Europe's growing anti-Semitism...

Europe's growing anti-Semitism...  A depressing reality, says Cathy Young, writing at Reason...

Stop motion tissues...

Stop motion tissues...  Speechless, I am...

Hah!

Hah!  Screenshot of an error page at youtube.com.  Awesome!  As always, click on the thumbnail to embiggen...

Cat gonna survive, too...

Cat gonna survive, too...

A permanent slump?

A permanent slump?  So speculates Paul Krugman, the barking mad Nobel Prize-winning former economist who now shills writes for the New York Times. But upon reading his piece, I'm struck by the fact that what he's actually doing is blaming the non-recovery on anything and everything except the obvious things to point at: socialism, over-taxation, over-regulation, and deficit spending.

Mr. Krugman would find it educational to pay a visit to North Dakota, where they seem to have successfully recovered.  He might want to think about why...

What political disaster looks like...

What political disaster looks like...  Even as a thumbnail, the graph at right tells a dramatic story.  The red line is Obama's disapproval rating, the black his approval.  This is the Real Clear Politics “meta-poll”, arrived at by averaging the results of several actual polls.  They do this specifically to avoid the pitfalls of cherry-picking one's data.  In effect, this is the consensus of all the major polls.

And it's devastating, from a political perspective.  Combine this with the ObamaCare polls I'll be writing about shortly, and the picture looks very grim if your last name is Obama, or if you have a “D” after your name...

Pope disses progressives...

Pope disses progressives...  Really!

Today's gonna be a good day...

Today's gonna be a good day...  Click the thumbnail at right to embiggen, but please put your drink down first...

“It’s always good to see you, Dad.”

“It’s always good to see you, Dad.”  This beautiful story had me in tears, partly because of its resonance with my last visit with my dad, just a couple months ago.  I do, however, want you all to know: I did not visit Taco Bell...

Jarrett leading secret negotiations with Iran?

Jarrett leading secret negotiations with Iran?  If this report is true, it is very disturbing – such a negotiation is far outside her brief, and we have zero reason to believe that she is in any way qualified to do this.  The administration very quickly issued a categorical denial.  If this were any other administration, I'd immediately dismiss this report on the basis of that denial.  But it is The One's administration, and their denial actually makes me even more suspicious...

Bitcoin mining, for fun and loss...

Bitcoin mining, for fun and loss...  Warren Meyer, writing at Forbes, on the dodgy economics of bitcoin mining.  One little tidbit of technical awesomeness (in an article that's not really about the technology): devices are just coming onto the market that can execute 3 trillion cryptographic hashes per second...

Israel and Saudi Arabia, new BFFs?

Israel and Saudi Arabia, new BFFs?  I never thought I'd see anything like this outside of The Onion:

Israel is working on coordinating plans for a possible military strike with Saudi Arabia, with Riyadh prepared to provide tactical support to Jerusalem, a British newspaper reported early Sunday.

The two countries have both united in worry that the West may come to terms with Iran, easing sanctions and allowing the Islamic Republic to continue its nuclear program.

According to the Sunday Times, Riyadh has agreed to let Israel use its airspace in a military strike on Iran and cooperate over the use of rescue helicopters, tanker planes and drones.

From a purely pragmatic military perspective, this makes perfectly good sense.  But from any other perspective, it looks absolutely impossible!

A damned fine question, Mr. Sullum!

A damned fine question, Mr. Sullum!  Jacob Sullum, writing at Reason, asks:

Was the Dog-Authorized Exploration of David Eckert's Guts Legal?
A bizarre search illustrates how the war on drugs has undermined our civil liberties.

How is it possible that a motorist pulled over for a rolling stop could end up being forcibly subjected to two X-rays, two digital probes of his anus, three enemas, and a colonoscopy, none of which discovered the slightest trace of the drugs that police claim to have thought he was hiding inside himself? That is the question raised by a federal lawsuit that recently received wide attention after it was highlighted by KOB, the NBC affiliate in Albuquerque.

The answer says a lot about the outrageous indignities we have come to tolerate in the name of the war on drugs, which has undermined our civil liberties to the point that what happened to David Eckert after he was stopped in Deming, New Mexico, seemed perfectly justified to the cops who detained him, the prosecutor who approved their application for a search warrant, the judge who granted it, and the doctors who helped execute it. Even in retrospect, Deming Police Chief Brandon Gigante insists that "we follow the law in every aspect." The really horrifying thing about Eckert's ordeal is that the courts might agree with Gigante.

It's a must-read, and yet another reason for us to put an end to the moronic “war on drugs”...

The eternal melody of π, base 12...

The eternal melody of π, base 12...  Who thinks of these things? 

Robot spider salsa!

Robot spider salsa!  That's it, the Internet is finished...

The mask slips for just a moment...

The mask slips for just a moment...  The video of a U.N. translator at right is absolutely epic (the key moment is at 1:58).  Commentary Magazine has it right: the correct translation is “The U.N. is a joke!”  A damned expensive joke, and dangerous for the diseased worldview it nurtures...

ObamaCare debacle update...

ObamaCare debacle update...  Because there's nothing like the smell of ObamaCare decomposing on a sunny Monday morning...

Legalize real health insurance.  Dr. Paul Hsieh, writing in Forbes, is singing my song...

ObamaCare's union favor.  Are you surprised by this?  I'm certainly not – with The One's administration, it's Chicago-style cronyism right down the line...

Insurance industry readied while Obama slept.  Well, of course the insurance company “readied” – they are businesses, and they had to follow the law.  Unlike, say, The One.  Here's the kicker, though: this is in USA Today, heretofore (so far as I know) an unapologetic ObamaCare booster.  Oops!

Heads are going to roll.  It's not good to screw up The One's “signature legislation”...

Handy list of more ObamaCare shoes left to drop.  A half-dozen more shoes, and they're all big, heavy shoes.  Staffers working on ObamaCare must be cowering in the basement, knowing (and they do know) what's coming shortly...

The most shocking ObamaCare revelation: The One's towering incompetence.  I'm going to have to differ with the author (Walter Russell Mead) on this one, as Obama's incompetence has been on display for five years now.  But welcome to reality, Walter...

HealthCare.gov gets a new spokesman.  Yeah, that ought to help!

Obama to rally supporters for ObamaCare.  Smells a little of desperation, doesn't it?

Pelosi vs. Gregory.  Incompetence and incoherence raised to new levels.  It continues to astonish me that (a) voters keep electing Pelosi, and (b) viewers keep watching intellectual zeroes like Gregory.  Ugh...

The One is nominating a new surgeon-general.  Is anyone surprised that he turns out to be a political hack, employed by a progressive hackery factory?

ObamaCare is derailing president's credibility.  Ya think?

American healthcare is all over but the screaming.  An industry insider's view of the impact of ObamaCare (and regulation in general) on hospitals.  Chilling stuff...

The backstory...

The backstory...  On that “Epic Split” ad.  I'm so glad I could amuse you all with my ignorance of the actor :)

Rates of technology adoption...

Rates of technology adoption...  Fascinating graph comparing the rates of penetration for various new technologies, going back to stoves in 1900.  The key point is that adoption rates are accelerating, as can easily be seen as those penetration curves get steeper and steeper.  One note: the vertical axis is perhaps not what you'd expect.  Rather than showing penetration percentage, it's a log scale of the ratio of penetrated to unpenetrated.  That's easy to convert to penetration percentage: 0.1 = 9%, 1.0 = 50%, 10.0 = 91%.

Aurora and clouds over Iceland...

Aurora and clouds over Iceland...  Via APOD, of course.

“Skilled dispatcher”...

“Skilled dispatcher”...  Page from the Visitor Reference Book, for visitors to the Swift & Co. slaughterhouse in Chicago, circa 1903.  It's clear that folks back then were just a tad less squeamish about the source of their meat than the average American is today.

Back in the '70s, when I was in the U.S. Navy, my ship (USS Long Beach CGN-9) visited Singapore.  Together with 20 or so other sailors, I visited a Chinese restaurant there.  One of the sailors ordered a roast chicken, and to his surprise – and discomfort – the waiter hauled him over to a pen to choose which chicken he wanted to eat.  Despite having suffered weeks of awful Navy-at-sea food, he didn't enjoy his meal at all.  The Chinese staff had seen this American reaction before, and they were quite amused.  As, I think, they should be – for what a silly pretension we Americans have, that our meat all comes from some factory, wrapped in plastic, and not directly from the flesh of some animal...

ObamaCare – a personal report...

ObamaCare – a personal report...  Well, I was finally able to make it all the way through the process on the Covered California site, right up to the point where I'd actually buy a policy (which I did not do).  Here's a summary of the results, in terms of costs, for a policy covering Debbie and I:

	Current policy	ObamaCare policy
Monthly premium:	$1,272	$2,012
Out-of-pocket cap:	$3,500	$7,800
Max annual cost:	$18,764	$31,944

The ObamaCare policy's out-of-pocket caps are quite complicated, as they vary for the type of care offered.  It wouldn't surprise me a bit to discover that they're actually higher than what I listed above.

In terms of coverage, the ObamaCare policy overlaps our current policy, but there are notable differences.  The biggest difference I see is that our current policy has much better coverage out-of-network, and gives us complete freedom to choose the specialists we want.  The ObamaCare policy is severely restricted in those terms.  On the other hand, the ObamaCare policy covers some things our current policy doesn't: birth control, maternity care, podiatrists, and much more mental health coverage.  We don't care about any of those things.

So, on balance: the ObamaCare policy is much more expensive (especially when you consider those out-of-pocket caps) and is lower quality (for the things that we care about) than our current policy.

Thanks a bunch, ObamaCare...