The Last Ephor

And yes, I did watch Chelsea destroy Wigan last night.  I haven't seen a beating that bad since Rodney King.  They face Portsmouth next which is very bad news for Porstmouth. Hell if they beat Wigan 8-0 what chance does a relegated team have?

Get Ready for DPRK Collapse Judging by recent developments inside North Korea, however, clinging on to its nukes may not actually help prolong Kim Jong-il’s regime. The country’s unfolding economic catastrophe has clearly taken a toll on the regime’s legitimacy and durability—only the most desperate governments in history have resorted to outright confiscation of its people’s money. Seasoned analysts have also reported rising popular resentment against Pyongyang. Thanks to the sanctions imposed by the United Nations and other efforts to weaken Kim Jong-il’s regime, North Korea has failed to blackmail the international community into supplying more economic assistance. More importantly, the Kim Jong-il regime, which has become a classic family dictatorship, is about to face its most difficult test of survival: succession. Stricken by a stroke not too long ago, Kim Jong-il is in frail health and his hold on power is certain to weaken. He appears desperate to install his 27-year old son, ...

Pirate Bay Appeal Judges Cleared of Bias The original trial judge, Tomas Norstrom, was investigated and cleared of bias after it was disclosed he was a member of the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Copyright. This is surprising to exactly no one. This is all WTO related. The Russians did the same thing to Allofmp3.com even though they were clearly well within the limits of Russian law. The Russians changed the law but Allofmp3 were grandfathered and would have been able to operate essentially forever. So the WTO went to the Duma and explained that unless Allofmp3 was made an example, they'd be on the receiving end of the WTO's formidable club. Same thing. They go to court and show that they are well within the confines of Russian law and, as in the Pirate Bay case, they lose anyway. Look, the whole thing is a greased pig. I'm in favor of protections of intellectual property but if you're within the law,...

that I'm a lesbian.  I mean, I have been known to play softball. 

"touch grep unzip mount fsck fsck umount." Lulz!

CRimages: Negative Equity by State Q1 2010 Wow. Just wow. I cannot imagine how the state is ever going to turn around.

The trouble with leviathan. I'm a libertarian.  Small L mind you.  So it troubles me that I'm working for the Federal Government.  Not directly, mind you, I'm a contractor.  I'm not sure which is more libertarian heresy.  Working for the beast or working for a company that merely feeds off the teat of the beast.  Probably the former.  Duffy?  What are you doing? Optimization. What do you mean? I mean, you have all sorts of problems with your schema here and I'm trying to fix it.  That and I'm creating some summary objects which will do the large sums on the repository side and not the application side which will be more efficient. Who told you to do that? You did? When? When I first started here.  You said many of the problems here are a function of a bad schema and inefficiencies.  So, I'm fixing them. Stop it. Why? We're not funded for that. Um...what? This contract is maintenance and support only, not design and build. But I'm not designing or bui...

BLACKFIVE: DADT statement from Milbloggers The US Military is professional and ready to adapt to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell without compromising its mission. Echoing Sec. Def. Gates and ADM Mullen, we welcome open and honorable service, regardless of sexual orientation. Since this cannot be spun to make them look bad, it will be ignored by the dextrosphere. I heartily agree that the time for being closeted or kicked out if way past it's sell-by date. So long as the rules about fraternization apply equally, I see no reason why this should continue. The study that is imminent will certainly approve of the repeal of DADAT and using that as the fig leaf for the holdouts, they'll ask Congress to repeal it giving Obama and Pelosi political fodder. That last bit is annoying but I can live with it so long as we get rid of this ridiculous policy.

LARGEST STEIN IN THE WORLD It stands 4 feet high, stoneware, weighs 35 pounds empty and holds 8.45 gallons! I can fill it and then tell my wife I only had one beer. Must. Have. Massive. Stein.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid34619011001?bctid=84804978001 Love it, love it, love it. He is reduced to asking local government to restore bus service somewhere. He can't even get three minutes from them. If there's any justice in this world, he'll soon be broke and have to get a real job.

Two little words that say it all.  Simply amazing. And yet she sees no connection between the MSA and radical Islamist movements. There is none so blind as he who chooses not to see.

Teababies Protest Lowest Taxes In 60 Years : Delaware Liberal So can we stop with the bogus argument that teabaggers are some kind of serious movement? The teabaggers say they are upset about the deficit but never noticed that Bush took a surplus and turned it into a deficit. They say they are upset about the bailouts and TARP, both are Bush programs. They claim to be upset about government overreach but haven’t said a word about the overreach of Arizona’s law requiring brown people to show papers to the authorities. There is so much wrong with this I hardly know where to begin. Unlike UI, I went to the Bureau of Economic Analysis website. I looked for the report cited by USA Today and saw only a report about personal income outlays, nothing about taxes. Perhaps it hasn't been posted on the web yet. However, the USA Today story only cites the Bureau, not the report. Nor does it link to the report so I can read it myself. DelawareLiberal merely took the report at face value be...

