A Thing I Did Not Know This Morning

Winneconne, Wisconsin seceded in 1967:

In 1967, as a result of the town name being inadvertently left off the official Wisconsin road map, a secret committee formulated a plan to secede from Wisconsin, set up toll gates on local roads, begin annexation of nearby communities (starting with the city of Oshkosh) to form a Sovereign State of Winneconne, and declare war on the United States.  As an alternative plan, annexation by another state, preferably one with better weather, was sought.

Do you fear the force of the wind?

Poem written by Hamlin Garland written on the wall of Marine combat Observation Post Karma




Do you fear the force of the wind?
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them.
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf
Go wade like the crane
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan
You'll grow ragged, and weary, and swarthy,
But you'll walk like a man.

- Hamlin Garland

Sharepoint considered harmful

When I am done using Sharepoint I feel like someone has sawed off the top of my head and poured sawdust in: I know less than when I started.

Thank God they are on our side

The British sent out some guys to track down a Taliban warlord.

Having identified their target, a fierce battle ensued during which the warlord was killed. To prove that they had got their man, the Gurkhas attempted to remove the body for identification. Further enemy fire necessitated a fast exit minus corpse. So, an unnamed soldier drew his kukri ...  removed the man's head and legged it.

Showing superlative initiative, attention to detail, quick thinking under pressure.

Captain said he wanted positive ID, he's darn well gonna get it.

Via.

Tough Love

Perhaps we'd have less of this if society hearkened to sage child-rearing advice ...

Perhaps a more severe variant — a Super Time-Out, if you will — should be considered, where instead of being confronted with an abstract absence of stimulation (difficult to make the cognitive leap into behavior deterrence), the child is instead thrust into a stressful survival situation. For instance, if he teases the cat, submerge him immediately in a box of spiders. He will quickly learn not to tease the cat.

Whatever it is that Society is doing clearly isn't working so good. A box of spiders could hardly make things worse.

. . . He kept screaming . . .

It's not all sunshine, snappy uniforms and victory parades: Raw Stuff by Michael Fay.

Disturbing pictures at the link.

If you have sex you will get pregnant

"Wow, Uncle Brian," my nephew said. "I've never heard so many f-bombs in one sentence before."

This is why.

Daughter-niece Heather has a friend, N____.  N____ is pregnant.  N____ is fourteen.  The daddy, B____, is seventeen.  N____ is keeping the baby.  N____'s momma is very supportive.  N____ is keeping the baby.

All of this delivered to my ears in a very matter-of-fact tone in the car, just gossip.  Teens having babies happens all the time where Heather comes from.  It is the done thing for girls to have pupped out four or five children by as many boys before they've graduated high school.  It does not provoke condemnation, it does not lead to name calling or shaming or anything more than a muttered tsk, if that much. 

Somehow in the brain-housing group of an entire generation of children the idea that sex and making babies are the same thing has gotten lost.  There is sex.  It feels good.  Making babies is an accident. 

The tooth fairy has been replaced by the baby fairy.

My jaw dropped, my censor disengaged and out came the invective.

Ain't proud of it.  But I won't take it back, neither.  This shit has got to stop.

Female Engagement Team

Michael Fay is back in Afghanistan . . .

There’s a minor statistic that doesn’t get a whole lot of play in the coverage of Afghanistan. In fact, based on my own observations, I would classify this bit of information as little more than a rumor. But the Marine Corps, being what it is, has decided to take this data and run with it. This is the unsubstantiated claim I’m referring to; half the population of Afghanistan is women. The mission of the FET Marines is to reach out to them. Those of us here can tell you there’s a better chance of encountering a Yeti than an Afghan woman. Be that as it may, the Marines have organized and deployed groups of female jarheads to actively meet with and engage them in the political process.

Sergeant Melissa Hernandez is an MP (military police) by trade. Today she commands a FET. She’s as geared up as any Marine I’ve ever seen, along with a team of two other female Marines and a female Navy corpsman. They’re on their way outside the wire to meet with local women. In my humble opinion these women are doing more than the entire National Organization of Women put together.

Three Monkys at Restore

Hey .. where did the boys go?

Big Green Weenie

Charles Bolden.  Graduate of the Naval Academy.  100 combat missions in an A-6.  Test pilot.  Astronaut, flew twice, mission commander twice. Commanded 30,000 marines in Kuwait.  Retired as major general.  Selected to lead NASA.

A very accomplished man, a very smart, savvy leader, a man who mastered a difficult career.

Gibbs, at his daily news briefing, was asked why Bolden had made the comment.

"It's an excellent question, and I don't think — that was not his task, and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said.

Stabbed in the back.  That has got to sting a little, ya know?

What's a big green weenie?  When you're due for a weekend of liberty, and the gunny calls you out for a working party, that's a big green weenie.  Have the CO tell you to enforce an unpopular policy, only to have him change his mind a week later when it proves unpopular with the troops, and you look like a tool?  Green Weenie Time.

Why we need the rich:

Why we need the rich: A message to Americans – and our leaders in Washington DC – on wealth creation

By Ziad K. Abdelnour, President & CEO Blackhawk Partners, Inc. On 23 Jun 2010

It has an often repeated axiom that a person can learn a whole lot about a society by how it treats its poor. But just as much can be learned by looking at how that society treats its rich. Indeed, the economic future of the poor – and our nation – will be determined in the coming decades by how we treat the people in this country who create great wealth. It will be determined by our understanding of the so-called rich. And our ability to protect this minority.

