perfidy

Interesting article on the making of LEGOS - I had no idea that the LEGO Group is the world's largest tire manufacturer. Or the largest maker of very small tires, anyway. I envy the children of today, who have Star Wars Legos to play with. When I was a youngin, Star Wars figures and Legos were my favorite toys - to the exclusion of all others. One of my greatest frustrations then was that the two groups of toys were almost completely incompatible. Star Wars figures were just too big to fit into any reasonably scaled Space Lego creation I could make. For years, decades now that I think on it, my mom has bought me a small Lego set for my stocking every Christmas. Maybe someday someone will buy me the Legos Star Destroyer. It's only $300. That's not much. Really.

If shooting femtosecond blasts of laser energy turns the surface of any metal into a radiation sucking blackness, I'm thinking that a really, really black car wouldn't be all that vulnerable to state trooper radar.

Teaching robots to play hide and seek may seem cute now, when robots are clumsy and stupid. And, for the most part, unarmed. But hide and seek isn't so cute when you're hiding, and the seeker is smarter than you, armed with plasma cannon, and thinks you are vermin.

The new scientist (same as the old scientist) reports that the new wave of lifestyle drugs are those that allow us to self-modify our sleep architecture. And more, and more subtle and powerful, drugs are in the pipeline. Wakefulness promoters, sleep enhancers, anti-narcoleptics, all this and more will allow you to stay awake for days at a time without the edginess and irritability (not to mention geek stigma) of Jolt(tm) and to recharge your batteries in no time at all with a two hour, all slow wave power nap. As much as I love sleep - and Mrs. Buckethead will attest to the deep and abiding respect I have for sleep - being asleep is suboptimal for getting things done.

I seem to remember some time ago that someone had a drug that could block the need for sleep, but this article doesn't mention it. Pro- something.

This, I must admit, is not a question that has been keeping me up late at night. I am aware that I come from rednecks, and I will return to the rednecks in about two weeks.

You Are 50% Redneck

You're just about as welcome up in town as a hair in a biscuit.
Ain't no hidin' your redneck roots!

I fudged slightly on some of the questions. For example, I do not at this moment have a refrigerator on my porch. But last week I had a refrigerator, a freezer and a gas range. I think I qualify. 

Here's a couple hundred dick jokes:

• My dick is so big, there's still snow on it in the summertime.
• My dick is so big, I went to The Viper Room and my dick got right in. I had to stand and argue with the doorman.
• My dick is so big, I have to call it Mr. Dick in front of company.
• My dick is so big, it won't return Spielberg's calls.
• My dick is so big, it graduated a year ahead of me from high school.
• My dick has an elevator and a lobby.
• My dick has better credit than I do.
• My dick is so big, clowns climb out of it when I cum.
• My dick is so big, it was overthrown by a military coup. It's now known as the People’s Democratic Republic of My Dick.
• My dick is so big, it has casters.
• My dick is so big, I'm already fucking a girl tomorrow.
• My dick is so big, ships use it to find their way into the harbor.
• My dick is so big, there was once a movie called Godzilla vs. My Dick.
• My dick is so big, it lives next door.
• My dick is so big, I entered it in a big-dick contest and it came in first, second, and third.
• My dick is so big, it votes.
• My dick is a better dresser than I am.
• My dick is so big, it has a three-picture deal.
• My dick is so big that the head of it has only seen my balls in pictures.
• My dick is so big, Henry Aaron used it to hit his 750th home run.
• My dick runs the 440 in 15 seconds
• My dick is the Walrus, koo koo ga joob.
• No matter where I go, my dick always gets there first.
• My dick takes longer lunches than I do.
• My dick contributed fifty thousand dollars to the Democratic National Committee.
• My dick was once the ambassador to China.
• My dick is so big, it's gone condo.
• My dick hit .370 in the minors before it hurt its knee.
• My dick was almost drafted by the Cleveland Browns, but Art Modell didn't want a bigger dick than he was on the team.

