Overnight Open Thread

—Maetenloch

De Facto Sharia Costs Dearborn, MI $100K

Due to its large Muslim population Dearborn, MI has become a hotbed of creeping de facto sharia. To the point that doing anything that offends local Muslims - even if it's 100% legal and Constitutional - will bring down official heat and harassment. In fact just handing out Christian fliers on public property is enough to get you detained and arrested as was covered on a previous ONT. Video of this incident is below the fold.

Was this a case of over-zealous police acting on their own? Nope, even the town's mayor was totally down with restricting anything he perceives as anti-Muslim.

"It's really about a hatred of Muslims," [Dearborn Mayor Jack] O'Reilly said. "That is what the whole heart of this is. ... Their idea is that there is no place for Muslims in America. They fail to understand the Constitution."

Well now after almost a year and a half the wheels of justice have slowly turned and a judge has finally ruled the arrests and restrictions to be unconstitutional and ordered Dearborn to pay $100K in fees:

A judge in Detroit has ruled that the decision by police in neighboring Dearborn to arrest a Christian pastor who wanted to hand out Christian tracts at the city’s Arab fest in 2009 will cost the city some $100,000.

That’s the decision following a request from the pastor’s attorneys that the losing side in the First Amendment argument over expressing religious perspectives on city streets be required to pay them for their work on behalf of Christian Pastor George Saieg.

Of course in a just and non-politicized country the US DOJ would get involved and stop Dearborn's ongoing civil rights violations of non-Muslims. But I guess we're not living there anymore.

Are You a Ddulite?
What's a Ddulite you ask? Well basically the opposite of a Luddite:

A preference for higher tech solutions even in cases where lower tech alternatives have greater and more appropriate functionality; a person of ddulite tendencies.

Though Ddulites are the opposite of Luddites with respect to attitudes toward technology, they occupy more or less the same point with respect to functionality.

My mother is very much a ddulite and back in my wayward youth I was too. Now as a semi-grizzled engineer I've come to realize that lower tech solutions that work and are thoroughly debugged and understood are golden. That doesn't you don't upgrade but you have to look closely at the actual upside versus true costs instead of going with the new shiny.

Google Now Sponsoring CPAC
So I guess they're trying to be less evil or just trying to have some influence on both sides of the aisle. Some speculate that it was the opposition to SOPA on the right that attracted Google's attention and involvement.

Teaching High School Students to Work at Walmart
So you'd think Walmart creating an internship program for high school students in Detroit where the unofficial unemployment rate is over 50% could only be seen as a good thing, right?

Sean Vann, principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit Free Press he's enthusiastic because along with earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be around people from different cultures.

Nope - for some it's just an internship in slavery:

Donna Stern, a representative of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to school."

New Innovations In Silver
Silversmithing is another one of those areas where you expect pretty much no further innovations. But you'd be wrong:

Human beings have been smithing silver for millennia. I was surprised to learn, therefore, that significant advances in silver metallurgy have been made as recently as the 1990s. Sterling silver, by definition, contains 92.5 wt% silver metal and 7.5% other metals, traditionally mostly copper. In 1998, however, Peter Johns of Middlesex University obtained a US patent on sterling silver alloys containing the semi-metallic element germanium as an additive. The resulting product, called Argentium, eliminates firescale, dramatically reduces tarnishing in air, and produces a more ductile metal.

All of the 2012 Super Bowl Commercials
In case missed them the first time.

Eaten by a Grue: A History of Zork
For all you old-school gamers who remember the text-only game from the 70s and 80s.

Originally, Zork and Adventure were both written for the PDP-10, a room-sized computer mainframe that was popular with universities in the late-1970s. Adventure was written in a very common programming language called FORTRAN, so copies of the game spread rapidly among mainframe users. Zork, however, was written with MDL, a more specialized language that wasn’t as popular. So, for a while, the only way to play Zork was to log on to the MIT PDP-10 through ARPAnet, an early version of the internet, and run it remotely. Zork was never officially announced to the world; people just heard about it through ARPANet, making it an early viral sensation.

Now I wasted a good amount of time trying to solve all the puzzle in Zork but it turns out I was in good company:

Apparently comedian Robin Williams, a long-time gamer who named his daughter Zelda after The Legend of Zelda, had a unique way of getting help with the latest Infocom game – he’d call Marc Blank in the middle of the night and beg for clues.

The Yahoo AoSHQ group. Bla bla bla. And don't forget about the Job Bank.

Tonight's post brought to you by Illinois Grammar Nazis:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Close it up

Some Funny Status Updates from 2011

—Ace

Some are okay. Some are lame.

Here's one of the okay ones:

Close it up

If Obama's Jobs Record Is Good, How Come the Media Can't Ask About It?

—Ace

To clarify: They can ask him very superficial things like "How great do you feel about the 243,000 jobs created last month?," but they can't ask further than that, because there the Narrative falls apart.

President Obama will benefit because the media will fail to note that the Obama administration promised that the unemployment rate today would be approximately 5.8 percent – not 8.3 percent — if the $800 billion stimulus package were passed.

He will benefit because interviewers like Lauer will fail to ask the president whether the unemployment rate will be below 5.5 percent — as promised – by Election Day.

He will benefit because commentators will ignore the fact that even if 250,000 jobs were created every month from now to the election, the unemployment rate will still hover near 8 percent.

He will benefit because no reporter will ask the president to explain why the labor participation rate has fallen to an abysmal 63.7 percent, the lowest level in three decades.

He will benefit because the media will continue to ignore the fact that if the the labor force participation rate were the same as when President Obama took office, today’s unemployment rate would be more than 11 percent.

And so on.

The Watchdogs of Democracy

You gonna get 'em, Spike? You gonna pulverize 'em, Spike? Hey Spike, hey Spike -- you gonna get 'em, Spike?

CAC's Bacon Review: Jack in the Box's Bacon Milkshake

—CAC

After months of frustration in finding new bacon-infused products, Jack in the Box hammered me with this ad (Youtube embed is below)

Now, the BLT Cheeseburger is ridiculous, because, well, it's a fucking Bacon Cheeseburger with a different name. However, viewing their website for Marry Bacon led to something that brought tears of joy to my eyes:

Winning Ticket: Proposition Bet That NY Would Score First Via Safety Paid 50 to 1

—Ace

Nice bet.

A Response to Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl Ad

—Ace

At Verum Serum.

Your ad, good as it is, just doesn’t reckon with the reality we’re facing and, more importantly, neither does President Obama. We’re $15 trillion dollars in debt. That’s money being loaded on future generations, including your kids and mine. Is it fair to ask people not yet born to pull together to shoulder our burdens? Because that’s the core of the disagreement on the field, Clint. It really does matter which team wins this one.

We desperately need a President who can get us to pull together for the good of the country (read: suck it up and pay our own way). But that’s not who we have in office. Not even close, Clint. According to the actual polling, Obama is the most divisive President in recent history. But that’s only part of it.

..

And, oh, by the way, he’s not a big fan of roaring engines, Clint. He forced through new CAFE standards that could mean the end of 8 cylinder production engines on all but a few cars. Obama wants America to roar? Only with 4 cylinder diesel-hybrids. Maybe that’s your idea of a kick-ass America but it’s not mine.

Tom Brady's Wife Vents To Hecklers: "My Husband Cannot F***ing Throw the Ball and Catch the Ball at the Same Time"

—Ace

They heckled her, calling out that Eli owned her husband and stuff.

So she defended him. Unfortunately she defended him by ripping his teammates, who had a bunch of key drops.

"You [need] to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball," she is heard saying. "My husband cannot [expletive] throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times.

Also unfortunately, people videotaped her saying that.

The good: She defends her guy to the hilt.

The bad:

From The Creators Of "Funemployment" Comes: A Smaller Workforce Is Better!

—DrewM.

The crew that thinks unemployment payments are great for the economy now think it's pretty awesome that people are leaving the workforce.

"A large percentage of that is due to younger people getting more education, which in the end is an economic positive," Carney said. "This increase in the number of people leaving the work force has been a trend and a fact since 2000, because of an aging population, which is not to say this is wholly -- that's not to say that I would wholly disregard as an issue." Carney had been asked about the 19 million underemployed or unemployed Americans, and about people who had left the work force.

Yes, more people racking up more debt (remember when student debt was bad?) for degrees in things that won't prepare them for an actual job is good for the economy.

It's like these people aren't even remotely acquainted with basic economics or something.

Carney went on to wonder why suddenly everyone is interested in the size of the workforce. Just politics or something he figures. It couldn't have to to do with massive numbers of people so far gone they aren't event trying to get work.

Open Thread/Open Blog

—Andy

By order of the Head Ewok.

Mid-Day Open Thread

—Andy

The Daily DOOM

—Monty

Follow 'The Daily DOOM' on Twitter: @AoSHQDOOM.

This meretricious, misleading, smug piece of crap on Social Security has already made my short-list for one of the worst op-ed pieces I've read this year. All the usual tropes are there: that the program is solvent (a lie); that it doesn't add to the deficit (a lie); that it's trivial to fix (a lie). In fact, Miller actually agitates for an expansion in Social Security. As I noted in an email I sent out: the smug is strong with this one. I'll bet he sniffs his own farts.

Top Headline Comments 2-6-12

—Gabriel Malor

Woohoo, a week without any GOP presidential debates.

It took Nevada GOP until early this morning to release the official numbers from the caucus. It was Romney with 50 percent. Gingrich got 21.1, Paul got 18.7, and Santorum brought up the rear with 9.9.

Police cleared OccupyDC out of their encampments on Saturday. The Occupiers vow to continue their fight for free shit 'n' stuff.

There will be a hearing today to determine whether Jared Loughner is competent to stand trial. The prison psychologist recently found that he isn't.

Ford is asking GM to pull its Superbowl ad (the post-apocalyptic Detroit (?) one) that implies that GM's Silverado truck is more dependable than the Ford F-series. The AP notes that the F-Series has been the best-selling truck in the U.S. for 35 years.

Overnight Open Thread

—Maetenloch

Now that that whole Super-thingy is over it's time for the important stuff.

All Toilets Are Not Created Equal

Longtime readers know about the struggles I've had with Japanese toilets. And for those of you snickering and suspecting that all that cheap Chinese crank may have taken its toll...well just imagine if you had to program your VCR in a foreign language every time you wanted to flush - and guessing wrong gets you sprayed in the face or worse.

Not so easy now huh?

And of course Cracked has an article on the 6 Most Terrifying Features of Japanese Toilets. When skynet goes active, I'm convinced high tech toilets will be its vanguard.

Plus here's another compendium of freaky toilets around the world. There's no place like your home toilet, there's no place like your home toilet, there's no place like your home toilet <clicks heels together>.

How to Salvage Any Blown New Year Resolutions

We are approaching the time of year when many people have already blown their New Year resolutions. For example, according to the fitness industry, a ton of gym memberships are sold from December to February but attendance significantly drops from March and on when people who were hoping to get fit as a New Year resolution will give up.

So here are some tips to recover and save your dignity.

