The Occasional Observer

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes hunters look like malevolent a-holes, and also can destroy a local population/ecosystem.  Exactly the reason hunters started the conservationist movement 125 years ago, pushing for game laws etc., to keep morons like this in line.

As described by a true high-achiever:

The details of my life are quite inconsequential ...

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament ...

My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon ... luge lessons ... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets ...

When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Vilmer ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's breathtaking ... I suggest you try it.

That this is probably Fredo's best post in the long history of OccObs. And Fredo loves good Fredo posts. Fredo's out.

The Most amazing website, er, it's already in the link. http://www.themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com/

I have no idea how good a company they are, but they've either got great values or great advertising consultants.

I love the whole series of ads they've had in recent years focusing on individual responsibility. In just 30 or 60 seconds, they manage to spin a narrative. One that, as my 8th grade English teacher might put it, "shows us, doesn't tell us," what they mean.

Our world seems to increasingly isolate us, keep our kids confined to their homes, coax us into spending our free time in front of a screen instead of talking with a neighbor or loved one.   Cocooning. And yet we are still connected through little decisions--in ways we wouldn't expect. As social creatures entwined in a web of coummunity, our decisions reverberate beyond their intended effects. And surprisingly, we can still make a real and postitive impact, even in a world that seems so crushingly big.

Romney: Picking A VP That Is Conservative Would "Preclude" Santorum

The "I Can't Believe We Haven't Already Done This" Casting Call:


Caribou Express:  Dex Jettster

Your long-requested garments are finally available!

for those of you who are Occasional Observers of cable news programming...

What shows do you like the best in each time slot?

Ever since Freedom Watch was cancelled a few weeks ago, there's a big gaping hole for me at the 8PM time slot.

Here's my current rundown:

From a recent DNC ad:

As RCP titled the link to this story,  "A vote for GOP is a vote for war."

I was just reading this article explaining that we're grossly underestimating the chances of human extinction. Scary stuff. I reserved this guy's book from the library because I wanted to learn more about it and because it will give me great material for my sci-fi writing.

But, it got me to thinking about near-term, non-extinction level problems caused by technology. I've been thinking about making a RepRap 3D printer and it occurred to me pretty soon these will be cheaper and smaller and more mainstream. Why couldn't someone bring one of them into an airport past security and print a gun?

Other recent potentially scary tech I've been reading about:
A credit card-sized fully-functional linux machine for $25
A headless robot cheetah
A cooperating flying swarm of robots

There's more, but I fear the wrath of our AI overlords.

The footage shown last night on Hannity shows a law-school age Barack Obama giving a glowing introduction to a man that many on the right are deeming a dyed-in-the-wool left-wing radical. While I don't know enough about "critical race theory" to offer an opinion as to whether it was representative of good scholarship, or simply race-baiting, I did find David French's post at the NRO to be a useful summation of the "controversy."

Today's Drudge Headlines, which should be scary as heck for Dems.  Unless of course, everyone wants to be like Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, and have their kids walk 6 miles to school.  Uphill.  Both ways.

POLL: 77% Say Gas Most Important Factor in Election...

REPORT: Obama lobbying against Keystone pipeline...

Dems vow to kill...

Energy Secy: I don't own a car...

that make it so hard on the enlightened among the XY set.

I mean, really.   This is so 1961.

The veiling shadow that glowers in the North takes shape. Canucks will suffer no rival.

War is coming.  America must defend itself, and therein lies our first challenge, for America is bankrupt and ready to fall.  

Everything depends now upon speed and upon the secrecy of our strike.

Super Tuesday is drawing to a close.  Ohio is still too close to call, but a narrow Romney victory seems inevitable.  Mitt will have won 5 or 6 of the 10 races by the end of the day.  Santorum will probably have 3, and have battled Mitt to a near draw in Ohio.  

The end result?  Mitt still seems inevitable.  His delegate lead grows with each set of contests.   However, for a candidate who seems to be the prohibitive favorite, his lack of across-the-board appeal to Republican voters has prevented him from winning clear and decisive victories.  Florida remains the only hotly contested state where Mitt won a decisive victory.  Mitt continues to be a weak front runner.

Luckily, the silver lining of Mitt's weakness as a frontrunner is that his opponents will soldier on.  And that means more opportunity for him to, hopefully, figure out an effective way to connect with middle and working class voters.  'Cause it's still not working for him.

Sarcastic Iron Sheik references aside, this article from the Wall Street Journal is an interesting and important read.

It speaks to how broken our health care system is.  How defeated by litigation and lawyers our doctors (and other professionals) have become.  How these same professionals are forced to give advice they wouldn't take themselves, because the threat of a lawsuit is hanging over their heads.

It also speaks to how unrealistic most of our expectations have become w/r/t what medicine can and can't do.  And how those who understand science best are more willing to let nature take its course, without blaming someone else or assuming death can be inevitably postpone by the right treatments.  Or even that such a postponement would be desirable with the quality-of-life trade-offs involved.

Proposed title: Husband's Best Friend.  Or, "Female Mute Gun"

Other proposed titles: "Wife's best friend"; "Parents' best friend"; "Dr. Evil"

"Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence."

From the moment I heard Andrew Breitbart was dead at 43, I, like half of the free world, was suspicious.  Here's a guy that embarrassed a lot of powerful people, and promised to keep doing so.  Well, here's a report that's sure to throw some fuel on that fire: