Month: January 2015

So, Now I’m Thanking Richard Nixon and Pierre Elliot Trudeau ……… Odd History

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It turns out that the surge, and subsequent drop, in crime in Canada also appears to be an artifact of lead exposure:

I’m happy to see lead at least get a shout out. Unless I’ve missed something, this might actually be the first time the New York Times has ever mentioned childhood lead exposure as a possible explanation for the decline in violent crime. Progress!

But while Eckholm is right to say that none of the other factors he mentions can explain a decline in violent crime that happened all over the world, he’s wrong to include lead in that list. It’s the one explanation that does have the potential to explain a worldwide drop in crime levels. In particular, the chart on the right shows the use of gasoline lead in Canada, which peaked in the mid-70s and then began dropping as catalytic converters became more common. Leaded gasoline was banned for good in 1990, and is now virtually gone with a few minor exceptions for specialized vehicles.

So what happened? As Zimring says, Canada saw a substantial decrease in violent crime that started about 20 years after lead emissions began to drop, which is exactly what you’d expect. I calculated the numbers for Canada’s biggest cities back when I was researching my lead-crime piece, and crime was down from its peak values everywhere: 31 percent in Montreal, 36 percent in Edmonton, 40 percent in Toronto and Vancouver, and 53 percent in Ottawa. CompStat and broken windows and American drug laws can’t explain that.

It is almost certain that lead exposure is a significant factor the rise and fall of crime world wide, and given the wide variations in techniques used by law enforcement, it is likely the most significant factor in the rise and fall of crime worldwide.

Given the clearly racist assumptions of broken windows policing, and the even more clearly racist subtext of America’s fascination with incarceration, it’s not surprising that the law enforcement establishment has studiously avoided looking at lead’s effects on crime.

Racially biased law enforcement philosophies, particularly when it generates more money for law enforcement and incarceration is a feature of, and not a bug in, our society.

The Phrase “Bad Optics” Doesn’t Even Begin to Describe This………

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The German government has selected former SS Barracks at the Buchenwald concentration camp to house asylum seekers:

Plans to house asylum seekers in a former SS barracks at a Nazi concentration camp are causing controversy in Germany.

 Local authorities in the city of Schwerte, in western Germany, want to house 21 asylum seekers in a Nazi-era barracks believed to have been used by SS guards at a local outpost of the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp.

 Germany is facing an acute shortage of accommodation for asylum-seekers while their claims are assessed. A huge influx of refugees, many of them fleeing the violence in Syria and Iraq, has left official shelters overcrowded and forced local authorities to improvise alternatives.

 But the Schwerte authorities have been accused of bad taste over their decision to use a former SS barracks building to make up the shortfall.

 “This is not a normal place, not just anywhere, but a place of exploitation, oppression and unbounded violence,” Christine Glauning, director of the Documentation Centre for Nazi Forced Labour, told Spiegel magazine’s website.

Seriously?

Obama Wants More Dead Aaron Swartzes

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At the State of the Union address, Obama will announce plans to increase penalties and increase the penalties and broaden the scope of the already over-broad Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFPA):

The Obama administration, currently engaged in a war of words with North Korea over the recent hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is calling on Congress to increase prison sentences for hackers and to expand the definition of hacking.

During next week’s State of the Union address, the president is set to publicly urge increased prison time and other changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—the statute that was used to prosecute Internet activist Aaron Swartz before he committed suicide in 2013.

The Obama administration, currently engaged in a war of words with North Korea over the recent hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is calling on Congress to increase prison sentences for hackers and to expand the definition of hacking.

During next week’s State of the Union address, the president is set to publicly urge increased prison time and other changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—the statute that was used to prosecute Internet activist Aaron Swartz before he committed suicide in 2013.

………

Among other things, penalties under Obama’s plan would increase from a maximum five-year penalty to 10 years for pure hacking acts, like circumventing a technological barrier. What’s more, the law would expand the definition of what “exceeds authorized access” means. A hacker would exceed authorization when accessing information “for a purpose that the accesser knows is not authorized by the computer owner.”

So, under Obama’s proposal, if you browse Facebook on a work computer, that’s 10 years in the slam.

Note that Aaron Swartz was driven to suicide by an abusive prosecution using the current (far less broad and far less punitive) version of the CFPA.

The CFPA is already a petri dish for overzealous prosecution, and Obama wants to make it worse.

Seriously, has there been a single case where Obama has not chosen the most authoritarian option?

I Will Set Aside my Skepticism ……… For Now

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In what amounts to a major change in policy, Obama appears to have to endorsed municipal owned and run broadband networks:

U.S. President Barack Obama said laws that impede local governments from bringing competitively priced, high-speed Internet to their residents hold back businesses and raise prices for consumers.

Obama used the the well-wired city of Cedar Falls, Iowa, which he said provides broadband access that’s almost 100 times faster than the national average, as an example for the rest of the country and to urge repeal of laws the prevent communities from creating their own networks.

“High-speed broadband isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity,” Obama on Wednesday told an audience at Cedar Falls Utilities, which has extended fiber lines capable of high Internet speeds to all local residences and businesses. “This is about helping local businesses grow, prosper and compete in a global economy.”

The president is urging the Federal Communications Commission to address barriers that keep communities from building their own broadband networks. His remarks were intended to touch on one of the messages he’ll deliver in his State of the Union address to the nation next week.

While the FCC might rule on this, the chance of any meaningful legislation from a Republican Congress is about the same as Ayman al-Zawahiri becoming a contributing editor at Charlie Hebdo.

Truth be told, I really don’t expect any significant moves on this issue, given the obvious heat that he and the FCC will take on net neutrality.

Live By the Self Aggrandizing Leak, Die by the Self Aggrandizing Leak

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It looks like the Obama is finally going after a leaker who isn’t a whistle blower, David Petraeus:

The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against David H. Petraeus, contending that he provided classified information to a lover while he was director of the C.I.A., officials said, and leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison.

The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other highly classified information.

F.B.I. agents discovered classified documents on her computer after Mr. Petraeus resigned from the C.I.A. in 2012 when the affair became public.

………

But investigators concluded that, whether or not the disclosure harmed national security, it amounted to a significant security breach in the office of one of the nation’s most trusted intelligence leaders. They recommended that Mr. Petraeus face charges, saying lower-ranking officials had been prosecuted for far less.

Of course, his indiscretions with Ms. Broadwell, are only a part of the unauthorized releases that he blithely made:

………

Panetta revealed the name of the Navy SEAL unit ground commander who carried out the Osama bin Laden raid. He did so at a 2011 awards ceremony attended by the filmmaker of “Zero Dark Thirty,” a Hollywood movie that glorified the bin Laden operation and torture, and was widely criticized as agitprop the government helped make. Panetta also disclosed “secret” and “top secret” classified information on the same occasion. Petraeus gave his lover and biographer, Paula Broadwell, access to his CIA email account and other highly classified information, some of which was found on her computer.

Of course, it is all up to Eric “Place” Holder to whether to pull the trigger on the prosecution, and given HIS record on prosecuting the rich and powerful, I’m not holding my breath.

Straight Talking Politician of the Week

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Rotterdam’s mayor, who is himself a Muslim, has some choice words for Islamists who wish to eschew modernity, “Pack your bags, and f%$# off.”

The Moroccan-born mayor of the Dutch port city of Rotterdam said in a television appearance on Tuesday that Muslims like himself who choose to live in the West should adopt a more tolerant worldview or “pack your bags and f%$# off.”

 ………

 Aboutaleb moved with his family to the Netherlands when he was a teen. During the television program Nieuwsuur (News Hour), he spoke to Islamists living in the West, saying, “It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom.”

 “But if you don’t like freedom,” he continued, “for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave.”

 “If you do not like it here because some humorists you don’t like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f%$# off,” Aboutaleb said.

Straight talk from a politician, how quaint.

I wish that there were more politicians like Aboutaleb, and fewer snollygosters out in the political sphere.

Ave Satanas*

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Satanists in Florida have convinced a Florida school district not to hand out bibles because they would have to hand out Satan coloring books:

In September of last year the Satanic Temple revealed plans to disseminate the “Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities,” to kids in a Florida school district.

The Satanic Temple along with the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) were responding to a ruling, which let the Orange County school district allow religious and atheist organizations to distribute materials — including bibles and other pamphlets — in public schools.

Since religious and atheist materials could be handed out, the Satanic Temple made a request to hand out the aforementioned activity book, while the Freedom From Religion Foundation planned to hand out a pamphlet describing the bible as an “X-rated book.”

Now, the Satanic Temple’s request has the school district rethinking its policy, and the district is currently putting the distribution of all religious paraphernalia on hold, according to WFTV-TV.

As I mentioned 4 months ago, my Mother used this tactic when I was a wee las, when the then superintendent of the Charlottesville public schools permitted Christian bibles to be handed out at schools.

Same results too.

*Latin for, “Hail Satan.” Note that Jewish concept of Satan is very different from the one that Christianity took from Zoroastrianism. In fact a number of sages posited that the dialogues with Satan in the book of Job were an internal dialogue God was having.

When Given a Choice, the Pentagon Pulls the “Wicked Stupid” Lever

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A little bit over a year ago, I wrote about how the Marine Corps was lobbying for the C-2 Greyhound with the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor in an attempt to lower the unit cost of theier purchase.

The V-22 is more expensive to buy and to operate, it is slower than the C-2, it must fly at lower altitudes because it lacks pressurization, and its internal volume (7.6 m3) is far less than that of the Greyhound (24 m3).

I called it “Wicked Stupid.

Well, it appears that the Marines have managed to bamboozle the Navy into replacing hte C-2 with the V-22:

The Navy will buy V-22 Osprey tiltrotors to replace its aging C-2A Greyhound turboprop aircraft in flying carrier on board delivery (COD) missions. Breaking Defense obtained a Jan. 5 memo, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. It stipulates that the Navy will buy four V-22s each year from fiscal 2018 to 2020.

 The MOU marks a major triumph for the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 program office, the Marine Corps and other Osprey advocates, who have argued for years that the Navy should replace its aging conventional take off C-2As with vertical take off and landing V-22s.

 “The Navy is responsible for modifying these V-22s into an HV-22 configuration for the COD mission,” the MOU states. “The parties agree that subsequent documents will provide details on the concept of operations and milestones. A memorandum of agreement will detail reimbursable Marine Corps support for the Navy’s HV-22 transition, which includes training and potential deployment of Marine MV-22 aircraft and personnel to support COD requirements.”

 The Navy-Marine Corps agreement must be ratified in the next defense budget and by Congress. It also depends in part on a prospective third V-22 multiyear procurement contract that would begin in fiscal year 2018. C-2A maker Northrop Grumman has proposed building a modernized version incorporating features of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye tactical early warning aircraft.

I guess that a bunch of admirals concluded that there was better opportunity for them to score lucrative post-security jobs with defense contractors with the ruinously expensive Osprey than there would be with the cheaper Greyhound.

Seriously, our military-industry complex is circling the drain.

It’s really beginning to evoke the Arthur C. Clark story Superiority, which describes how military superiority is sacrificed at the alter of technological whiz-bang:

But I cannot be held responsible for my future actions if I am compelled any longer to share my cell with Professor Norden, late Chief of the Research Staff of my armed forces.

I Guess I Need to Invoke Bishop Shelby Spong Again

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I have quoted the controversial theologian’s question, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?” repeatedly.

Well, a poster child for using religion as a justification for hate and bigotry, one Jennifer LeClaire, is now wondering why Christians are turning away from the faith, but studiously ignores just how offensive she and her coreligionists can be.

Well over at Patheos, Hemant Mehta is having none of that:

Sometimes, Christian journalists miss the elephant in the room with their stories. Like this one in Charisma Magazine asking “Why Are So Many Christians Turning Into Atheists?”

 ………
Ah, yes… the End Times are near and we’re all just fulfilling biblical prophecy. Makes perfect sense.

 Here’s another thought.

 People are taking a look at certain brands of Christianity and realizing they want nothing whatsoever to do with it. And when they back away from one form of Christianity, they realize there’s no reason to stick with the other forms of it, either.

 For example, just look at a sampling of what LeClaire herself has written in the past couple of years:

Like I said, that’s just a sampling.

 There’s this anti-gay, anti-reality, anti-science, conspiratorial mindset that plagues conservative Christianity. Even progressive Christians are ashamed to share a label with that group, pushing some of them to shed the “Christian” label despite believing in Christ’s divinity.

 ………
 Really, we all owe Jennifer LeClaire a thank you for answering her own question.

 Why are so many Christians turning into atheists?

 Because of people like her.

To quote Abraham Lincoln, “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

Ms. LeClaire, perhaps if you stopped proclaiming your Christianity, and started demonstrating your Christianity through good acts, people would stop being horrified what comes from your poison pen.

This is Number 1 on my Schadenfreude hit Parade Today

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You know the story, libertarian boy makes good, doesn’t want to pay taxes, renounces his US citizenship, and is shocked when he is denied an entry visa into the United States:

Roger Ver, a high-profile member of the Bitcoin community who is commonly known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” has been denied a US visa — despite having been born in the country.

Ver is well known in the Bitcoin community as an entrepreneur and angel investor, having funded products including Blockchain, Ripple, and Blockpay. He became known as “Bitcoin Jesus” after giving thousands of coins of the virtual currency away for free. Ver was born in the US, making him a citizen there, but he renounced his citizenship in March — and now he says the government isn’t letting him back in.

As Coindesk is reporting, Ver posted on Twitter that the US government had refused his recent request for a non-immigrant visa, leaving him “effectively locked out of his native USA.”

Ver complains that the decision has forced him to miss speaking appointments at conferences and that the US embassy in Barbados refused to even consider the evidence for his application.

The official reasoning behind Ver’s rejection is that he doesn’t have sufficient “ties” to his country of residency in the Caribbean and has not demonstrated he has “the ties that will compel [him] to return to your home country after your travel to the United States,” according to a picture he tweeted of a letter that appears to be from the embassy.

In short, US officials are worried that Ver might choose to stay in his native country illegally.

I’m sure that he sees himself as a modern lieutenant Philip Nolan, but I think that the rest of us just see him as a self entitled, solipsistic, schmuck.€

It really could not have happened to a more deserving person.

H/t Cthulhu* at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

*No, not the unspeakably malevolent super-being, the contributor to the Stellar Parthenon.†
†OK, I’ve never seen the two of them together, so Cthulhu might actually be the Cthulhu, but the mere fact that he is on a BBS, interacting with humans‡ would seem to mitigate against this.
‡Yes, I know, this is the internet, where no one knows if you are a dog.
€Not really. As anyone with an even passing knowledge, a schmuck has a head, and a turtleneck.

This is the 2nd Most Schandenfreude I’ve Felt Today

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The judge overseeing the corruption case against Bob McDonnell has denied his motion to remain free while he appeals:

A federal judge on Tuesday denied former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s request to remain free while he appeals his corruption convictions, which means he could begin his two-year prison sentence by 9 February.

US district judge James Spencer in Richmond denied the request, unpersuaded by arguments from McDonnell’s lawyers before his 6 January sentencing. Prosecutors had opposed the request.

On Monday, McDonnell’s attorneys had reiterated the request and argued that the appeal could take almost as long as the sentence itself. They also said the appeal would raise substantial questions, including whether the government’s interpretation of an “official act” is correct.

But in his Tuesday decision, Spencer said it’s not a “close question” that justifies release pending appeal. He also noted that he previously concluded that “substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding of a quid and fairly specific, related quo”. And he dismissed arguments raising concerns over the jury selection process and deliberations.

One would hope that some time in the slam will give him a broader view of the diverse tapestry, but I rather imagine, like the Humbug from Norton Juster’s masterpiece The Phantom Tollbooth, he will, “Swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.”

I could be wrong about his possibility of finding perspective or perhaps enlightenment in prison, but I do not expect this to happen.

Still, the fact that he is less than a month from going into the slam provides me a bit of (admittedly cruel) perverse satisfaction.

Let the Looting Begin

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The Gray Lady has noticed that Silicon Valley is looking to education as a new profit center.

The article itself is rather adulatory of such efforts, rather unsurprising given the New York Times‘ predilection for the financialization of pretty much everything, but I am not so sanguine:

The education technology business is chock-full of fledgling companies whose innovative ideas have not yet proved effective — or profitable. But that is not slowing investors, who are pouring money into ventures as diverse as free classroom-management apps for teachers and foreign language lessons for adult learners.

