Applied Indifference

Glenn Reynolds other blog has a few questions for Al Gore and Ted Kennedy. See, in 1998 they made all sorts of claims about “Regime Change” in Iraq, and democratizing the thugocracies of the Middle East.

Glenn and many others ask “Why do these people now fight against these things that they supported only a few years ago?” They attribute it to “jealousy”, or “BDS”

I think however, that there is another answer (espoused by Rush Limbaugh as well) - They never really meant it in the first place. They knew that in 1998 that nothing would be done about it, so they’d never have to back up their tough words with actions. So, they can say whatever will play well to the people in “flyover country” and be done with it. Now that they are seeing their words enacted, they are racing to say “I never meant to say that. See, that evil genius stupid chimp Bush and his time machine made us say all those things in 1998.”

Hat Tip:Instapundit

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Germany to unemployed women: Fuck or be fucked.

Germany, with its wonderful social welfare system, has driven itself nearly to bankruptcy. Like the US, they are reforming the system to deny benefits to those who refuse available work. Unlike the US, prostitution is legal in Germany.

To say that this was an inevitable outcome is, perhaps, hyperbole. But it certainly wasn’t hard to see it as possible.

What is this, you say (having not read the linked article…). This, simply is that German women are finding that if they are offered a job as a prostitute, and they refuse, they risk having their benefits cut. Will the UN see this as sex-slavery, and pursue it as they claim to have done in other nations? Will the great feminist movement of the United States (Especially Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon) go to Germany to protest this violation of the sovereignty of women’s bodies? Will the Earth reverse the direction of its orbit?

And here I thought it was bad in the US, when the condition of the education system seems to be geared toward producing a work force capable of working only in food-service or adult films!

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Yes, bad pun. Yes, everyone else beat me to it. I don’t care. It’s funny.

With such a simple gesture, the people of Iraq give me the hope that my darkest fear won’t come true. I have long feared that the Islamists would have so profound an influence on the Middle East, and the terrorist attacks on the West would continue and escalate, such that the western world concluded that the only solution was to wipe the Middle East clean. I’m guilty of saying it myself.
That’s how I felt on 9/11. The thing that sticks in my mind, though, is that I would have been condemning a billion people to die for the actions of a few thousand. I still don’t understand the dynamic that allows such a small group of people to hold sway over an entire nation. At least in Iraq we have shown them that freedom is theirs for the taking.

Congratulations, Iraq. Your future is now in your own hands.

There aren’t words strong enough to thank the U.S. and Coalition forces that brought this change about. So, Thanks will have to suffice. Hopefully the people of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia will take advantage of the example Iraq has set, and we won’t need to send you guys into those countries to straighten them out next. It is my hope that you will all be home soon, with the knowledge that your task is completed. You deserve every accolade that is sent your way.

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51) exploded? So asks a Slashdot poll today.

19 years ago. 28 January, 1986. Junior year of high school. I remember staying home to watch the launch. When they announced they were delaying, I went to school. Then I heard some of the kids talking in the cafeteria about how the shuttle had exploded, and I told them that it hadn’t launched that morning. I don’t clearly remember if there was an announcement over the PA, or if the teachers told us in the next class. I was in a fog the rest of the day. I do remember going home and calling information to get the number for NASA because I didn’t actually believe any of it was real. The operator assured me that the unimaginable had really happened.

I sat in front of the television for hours, just watching it explode, over and over again.

I remember yelling at the cads who told all the jokes. I still don’t think they’re funny.

We should always honor and never forget those who risk everything for the purpose of advancing our knowledge of the universe around us.
[Read more →]

Tags: Technology by Brian Corbino
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The fallout has begun.

Electronic Arts (EA) inked a deal with the NFL to be the sole producer of licensed NFL video games for the next five years. They followed this up with Arena Football and ESPN. In the middle of this, the NBA told EA to get bent.

This week, Take Two Interactive signed a 7-year exclusive deal with Major League Baseball.

The response thus far: Sega has sold their sports division to Take Two, and bailed on sports games entirely.

Why is this a bad thing, you ask? After all, you say, won’t everyone make more money on these deals? That’s as may be, but guess what happens? There’s no competition. Absent competition, EA and Take Two are free to release absolute shit games to the market, and there’s fuck-all anyone can do about it.

What? Madden 2007 is the most ass-biting game ever? Guess What? Nobody else can make a football game that uses the teams, players, play books, arenas, or anything else that is part of the NFL. And if you aren’t playing NFL football, what’s the point?

This kind of exclusivity destroys innovation. EA had a similar deal with Porsche. They released one game, Need for Speed, Porsche Unleashed. The game was mediocre at best. But, since EA held all the licensing rights, there are no Porsches in any other video games. What this means is that when it says on the back of Gran Turismo 3 (which is the best car simulator ever written) where it says “all the top auto manufacturers”, it’s not quite correct - because there’s one missing.

