Comments 3-6-14

Pretty Funny: "L'hotel de Californie," French Language Parody of Hotel California (Listen To The End)

"Yellow King Theory" Explains All Questions in True Detective with Compelling Video Proof [wheatie] [not sooth]

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth MacFarlane Talk 'Cosmos' with GQ
MacFarlane is the producer. The series begins Sunday on Fox and airs Monday on NatGeo. [rdbrewer]

NASA's newest spaceship: Project Morpheus [dri]

Jake Tapper, The Lead: Humbled Perry says back surgery played a role in 2012 campaign struggles [rdbrewer]


Newsarama: IDW to Adapt HARLAN ELLISON's Seminal STAR TREK: TOS Teleplay
"The comic book mini-series Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever will kick off in June 2014, and is adapted directly from the original [uncut] teleplay by Ellison...." [rdbrewer]

VDH's Private Papers: Mr. Farrow and the Obama Syndrome
Ronan Farrow explained. "Young, charismatic, good-looking, hip, and glib are all superficial traits that supposedly cerebral liberal elites have a bad habit of believing trump experience, knowledge, humility...." [rdbrewer]

Today is the second anniversary of the death of Milblogger extraordinaire Carroll "Neptunus Lex" LeFon. Oh, how we miss you.

Daniel Henninger: Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally
"'The response from the administration in Washington' to foreign threats, said Reagan, 'has been one of weakness, inconsistency, vacillation and bluff. Our allies are losing confidence in us, and our adversaries no longer respect us.... [Our partners] are confused by the lack of a coherent, principled policy from the Carter administration.'" Related: See the Ann Coulter piece linked below. [rdbrewer]

Henry Kissinger, WaPo: How the Ukraine crisis ends
"The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins." [rdbrewer]

Science Daily: Drug therapy could eventually reverse memory decline in seniors
"[T]hey've found a drug therapy that could potentially reverse this type of memory decline. The drug can't yet be used in humans, but the researchers are pursuing compounds that could someday help the population of aging adults...." [rdbrewer]

NYT: LSD, Reconsidered for Therapy
"'Their anxiety went down and stayed down,' said Dr. Peter Gasser, who conducted the therapy and followed up with his patients a year after the trial concluded." [rdbrewer]

Discover: New research reveals how to make your (bad) jokes funnier
Also, a) sell jokes, not attitude, and b) clapper humor is not funny. Someone tell Seth Meyers. [rdbrewer]


Confirmed: White House Delaying Key Portions of Obamacare Until President Out of Office
When Republicans were asking for a delay last fall, the response was it was just too important to delay. [rdbrewer]


Ann Coulter: Crimea river
"As long as a Democrat sits in the White House, America will be repeatedly humiliated, the world will become a much more dangerous place — and there’s absolutely nothing anybody can do about it.... The following stroll down memory lane is but the briefest of summaries...." [rdbrewer]


Amnesty is a vote-killer for GOP, says WashPo poll
"The poll showed legislators’ support for amnesty inflicted a 12-point penalty from registered voters, 28 points from white people who did not go to college, 14 points from middle-class people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000, and even a few points from college grads, people who earn over $100,000 and people who earn less than $50,000...." [rdbrewer]

Charles C.W. Cooke: Today’s Vote Shows the Political Cost of the ‘Nuclear Option’
"If this vote had been taken last year, all we would have heard today is that 'extreme' or 'obstructionist' Republicans had filibustered Obama’s nominee. Likewise, all of the vitriol that is being thrown at Adegbile’s critics would have been aimed at Republicans, while the seven Democrats who helped to kill the nomination would have been largely spared." Via @slublog. [rdbrewer]

WUWT: The Lewis and Crok exposition – Climate less sensitive to Carbon Dioxide than most models suggest Shocking no one, the climate models overstate CO2-forced warming.