Venture and equity financing for ed tech companies soared to nearly $1.87 billion last year, up 55 percent from the year before, according to a new report from CB Insights, a venture capital database. The figures are the highest since CB Insights began covering the industry in 2009.

………

“Education is one of the last industries to be touched by Internet technology, and we’re seeing a lot of catch-up going on,” said Betsy Corcoran, the chief executive of EdSurge, an industry news service and research company. “We’re starting to see more classical investors — the Kleiner Perkinses, the Andreessen Horowitzes, the Sequoias — pay more attention to the marketplace than before.”

Translation: There’s public taxpayer money in them there hills.

And then we have this pearl:

“I think there are businesses that won’t be able to cross that bridge,” said Michael Moe, chief executive of GSV Capital, a venture capital firm. “But if you monetize 2 to 20 percent of the network, there’s no reason it can’t work in education.”

Yes, let’s all of us f%$# our children so that you can buy a vacation house in the Hamptons.

Not enough bullets.

So I Guess, Occassionally, You Actually Get Charged for Committing Murder on Camera

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The Albuquerque DA has has charged two police officers with murder in the shooting of a homeless man:

Declaring that “I have a job to do and I’m doing it,” District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said her office was filing murder charges against two Albuquerque police officers in the shooting of a mentally ill homeless camper in the Sandia foothills last spring in a case captured on a police video that shocked the nation.

The charges filed Monday against officer Dominique Perez and recently retired Detective Keith Sandy appear to be the first against an APD officer for an on-duty fatal shooting in at least 50 years. Both men are charged with an open count of murder for the March 2014 shooting death of James Boyd following a four-hour standoff.

Brandenburg said Perez and Sandy would not be booked into jail until after a preliminary hearing is held to determine if there is enough evidence for either of them to stand trial on any of three charges – first-degree murder, second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.

………

Boyd, 36, had been camping in a restricted area of open space in Albuquerque’s foothills when he was told to leave by Open Space officers. Boyd, who had a history of mental illness and run-ins with police, refused and brandished at least one of the two small knives he carried during the standoff with police.

More officers were called to the scene, with more than 20 present at one point.

Officer Perez’s helmet-mounted camera captured the final moments of the standoff, when Boyd appeared to be complying with commands to leave. As he bent down to gather his belongings, an officer throws a flash-bang grenade at his feet. Another officer sends a police dog at Boyd, who pulls the knives out of his pockets again.

As he appears to turn away from the officers, Sandy and Perez fire three rounds apiece from assault-style rifles, striking Boyd in the back. Officers continue to yell at him to drop the knives.

“Please don’t hurt me anymore. I can’t move,” Boyd says as he lies on the ground.

Officers fire bean-bag rounds at him as he’s on the ground, then let loose a police dog, which grabs his leg and shakes it. He doesn’t move. Officers then approach and cuff him.

Boyd, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, died the next day at the hospital.

All caught on tape.

And it only took 10 months.

I am still dubious that this will result in anything resembling a vigorous prosecution, because rather unsurprisingly, she appears to do this under duress, as her earlier actions indicate:

In spring 2012, Brandenburg and District Court judges agreed that she would temporarily stop using the “investigative grand juries” after Journal stories made the inner workings of those proceedings public.

In January 2013, Brandenburg announced her intention to resume using the special grand juries to review police shootings, but state District Court judges put a halt to that.

Attorneys for victims’ families have called the investigative grand jury process a “sham” in court filings.

In halting the “investigative grand juries,” the judges told Brandenburg “that the appearance of a lack of impartiality is impossible to avoid, especially given that the procedure is used only for police officers and specifically limited to officer-involved shootings.”

Journal stories about the internal workings of the grand juries showed that grand jurors were provided instructions on different versions of justified shootings, but no criminal statutes; prosecutors met with officers to review testimony; and prosecutors asked officers leading questions.

And she wanted to reinstate that system.

So, I do not expect a conviction, or a meaningful plea deal.

American Healthcare in a Nutshell

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Author, and Canadian, Douglas Coupland describes his experience with the American healthcare system.

The short version is that he had a cold that became bronchitis, and he went to a clinic, and got a prescription for an antibiotics and oxycodone(!) as a cough suppressant.

