Sistine Chapel

Wile E. Coyote v. Acme Company

Did you know that there is an extensive docket of materials available online in the long-running Wile E. Coyote v. Acme Company case? As anyone over the age of 30 probably knows, Mr. Coyote for many years attempted to use Acme products in his pursuit of an elusive Road Runner. Without exception, to my knowledge, his efforts failed, often resulting in severe and unusual bodily injury. Not surprisingly, it appears that Mr. Coyote has elected to pursue a case against Acme for product liability and gross negligence.


Consider some of Mr. Coyote allegations:
•The Rocket Sled: Coyote alleges that the Rocket Sled accelerated with "such sudden and precipitate force as to stretch Mr. Coyote's forelimbs to a length of fifteen feet." Later, due to "poor design and engineering on the Rocket Sled and a faulty or non-existent steering system ... the unchecked progress of the Rocket Sled led it and Mr. Coyote into collision with the side of a mesa."

Read the whole thing.

Robert Nozick on the strong self-regard of intellectuals.

From the beginnings of recorded thought, intellectuals have told us their activity is most valuable. Plato valued the rational faculty above courage and the appetites and deemed that philosophers should rule; Aristotle held that intellectual contemplation was the highest activity. It is not surprising that surviving texts record this high evaluation of intellectual activity. The people who formulated evaluations, who wrote them down with reasons to back them up, were intellectuals, after all. They were praising themselves. Those who valued other things more than thinking things through with words, whether hunting or power or uninterrupted sensual pleasure, did not bother to leave enduring written records. Only the intellectual worked out a theory of who was best.

Winston Churchill is supposed to have said that he was sure that history would be kind to him because he intended to write that history. That's why the intellectual class has such a high opinion of itself; they are the ones who write the opinions that are read. It's why kooky ideas are treated seriously like gay marriage, multiculturalism and global warming. Even after they have been proven disastrous in actual practice, socialism and communism are treated seriously because they are the means by which the intellectual class gains power and they can dismiss the actual practice and propound they theory where everything works as planned.

America and Rome

How many times has the US been compared to Rome?

Thousands … millions?

The focus is primarily on the aspect of “Empire” since American influence extends far beyond the boundaries of ancient Rome.  To many, influence – cultural or political – is trotted out as the same thing as establishing an empire. But make no mistake, the Roman Empire was not spread through culture but by the invasion of Roman armies that was followed by Roman plunder, the appointment of Roman governors and the imposition of Roman taxes. There was no such thing as Roman foreign aid.

What is interesting to a historian is that while America is not imposing Roman rule, Roman morals are rapidly being adopted by America.

Of course no-fault divorce was not a Roman invention but a Roman practice.

So was the adoption of adults into other families, primarily for financial reasons.

There were no Roman laws against abortion; in fact, the Roman father had a perfect right to kill his children if they displeased him, giving late-term abortions a new meaning (post-birth abortion?) that is sure to be upheld as a Constitutional right by the Ninth Circuit, if not the Supreme Court, in the near future.

Homosexuality was not high on the Roman acceptance list but neither was it illegal. In fact, a number of Roman emperors and dictators (Lucius Cornelius Sulla) had male lovers. Colleen McCullough has a wonderful series of novels (referred to as the “Masters of Rome”) depicting life in Rome near the end of the Republic and the beginning of Imperial rule depicting with accuracy the manners and morals of that time and place.

We are reminded that there really is nothing new under the sun. The practices, morals and laws that our Liberal friends believe are new and groundbreaking are nothing more than a reversion to some of the most ancient cultural attributes that western civilization outgrew - for a time.  A mere 50 years ago who knew that Roman morals would make a comeback instead of being discarded as part of a cruder, ruder pagan time.

Rush Limbaugh segment on Clint Eastwood "Halftime in America"

If you adopt your lover are you committing incest?

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In the brave new world of sexual arrangements Liberals are creating there's this: some lawyers are advising their clients to adopt their lovers, making your sexual partner your legal child.

Believe it or not, there is a growing trend in this country of adopting one’s adult lover or spouse for various reasons: to better guarantee the adoptee’s right to inherit directly from the adoptor; to keep other relatives from having any standing to contest an estate plan; or, as in Goodman’s case, to add a spouse or lover to a class of trust beneficiaries, allowing the “child” to inherit from the “parent.” Courts around the country are struggling to figure out whether these adoptions should be upheld or not....

