Month: March 2014

I should just give up and admit it: the posting schedule is shot.

Lingering sickness, new video games, and of course the nagging worry that we’re about to see a shooting war in Eastern Europe that might end with Russian tanks parked next to the Polish border and hey, let’s get rid of the A-10 Warthog once and for all!

…Sorry. That last part is particularly galling because, dammit, we warned people that this stuff could happen.  And damned if I don’t know how this stuff is going to end, either; alas, I made the mistake of not going to Yale, so nobody in the federal government cares what I think…

Moe Lane

Tweet of the Day, It Is One Of Those Enduring Demographic Mysteries edition. #obamacare

I can’t imagine the reason for this, either.

It’s almost as if they’re… upset over Obamacare!

Inconceivable!

Moe Lane

PS: When you read the article, be prepared: the subject (Dr. Monica Wehby) is… the sort of candidate that could maybe win a statewide election in Oregon. You just have to ask yourself how much watching the Democrats go into brown-pants panic is worth to you; for that matter, an incremental strategy isn’t a bad argument for states like Oregon. Goodness knows the Democrats keep doing it to us.

And the setup of a Russian client state in Crimea continues apace.

Told you this would happen. Meet the new boss, taking orders from the old bosses:

The newly installed, pro-Russia prime minister of Crimea declared on Saturday that he had sole control over the military and the police in the disputed peninsula and he appealed to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for help in safeguarding the region.

[snip]

In his statement Saturday, the Crimean prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, said, “Understanding my responsibility for the life and safety of citizens, I appeal to the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, for assistance in providing peace and tranquillity on the territory of the autonomous Republic of Crimea.”

Continue reading And the setup of a Russian client state in Crimea continues apace.

Don’t poach elephants.

OK, look, I suspect that the author of this is a tree-hugger. But even if she is…

People are shooting, poisoning, and spearing [elephants] at such a rate across the continent that some scientists already consider them “ecologically extinct.” There are now fewer than 500,000 wild African elephants—maybe no more than half that number—and barely 32,000 Asian elephants.

They cannot fight against us; they cannot win this battle.

And the horror of what is happening to them is surely compounded in their minds by the empathy they feel for one another—an emotion that scientists have at last been able to demonstrate experimentally in elephants.

Continue reading Don’t poach elephants.