Neat Stuff

JAMES LILEKS' WEB SITE IS A DELIGHT. He's a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and his site's been around since 1996 or so. His site is a fine look at Americana of yesteryear. One section is called "COFFEE & CHROME restaurants from the days before the chains". Another section is "the american motel", with postcards from the 50's and 60's. And there's a section devoted to matchbook covers, the "Matchbook Museum". Plus other great stuff, presented for your amusement, as Parliament is about to get crunchy.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden? Who knew?

If you're going to sail your yacht anywhere in the world it pays to:

a. Know your position at all times;
b. Make sure you know the conditions around you at all times;
c. Keep your maritime mobile radio system on;
d. Oh yes... and if you're planning on being anywhere around the Horn of Africa you might want to check in with the EU Maritime Liaison Office to find out more about pirates and the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC).

Apparently, not all yachtsmen have the brains to manage more than one thing at a time.

The commanding officer of the Netherlands frigate Hr Ms Tromp, on patrol off the Horn of Africa, reports this on his Twitter account from 26 Feb, 2010.

Encountered a small sailing yacht in the IRTC, when queried it stated “what do you mean piracy?” welcome to the real world.

Epic... whatever.

Marketing

THE NEW YORKER has a delightful piece by Andy Borowitz, "Not Your Father’s Taliban". It's a hoot.

Isn’t it time you took another look at . . . the Taliban™?

Not your father’s Taliban™. The New Taliban™. TalibanLite™.

We know what you’re thinking: “The Taliban™? Aren’t they the dudes who blow up shit and cut off body parts?”

LOL! You’re thinking of the Old Taliban™.

How do we know what you’re thinking?

Focus groups.

You’re, like, “Focus groups? Since when do the Taliban™ do focus groups?”

We’re, like, “Since Domino’s Pizza started doing them.”

You told Domino’s their crust tasted like cardboard and their sauce tasted like ketchup. Harsh, right? But your criticism only made their pizza much tastier. At the New Taliban™, we want to be the Domino’s of extremists.

So we held focus groups in caves across Afghanistan, only instead of talking about crust and sauce you talked about the things you didn’t like about us, like the way we explode things without warning and cut off ears, lips, and tongues. And you know what? It hurt to hear you say that stuff. But we’re big boys. We can take it. We sent your opinions down the hall to the guys in marketing, and this is what they came back with:

TalibanLite™: We’re Cutting Out the Cutting™.

Click on the link above to read the whole opus. Enjoy.

We don't do enough fashion news here at The Beav ...

Could I see that one with the prosthetic again?



I dunno. That extra hand is a bit creepy. Maybe this is why we don't do fashion news here at The Beav...

eFail

Definitions of proper political-correctitude:

She is not 'EASY' - She is
'HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE'

She is not a 'DUMB BLONDE' - She is a
'LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY'

She has not 'BEEN AROUND' - She is a
'PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION'

She is not a 'TWO-BIT HOOKER' - She is a
'LOW COST SERVICE PROVIDER'

He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a
'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY'

He is not a 'BAD DANCER' - He is
'OVERLY CAUCASIAN'

He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He
'INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS'

He is not 'BALDING' - He is in
'FOLLICLE REGRESSION'

He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of
'RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION'

Securing OZ

THE LONDON REVIEW BLOG has an article by Ross McKibbin, "Coercive Solutions", that discusses a White Paper created by the OZ government: The Counter-Terrorism White Paper, Securing Australia – Protecting our Community.

The Australian (Labor) government has just published a white paper (‘Securing Australia – Protecting Our Community’) which assures its readers that the terrorist threat to Australia is stronger than ever. External threats remain, of course, but are now made much worse by the dangers of homegrown terrorism, a result of the spread of jihadist propaganda among Australia’s Muslim population. The government is proposing to increase significantly the powers of the federal police – including the right to search the property of suspected ‘terrorists’ without a warrant – and to introduce further (and severe) visa tests on people coming to Australia from 10 unnamed countries.

What lies behind all this? It can’t be that the threat of terrorism has ‘increased’. That there is a threat from terrorism is undeniable, but there is also little evidence to suggest that the threat is worse now than before, or that the very wide powers the police and the intelligence services already have are not sufficient to contain it. There are several other possible explanations. One is electoral.

Everything suggests that Rudd ignores, either from conviction or opportunism, what should be the first rule of a social democratic government: treat anything coming from the intelligence services or the police with deep suspicion.

