John Kerry's Input

"OK John, we'll vote one more time; Those in favor of razing 

Syria in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, raise a hand."

They're Japanese

As if that explains it...



I had no idea you could even teach matryoshka dolls to sing.

And it's Asian Bonus Thursday!:

Miley Cyrus

via

Cat and Dogs

My brother sent me this link to hilarious cat gifs, many of which I hadn't seen before. 

So I googled (that reminds me -- I need to start a company, make its motto: "don't be evil", and then proceed to being evil) and what did I find? Symmetry.

So check them both out.

thanks Lumberbrudi

Where's the Proof of WMD's?

Re: Syria -- Payback is a... awww who am I kidding? This president might huff and puff, but the worst he will do is fire off a few cruise missiles. Justin Bieber will wrestle a bear before Obama stands up to Putin.

Joke

James Taranto has the first NSA joke I've heard:

It reminds us of this dude whose girlfriend dumped him: 

 "I've met somebody else."

"Who?" he demanded.

"His name is Jerry, and he works for the NSA."

"Why?" he pleaded. "What's he got that I don't have?"

"He listens to me."

Danger Will Robinson

I just came from picking up a registered letter. I was delayed by a woman asking about the email pictured above. Oh no. Even worse, the lady behind the counter said she got several other customers with that email this morning.

Of course the attached shipping label was a virus. Similar scams have used UPS, FedEx, and DHL logos. If you click on the file ("shipping label") your computer will become infected. 

If this had been from the US postal service, the email address would have ended in  "USPS.com". Instead it was something like "PrinceOfKenya@yohoo.it" or "OfficialGovernmentMailI'mNotKidding@yahoo.it"

So be warned. If you get a mail like this trash it. It's as bogus as Hillary Clinton's smile.

Busted

About That Lottery Ticket

Don't buy lottery tickets anytime soon. Dennis Kucinich obviously possesses all the luck on the planet. There's none left for the rest of us.

Dangerously Cute

Funny Sign

Yes, I know this is just a paraphrasing of the President's observations on the state of the country.

(clickabiggen)

This Gores My Ox

Those of us who pretend to be lumberjacks are enraged:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Minnesota is launching a massive awareness campaign to get people to sign up for its new insurance program. Millions of dollars are being used for the ads, which feature two of the state’s biggest celebrities: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

This is like paddling your canoe with a violin, or using a vintage bottle of wine to crack walnuts. Sure it can be done, but why?

Coming to You from the Basement of the Science Building

the Science Guys

(clickabiggen)

The Screwtape Letters

What I'm reading this week: The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. And I'm reading them in the easiest way possible, ie by having John Cleese read them for me. It's really just like regular reading except that my lips don't move.

They require your full attention though. I tried listening with them playing in the background but found myself rewinding every 2 minutes in order to recapture missed points and follow the narrative.

Background on the book here.

Easter Egg

This is just weird. Go to any YouTube video and when it starts playing type:
1980
A missile command game comes up and starts to attack the video. You may have to type it in a few times before it works.

h/t: wetdry

Oh No We Won't

The New York Times takes down the Clinton Foundation

That's what the article at the Telegraph says anyway. The Times piece is unavailable because apparently the NYT has been hacked. No culprit has been identified in the computer attack... yet.

Kim Jong Un

"I assure you that it works flawlessly. The reason

 you can't use it is because nobody else has one."

Even NBC is Starting to Notice

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now, can they guess the reason that major portions of the ACA have been pushed back a year?

Higher policy prices, shorter work hours, depressed economy... but I am assured that our Rodeo clowns will soon be some of the most sensitive on the planet.

Just Confirming What We Already Knew

Rumor has it Touré issued orders to MSNBC staffers to call him in for work no matter when the Bulger verdict was announced precisely to capture such a perfect moment:

via MM

Oprah Struggles

White Chocolate? Probably the favorite of the racist Swiss.

I haven't found an address for the inevitable support group that will spring up to ease Oprah's pain. I'll post details when they become available. But I did find details on the obvious case of racial purse denial that became Oprah's nightmare. This seems to be something of a rationalization; we know what went down:

It seems there was a language barrier: The clerk's English isn't great, and Winfrey probably doesn't speak Swiss. "This is an absolute classic misunderstanding," the store's owner, Trude Goetz, told Reuters, which paraphrases her explanation: "The sales assistant had wanted to show Winfrey that the bag was also available in other materials, which may have given the TV host the impression the shop did not want to sell it to her, Goetz said." The News reports that Goetz apologized to Winfrey via a Swiss newspaper, but in her Reuters interview she implied that the celeb's account didn't make sense: "Who wouldn't want to sell a purse for 35,000 francs?"

Thirty-five thousand Swiss francs is equivalent to some $38,000, or 72% of the median U.S. household income. If most women spent that kind of sum on a handbag, all they'd have is an empty handbag. That's not true of moneybags Winfrey, but even she was put off when she eventually learned the price tag: "Turns out that store clerk did me a favor. Just found out that bag was $38K!!! She was right I was NOT going to buy."

Oh, well, never mind then...

...What Winfrey construes as a racial episode is actually a story about class--a wealthy, privileged celebrity aggrieved by a lowly saleswoman's lack of deference...

Let me take this opportunity to confess: to my everlasting shame, I admit that when I heard someone say that Oprah was too fat for that purse, I chuckled and thought it funny. Can you imagine? Me, a privileged white man, laughing at what surely must be a low point in this poor oppressed woman's life. I hide my face behind my axe in shame.  

