Month: September 2014

  • Faster, Please

    As they say. Finally: lab on a chip, coming to Walgreens. A few dollars for lipid panel, a few dozen for fertility test, one-day turnaround. Wow. Hope we get one here soon. P.S. Bill Ardolino still owes me some respiroctyes (seriously, why are we all living three minutes from brain death? it’s insanity) UPDATE: Apparently…

  • “Workplace violence”

    As Simon reminded me, the Oklahoma beheading is being spun by our media overlords as anything bit terrorism. So forget about this headline: Oklahoma Beheader Linked to Al Qaeda Leader Awlaki, Boston Bomber’s Mosque And NEVER MIND this picture of the “disgruntled employee.” Of course, it could be argued that Osama bin Laden was a…

  • Beheading In Oklahoma

    I just found out about it from Ulsterman. The “gentleman” doing the carving was a recent convert to Islam. And of course the usual suspects have chimed in. No evidence Oklahoma beheading linked to terrorism – MSNBC. Well of course it is not linked to terrorism. It is terrorism. What they mean I think is…

  • Crimes against water

    Earlier I learned that the new mandatory flow restrictors that are now in all sink faucets make certain faucets leak. Like the American Standard faucet in my bathroom, which I thought I would have to replace because it leaked inside the assembly. When the faucet is off, all is well. Turn the faucet on at…

  • ‘Tis treason to disagree!

    To R.F.K, Jr, “treason” means disagreeing with him on Anthropogenic Global Warming: Blissfully unaware of how hot the irony burned, Robert Kennedy Jr. yesterday took to a public protest to rail avidly in favor of censorship. The United States government, Kennedy lamented in an interview with Climate Depot, is not permitted by law to “punish”…

  • First, they came for the drug dealers…

    The owner of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco is having a tough time with sanctimonious customers: The owner of a San Francisco Chinese restaurant has temporarily closed his doors with an abrupt notice due to what he calls ‘hard to please’ customers. Owner and chef James Chu put a sign on his door stating:…

  • How gladiatorial can a garden be?

    I don’t know whether there are any botanists who read this blog, but I have a question. Does anyone know what happens in a war between Salpichroa organifolia and Carpobrotus chilensis? Both are said to be invasive in the sense that they take over and crowd out other species. But here the invaders are pitted…

  • Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

    For a little while, it was beginning to seem that the Republicans had a chance of retaking the Senate. Not now. Nick Gillespie has an interesting analysis of what has happened, and offers the GOP some advice: Memo to Republicans: If you are perceived as very similar to the Democrats, just more awful when it…

  • Communist Crony Capitalists

    China has made the leap from N Korean-style basket case communism to banana republic crony-kleptocracy, and we should all applaud the fact that liberation has lifted several hundred million people out of grinding poverty and into middle incomes. But is the Party over? If you think we saw bad things out of China this week,…

  • “Kids will not eat what doesn’t taste good”

    It may come as a shock to those who hold Masters degrees in Public Health and want to micromanage our lives, but it is turning out that Michelle Obama’s federal food guidelines are backfiring: CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – New federal school food regulations promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama are becoming a massive headache for many…

  • What Have I Been Up To?

    As you may have noted my postings have been a bit sporadic of late. It is because I have been designing a Stepper Motor Controller. Good for table top machining and 3D printers. I wrote the main elements of the software about 10 years ago to run a Bridgeport Milling machine. To work with modern…

  • Windmills Are Killing Europe

    It turns out that Miguel de Cervantes, writing about Don Quixote was prescient. The Don was titling at windmills out of what was then thought to be imaginary fears. It turns out the fears are all too real. European Union leaders announced they will be consolidating energy and environmental goals under a new commissioner, effectively…

  • Bacon is a religious issue!

    Really? Apparently so. I always thought bacon was a food implicating little more than what a person might like (or not like) to eat, but what do I know? I also thought sexual tastes were that, too.

  • Can You Believe It?

    The home of the religion of peace, Saudi Arabia, is rounding up unbelievers. Islamist police in Saudi Arabia have stormed a Christian prayer meeting and arrested its entire congregation, including women and children, and confiscated their bibles, it has been reported. The raid was the latest incident of a swingeing crackdown on religious minorities in…

  • It Has Nothing To Do With Islam

    The Islamic State that is. According to our misesteemed Secretary of State, John fn Kerry. The Voice of America (which America?) has it. Kerry said Islamic State jihadists claim to be fighting on behalf of Islam, but said the group’s activities have nothing to do with Islam. He said, “Its message of hate is rejected”…

  • Two groups I admire

    Few things horrify me more than people who do as they are told. (Well, maybe the people who tell people what to do, but they wouldn’t have any power if they were ignored.) So, there are two groups of stubborn humans whom I especially admire. 1) Smokers; and 2) Dog owners who refuse to castrate…

  • Remember

      Some things must never be forgotten.

  • Hey, at least I tried

    This is really hard. I spent much of the day trying, but I’m just not coordinated enough to really make it work well. By the time I get the thing hovering, it runs out of juice to keep it up. (I guess the same could be said about many of us, haha.) MORE: Fortunately for…

  • Police Militarization

    We militarized the police to fight a war on those people. The hearing, convened to probe “police militarization” in the wake of the police response to protests in Ferguson, Mo., focused on three federal programs designed to help local police departments respond to drug crime and terrorist attacks. Lawmakers and witnesses suggested that programs have…

  • Yes

    So it appears Scotland may actually go independent this month. Irrespective of how this particular vote unfolds, hyperlocalization is one of the most promising trends in our global political evolution. As much I disagree with most of the Yes crowd’s policies, which include some of the most retrograde statist notions, independence for Scotland means government…