Drumwaster's Rants

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Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the vote. -- Benjamin Franklin


Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Not dead…..still kicking…..

...but so busy, I haven’t had time to breathe.  Not a lick. 

I’ll have to share with you what I’ve been doing....that project from hell you’ve heard so much about?  Yeah, I found it. 

But what piqued me was this article on Ye Olde Drumwaster’s Rants, and I have a name to add to the list. 

Andrew Sullivan.  The man’s in love. 

And that’s all I need to say. 

Posted by John Cross at 05:01 PM | (3) Comments |

The R-Word

There is an old joke among economists that states: “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job.”

Look, people, let’s get it straight.

This is NOT a recession.

Recession is a specific term that defines an economy that has CONTRACTED. Shrunken. Gotten SMALLER.

That means that the economy has to actually have NEGATIVE GROWTH in order to start worrying.

This does NOT mean that just because the rate of growth is slowing down (to having GROWN a mere 0.7% in the first quarter of 2008 - which means a 2.5-3.0% growth rate for the year) that people should start whining that things are collapsing, or even staying-the-same-freaking-size.

It doesn’t become a recession until our economy actually starts moving in the other direction. It also doesn’t matter how bad your own personal situation might be, because the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. We’re talking about the national economy.

So just because the rate of growth has slowed down doesn’t mean we’re suddenly driving in reverse.

Update: The DJIA closed down a few points today, but even so, it is up 4.6% for the month of April - the highest one-month gain in a year.

Worst economy since Hoover again… tongue rolleye

5 million jobs created, income up 19% since Bush took office, and Chicken Littles are still being listened to.

Posted by Drumwaster at 11:02 AM | (2) Comments |

Monday, April 28, 2008

Another weird question

Things that are “taboo” are things that society frowns upon, irrespective of the legality or morality of the act. The very word ”taboo” means:

1. proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable: taboo words.
2. (among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific) separated or set apart as sacred; forbidden for general use; placed under a prohibition or ban.

This implies that discussion of sacred things are also considered taboo. Such as the discussion as to whether Jesus died a virgin. Or whether Mohammed was nothing more than a pedophile goat farmer with delusions of Godhood.

But this brings me to my question.

What is the most ill-considered taboo in society today? I’m not talking about Muslim culture where a woman isn’t allowed to leave home without a male escort, or Esquimaux culture where it is considered rude to refuse to sleep with your host’s wife. I mean current Western (American) culture. Such as allowing high levels of violence on Saturday morning cartoons but forbidding the word “fuck” or a bare breast except on cable TV.

What is your personal fave among the weirdest taboos of our culture?

Posted by Drumwaster at 06:42 PM | (10) Comments |

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Democrats on Race

No, this isn’t about B. Hussein, it’s about a baffling phenomenon - Blacks in America voting Democrat.

There is not only no good reason to do so, there are LOTS of reasons why not. Outside the Wire has put together an incredible list of historical data, ranging from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates all the way into the mid-1990s.

Next time a Democrat talks about race, feel free to refer them to this list

Posted by Drumwaster at 07:17 PM | (1) Comments |

Completely pointless information

** An ongoing series **

Everyone has heard of “Pi”, that odd number defined as the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. It is usually represented by the Greek letter, Π.

There have been many different attempts at accurately determining the value of this irrational number (irrational simply means that it cannot be expressed as a whole number fraction), ranging from the attempts (in both the Old Testament and the Indiana State Legislature) to state that pi is exactly equal to 3 to the most modern attempts using high-powered computers.

But I was directed to this program the other day, and it managed to come up with pi allegedly accurate to within 32 million places (actually 33,554,432 - 2 raised to the 25th power) in just a smidgen over 48 minutes.

Now we move into the useless information part…

Just to save the front page I have tucked the first 16K (16,384) decimal places of Π below the fold, in case anyone was interested.

To give you an idea of how fine a distinction this is, if we were to postulate a circle with a radius equal to 1 Astronomical Unit (A.U. - the average distance between the Earth and the Sun; roughly 92,955,825 miles), you would only need to take the division down to less than 24 decimal places to define an irregularity the size of an atom. 13 would be enough to reduce the uncertainty to less than an inch.


Posted by Drumwaster at 03:21 PM | (1) Comments |

Al Sharpton: Civil Unrest Is Great!

This guy is an idiot.

One of America’s favorite dumbasses is at it again, this time because a black guy was acting suspicious and got shot by cops who were doing their job. To make his point, he wants blacks in New York to tear-up the city and make it look like Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots. Proof:

Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

The rally at Sharpton’s office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem’s main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out “Kill the police!”

Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.

Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week “to plan the day that we will close this city down” with the kind of “massive civil disobedience” once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?” Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities “have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won’t, we will!”

