Pigeons, roosted

Mike Hendrix:

They’re doing just what you elected them to do...  They haven’t been shy about telling you about it either, but you’re either too stupid or too stubborn to listen...

And you keep right on voting for them.  You deserve everything you’re getting, good and hard, and my sympathy for you isn’t just limited; it’s completely nonexistent.  You’re in a hell of your own damned devising; hope you fucking well enjoy it.

HT:  Bill Quick

Elsewhere:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 18:22:30 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yknow, if every false request cost, say, $50,000...

...this crap would come to a stop really quickly:

Microsoft falsely branded BBC CBeebies, CNN.com and other websites as Windows 8 piracy haunts - and ordered Google to remove them from search results.

Pages belonging to the Beeb’s children’s telly service CBeebies, film reviews site Rottentomatoes and US cinema chain AMC Theaters - as well as web articles by the BBC's technology news department, CNN and The Huffington Post - were among 66 URLs Microsoft wanted to block.  The Windows 8 giant wielded the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to censor the search results.
...
The take-down request appears to have been issued by mistake and the URLs generated by software operating on behalf by Microsoft.   The copyright-infringement-hunting bot coughed up roughly 800 URLs on 27 July...

If you wind up a bot and turn it loose without supervision, you should suffer the consequences when it goes crazy.  This past summer the masters of the universe over at Knight Capital got a schooling, and their example scared their whole industry.  The copyright police need to suffer the same.  For this case, $250,000 seems about right.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:55:16 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Odds off...

Assuming up and down revisions are equally likely (i.e. 50%), then the probability of 64 consecutive upward revisions is 1/2^64 = 5.42×10^-20.  This is such a small number that it probably wouldn’t occur even once in the entire lifetime of the univese.

RTWT at Daily Pundit.

Related (later, 121008 20:00):

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:08:05 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, that’s [their] goal, you know...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 00:59:47 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fifth Columnists

Mark Steyn

Elderly Soviet propagandists must be wondering why they wasted their time jamming radio transmitters and smashing printing presses when they could just have sent everyone to Columbia Journalism School.

Via: Kate

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 01:54:17 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Reminders: September, 2012

After Bill Quick:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:25:12 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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When it comes to “Fast and Furious,” blame Bush...

The Associated Press:

Mexican federal police announced Friday that they have arrested a suspect in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, the slaying at the center of the scandal over the botched U.S. gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious.
...
In Operation Fast and Furious and at least three earlier probes during the administration of President George W. Bush, agents in Arizona employed a risky tactic called gun-walking...

Andy at Ace Of Spades notes:

Guess whose names they don't mention in the entire article.

But the failure here goes beyond not mentioning anyone named Barak Obama or Eric Holder: AP’s (intentionally?) sloppy language seems tailored to leave the impression that Operation Fast and Furious and the "three earlier probes” were all Bush-administration operations.

There’s nothing like journalistic accuracy.  Too bad this is nothing like journalistic accuracy.


UPDATE, related (120915, 15:30):

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 16:17:30 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Clipfile - September 6, 2012

(Via: Andy)

Posted by: Old Grouch in Clipfile at 16:54:39 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Divest, or Shut Up

For your reference, some of the heartless folks who invest their cash at Bain Capital:

Major, center-left foundations and cultural establishments, ... includ[ing] the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ford Foundation, the Heinz Endowments and the Oprah Winfrey Foundation...

Then there are those Government-employee pension funds:

• Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund
• Indiana Public Retirement System
• Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System
• The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System
• Maryland State Retirement and Pension System
• Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada
• State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio
• Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System
• Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island
• San Diego County Employees Retirement Association
• Teacher Retirement System of Texas
• Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System

Now of course the folks in Indiana have an excuse. They have to make up for all the money lost when the government un-secured all those Chrysler bonds.  But otherwise, guess there’s no problem hooking up with Greedy Corporate Darwinists, provided you get your cut.

Glenn Reynolds:

Republicans should challenge these lefty groups to divest, or shut up.

Yep, make ’em live by their own rules. Didn’t somebody named Alinsky say that?

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 20:39:21 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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The problem was, he didn’t bring any donuts

In which Mr.B gets his reward for trying to be a good citizen...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 18:34:34 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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