Posted by Richard on April 24, 2014
Lots of people have been having a good laugh about the fact that neither Hillary Clinton nor a State Department spokesperson could come up with an answer when asked to name her accomplishments. But Herman Cain has come up with by far the funniest take on the issue. It’s a must-read, must-laugh, and might just bring tears to your eyes.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: hillary, humor, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 23, 2014
In every poll, the Arkansas Senate race has been extremely tight, with most showing challenger Tom Cotton (R) with a slim lead over incumbent Mark Pryor (SD). Until now. A new New York Times/Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows Pryor leading by 10 points. Bill Kristol looked beyond the headline at the polling questions, and discovered something interesting in question 12.
That question asked poll respondents if they voted for President in 2012 and if so, for whom. 32% didn’t vote, 26% voted for Obama, 27% voted for Romney, and the rest voted for someone else, didn’t know, or wouldn’t say. Kristol explained the significance:
In other words, the Times and Kaiser have produced a sample in Arkansas that reports they voted in 2012 for Romney over Obama–by one point. But Romney carried Arkansas in 2012 by 24 points. …
The whole point of question 12 is to provide a reality test for the sample. That’s why they ask that question–we know what happened in 2012, so the only thing to be learned by asking the 2012 question of the sample is to ensure that it’s a reasonably accurate snapshot of voters in the state. Of course there’ll always be some variance between reality and the sample’s report of its vote a year and a half ago–but not a 23 point variance.
A reputable news organization would have looked at question 12 and thrown the poll out. But then again, it was the New York Times.
It’s entirely possible that they paid a great deal of attention to question 12 — to ensure that the sample was not a reasonably accurate snapshot of the voters.
Heck, if they really wanted an accurate snapshot of the voters, a third of their sample wouldn’t be non-voters in 2012.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: arkansas, media bias, msm, politics, polls | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 23, 2014
It’s only one study, and any single study such as this should be taken with a grain of salt. But an Austrian matched sample study of people with different dietary habits contradicts the conventional wisdom that vegetarians are healthier:
… Subjects were matched according to their age, sex, and socioeconomic status leaving 1320 people – 330 vegetarians, 330 that ate meat but still a lot of fruits and vegetables, 300 normal eaters but that ate less meat, and 330 on a more carnivorous diet.
After controlling for variables, they found that vegetarians did have lower BMI and alcohol consumption but had poorer overall health. Vegetarians had higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders, a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life.
As a result, vegetarians take more medications than non-vegetarians.
I’m guessing that the vegetarians’ problem is insufficient alcohol consumption.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: diet, health, medical research, vegetarianism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 22, 2014
If you asked a bunch of economists to name the dumbest green energy idea, most would probably say it’s the ethanol mandate. Half the US corn crop is now turned into ethanol and poured into our gas tanks, causing the price of corn to more than double. That in turn has driven up food prices. Beef and pork are up almost 10% in just the past year. Other foods have become more expensive as well, as more and more acreage has been diverted from other crops to the more profitable corn. And of course, as with all green energy programs, we’re paying more for the energy we use. The effect here in the US is that we’re all made a little poorer. The effect on the world’s truly poor is much worse.
The idea is so bad that even environmentalists have turned against it, since it’s now clear that growing corn, turning it into ethanol, and blending it with gasoline actually produces more CO2 than just using gasoline alone. The only people left who like the idea are the ruling class Republicans and Democrats in Washington — it’s a combination of corporate welfare, crony socialism, and bureaucratic control of the economy that appeals to their basest instincts.
But as bad as the ethanol mandate is, now there’s something even dumber. The Brits have come up with a green energy project that’s so crazy-stupid it’s hard to believe. They’re going to clear-cut forests in North Carolina, turn the hundred-year-old trees into wood pellets, and ship a million metric tons of these wood pellets per year across the Atlantic to a power plant in Yorkshire, England. Where they’ll be burned to produce electricity. In place of coal.
Does it need to be pointed out that this insane idea will significantly increase the amount of CO2 produced by the power plant (20% more than burning coal, twice as much as natural gas)? And that the electricity produced will be far, far more expensive?
Presumably, the coal being displaced comes from nearby, perhaps Wales. What will become of it? Well, either less coal will be mined, and thus fewer miners employed, or the coal that the Brits can’t bring themselves to use will be loaded aboard ships and sent to someplace where green energy mania has not yet reached such heights — or is it depths? North Carolinians, Britons, and the planet will all be worse off.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: climate change, environmentalism, global warming, green energy, stupidity | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 22, 2014
On this Earth Day, Mark J. Perry looked back at the apocalyptic predictions made around the first Earth Day in 1970. Describing them as “spectacularly wrong” seems like an understatement. If even a few of the 18 he cites had come true, third-world populations would have plummeted, countless westerners would have been killed by pollution, most of the world’s plants and animals would be extinct, and the human race would be well on its way extinction as well. Oh, and Canadians would be fleeing south to escape the advancing ice sheets that would eventually make much of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable.
Instead, the Norman Borlaugh-led “green revolution” (yes, genetically modified organisms) virtually eliminated famine everywhere except where strife and government policies create it. Modest market reforms in India, China, and a handful of other places have lifted well over a billion people out of poverty. Life expectancies have gone up. As Julian Simon predicted, all the resources that the doomsayers said we were running out of have become cheaper and more abundant. And increasing wealth has made the environment much cleaner, as it always does.
But that doesn’t stop today’s Cassandras from making dire predictions about the grim fate that awaits us over the next 44 years. You can just as safely laugh at them as at the predictions from 1970.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: earth day, environmentalism, predictions | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 15, 2014
Forget about taxes, politics, and such for a few minutes and check out this amazing story and photographs of a 13-year-old Mongolian girl who hunts with an eagle. Wow.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: eagles, hunting, mongolia | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 7, 2014
While I have police profiling on my mind, let me commend to you a thoughtful and sobering article by Christopher E. Smith in The Atlantic. Smith is a professor of criminal justice, and his son is a young black Harvard student. He recounts his son’s experiences with racial profiling, and it’s disturbing. Excerpts can’t do it justice; please read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: police, profiling, racism | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on April 7, 2014
A week ago, I posted about the 70-year-old Colorado man whose car was stopped and searched in Idaho because it had Colorado license plates. But it’s not just Idaho cops who think that a Colorado license plate is sufficient probable cause to stop and search a car.
Apparently, driving while Coloradan can get you stopped and searched in Nevada, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee… and those are just the easily found cases that made the news somewhere. Most are anecdotal, but the Des Moines Register analyzed some state data on highway patrol traffic stops in Iowa:
By far, drivers with license plates hailing from California, Colorado and Illinois received the most warnings and violations over the past five years — more than 30 percent. Almost 12 percent of the warnings and violations were given to motorists with California plates; 11 percent to Colorado plates; and almost 10 percent to Illinois plates.
Drivers with Iowa plates, meanwhile, accounted for about 14 percent of the warnings and citations.
What percentage of cars on the road in Iowa do you suppose have Colorado plates? I’m going to guess that Coloradans are at least ten times as likely (and maybe much more) to be stopped in Iowa as Iowans.
Lawsuits such as the one filed against Idaho are one way to deal with this geographic profiling. But I think some grass-roots action would also be a good idea. Someone (not me) ought to organize a letter-writing campaign targeting state tourism agencies and newspapers in the offending states, encouraging Coloradans to send them letters along these lines:
We’ve been considering a road trip [to/through] [name of state] to visit [cite one or more tourist destinations, including in that state]. But we’re having second thoughts because of reports that police in [name of state] stop and search cars from Colorado. Is anything being done to put a stop to this kind of illegal profiling? The idea of spending two hours on the side of the road while our car is searched just because we’re from Colorado makes a visit to [name of state] very unappealing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, drug war, police, profiling | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 30, 2014
For that matter, it’s probably best if you don’t visit a hydroponics store anywhere. And if you brew tea from loose leaves, you may want to switch to those little pouches with tags attached. Otherwise, you could find yourself undergoing the same ordeal as the Harte family of Johnson County, Kansas.
On April 20, 2012, Bob Harte answered an early-morning knock and found an armed SWAT team outside:
It was 7:30 a.m. when he’d heard a knock at the door and pulled himself out of bed to answer it while his wife and two kids slept. A SWAT team surrounded his home, and a deputy had a battering ram ready to charge through the door had Bob had not opened it.
The deputies pushed Bob to the floor of the entry way of his home and stood over him with rifles screaming, “Where are the children in the home?” Bob told them they were in their rooms and the deputies ran to find them.
The commotion woke his wife Addie Harte who came downstairs to find out what was going on.
“We just kept saying ‘You’re in the wrong house!’ said Addie.
Deputies searched the sofa and then allowed the family of four to sit on it, in front of their picture window, as armed deputies searched the home. For two hours, the family sat on that sofa, afraid and puzzled as to why deputies were in their home.
The Hartes weren’t shown a search warrant until the search was concluded — that’s the law in Kansas. The cops were looking for “narcotics,” but didn’t find anything. The Hartes wanted to know why their house was raided, but no one would tell them.
Kansas has terrible public records laws. It took a year, an attorney, and $25,000 for the Hartes to learn why they were targeted, and the answer is mind-boggling and chilling. Months earlier, Bob Harte and his son went to a hydroponics store in Kansas City, MO, to get some supplies for his son’s science project. Unbeknownst to him, the Missouri Highway Patrol apparently has nothing better to do than monitor hydroponics stores (because they sell equipment often used by pot growers) and record the license numbers and vehicle descriptions of their customers.
Eventually, the information about Harte’s vehicle was conveyed to the Johnson County, KS, sheriff’s office. Deputies were subsequently sent to the Harte home on multiple occasions to rifle through their garbage. That’s where they found Addie Harte’s discarded tea leaves. A field test (notoriously unreliable) identified the tea leaves as marijuana. That led to the raid. The tea leaves were only sent to the crime lab for verification after the raid. Their more accurate test was, of course, negative for marijuana.
The Hartes have filed a federal lawsuit and testified in front of the state legislature trying to get the laws regarding release of police records changed.
“This not what justice in the United States is supposed to be. You shouldn’t have to have $25,000, even $5,000. You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state,” Addie Harte said.
You shouldn’t have your house raided for such bogus reasons like some sort of police state.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: drug war, kansas, police | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 30, 2014
From CBS Seattle:
An Idaho state trooper arrested and fully searched a 70-year-old Washington man’s vehicle solely because he had a Colorado license plate – a state where marijuana is legal – a federal “license plate profiling” lawsuit alleges.
Read the whole outrageous story. And if you’re a Coloradan, keep this in mind when planning your next vacation.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, drug war, idaho, police, profiling | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 29, 2014
Saturday Night Live’s opening monologue lampooned Obama and the desperate attempts to sell Obamacare in the way that they used to lampoon Bush. It’s not uproariously funny, but it’s well worth watching. I’d embed it here, but instead I’m going to direct you to SNL Cold Open: How Far Will Obama Go To Sell Obamacare? Bieber Tongue Bath Far? Or Just Pope Pimpin’? by Caleb Howe. You can watch it there.
The alternative is to quote Howe’s comments in their entirety, because they’re really much more entertaining than the skit. Especially if you’re a “Once Upon a Time” fan.
Be sure to scroll on down and read Caleb Howe’s short biography. It’s pretty funny too.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: comedy, humor, obama, obamacare, snl | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 29, 2014
Despite the sensational nature of the Leland Yee story (see Anti-gun CA state senator charged with firearms trafficking, corruption), which features international arms trafficking (including automatic weapons and rocket launchers for an Islamic terrorist group), bribe-taking, and links to a notorious Chinatown gangster nicknamed “Shrimp Boy,” it’s been completely ignored by CNN and most of the MSM.
I just searched Google News for “Leland Yee arrest,” and except for CBS News, a Washington Post blog, and a very brief “released on bond” AP story in the Boston Herald, the first page of results was from local California news outlets. As of a short while ago, a search at CNN for “Leland Yee arrested” still returned the message “Your search leland yee arrested did not match any documents.”
CNN has received numerous complaints, including from me and others on Twitter. As Tony Lee reported on Breitbart, their response has been to lie:
CNN dismissed complaints that the network was not covering last week’s shocking arrest of Democrat Leland Yee, the California state senator who was arrested for alleged arms trafficking and bribery, and falsely asserted that it does not give attention to state senators.
That standard did not apply to Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, whom CNN covered relentlessly. …
…
In just one of many stories on CNN about Wendy Davis, the network gushed over and played up her biography–without even vetting it–after her filibuster [of a bill limiting abortions] made her their heroine. …
(Davis’s biography was later determined to contain several significant falsehoods.)
Davis also appeared on many of CNN’s primetime shows in 2013 as it blanketed its airwaves and online real estate with puff pieces about Davis, the state senator, long before she was even a gubernatorial candidate.
As Weasel Zippers noted, CNN has also covered the California state Senate candidacy of Sandra Fluke and Yee on many occasions.
As the mid-term elections get closer, expect CNN to extensively cover every story about a Republican dog-catcher or county commissioner caught with his hand in the cookie jar. In the meantime, they’ll continue to focus on such breaking news as the fact that airliners have trouble remaining aloft after running out of fuel.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: cnn, media bias, msm | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 29, 2014
Like she said, hysterical.
Hysterical #tcotpic.twitter.com/Uzm80n9oVU
— BOSSY #BenghaziStacy (@Discoveringme40) March 29, 2014
UPDATE: To be fair, I should note that this overstates the number of members of Congress without balls by at least 33 — the 29 representatives and 4 senators who are members of the Liberty Caucus.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: airport security, dhs, humor | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 29, 2014
Peter Suderman at Reason Hit & Run reported:
Figuring out how to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars on ink is so easy a sixth grader could do it. In fact, one did.
Suvir Mirchandani, a student at a Pittsburgh middle school, decided he wanted to look for ways to reduce waste at his school. So for a school science project, he measured how much ink was used …
…
It turned out his school district could reduce its annual ink usage by 24 percent and save $21,000 a year by switching to Garamond, a lighter font with thinner, less ink-heavy strokes.
After submitting his work to a journal for young researchers run by Harvard grad students, Mirchandani was encouraged to expand his research.
Young Mirchandani took on the more arduous task of analyzing the printer ink usage of the federal government’s General Services Administration and determined that it could cut ink costs by 30% — $136 million per year — by simply changing fonts. State governments, according to his calculations, could save an additional $234 million.
So will the Government Printing Office make a change? I wouldn’t count on it:
Gary Somerset, media and public relations manager at the Government Printing Office, describes Suvir’s work as “remarkable.” But he was noncommittal on whether the GPO would introduce changes to typeface, saying the GPO’s efforts to become more environmentally sustainable were focused on shifting content to the Web.
Sounds like Mirchandani may end up learning two lessons: With a little thought, a smart person can find simple ways for the government to save money—and the government doesn’t seem terribly interested in pursuing them.
I’m impressed by Suvir Mirchandani’s efforts. But I’m also a bit disappointed. I suspect his findings are the death knell for my crusade to have all government publications printed in Comic Sans.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: fonts, government, spending | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on March 28, 2014
Yes, it sounds a joke, but Weasel Zippers assures us it’s true. And has an adorable picture to prove it.
Apparently, Apple is going to expand its offering of emoji (little cartoon emoticons) in the interest of diversity. In addition to emoji resembling different ethnicities, there will be some wearing religious headgear such as the hijab.
Apparently, diversity advocates have complained about the “staggering lack of minority representation” among emoji. Good. If the political correctness police are down to complaining about emoticons, they must finally be running out of things to become outraged about.
I guess I’ve never spent much time exploring the wide world of emoticons. I’m old school, and my simple needs are generally met by just a few ASCII-character ones: :-), ;-), and 🙁 are really all I need. I’ve encountered emoji libraries in some apps/contexts. Based on those few casual glances, I thought they were pretty much all yellow circles or blobs with different expressions whose distinctions in meaning were far too subtle for me.
UPDATE: Weird. The WP editor translated my sad ASCII emoticon, but not the other two, into the corresponding emoji graphic. Never noticed that before (I don’t use sad much).
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: diversity, emoticons, political correctness | Leave a Comment »
