Slashdot Mirror

Sabeen Mahmud, Anwar Sadat, Theo van Gogh, Pim Fortuyn, Lee Rigby, people in the World trade Center on 9/11, Copts in Egypt, school children in Pakistan, Christian girls in Nigeria, Yzedis in Iraq, Kurds in Syria.

It's almost as though there were some sort of shared transnational ideology behind all of their attacks.

If only our world leaders could somehow deduce the nature of this ideology, name it, and set about creating plans to fight it...

It will encourage high tech companies in general and venture capital firms in specific to:

A). Locate their businesses in a state (like Texas) where Social Justice Warrior-type lawsuits have little chance to succeed.
B). More carefully screen potential employees for Social Justice Warrior tendencies so as to minimize the chance of future lawsuits.

Businesses exist to make money, they don't exit for believers in victimhood identity politics to wage politics and cash in at their expense.

Remember that? That was the 1928 pact that outlawed war.

You might remember how well that worked out.

This will work out just swell until Russia or China or ISIS develop an effective fighting robot and are able to deploy them in sufficient quantities to make a decisive difference in battle.

Plus there's the impossibility of enforcement. How can you prove it was a robot rather than a remote-operated drone?

And there's the tiny issue that, knowing how slowly the wheels of the "international community's" court systems turn, the war is likely to be won or lost before those violating it ever come to trial...

Yes, voting fraud is a "non-issue" except for all the documented instances of voting fraud across the country:

Take, for example, this case in Troy, New York:
Four Democratic officials and political operatives have pleaded guilty to voter fraud-related felony charges in an alleged scheme to steal an election in Troy, N.Y., FoxNews.com reports.

The group forged signatures on applications for absentee ballots and on the ballots themselves in a 2009 primary of the Working Families Party, which was affiliated with now-defunct community group ACORN.

Or how about Massachussets Democrat State Rep. Stephen Smith (a member of the Joint Committee on Election Laws” who plead guilty to voter fraud and resigned after casting fraudulent absentee ballots “in multiple elections.”
“Three Arkansas Democrats and a police officer pleaded guilty tobribing voters for their absentee ballots for a local election in 2011.”
In Indiana, a “former state representative and longtime Jennings County Democratic Party worker received an 18-month sentence Wednesday for three felony convictions of voter fraud” for registering and voting the ballots of other people.
“A Milwaukee man pleaded guilty Monday to illegally voting five times last year in West Milwaukee, when in fact he did not have residency there.”
Here’s a Brownsville woman voting multiple times in the Democratic primary.
Here’s a Maryland woman who plead guilty to trying to cast the vote of her recently deceased mother.

Pew research shows that approval of terrorist goals (and sometimes terrorist means) is not a fringe in the Muslim world:

Muslim support for stoning as a punishment for adultery is more than 20% in all countries surveyed.
Support for the death penalty for apostasy ranges from 4% of Muslims in Kazakhstan to 86% in Egypt.
Fully 99% of Afghan Muslims want Sharia law, which makes it hard to regard our long-term intervention there as anything but a failure.
In the UK, in another poll from 2006, 20% of surveyed Muslims supported the 2005 7/7 suicide attacks, and 40% supported the imposition of Sharia law.

Let's not forget that the best estimates for the death of communist regimes killing their own people is right around 100 million people. Both The Black Book of Communism and R.J. Rummel's Death by Government come up with roughly the same number of people killed.

Communism is incompatible with both human rights and a healthy economy, and never has, never can, and never will meet the needs of its own people or offer better lives than those under capitalism.

Embargoes have nothing to do with it...

It was called the Kellogg-Briand Pact. "The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another."

How well did that work out?

It was signed in 1928. Good thing there have been no wars since then...

...to a regime that killed some 20-30 million people. Sounds like the guy got jobbed for sure, but Soviet punishment would have been to kill the guy and his family, or at least exile them to a Siberian work camp for 10 years.

It's like violating Godwin's Law, except for commies...

...on a computer what it took fifty years of uninterrupted Democratic rule to do in real life!

California is coasting on accumulated prosperity from before it became a one-party Democratic state. People and businesses are now fleeing in droves.

Among the first instances of swatting I was aware of were conservative bloggers like Aaron Walker, Erick Erickson and Patrick Frey, all of whom were working to expose convicted felon and "Speedway Bomber" Brett Kimberlin.

There may have been earlier instances, but those are the first I'm aware of.

Well, it will buy you a pretty nice home in Texas, anyway. California? Not so much.

Especially with California's much higher tax rates, including a rate of 9.3% that kicks for all those millionaires making more than $49,774 a year.

It was called "the Soviet Union." Adding smart phone and Facebook data wouldn't have made that clusterfuck of genocidal failure any better...

