place than they intended serving different ends than they hoped and may find that they have merely replaced the monsters they sought to vanquish.

Fallen Angel by Saburo

Yeah...it's political, so below the fold it goes...

more...

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1 Couple of thoughts:

First, the thing about the hard left is that while they will form a circle and defend themselves from outside attacks no matter the truth of them, they will form a circular firing squad if they see dissent within the ranks. If you can prod them in the right direction, the fireworks can be spectacular.

That's why they haven't ever managed to completely take over; they are all too ready to eat their own.

Second, those dates for the rise and fall of empires are, basically, garbage. The Roman Entity lasted from 509 BC (the founding of the Republic) to 1453 AD (the last days of the Byzantine Empire). That's nearly two thousand years. Things were rather a mess after the Fourth Crusade in 1204, but even if we discount the Byzantine successor states and the re-establishment (and entirely ignoring the Holy Roman Empire and modern Italy) that's still 1700 years, not ~200.

For Greece he's only chosen the Hellenistic period, ignoring both the Classical and Roman periods (which three periods were culturally a single continuous civilization) and the whole Byzantine period, as well as the earlier Mycenaean and Minoan cultures (fair enough in that case; they essentially disappeared in the Bronze Age Collapse), and also the Archaic period, which presaged Classical Greece, and was a not inconsiderable, if rather loosely-organised, state. The Archaic period ended with the Persian invasion - but the Greeks won that war, so that's hardly a reason to ignore it.

For Britain, he chooses the dates of 1700 to 1950. But while the Acts of Union were passed in 1707, the kingdoms were united under a common monarch since 1603, and a unified England goes back to 1042 - albeit with one or two (or three) hiccups over the centuries. Picking the dates for the rise and fall of Britain and ignoring both Elizabeths seems problematic.

I'm no expert on the Ottoman Empire, but given that it was one of the Central Powers in WWI, while it was certainly in decline by then (and had been for quite some time) I think an expiration date of 1570 is stretching the truth a little.

I think the predictive power of his model is limited at best.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jan 3 09:49:09 2016 (PiXy!)

2 I've been arguing with a Bernie Sanders supporter for four days. It really brings home how a person with no grounding in civics, physics, or logic would vote. Not that I'm saying all Bernie supporters are like that. I'm sure some of him actually like his record, or maybe just look at the rest of the field and say "what the hell." But this is a kool-aid drinker. This guy is one of the ones who thought Obama was Jesus, and now thinks it may actually be Bernie.

It's an incredibly superficial discussion compared to the content of this blog post, which was fascinating and thoughtful.

Oh, and I was going to post something similar to what Pixy did, although I think the discussion of when one would say Britain became truly representative in nature is debatable. Interesting and worth the discussion, of course.

Posted by: Ben at Sun Jan 3 13:53:47 2016 (DRaH+)

3 Pixy, you are in Australia. You're looking at the chart upside down.
Actually....
The chart and some made from it has been cropping up lately (usually unattributed) and has been referenced occasionally with the chants of "DOOM!" and "Lets cast aside the rules and go down fighting".
I think the possibility of a general collapse is greater than many suppose and more worrisome since the sort of enlightenment we grew out of is rare. However I specifically wanted to use the pre-and post Rubicon Rome (and the omission of Venice) to debunk the notion that the 200-250 year lifespan is inevitable.
On the other hand, all your points are valid Pixy. These are all specific political arraignments more akin to nation states than civilization itself. I swear I had one or two sentences in there quibbling with Spain (which was bankrupt and virtually a spent force after the Armada but did not loose meaningful territory until the 1800s) and the UK, for which we probably should start the clock after the Fall of Cromwell though I've heard other places refer to "About 1700" for the start of the Empire...and I'd really draw the curtain just a bit later (at the Suez Crisis) for the point where keeping it up truly became impossible.
The point you make regarding Eastern Rome is well taken and a lot of people agree with it. Although Byzantium was a distinct entity it was arguably only a bit more so than the Republic/Empire divide for Rome. On the other hand, as I point out, Rome reinvented itself and was certainly Rome before and after the Rubicon.
With the exception of the Western Roman Empire none of those ended with the sort of calamitous dark age we associate with civilizational collapse (and even the chaos of the post Roman period is overblown) so civilizational collapse does not mean to him what it does to most people.
The Mamelukes he mentions (as opposed to three other Mamelukes) were a sort of predecessor to the Ottomans trying to rebuild the Caliphate and based in Cairo...they were succeeded by what we call the Ottomans, though that is a western term and it refers to several dynasties. They were kind of like Spain in that they pretty much were a zombie empire after a debt crisis and military reversal, though I'd put the date at or around the siege of Vienna for their decline.
Persia should not be on the list at all.
Sir Glub makes some good points, but that chart, while probably intended to be a conversation starter is counterproductive. Using the criteria he does you could (with a few exceptions like the Yuan) be talking about Chinese dynasties but that wouldn't fit neatly into the time span Glub has chosen. On the other hand, using numbers that are not very close to the current age of the U.S.A. ie: 100-300 years would involve a TL;DR of a list.
No nation lasts forever but predestination is not a meaningful influence upon history unless a citizenry chooses to believe in it and give up.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jan 3 14:13:37 2016 (AaBUm)