Comments 3-5-14

The Solar System on your browser. to scale
Moon = 1 pixel.
Pro tip. you might want set the zoom to 25% or lower after a few planets...
ht @starstryder [ArthurK]

Putin nominated for Nobel Peace prize
And you thought nothing funny would happen today. Via @KingShamus. [rdbrewer]

The Foundry: Politico Failed to Disclose Lobbying Work of Heritage Foundation Critics
"'Allowing a reporter with clear liberal bias to develop a story about the effectiveness of Heritage based largely on the opinions of lobbyists paid to advocate against Heritage’s positions is of dubious journalistic merit.'" Dude. Via @drewmtips. [rdbrewer]

Senate blocks nomination of Debo Patrick Adegbile to head DOJ Civil Rights Division [rdbrewer]

TheGuardian: Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee, senator claims
"White House declines to comment after Mark Udall says agency spied on staffers preparing scathing report into CIA torture after 9/11." [rdbrewer]


BOEHNER BRAGS OF EASY REELECTION: won't repeal Obamacare, top priority is Amnesty for illegal aliens
"In a surprisingly candid interview with his hometown newspaper, Johnny Boehner admitted that his top priorities are Amnesty and not repealing Obamacare. In that order." Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Related: Last month O'Reilly called Boehner a quisling. [rdbrewer]


Kurt Schlichter: The GOP Needs To Stop Attacking Conservatives [rdbrewer]


Ed: Mark Pryor: Military service makes Tom Cotton feel 'entitlement,' or something
"Interviewed by NBC News while fighting an uphill battle to retain his Senate seat, Pryor claimed that Cotton’s pursuit of his office came from a 'sense of entitlement' from having served in the military.... Apparently, having your daddy be Governor and Senator is a much more legitimate platform for entitlement." Added: A photograph has surfaced of Pryor casting his Obamacare vote. [rdbrewer]

Comments 3-4-14

Peggy Noonan: Kerry in Kiev
"They should also stop tweeting their emotional reactions to events. They’re diplomats. They’re supposed to be grownups. They’re supposed to be mature. I suspect they do it because they believe they are talking to an ignorant and emotional world." [rdbrewer]

Orlando Sentinel: Wife says Alan Grayson shoved her during domestic incident [rdbrewer]

Paul Bonicelli, Foreign Policy: Putin Brings Real-World Experience to the Graduate School Seminar Crowd
"Obama and his advisors, from grad school until now, have apparently seen the entire world as a single collection of nation-states just waiting to cooperate if the right people came into power in the United States...." Via @bdomenech. [rdbrewer]


The 2013 Right Wing News Conservative Website Awards (12th Annual)
We're #2! [rdbrewer]

Mediaite: Kremlin-Paid TV Anchor Goes Rogue, Condemns Russian Actions in Crimea [rdbrewer]


The Independent: Man stabbed with Legend of Zelda Master Sword in serious condition
"The ex-husband was taken to hospital following the altercation, but not before he, in true Zelda fashion, smashed a pot (a flower pot, over the head of Thompson). Police have yet to confirm whether or not charges will be filed." Via @WoodWhisperers. [rdbrewer]

Youtube Comment Reconstructions (NSFW)
• Reconstruction #6
• Reconstruction #7
• Reconstruction #8
• Double Whammy
[rdbrewer]

The Plight of NCIS: TV's Biggest Drama Gets No Respect. The CBS procedural receives only a fraction of the media attention paid to the shows it regularly outdraws. Maybe that's because the show is pro US military and has a popular Israeli character. [dri]

Rare: What one billionaire Koch brother has to say about corporate subsidies may surprise you
"'I think one of the biggest problems we have in the country is this rampant cronyism where all these large companies are into smash-and-grab, short-term profits, and that’s true even at the local level,' Koch explained." [rdbrewer]


Bob Corker: Now the Auto Union Wants to Muzzle Public Officials
"Picture an election where an entity is given nearly unfettered access to voters for two years and then is allowed to call for a surprise vote with only a few days' notice. Then imagine that the entity loses the vote and complains that 'outside forces'—who happen to be community leaders—should not have been allowed to speak or share their point of view." [rdbrewer]

George Will, WaPo: Misreading Putin, and history
"Although this '19th-century act' resembles many 20th century (and 16th, 17th and 18th century) acts, it is, the flabbergasted Kerry thinks, astonishing in the 21st century, which he evidently supposes to be entirely unlike any other. What is more disconcerting — that Kerry believes this? Or that his response to Putin’s aggression is to question Russia’s 'capacity' — Kerry means fitness — for membership in the G8?" [rdbrewer]

NYT: A Successor to Sagan Reboots ‘Cosmos’
Starting Sunday on Fox. [rdbrewer]

Crazy about the Crimea. I've known Jerry Pournelle for almost 30 years; while you may think of him as an SF author or computer columnist, I learned long ago that his grasp and understanding of history, and particularly geopolitical history, is encyclopedic and coldly realistic. (He has a PhD in political science, from an era when that meant something.) Worth a read. ..fritz..