...of California's high tax, high cost, high regulation, anti-growth, and radical environmental environment. It's a great place to live if you're rich, and virtually impossible to live if you're middle class or poor.

Critics have been noting these problems for at least two decades, and California becoming a single-party Democratic state with outsized input from public employee unions has only accelerated the trend...

...you mean hundreds of thousands, as numerous pictures from Newspapers and Twitter have shown.

The rest of your post is of similar accuracy.

Now why don't you tell us how Euromaidan in Ukraine is "just a handful of extremists"?

Interesting, because the Dallas Police Department was accused of massaging the crime statistics back when Tom Leppert was Mayor. /Note: I'm part of the vast right wing conspiracy, but those charges were leveled by a columnist for the the left-wing Dallas Observer.

This would not be the first time. Earlier this year, the Extremely Vocal Minority had Locus Online take down my April Fools piece.

Original feminists had real complaints. Third Wave/Race Critical Theory/Victimhood Identity Politics feminists seem to believe that they have a right not to be offended.

Somewhere between 65-76 million people, most in the collectivization famine of The Great Leap Forward.

...the word "jobs" typoed "orcs."

One reason there aren't many jobs for older people there is that there aren't many new jobs in California, period. Companies are moving out of high tax, high cost states like California to low tax, low cost states like Texas.

Texas is still hiring people of all ages for high tech jobs. Austin has startups, giants, and government jobs (though you won't get the ridiculous, bankruptcy inducing pensions unionized California's state employees get), and Houston and Dallas have high tech and oil and gas (lots of hardware and software engineering jobs that pay very well). And the cost of living here is radically lower; someone who makes $50,000 a year here can easily afford a house.

If things suck where you are now, maybe you should move someplace things don't suck.

...at least according to witnesses, and he's still alive.

I guess he was surrounded by stormtroopers.

And a few random titbits about the bombing.

The thing to remember when hearing about all this "austerity" in Europe is that no country in Europe has tried real austerity .*

Real austerity is cutting spending until outlays match receipts. As the linked chart shows, the overwhelming majority have raised taxes or continued deficit spending. Some have slightly reduced the ratio of deficit spending to GDP and called it "austerity." They're still digging a hole, they're just doing it more slowly.

"Real" austerity, eh? Just like a "true" Scotsman?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

"Cutting spending until outlays match receipts" is called having a balanced budget. Austerity "describes policies used by governments to reduce budget deficits during adverse economic conditions".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity

It has nothing to do with balanced budgets, but rather reducing deficiets (ideally to zero, but not necessarilly so).

Austerity hasn't been tried and failed. It's been declared difficult and left untried.

Poppycock. The evidence suggests the more one practices austerity, the worse one's economic growth will be:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/austerity-europe-2/

For more data look at the UK: practicing austerity (i.e., cutting government spending), and now entering a double (triple?) dip recession:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/search/Osborne/

Austerity has been tried, by many folks, and in all cases it has been found to deepen recessions. Here's when you want to cut back on government spending: when the economy is good, and the private sector will take up the slack in demand when the government start clawing back programs.

Krugman (amongst others) was against deficit spending in the 2002 time frame when the economy was humming along, because according to Keynesian theory the economy didn't need more stimulus. After the financial crisis of 2008, private spending/demand dried up and the economy tanked: this is when the Keynesian says the government should step in to stimulate things (and then get out of the way once everything is back up and running).

If you want to talk about "been declared difficult and left untried", then it would better be applied to the so-called stimulus package of the US (and many others):

I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/

And Keynesian models were predicting the non-stimulus stimulus wouldn't work too well even early:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/stimulus-math-wonkish/

Cutting government spending (i.e., austerity) is not good all the time, and is not bad all the time. More government spending (i.e., stimulus) is not good all the time, and is not bad all the time. Whether either of these two are good or bad is is determined by the macroeconomic conditions. In 2002, the conditions said that balanced budgets/surpluses (brought forward by Clinton) should be kept; the economic condtions of 2009+ say that stimultus is needed. Once the economy gets better, and private demand picks up the slack, then it will be appropriate for governments to start practicing austerity. But reducing demand, when demand is already depressed, should be a fairly obvious way to deepen a recession.

The thing to remember when hearing about all this "austerity" in Europe is that no country in Europe has tried real austerity .*

Real austerity is cutting spending until outlays match receipts. As the linked chart shows, the overwhelming majority have raised taxes or continued deficit spending. Some have slightly reduced the ratio of deficit spending to GDP and called it "austerity." They're still digging a hole, they're just doing it more slowly.

Politicians are addicted to spending to prop up an unsustainable welfare state. They've seen what the future looks like in Greece and they still refuse to stop spending. And the current government of the United States is right there digging with them.

Austerity hasn't been tried and failed. It's been declared difficult and left untried.

(*with the possible exception of Estonia and one or two other small countries)

Why did public pensions invest in venture capital firms in the first place? Years of ever-escalating pension benefits plus years of severe underfunding those same pensions means that they needed unrealistic growth rates to even come close to meeting their targets.

Take California for example. Not only did they keep increasing pensions promises while underfunding them, they used a variety of accounting tricks to cover it up. On top of that, they assumed unrealistic returns (7.5% or higher in many cases).

How could they get away with? California has essentially become a one-party state where public employee unions are the most powerful interest group. So the process is:

1. Public employee unions use mandatory union dues to contribute to Democratic candidates.
2. Once elected, Democrats vote for ever escalating pension benefits.
3. Democrats appoint pension board officials who ignore underfunded pensions. And the CEO of CalPERS, California's largest pension fund, was just indicted for fraud. "The indictment charges that the falsified documents allowed Villalobos to reap $14 million in fees for serving as a middleman between CalPERS and a prominent investment firm handling $3 billion in CalPERS' money."

Combine this with ever-higher taxes, and a faltering economy, and you have a recipe for the governing class looting the treasury at the expense of the middle class (and future generations that will have to deal with the consequences of bankruptcy and crushing debt loads). Several California cities have already declared bankruptcy, and newer, more transparent accounting rules will probably force more into bankruptcy.

VC funds are probably the least of their worries.

...just didn't have enough reasons to movie to Texas already...

The most prominent cases of SWATing I'm aware of have been carried out against conservative bloggers:

• Aaron Worthing.
• Patterico
• Erik Erickson

Several cases seen to involve people criticizing convicted Speedway Bomber felon (and left-wing activist) Brett Kimberlin.

...that other states keep driving business out with higher taxes, more bureaucratic red tape, burdensome regulations, and corrupt closed shop union cronyism.

This is why California keeps driving businesses to Texas.

Also, Texas now ranks higher than California in standardized test scores, both in aggregate, and in each demographic ethnic group.

For a more in-depth discussion of these points (with numerous statistics to back it up), see Chuck DeVore's The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America.

Low taxes, low cost of living, great climate, great freeways, first class universities, an influx of returning GIs, marijuana and LSD.

Now California is verging on a failed state. High taxes (a rate of 9.5% for those millionaires making $48,942), high cost of living, a bloated state bureaucracy in league with public employee unions to bankrupt the state, decaying infrastructure, a failing education system on par with Mississippi, one third of the nation's welfare recipients, an outflux of Americans and an influx of low-skill illegal aliens. The only things left are the marijuana and LSD.

The future of business in general and startups in specific are low-tax, now-state-income tax, low-regulation state like Texas and Florida.

How many people were killed under communist governments again? Give the authorities enough power and no oversight and people that have done no wrong will be come statistics. This SAF-T world that you seek doesn't exist, and things surely will get worse by giving a group absolute power.

My guess is you're a middle class white guy, try being a minority for a while and your rosy outlook on law enforcement may change.

Command economies result is massive misallocations of capital compared to market economies, and this is also true of China. The "Ghost Cities" are the biggest manifestation of economic distortion, but hardly the only one.

On the plus side, communist China is only killing thousands of its own people every year, a vast improvement on the millions (or tens of millions) killed in the past. Progress!

Command economies result is massive misallocations of capital compared to market economies, and this is also true of China. The "Ghost Cities" are the biggest manifestation of economic distortion, but hardly the only one.

On the plus side, communist China is only killing thousands of its own people every year, a vast improvement on the millions (or tens of millions) killed in the past. Progress!

So, France is going to cut (or at least pretend to cut) deficits from 4.5% of GDP to 3% of GDP, while hiking taxes.

That is not real austerity. You know what real austerity is? Cutting spending until it matches the amount of revenue actually coming in. This is the hard discipline that the vast majority of private enterprises have to adhere to, but which no government with a European welfare state seems capable of.

No Eurozone country (with the possible exception of Estonia) has actually practiced real austerity. You know that "Greek Austerity" measure, the one that had Greeks rioting in the streets? That reduced deficit spending from 9.0% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP. And even that amount was probably a lie.

Politicians need deficit spending the way a junkie needs heroin because the cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable, and no one is willing to face up to that fact. And the price of that delusion will be the destruction of our economy.

Instead of looking civilized, we look weak, as athiest commentator Pat Condell makes clear:

"There was a time when Islam was given the benefit the doubt by many people in the west. Now we think it’s poison and we wish we’d never heard of it, because 20 years of baseless grievance mongering and knee-jerk offense have shown us this religion for what it really is. Now we don’t like it, we don’t trust it, and we are never going to respect it. And we don’t care how Muslims feel about that."

...when she was attacked by the FailFandom brigade for comments ever-so-mildly critical of Islam.

But I strongly oppose this. A government with the power to barcode everyone at birth is the sort of government powerful enough to commit just about any abuse of its citizens. And the well-connected will still be able to get data related to their barcode altered for their benefit.

I'll pass on the Panopticon society, thank you. And strong private property laws are the first step from preventing it from happening.

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states. 2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would. 3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

4. While drawing pictures of Mohammed may be blasphemous in Islam and thereby verboten to Muslims, it's not blasphemous outside Islam, and non-Muslims are under no obligation to obey what is essentially an Islamic doctrine. Essentially, it flouts its nose against Muslim attempts to introduce Shariah law to the West and other non-Muslim countries, particularly since Shariah laws, unlike laws of other religions, is all about forcing Muslims and non Muslims to live under Islamic law. If this goes unchallenged, next thing you know, veils will be required for both Muslim and non-Muslim women, pork and alcohol will be forbidden to both Muslims and non-Muslims, FGMs will become legal in the West, and so on.

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states. 2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would. 3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

4. While drawing pictures of Mohammed may be blasphemous in Islam and thereby verboten to Muslims, it's not blasphemous outside Islam, and non-Muslims are under no obligation to obey what is essentially an Islamic doctrine. Essentially, it flouts its nose against Muslim attempts to introduce Shariah law to the West and other non-Muslim countries, particularly since Shariah laws, unlike laws of other religions, is all about forcing Muslims and non Muslims to live under Islamic law. If this goes unchallenged, next thing you know, veils will be required for both Muslim and non-Muslim women, pork and alcohol will be forbidden to both Muslims and non-Muslims, FGMs will become legal in the West, and so on.

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states. 2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would. 3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

4. While drawing pictures of Mohammed may be blasphemous in Islam and thereby verboten to Muslims, it's not blasphemous outside Islam, and non-Muslims are under no obligation to obey what is essentially an Islamic doctrine. Essentially, it flouts its nose against Muslim attempts to introduce Shariah law to the West and other non-Muslim countries, particularly since Shariah laws, unlike laws of other religions, is all about forcing Muslims and non Muslims to live under Islamic law. If this goes unchallenged, next thing you know, veils will be required for both Muslim and non-Muslim women, pork and alcohol will be forbidden to both Muslims and non-Muslims, FGMs will become legal in the West, and so on.

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states.
2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would.
3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states.
2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would.
3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states.
2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would.
3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

Named Richard Mack, backed by the Tea Party. Mack is most famous for being one of the plaintiffs in a case that overturned key provisions of the Brady Bill.

There is a large difference between 13-term incumbents and the Tea Party.

If you fly on airplanes, or live near an airport, you should care:

Imagine a Boeing 787 Dreamliner conducting an nighttime instrument approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when the GPS signal is overwhelmed at a critical phase. Now imagine that same Boeing 787 Dreamliner plowing into downtown Arlington, Virginia at 150 miles per hour, leaving a wake of bloody body parts and burning jetfuel for a quarter-mile.

That’s the worst that could happen.

It was bad enough when the Obama Administration was just wasting taxpayer dollars on well-connected business cronies like Solyandra. However, Fast and Furious has helped kill hundreds of Mexicans and at least one U.S. citizen, U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry, all for the the purpose of promoting gun control. Now the Obama Administration is trying to help another batch of well-connected Democratic cronies at LightSquared, and if they get their way, the results could easily be hundreds dead. All it takes is for one LightSqyared signal to interfere enough with GPS during a single airliner landing. And it might not just be one airliner, because there's no guarantee the accident investigation would find the cause quick enough to prevent a re-occurrence.

Remember how the Bush Administration was forced to appoint a special prosecutor for "Plamegate"? Both Fast and Furious are far more serious scandals, and the Obama Administration is clearly stonewalling the investigation on one.

I would think that even the most fervent liberal would draw the line at a corrupt cronyism that result in the direct deaths of innocent American citizens.

Rick Perry's campaign, for instance, is well-known for using social-science methods to rigorously test various campaign tools, including controlled experiments on what actually worked and what didn't.

As, as long as we're talking about Perry, you know that "Perry cut firefighters budgets" story that went around a month ago? It's not true. The Texas legislature authorized, and Perry signed, an 80% increase in wildfire fighting and prevention funding for the 2012-2013 biennium.

The question is: Will the New York Times be here in 50 years?

My guess is no. It may not even last ten.

Lawrence Person
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
http://www.battleswarmblog.com/

Embarassing and suggestive, but not a smoking gun.

Now to go back and add the Slashdot megaupload link to my post...