4 The Tokugawa Shogunate began in 1603 and ended in 1868, 265 years.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Jan 3 16:06:52 2016 (+rSRq)

5 China is a good counter-example - dynasties changed, but there's been a recognisable Chinese political entity for 4000 years. Egypt is another counter example - 2800 years of self-rule across 31 dynasties (with a couple of Persian incursions and a mild case of Sea Peoples), and nearly 1000 years of Greco-Roman rule.

France in the late 18th and 19th centuries is an example in the other direction - the government was overthrown from without or within 9 to 12 times (depending on what you count) but at the end of it all, it was still France.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, though.... 226 years.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jan 3 18:28:47 2016 (PiXy!)

6 Anyway, I'd argue that Western civilisation is a single entity; and it's been continuously flourishing at least since 1543 despite the best efforts of various categories of barbarian along the way.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jan 3 18:39:19 2016 (PiXy!)

7 Although Russia cannot hold a handle to China in this regard, it existed as a nation since 988 A.D. or so, and continues to exist today. Although the Romanov dynasty only lasted for 234 years, the preceding dynasty, Ryuriks, lasted for 736 years (through the Mongol occupation, natch), and the Communist rule lasted for 74 years. So there is quite a range of numbers to pick.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Jan 5 00:10:20 2016 (XOPVE)

That's only really true if you're taking the Duchy of Moscow to be "Russia". Russia in that era was like Germany, a lot of independent city-states who spoke the same language.

A lot of those city-states were annihilated by the Mongols and that left a power vacuum which the Duchy of Moscow capitalized (heh) on, but modern Russia as we know it doesn't go back that far AFAIK. I'd put the start at Peter the Great, myself.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tue Jan 5 07:06:44 2016 (+rSRq)

9 Yep, which goes back to how arbitrary it becomes. Except in cases like the fall of Rome or the Bronze Age Collapse, you have a lot of leeway about where you draw your lines, and your conclusions are only as good as your justifications for those lines.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Jan 6 05:52:21 2016 (PiXy!)

10 Jaques Barzun explicitly argued in From Dawn to Decadence that European or "Western" culture terminated with the long world war, and that we're in the early stages of a post-Western cultural moment. That's a very Eurocentric point of view - he clearly didn't consider Americans to be part of "Western civilization" - but that list of "civilizations" or even "nations" is pretty dubious. There was a Persia of some sort intermittently for two thousand years, a Rome of some sort for about as long, and Russia existed before the Romanovs and continued under communist bastards after the Romanovs were exterminated. Culture is upstream from politics and all that.
And Japan's been in cultural existence forever and aye - the Tokugawa were a regime, not the nation.

Posted by: Mitch H. at Thu Jan 7 16:01:36 2016 (jwKxK)

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February 14, 2015

If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.

After many moves, I reside now in the town of my birth.

And yet...

Today I find myself taking the pledge above; a pledge that in the country of my birth would have been unimaginable due to its redundancy.

"Fundamental transformation" indeed.

The United States of America is one of a few nations that is not defined by an ethnicity. In fact it is not even defined by geography. The U.S.A. is an experiment in facilitating a set of ideals. Take those away and the nation is no more, no matter what the map, or the U.S. code may say.

Which brings us to this...

In October, then FEC Vice Chairwoman Ann M. Ravel promised that she would renew a push to regulate online political speech following a deadlocked commission vote that would have subjected political videos and blog posts to the reporting and disclosure requirements placed on political advertisers who broadcast on television. On Wednesday, she will begin to make good on that promise.