• My dick is so big, I use the Eiffel Tower as a French tickler.
• My dick is so big, I could wear it as a tie if I wasn't so afraid of getting a hard-on and killing myself.
• My dick is so big, I have to use an elastic zipper.
• My dick is so big, it has feet.
• My dick is so big, a homeless family lives underneath it.
• My dick is so big, it takes four fat women and a team of Clydesdales to jack me off.
• My dick is so big, my mother was in labor for three extra days.
• My dick is so big, they use the bullet train to test my condoms.
• My dick is so big, it has investors.
• My dick is so big, it seats six.
• My dick is so big, I use a hula hoop as a cock ring.
• My dick is so big, we use it at parties as a limbo pole.
• My dick is so big, King Kong is going to climb up it in the next remake.
• My dick is so big, it has an opening act.
• My dick is so big, I can fuck an elevator shaft.
• My dick is so big, it has its own Wheaties box.
• My dick is so big, I have to cook it breakfast in the mornings.
• My dick is so big, the city had to carve a hole in the middle of it so cars could get through.
• My dick is so big, every time I get hard I cause a solar eclipse.
• My dick is so big, it only plays arenas.
• If you cut my dick in two, you can tell how old I am.
• My dick was once set on fire for a Dino DiLaurentis movie.
• My dick is so big, it needs an airplane warning light.
• My dick is so big, Trump owns it.
• My dick is so big that we're all a part of it, and it's all a part of us.
• My dick is so big, I can never sit in the front row.
• My dick is so big, that it has its own dick. And even my dick's dick is bigger than your dick.
• My dick is so big, you can't blow me without a ladder.
• My dick is so big, it only does one show a night.
• My dick is so big, you can ski down it.
• My dick is so big, it has an elbow.
• My dick is so big, I have to check it as luggage when I fly.
• My dick is so big, it has a personal trainer.
• My dick is so big, that right now it's in the other room fixing us drinks.
• My dick is so big, it has a retractable dome.
• My dick is so big, it has stairs up the center like the Statue of Liberty.
• My dick is so big, there's a sneaker named "Air My Dick"
• My dick is so big, I'm it's bitch.
• My dick is so big, it's against the law to fuck me without protective headgear.
• My dick is so big, I could fuck a tuba.
• My dick is so big, Stephen Hawking has a theory about it.
• My dick is so big, it has its own gravity
• NASA once launched a space probe to search for the tip of my dick.
• My dick is so big, it's impossible to see all of it without a satellite.
• The inside of my dick contains billions and billions of stars.
• My dick is so big, it has a spine.
• My dick is so big, it has a basement.
• My dick is so big, movie theaters now serve popcorn in small, medium, large, and My Dick.
• My dick is more muscular than I am.
• My dick is so big, it has cable.
• My dick is so big, it violates seventeen zoning laws.
• My dick is so big, it has its own page in the Sierra Club calendar.
• My dick is so big, it has a fifty-yard line.
• My dick is so big, I was once in Ohio and got a blow job in Tennessee.
• My dick is so big, Las Vegas casinos fly it into town for free.
• My dick is so big, I can braid it.
• My dick is so big, that when it's Eastern Standard Time at the tip, it's Central Mountain Time at my balls.
• My dick is so big, I painted the foreskin red, white, and blue and used it as a flag.
• My dick is so big, I can sit on it.
• My dick is so big, it can chew gum.
• My dick is so big, it only tips with hundreds.
• My dick is so big, the Carnegie Deli named a sandwich after it. Actually, two sandwiches.
• My dick is so big, the city was going to build a statue of it but they ran out of cement.
• My dick is so big, Michael Jackson wants to build an amusement park on it.
• My dick is so big, when I get hard my eyebrows get pulled down to my neck.
• My dick is so big, you're standing on it.
• My dick is so big, it only comes into work when it feels like it.
• My dick is so big, it plays golf with the president.
• My dick is so big, it charges money for its autograph.
• My dick is so big, it has an agent. My dick's people will call your people. Let's have lunch with my dick.
• My dick is so big, it's right behind you.
• My dick is so big, when I broke my leg, they didn't put a cast on it, they just strapped it to my dick.
• My dick is so big, when I was in a porno, they had to release it on a 4 disc DVD box set.
• My dick is so big, it thinks the Grand Canyon is a virgin.
• My dick is so big, they named the invasion of Normandy after it. (Usually just known as D day)
• My dick is so big, interplanetary distances are measured in light years and my dick years.
• My dick is so big, it bought Microsoft from petty cash.
• My dick is so big, FedEx won't insure it.
• My dick is so big, it has a horizon.
• My dick is so big, it has tonsils.
• My dick is so big, it's known as Doctor Pecker.
• My dick is so big, I run three-legged races by myself.
• My dick is so big, that when I fly, it has to take the train.
• My dick is so big, it posts big dick jokes.
• My dick is so big, that it can think of far more big dick jokes than I can.
• My dick is so big, they refuse to put me in prison.
• My dick is so big, I can shoot for the Moon and hit it.
• My dick is so big, its a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
• My dick is so big, when I fall down, I fuck everyone in China.
• My dick is so big, it urinates by telepathy.
• My dick is so big, I left it at home.
• My dick is so big, it don't have veins, it has pipes.
• My dick is so big, sometimes it jerks me off.
• My dick is so big it was impeached by Congress.
• My dick is so big, Florida had to measure it twice.
• My dick is so big, it killed its ex-wife and got away with it.
• My dick is so big, it's not just famous, it's Infamous.
• My dick is so big, it has a stunt double.
• My dick is so big, compasses do not function properly if they get too close.
• My dick is so big, the Pope has blessed it.
• My dick is so big, Al Gore invented it
• My dick is so big, black holes fall into it.
• My dick is so big, premature ejaculation takes ninety minutes.
• My dick is so big, it's wanted in nine states, and Canada.
• My dick is so big, when I get aroused, the Earth develops an elliptical orbit.
• My dick is so big, it's in a boy band with four other big dicks.
• My dick is so big, it's a government scapegoat.
• My dick is so big, it has its own seat in Congress.
• My dick is so big, it's worshipped as a Pagan God.
• My dick is so big, I can change channels without the remote.
• My dick is so big, I use it to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border.
• My dick is so big, I have to stand in the hall when I take a piss.
• My dick is so big, it gives me an allowance.
• My dick is so big Alan Greenspan uses it to raise interest rates.
• My dick is so big, if I didn't sleep on my side, planes would crash into it at night.
• My dick is so big, I have to use a complex irrigation system just to take a piss.
• My dick is so big, it has it's own time zone - central dick time.
• My dick is so big, it could feed Ethiopia for a month.
• My dick is so big, Frodo carried the Ring to it.
• My dick is so big, Osama bin Laden tried to fly a 747 into it.
• My dick is so big, it has its own moon.
• My dick is so big, it has its own wing at the Louvre.
• My dick is so big, Jimmy Hoffa is still hiding below it.
• My dick is so big, it has its own telethon.