Color Myth #3: The Deoxygenated Blood in Your Veins Is Blue
Not really true:

all blood is red. Deoxygenated blood is a slightly darker red—call it maroon, maybe—but it’s by no means blue. So why do the veins under your skin look blue? It’s not the veins themselves, which are pale and fairly colorless when they’re not filled with blood.

Read the rest to find out where the blue comes from.

A Washing Machine Achieves Transcendence Through Its Destruction
This is what happens when you put a washing machine into its kill cycle.

Top 10 Strange Japanese Films You Need to Watch

There are strange movies, and then there are stranger movies. Movies that simply cannot be described with words alone. There are movies you see, and then there are movies you experience. This list compiles ten of the strangest Japanese movies that simply must be seen to be believed.

Sadly I've only seen one of these - Versus. Note that some of the trailers may be NSFW.

Genius or Insanity: Pizzagna

If Garfield were real, this brilliant combination of pizza and lasagna would be enough to give him a heart attack…assuming he didn’t already have one as a result of his terrible diet and lethargic lifestyle. The idea’s pretty simple, just pile some thin crust pizzas into a casserole dish with a little extra sauce and cheese and voila…pizzagna

The Vampire Woman Of Mexico
Well I'd hit it - but only because fucking a demoness is on my lifetime achievement list .

Weekly AoSHQ Commenter Standings
Top 10 commenters:
1 [525 comments] 'Vic' [73.51 posts/day]
2 [522 comments] 'Jane D'oh'
3 [453 comments] 'CoolCzech'
4 [376 comments] 'Tammy al' Thor'
5 [364 comments] 'Robert'
6 [346 comments] 'soothsayer'
7 [316 comments] 'AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) SMOD 2012'
8 [302 comments] 'Hammersmith Police'
9 [299 comments] 'kbdabear'
10 [289 comments] 'yankeefifth'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [95 names] 'kbdabear' [13.30 unique names/day]
2 [51 names] 'garrett'
3 [46 names] 'davidt'
4 [40 names] '18-1'
5 [37 names] 'Billy Bob, pseudo-intellectual'
6 [37 names] 'Romeo13'
7 [37 names] 'al-Cicero, Tea Party Jihadist'
8 [31 names] 'Obama 2012'
9 [29 names] 'Liberal Pussy'
10 [27 names] 'andycanuck'

The group. Yeah.

Tonight's post brought to you by Hellcats:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Close it up

Superbowl XLVI

—Dave In Texas

They may need a new numbering system. Binary? Superbowl 101110.

Well this is the show. After five hours of non-stop pregame there will be a football game, and commercials, and halftime crazy.

America, fuck yeah.

Enjoy morons. Here is your first Superbowl thread. Somebody will post more of em.

ALSO: the Cowboys signed a new kicker.

He gets the league minimum, just like every other kicker.

Close it up

Syrian Defector Claims Assad's Army Is Falling Apart

—Ace

The Syrian regime is supported by an Alawite minority, but rely upon Sunnis to provide most personnel for its army.

And the Sunnis are deserting.

In his first full-length newspaper interview, General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who has taken refuge in Turkey, gave an apocalyptic insider’s view of the state of the regime – despite its attempt to reassert control this weekend.

He said only a third of the army was at combat readiness due to defections or absenteeism, while remaining troops were demoralised, most of its Sunni officers had fled, been arrested, or sidelined, and its equipment was degraded…

“The army will collapse during February,” he said. “The reasons are the shortage of Syrian army personnel, which even before March 15 last year did not exceed 65 per cent. The proportion of equipment that was combat ready did not exceed that, due to a shortage of spare parts.

He claims the real strength of the Syrian army is down to 32% of its paper strength.

Mostly Peaceful DC Occupier Hits Cop in Face with a Brick

—Dave In Texas

Student loans.

Or something. Incoherent bullshit is hard to understand.

via @velvethammer on Twitter.

Remember When the Super Bowl Used To Be About Football?

—Andy

I'm sure there will be some great Super Bowl ads, but this one featuring the mayors of New York and Boston won't be one of them.

The ad will reportedly talk about gun laws and the need for the presidential candidates to address the issue. What the ad most assuredly won’t talk about is gun violence itself. Because the last thing these two big-government grannies want you to know is that gun violence is plummeting, even as gun ownership has skyrocketed.

Never let facts get in the way of a good story, I guess.

Oh, and you know who else is making an appearance:

President Barack Obama will sit down for an interview Sunday with NBC News' Matt Lauer during a special pre-game edition of TODAY airing late Sunday afternoon before the Super Bowl.

Dammit, liberals. Do you have to politicize everything? Can I not have one day ... a few hours, actually ... where I don't have to see your stupid mugs on the screen and have your crap agenda forced down my throat? I'm trying to save room for wings and beer, TYVFM.

Game prediction: I can practically see Boston from my house, but the Pats' secondary is ripe to be picked apart by the G-men, so Imma go with the Giants.

Also, if you haven't seen this story on Giants' wideout Victor Cruz, it's a good one. (h/t Slublog)

A Deceptive Stat [ace]: Ed quotes the true-but-misleading stat that the Giants have the league's 29th-ranked passing defense, which is just terrible.

But that's misleading, because a lot of starters were out for most of the season. They're back in now.

If you watched the past three playoffs games, you surely noticed there were not a lot of big-time pass completions for the Giants' opponents, or really many pass completions at all.

And that was against one great passing team and a couple of other good ones.

How many times did Aaron Rodgers scramble for 8 or 12 yards? A bunch. And as much as I hated seeing him pick up first downs with this legs, it's impossible to miss the deduction: Even with the extra time he made for himself with his mobility, there was still no one open downfield.