But before you go out and adopt your lover, there is one pretty serious repercussion you should consider: Are you committing incest? An incest conviction can result in serious jail time. And think about it: The adopter is having sexual relations with his or her legal child. Is that not incest?

To find out, read the whole thing.

... or perhaps we can ask the 9th Circuit Court if having sexual relations with your child is an unconstitutional infringement of the rights of incest perpetrators.  That's an awkward way of putting it.  There should be a name for this; what are people who commit incest called?

The "Arts" and "Academia" are Drawn to Fascism.

Check out "Nazi Family Values"

“Many Nazi officials came from the educated middle class of German society, and in his comments on the trial of Einsatzgruppen members in Nuremberg after the war, the British historian Gerald Reitlinger (author of The SS, Alibi of a Nation, a superb study of the SS) observed of the defendants that ‘the only common denominator was that nearly all had been to a university and the majority had achieved the doctorate so dear to the German middle class.’ The idea of Nazi intellectuals may be troubling to some, but as has long been known, intellectuals rose to power in the systems of both fascism (meaning both Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy) and the Leninist-Stalinist version of communism. Hitler and Stalin required the talents of writers, organizers, and, yes, artists to accomplish their ends.”

Nazism needed a state religion.

"Halftime in America" via Remy and Reason.tv

Fast and Furious, as a police operation, doesn't make sense. As a Community Organizer program it makes perfect sense.

Fast and Furious, the gun-walking operation that created an avalanche of traceable guns being shipped to Mexican drug cartels never made sense to me as a law enforcement operation. The cover story is that the program was designed to identify the cartel leaders. That’s a ridiculous cover story. Everyone in Mexico knows who the cartel leaders are; many of the cops are already on the payroll.

The program was specifically designed to identify weapons purchased in American gun shops after they were used to murder Mexicans. The only thing that could be learned was the identity of the shop in which the gun was sold, and the US government already knew that because its agents authorized the sale.

From Bob Owens at PJ Media:

Whether Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation, as the Department of Justice claims, or was part of a plot to impose gun control, it was radically different from all other border gun operations in one crucial way. Operation Fast and Furious was the only border gun operation that was undertaken with the full intention of the straw-purchased guns leaving the control of law enforcement officers and reaching the armories of drug cartel murderers. That fact alone should lead to the impeachment or administrative removal of everyone, from field agents to political appointees and elected officials that knew or should have known about the plot.

But that is only half of the horror story.

Operation Fast and Furious was specifically conceived so that “walked” guns would be recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Their serial numbers would be provided to the ATF by Mexican authorities for tracing. Regardless of motive, the entire operation was premised on weapons being recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, and law enforcement agencies are well aware that criminals primarily abandon weapons only after they’ve been used in serious felony crimes such as murder or attempted murder.

Operation Fast and Furious was conceived knowing that Mexican nationals would be sacrificed in significant numbers if the tracing operation had any chance of working

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A comment by cfbleacers makes the most sense:

1. I don’t know, Bob. Something about this entire story doesn’t add up.

It feels to me as if a number of pieces are missing.

1. The American federal law enforcement community wants to identify the shooters of Mexican nationals on Mexican turf, by using American gun shops to intentionally run guns to Mexican drug cartels?

Say this slowly. Take each part separately, disassemble it and then put it back together.

1.Does somebody believe that the Mexican government does not know who is at the head of the Mexican drug cartels?

A. Let me disabuse any layman of the notion that nearly EVERY high ranking Mexican government official doesn’t know EXACTLY who is at the head of the Mexican drug cartels. They have been dealing with them directly, trying to work with them to avoid destroying the tourism trade and negotiating with them to try to control the violence.

2. Does somebody believe that AMERICAN law enforcement does not know about gang trafficking of guns and drugs, operating on both sides of the border, often using undocumented illegals to use our borders as a sieve? Operating in our prisons and in virtually every state in the union, but especially border states?

A. Let me disabuse any layman of the notion that organized crime is NOT at the heart of nearly all the violent crime, drug abuse and terrorization of our major metropolitan areas. Or that law enforcement in AMERICA doesn’t know EXACTLY who these gangbangers are.

3. So, why would they try to have guns sold from here, to be used in crimes there, to trace to people they already know well…that kill Mexican citizens… over whom we have no authority to investigate when they are victims of crimes…in which we essentially aided and abetted committing as a government program?

A. A junior grade, rookie, Barney Fife level detective would see the holes in this in two minutes. “Identifying” the gang that commits a crime is a strawman, in this scenario. The cartels are known commodities. The gangs here are known commodities.

