Month: April 2015

The Many Fauceted Scarlet Emerald Exists!

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I was looking at Wikipedia, and trying to figure out why rubies are called rubies, and not called red sapphires, even though they are the same gem stones, only with slightly different trace impurities. (Sapphires can be blue, pink, yellow, salmon/padparadscha, purple/lavender, green, orange, or brown.)

I did not find the reason for the different names, it appears to be an accident of history, but as Wikipedia searches often do, the led me down a tangent, where I was looking up emeralds, and found out that there is such a thing as a scarlet emerald:

In geology, beryl is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2Si6O18. The hexagonal crystals of beryl may be very small or range to several meters in size. Terminated crystals are relatively rare. Pure beryl is colorless, but it is frequently tinted by impurities; possible colors are green, blue, yellow, red, and white.

 ………

 Emerald is green beryl, colored by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. The word “emerald” comes (via Middle English: Emeraude, imported from Old French: Ésmeraude and Medieval Latin: Esmaraldus) from Latin smaragdus from Greek smaragdos – σμάραγδος (“green gem”), its original source being a Semitic word izmargad () or the Sanskrit word, marakata (मरकत), meaning “green”. Most emeralds are highly included, so their brittleness (resistance to breakage) is classified as generally poor.

 ………

 Red beryl (also known as “red emerald” or “scarlet emerald“) is a red variety of beryl. It was first described in 1904 for an occurrence, its type locality, at Maynard’s Claim (Pismire Knolls), Thomas Range, Juab County, Utah. The old synonym “bixbite” is deprecated from the CIBJO, because of the risk of confusion with the mineral bixbyite (also named after the mineralogist Maynard Bixby). The dark red color is attributed to Mn3+ ions.

(emphasis mine)

As some of you are no doubt aware, the phrase “”scarlet emerald” figures prominently in what is arguably the worst piece of fantasy ever written, The Eye of Argon:

Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic face of the bloated diety. Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating, many fauceted scarlet emerald, a brilliant gem seeming to possess a life all of its own. A priceless gleaming stone, capable of domineering the wealth of conquering empires…the eye of Argon.

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, it ain’t what one would call “deathless prose,” but the fact that there is such a thing as a “Scarlet Emerald” is amusing.

I once competed in an Eye of Argon reading, you lose if you laugh or misread the text, (including its many typographical errors), and I laughed so hard I had to sit down, and the knife handle in my back nearly broke a rib. (I was wearing the official Klingon retired officer uniform)

A Bonza Idea from the Aussies

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Parents who are “conscientious objectors” to childhood vaccination will have their childcare and family tax payments stopped from 1 January next year as the federal government attempts to crack down on the anti-vaccination movement.

 Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Sunday a loophole would be closed to stop payments to parents worth up to $15,000 per child.

 “Parents who vaccinate their children should have confidence that they can take their children to childcare without the fear that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others,” Mr Abbott said.

 Although Australia’s overall childhood vaccination rates remain high – about 97 per cent – the numbers of people who are registered conscientious objectors has risen in the past 10 years.

 There are now 39,000 children aged under seven who are not vaccinated because their parents are registered, according to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register.

This is an increase of more than 24,000 children over the past 10 years.

This is a very good idea.

First, having unvaccinated children in childcare facilities is like smoking exploding cigars at an oil refinery.

Second, the science has thoroughly debunked Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s vaccination-autism link.

Third, much of the anti-vaxx movement is about relying on herd immunity from the rest of society, and so they are moochers.

Forth, it puts those with compromised immune systems, who are medically unable to be vaccinated, at risk.

Finally, children should not  be held hostage to their parents’ idiocy:

Writing on The ScentificParent blog, a chagrined Canadian mom announced that she is leaving the anti-vaxx movement after all of her seven children — four of them completely unvaccinated — have come down with whooping cough.

Writing from quarantine, and surrounded by sick kids, Tara Hills wrote she is “emotionally, a bit raw. Mentally a bit taxed. Physically I’m fine,” before admitting that not only are her own kids sick, but they may have exposed her five-month-old niece who is too young to be fully vaccinated.

What began with a cold brought into her home by her brother-in-law, turned into coughing by her kids leading to full-blown whooping cough in all seven children.

“My youngest three children were coughing so hard they would gag or vomit. I’d never seen anything like this before,” she wrote. ” Watching our youngest struggle with this choking cough, bringing up clear, stringy mucus – I had heard of this before somewhere. My mom said I had it when I was a kid. I snapped into ‘something is WRONG’ mode.”

Jumping onto her computer, she discovered her children’s symptoms matched — almost perfectly — all the symptoms of whooping cough in a household that was woefully under-vaccinated.

“We had vaccinated our first three children on an alternative schedule and our youngest four weren’t vaccinated at all. We stopped because we were scared and didn’t know who to trust,” she explained. ” Was the medical community just paid off puppets of a Big Pharma-Government-Media conspiracy? Were these vaccines even necessary in this day and age? Were we unwittingly doing greater harm than help to our beloved children? So much smoke must mean a fire so we defaulted to the ‘do nothing and hope nothing bad happens’ position.”

Hills explained that she had a hard time overcoming her biases and mistrust of “Big Pharma,” asking herself, “Could all the in-house, independent, peer-reviewed clinical trials, research papers and studies across the globe ALL be flawed, corrupt and untrustworthy?”

Now Hills says that years spent “frozen” out of fear of vaccinating her kids has the whole family frozen: confined to their home by a quarantine.

She said she hopes her mea culpa will make other families who have held back from getting their children vaccinated rethink what they are doing.

“Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear. I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk. I want them to know that we tried our best to protect our kids when we were afraid of vaccination and we are doing our best now, for everyone’s sake, by getting them up to date. We can’t take it back … but we can learn from this and help others the same way we have been helped.”

Preach it, sister.

Call Your Congresscritter

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It looks like the Obama administration is planning to submit a fast track bill next week.

If this passes, expect the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) and (TTIP) Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to follow soon after, and it both deals will pass under fast track, because there will be no meaningful public discussion:

Senators will introduce trade promotion authority legislation next week, a top Obama administration official said Thursday.

 Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker expects a “fast-track” bill to be introduced early next week in the Senate and said in a call with reporters that she is “anxiously awaiting to see the language.”

 Pritzker is the first administration official to suggest a firm timeline for legislation that would grant President Obama “fast-track” powers for negotiating trade deals.

 Speculation has been swirling about when the Senate Finance Committee would start moving on a bill.

 Senate aides have said negotiations between Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are making progress but that no deal had been struck.

The TPP and the TTIP suck.

They favor big big banks, big pharma, and big content over ordinary people, labor rights, environmental protection, and democracy.

As a bonus, it also appears that it would make state owned banks like the Bank of North Dakota, which has saved taxpayers millions, illegal. (It would probably make a US Post Office bank, which would serve to rescue poor Americans from predatory check cashing operations, illegal as well).

Background here.

Call, and tell them to vote no, and tell them that if they vote yes, you will not vote for them ever, in any election, primary or general.

This is particularly important if your Congressmen are Democrats, because there will be a full court press from the Obama administration, which supports fast track, and has negotiated the TPP and TTIP on this. They will argue that the credibility of the President depends on this.

If your Congressmen are Republicans, call and sound like a wingnut who will never forgive them for supporting that Kenyan Muslim Marxist Atheist Tyrant.  (The more unhinged you sound, the better)

You can make email contact from here, but a phone call (The Congressional switchboard number is (202) 224-3121), or a letter sent through the mail probably have more impact.

Someone Finally Found a Way to Beat the Lottery

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Las Vegas makes billions in its casinos with the house have a house edge of 3% to 5%.

State lotteries typically have a house edge of 40% to 50%, so it is a sucker bet, and, as I have told Sharon*, only a fool plays the lottery.†

Well my hats off to Eddie Ray Tipton, who has devised a winning strategy for the lottery:


Prosecutors say they have evidence indicating the former head of computer security for a state lottery association tampered with lottery computers prior to him buying a ticket that won a $14.3 million jackpot, according to a media report.

Eddie Raymond Tipton, 51, may have inserted a thumbdrive into a highly locked-down computer that’s supposed to generate the random numbers used to determine lottery winners, The Des Moines Register reported, citing court documents filed by prosecutors. At the time, Tipton was the information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, and he was later videotaped purchasing a Hot Lotto ticket that went on to fetch the winning $14.3 million payout.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said there is evidence to support the theory Tipton used his privileged position inside the lottery association to enter a locked room that housed the random number generating computers and infect them with software that allowed him to control the winning numbers. The room was enclosed in glass, could only be entered by two people at a time, and was monitored by a video camera. To prevent outside attacks, the computers aren’t connected to the Internet. Prosecutors said Tipton entered the so-called draw room on November 20, 2010, ostensibly to change the time on the computers. The cameras on that date recorded only one second per minute rather than running continuously like normal.

“Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera’s settings will testify they did not change the cameras’ recording instructions,” prosecutors wrote. “The fifth person is defendant. It is a reasonable deduction to infer that defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection.”

Tipton has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his attorney has said the theory about computer tampering isn’t “factually viable.”

On December 23, a little more than a month after Tipton allegedly tampered with the computers, a man at a convenience store was video taped buying a Hot Lotto ticket that later won the $14.3 million payout. Authorities identified the man as Tipton, but as an employee of the association that administered the lottery, he was barred by law from buying lotto tickets or claiming lottery prizes. The winning ticket went unclaimed for almost a year. Hours before it was scheduled to expire, a company incorporated in Belize tried to claim the prize through a New York attorney. In January, Tipton was charged with two counts of fraud. The allegations that he used his insider access to tamper with the RNG were first made in the court documents filed last week.

Seriously, absent a TARDIS, this is about the only way to beat the lottery.

Like I said, it is a sucker bet.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
†To paraphrase Bret Maverick, I do not approve of gambling, I prefer poker.

FCC Publishes Net Neutrality Rules, Lawsuit Filed Immediately

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This is not a surprise.

The two most common types of broadband providers in the United States, telcos and cable companies, have predicated their business models on monopoly power and the extraction of rents.

Net neutrality closes off a potential sources of rent, hence the lawsuit:

While the Federal Communications Commission passed its net neutrality rules on February 26, they weren’t published in the Federal Register until today.

The publication means a couple of things: the rules go into effect 60 days from today, and parties that oppose the rules have 10 days to file lawsuits against the FCC. Almost immediately after publication, a trade group representing ISPs called USTelecom filed suit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

USTelecom’s petition said the FCC’s ruling is “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” and “violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Constitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder.”

You may recall that this same group sued the FCC over the net neutrality rules last month. That was done just in case the 10-day deadline could be applied after the rules were posted to the FCC’s website, which happened before publication to the Federal Register. In either case, the initial challenge is mostly a procedural matter; detailed briefs laying out a legal argument against the FCC’s rules will probably come this summer.

Thankfully, the DC Court of Appeals, (technically the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit), the most likely venue for a suit, has become significantly less right wing with recent judicial appointments.

I expect this to end up at the Supreme Court though.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Have a Nice, Big Cup of STFU!

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The Armenian Genocide is a fact.  It has been documented extensively.

So it is no surprise that Pope Francis noted this on the 100th anniversary of this atrocity.

Of course the predictable Turkish butt-hurt is also no surprise.

………

When Pope Francis used the term “genocide” on Sunday to describe the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago, he was not breaking new ground. Pope John Paul II had written the same in 2001, and Francis had made similar references before.

 But the timing and setting of the pope’s remarks — a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica marking the centenary of the killings, with top Armenian religious and political leaders in attendance — drew a strong international response. Armenians worldwide expressed deep gratitude to Francis, while Turkey reacted in anger.

 ………

 The Turkish government responded to the pope’s comments by recalling its ambassador to the Vatican, and summoned the Vatican’s ambassador in Ankara to express its “great disappointment and sadness.”

 Turkey claims that just half a million Armenians died in fighting when they rose up against their Ottoman rulers during World War I, and denies that their deaths constitute an act of genocide.

 That position conflicts with the views of most historians of the period, who agree that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were victims of genocide at the hands of the Turks.

 ………

 Francis said it was “necessary, and indeed a duty,” to remember the Armenians killed, “for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!”

 Among those listening at St. Peter’s were Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church, including Karekin II and Aram I, the two Catholicoi at the top of the church’s hierarchy.

 ………

 Turkey said Francis’ comments “contradicted his message of peace, reconciliation and dialogue” made during his visit to the country in November.

 “The pope’s statement, which is far from the legal and historical reality, cannot be accepted,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted on Sunday.

 “Religious authorities are not the places to incite resentment and hatred with baseless allegations,” he added.

 Francis now risks losing Turkey’s support as he seeks to defend Christian communities being persecuted by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Many Christians have sought refuge in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, as they have fled the Islamist militants.

Does anyone hear this statement, and interpret it as saying, “Nice Christians, you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to them.”

I do understand that the Turks have made a habit of denying the Armenian Genocide, which has never made much sense to me, since the government that did it, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist almost a century ago.

I do understand why Erdoğan’s government is determined to whitewash this though.  It is very clear that his AKP party is trying to relegate the reforms of tye Young Turks and Ataturk to the dust-bin of history. 

That is why the plans to redevelop Taksim square included the rebuilding of the Taksim Military Barracks, which was a central symbol of the attempted Ottoman counter coup in 1909.

Inbreeding in Economics

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Over at Fortune magazine, Steve Keen makes a very interesting observation about the state of discourse about the discourse at the higher level of economics.

Specifically, not only did these guys go to the same school, they literally took the same course with the same professor:

Ben Bernanke has recently started blogging (and tweeting), and his opening topics were why interest rates are so low around the world, and a critique of Larry Summers’ “secular stagnation” explanation for this phenomenon, and for persistent low growth since the financial crisis. Summers then replied to Bernanke’s argument, and a debate was on.

So who is right: Bernanke who argues that the cause is a “global savings glut”, or Summers who argues that the cause is a slowdown in population growth, combined with a dearth of profitable investment opportunities, not only now but for the foreseeable future?

I’d argue both of them, and neither simultaneously—both, because they can both point to empirical data that support their case; neither, because they are only putting forward explanations that are consistent with their largely shared view of how the economy works.

And the extent to which they are the product of a single way of thinking about the world simply cannot be exaggerated. It goes well beyond merely belonging to the same school of thought within economics (the “Neoclassical School” as opposed to the “Austrian”, “Post Keynesian”, “Marxist” etc.), or even the same sect within this school (“New Keynesian” as opposed to “New Classical”). Far beyond.

They did their graduate training in the same economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). They attended the same macroeconomics class: Stanley Fisher’s course in monetary economics at MIT for graduate students (was it the same year—does anybody know?) Some of their fellow Fisher alumni included Ken Rogoff and Olivier Blanchard.

………

If I were describing a group of thoroughbred horses, alarm bells would already be ringing about a dangerous level of in-breeding. Sensible advice would be proffered about the need to inject new blood into this dangerously limited breeding pool. But the issue would only be of importance to the horseracing community.

Instead I am talking about a set of individuals whose ideas have had enormous influence upon both the development of economic thought and the formation of economic policy around the globe for the last four decades. The fact that so much of the dominant approach to thinking about the economy emanates, not merely from such a limited perspective, but from such a limited and interconnected pool of people, should be serious cause for alarm—especially given how the world has fared under the influence of this thoroughbred group.

This has me thinking that I should take a serious look at Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and Hyman Minsky’s theories.