Pope blames church's own sins for sex scandal Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the church's own sins for the clerical abuse scandal — not a campaign mounted by outsiders — and called for profound purification to end what he called the "greatest persecution" the church has endured. His strong comments placed responsibility for the crisis squarely on the sins of pedophile priests, repudiating the Vatican's initial response to the scandal in which it blamed the media as well as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage advocates for mounting what it called a campaign against the church and the pope. "Many are tiring of hearing about his 'strong comments.'" They want to see strong action," said David Clohessy, director of the main U.S. victims' group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. I suspect the Pope is issuing these statements as a precursor to the "strong action" Mr. Clohessy is asking for. The thing about the Holy S...

Tyra Banks to Publish Her First Novel "It's my novel called Modelland (pronounced "Model Land") that takes you to a fantastical place you've never seen, or heard about, or read about before ... Where dreams come true and life can change in the blink of a smoky eye." Seriously. If this woman can get published I will not try. I could not live with myself if I failed to write something that I could get published when she can write this tripe and actually get paid for it. But what is the book about you ask? The story happens in a make-believe place called Modelland - every girl in the world wants to go there because it’s where “Intoxibellas” are trained. Intoxibellas are drop-dead beautiful, kick-butt fierce and, yeah, maybe they have some powers too. (But I’m confirming NOTHING! Ha. You gotta wait for the book.) The story follows a teen girl and her friends who find themselves magically transported to Modelland, even though they’re really not supposed to ...

The problem is that those who chose to be offended by the flag were not taught by school administrators that Freedom of Expression is a higher value than whatever disrespect they might be feeling. This is the grand difference between the liberals of old and the "progressives" of today. Now they're so concerned with hurt feelings they are willing to suppress people's rights to safeguard the precious feelings of the aggrieved. Note well that this concern stop very suddenly when dealing with conservatives of non-minorities.

The Great Disentangling Has Begun: What Bob Bennett’s Defeat Means and Does Not It is not, as some like to say, a purge. It never has been. It is an insurrection and a necessary fight. For too long conservatives have given their money and votes to Republicans who, every election year, whip out a red cloth with the word “judges” written on one side and “abortion” written on the other and wave it in front of the grassroots. But the grassroots have realized they’ve been had. They were disappointed in Harriet Miers. They were disappointed in immigration. But the handling of the financial mess in 2008 broke their hearts. Compounding that is the Senate Republicans going around the country defending the status quo and choosing sides with a bunch of moderates. He's right that both parties are seeing a reboot. Democrats had theirs when they defeated Hillary in favor of Obama. She was the favored DLC candidate. She had put in the years and patiently waited for her turn. The netroots (or ...

Just wow. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why dollar one was spent on just about all of these. Whenever I read an article like this I wonder why I'm not in TV productionland. I could come up with better crap than this. Ugh.

Former sex symbol laments the Pill Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it's gotta be pretty bad. In fact, it's precisely because of the sexy image I've had that it's important for me to speak up and say: Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks! We're capable of so much better. Interesting. I suppose she'll be derided as a old and out of touch and blah blah blah. The other interesting thing to note is that she says she is "ashamed" of her four failed marriages. Ashamed? WTF? No American in memory has admitted to shame in anything so trivial as mere divorce. Doesn't she know she's supposed to blame it on circumstance or folly of youth or other externalities? Keep taking personal responsibility like that and they'll put you in a nursing home lady.

The most interesting Republican you've never heard of - 2012 Elections I guess he's "interesting" because you can't paint him with a broad brush. He actually seems to have read a book at some point and it's manifestly evil. That confounds the liberal brain. The thing is, there are far more people like this in the GOP than not. The reason liberals don't know who they are is because the people who have been elected by the GOP term after term are institutionalized to the point that they have taken the politically expedient stance rather than the intellectually honest (or at least consistent) one. (c.f. John McCain and Bush 43 on immigration)

Some notes first and then the vid.  In real racing (that is, not roundy round big oval racing) the track has two sides.  The "clean" side is where the driving line is.  That is the preferred line for drivers to follow.  Since it has the most traffic, it has the most rubber built up and less dust and marbles . This track is insanely dusty as it is in Saudi Arabia so the desert dust makes things very dicey. I don't know who the guy driving this car is but he is damn good and had ginormous balls. To wit: In lap one, he gets the back end loose and ends up in the dirt. Many drivers would just pack it in at that point. This guy gets back on track and absolutely hammers the gas. At about the 2:30 mark, he's doing 158 MPH and the ass end of the car gets loose. Rather than lifting the gas pedal, he smashes it to the floor and wrestles this thing back on track. Around the 7:00 minute mark he attacks aggressively and risks a black flag when he takes the inside line and...

GE : Home Appliance Energy Use An excellent little page that shows how much power you're using for which appliances. Read it, you'll probably learn something.

Jeremy Clarkson Porsche 911 GT3 review | Driving - Times Online Something strange is going on in this country. In the run-up to the general election David Cameron was constantly accused of being unfit for office because of his excellent education at Eton and Oxford. Isn’t that like suggesting an athlete should be barred from the British Olympic team because they are “too fast”? It was much the same story with Nick Clegg. People loved him ... right up to the point when they learnt he had been educated at Westminster and Cambridge. Somehow, that immediately precluded him from being any good at anything. It’s hard, really, to understand what the critics are suggesting. Do they think that a fat and idiotic woman from Mansfield would make a better leader because she is thick? Or am I missing something? And so it was with the vulgar subject of money. There was a time, not that long ago, when no one in this country ever spoke about how much anyone earned. I remember once being in a Swedish ta...