[wik] I should note that most of these are from Drew Carey's book, and from some site I can't remember.

I have been absent from posting for some little while now, and resident in the bad blogger seat that I added to the site to encourage my cobloggers to post just a little more often. The irony of this situation has not escaped me, but I can at least offer a reasonable excuse: superstition.

It seems that every time I mentioned, online, the prospects for a house - well, that deal went into the crapper in proportion to the amount of detail I went into. So, I have avoided mention of any real estate dealings, and in fact avoided blogging at all for fear of letting something slip. I must admit I feel some trepidation in even mentioning it now, but we are under contract for this place, financing is in place, and everything seems to be moving forward in a smooth and sane manner. Our new place is not the huge estate that I described in my earlier posts, but it is over four acres, and will suit our needs very nicely.

Giant Robot posts, dick jokes and goofiness will resume presently.

Everything seemed to be going so smoothly. That should have been my clue that everything was about to go balls up. Either that, or I should have known better than to post about something that hadn't happened yet, and was thus subject to the jinx. I am now informed that the land contract issue might be a killer, and that we might not be able to get that property. Land contracts are standard when the acreage involved is more than about ten acres. Land contracts as a rule require 20% down payments. We don't have 20% of $350k. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

But, I tell myself, all is not lost. First, we are approved for a mortgage - all we need to do is find a place that is less than ten acres. We can use my wife's idea for the addition to increase the value of the house we buy, sell it in a year, and have enough cash once we sell to put a down payment on a 20 acre plot like the one we want to get now. The plan is not necessarily derailed, and we won't even necessarily lose time. We would, though, have to go through the hassle of buying, selling and moving again.