The NFL cameras rarely show that (the "all 22" films showing the entire field are a closely guarded secret), and it makes for a boring game, with so much of the real game -- the coverage -- invisible to viewers at home.

But while we talk about the Giants' defensive line a lot, in fact they've been made average in the last few outings. They did a decent job, but their recent opponents have denied them the huge impact people keep looking for.

Meanwhile the Giants' secondary continues to quietly prevent things from happening. It's hard to see a non-event, but its presence is seen on the field every time a quarterback has a good four seconds to throw the ball but elects to either run or throw it out of bounds.

The Giants were rated as the 29th pass defense during the regular season. But in the playoffs (and their last couple of regular season games), they've been playing like a top 5 passing defense.

If the Giants stick to what they've been doing, they will put linebackers out in coverage and consistently pass rush with only 4 (or even 3) guys. The gamble they've been making is that if they can just cover the receivers, those pass rushers will get to the quarterback eventually, sporadically.

A lot of the focus is on that defensive front, but Tom Brady is not having a career season due to his offensive line playing shitty. They're very good too, so I have to think the battle of the lines will pretty much be a wash.

Which might suggest gambling by calling more stuff like cornerback and linebacker blitzes, but Brady reacts well to that sort of thing and can burn you if you don't get to him fast enough. Kind of the old "If you're going to take a shot at the king, you'd better kill him" sort of dealio.

The Middle East in a Nutshell

—Russ from Winterset

This situation, courtesy of the gentlemen at Powerline, summarizes the entire history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

To put it bluntly, the Palestinians would rather drink water contaminated with their own shit than accept help from Israelis to get the mess cleaned up. And some people want to give these people their own country. What's up with that?

(since it IS "that Sunday", I should probably post my pick in the big "Chowds vs. North Jersey Giants" football game. I'm going with.........the game will be OK, but the ads will disappoint. I'm still too bitter about my Packers losing to pick a winner.)

Sunday Book Thread

—Monty

Two new books this weeks, both on the Kindle:

The first is Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010. Murray's thesis is that the real cultural gap in this country has less to do with race or geographical location than it does with IQ. I haven't read the book yet, but his thesis seems to be that the big cultural changes initiated in the 1960's -- women's liberation, promiscuity, pervasive divorce, single-parenthood, an abandonment of religiosity -- were largely abandoned by the elites by the 1990's as unworkable. But those of lower IQ found it difficult to go back to the traditional ways, even as the new paradigm ended up hurting them the most.

(You'll note that I use IQ rather than wealth or class as a grouping mechanism. I don't know if Murray does this explicitly, but it seems to me to be the obvious upshot of his thesis. Brighter people saw the harm the socio-cultural changes were doing to their lives, and reversed the trend; duller people, lacking the insight and mental capacity for this kind of change, remained mired in the dysfunctional "lower class".)

I expect that I'll find a lot to disagree with in Murray's book. For one, I believe that the inexorable rise of the welfare state has done as much to ruin the family as any other social trend in the past 50 years -- when women can turn to the government rather than their husbands for financial help and support with child-rearing, men become little more than distractions (and often burdensome ones) in their daily lives. The catastrophic destruction of the black family in the past 50 years may be only the first wave; similar patters are emerging in the hispanic and white poor communities.

I also picked up Scott Rasmussen's The People's Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt. Rasmussen's thesis is pretty much conventional wisdom among Tea Partiers at this point -- politicians either will not or cannot arrest the slide of our nation into insolvency, so it will fall to the average citizen to do it, by sending a new breed of fiscal hawk to Washington. The 2010 elections seem to buttress Rasmussen's point, but the 2012 Presidential election will tell the tale: if Obama wins another term (as he very well might), then it will prove that the center of gravity in this country has simply moved too far to the left. If that's the case...DOOM.

Sunday Morning Non-Book Open Thread

—Andy

Whoa! Romney won Nevada?

Didn't see that one coming.

Overnight Open Thread

—CDR M

Tis the eve before the Super Bowl. I'm rootin' for the G-Men for a couple of reasons. Mostly because my wife is a big time Giants fan but also because I really, really want to see the video that Paul 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald would put up on his site Townie News after losing to the Giants again. The video Fitzy's We Blew Super Bowl 42 was funny as hell and I so want some more of that. Kinda like how Cartman wanted Scott Tenorman's tears of sadness.

Fitzy's Super Bowl 46 pre-game video below the fold.

Another Japanese Product

This is supposed to be a Face Slimmer. Seriously. I think it's really designed for those that just gotta have that lovedoll look.

Electronic Dating

Well if you are into electronic dating, the shiite just got real. Somewhat. Would You Kiss Someone Via Robot Messenger? This is some freaky deaky stuff man. I'm sure it won't be long until Roxxxy gets hooked up to this and then you can really get your freak on.

Artificial intelligence researcher Hooman Samani has developed the kiss messenger, or Kissenger, to add a new dimension to those wistful Skype-dates with someone far away.

"The basic concept is that you have two robots, both outfitted with an artificial pair of lips," explained Sebastian Anthony of ExtremeTech.

"The lips are highly touch-sensitive, but can also be manipulated by motors inside the robot."

To seal the deal, the partners must take out their Kissengers - small, pig-like robots with floppy ears and googly-eyes - and, well, lock lips with them.

The robots are equipped with soft silicon pads that transmit lip movements between partners.

