Month: April 2010

#rsrh The next iPhone found in a bar.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) And the guy who found it did what any self-respecting geek would do; he sent it in to Gizmodo, which then proceeded to subject it to a verification/analysis program that would do credit to a technology assessment team sent in to survey a flying saucer crash.  Seriously, I was wishing that we had had these people around during the Cold War, reverse-engineering and analyzing Soviet equipment; and then I realized, Hell, we probably had.

I found this seriously weird: it was the camouflage case that threw me.  Somebody was worried that people would notice that this iPhone was different from everybody else’s iPhone.  And they were apparently right.

Moe Lane

PS: Note: I own neither a JesusPhone nor a Crackberry, thus making me agnostic on this issue.

Are you a brave Republican Congressional staffer?

Because if you are, you have a destiny.

Congress may be fined tens of millions of dollars a year under its own health-care law, in part because the bill dumps members of Congress and their staffs from their current health-care plans.

[snip]

Before Congress incurs any fines, a complex series of events would be required to happen under the law. Generally speaking, an lower-tier aide — one not making a six-figure salary like some 2,000 House employees — would have to apply for government subsidies. The way the law works is that employers incur a $2,000 or $3,000 fine for each employee, depending on the circumstances, if only one of their employees obtains the subsidies.

So one lowly staff assistant could think he’s just getting some health-care help, while actually triggering a $50 million annual fine for Congress.

Embrace your destiny.  Start the ball rolling.  Force the Obama administration to demonstrate – once again – that their slipshod and slapdash approach to legislation requires constant intervention to keep even themselves from the consequences of their actions. Here is your monkey-wrench.  There is some exposed machinery.

You know what you need to do.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Worldwide collapse and deer-gutting techniques.

[UPDATE]: Instapundit readers.  And you know?  I think that I was referencing this.  The series, certainly; and I remember reading the interview.

(H/T: Instapundit) Let me note this paragraph of this post, which has by the way probably one of the most subtly depressing pictures that you’ll see today:

It is also worth pointing out that there are likely well over a billion people on earth who currently don’t interact with formal economies or technological society at all. They will be very well adapted to a post collapse world, you should find some and make friends. They will likely be far more helpful than a manual on restarting the internet, because they know how to gut a deer.

Unfortunately… no. I think that it was SM Stirling who noted that preservation of archaic skills and techniques occur in rich societies, not poor ones: rich societies are the ones who can afford to have hobbyists who can make and sell, say, spinning wheels to other hobbyists. Poor societies go with cheap, mass-produced crap made elsewhere. In other words, poor people do in fact interact with technological society, and in some ways are more dependent on it than the inhabitants of rich ones; they just can’t manipulate it to their benefit.  Which is why they’re still poor, frankly*.

Ironically, if we do have a worldwide collapse the groups most likely to survive will be communities more than 200 miles from a major North American city.  Who will then probably not need the highly elaborate information preservation systems that the post is advocating, and who will certainly have individuals in it who already know how to gut a deer.

Moe Lane

*I make no judgments or pronouncements about why they can’t manipulate it, merely that they can’t.

You lie.

2008:

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

2010 (bolding mine):

…since any Social Security plan would probably preserve benefits for those nearing retirement, it would not help the administration achieve its goal of reducing the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product, from 10 percent, within a decade.

One way to reach that 3 percent goal, by the calculations of Mr. Obama’s economic team: a 5 percent value-added tax, which would generate enough revenue to simultaneously permit the reduction in corporate tax rates Republicans favor.

Continue reading You lie.

Da Techguy is a good guy. Hit his tip jar.

I met him at the last CPAC, and he’s a good guy and a good blogger: and he’s going through a rough patch right now. Hit his tip jar if you were going to hit mine. Heck, hit his tip jar even if you weren’t going to hit mine.

Technically via Instapundit, although I figure that I would have seen it in the morning.

Gibbs’ contempt for press a marvelous thing.

You cannot command respect from others if you will not demand respect from yourself.

(Via AosHQ) Excuse me while I give a measured, well-thought-out response to this bit of news:

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs approached White House reporters earlier this year in an attempt to end the long-standing practice of sourcing claims to anonymous administration officials, he told CNN on Sunday.

During that meeting with the press corps, Gibbs offered correspondents a no-background policy, in which the White House would only give on-the-record interviews if reporters promised not to cite unnamed sources, he explained to host Howard Kurtz in an interview on “Reliable Sources.”

HAHAHA… (repeat for five minutes, interspersed with multiple pauses for breath, attempts to regain composure, and resumption of laughter) Continue reading Gibbs’ contempt for press a marvelous thing.

Rasmussen succumbs to snark.

Rasmussen usually makes a good-faith effort to avoid being sardonic, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves (bolding mine):

…voters are closely divided over Congress’ most important role: 49% say it’s passing good legislation, while 43% see it as preventing bad legislation from becoming law. That’s why 39% of voters say it’s a good thing in today’s political climate to be the Party of No. But 34% disagree and say it’s not a good thing.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters correctly identify Republicans as the political party some have labeled the Party of No. Despite, or perhaps because of, this high level of awareness, Republicans have built a solid lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The title of this Rasmussen Report, by the way: “57% Have More Trust In Those In Congress Who Voted Against Bailouts.”  And that’s not even the worst news for Democrats in there.  The worst news for Democrats in there is that they’ve spent the last year viciously attacking a movement that 52% of the population thinks has a better grasp of current affairs than the average Member of Congress.  Because that isn’t going to translate as ‘throw all of them out;’ it’s going to translate to ‘throw all of them who are standing in the way out”…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.