Also, I have moved into a quick reaction mode in regard to the 20 acre plot - I've talked to the boss of my current lender to see if something might be done. He informs me that it is remotely possible that, by offering more documentation of my resources and history, and writing several begging letters, the underwriter might offer a waiver on some of the restrictions that normally apply. So we'll do that. I've called three other lenders to see if they perhaps might offer something more congenial, and hopefully by later today they will have some positive news.

Having made the decision that we want that particular land, it's a true pisser that we might not get it. And all this additional hassle is to say the least unwelcome. We'll see what happens.

This last Saturday, the Buckethead clan once again traveled up to the Shenandoah Valley to examine the property I discussed in my last post. This time, through careful advance planning, we got to see the interior of the house, and got a much better idea of the lay of the land. The short answer is that the lot suits our needs, and we will be making an offer on it directly. The plan, therefore, is about to kick into gear.

There are some issues, though, as might be expected. The house is on the small side, and has very low ceilings. There are power lines running through the field on the other side of the road, which will limit the number of places that we can site the new house that we plan on building. There are some concerns about septic and water. And the length of the commute will, frankly, fucking suck.

None of those problems are insuperable, though. Since we are planning already on making a (very large) addition to the house, the size is not an issue. The height of the ceilings is harder to get around, but if there are other parts of the house that are more vertically spacious, it might just seem charming. The power lines are a potential problem, but since the part of the lot that is on the other side of the road is still pretty big, we feel that we’ll be able to work around that one. The commute, though - I’m just going to have to take the hit on that one. All of that, along with some information from the county zoning officer (a very nice lady) to the effect that getting a three or four bedroom PERC (percolation test, which determines how many bedrooms you can build) should not be difficult and that we can divide up the property the way we wanted (either through a rezoning, or just by means of clever surveying) means that the house and land side of the deal is all in place.

Which means that something else must be screwed up. And, lo, it is. We are running into some financing issues. This is very frustrating, seeing as I was under the understanding that we were already approved. When the loan guy said bad news, my paranoid mind immediately began obsessing about credit ratings the phrase “you’ll never get a loan, you loser” began echoing in my skull. As a distant murmur, I heard him saying something or other about “land contracts” and “house value.” I almost interrupted him with, “Good Christ, man! What does this blather have to do with my insufficient credit?” But then I slowly realized that he was saying that I had been approved, he’d cut us a check – if we were buying a house.

Which it seems we aren’t. We are now told that when you’re buying a lot of land along with your house, it isn’t the same as a normal house contract. It is instead a land contract, and the mortgage company that had already approved us doesn’t handle those. There are two factors which go into deciding which category a property falls into – one, the proportion of the values of house and land, and the total acreage. We’re about fifty-fifty on the value question, which may allow us to proceed – maybe. However, 20 acres is probably over the line into land contract. We may have to start the financing process all over again with a lender that does do land contracts. We can get it expedited, in which case it won’t affect our timetable, but we may no longer have access to all the nifty options you can get with a normal house loan. Which may or may not suck.

At the very least, though, we were assured that getting a loan isn’t a problem, which is a relief. So, we will likely make an offer in the next day or so, and the plan will be off and running.

Interesting perspective on the usefulness of Wikipedia - not so much as an encyclopedia, but rather a resource for those amongst our progeny who decide to study us. Kind of a backhand slap to the Wikipedians, too: "history won't care if you're right or wrong, but your quaint biases and loquacious misinterpretations and wrongheadedness will be so wonderfully useful to the grad students of the future." Might oughta be right.

My stepmom sent me this, in what I hope was not some sort of comment on my activities here:

There are many for whom this cartoon represents an uncomfortable truth. But not us. No, not us.
 

We here at the Ministry are always alert to the danger of Giant Fighting Robots. We realize, as few do, the threat that these inhuman machines pose to our species. However, until this very moment, we were unaware of the extent, depth and mind-destroying horror of that threat. Thanks to watchful ministry crony MapGirl for raising the hue and cry.

It is perhaps overstating the obvious to say that advancing technology will bring new dangers. What is less obvious, is that advancing technology will require advances in the state of the art of warning signs. Before there were lasers, there was no need for the "Do not look into laser with remaining eye" signs. A hundred years ago, there was no need for the radiation trefoil, the biohazard sign, and so on. When we finally get around to inventing self-replicating nanosystems, devices to modulate spacetime, artificial intelligences and, to be sure, giant fighting robots - well, the humble warning sign will need some upgrades as well.