There are thoughts on this by other far more eloquent and prolific than I here, here, and here,

No apologies for this being above the fold.

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February 01, 2015

Just the Darndest Thing...

A cynical person, vaguely aware of the Sheldon Silver scandals that are rocking New York politics right now, might conclude that the spontaneous combustion of a certain warehouse (containing government records) which was so pyrotechnically impressive that it required a 7 alarm response, has caused the evacuation of the surrounding neighborhoods and may burn for days, would be indicative of some truly incendiary information having been in the warehouse, instead of the whole thing being nothing more than a particularly egregious run on sentence and a bad pun.

'What?"

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January 24, 2015

The Buried Lede

...in the State of the Union Speech is actually kind of disturbing...

"CRAP!...this sounds like it's gonna involve discussing Politics and I don't wanna get struggled against this early in the semester!"

Don't worry. We put these things below the fold...

more...

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January 15, 2015

Cautionary Tale or 'How To' Manual?

I guess it depends on who reads these things.

Pixy has thoughts on one of the less appealing responses to the recent massacre in Paris.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

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December 25, 2014

Look Who's Back in the News

Well, it seems that a procedural discrepancy has resulted between one (Washington Post Article) and twelve (Drudge headline) lab techs being exposed to Ebola.

This difference in numbers is not just due to link-baitery on the part of Drudge, it appears that up to a dozen people were in close proximity to an Ebola sample with at least one being closely monitored for the next 21 days.

But wait there's more

The mistake comes after a series of incidents this summer involving the mishandling of dangerous pathogens at the nationâ€™s labs. An incident at a CDC lab in June potentially exposed dozens of employees to live anthrax because employees failed to properly inactivate the anthrax when transferring samples.

Ebola Tan sez: "You know what? I'm really starting to like those CDC guys!"

In other Ebola news:

As of December first, 1400 people were being monitored for Ebola in the US.

The Ebola Czar decided to leave his post early next year. As Professor Reynolds says "It's almost as if he was brought in as a distraction. "

Also: Sierra Leone has canceled Christmas because of the outbreak.

Despite recent improvements in treatment, the current death toll is over 7,500, out of just under 20,000 cases.

This grim number provides a useful means to test predictions against results...

A couple of months ago, there were predictions of 1.4 million infected by the end of next month. Of course there are still 36 days to catch up, but that grim forecast is unlikely to be borne out. Thus, one can take comfort from the fact that the doomsayers were sufficiently wrong as to be off by a bit under two orders of magnitude.

On the other hand, as the linked article notes, the doomsayers in question were the CDC.

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December 17, 2014

Being a Terrorist Sure Does Get Results

North Korea and/or affiliated individuals have gotten a film's release cancelled by making terroristic threats. Sony knuckled under and pulled The Interview after a computer hack which revealed that Sony employs a bunch of jerks was complimented with a threat to do...something September eleventhy if the company released said film as scheduled.

Wow.

Cuba meanwhile, took an American hostage and got the embargo lifted as a condition of his release.

Neo has thoughts on this development including why the super secret nature of the Cuba capitulation should be extremely worrying with regard to the ongoing negotiations with Iran.

However, in the larger sense, the implication that terrorism now works quite efficiently in achieving one's strategic (and artistic) goals is likely to be a much bigger issue. While there was concern about such precedents in the wake of the Bergdhal and Innocence of Muslims controversies, these two events are rather unambiguous in the total overwhelming victory achieved by the perpetrators of violence. Sony is not a government, but its actions send a message about the stomach society has for standing up for free speech. This message is unlikely to be lost upon those that would do us harm.

Of course the fruits one gets from resorting to violence needs to be assessed in comparison with how one is treated by peacefully using the political process to support one's beliefs or policy goals.

Only then is a full assessment of the messages being sent by the powers that be be able to be fully appreciated.

I fear today's double dose of Quislingisms will come back to haunt us for years to come.

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Of Course...

....sacred honor requires that Brickmuppet Blog host this trailer.

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November 23, 2014

I Have a Question

It's...political...

"Please! No! I just wanted to take the day off and not worry about anything other than bidding on a Cool Science Shirt!"

Fear not.

My question is below the fold...

more...

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I think it doesn't work legally. He can pardon people for past crimes, but he can't immunize them from prosecution for future crimes.