Mr. McKibbin writes for us all, when he states:

As always in English-speaking countries, the ‘solution’ to terrorism is coercive: yet more police powers; yet more restrictions on travel; yet more deportations. Coercion is presumably not always futile, and within a certain sphere legitimate. We must assume that sometimes it works. As a ‘solution’, however, it must be secondary. The fundamental problem, which Australia, like Britain and the United States, refuses to recognise, is political. It lies in Western policy towards the Middle East, and Israel and Palestine in particular, since the Second World War. Until that is admitted, coercive solutions, though not completely useless, will never be real solutions. Unfortunately there is no evidence that anyone is going to admit it. Certainly not Rudd.

Check out the details in the OZ White Paper. Tie me kangaroo down, sport . . . 

Aircraft maintenance

UPS has a fleet of aircraft, and they require maintenance. Here's an oldie but goodie:

UPS Air Cargo TROUBLE SHEET

UPS requires a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one. After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form called a 'gripe sheet', which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS' pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way, UPS is the only major airline that has never, ever had an accident.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

And the best one for last...........

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

"No Fly List" her.

That's the solution to the right-wing concealer of a druggie. Tell her to take a fucking walk.... because she's a goddamned security risk to everyone else on a plane.

Remember, these pukes are telling you the reason for the pat-downs, the swabs of your laptop, the unreasonable search of documents and the burn through your clothing right down to your skin is to protect the travelling public.

Helena Guergis is unstable and dangerous. Eminent domain applies here. Why should we take the risk?

Apology not accepted. Not from the "Law and Order" mob. Do as I say; not as I do is an American philosophy promoted by the sociopaths employed by Rupert Murdoch - it doesn't wash in this country.

Wish Helena a really happy birthday and tell her to use up her Aeroplan points at Home Hardware.... because she ain't getting on an airplane... anywhere.

Told ya so...

If anyone is surprised over this, you haven't been paying attention.

If you thought the ridiculous security imposed for the Olympics was only for... protection of athletes and dignitaries, think again.

And get out your wallet.

Kentucky Creationists

VANITY FAIR has a delightful article by A.A. Gill, "Roll Over, Charles Darwin!", which is his account of a visit to the Creation Museum, which he says, has been battling science and reason since 2007.

Just off a motorway, in a barren and uninspiring piece of scrub, the museum is impressively incongruous, a righteously modernist building resting in landscaped gardens filled with dinosaur topiaries. It cost $27 million and was completed in 2007. It answers the famous question about what God could have done if he had had money. This is it. Oddly, it is a conspicuously and emphatically secular construction. There is no religious symbolism. No crosses. No stained glass. No spiral campanile. It has borrowed the empirical vernacular of the enemy to wrap the literal interpretation of Genesis in the façade of a liberal art gallery or library. It is the Lamb dressed in wolf’s clothing.

The next things I noticed were the very illiberally accoutred security guards. They are absurdly over-armed, overdressed, and overweight. Perhaps the museum is concerned that armed radical atheists, maddened by the voices of reason in their confused heads, will storm in waving the periodic table, screaming, “I think, therefore I am!”

The Creation Museum isn’t really a museum at all. It’s an argument. It’s not even an argument. It’s the ammunition for an argument. It is the Word made into bullets. An armory of righteous revisionism. This whole building is devoted to the literal veracity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis: God created the world in six days, and the whole thing is no more than 6,000 years old. Everything came at once, so Tyrannosaurus rex and Noah shared a cabin. That’s an awful lot of explaining to do. This place doesn’t just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology.

We start with the creation of the world, and of light. And there you are, immediately—Houston, we have a problem: you get light three days before you get the sun. But that’s fine—we’ve got an answer: the sun is, in fact, what God made to keep the light in. It was an afterthought, a receptacle born out of necessity.

Serendipitously, MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE, which is a fine site that is part of the Economist web enterprise, also has an article by Natasha Lennard about the institution, "Of Myths and Museums"

Inside the building’s 40-foot-high glass walls visitors are treated to a whistle-stop tour of Biblical history, arranged in a way that would not seem out of place in Disneyland. A darkened tunnel leads to a vast and verdant Garden of Eden, filled with exotic plastic flowers, peaceful creatures and pools of gentle water. A comely Adam discovers a comely Eve, whose modesty is preserved by her long, dark, synthetic mane. The garden also includes a wealth of prehistoric animals, such as a Tyrannosaurus rex, which we are told was tame and herbivorous before Adam and Eve snacked on that dastardly apple.

