…but it was English, which meant that it had a word in it that is considerably less objectionable in English English than it is in American English.
So, here. A smartphone made out of… well, not paper; flexible plastic, it looks like.
Month: May 2011
#rsrh My thought for the day.
If you want to see how bad a particular group is at communication, don’t look at how they handle releasing bad news: watch and see how they go about releasing good news. Anybody can be overwhelmed by a tale of disaster… but it takes real skill to throw away the inherent advantages that comes from releasing information that puts you in a favorable light.
Just saying, that’s all.
Sixty bucks for gas and Mickey Dee’s.
More accurately: $61.49, but that does not flow off the tongue as well.
Permit me to establish some general, life-experience-style benchmarks for our current domestic economy. This morning, I went out to fill up the gas tank of the car, and treat my kids to some fast-food breakfast. Nothing fancy: the car does not take premium gasoline, and we’re talking breakfast sandwiches and a hotcakes and sausage level of drive-through. Here are the receipts.
SIXTY DOLLARS. Continue reading Sixty bucks for gas and Mickey Dee’s.
Missouri GOP, African-Americans kill Russ Carnahan’s seat.
This could very well be the prettiest redistricting map that you’re going to see this cycle:
You see, Missouri is in an interesting place where the state is: losing a Congressional seat; just coming off an election cycle where they flipped a seat to the GOP (making the current ratio 6 GOP / 3 DEM) ; and in possession of an almost veto-proof Republican legislature. So, Missouri Republicans decided to handle the situation by creating a 6 GOP / 2 DEM district map that cut up Russ Carnahan’s district and forced him to compete in a heavily African-American district (as per the Voting Rights Act) against incumbent William Lacy Clay. They also more or less left Emanuel Cleaver’s seat alone – Rep. Cleaver does not represent a majority-minority district, by the way; this will be important later. And then the legislature sent the map to Democratic governor Jay Nixon, who promptly vetoed it.
Oddly enough, when it came to the override, four Democrats crossed over to vote for the map, thus overriding the veto! Oddly enough, all four are African-Americans (who readily admitted that they were protecting Clay’s and Cleaver’s seats)! And oddly enough, Russ is not taking it well! And by ‘not taking it well’ I mean ‘engaging in profanity-laden, bitterly sarcastic invective,’ although I’m not entirely certain that Russ can actually spell any of those words*. It’s probably not helping that the Carnahan name may be a bit… colored, in Missouri African-American eyes… by virtue of past history.
Continue reading Missouri GOP, African-Americans kill Russ Carnahan’s seat.
Europe starting to talk about ‘war crimes?’
Pajamas Media took a survey of various European media sources and their evolving reaction to the Osama bin Laden excision. It will not surprise anyone in the slightest to hear that the level of disapproval has been increasing all week, with many an envious sneer along the way. The German response is particularly telling (they’re usually a leading indicator of Left-wing antiwar thinking*): even the center-right (hah!) magazines want international tribunals and investigations and whatnot. So we should probably see the first calls for that over here in about… a week or so. Probably followed with the leaking of the SEAL team’s names by some fellow-traveler in the Executive Branch with a grudge against the military and an iPad, so I hope that the SEALs are taking my advice and getting a lawyer now.
I’m also going to give some free advice to the White House: and I actually hope that they’ll take it, because this is an American issue, not a Right/Left, Republican/Democrat, or Competent/Incompetent one. Let’s just say that I don’t really care what’s on the tapes that we’re suddenly now saying that we don’t actually have. This is because I’m reasonably sure that there’s nothing drastically awful on them, given that they weren’t suppressed from the get-go: so there’s nothing like an actual noncombatant being molested or shot out of hand or anything like that. If there is something like that on them then I would have to wonder why the administration didn’t react with horror at the time, but never mind that right now: the point is, I expect that the video record doesn’t show an actual atrocity. Continue reading Europe starting to talk about ‘war crimes?’
iPad2/Skype recording bleg.
I’m in the process of configuring the iPad2 for work use, and I’ve run into a snag: I can download Skype for it, no problem – but I use Powergramo to record Skype calls for interviews, and it doesn’t seem to have a Apple version (yes, yes, I know: I will be typing variants of this statement for as long as I have an iPad2). What should I be looking for that will do the same job? – I need something that records both ends of a Skype call, with separate audio tracks for each person on the call.
And what do iPad2 people use for audio editing, since they’re apparently not allowed to have Audacity?
#rsrh We still have a Bureau of Indian Affairs?
We still have a Bureau of Indian Affairs. That’s… kind of fascinating, given that the BIA was easily one of the most corrupt, least-funded, incompetent-at-best and downright-vile-at-worst, self-serving, venal, and generally petty government institutions in American bureaucratic history. You’d think that liberals with a nice, healthy historical grudge would have formally killed, skinned, and mounted the thing thirty years ago.
Ach, well. Want something done right, don’t ask the Left to do it…
Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh We still have a Bureau of Indian Affairs?
‘Crazy.’
, 
Bush, Obama, Ground Zero…
…and the Law of Unintended Consequences: “Former President George W. Bush has declined an invitation to join President Barack Obama at a New York City ceremony later this week marking the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, NBC News reported on Tuesday.” The – ‘ostensible’ is too strong a word; ‘primary’ probably works better – reason is that former President Bush chooses to not emulate Jimmy Carter’s horrible example by insinuating himself into national affairs; but there’s certainly speculation as to what the secondary reasons are. Allahpundit’s suggestion that Bush desires to avoid what AP didn’t, but I will, call a Wellstone funeral-style campaign op makes a certain amount of sense. Then again, so does Instapundit’s commenter’s observation that perhaps Bush didn’t feel like being insulted to his face by President Obama, in much the same way that Obama went after Rep. Paul Ryan and the US Supreme Court in venues where they had to sit there and take the hits. I favor the latter as being the secondary reason.
And that’s where the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in. It is actually very likely that President Obama has no intention of listening to the fools on his side who want to use the event for Bush-bashing, if only because it’s not the antiwar movement that the President needs to woo right now; even their protesters are committed to voting for him*. Obama needs independents and the disaffected portion of his 2008 vote, and those two demographics like seeing their Presidents take the high road. So you’d think that he’d take it, right?
…Yeah.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that… oh, wait, that particular empty pleasantry sort of subverts Penny Arcade’s point.
Never mind, then.