And every day they spend in the US is illegal, effectively a new crime.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Nov 23 18:02:43 2014 (+rSRq)

2 The freakout is because the illegals are ready pool of the Democrat Party fodder. As soon as they are legalized, they are captured by the welfare state and voila. The myth of hardworking strawberry picker is just a myth: most of them would want nothing better than apply for food stamps. And immediately they become a giant constituency on the dole. Aside from the political angle, they are also expensive.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Nov 23 20:29:51 2014 (RqRa5)

There have been jokes about a government who was so disappointed with their voters that they dismiss them and elect new ones.

That seems to be what is actually happening here, per Pete's point. Some conservatives have taken to calling them "Undocumented Democrats". For a long time there was discussion on the left about the "emerging Democratic Majority", the idea being that as minorities continued to increase, and as young whites continued to be liberal (or to be indoctrinated in leftism in school) that the Democrats would, eventually, come permanently into power.

That no longer seems possible with the electorate we have, for a variety of reasons, and now the suspicion is that the latest plot to create a permanent Democratic Majority is to add ten million Democratic voters to the nation.

The scary part is that it might well work. And then the US would de-facto become a one-party state, with everything that implies.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Nov 23 21:09:39 2014 (+rSRq)

4 I used to live under a total Democrat (equivalent) rule. It wasn't so bad. It was inconvenient in some respects, and the living standards weren't great. The most unpleasant part was the permanent and inescapable high crime levels.

I think a lot depends on how the populace and its culture take to the liberal tyranny. Japan adapted quite nicely, for example. Mexico did not fare so well. In both cases popular movements came about, aiming to overthrow the one-party state -- not terribly successful, all things considered. India is about the same with recent developments, too. Seems like taking about 50 to 70 years for things to boil over. The only one-party state that was more durable than that is China (that I can recall).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Nov 24 02:49:06 2014 (RqRa5)

5 BTW, Steven once wrote (on topic of Alberta getting in): once you are in, you are in, and we fought a civil war about it. Well, Russia fought a civil war about it too, and just look at it now.

So, in my opinion that civil war does not matter much. If the permanet Democrat rule is established in around 2024, it will fall in 2090. And when that happens, Texas will easily secede, like Lithuania or Taiwan.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Nov 24 02:53:07 2014 (RqRa5)

6 Part of the increasingly negative reaction - even from the reliable center left is that we are well used to this administration telling us that they will only do this or that, but we quickly find out there is much more to this than they say.

Posted by: topmaker at Thu Nov 27 19:13:37 2014 (2yZsg)

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November 04, 2014

Election Day

The radio this morning had caller after caller going on about the issues in Virginia Beach, where the touch screen machines have apparently become self aware...and decided that they are Democrats.

Fortunately, here in Portsmouth, we use paper ballots and thus do our bit to keep Skynet at bay.

However, this morning at my polling place there were only three other voters present and I spent less time ther than I would have if I'd stopped for gas.

Elections are decided by those who bother to vote.

If I can't persuade you of the importance of doing your civic duty, perhaps this young lady can.

Gai Rei Zero's Isayama Yomi was rendered sans text by Zhen Lin

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September 14, 2014

Understanding Modern Vocabulary

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.

To address the allegations, we've tracked down one of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Train hopping Linguists to parse the recent statements by the State Department on current events. So, from somewhere along the Masassas Line, here is our expert on exposition.

^{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]}

Well...

I guess the rest of the post needs to go below the fold...

more...

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August 14, 2014

Poetry Corner

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."

Fear not gentle readers....We'll put it below the fold.

more...

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August 07, 2014

I Find to my Astonishment That I Do Not Immediately Despise This Plan

The President just gave a speech.

It was rather more direct than usual.

First some background.

ISIS (or ISIL) has been slaughtering, crucifying and otherwise creatively exterminating Christians for some time now. However, they have taken as their latest project the complete extermination of the Yazidi, an ancient community in Ninevah whose faith is an offshoot of Zoroastrianism,. The Yadzidi survivors have fled in an attempt to make for Baghdad but are now besieged and surrounded on a mountain in the desert where starvation and thirst are beginning to take their toll. Thus we are on the verge of a near total genocide.

ISIL has also taken the dam overlooking Baghdad which means they control vast amounts of electrical power a good percentage of the capitals water and can, should they blow the dam, drown thousands of civilians.