My Daughter is Over the F%$#ing Moon!

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Yesterday, I was kvetching about being in New York City because I was in the culinary center of the Hemisphere, but because it was Passover, and day 7, one of the 4 Yom Tovim of Pesach, so by the time we got to the City, even those few Kosher restaurants that were serving over Passover, were shutting down.

We were there for an audition for Natalie with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a prestigious acting school (in fact the oldest acting school in the English speaking world).

It has a 2 year conservatory program.

Well, she got a call from them today, and she’s in!

Much happiness all around.

Here is a video of her reaction.

Note, however, that this is about 10 minutes after the call, so she had already calmed down by at least a factor of 10:

In the immediate aftermath of the call, she was way more euphoric.

It was actually a bit scary.

No, Just No. No Accomodations.

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Here is an interesting article in the New York Times about how Heredim (literally “fearful ones”) are disrupting air travel when they freak out about having to sit next to women on airline flights.

Sorry, but this is bullsh%$. Jews are supposed to engage the world as it is, not as if it were some long gone era.

If you want to do that, go Amish:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move.

Laura Heywood, 42, had a similar experience while traveling from San Diego to London via New York. She was in a middle seat — her husband had the aisle — when the man with the window seat in the same row asked if the couple would switch positions. Ms. Heywood, offended by the notion that her sex made her an unacceptable seatmate, refused.

“I wasn’t rude, but I found the reason to be sexist, so I was direct,” she said.

A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down. Several flights from New York to Israel over the last year have been delayed or disrupted over the issue, and with social media spreading outrage and debate, the disputes have spawned a protest initiative, an online petition and a spoof safety video from a Jewish magazine suggesting a full-body safety vest (“Yes, it’s kosher!”) to protect ultra-Orthodox men from women seated next to them on airplanes.

 And if you go Amish, then you do not fly.

You could also charter single sex flights, but I’d rather you just do the no modern travel bit.

If you want to be medieval, you should not do so by half measures.

Megan McArdle Gets Everything Wrong

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I have, on numerous occasions, noted how the musing of Megan “Math is Hard” McArdle have at best a passing relationship to the facts.

In yet another example, let me point you to a detailed and thoroughly amusing Fisking of her latest drivel on Social Security:

With even mainstream Democrats coming to embrace the idea of expanding Social Security to help address our looming retirement crisis, it couldn’t be long before the pushback emerged from conservatives and Republicans.

Bloomberg’s libertarian economics columnist Megan McArdle was quick out of the box, with a column published Tuesday titled, “The Left Gets it Wrong About Social Security.” You should read it, because it’s rare to find so much sophistry, misunderstanding and misinformation about Social Security packed into one article. You can count McArdle’s disdain for retired people, seldom expressed so openly, as a dividend.

Read the rest.

It methodically takes apart her assumptions, and shows how they have nothing to do with reality.

Go read the rest of Michael Hiltzik’s article in the LA Times.

Can We Please Give Texas Back to Mexico?

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In response to the spate of cops caught on video abusing and murdering people, Texas lawmakers are looking to ban recording police officers:

Oh, come on. We all know why they want to pass this bill — they want cops to get away with abusing and killing people! (As long as they’re the right people.) The right to record, in addition to being upheld by the appellate courts, is one of the best tools we have to deter police violence, and to see that those who break the law are held accountable — as we just saw last night:

A bill introduced in the Texas House of Representatives would make it illegal for private citizens to record police within 25 feet.

House Bill 2918, introduced by state Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) on Tuesday, would make the offense a misdemeanor. Citizens who are armed would not be permitted to record police activity within 100 feet of an officer, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Only representatives of radio or TV organizations that hold an FCC license, newspapers and magazines would have the right to record police. The legislator disagreed with people on Twitter who said he’s seeking to make all filming of cops illegal.

“My bill … just asks filmers to stand back a little so as not to interfere with law enforcement,” Villalba tweeted.