We as customers and consumers of video games lose when these kinds of exclusive deals get signed. Video games allow us to live fantasies. I could never be a quarterback in the NFL, I’m too old, and besides, I have the physical coordination of a great dane on acid. But I can put a disc in my Gamecube and I’m Tom Brady. There are precious few places in the US where I could drive a car at 200 miles an hour, and even if I could afford to get to those places, I can’t afford the car! But thanks to Polyphony Digital and Sony, I can drive a Panoz into a wall, and not lose the rest of my life’s earnings in the process.

Imagine if Sony signed an exclusive deal with Panoz, and then decided to give the GT series to a bunch of amateur developers because they didn’t want to pay Polyphony any more? We’d be left with the choice of a game that bites ass, or no game at all.

I know which choice I’d pick (hint, I don’t like games that suck). I doubt most people would do the same, however. And the end result of this is that EA has no incentive to keep Madden to the standards that they did before, with Visual Concepts, 989, and others nipping at their heels.

Tags: Video Games by Brian Corbino
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Just got ANOTHER call from ANOTHER re-financing company (First Financial, this time). I swear, these people cannot be doing well.

For the record, I do not own a home, nor do I have a mortgage. But I get at LEAST one call a month from one of these twits that begins “Mr. X, our records indicate that you may still have a mortgage on your home at 42 Street Avenue.”

I always tell them they should look into whomever is providing this information, because they are wasting their money.

Just like I get a call every year from TruGreen Chemlawn. And I’m constantly getting calls from home improvement companies. And I tell them over and over again to purge my name from their records, as I do not own the place.

And they keep calling. And keep wasting my time and theirs.

Idiots.

Tags: Randomness by Brian Corbino
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Barbara Boxer cryin on the Senate floor! Wonderful! It’s always nice to see a sore loser cry. If it’s any help, Barb, Michael Moore has ample girth about his shoulders for you to cry upon.

Grow up already. You lost. Ever think that it because Americans don’t like nanny-state socialists like you?

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Ok, so the lefties are arguing that Alberto Gonzales (currently White House Counsel, now nominated for Attorney General) has made the torture of American troops more likely because he concurred with a conclusion reached by DOJ concerning the status of terrorist prisoners?

News Flash: They were torturing American captives in 1991, long before there WAS an Alberto Gonzales looking at legal status of terrorists. Before Abu Ghraib. They cut off Daniel Pearl’s head before we ever invaded Iraq.

In other words, shove your false concern up your collective asses! Our enemies in this fight never played by the rules, and never intend to. Our treatment of their terrorists at all (as opposed to say, shooting them on sight) is not a requirement of Geneva, it is merely a courtesy.

What we have here is a group of concerned leftists alright. Concerned that if Gonzales is allowed to be AG, he might get nominated to the Supreme Court some day, and they cannot allow the one place in which they can exercise power to get any more conservative.

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Since everyone else is getting in on the story, what the hell. I might as well throw in my two cents.

The idiots are in full bloom. I’m not going to link to any of them, because I don’t want them climbing the rankings at Google. You can find them yourselves. It’s come to my attention that Fred Phelps (the one that blames everything on gays) has decided to comment on the tsunami. No doubt he is convinced that it was the hand of God come to smite the sodomites. As if. God don’t do things that small.

The moonbats, predictably, are blaming everything from capitalism, to western civilization, to the SUV (and it’s thirst for oil), to George Bush’s environmental policies. Hell, one moonbat theory even says that we have damaged the “skeleton” of the Earth with all our naught nuke tests, and the poor old gal gan’t take it. Right.

Some people have no sense of perspective.

The deepest oil wells are maybe 3 miles down. The planet is roughly 3900 miles from surface to center. You do the math.

There are two separate problems here. The earthquake/tsunami, and the aftermath. The aftermath was mostly predictable and preventable. Human failings didn’t cause the tsunami, but they caused an awful lot of people to die needlessly. The human tendency to focus on the short term leads to us not coming up with ways to protect ourselves from the next cataclysmic event. We know that earthquakes happen in California and Japan with astonishing regularity, so we build structures to survive them. However, in New England, we haven’t had a major earthquake in centuries. It could happen, but it is considered remote. A 5 or 6 Richter quake would level most of Manhattan. We aren’t prepared for that eventuality. And there’s no way to predict a quake.

But there is a way to predict the aftermath of one. We can detect an earthquake anywhere on the globe within minutes of it happening. It should have been a foregone conclusion that a wall of water was gonna hit something. But a lack of sensors and communications gear led to precisely no warnings being given.

Of course, that’s all moot now. Right now, there are people hurting and suffering. And there are people trying to help. And there are people trying to take credit for that help. Try to be a member of that second group.

Tags: News by Brian Corbino
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I’m late. So sue me.

Was getting lunch on Wednesday (12/29) when I heard the news. Jerry Orbach had died. Prostate cancer. I never knew. Jerry had done many things, but to me, he will always be Detective Lenny Briscoe. Lenny had an edge that you knew could only come from years on the street. And you could always count on Lenny for the good zingers. I was actually saddened by his departure from Law & Order. It felt like a member of my family was leaving, never to return.

And now he’s gone. Another light gone dark.

Rest in peace, Jerry. We will miss you.

Tags: News by Brian Corbino
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