Kitteh Gettin' Jiggy Wit It

Nature Stuff

Think you got it bad in your significant relationship? Not as bad as some males in the arachnid and insect families. Sexual cannibalism seems to run rampant out there in Mother Nature's backyard but one spider has come up with a plan to survive his mating encounter. Here is the Spider That Chops Off His Penis To Save His Head.

Star Wars

This just in. George Lucas still sucks. Especially if this rumor is true in regard to the upcoming live-action Star Wars TV show. Star Wars: Underworld Plot Spoiler. It sounds like a blatant rip-off of what J.J. Abrams pulled off with the Star Trek reboot. If one wanted to go in a different direction, I liked what Dark Horse did with Star Wars: Infinities.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... The events and players are very familiar but something isn't quite right. Luke Skywalker valiantly attacks the Death Star, fires his torpedoes -- and they miss their mark! Welcome to a Star Wars you never imagined, a Star Wars shattered, a Star Wars where the possibilities are ENDLESS!

Tonight's Musical Clip

The 90's Megamix brought to you by one of the guys from Axis of Awesome.

Consumer Alert

Well this sucks with gas prices going up, up and away. Buying Generic Doesn't Save Shoppers As Much As It Used To.

Tonight's ONT brought to you by:

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Close it up

Predictions, Nevada and the Super Bowl

—Ace

In the last NY-NE Super Bowl, Brady had a hobbled ankle and couldn't move laterally well. So the Giants were able to blitz him straight from the nose tackle, and got him a bunch of times. He's healthy now.

Allen West: Obama's Jerking Us Around With Falsified Unemployment Numbers

—Ace

West said:

"Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months?? With numbers like today, urban communities should be well on their way to economic recovery then! There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned," West wondered Friday. "Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers??"

But economists immediately shot his suspicions down as "unfounded" and "paranoid."

Wait, no they didn't.

Economists reached by The Hill for comment couldn't fully explain the unemployment rate change for the black community. William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University specializing in African-American studies and economics, wrote in an email to The Hill that the decline could have been due to a smaller labor force. He called the drop an "unbelievably dramatic drop" but didn't rule out the possibility of someone tampering with the numbers; he said there was no evidence one way or the other.

The Hockey Stick Graph

Don't call it a comeback.

Thanks to vic.

Moron's Film Now In Limited Release!
(Last Night For Many Cities)

—Ace

A moron -- I mean that in a good way, a friend of the site -- shot a movie called Theater Bizarre now in limited release in 12 cities, including New York, LA, Columbus, Denver, San Diego, and Dallas. DC too. Click the link to check it out.

(Next weekend other cities are added, like Brookline (Boston)).

I'll do my own review tomorrow, but since it's in release right now (tonight and tomorrow night only for most cities), I'll just do a head's up post. It got a good write-up in... the WSJ, of all places:

As a macabre primer to this parallel universe [of off-kilter extreme horror/fantasy], we suggest "The Theatre Bizarre," a portmanteau both ghastly and intelligent, featuring a murderer's row of contemporary horror's more prominent practitioners. Producer David Gregory's conceit was to set half a dozen directors free to explore the traditions of Grand Guignol. The results—from, among others, South African cult director Richard Stanley, makeup wizard Buddy Giovinazzo and the talented Douglas Buck—are alternately shocking, shockingly existential and/or tender in ways that belie stereotypes. When horror makes it to the mall, it's generally a mess. "The Theatre Bizarre" may not be everyone's cup of tea. But within its genre, it's state-of-the-art.

Christian Toto similarly gives it a good review at Big Hollywood.

As I've warned before, the movie is for jaded horror film fans, the kind who sort of put their noses up at routine decapitation -- "Oh, terrific, I've only seen that in four of the six Final Destination movies."

It makes up for a lower budget by attempting a more intellectualized and conceptual form of horror, putting horror in mundane situations (such as a couple breaking up) rather than in Secret Government Laboratories.

It's a series of six short films each by a different writer and director.

I actually saw the premiere in New York last December. I liked it a lot. The final installment is called Sweets, and is especially good.

Sweets was really interesting to me, because I had seen the script in advance, and thought it the dialogue (about a break-up) was cliched.

But I didn't understand how they planned to play it. It was supposed to be cliched. I can't convey how well the actors performed it, except to say Is swear they were two of the most hysterical actors I've seen. The whole point was to have them act out the typical break-up dialogue in the most hilarious way possible.

The chick was awesomely deadpan (and, by the way, super-hot; I got to meet her and tell her what a super fan I was).

The guy on the other hand was... emotive beyond all reason. I don't want to spoil it. Let's just say he was funny.

Oh, and then there's like four minutes of excessive gore.

As I've said before, strong content warning for the trailer.

Politico: Enough of the "Indignation Industry"

—Ace

I wish they were serious about this. I'd sure like an end to the left's incessant "He said a dirty word" childish tattletaling and, even worse, the silly crap we on the right respond with in kind, to make the point.

I get the reason to make the point, to notify the left of what the same rules feel like when used as a weapon against them. But despite that defensible point, I feel silly about doing it. It doesn't feel like us. It feels like them. It feels like imbeciles who shriek at the sight of a mouse.

Jonathan Martin of Politico recently referred to the "cracker counties" of Florida (those bordering Georgia and Alabama), and the right has taken him to task for his very own Macacca Moment.

After he complained how silly that all was, now a fellow writer at Politico writes about how silly the game is, generally.

I agree. But let's remember that going forward, huh? Let's not just realize it's silly when applied against a co-worker, eh?

Yes, he's talking about Romney's gaffe. But I think he's really thinking about Martin's.

Now that Romney has done his part in the ritual by admitting he said a dumb thing, it might be time for everyone else to make a similar admission: The whole uproar was a dumb thing.