It is an unpopular thing to say, I know. Rich people need help? Rich people need to be protected? Rich people a minority? Give me a break. They just seem to keep getting richer! Regrettably, too many Americans, and far too many intellectuals and politicians, don’t understand these people we call “the rich.” And how it is they got rich in the first place.

More.

We live in a drab age

John C. Wright

... we live in a day and age where people do not wear togas and capes any more, and what we have instead of knights in mail and royalty in pomp are soldiers in drab camo and politicians in drab three-piece suits. We live in a drab age. The real answer is the same reason why the sword is the favored weapon of the galactic empire, and why space princesses are more fun to rescue from ninja vampire space pirates than the daughter of a space senator.

We need (one hopes only in moderate amounts) a little color, gaiety, mystery and romance, to remind us of what we all secretly know.

We all secretly know that there is something cooler than the real world out there, somewhere. If the real world satisfied the human heart, we would all read newspapers and reports on potato crop production in the Ukraine, and these real things would never bore us.

If the human heart were satisfied with the world, then every day would be Monday, and all trains would be freight trains, and never the circus train.

Too right.

Hollywood?  You produce a film like the one that Mr. Wright showed a clip of on his post and I will see it, and drag along the wife as well.

Heather in the Rain

Why a beach umbrella? She's 15 and 1/2: that's the way she rolls.

Clearing Tabs - Part Two

How the Expiring Bush Tax Cuts Affect You. Do you pay taxes? Your taxes are going up.


Haiti's Camps of Despair.


The End of the Apollo Era - Finally?  Apollo was an abnormality.  Time to get back to business.


And the business of NASA is?  Making people feel really, really good about themselves.  Perhaps they'll write a new version of 'Kum-ba-ya' and we'll all sing around the campfire of peace and harmony like a friggin' Benetton ad.


Lack of new IPOs and Impact on Performance: Chicago Boys.

Clearing Tabs - Part One

Unemployment Benefits Aren't Stimulus - Arthur Laffer.

The most obvious argument against extending or raising unemployment benefits is that it will make being unemployed either more attractive or less unattractive, and thereby lead to higher unemployment. Empirical research supports this view.

Gallagher is a Paranoid, Right-Wing, Watermelon-Smashing Maniac.  In which the reviewer deploys stereotypes about the audience to slag a comedian who deploys stereotypes on stage.


Rails Magazine Issue #6.  PDF. 


Crowdsourcing SEC Petition. Paul Spinrad and the Sustainable Economies Law Center have submitted a petition to the SEC for a de minimis exemption to current securities regulation. They're requesting that crowdfunding and the sale of securities should become legal as long as the total amount raised is under $100,000 and each individual buys no more than $100 of securities.
sign the petition


Coyote Blog: My new column is up this week at Forbes.  This week it discusses the regulatory burden on small businesses.


The Gormogons: Why It's Really Hard to Stage a Coup in the United States.


Solaris Features: Service Management Facility - Part 1.  Great intro to an outstanding feature of Solaris.

Too Fail To Big!

I love Pete's turn-of-the-phrase, here.

3 .. 2 .. 1 .. urinate. We have urination!

I don't think I've been peed on by any of my boys.  Had some close calls.  Wish I had a box of these.

As it turns out, Peepee Teepees don’t prevent baby boys from peeing all
over the place as much as they simply get propelled up and away by the
stream of urine, absorbing a drop or two along the way until coming to
a damp, undignified rest several inches away from a fresh, warm puddle
of pee.

That sounds like fun! 

I'd be encouraging my boys to pee in the teepee all the time and they'd be odder than they are now.  So maybe not.

But I'll have grand-kids, someday.

I didn't expect a kind of ...

NOBODY expects the KGB! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and boobies ...

Last snowfall - April 8, 2010

Taken April 8, 2010.

 

sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie . . .

Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker.

And that is how I felt about the news that Al Qaeda is publishing agit-prop a magazine in English.

A jihad-proclaiming, child-raping, blaspheming 13th century barbarian ain't got nothing to say that I want to hear.

More jobs! Not here, of course.

In news rumor completely unrelated to the way the Coke [1] party is handling domestic affairs, down at the plant, work is considering expanding manufacturing space to handle projected orders.  Three new manufacturing sites, lots of employment.

Not here in the States.  Got no idea why.  Neither do the asshats in D.C. or Madison, apparently.

[1] Pepsi? Can't keep 'em straight.

I guess Boeing got it's start this way

The campaign commercials this season are practically writing themselves.

Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.

Or as it has been shortened up for twitter ...

"Unemployment Checks create jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name."

Being reasonable, yeah, unemployment benefits give people money to spend.  This is not a bad thing - if they're gonna take my money, I'd rather have it go to Bob down the street than to have a congress-critter fritter it away on hookers and blow.

But ... create jobs? Srsly Madame Speaker?

Don Colacho’s Aphorisms . . .

# 1,372

A man is called a Communist if he fights for the state to assure him a bourgeois existence.