Nothing says quality leadership in the black community like a good-for-nothing “reverend” calling for a full-blown riot to burn down the city.

Posted by Helo at 10:00 AM | (4) Comments |

Friday, April 25, 2008

Obama’s “former” pastor

Says hate-filled statements were “taken out of context”.

Yeah, because I can understand how his assertions that the US Government is responsible for loosing the AIDS virus on Black People could be made better if put in context. And that “chickens coming home to roost” sermon the Sunday following the 9/11 attacks? I’d love to know what kind of context this would need to be less “I Hate America"-fied…

Most enjoyable is the statement where Wright admits that Obamalama is “a politician”, saying what he “needs to say” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, saynomore), while he says “things of God”. (Funny, I don’t remember AIDS appearing in the Bible anywhere, no matter which version I check. Maybe he’s using Nancy Pelosi’s favorite version.)

Posted by Drumwaster at 07:02 AM | (2) Comments |

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Weird inquiry

I need some imagination, so I thought I would borrow some of yours for awhile.

How would one go about creating an experiment to measure the speed of gravity?

A quick primer on gravity: Gravity is the influence of one body on another body, resulting in a mutual attraction, the force of which is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two bodies under discussion and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between. Just like stars emit radiation in multiple frequency bandwidths (including the visible spectrum), every atom of mass in the universe attracts every other atom of mass, influencing that second atom’s motion through the cosmos.

A two-body system is stable and predictable, with both bodies orbiting a common center-of-mass. (For the Earth-Moon system, that point lies approximately 1000 miles below the surface of the planet directly beneath the moon at any given moment.) But when you add a third body into the system, it almost inevitably degenerates into chaotic orbits sooner or later. (Chaotic in this sense meaning “unable to accurately predict”.)

Now, admitting that a given body attracts another body to a specific and measurable degree is no big deal, because that is easily proven.

Measuring the speed of light is a simple thing. Bounce a beam of light from point A to point B, measure the distance and divide by the time it took to travel that distance.

But how does one bounce a beam of gravity?

Posted by Drumwaster at 07:37 PM | (9) Comments |

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Quote of the Day

My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.  I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it. — Barack Hussein Obama

rasberry

Posted by Drumwaster at 02:54 AM | (3) Comments |

Monday, April 21, 2008

Jimmy Carter isn’t a moron

He is specifically and deliberately anti-American.

I mean, if he were merely stupid and struck by early onset dementia, he would be right at least every once in a while, much like the blind squirrel finding the rare acorn.

But he has not been right since he echoed, “I do solemnly swear...” on January 20, 1977.

It was on his watch that bank interest rates hit 25% and more.

It was on his watch that he declared that we would have to learn to live with Communism.

It was on his watch that Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan (looking for a way to control the Persian Gulf).

It was on his watch that we lost the only American soil to hostile forces since the War of 1812, and our citizens were paraded on the evening news every night for more than a year, only released when he was drummed out of office.

Due to his influence, Democrats have only held the White House for two of the seven terms since he was replaced.

He has sucked up to despots (Hugo Chavez and Castro), anti-American groups (terrorists and terror-supporters around the globe), and specifically kissing the boots of hostile powers with whom we are - or might soon be - in a shooting war (North Korea and Hamas).

He has consistently demeaned and denigrated a close political and cultural ally of the United States, in defiance of clearly stated foreign policies that have not changed since he left office, and in direct defiance of Federal Law, ignoring the clear disapproval of the legitimately elected governments of both nations.

I do not question his patriotism, because one cannot question what does not exist. He is not a doddering old fool, he is deliberately acting against American interests, and I call for his indictment and prosecution under the Logan Act. Or at the very least a NBR (non binding resolution) stating that the House/Senate specifically repudiates any positions advocated by this doddering old fool.

I’d go so far as to pull his Secret Service detail, since those are paid out of taxpayer funds…

Posted by Drumwaster at 02:23 PM | (8) Comments |

Friday, April 18, 2008

LA Story, Part 2,563

Here we go again.

And yet another case of second guessing when we’re out there doing our jobs and getting bad guys off the street. First, the article from the LA Times Homicide Report:

Florence: Fernando Cortez, 21, a young Latino man, was killed in a deputy-involved shooting in the 1500 block of East 92nd Street about 5:55 p.m. Saturday, April 12. According to Deputy Oscar Butao of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, gang enforcement deputies from the Sheriff’s Century Station were at a stop light across from the Ranchito Market when they were approached by someone who said that a man inside the store was armed with a gun. The deputies later detained Cortez and were searching him when he allegedly pulled a handgun out of his pocket. Butao said the deputies reported they feared for their lives, and fired several shots at Cortez. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics at 6:05 p.m

And now, the typical liberal avenger who believes that cops should take bullets and get killed if it means a criminal could be sent to rehab, counseled through their criminal tendencies, and turned into a better person.