It was a vivid example of the indignation industry that drives the modern political-media culture and makes it more shallow and phony. Virtually everyone who is around politics — as candidate, operative or journalist — is familiar with the taking-umbrage business, as both participant and victim.

On both left and right, the cycle of huffing and puffing over the outrage du jour is now so ingrained in daily life that, like a smoker who lights up without even thinking about it, most people no longer pause to notice that nothing about it is on the level.

...

Schnur predicted this week’s Romney episode will pass soon enough — but that more such episodes are coming.

“The primary value of this type of controversy is to rile up the party base,” he said. “In a general election campaign in which neither nominee is going to be able to motivate his party’s loyalists to any great degree, you’re going to see more and more of these manufactured controversies designed to rev up the true believers.”

A little insight into Romney, here. You probably all know this, but his dad was considered the front-runner for the 1968 Republican nomination (and would have been a favorite to win the presidency) until he was asked to explain why he had initially supported the Vietnam War, but now was rethinking that. He said that he had been "brainwashed" by generals when given a tour of the country in 1965.

Not literally, of course. But that one remark entirely derailed his candidacy.

I think Romney's dad explains a lot about him. It explains why he's determined to be President despite apparently not having much political talent or any noticeable interest in ideological imperatives like freedom. This is personal; this is winning one for dad.

And I think the "brainwashing" comment might explain why he's so relentlessly programmed. He has his own version of Vietnam Syndrome, learning the lessons of the last campaign a little too well.

Yes, one word can derail a campaign. But a lack of any genuine words -- with focus-group pablum offered at every turn -- can also derail one.

Back to Politico's point: It's a great point. I'm glad someone in the liberal media made it.

And I expect they'll drop what they know about the essential falseness and triviality of the Indignation Industry the next time the Democratic Party and Obama for America needs them to.

Overstated: Adjoran says that my claim that Romney was "cruising, easily" to the nomination was wrong. I've changed it. He says:

I was there, Fauntleroy. He imploded long before a single delegate had been selected. And while he would have been a contender, Nixon had spent three years quietly traveling the country raising money for Republican candidates for Congress, Mayor, and state legislature, and for state and local parties, charging no fee for coming. He was earning a lot of chits the hard way, and probably would have been the favorite over Romney, who lacked the national base. And most in the GOP (and the country) in those days wanted more forceful prosecution of the war, not second-guessing.

And Romney was out before it was ever clear that LBJ was so vulnerable, before McCarthy even entered the race.

I changed it to "considered the front-runner." As for the bit about it not being clear that LBJ was vulnerable -- fine, but that would have emerged no matter who the Republican candidate was. Whether or not people understood, in late 67, that LBJ would become so unpopular he would vow to not seek nor accept the Democratic nomination by 1968, that still would have happened.

Assuming (which I do) that events on the Democratic side would have unfolded in much the same way, whether Romney or Nixon was the candidate, then any acceptable Republican candidate would have won. And George Romney seemed, prior to the brainwashing comment, to be pretty acceptable.

Mark Steyn: The Liberal Enforcers

—rdbrewer

Ace recently had this to say about "Rolodex socialists":

Democrats are just a collection of rent-seekers, beak-dippers, and vig-skimmers, who have convinced themselves that it is not only acceptable that they should collect rents, dip their beaks, and collect a vig on everyone else's transactions, but that to deny them such rents, dippings, and vigs constitutes the most hateful, vicious, and fundamentally un-American behavior they can conceive.

Mark Steyn makes a related point about the mindset and methods of these beak-dippers:

As Senator Obama said during the 2008 campaign, words matter. Modern “liberalism” is strikingly illiberal; the high priests of “tolerance” are increasingly intolerant of even the mildest dissent; and those who profess to “celebrate diversity” coerce ever more ruthlessly a narrow homogeneity. Thus, the Obama administration’s insistence that Catholic institutions must be compelled to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. This has less to do with any utilitarian benefit a condomless janitor at a Catholic school might derive from Obamacare, and more to do with the liberal muscle of Big Tolerance enforcing one-size-fits-all diversity.

Reptilian tribalism. Territoriality. Enforcement. It's all very primitive, isn't it?

Follow me on Twitter.

Smashing New Ad From Sweet Meteor of Death 2012

—Andy

He's the One™ we've been waiting for since the big bang.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

—Andy

This SMOD character's entry into the race caused quite a stir this week, but I'm thinking of taking a second look at All Dead Inside.

Overnight Open Thread

—CDR M

Does Your State Suck At Science? California ranked as the best state for science curriculum. Seriously? Well that does not seem to match up with results. Is California Really Serious About Science?

When California students enter high school, they're already behind in science. Their fourth and eighth grade scores are among the nation's lowest (PDF). Should this really surprise us? After all, science is on the back burner in the state's elementary and middle schools. Large majorities of teachers in grades one through six say they spend fewer than two hours a week on science. That's less than the national average of 2.3 hours, which is hardly much to aspire to. The state's educators know that there is a problem. In a survey last year, less than half of its elementary school principals said their schools offer strong instruction in science.

Useless Facts

Some interesting Useless Facts.

TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
All of the clocks in Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
The average ear of corn has eight hundred kernels arranged in sixteen rows.

Smartphone Dating Trends

So morons, where do y'all fall into this debate? Android Users Bathroom and Bedroom Secrets Revealed.

The survey, of people who are currently single, found 62% of Android users have slept with someone on the first date, compared with 57% for iPhones and 48% for BlackBerry. There’s no figure for Windows, but then again if you set your heart on a Windows Phone 7 handset, you’re probably used to delayed gratification.