I do understand that opiods are effective cough suppressants, codeine used to be in half the cough syrups out there, but it does seem to me like hunting for an elephant with a microscope.

But here is the kicker, and it shows just how corrupting the profit motive is:

………

 My doctor vanished for a few minutes and I looked around. The clinic was pleasant enough, as were both the staff and my doctor, who returned a few minutes later with some filled-out prescription forms. “I’m going to give you a course of antibiotics. Take one a day in the morning with food. Just one.” [emphasis mine]

“OK.”

 “And here’s a prescription for oxycodone. Take two a day.”

 “Oxycodone?” It felt weirdly glamorous to be getting some oxy for the first time.

 “Yes. It’s a terrific cough suppressant.”

 “OK.” In my head I was thinking, “Oxy — woohoo!” . . . but in my body I was thinking, “But I also really would like to stop coughing up jelly-like deep-sea creatures into my dinner napkins.” So I walked three minutes to the pharmacist and picked up my antibiotics, and then my oxy. My pharmacist looked at me gravely: “You know, you’re very lucky your doctor gave me this discount coupon on your oxycodone prescription.”

 “Oh — why’s that?”

 “This drug [use drug name; get sued] is $900 a pop.”

 “What?!”

 “Yes, but for you, with a coupon this first time, it’s $90.”

 “For a cough suppressant?”

 “Not just any cough suppressant. This is oxycodone.”

 “I suppose so.”

 “And there’s a bit of decongestant added to it as well.”

 “Hard to argue with that.”

Well, the bronchitis does not clear up, and it turns into pneumonia, and our fearless protagonist finds that he has developed a physiological dependence on the Oxy.

He then gets back to his doctor in Canada:

So I stopped. [the Oxy] And I returned to Canada, where my doctor looked at my prescriptions, puzzled. First, my antibiotic: “Your Florida doctor prescribed you this? [Name drug; get lawsuit.] We used to give this to two-year-olds and, even then, for your body weight, this ought to have been at least three times a day at quadruple strength.” [emphasis mine]

 “OK, but what about oxycodone? You have to admit, it did stop me from coughing.”

 “Yes, but you also almost became addicted to a $900-a-pop drug.”

 “True.”

 “And just to be clear, you were deliberately underprescribed antibiotics to keep you from getting well so as to ensure that you’d keep going back for more visits and repeat oxy prescriptions. And your doctor was obviously in on some kind of racket with the pharmacist — all that coupon nonsense.” [emphasis mine]

 “All true.”

 Within 48 hours, my pneumonia essentially vanished thanks to two azithromycin tablets. But it took almost a week for The Hand to permanently unclasp itself from my skull. [Oxycodone dependency] Now that the experience is over, I feel as if I’d driven through a speed trap in a small Ozark town and had been at the mercy of the local Boss Hogg. All of this because of bronchitis. What if I’d had something bigger than mere bronchitis? What bigger and scarier speed traps would await me or you or anyone else down the US medical road?

The system does not just prey on Canadians, you know, it preys on all of us.

What’s more, my guess is that there was no (illegal) kickback arrangement, but rather that the pharmacy was either owned in whole or part by the doctor, or operating as a part of the clinic (my money is on the latter), so there were no illegal payments per se, just business.

To paraphrase Sal Tessio, “It’s nothing personal it’s only business.”

I’m Wondering who has Call-Sign Rainbow Dash………

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To quote the great Anna Russell, “I’m not making this up, you know.”

It appears that the USAF has a Brony squadron:

Earlier this month, word hit the Internet that an Air Force unit training to fly America’s most advanced military aircraft are wearing a patch inspired by the television show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Now the Air Force has confirmed it: bronies are flying jets.

“We train world-class pilots who will go on to defend our great nation,” 1st Lt. Tom Barger, a public affairs officer at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma, tells War is Boring. “Fostering camaraderie, morale and unity on a regular basis and through small means — like a tastefully humorous patch — enhances our ability to complete the mission when working as a team is essential.”

The pink and purple patch — first spotted by My Little Pony fan site Equestria Daily  — and worn by 24 flight students from Joint Undergraduate Specialized Pilot Class 14-05, references the cable cartoon show about a team of magical ponies. Although criticized by some as a cynical bid to get children to purchase plastic pony products (it’s a reboot from the 1980s), the show — which airs weekday afternoons on the Hub Network — became a cult phenomenon that’s now spread to the armed forces.