While being searched, Cortez pulled out a gun? Okay, so a gun has surfaced, but he did not fire…

What happened to rules of engagement? Is this a portrayal of the lack of and inadequate training and confidence of police officers these days? To shoot a “suspect” with mulitple shots as opposed to disabling him from endangering others because they fear for their lives when their lives are on the line every day?

Too many cops these days… Are either trigger-happy, or just don’t know how to perform on their job!

While working about a block away from where this happened, my partner and I responded to a call of a young man with a knife. When we got there, there were about five youngsters who were all eager to talk to us and get our attention. After about fifteen seconds of interviewing and gathering intel about the call of the kid with a knife, my partner got a terrified look on his face as he looked over my shoulder and then pushed me out of the way. I barely had enough time to move at the eighteen year old kid dashed at me with a knife after smiling and waving me down as we approached the group.

I consider myself pretty good when it comes to finding concealed weapons and identifying bulges, but this kid had to held good. I don’t know if the knife was sharp enough to go through my ballistic vest, but it definitely could have shredded my exposed skin to hell. After he had two guns in his face and more deputies on the way, he dropped the knife and was taken into custody, but he was seconds from being shot with two magazines of nine millimeter rounds.

The bottom line - he dropped the knife moments before he would have been shot. He wouldn’t be alive today if he had pulled a gun on me. Every cop has seen what guns can do, and we all know that as soon as one is pointed anywhere close to your direction that it’s a green light to make the first move. There is no talking a bad guy out of it, and there is no rehab for the bad guys. They are pure evil and they will do whatever it takes to kill, especially if they’re aiming at a cop. The deputies in the above linked story did exactly what they should have done. I’m sorry that Sandy, who wrote the snarky response to the original story, is under the false impression that cops are bad and that criminals are the good guys. The apparent belief is that all the bad guys need is a little push in the right direction after we smack them on the back of the hand after they try to kill us.

Posted by Helo at 08:42 PM | (3) Comments |

Sharpen your pencils, folks

I’m working on the new Trivia Contest, and it WILL be tougher than last time.

Count on it. hmmm

Posted by Drumwaster at 04:56 PM | (0) Comments |

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Great quote

I’ve mentioned Thomas Sowell here before, but I just ran across a great quote from the revered Doctor.

Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.

Heh, quoth the Puppy Blender

Posted by Drumwaster at 07:40 PM | (0) Comments |

By The Company You Keep

Y’know, we haven’t yet spoken of the really important political endorsements this silly political nomination season - those of the world’s terrorist organizations.

In ‘04, John Kerry was the “allegedly unhappy” recipient of that nomination, because of his willingness to work with the UN.

But who wins the coveted nod this year?

None other than His Homliness, the Dope. Barack Hussein Mohammed Hussein Obama. (Just to piss him off in case he stops by.)

I’m not kidding.

Hamas, Fidel Castro, FARC, The New Black Panthers, William Ayers (of the Weather Underground), Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, “Hanoi” Jane Fonda, DailyKos, Democratic Underground, Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright and almost the entire MSM establishment…

Throw in his willingness to raise taxes even higher than they are ("what do you mean ‘cut spending’? You’re nucking futs!"), and no wonder the far Left is pushing for him. I mean when you have people calling Hillary Clinton a neocon, you know that they are far to the Left of anything mainstream…

Posted by Drumwaster at 09:57 AM | (1) Comments |

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Back again

Much fun was had at last night’s performance of “Wicked” at the Pantages Theater (right at the corner of Hollywood and Vine).

Didn’t get (read: “couldn’t afford") all of the fancy stuff I wanted to get and give away, but I got a T-shirt, both books and a wand for our youngest granddaughter. (The pink “Glinda” variety, rather than the green “Elphaba” one.) Da Missus got a little green stuffed monkey. That and a bottle of water was $144, total…

I’m not kidding.

Throw in the $350 for the tickets (pretty good seats, fwiw), $200 for the hotel room (which was definitely not worth that much*) and the limo ride from hotel to theater and back again, and the trip was just a smidgen under a grand…

For less than a day.

Which explains why I couldn’t afford anything else.

But Da Missus LOVED it. So much so, we’ll be going back in a few weeks. We’ll just be staying somewhere else.

* - Don’t EVER waste your money on the Wilshire Plaza. They had three ice machines in the entire 12-story hotel, no room service after 12 noon, the floor of the room was uneven, the wallpaper was peeling at the edges, the room smelled BADLY of cigarette smoke, the thermostat was apparently inoperable (and stuck on “cold"), and the view was of a Carl’s Jr. restaurant across the street. Two stars out of five. Maybe.

Posted by Drumwaster at 01:19 PM | (0) Comments |
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