Fury in Japan

If you think the reactors are glowing hot and about to blow, wait until you see the parents.

Japanese society may well be transformed by fallout, both radiological and political, from the multiple disasters centered upon the dying Fukushima nuclear powerplant.

For two months, the children at the Soramame Children’s House, a day care center about 37 miles from the stricken plant, spent their days indoors, windows sealed shut to keep out radiation, their favorite buckets and spades contaminated and strictly off limits.

But when the local authorities made no effort to decontaminate the area, caregivers took matters into their own hands. On the advice of local environmental groups — they said local officials had none to give — a group of parents and teachers donned makeshift protective … Continue reading

Obama Nervous Breakdown Alert: ELEVATED

The President has had an awful week-or-so.

He began by attempting to sandbag Israel so the Muslim middle east would let him onto the bandwagon, but he got schooled by both sides, whap-bap.

He lost phony “Doctor” Cornel West, a normally reliable lefty racist honorary “professor” who won his seat on the bandwagon by shellacking Clarence Thomas.  It’s okay though, the media is still covering Obama on this front.  West is an unperson and will be savaged.

David Mamet, the highly-respected playwright whose works are loved across the political spectrum has completed his conversion to the conservative side of things.  Standby for Mamet to be dismissed as a no-talent brainwashed jerk.

The OBL bump turned out to be a tumor after all.  Pakistan has accepted Chinese guarantees of … Continue reading

FUbuntu

The PulseAudio death-march is killing off the Linux base.

I have been using Linux off and on since 1997. I would still like to know what typeface was used in the early Slackware config screens, where I had to select video modes, add modules for an ATI busmouse, and in general describe by hand the hardware environment to the software. Back in the days when licensing was still in the future for the most part, and pico was not yet nano.

And I am done. For years, sound issues in Linux have been due to the all-consuming drive to accomplish a direct network-packet-audio whatnot that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT. Meanwhile, this effort has meant that the very successful solutions for just plain listening to things on your … Continue reading

The Needling and the Damage Done: A Pocket Analysis of Obama's Middle East Speech

The speech has been analyzed by professionals and overtaken by events, but a few points remain to be examined.

The speech delivered by President Obama on 19 May 2011 was a weak response to events beyond his control or understanding.  The two goals seem to have been to claim credit for Bush’s accomplishments and ideals even while denigrating both Bush and his ideals, and to earn passage on the middle-east bandwagon by throwing Israel under it.
For a supposedly outward-focused address, it is a remarkably self-regarding tactical move.

Stealing Valor

This was an attempt to airbrush away two years of his administration’s foreign policy failures.  A secondary goal is to sandblast Bush’s name off of the undeniable successes in the region.  The combined effect is to erase … Continue reading

Obama Tanks Toast to Queen of England; Painful, Awkward, Embarrassing

My Toast will go on

President Obama, bless his heart, tries to do the right thing, but makes an awful mess of it.  He inadvertently cued the band when he began his toast “To Her Majesty, the Queen”, and then paused, and it all went downhill from there.

Some feel (see comments on the video) that the Queen “snubbed” the President, when in fact, what she did was contain the damage.   She’s not isolating him; he’s doing that all by himself.

That’s the Queen’s house–you study up before you go there. Besides which, if she had suddenly begun improvising responses to the President’s mis-steps, that would have propagated the error until nobody knew what to do. These things are scripted, and a guest worth his salt … Continue reading

Blast at Refinery as Ahmadinejad Visits: Missed; Better Luck Next Time

News from The Associated Press.

Despite what Obama says, Iran was the beginning of this wave  of protests and potentially pro-democratic movements in the Middle East.  Not Since Lebanon had there been such a sight as the protests after Ahmadinejad blatantly stole the election in 2009.  Wherever this administration comes up with its lofty rhetoric is a recent find, and they sided unambiguously with the murderous Iranian regime when they were killing students in the street.

The people of Iran will not forget our betrayal.  What was once a stance against that tyrannic government will become a true hostility between peoples.  And that;s a shame.  It appears they are trying to take care of their dictator problem.

Practice, practice, practice.

Continue reading

Religious not Agrarian Impulse to Civilization

Ten thousand year old structures easily world’s oldest, help debunk Communist narrative about “agrarian revolution” triggering civilization.

On a hilltop in Southern Turkey, researchers have found evidence that civilization is older and more subtle than we have admitted.  Read the article for more information, but the find is seven thousand years older than the great pyramids.  On top of a hill.  With no local stone.  And nobody lived there.  Or even grew crops.

The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. It contains the oldest known temple. Indeed, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these … Continue reading

Legal Note: Feel Free

I encourage all re-use of my content ( and specifically authorize publication or syndication for commercial purposes) under the Creative Commons Attribution license, CC-BY.   See the link at the bottom of nearly every post and in the footer of nearly every page for details.

In general, all text published here is my content, unless noted (such as the inclusion of Dr. Sanderson’s complete text in my post “The Arrival of D Major“).

Images are in many cases either Fair Use or of unknown provenance. One of my projects is to ensure that all images are licensed under my name as CC-BY or carry pass-through licensing such as CC-BY, but I have not even begun this.  I therefore make no claim on images, and offer no license.  … Continue reading

All Cow, No Milk

According to this BBC story, British women are flocking to Denmark for artificial insemination.

And Denmark, where men can still donate without fear of being traced by their off-spring, is becoming a magnet for women who want a baby – but not the baby’s father.
In two years, the number of foreign women being inseminated there has nearly doubled.

I wonder what the welfare load is for this, in straight cash as well as benefits. One way or another, these women are married to the State.