Elsewhere, the Kurds are on the ropes and the whole region is becoming an abattoir. Finally, ISIL, has put their territorial gains and the months they have been largely unmolested to good use, having grown from around 10,000 troops to well over 50,000.

The President is in a difficult position and none of the options before him are desirable. This evening he announced that US forces have begin air dropping aid to the Yadzidi and he has authorized what he describes as "targeted strikes" to defend them and a US consulate being menaced by ISIL troops.

As many of you know, I am not in agreement with our President on most maters, but tonight he is faced with a selection of wretched options and he chose what he believes is the least dreadful amongst them. There will be a lot of second guessing on this and in the weeks and months to come erudite and voluminous critiques of the minutia of his decision will be made and judgements will be passed with the profound wisdom and knowledge that comes from hindsight.

But for right now, Barak Obama, our president, has decided to attempt to stop a genocide. There is much to warrant concern, but I for one do not immediately despise this plan.

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"...our president, has decided to attempt to stop a genocide."

What I fear is that this isn't a sincere attempt, but rather a token effort to deflect criticism and eventual blame.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thu Aug 7 22:38:32 2014 (+rSRq)

2 Well, that's certainly not an impossibility, but for tonight I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Aug 7 22:48:00 2014 (DnAJl)

3 I'm just glad he's doing something other than abdicating involvement and urging the murderers and victims to work it out on their own.

Posted by: Ben at Fri Aug 8 11:40:23 2014 (S4UJw)

4 I have been giving our various administrations a pass on the Middle East since Carter in '76. There never seem to be good options there. Only the best of the worst.

The problem with the current administration is public doubt over motive. When all your decisions are based on politics, the citizens will ascribe political motivations to every thing you do. As Steven pointed out, that seems to be his only motivating factor here.

ISIL has come a long way from the JV league, it seems.

Posted by: topmaker at Sat Aug 9 09:19:31 2014 (i0rVe)

This guy pegged it:

But with Obama's latest decision to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), the Obama Doctrine has now come into focus: pretend to give a damn about suffering of innocents when it hits the headlines, ignore it the rest of the time.

Because Obama doesn't truly care. At all. He is a master emotional manipulator, capable of achieving effective posturing when it comes to the suffering of innocents. That's why the media constantly swoon at his "toneâ€ and his "attitudeâ€ during his press conferences. They repeatedly praise his "angerâ€ or his "determination.â€ But they rarely ask just what he's doing to fight evil.

Any deployment of power will be short-term and ineffective. Obama will do all he can for innocents up until the moment when he doesn't have to do so. Then he'll leave them to die.

I just read that a second round of airstrikes -- four bombs! -- happened today, following the first round of two bombs.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sat Aug 9 19:14:23 2014 (+rSRq)

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June 14, 2014

An IT Question for Pixy (and any other IT professionals) UPDATED

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'.

Pixy, as an IT professional, does the total credulity expressed by so many regards this data loss indicate that the powers that be actually have proof of the existence of a population of Magical Malevolent Data Eating Bunyips whose grazing range extends throughout the tubes of the internet?

I'm thinking that this hypothesis is the only way to square that circle.

Also: Assuming they are out there, can we coax these beasts into feeding instead on anything involving Air Jordan Snakeskins and their Dadaist proponents?

UPDATE: I mean seriously, ruling out bunyip involvement would have such implications as to open a can of yowies.

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1 At first I thought the Obama administration was just trying to make the Carter years look good, but it now appears that he's trying to rehabilitate Nixon's reputation as well. Obama is just so darn generous that way...

Posted by: Siergen at Sat Jun 14 19:55:22 2014 (8/vFI)

2 I think you're just going to have to turn on the only mee.nu members can post option. That stopped my spam. I don't know how long one would need to leave it on before they stop trying. The few posters who don't have accounts can get them easily enough.

Posted by: Mauser at Sat Jun 14 20:40:20 2014 (TJ7ih)

3
Actually, I've pondered that and I may have to do it, but I'm loathe to as a number of my commentors are not Mee.nuvians.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Jun 14 20:47:39 2014 (DnAJl)

4 The level of incompetence commonly found in IT around the world often leaves me surprised that anything works at all. But it does seem to be the Obama administration's go-to defence in every scandal of the last six years: We're not corrupt, we're just incompetent.

