The Occasional Observer

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: