Good morning.

1. Magic decoder ring?
2. How we have not progressed in 140 years?
3. Cinema.
4. Apparently Mr Derbyshire ruffled some feathers, here’s one sympathetic take.
5. Gas prices.
6. National debt.
7. Middle of the road-sitter, on the Zimmerman/NBC tape edit.
8. Don’t sneeze.
9. So, can private clubs choose their own membership criteria.
10. Countering the prevailing notions on education and religion.
11. An unusual choice on a “sexual orientation” multiple guess, uhm, quiz?
12. Mr Holder is blind and deaf. Why? He thinks Congress acts with “deliberate judgement.” He apparently has never seen Congress in action.
13. Two twins to confound the race theorists and racists alike.

Ahhh, Disneyland. Fun, happiness… pepper spray?
Actually, it was at Disneyland’s sister park, California Adventure. From the OC Register (with video link),

A man was arrested for assault after repeatedly attacking security guards, who pepper sprayed him, at Disney California Adventure.

…

The incident happened about 3:30 p.m. Saturday when a man attacked security guards near the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride. Guards repeatedly tried to restrain the man and pepper spayed him, but the man kept going after the guards, as seen on the YouTube video.

Several takeaways from the video:

1. Note how effective or, in this case, ineffective the pepper spray was on immediately stopping the man’s behavior. This guy was, ostensibly, an older drunk man. But what if one is faced with an attack from a large, muscular, angry man? If this example is any indication, you hitting him with pepper spray may eventually make him go away, but will most likely immediately make him angrier.

2. Also, note how effective or, in this case, ineffective the security response was. After being repeatedly pepper-sprayed, the man then attacks one of the security guards, taking him to the ground. It’s then that bystanders come in to restrain the man. Essentially, the first responders to this incident were park guests.

3. Lastly, note the nuttiness displayed by the woman shouting “Stop! There are kids here!” Yeah? So what? Did she really expect a rational response from this guy? If you’re faced with erratic behavior close by your children, I’d suggest immediately increasing the distance between yourselves and said behavior.

4. Finally, after seeing the swift takedown and restraining of this man </sarcasm>, and you’re thinking about making sure you are prepared for defending yourself and your family, when visiting a Disney park, think again. Per their FAQ page, weapons of any kind are not allowed in the park.

Feel safer?

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Remember those action movie scenes where the cop commandeers a citizen’s car?
Well if a cop (or wanna-be cop) ever comes running up to you, while you’re in your vehicle, just keep driving. From the OC Register,

How many movies have you seen where the crime-fighting hero commandeers a bystander’s car, embarks on a wild chase that leads to a shootout and the capture of the crook – along with a spectacular wreck that destroys a car or 50?

But how often do you see the part where the guy who owns the commandeered vehicle is an octogenarian trying to park peacefully at a Jack in the Box who now has to deal with the hassle of paying for a rental car, paying to store the wreckage of his old car, sorting out insurance issues, and arguing with authorities over whether he really ever gave consent to have his car appropriated for heroic purposes in the first place?

Like I said, just keep on driving.

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A $71,000 average pension for public safety workers? Sign me up!
And remember… we need to close libraries and parks.

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What if you had a School Board meeting re: a teacher’s alleged hard core p@rn career?
And NO parents showed up?

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Home Depot SUPERSTORE? 2nd largest in the country.

Have a holy Maundy Thursday for all you celebrating such (for the Eastern Christians next week is Holy week, we’re one week off this year).

1. A disappearing not-molested minority.
2. Easter egg! Grump.
3. So, this is the first account of events … are we all on the same page now? Or are other going off another account of events?
4. It’s not just the right being disgusted by fiction for ideology in the “news” media.
5. In which Mr Obama continues by pointing out that he is as often (perhaps more often) as the other side blowing smoke.
6. I wonder what part of the developer team she might be? Code design? Circuit board layout?
7. Let’s see, this is an interesting contrast. Mr Leiter thinks “conservatives are getting dumber” … why? Well, because they don’t trust the scientific academy as much as liberals. And at the same time, in another corner, a study of 53 landmark papers found 47 with falsified/non-reproducible results. So, perhaps the dumb is on the other side of the aisle.
8. Ms Palin in the Couric chair.
9. Girls playing games.
10. Tornado alley has tornadoes … as a sign of climate change. Odd that.

Good morning.

1. A parallel to the hypocrisy of Hunger Games (in which teen violence is denounced through glorification of same).
2. Antisemitism? Or just anti-Israel?
3. Speaking of Jews …
4. So, do you think the President was lying? Is the WH planning or not? Is it important that he’s so often so dishonest? Why/Why not?
5. Lawyers disagree, here’s a pallid defense (why the “economic regulations” why is the adjective economic required … hint: Roe/Wade or civil rights … it’s not there for any substantive Constitutional reasons, economic regulations are not in any way special, except for maintaining specious arguments). (“Popular” bill? It squeaked through and y’all know it … or perhaps everyone not the President knows it … see #10 below on “realism”).
6. Libya and consequences?
7. It was suggested recently that retreat/not-retreat laws and deadly force allow premeditated murder, here’s a discussion on the law in more depth.
8. Sticky wages and putative liquidity traps.
9. Unplanned pregnancy.
10. Obama trashes GOP (Ryan budget) for being unrealistic … oddly enough not a single Democrat voted for his “realistic” plan. Memo to Democrats, I’m beginning to suspect this word, “real” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
11. Rich wanting bad roads?
12. I’m unclear on the strategy here, when Mr Obama is raising gas prices faster and higher is politically popular.

The Breakfast Burrito, from Troy’s Drive-In, in Orange, CA.

Another round with a breakfast burrito from Troy’s. Classic, just classic. This puppy has the right mix of potatoes, egg, cheese, and meat (this case was bacon). The tortilla, in this instance, was a bit chewy – but I’m used to homemade tortillas, so there. The special green sauce is killer and, unless you like it a bit hot, order it on the side.

Enjoy!

– image © 2012 A R Lopez

Good morning.

1. Cats … or is a dig at the modern atheists?
2. Death and the road.
3. State visit, and suggestions.
4. Ordinary or extra-ordinary?
5. Unintended (or not?) consequences of affirmative action. It’s not sexism, is aff-action and consequence. If you lower standards for groups, people expect that standards were lowered. People are odd that way.
6. Replacing the meditative staring into fire at night.
7. A suggestion for marriage.
8. Our President (with a little Presidential hypocrisy noted) and the courts.
9. What I fail to understand is how/why the liberal/progressives manage to not get outraged by this sort of thing. Don’t they think a reliable media is important?
10. Our budget watchdogs.
11. Taking on the Volcker rule.
12. A little maths to go with your morning coffee.

Well, no April Fools jokes here, sorry, I’m too much the fool the other 365 days of the year to fall for that.

1. Sometimes its a matter of perspective.
2. The moral (bankrupt) imperative of “as much as we can get” (vs “how much growth can we engender”).
3. Affirmative action and unintended (or as I suspect, intended) consequences. This is not unrelated.
4. So, would you vote for HAL?
5. So, bloggers don’t write their own headlines? Hmmm.
6. Noting that the right has “always” supported the individual mandate.
7. The legal elites and the Obamacare case.
8. Arizona walking off the Constitutional reservation.

Gasoline Taxes by State
Nothing surprising here… sheesh.

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Best Buy to close 50 brick and mortar stores
From the article,

”In order to help make technology work for every one of our customers and transform our business as the consumer electronics industry continues to evolve, we are taking major actions to improve our operating performance,” said Best Buy CEO Brian J. Dunn. ”As part of our multi-channel strategy, we intend to strengthen our portfolio of store formats and footprints — closing some big box stores, modifying others to our enhanced Connected Store format, and adding Best Buy Mobile stand-alone locations — all to provide a better shopping environment for our customers across multiple channels while increasing points of presence, and to improve performance and profitability.”

Huh? My Google Translator doesn’t have a Corporate Speak -> English option.

How many of you go to a Best Buy type store to actually buy something? Apart from the occasional cable or power strip, I typically do not make big purchases at these stores. Besides getting lackluster to pitiful service from the sales staff, the prices are too high.

However, one thing they are good for is to actually view and handle potential purchases. Alas, that may be going by the wayside as well.

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Geek News:  the F-1 engines from the Apollo 11 mission have been found
Can you imagine predicting in July of 1969, when the Apollo 11 mission occurred, that those engines would be found by a private entrepreneur of an internet retail establishment?

No, neither can I.

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More Primate Fossils Found, More Digs at Religious Conservatives
From More pre-human fossils, more skepticism,

The same day as 3.4 million-year-old human-like fossils have been unveiled, a new study has been released saying that conservatives and church-goers are growing increasingly skeptical of science.

…

“It is not necessarily the case that education or knowledge makes you more objective,” said Peter Ditto, who specializes in social psychology at UC Irvine.. “Liberals are biased in their direction and conservatives are biased in their direction. People find holes and problems in arguments where they look for them – and they look harder when the science offends or just upends their established beliefs.”

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Heh.

Having a good week? We’re doing OK. Well, I’ve missed a few days posting, let’s see what we’ve collected (I haven’t stopped reading, just haven’t had much access to a computer … I can read on a tablet … link posting can be done but is a little (so far) laborious).

1. I’m pretty sure that’s not how the lib/progs see it. Best I can tell, they figure this healthcare is so important, it’s more important than fussy questions of whether there are any limits to governmental power or the Constitutionality of the bill.  I’m not the only one who thinks that’s their point.
2. Or maybe the White House punted their defence, because they want it to fall.
3. Considering dueling.
4. Discarding pets and ambiguous phrasing. This afternoon our dog passed two dogs in the back of a car that looked a lot like that dog. It was hysterically funny, she (our dog) just pranced along minding her own business, pointedly ignoring the other dogs who were going berserk with barking. When the barking finally died down, Sophie looked up briefly and barked three or four times at which the other two resumed their furious onslaught and she went back to ignoring them … or perhaps you had to be there.
5. Sin and the church as that hospital, which is made of and made for sinners.
6. Envy? Seems like prose poetry to me.
7. Liberals, many of whom profess to be “reality/study” based … but aren’t in the slightest. I’m visiting Missouri for the kids spring break … Missouri has one of the lowest gun crime rates in the nation and the laxest gun laws … another interesting factoid … open carry in bars doesn’t increase gun violence in towns that allow it. But hey, maybe they don’t like concealed carry because they’re trying to keep women in their place.
8. Speaking of that Trayvon kerfuffle, it seems odd to me that the same guys who insisted we not parse particulars on deciding whether waterboarding was or wasn’t torture, decides that if you’re nose doesn’t have fractured cartilage you weren’t really punched in the schnoze. I’ve also been struck with the parallels between those who decided to continually enlarge the category “black” when that was bad with any smidge of non-white blood made ya’ colored and those who think, for those who think that white is “bad” that any bit of white in you means your Hispanic mother/White father makes ya’ whitey white. Odd that.
9. Is there a limit to the commerce clause? Seriously? I wonder when/if the left will imagine that there might be some behavior they will not want regulated that this unlimited commerce clause interpretation will come to bite them back.
10. At 4k mph … what could go wrong?
11. As car become more automatic … will I be the last knucklehead on the road with preferring and using manual tranny?
12. Another unhappy #1 for the US.
13. Where media bias puts us.
14. I thought you mostly use your nose to taste.
15. Ooh, another digression, workouts and kids. One of the family memories we have is with me doing interval training on a mtb bike … pulling the kids in the trailer singing (during the hard parts of the intervals) a “faster poppa faster” song (to 3-5 y/old kid melodies) and then me cooking the bike too fast on the limestone trail around a corner and laying it down. The kids that that was really really cool and wanted me to do it again. Me? My knee was bloodied enough that I decided we’d be better off turning for home. Still. A great time, great memory.
16. Longer than normal waiting period … so, was that reported on the media/left-wing blogs? Ya think?
17. An add for Corning gorilla glass? Or comedy?
18. The forces of Mordor and trademark stupidity.

California wants your 5 year-olds
From HSLDA,

AB 2203 would lower the compulsory attendance age for entry into school from 6 to 5 years of age. This requirement would apply to all children, whether their parents plan to send them to public school or private school (including private homeschools).

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So… will Spike Lee now do the right thing?
From FoxNews,

A school-cafeteria lunch lady and her husband have received hate mail, unwanted visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors — all because their Sanford-area address is being disseminated on Twitter as belonging to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, her son said late Tuesday.

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More info on the possibility that a 1st century manuscript of the Gospel of Mark has been found

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5 Reasons not to agree to a police search
Like Linus told Lucy, “Those are good reasons!”

1. It’s your constitutional right.

2. Refusing a search protects you if you end up in court.

3. Saying “no” can prevent a search altogether.

4. Searches can waste your time and damage your property.

5. You never know what they’ll find.

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Google has acted… Have you?

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Hey, I know! How about we do an object lesson on what it means to be a persecuted Christian?
Yikes.

A 14-year old Dauphin County girl said she thought she was going to die Wednesday night when two men with apparent guns raided a church meeting. She later found out that it was a learning exercise carried out by the church youth group.

The mother of the young girl did not want to reveal their names. The teenager does not belong to the Glad Tidings Assembly of God church in Lower Swatara Township, but she decided to go to a youth meeting Wednesday night with a friend who told her the meetings were fun.

Well, I guess it depends on how you define “fun”.

Good morning.

1. Observation that the organic natural crunchy ex-hippy/love-love-love movement is also the the one of harsh chemical aborto-facients and the very non-organic act of abortion, which doesn’t make much sense.
2. A place for the off SCOTUS debate on healthcare.
3. Tension and the racket.
4. Recession.
5. Tacos (pizza next?) by quadra-copter drone delivery.
6. Democrats like to complain that the GOP has no ideas … odd that, especially when you look at a non-spun list of their notions.
7. The Zimmerman/Martin kerfuffle.
8. Patents and software.
9. Technology.
10. Inequality and housing.
11. UK continuing its trend toward … what?
12. Honor to the fallen, one way.

“The Mass murder in Afghanistan was predictable.”
So says Michael Yon. And he’s one who should know. From his post,

The mass murder in Afghanistan was predictable. Twice in the past three weeks, I published that it was coming. Why was I able to write this with sad confidence? I’ve spent more time with combat troops in these wars than any other writer: about four years in total in country, and three with combat troops.

About 200 coalition members have been killed or wounded from insider attacks. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is tantamount to being Taliban and has not bothered to apologize. Instead, Karzai whips up anti-U.S. fervor at every opportunity. Twice, Karzai has threatened to leave politics and join the Taliban.

Even our most disciplined troops — not the few problem troops — have lost all idealism. They have not lost heart for the fight. Mostly, they just don’t care. They fight because they are ordered to fight, but they have eyes wide open. The halfhearted surge and sudden drawdown leave little room for success.

…

Afghans will seek revenge and they will have it. This will lead to yet greater possibilities of another mass murder from our side. We are considering holding the trial in Afghanistan. Pashtuns don’t care about our justice system. They don’t even care about the Afghan government; they want blood for blood. We are being drawn into a feud.

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CNN covers Fast & Furious
ICE Agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata. By all rights you should have heard their stories at least a small percentage as much as that of Trayvon Martin’s.

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When Cultures Diverge?
Joe Carter links to a story about the massive rate of suicide in Japan, tied to the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. From the post,

According to Bloomberg, suicides rose in April, May, June and August—the months following the natural disasters that devastated towns in northeastern Japan and triggered a nuclear crisis. For a 14th straight year, suicides in Japan have exceeded 30,000.

After the disaster the West marveled at how orderly the Japanese responded – especially the fact that there was little to no looting and unrest. It was hinted that such was evidence that their culture was superior to that found in most of the West.

Yet, despite the orderliness that their culture rests on, we still see the fruits of what can only be termed a “here and now” philosophy. Whether in East or West, the human condition is woefully insufficient to provide the Hope that all humanity needs.

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Citizen registers his dog to demonstrate lax voter registration procedures
So authorities launch an investigation of… the citizen.

A Republican voter in New Mexico is under criminal investigation for signing up his dog as a Democrat in a bid to highlight what he considers deficiencies in the state’s registration process.

No mention is made as to whether or not an investigation on voter registration procedures is forthcoming.

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The Elephant in the church

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Know your rights as a victim of ID Theft
From Consumer Reports,

The FCRA and FACT protect your rights if you are a victim if ID theft by enabling you to put fraud alerts on your credit report with the consumer reporting agencies, get a free credit report from the three national consumer reporting agencies when placing a fraud alert, block fraudulent information from appearing in your credit report, and receive a notice of these and other rights from the consumer reporting agencies.

Good morning.

1. Interesting graphic, eh?
2. Another, this one of the info-sort.
3. An interesting what-if scenario.
4. Taking fasting seriously … and not so seriously.
5. Simple and evil.
6. Tactics tactics tactics.
7. A pro-homeless prank.
8. The UK has gone batty.
9. A variant of the Cretan paradox and solution.
10. US elections as viewed from, well, the Andes.
11. Narratives and peoples.

Good morning.

1. Standard liberal media treatment of the current (and likely next) violent attack.
2. Baptism.
3. Look at anything closely, you get confused (that is you realize how little you really know about how the universe works). Latest example, Mercury.
4. Obamacare mandate and Lochner.
5. Troll of the court meets his, err, or rather, a fate.
6. In recent discussion on contraception and Ms Fluke … I suggested the left might go after the prescription monopoly instead. It was suggested this was a chimerical notion, nobody was talking about that. Untrue.
7. Deferred payments not deferred so much.
8. Our nanny state, shutting down private charity.
9. Savings.
10. Progressives for federalism.

Good morning.

1. I think printing money in the basement is their business model.
2. First urban sprawl.
3. Urban sprawl many many many years later.
4. One of these things … not like the others.
5. A prize and for what explained.
6. While its unseasonably warm in Chicago, other areas not so much.
7. Panama.
8. Lawyers talk mandates … more here.
9. Looking at the soak the rich strategy and its effects. Perhaps now the tax the rich don’t cut spending knuckleheads will change their tune.
10. Coming to your computer … in a few years?
11. Math and blogging.