At what point does incompetence become an impeachable offence?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jun 15 01:41:42 2014 (2yngH)

5 This is the computer equivalent of "my dog ate the homework".

Sure, somewhere out there, there have been verified cases of dogs having eaten homework. But most of the time when it is used as an excuse, the homework was not in fact eaten by the dog... and some of the times when it was, it was first put in the dog bowl after having been rubbed with bacon and drenched in gravy.

It's an excuse offered where the one offering the excuse doesn't actually care if they are believed or not. And, really, why should Obama care? The Senate wouldn't vote to impeach him if he went into the chamber and shot a Senator.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Sun Jun 15 04:37:54 2014 (ZeBdf)

6 Yes, but what about the bunyips?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jun 15 06:23:56 2014 (DnAJl)

7 They're real enough, but the physical damage concomitant with a bunyip incursion is such that they rarely go unnoticed.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jun 15 09:05:40 2014 (2yngH)

8 I would hope the IRS could do better, but I do know a fun IT story from a lower-level governmental area.

All the payroll data for this location (for a couple hundred employees) was handled by one computer. So, the IT "department" (who was one person) was tasked with finding a way to back it up.

The backup consisted of copying the C:\ drive data to the D:\ drive.

Not terribly smart, since anything that wrecks the whole machine takes out both drives, right?

Even less smart when the C:\ drive finally crashed, and at that point our alleged IT professional realized that the D:\ drive was another partition on the same physical HDD.

Said IT person was somehow not fired for gross incompetence.

Posted by: Mikeski at Mon Jun 16 20:16:31 2014 (Zlc1W)

9 My last full-time network and systems admin job was with a government agency. Incompetence was fine, as long as you stayed in the bureaucratic rails. In fact, *anything* was fine, as long as you never made someone higher up have to answer a question.

Of course, that last bit applies outside of government work, too...but if you're in tight with the bureaucracy, you'll (usually) be protected. Just don't quit. Make them fire you.

Wait...getting off track here.

Posted by: Ben at Tue Jun 17 08:07:38 2014 (S4UJw)

10 And now it's turning out that six other high-ranking IRS people have similar e-mail retention issues.

They really need to stop buying Western Digital hard drives.

Posted by: Mauser at Wed Jun 18 06:15:46 2014 (TJ7ih)

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June 10, 2014

OH WOW

There is a bit of political news from my home state that is worthy of comment.

Oh NO! Not NOW! Not politics! I just submitted a techno-yaoi manuscript to Bantam and now I'm gonna get frickking blacklisted!

You should have tried Baen, but fear not! We put the politics below the fold.

more...

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May 20, 2014

Thoughts on Tyson's Dismissal of Philosophy

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.

Thus, as much awesome as he exudes in popularizing science, Tyson's statement that students should actively avoid any philosophy courses and that any questions along philosophical lines are a waste of time is rather worrisome. His argument is superficially utilitarian...the irony of which is no doubt lost on Dr Tyson, but somewhere David Hume and Jeremy Bentham are amused....but unimpressed.

A much more articulate and literate take on this can be found here. (via Borepatch)

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March 24, 2014

Suddenly

....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.

The referendum was non binding, and is being dismissed by the Italian government, but 89% is a big enough share of the vote that the issue is not going away.

We in the US might arguably loose our status as the oldest existing republic...Venice was once an independent republic and was at one time an economic powerhouse that contributed greatly to the Renaissance. Its system of government was referenced in debates on the US constitution.Venice was probably the longest lived Republic in history, lasting 1100 years. The 200 odd years since its destruction by the Jacobins spans less than a tenth of the time it existed. In fact after the Napoleonic Wars the region fought for and eventually gained their independence from Austria Hungary and re-established the republic (as San Marco) for 17 months only to have the area reconquered and later annexed by Italy.

Now the people of Northeastern Italy, fed up with Italian corruption and high taxes have held a referendum with 89% of the vote in favor of secession. The area has always been somewhat culturally distinct from the rest of Italy since its absorption.

Elsewhere in Italy, Sardinia is also looking to secede but is going about it differently. They are not just attempting to leave Italy, they are petitioning to accede into Switzerland, pointing out that the 8 new cantons would bring with them BEACHES, which Switzerland rather lacks at the moment.

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February 17, 2014

Happy Presidents Day

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

...and take time to educate our readers about the fact that the United States played no part in Gallipoli or the Battle of Verdun, both of which took place before the US declared war in 1917.

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