Monday, June 30, 2014

Reaction to Injustice



Nancy Pelosi reacts to the grievous injury done to all women when the Supreme Court ruled that the government couldn't force Little Sisters of the Poor to provide contraceptives and abortifacients to employees.

Here, Nancy demonstrates an emergency alternative that women can use "until we can get those nuns whipped back into line." She calls it "the birth control face" and claims it is 98% effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies.

What a world, huh? Where not wanting to pay for someone else's contraception is considered a "war on women".

Also from National Review:

Imagine that a woman starts work at Hobby Lobby tomorrow morning — July 1. She joins Hobby Lobby’s health care plan. It includes access, copay-free, to the following categories of FDA-approved birth-control:
  1. Male condoms
  2. Female condoms
  3. Diaphragms with spermicide
  4. Sponges with spermicide
  5. Cervical caps with spermicide
  6. Spermicide alone
  7. Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)
  8. Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)
  9. Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)
  10. Contraceptive patches
  11. Contraceptive rings
  12. Progestin injections
  13. Implantable rods
  14. Vasectomies
  15. Female sterilization surgeries
  16. Female sterilization implants
(This new woman at Hobby Lobby cannot use male condoms or a vasectomy, at least not directly. However, if she chose either contraceptive method, in conjunction with her husband, she would have access to it.)...

...What Hobby Lobby will not cover are four contraceptive methods that its owners fear are abortifacients:
  1. Plan B (“The Morning After Pill”)
  2. Ella (a similar type of “emergency contraception”)
  3. Copper Intra-Uterine Device
  4. IUD with progestin
Rather than simply prevent sperm and ova from uniting, Hobby Lobby’s owners believe that these medications either kill human beings when they are fertilized eggs or prevent them from implanting themselves in utero, whereupon they die.
Not quite the war on women the hysterical (yes, check the etymology) left is cackling about. 




Peeves




h/t: lumberbrudi

Every Day They Do This



That's why it's like they're celebrating VJ Day every time you come home.

via

Sunday, June 29, 2014

"That's the Story"




Via National Review, Lois Learner's attorney:


“She was as upset as anybody else was about the loss of the emails,” Taylor said. “The truth is this was one of those things that happened — at the time she did everything she could to retrieve it.”

That’s the story — that’s all there is to it,” he added.
Yeah, and O.J. is still looking for the real killers. 

Notice Lerner's attorney does a little verbal slight of hand:

"The record that was created at the time in terms of e-mails is undisputed. She walked into the office one day and her screen went blue..."

I don't doubt that the record shows that the tech guys got a call. And that they found a machine with scorched hard drive. But the record doesn't show that she walked into the office and her screen went blue. That's just what she claims.

Another thing... I'm reminded of those purposefully broken PDF's that some college kids use to finesse an extra day's grace on late assignments:

Although it is usually an unfortunate event, corrupting a file can sometimes be useful. For example, you have to deliver a document today but it is not ready yet. A solution is to send a corrupted document, pretending it is the completed version. The recipient will not be able to open it, but the computer will appear as the culprit, not you.
Look, I don't know if she had a tech competent accomplice erase, then write, then corrupt her hard drive; it could be her accomplice just switched her hard drive out with a known toasted drive. Lerner just claims her screen went blue. That's what's on the undisputed record: her claim.


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Brash Bieber Bashes Bumpers, Bearded Blogger Bemused


I saw it on Drudge, The Biebs in Crash During Paparazzi Chase:

We're told the Escalade was going down Canon Drive at a fast clip, trying to lose the photog, when a BMW was pulling out of a parking structure near Bouchon restaurant.  An eyewitness tells us ... the BMW misjudged the speed of the Escalade and smashed into it.

We're told Bieber almost immediately got out of the SUV and into another car and sped off...
"We're told" and "we're told" It's sort of like "don't blame us if this is all wrong; we're just saying what we were told..."

Like that despicable Harry Reid... but I digress. Thing is, when you hear about car crashes, involving anyone, you should shift into concerned mode. But, to my shame, when I read about the Beib smashup, all I could think of was:




Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Uppa-Down That Frown




I knew it. Stress leads to arterial inflammation which your body soothes with the grease from that tasty bacon.

So, once again, we see that the only thing Science knows for sure is that the climate was perfect a hundred years ago and now you've gone and ruined everything. Oddly, all other science is allowed to evolve, just not global oh my dear lord we're doomed warming.

In the end, I think your egg and hamburger sandwich (with salt!) will be acquitted.

Here, have more therapy for that heart:



h/t: wetdry

Monday, June 23, 2014

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Not a Smidgen of Corruption



Officials at the IRS claimed yesterday that they had found the dog that ate every single e-mail from Lois Lerner to any recipient outside the IRS. When it was pointed out that their "dog" was actually a magazine cover, and that it was an illustration, not even a picture, of a real dog, the IRS spokesman said they would resume their search.