My son is a Brony, and he was stoked about this.

I still do not get the whole “Brony” thing.

H/t ECop at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This Psychopath is Going to Commit a 2nd Murder Before he Gets Put Away

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I am speaking, of course of George Zimmerman, who, this time around,  is accused of domestic aggravated assault:

George Zimmerman, the man who was acquitted in 2013 of murdering an unarmed black Florida teenager, was arrested Friday night in a domestic violence case, according to news reports.

Police said the 31-year-old was arrested around 10 p.m. in Lake Mary, just outside Orlando, on a charge of domestic aggravated assault, according to the Associated Press.

On Saturday morning, Zimmerman appeared in court and was given a $5,000 bond and ordered to stay out of Volusia County, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Judge John Galluzzo told Zimmerman that he has until Tuesday to surrender firearms in his possession, according to the Sentinel.

This is Zimmerman’s 6th arrest, 3 were before he shot Trayvon Martin, and somehow or other, the kid with no arrests on his record was the “thug”.

Welcome to race blind America

This is Not a Bug, It is a Feature

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Check out the bit starting at 6:00

While the C model F-35 did make successful carrier landings and takeoffs, it required that they had to bypass the Autonomic Logistics Information Systems (ALIS) to operate the aircraft:

The U.S. military ran the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through a series of tests aboard the USS Nimitz super carrier in San Diego in early November. It performed adequately, with one exception — it needed to send its diagnostic data to Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, before taking off. If the most recent exercises are any indication, the F-35 may need to phone home every time it sets out on a mission.

 ………

 The possible bad news to emerge from the recent tests is this: The Nimitz didn’t have the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information Systems, ALIS, on board and so the team had to implement a “workaround.” ALIS is the F-35’s notoriously buggy diagnostic system that can ground fully functional aircraft.

 History may one day call ALIS the most frustrating, expensive and counter-productive piece of software engineering that the military has ever created. It’s so bad it’s been on “60 Minutes.” In February 2014, CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin showed that ALIS was resistant to human override instructions even when it was forcefully grounding a plane because of a part mislabeled in a database. It was the worst sort of tyrant, both blind and powerful.

The stated goal is more than allowing for more detailed knowledge of what maintenance might be on the schedule, or what is broken.

It is intended to perform prognostics, which would allow parts to be replaced on the basis of actual condition, as opposed to a (necessarily) conservative life span, by looking at the various information on a system and determining when it is near failure, and replacing it then.

The problem is that you cannot fly the aircraft if ALIS says no, which is why they had to make an override, as opposed to ignoring it.

Of course, this would be inconvenient in battle, but I think that there is a method to this madness:  ALIS functions as an off switch, and as such, it allows our military to shut down the aircraft that belong to a former ally turned foe, like Iran.

Additionally, I could see this being used as a threat to forestall independent action, say, for example, preventing Israel from striking Iranian nuclear sites.

Basically, the F-35 is designed to create a Battlestar Galactica Cylon virus shutdown.  (See video)

The Latest Unemployment Numbers are not Good

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While most of the coverage has been about a fall in the unemployment rate, specifically a fall in the U-3 rate, from 5.8% to 5.6%, but this misses a lot.

Specifically, workforce participation fell again, so the number is primarily as a result of people giving up, “Long-term unemployment remains highly elevated, and the work force participation rate, already at historically low levels, slipped in December.”

Additionally, wages fell in December, indicating that the ordinary worker is still being screwed by the job market:

The big disappointment was on wages. In the November numbers, one of the brightest signs was an 0.4 percent rise in average hourly earnings, which was a hint that maybe, just maybe, a tighter job market was leading employers to raise wages after years of resisting.

It turned out to be a false signal. In Friday’s revisions, November wages rose only 0.2 percent. And even worse, in December they fell 0.2 percent.

………

Over the last year, the average hourly wage in America has risen 40 cents, from $24.17 to $24.57 an hour. That is a mere 1.65 percent, in the same ballpark as many inflation readings and not a meaningful rise in real wages.

We need to see an improvement in the takehome pay for the median worker before we see anything like a strong job market.