The bill would go against precedent set in 2011 by an appeals court, which found that citizens are allowed to record police, according to the ACLU.

Seriously.

I cannot see any justification for proposing such a law is because they want to ensure that minorities are in fear for their life.

We are Completely F%$#ed

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Anthropogenic climate change is a problem, and the progress of this problem has been exceeding predictions for years.

Now, we are running into secondary effects that are making this a lot worse.

In this case, it appears that increasing temperatures in the tundra are driving bacterial activity which is in turn increasing temperatures in the tundra:

Scientists might have to change their projected timelines for when Greenland’s permafrost will completely melt due to man-made climate change, now that new research from Denmark has shown it could be thawing faster than expected.

Published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, the research shows that tiny microbes trapped in Greenland’s permafrost are becoming active as the climate warms and the permafrost begins to thaw. As those microbes become active, they are feeding on previously-frozen organic matter, producing heat, and threatening to thaw the permafrost even further.

In other words, according to the research, permafrost thaw could be accelerating permafrost thaw to a “potentially critical” level.

“The accompanying heat production from microbial metabolism of organic material has been recognized as a potential positive-feedback mechanism that would enhance permafrost thawing and the release of carbon,” the study, conducted by researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Permafrost, said. “This internal heat production is poorly understood, however, and the strength of this effect remains unclear.”

The big worry climate scientists have about thawing permafrost is that the frozen soil is chock-full of carbon. That carbon is supposed to be strongly trapped inside the soil, precisely because it’s supposed to be permanently frozen — hence, “permafrost.”

However, as temperatures in the Arctic have risen due to human-caused climate change, permafrost is thawing, and therefore releasing some of that trapped carbon into the atmosphere. It’s yet another feedback loop manifesting itself in Arctic permafrost regions — as climate change causes it to thaw, the thawing causes more climate change, which causes more thawing, et cetera, et cetera.

Rinse, lather, repeat, die.

The Clown Show Abides

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The scary kind of clown, of course.


opHthalmologist


Edutation


These people are German stock images


It appears that only one Jew supports Rand Paul

Yesterday, Ron Paul announced that he was running for president.

The roll-out did not go smoothly:

It is hard to words good on the internet! You have to measure twice and cut once, which in internet-land, is better described as reading the thing three times to make sure you didn’t accidentally paste a thing telling people to “shop Aldi for 39 cent Fine Feline Entrée cat food” right in the middle of writing about how you are Mad About A Thing. Rand Paul’s peeps did not do that, oops. In the product description for the eye chart in Paul’s sexy funtimes lingerie shop and online falafel cart, it originally explained that “Rand Paul is an opthalmologist.” Yes, that is a hard word, and Paul may not know how to spell it (“opHthalmologist”) since he might not even be one, but c’mon, guys.

 ………

 We could forgive that spelling error, if it weren’t for this other one, where his website informed us that Paul “opposes a one-size-fits-all approach to eductation.” Apparently he likes a more creative solution, one that encourages Teaching The Controversy over whether correct spelling is even a thing. (In actuality, the HuffPost points out that Paul wants to get rid of the Department Of Education entirely, which would probably level the playing field for his staffers and website writers.)

 ………

 Both of the problems have been fixed, presumably because tacky mean liberals on the internet pointed them out.

 ………

 When running for president, it’s a good idea to give folks the impression that there is already a horde of people just clamoring to pick you as their Dear Leader. Rand Paul doesn’t really have that, so he picked the next best thing — nameless German stock photo characters!

 ………

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul launched his presidential campaign Tuesday complete with a page to endorse the new presidential candidate.

 The endorsements are then presented on a map of the United States.

 The people on the endorsement map, however, appear to be stock images from a Italian photographer Andrea Piacquadio who goes by the name Olly or Ollyy on stock image sites, and according to his Shutterstock page, is based in Germany.