But fear not! Someone has done the work for us. And that someone is Anders Sandberg.

Mr. Sandberg has thoughtfully and carefully designed a panoply of warning signs for the singularity. Here are some of my favorites: (You can see all of them here.)

The black light bulb for ideas that aren't just bad, but contagiously bad, is effing genius. Likewise, this image just screams that something ominous and desirous of personally introducing you to a naked physical singularity, and not some nerdly rapturous technological singularity.

This sign is fantastic, Sandberg really captures the ominous potentiality of something that isn't merely self-replicating, but remorselessly self-improving. Think hordes of nanoscale Tony Robbinses, getting leaner, meaner, more numerous and more garsh-darn positive every second.

We are already verging very close to needing this sign, especially in areas of downtown London, and soon in Chicago.

And of course, the all-encompassing:

That sort of sums it up, doesn't it?

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mr. Sandberg for instantiating our fears in handy, easy to print warning signs. But he didn't stop there. No, indeedy do. He came up with a further classification scheme to indicate just how dangerous a particular danger is.

A level 0 threat threatens all humanity - imminent danger of species extinction. The number of individuals descends on a log scale to level nine, where only a few people might be endangered, and then down to level 10, "no humans threatened, but other values (such as unchanged biosphere, aesthetics or economy) threatened." He speculates that the colors of the warning signs above might be altered, but that might affect recognition. Instead, you might have the two signs, the warning type sign, and under it a color coded threat level with perhaps some explanatory text. His example is amusing:

SELF-REPLICATING DEVICE. LEVEL 0 THREAT: GLOBAL DANGER. DO NOT MESS WITH

It seems to me that these warning labels pretty much cover most of the likely dangers - excepting of course Cthulhoid elder creatures, homicidal extraterrestrials, and giant fighting robots. Of course, none of these would typically allow anyone to affix a warning label to them, nor would that warning label be of any possible help to anyone confronted by these dangers.

[wik] Found this on the Blogundershlock, as Sandberg's post references an early Schlock Mercenary webstrip, by way of Bruce Schneier's blog.

One of the biggest failures of this administration, and indeed the last several administrations going back to the time of my birth, has been an unforgivably lax approach to the problem of our southern border. And now, a candidate for the House of Representatives and former contestant on the reality show The Apprentice has pointed out in a, well, colorful way just how lax it is.

Popular Mechanics has a short interview with Burt Rutan, the man who will build our space armada when the Giant Fighting Robots come. In the meantime, he is working on a commercial follow-on to the X-Prize-winning and cumbersomely-monikered SpaceShipOne, which he has graced with the inventive name, SpaceShipTwo. Branson will be buying a boatload of these for his Virgin Galactic spacelines in the near future, so go and check out what the future will hold for us in regard to the spaceships, and other neat stuff.

Harvard researcher Robert Putnam, a respected political scientist, natch, has released a study indicating that diversity sucks. Of course, distinguished researchers do not summarize the results of their study with phrases like, "Diversity sucks." Nevertheless:

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history", but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians' picnic".

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. "They don't trust the local mayor, they don't trust the local paper, they don't trust other people and they don't trust institutions," said Prof Putnam. "The only thing there's more of is protest marches and TV watching."

Well, then. We have been informed by the most august of personages and institutions for some time that diversity is something to be encouraged, celebrated, nay, wallowed in. And now, we find that human persons when confronted with outsiders make like monkeys and throw post modern feces across the stream. Perhaps after all there is a human nature.

It would be without precedent for a Harvard researcher to present findings such as these without a prescription for the remolding of soceity to overcome such trifles as human nature and people's innate distrust of those they don't know. And, lo, Putnam delivers:

Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed".

In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: "What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."

Right! We'll get right on that, and we should have a new us ready by next Tuesday. Meanwhile, I need to load my shotgun. There's some immigrants lurking in my neighborhood, and I can't trust my damn fool herring eating Norwegian Mayor to do anything about it.