The coverup story hides something deeper. Much deeper.

As long as the murders stayed on the other side of the border, or within the gang infestation on this side of the border, the plan is useless.

The gangbanger that shot Brian Terry tripped up the game. The ONLY way this makes any sense, is if the guns made it BACK across the border. And…wound up at crime scenes HERE.

Not a Brian Terry type crime scene. An inner city, gangbanger crime scene.

Now…try to piece together the narrative. “AMERICAN gun shops are responsible for killing minority youths, by assisting the gun and drug cartels. AMERICAN officials are able to trace guns from AMERICAN gun shops into Mexico and then back into the AMERICAN inner cities.

AMERICA and the NRA NUTS are the bad guys, who needs to APOLOGIZE to Mexico …AND to the parents of youth in the inner cities and major metropolitan areas for CAUSING violent crime. People don’t kill people..guns do. ”

This doesn’t look, feel, smell like a law enforcement project. It has all the earmarks of a community organizer’s project. Plant evidence, stir up trouble…point at the trouble. The harder the 2nd amendment defenders argue, the more you point at the trouble. Until they capitulate.

Works with banks. Works with real estate.

Think like an ACORN.

The media aren’t reporting it, because the propaganda machine can’t yet “play the narrative”.

Work through this slowly. “Identifying the user” is a head fake. They KNOW the user…hell, they SOLD to the user. And…300 dead Mexicans are crimes we can’t investigate. What’s the play here? THAT’S the coverup.

The only thing that makes sense of Fast and Furious is that it was a cold blooded project to use murdered Mexicans and Americans as a publicity ploy to enact draconian gun control laws based on a plot by the Obama administration under the supervision of the Holder Department of Justice. Literally no other rationale makes sense.

The Mediterranean in Crisis

The Arab Spring is being transformed into the Calphate. 

On the North Shore the economy is collapsing along with the birth rate.

This is not going to end well.

The eurocrisis has been front and center for nearly two years, during which time the economic and financial fundamentals have continued to deteriorate. “The Arab Spring” came suddenly, in a series of outbursts of optimism. It may have come at the worst possible time for the beleaguered nations of the North Shore.

The Mediterranean has entered one of the stormiest periods in recorded history. It is the major contributor to risk in global equity markets. It is too soon to predict how these crises will end.

The Cradle of Civilization is rocking amid an array of winds and storms.

Obama's Jesus Nod and Wink

Frank J. Fleming

Obama has started to use Jesus to try and justify his horrible policies, which seems pretty blasphemous. You know how the media freaks out about a coming theocracy if a Republican even mentions God, but Obama can claim that he did all his policies for religious reasons and the media won’t care? I think a big part of that is that when a liberal invokes God, no one really takes them seriously. Actually, I think half the time in Obama’s speech, he pronounced the Son of God’s name as “Jebus”.

Barack Hussein Obama has invoked Jesus for his proposal to hike taxes:

President Obama offered a new line of reasoning for hiking taxes on the rich on Thursday, saying at the National Prayer Breakfast that his policy proposals are shaped by his religious beliefs.

Coming from a Republican with well-known religious beliefs - George Bush comes to mind - invoking Christianity as the basis for a policy decision would be greeted with howls of outrage coupled with ridicule and the warning that the government was turning the country into a theocracy. So why are the only people noting the rise of the Obama Theocracy people on the Right?

Simple: no one on the Left believes for a moment that Obama means it.

The fact is, those people who rise to prominence as Democrats may proclaim their religious affiliation, but everyone acknowledges that when it comes to faith and politics, faith takes – not just a back seat – but becomes a sock puppet and supports whatever political position the Left espouses. Exhibit “A” at the moment is the famously Catholic Nancy Pelosi who is loudly proclaiming that forcing Catholic institutions to finance contraception and abortion is a Catholic as the Pope. She is also a strong abortion advocate, but with the exception of Bob Casey a few decades ago, that is a requirement of Democrat office holders, and is not new.

Obama, Pelosi, (and Bill Clinton carrying his oversized Bible during the Lewinski scandal) are, in the immortal words of the late Sen. Pat Moynihan, shoveling “boob bait for the bubbas.” They are proclaiming their religious beliefs with a huge wink and nod to their supporters who know they don’t mean it; not for a moment.

Why has the collapse of Communism had so little impact on political discourse in the West?