Monday, June 16, 2014

Pants on Fire


Here, for no particular reason, is a picture of the president.

Interesting article at Research Digest:

Obviously some people lie more often than others. What's surprising is new research showing that the spread of lying propensity through the population is uneven. There is a large majority of "everyday liars", and a small minority of "prolific liars". 
A few years ago Kim Serota and his colleagues put a figure on this. They surveyed a thousand US citizens and found that five per cent of the sample were responsible for 50 per cent of all lies told. Now Serota's group have analysed data from nearly 3000 people in the UK and they've found the same pattern - the existence in the population of a minority of extremely prolific liars.
h/t: wetdry

Rijsttafel in DC




As everyone knows, June 16th is the day we reserve for restaurant reviews on even numbered years. So here it is:  Satay Sarinah, in Alexandria Virginia.

Saturday night the lumberkid organized a Rijsttafel father's day dinner and it was great.

I had rijsttafel in Amsterdam as a kid and have been on the lookout for it ever since. I found it in one of the Dutch Caribbean islands but I never expected to find it in America. Then, last month, an idle search turned it up; and just a half hour away. Why, I could have rijsttafel every night. 

Rijsttafel is like an Indonesian sampler with up to 40 dishes being brought out in courses. Some of it is spicy, but the Satay Sarinah version wasn't overly so. The spice-fire seems to be calibrated for an American audience.

My memory and taste buds have probably changed over the years but some of the dishes I remembered from Amsterdam were so hot that my face left this plane of existence. In fact, well over 40 years later, I'll still feel an occasional taste bud coming back online; having finally recovered from my culinary abuse. Still, next time I visit Satay Sarinah if I'm not part of a large party I may ask for more fire... just a bit.

 Satay Sarinah is just inside the beltway in Alexandria. If you're in DC for a visit, you should give them a try. The dress is casual, paper napkins, but clean and comfortable. My favorite was the spicy beef but everything was good. (the link above has the rijsttafel menu)

One note: keep your knife for dessert. You won't need it for eating, but the fried banana is so good you may need it to defend your portion from your table-mates.


Friday, June 13, 2014

I Love the Smell of Wood Chips




If they made burning leaves scent I'd be on it like a numerator over a denominator.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Ever Do This?


clickabiggen

I used to do this all the time as a kid. Your puny gravity can't hold me, earth.

XKCD

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Bajau Laut Girl Saves the Day





This Bajau Laut girl uses Newton's first law of motion to unsink a sunk canoe. (I think this should be Newton's second law; the first law should be: don't stand up in a canoe) Notice how she jumps into action while everyone on the dock uses the Obama Benghazi method of watchful waiting to see if the problem magically resolves itself.


This American Life

Wet/dry points to:


Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family...abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot.




Saturday, June 07, 2014

King Me


These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess.
-Kobe Bryant 

The bad guys have figured out that “leading from behind” isn’t leading at all. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is acting like a grandmaster of chess while Obama stumbles at checkers. 

 We're doomed.


Friday, June 06, 2014

It's Just Wax


There was a bit of excitement in Paris today:
A topless member of the radical protest group Femen used a metal chisel to stab and bash in the face of Putin's statue in a famed Paris wax museum on Thursday.

The activist, who had 'Kill Putin' written on her bare chest, reportedly screamed "Putin is a dictator" while destroying the figure at the Grevin Wax Museum, French daily Le Parisien reported.
 Even more distressing, for a time the police believed that the wax statue of Obama was the real man and was in danger.  "I should have known it was the wax figure," said one policeman, "but then I saw that he was reacting to the commotion in exactly the same way as he handled Benghazi, and I decided to err on the side of caution."


Wednesday, June 04, 2014

That Post



This is the post in which I give the president neck muscles and make Eric Holder's list of undesirables all in one go.



Net Neutrality



(language warning)

Raise your hand if you voted for the new hopey changey president because you thought he would end things like overpriced under performing  internet. Whoops, huh?

The EPA and the FCC are the tools Obama will use (and is using) to "fundamentally transform America." Grabbing the ankle now please. 

h/t: Lumberbrudi

Monday, June 02, 2014

Sunday, June 01, 2014

It Seems We're Fast Approaching 1984



From the NYT:
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal...
Did you hear about the missing child that was found through a facial recognition program? Yeah, me either. If there is any evidence that massive communication intercepts have made us any safer, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise, I'd just as soon keep my privacy.

Even those of us who are freakishly handsome get nervous about government types pouring over our images.


fighting101s.jpg