Of the respondents, Android users were also most likely to have had a one night stand. It may well be that the smartphone is a correlation red herring: Android users are also most likely by some distance (72% compared with 58% for iPhone and 50% for Blackberry) to have used an online dating site, which could be a better indication of sealing the deal on day one.

Meanwhile another survey suggests Android users are most likely (87%) to have used their smartphone while on the toilet, with BlackBerry (84%) a solid number two and iPhone coming last at 77%. That may well back-up a recent British study that found 92% people had some form of bacteria on their phones, with 16% of handsets harboring E.coli.

Drinkin' News

OK, first the good news. Secrets Of Red Wine Chemical Discovered. And now the bad news. Well not really bad news as long as you don't mind a lot drinking. You'll need to drink 600 bottles of wine to begin to notice any health benefits. Just for you morons, 600 bottles translates to 150 boxes of wine.

Doggeh Loves Ping Pong

Free Legal Advice

Alright 'ettes, don't try this one when you get pulled over. Woman Says Her 'Big Breasts' Hindered Her DUI Test Performance. Uh-uh. Right.

When another deputy said they were going to perform roadside tasks, Raymond told the deputy he "needed to understand that she is big chested," saying big bosoms make balancing difficult. Asked if she had any injuries, Raymond said she had big breasts and whiplash.

During one test she started to dance.

"I asked her if she wanted to attempt the task and she stated if I hold her hand," an affidavit states. "I asked her again if she would like to attempt the task and she stated not really because she has big breasts."

The deputy told her to keep her hands by her side and "she stated hell no not with these. Telling me again she can't do it, not with her big boobies."

The affidavit did not specify a size for Raymond's breasts or even give a ballpark estimate.

The deputy later stopped her when she started taking off her clothes to display her bosoms.

Speaking of legal stuff, this is The Best Letter Evah Written To A Lawyer.

Gun Pron

WTF?

Just what the hell IS in the water in Minnesota? School Playground 'Rape Tag' Raises Concern.

Freeze tag during recess seldom raises eyebrows, but a variation of the game known as “rape tag” among students at a Minnesota elementary school has alarmed administrators and parents.

Principal Bill Sprung of Washington Elementary School in New Ulm sent a letter home this week to parents to alert them to the disturbing game, which was described as similar to freeze tag, "except that a person had to be humped to be unfrozen," the letter states.

Drunken Sailor

My, my. The standards in the Navy have fallen. I've had my fair share of drunken escapades (many of which remain highly classified) but nothing comes close to being this pathethic. Drunken Sailor Opens Wrong Door. Jeez. An 80 year old woman?
h/t Genghis

Tonight's ONT brought to you by one lucky bastard named Bill Murray:

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maet or CDR M. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Close it up

The "Out-Of-Touch" Narrative Begins

—Andy

Remember when George H. W. Bush was gobsmacked by that newfangled grocery store scanning technology?

Yeah, not so much.

Here we go again:

Pelosi Declares She'll Join Her Fellow Catholics In Their Near-Unanimous Support of Obama's Insurance Mandate

—Ace

Wait, what?

Did you say you were standing with Catholics in support of Obama's decision to mandate Catholic charities provide free abortifacients for its employees?

“First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

I guess you did say that.

The Forgotten Man by Jon McNaughton [dri]

—Open Blogger

Please watch the powerful video "The Forgotten Man" by Jon McNaughton below the fold. Many of you have seen this, all of you must. Powerful barely describes its impact.

Newt Torches Romney: It's Not Good Enough To Nominate "Obama-Lite"

—Ace

Pungent.

It isn’t good enough for the Republican party to nominate Obama-lite. Now, let me tell you what the difference is. If you’re a genuine conservative, first of all you don’t say that you don’t care about the poor. If you’re a genuine conservative, you believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And we think it is the left which has abandoned and betrayed the poor because its safety net is actually a spiderweb and it traps people in dependency.
My goal – the exact opposite of Governor Romney. My goal is not to ignore or forget the poor. My goal is to turn the safety net into a trampoline to allow the poor to rise and be like the rest of us and have a job and buy a house.

He goes on to call Obama Big Food Stamp (racist) and Romney Little Food Stamp (not racist).

Video at the link.

By the way, earlier in the week I wondered why Romney didn't seem to even get what was bubbling on the Conservative stove -- why not make a major speech about Fast and Furious?

Neo-Neocon corrects me, noting he has spoken about it.

Yes, but. Yes, he said something about that.

But.

What I'm talking about is this: Conservatives have the sense that Romney isn't one of them. That he intentionally, consciously distances himself from them.

To some extent that can be excused as a general election tactic. To some extent. But even to that extent, it's worrisome for conservatives.

What I am suggesting is that Romney could at least pick a few issues in which conservatives are palpably correct -- is anyone arguing that arming up Mexican drug cartels is a good thing? -- and really channel the conservative sense of anger over these issues.

I'm not suggesting he do it with all issues. It's not in him.

I'm suggesting that in a few areas where he feels he's on the sturdiest ground, where conservative opinion is right and generally acknowledged as such by even the moderates whose votes he hopes to garner -- Fast and Furious, debt, wasted stimulus, economic mismanagement, Obama's attack on religious freedom, Obama's attack on economic freedom -- that he deliver a major speech not "for the moderates" but, for once, the conservatives.

Romney cannot forever worry about the mush-minded moderates in the middle. In case he hasn't noticed, 40% of the country identifies as conservative. And 90% of those in the Republican Primary.

I know he can't rouse himself to be a passionate, fire-breathing conservative on every issue.

How about 1-3 of them?

Is freedom not worth arguing for? Or would that, in his estimation, be impolitic?

What I don't understand is this: If the central justification for his election is "competency," can he at least get passionate when talking about competency?

Is Fast and Furious not Incompetency with a Bodycount? (If not more.)

He can't even gin up some ire about 300 murders?

If he doesn't believe that Obama is incompetent himself -- if he doesn't believe that enough to make a stink about it -- then 1, why should anyone choose Romney over Obama, whom Romney implicitly blesses as borderline competent, and 2, what does that say about Romney's own instincts about competency?

Queen Taps American Idol Placer Adam Lambert As New Singer

—Ace

Really?

Apparently so.

I guess it makes some business sense. To the extent American Idol matters, it makes Queen marginally more relevant with younger consumers.

Ah well. INXS survived JD Fortune, Queen can survive Adam Lambert.

Pelosi on Komen/PP: "When Women Speak Out, Women Win"

—Ace

Grinning like an imbecile about her "big victory," as she termed it, Pelosi nevertheless went on to threaten that the money just might not be flowing to breast cancer as it once did.

“We certainly will be able to support them as we have in the past,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. But the extent of the public backlash, she added, is “a question of what other people in the country think about it.”

I'm glad that this is a victory "for women." I'm not sure what to make of all those pro-life women I know, though. I guess the implicit, and sometimes explicit, message is that they're not really women.

Did Komen cave? It's unclear. I think they did, but it's hard to tell, because Komen is spinning in both directions.

As a Komen Board member told Life News, the reversal is not really so much a reversal as a clarification of Komen’s grants procedures, which will still impact Planned Parenthood’s future funding from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Daniel Foster writes that it's pretty repulsive that Planned Parenthood is behaving like a mob "protection" racket. They seem to believe they are entitled to dip their beaks into any money stream that vaguely involves a woman's issue, even if they're not actually providing the services that would qualify them for a voluntary contribution.

They're not doing mammograms. Period. But they and their allies have got it into their heads that if they're "pro-woman," as they define "woman" (and as they define "pro"), they're just entitled to that breast cancer money.

And they're willing to actually threaten breast cancer treatment, prevention, and research over that.

Rent Seeking Gangsterism

If you want peace, you give us our piece.

Two American Tourists Kidnapped In Egypt
Update: Released After Several Hours, After Negotiations With Government Officials

—Ace

And this can all be attributed to Obama's big Cairo Speech.

He did, after all, claim the Arab Spring began due to his powerful words.

Two American tourists were kidnapped Friday in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by Bedouin tribesmen, security sources said.

A group of masked gunmen held up a tourist bus in south Sinai, snatching the two Americans, both women, and their guide before taking off, AFP reported.

The tourists were among a group traveling from St. Catherine’s Monastery, at the foot of Mount Sinai, to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, NBC News reported.

Bedouin sources said the kidnappers were demanding the release of relatives held in Egyptian jails, AFP reported.

I hate to cast any aspersions on any victims of barbarity, but please, Americans, do not travel to politically unstable parts of the world.

Released. FoxNews just noted that 2010 was a record year for tourism in Egypt. This year it's down half. And this incident won't help.

Transformational: Democrats Lose Net 17 States In Solid/Leaning Party Affiliation; Republicans Gain Seven

—Ace

Gallup's conclusion:

Clearly, President Obama faces a much less favorable environment as he seeks a second term in office than he did when he was elected president.

Here's the movement. (Note that I said "net 17" in the headline because while Democrats lost 18 "solid" states, they gained one "lean" state.)

The battlefield will be the typical list of likely suspects...

Gallup notes that 2008 was a high-water mark for the Democratic Party, building upon 2006's already big Democratic year. So the shift back to the Republican Party isn't a realignment in favor of the Republican Party, so much as a realignment back to the relative parity that existed from the mid-90s through 2005 or so.

Even so, that's not good for Obama or the Democrats. Even with the most favorable partisan advantage in decades, and a financial crisis that could be pinned on the incumbent party, he still only managed a 53% vote share.

Now he's lost the partisan advantage and the current crisis (it is a crisis) sure looks like something that it was his job to fix.

Ed has more.

Occupy Vs. The Constitution

—Ace

Accuracy in Media has been lampooning These People in interviews and stunts. Verum Serum links their snarky goodbye to Occupy.

But I like this one, where they're asked simple questions, like how many senators are in the senate.

Daily Mail: Hillary Is Styling Herself Like a... Bond Villain

—Ace

Yup!

But it actually suits her, and I don't mean that in a jokey way. The Bond Villain stuff looks okay on her.

"...I have three demands for the Western powers..."

It looks like the special dress uniform a ChiCom factory manager wears when he accepts the Hero of the Exalted Wrench award from Ho Chi Minh. Which was the idea informing Blofeld's outfits. Utilitarian, totalitarian, proletarian.

I can't do another silly post so I'll just link this here: Saudi lawyer calls a genie (jinn or djinn) to the stand.

A judge was accused of corruption. The lawyer defending him says the jinn possessed the judge and made him take bribes.

“The case of the corrupt judge in Madina has taken a new turn and witnessed new developments as the lawyer of an absent defendant has asked court to summon the jinn to testify,” the paper said.

“If what the accused judge said about the jinn, then this jinn could be bad and blasphemous…this jinn could have been sent by a bad sorcerer because witchcraft is bad and non-Islamic.”

.950 Caliber Rifle

—Ace

Neat, but kind of silly. Just makin' it to make it.

If you watch the video, healthy young men can only shoulder the weapon with difficulty, the kick is just ridonculous.