Dinosaurs had to have coexisted with humans, we learn, because there were no carnivores before man’s fall, and fossils show that some dinosaurs preyed on others. Therefore, the Creation Museum concludes, dinosaurs must have existed after the fall. But aren’t dinosaur-related fossils millions of years old? AiG and the museum have a handy explanation: such fossils only seem old because “organic materials are relentlessly attacked by bacteria,” so they decompose quickly. “Without the millions–of–years bias,” explains Andrew A. Snelling, the director of research at AiG in a paper published in Creation magazine, “these fossils would readily be recognized as victims of a comparatively recent event, for example, the global devastation of Noah’s Flood only about 4,500 years ago.”

If you can believe in a veggie T-Rex, you can swallow just about anything.

Maxime Bernier for PM? You betcha!

C'mon, he's decorative, he's dumb, and besides, since he came out today as a climate change 'skeptic', the Blogging Tories have been falling all over themselves to get their teabagging credentials in order :

"Maxime really is great!!! Keep up the good work Maxime. One day you will be HM PM.

"You had me at Bonjour"

"Finally a Canadian Conservative Speaks Truth"

"Enter Maxime Bernier with a daring volley launched in the heart of climate lunacy."

"Maxime Bernier for Prime Minister! Finally, someone on the government side with the cajones to speak out."

Finally - I think they meant to say - a Sarah Palin with cajones.

Max speaks :

"What is certain is that it would be irresponsible to spend billions of dollars and to impose unnecessarily stringent regulations to solve a problem whose gravity we still are not certain about."

Gravity? Gravity is also a hoax! The earth sucks! Max for PM! You betcha! Also! Too!

A different kind of burning stick

You might be forgiven for thinking you'd fallen through a wormhole into Mississippi circa 1961 reading this. We Canadians sometimes get a bit smug watching the racial problems in the U.S. and forget that we have ignorant, knuckle-dragging, racist shitbirds of our own. If you want to hear seven minutes of radio that will infuriate and inspire you, check here (the interview is in part 1 of the program). The "victim" doesn't sound like she's taking having a cross burned on her front lawn in stride exactly, but sticks up for the larger community and doesn't sound like she's running scared either. The interviewer on the other hand is pretty clearly horrified that she even has to report on something this disgusting in this country in this day and age.
With all due respect to Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King:


If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.

I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land.

I'd hammer on the skulls

of all the racist assholes

All over this land


Added ironical comedic value from the Globe and Mail story: the RCMP spokeswoman said the police are "examining all possible motives, including whether to consider it a hate crime."

crosspost from The Woodshed

First-person shooter

FOREIGN POLICY has an article by P.W. Singer, "Meet the Sims … and Shoot Them", which is an interesting account of the emergence of the first-person shooter game as a key component in military training. There is a companion article, "War Games", also worthy of your perusal.

Personally, I find first-person shooter games an adrenaline rush (currently, I'm stuck on level 6 of Return to Castle Wolfenstein). As far as I know, ID Software created the genre, with Wolfenstein and its successors, like Wolfenstein Spear of Destiny, Doom and Quake. When Doom arrived, with its new "engine", or rendering package, the game was used by the USMC as a training tool, because it was the first multi-player first-person shooter game. Now, you could work with a team of others, co-operatively. The ID engine allowed hacks, like replacing a particular monster, with say, purple Barneys, and with the release of Doom2, the tailoring to specific military needs became possible.

But the game revolution goes beyond learning how to do house-to-house, winkle-out-the-wogs: there are now simulations that train the use of robots, and training for handling personnel problems, and training for making command decisions:

America's Army quickly expanded from a potent recruiting tool into a valuable training system for soldiers already in the military. Military contractor Foster-Miller's Talon robot, for example, is used widely in Iraq and Afghanistan to dismantle roadside bombs, the most deadly weapon used against U.S. troops there. The game's Talon training module cost just $60,000 to develop, but took training in how to operate robots in war to a whole new level. "Prior to this, the only way to train was to take the robot and the controller to the trainees, give them some verbal instruction, and get them started," Bill Davis, head of the America's Army future applications program, told National Defense. "This allows them to train without breaking anything."