After a spate of thinkful posts on policy and world events, the tone has drifted a little away from our standard fair of dick jokes, zombies and giant fighting robots. To rectify that, a selection of "Yo Mama" jokes:

• Yo momma so ugly she made an onion cry.
• Yo momma so ugly, she was a guard for Castle Greyskull.
• Yo momma so ugly, she looks like she got hit with a bag of "What the fuck?!?!"
• Yo momma so ugly, she looks like she's been in a dryer filled with rocks.
• Yo momma so ugly when she joined an ugly contest, they said "Sorry, no professionals."
• Yo momma so ugly they push her face into dough to make monster cookies.
• Yo momma so ugly your grandma had to be drunk to breast feed her
• Yo momma so ugly they pay her to put her clothes on in strip joints.
• Yo momma so ugly she tried to take a bath the water jumped out!
• Yo momma so ugly, when two guys broke into her apartment, she yelled "rape" and they yelled "NO!"
• Yo momma so ugly even Rice Krispies won't talk to her!
• Yo momma so ugly The NHL banned her for life
• Yo momma so ugly that when she sits in the sand on the beach, cats try to bury her.
• Yo momma so ugly, her birth certificate was an apology letter from the condom factory.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she's been bobbing for french fries.
• Yo momma so ugly, even the elephant man paid to see her.
• Yo momma so ugly, people at the circus pay money not to see her.
• Yo momma so ugly, she hurt my feelings.
• Yo momma so ugly, her pillow cries at night.
• Yo momma so ugly, they rub tree branches on her face to make ugly sticks.
• Yo momma so ugly, she tied a pork chop around her neck and the dog still wouldn't play with her.
• Yo momma so ugly, she makes blind children cry.
• Yo momma so ugly, she can look up a camel's butt and scare the hump off of it.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she ran the 100 yard dash in a 90 yard gym.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she cries, tears run down the back of her neck.
• Yo momma so ugly, she could scare Cujo off a meat truck.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she got hit with a hot sack of nickels.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she masturbates she gets arrested for cruelty to animals.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she was born, they named her "Damn!"
• Yo momma so ugly, the last time she heard a whistle was when she got hit by a train.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she passes by a bathroom, the toilet flushes.
• Yo momma so ugly, she has to creep up on water to get a drink.
• Yo momma so ugly, if she was a scarecrow, the corn would run away.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she walks in the kitchen, the rats jump on the table and start screaming.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she was born she was put in an incubator with tinted windows.
• Yo momma so ugly, when I last saw a mouth like hers, it had a hook in it.

... would have been Janet Reno.

Just watched, somewhat belatedly, the Zucker political ad. Have to say, it's funny. It's a shame more political ads aren't like this. People go on about negative campaigning, but this isn't it. Negative campaigning is calling your opponent's wife a whore, or claiming (absent any chat records or the like) that your opponent is gay, or a criminal, or the like. Making fun of actual policies and actions isn't what I call negative campaigning. I mean, what's the voter going to go by, except the record of an incumbant? Pointing at that record and saying, "This sucks" is entirely reasonable. Especially if it's funny. Now there is an entirely different argument to be made on aesthetic grounds - whether something is tasteless, or such. But this ad wasn't really that.

The beauty of the internets is that Zucker gets his ad viewed - it's on Drudge now - without having to go through the wusses in the political parties or through the filter of the major media. It's a new world, baby.

[wik] It is also the nature of this new world to be ruthlessly fact checked into the boards. My confrere Patton notes that the correct spelling of our illustrious ex-Sec'y State is Albright, not Albrecht. In my defense, I offer only that five years of German sometimes causes bizarre transliteration errors. I still think, though, that Janet Reno is scarier than any foot smeller, and indeed scarier than just about anything.

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has a interesing post on the continuing unraveling of EADS/Airbus, following BAE's divestiture of its 20% stake in the Pan-European aerospace firm. This is just part of the problem with Europe, as many have noted. It seems to me that there might be, in the relatively near future, a convergence of catastrophe for Europe. There's the looming demographic collapse, and its corollary the growth of unassimilated Islamic minorities, stultified economies, military impotence, and so on. Let us keep in mind what the traditional European response to these sorts of trouble is, and hope that they come to their senses before it gets really bad somewhere around 2020.