Who knows why this Swiss woman felt obliged to pick up the pitchfork and persecute this gentle soul. We can be thankful that Oprah's entourage was large enough to discourage any thoughts of a lynching, but just because Oprah escaped this time doesn't mean we should let the Swiss off the hook.

I'm thinking that maybe a few low flying drones would put the fear of God into those Swiss racists. We can only hope the president looks into this when he returns from his much needed vacation. Let them contemplate their archaic Jonas Crow institutionalized racism over the ashes of a smoldering Toblerone factory.

Cholera, You Wouldn't Understand

Global Warming! (!) responsible (!!) for cholera  epidemic in Haiti!!!! (?)

Years from now Al Gore will be doing the forensics on why his Movement died and he'll find it was a simple case of exclamation point fatigue. As for Haiti -- they couldn't blame the earthquake on global warming, (yet!) so they blamed AGW for the cholera epidemic.

But well whoops:

Last month, a report authored by a group of former United Nations scientists used DNA testing to link the cholera bacteria responsible for the outbreak to UN peacekeepers from Nepal. The evidence, which offers strong support for the UN’s culpability, caused international outrage and demands that the United Nations take responsibility for its unintentional infection of Haiti earthquake victims.

However, while the Nepali workers may have brought the cholera into Haiti, according to Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation and renowned climate change researcher, unusually warm weather and other climate change factors also contributed to the rapid spread of cholera in the months following the earthquake’s devastation in Haiti.

“Climate change and cholera have a complicated link,” Colwell said in an exclusive interview with United Nations based media agency UNEARTH News published August 7. “As far as Haiti is concerned, the disease outbreak was triggered by a complicated set of factors. The precipitation and temperatures were above average during 2010 and that, in conjunction with a destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure, can be considered to have contributed to this major disease outbreak.”

This story contains everything you need to know about the religion of Climate Change.

Remember the good old days when introducing the cholera bacteria into a country with a collapsed sanitation infrastructure would have been  explanation enough for an outbreak of cholera?

But here we have a former head of the NSF tying herself in knots trying to blame AGW for a disease that (real)  scientists figured out in the 1800's. "It's a complicated link" is ethically bankrupt scientist talk for "any explanation of the link would be so transparently BS that you'll have to trust me on this." It's akin to "my boyfriend goes to another school, no, you wouldn't have heard of his school, it's a secret school, but he's my boyfriend and, well trust me it's all true."

So what's so hard to understand about keeping poop out of the drinking water? That's how they beat back the epidemics of the 19th century, when cholera was in its heyday.

(BTW -- this is the 19th century sometimes referred to as the century before Global Warming began)

Linking a well understood disease to AGW, then doubling down and not admitting the mistake when the evidence slaps you in the face says everything you need to know about this corrupt bunch of witch doctors. They have no shame. They'll lie about anything in order to further their cause.

Clowning Around

Just the Prez, chillin' with the Japanese girls.

After this: he's laser-focused on jobs and the economy.

Kim Jong Un Goes the Way of Snuffy the Seal

(clickabiggen)

I knew right away that this portrait of Kim Jong Un needed something. Butterflies? No, that's Obama. Maybe a rainbow? No, also Obama. A unicorn? and so on...

It didn't hurt that this was shark week. Say hello to my little fren, Kim.

Fire Two Blasts

Remember Reset?

It should be “perezagruzka” [the Russian word for reset]," said

 Lavrov."This says ‘peregruzka,’ which means ‘overcharged.’

Obama has cancelled a September summit with Putin in protest of Snowden being granted a one year asylum. (oh noes!) That will teach them.

I have to wonder if it will take the entire eight years of the Obama presidency for him to realize that there is no shame in representing the interests of the United States. Every other world leader aggressively fights for economic advantage. But there stands Barry, with his tambourine, looking to interest the others in a round of Kumbayah.

And that's why the Russians don't care that you're "snubbing" them over Snowden, Barry. You give them everything they want anyway.

Remember "I will have more flexibility after the election"? A real world leader would have put it, "We might be able to negotiate something..."  You have nothing to trade for Snowden. Why should the Russians give him up?

I know: offer them another Reset Button.

Difference Between Cats and Dogs

No one can be sure what's going on in the cat's head; he might be celebrating wildly.

Democratic Naming

Originally named The Enola, the vote was 4 to 3 in favor of adding Gay.

Village Person

It's not every day that you find pictures of Morgan "when I was a little boy I used to look down the well and wonder if leptons really were subject to the Pauli exclusion principle" Freeman mugging for the camera. So when you find them, well, like Obama always says about American citizens, you have to use them.

Embassies Closing on Sunday

OK, who's the idiot who made another anti-Islamic film?

Disrespecting the Civil Rights Movement

Charlie, the tax cheat, talks about the Tea Party:

“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn’t care about how they looked," Rangel said.

Because of this, Rangel said the Tea Party could be defeated using the same tactics employed against Jim Crow.

"It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break,” said Rangel.

 Maybe like me, you'll have difficulty remembering a Tea Party releasing of the hounds. Or bombing. Or even using water cannons.  They have asked for equal treatment by the IRS; maybe that's what he's talking about.

This is just silly. But it also cheapens the Civil Rights Movement. It's like the feminists who call it rape unless you have  a signed, notarized, contract for intimacy.  Opposing socialized medicine is not the same as bombing churches. period.

Now go pay your taxes Mr. Rangel. 

Internets Cute