But with these advances, it's getting harder to figure out where the games end and the war begins. In Talon the game and the real-life version, soldiers are watching the action through a screen and even holding the very same physical controllers in their hands. And these controllers are modeled after the video-game controllers that the kids grew up with. This makes the transition from training to actual use nearly seamless. As one Foster-Miller executive explained to me, describing the game's training package for the Talon's pissed-off big brother, the machine gun-armed Swords robot, "With a flip of the switch, he has a real robot and a real weapon." Because of "the realism," he said, the company is finding that "the soldiers train on them endlessly in their free time."

Such "serious games," as the Army calls them, go well beyond the America's Army series. One program trains aerial drone operators while Saving Sergeant Pabletti teaches some 80,000 Army soldiers a year what is and isn't sexual harassment. This use of gaming extends across the entire experience of war. Virtual Iraq is being used at 40 clinics around the United States to help the thousands of veterans returning from war cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. The game platform allows them to re-experience traumatic episodes in a safe environment.

These training tools are not just for raw recruits. For example, Gator Six is built around 260 realistic video clips that simulate many of the difficult judgment calls an officer might have to make in modern wars. Designed with the help of 20 Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, it is broken into three parts: pre-deployment, combat, and transitioning into post-conflict.

The collective effect is potentially revolutionary. Game-based training can be tailored to specific scenarios as well as to an individual's own rate of learning, sped up or slowed down based on how quickly he or she acquires knowledge. The result is an enormous gain in efficiency. The Navy, for example, switched to such programs for its communications technicians and estimates that it saved some 58 man-years in training time. Virtual training is also appealing because it allows soldiers to learn and exercise their skills, again and again, without the accompanying physical risks. "Combat veterans live longer," Col. Matthew Caffrey, professor of war gaming and planning at the Air Command and Staff College, told National Defense. "One reason we use war games is to make virtual vets."

For simple-minded sociopaths like yours truly, who delight in god-mode with a BFG9000 (below), there's Serious Sam. Training? Hell, I just wanna blast something.

"Paging Vice Principal B. Brother, please report to room 101"

Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School Board's efforts to give every one of its high school students a laptop computer are doubleplusgood!

A Lower Merion family has set off a furor among students, parents, and civil liberties groups by alleging that Harriton High School officials used a webcam on a school-issued laptop to spy on their 15-year-old son at home.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the family said the school's assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had "engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district."
The suit contends the Lower Merion School District, one of the most prosperous and highest-achieving in the state, had the ability to turn on students' webcams and illegally invade their privacy.

According to Philly.com, which is all over the story, this would not only be possible, but easy for the school board to do. The feds have gotten involved and felt the accusations were credible enough that they have subpoenaed school board documents and are investigating.

Setting aside the technological issues involved here, I have to wonder why the school thinks it has the right to regulate what a student does at home. Frankly, it is none of the school's business whether the student was shooting heroin, having bondage sex with goats or reading Ayn Rand aloud to his hamster while wearing nothing but swim fins and bacon grease-- he wasn't on school property, it wasn't during a school-supervised activity and there is no accusation that he was using the school-owned computer for an inappropriate activity like hacking or say, oh I dunno...spying on school board officials or his vice-principal.

Whether they were conducting completely illegal surveillance of this kid is separate matter. It doesn't really matter whether the information about the kid's activities outside school comes from a hidden camera, a nosy teacher or another student who is ratting him out - if it doesn't happen at school and it doesn't involve child abuse or a murder plot, it is none of the school's damned business what kid is doing and they have no right to discipline him for things that are not related to school.

As for the spying, where to start? If the school is doing this, it is so obviously, clearly wrong I can't imagine the kind of authoritarian protofascist numbskulls that are in charge and would sign off on this kind of program. A whole bunch of people should not only lose their jobs, but should end up in jail. Even prison inmates aren't under hidden video surveillance.

And just as an observation on the tendency of school administration not to pay much attention to things they are trying to teach in the classroom; While Orwell's "1984" was taught as part of the English curriculum and required reading for the students, clearly the officials either hadn't read it or had a sick sense of humor. The detention room at both my old high school in Ancaster, Ontario and the one attended by several friends in Sault Ste. Marie was room No. 101.

Crossposted from The Woodshed, where we also have the King of Morningside interviewing the High Priest of Gonzo.

General Stanley McChrystal sends his regrets ...

Another NATO airstrike, another 33 dead civilians. AP :

"NATO forces confirmed in a statement that its planes fired Sunday on a group of vehicles that it believed contained insurgents who were about to attack its forces, only to discover later that women and children were in the cars.