DOY! BuzzFeed tracked down some of the models featured on the page, and all led directly back to the Germany-based stock photo guy. This might seem like a big BuzzFeed SCOOP!, except that they failed to actually ask the stock photos if they were indeed supporting Paul for USA President. They might have been, YOU DON’T KNOW.

 There’s also a section of Paul’s website where you can pick out a special social media avatar that says what kind of US American you are, and that you support Rand Paul. There are all the normal ones — Christian for Rand, Conservative for Rand, etc. — but the one that sticks out at us is the sure to be wildly popular Jew For Rand avatar! That one guy is gonna have a field day changing his Facebook and Twitter pictures, knowing that Rand Paul made it just for him:

 ………

 Those photos have disappeared, just like the spelling errors, but the Lonely Jew avatar remains. May we also suggest Furry For Rand? Something tells us he might get some traction there.

Additionally, the YouTube of his announcement was blocked for copyright infringement.

But that was yesterday, and today is today.

Specifically, he threw a hissy fit at a reporter who wanted specifics on his abortion position:

It’s Day Two of Rand Paul’s Excellent Presidential Adventure, and he is having a bad day. Again. He started his morning picking a fight with the “Today” show’s Savannah Guthrie because she didn’t ask him questions the way he thinks she should, and he followed that up with a quick explanation to the New York Times that when reporters ask him questions he doesn’t like, “That isn’t journalism.” (Side note: Waging war against reporters when you are running for president is a FANTASTIC strategy, and we encourage Paul to stick with that for sure.)

And then it just got worse. For Rand Paul, that is:

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Paul would not say where, in his view, a pregnant woman’s rights begin and those of the fetus end.

“The thing is about abortion — and about a lot of things — is that I think people get tied up in all these details of, sort of, you’re this or this or that, or you’re hard and fast (on) one thing or the other,” Paul said.


That Dr. Paul did not care for questions about abortion is no problem, because Republicans hate talking about that. Except for how it is one of their very most favoritest things to talk about, and you cannot run for office as a Republican unless you say every sperm is sacred at least 154 times in every speech, or else the ’bortion-haters will say you love killing babies, and you are not even a Republican at all, and they will not vote for you, no sir. But Paul did NOT want that mean AP reporter asking him about that: ………

And on a more substantive level, it appears that the bulk of Rand Paul’s senior campaign staff are implicated in the bribery scandal of his father’s last presidential campaign. (They bribed an Iowa pol for an endorsement.)

The late night hosts have to be licking their chops over this.

In the Annals of Foreign Policy Cock-Ups, This Ranks Up With Invading Iraq

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It looks like the Obama administration is considering formally placing Saudi Arabia under the US nuclear umbrella:

Obama administration officials are promising a major strengthening of U.S. defense commitments to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies, possibly including a nuclear commitment to their security, in an intensifying effort to win their support for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.

 Officials say they hope to reassure nervous gulf Arab states by providing more military aid and training to their defense forces, and by making more explicit commitments to help them repel external attacks.

 The administration is studying whether to make any nuclear assurances, though officials emphasize no decision has been made.

 ………

 The administration’s goal, officials said Tuesday, is to convince the Arab monarchies that U.S. security guarantees will make them safer than if they buy sensitive technology or a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim ally, as the Saudis have privately threatened to do.

Here’s a thought: make it clear to the Pakistanis that if they sell nuclear technology, and to the House of Saud that if they attempt to buy nuclear technology, that they will never see another American spare part for anything.

The Saudis, specifically Prince Bandar bin Sultan, created ISIS, and we want to offer them nuclear guarantee to their regime?

And then there is this bit of insanity:

“We’re going to be there for our [Persian Gulf] friends,” Obama told columnist Thomas Friedman. “I want to see how we can formalize that a little bit more than we currently have, and also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their ability to protect themselves from external aggression.”

He’s attempting to create coherence in foreign policy by talking to Thomas “The Mustache of Imbicility” Friedman?

To quote the Matt Taibbi in the Thomas Friedman Pr0n Title Contest, “This ain’t yogurt.”

This has failure written all over it.