Powerline:

I think a very partial answer to the question Ms. Daley poses is that leftism has never been based on idealism. It has always been based, for the most part, on hate and envy. So when Communism was conclusively proved to be a failure, leftists (including not only leftists in politics, but more important, leftists in the media and in academia) didn’t change their minds or admit their mistake. For in their eyes, while there may have been disappointment, there was no mistake. Their resentments and hatreds remained. They merely sought other vehicles, other terminologies, other tactics to bring down the West and the free enterprise system and democratic institutions that define it. Yesterday’s socialists are today’s progressives. They barely missed a beat.

Sex Week at Yale

"I think especially this year, they've taken great care to make it an inclusive event," a Yale junior said.

There will also be sessions about pornography

At Yale, sex is not limited to a week.

JFK's Teen Mistress Tells All

One of many.

She always called him “Mr. President” — not Jack. He refused to kiss her on the lips when they made love. But Mimi Alford, a White House intern from New Jersey, was smitten nonetheless.

She was in the midst of an 18-month affair with the most powerful man in the world, sharing not only John F. Kennedy’s bed but also some of his darkest and most intimate moments.

In her explosive new tell-all, “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath,” Alford, now a 69-year-old grandmother and retired New York City church administrator, sets the record straight in searingly candid detail.

Sierra Club took $26M from gas industry to fight coal-fired plants

What's the difference between the Sierra Club and a crack whore?

It's a trick question.

And from the Daily Caller:

A Time magazine blogger reported Thursday that the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and most august environmental organization, accepted millions of dollars in donations from one of the nation’s biggest natural gas-drilling companies for a program lambasting coal-fired power plants as environmental evildoers.

The Sierra Club's new buyer is Billionaire Michael Bloomberg who also bought the New York City Mayoralty.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $50 million from his personal philanthropy in July 2011 for the anti-coal program.

Is there anything money can't buy? So far the answer is NO.

Kentucky Coal Association president Bill Bissett told the meeting that Chesapeake has also funded the American Lung Association’s Clean Air Initiative. The result, he said, is that the lung health group has attacked the coal and oil lobbies while leaving the natural gas industry alone.

How MoveOn depicted the Bush deficits.

It's incredible how quaint and old-fashioned this MoveOn.org ad has become just a few short years after it was created.



Change a few words and this could be an ad to run against Obama.

It's takers versus makers and these days the takers are winning

Glenn Reynolds on the moochers vs. suckers divide.

And an important point of Sykes’ book is that moocher-culture isn’t limited to farmers or welfare queens. The moocher-vs-sucker divide isn’t between the rich and poor, but between those who support themselves and those nursing at the government teat.

Plenty of the wealthy are doing the latter, and that has its own consequences, which are often worse than those stemming from goodies for the poor.

In a world of bailouts and crony capitalism - which is to say, in the world we live in today - a rational businessperson has to compare the return on investment between improving a product or service, or lobbying the government for goodies.

Frequently, the latter looks better: If you spend $1 million on lobbying, and get a $1 billion subsidy from the government, that’s a thousand-fold return on your money.

It’s hard to do one-hundredth as well through actual capitalism. So why bother to improve your products at all? Just hire more lobbyists.

Of course, the government can provide such rewards only because it has vast resources of coercive power, and vast stocks of other people’s money.

Deploying those resources for self-serving political purposes is nothing new, but - as Sykes points out in considerable detail - things are much worse now than they were during previous periods of excess.

He points out that the real problem is the fact that the US government operates well outside of the limits imposed by the constitution, giving it access to money and power is was never granted.

Take Your "Outrage" and SHOVE IT!

On the PissGate "outrage."

Railroad Tracks

Here's something on the width of railroad tracks that came via e-mail.  Don't know if it's true and some of it is a stretch, but it makes a certain amount of sense.

Railroad tracks.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the U.S. railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular Odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So, who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.


And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important!


Now you know, Horses' Asses control almost everything...
Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn't it?

Solving a lot of problems with statistics the BLS way.

If the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) was in charge of things like measuring whether you were insured or ill a lot of our nation’s problems would be solved.

The way the BLS calculates unemployment removes people who have given up looking for work from the labor force. Ergo: stop looking for work, poof, you are no longer unemployed.

Let’s apply that to the uninsured. Have a life threatening disease and can’t get insurance so you stop shopping for it, poof, you are no longer uninsured.

If the disease is fatal and the BLS measures illness, poof, you are no longer ill, you are pre-dead.

Thanks to James Pethokoukis for Why the official 8.3 percent unemployment rate is a phony number—and what it means for Obama’s reelection

And Glenn Reynolds for the link.