The strike hit three minibuses that were driving down a major road in the mountainous province. There were 42 people in the vehicles, all civilians, Bashary said.

"We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives," NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said.

McChrystal also sent along his regrets six days ago when 12 civilians including 6 children were killed by two NATO-fired rockets which missed their intended target by 300 meters, and still more regrets were forthcoming the following day for five more civilians killed in another NATO airstrike.

McClatchy's reports that this is all just "a trial run" for "the next big combat mission" in Kandahar this summer, described by ISAF officials as "the big prize for both the Taliban and the coalition":

"Coalition officers describe the Marjah operation, now into its second week, as a "confidence builder" for Kandahar now that extra troops for Afghanistan have been committed."

And just what is the point of this "confidence builder" for "the big prize" again?

Journalist and historian Gareth Porter at The Real News Network :

"In my view this offensive has to be viewed as more of an effort to shape public opinion in the United States than to shape the politics of the future of Afghanistan."

It's propaganda, explains Porter, designed to sell the American people on the idea that when the inevitable negotiations with the Taliban for US withdrawal are held in 16 to 18 months, it will look at home as if the US is negotiating from a position of strength.

Saving US face - that's what all these civilians and soldiers are dying for now.
.

Olympics - It's a dog's life

G&M :

"Whistler RCMP is investigating a possible threat to athletes at Whistler, the police announced Saturday.
A map of the Whistler athletes' village was discovered with notations on the map that gave police cause for concern, said Staff Sergeant Steve LeClair, of the Whistler Pemberton RCMP.

Police searched several areas of the village extensively using specially trained dog-sniffers, he added."

I'm only guessing here but presumably that would be other dogs.

Driving danger

JALOPNIK IS A DELIGHTFULLY CHEERFUL SITE devoted to things automotive. Sam Smith has an article, "The Ten Most Dangerous Drivers In America", listing the top fender-bender piloti by occupation:

1. Attorney/Judge – Why chase ambulances if you can bring them to you?
2. Financial professionals – Do they cover their cars with a “tarp”?
3. Government worker (GS6) – Fender benders are a little known GS6 requirement. 
4. Bartender or Waiter – It’s just a different way of getting served. 
5. Other – Professional – AKA “I was hit by that ‘other’ guy.” 
6. Dog Groomer – Following the rules of the road must be a real pet peeve. 
7. Marketing/Advertising – If they have road rage can we call them “Mad Men”?
8. Barber/Stylist – Mostly likely to cut you off. 
9. Coach – Always crying foul. 
10. Nurse – Bedside manner: Great! Roadside manner: Yikes!
    

Rest John Babcock. Just rest.

You take with you the last living memory of a war that never needed to be fought. Regardless, you served and no one anywhere has the right to say you didn't serve well and that you didn't contribute to making this a better world.

John Babcock did all of that.

With condolences and respect to his family and friends. 146th Overseas Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force and The Royal Canadian Regiment.

The last surviving Canadian veteran of The Great War 1914 - 1918.

Died of natural causes at the age of 109 years.

We also walk dogs . . .

IO9 IS A SITE THAT FOLLOWS SCIENCE FICTION in its many aspects. According to Meredith, who has an article titled "Atheists Will Take Care Of Your Pet After The Divine Rapture, For A Price", Eternal Earth-Bound Pets promises to care for your pet after the apocalypse. Their slogan: "The next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World". Their FAC covers areas of concern for the devout:

Q: How do you ensure your representatives won't be Raptured?
A: Actually, we don't ensure it, they do. Each of our representatives has stated to us in writing that they are atheists, do not believe in God / Jesus, and that they have blasphemed in accordance with
Mark 3:29, negating any chance of salvation.

Q: When the Rapture occurs, how long before my pet is rescued?
A: The timing is contingent on the number of subscribers we have in each state/region and travel distance. Our rescuers know that this is a time sensitive service. Pets' lives are at stake. We will limit the number of subscribers in each zone so that any given rescuer will not be over burdened. Naturally, we must anticipate that there will be widespread chaos and confusion immediately following the Rapture that could impact travel times. Thus, we are targeting a maximum of between 18- 24 hours from realization of the Rapture, to animal rescue.

Comment section

Comments will return when I return. HaloScan is gone and it took all the comments with it.

Sometime next week I hope to have it all fixed. Maybe.