Quotulatiousness

November 5, 2010

His lawyer said “Vakhtang has been under a great deal of stress”

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

One sometimes has sympathy for police officers who may harbour suspicions, but are unable to pursue them for a lack of evidence. When the disappearance of Mariam Makhniashvili came to public attention, I wondered if her father might have been the perpetrator (I’m sure the police had similar thoughts), but there was no reported evidence to support that notion.

Since then, Vakhtang Makhniashvili has been involved in a series of incidents that can only reinforce any suspicions:

Trouble seems to be following Vakhtang: his daughter disappeared in September 2009, he was arrested in May after allegedly stabbing his neighbour and in December 2008, was charged with lewd conduct in Los Angeles related to an alleged obscene incident in front of a daycare centre, but was was later acquitted.

That’s why yesterday’s incident seems, in retrospect, almost inevitable:

[Vakhtang Makhniashvili] has also been charged with aggravated assault and fail to comply with recognizance following a double stabbing in the city’s east end on Thursday.

A man and a woman were stabbed inside a home at 10 Greenwood Ave., near Queen Street East.

On Thursday, blood stains could be seen on the front porch and a trail of blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

Police told 680News Vakhtang was in the couple’s home where a verbal argument took place, and that ended with the pair being stabbed multiple times.

Yes, yes, presumption of innocence, etc. But it’s even harder to believe after all of this that he didn’t have something to do with the Mariam Makhniashvili case, isn’t it?

Monty on the social security Ponzi scheme and Ireland’s coming crisis

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

The always interesting Monty reminds everyone that social security won’t be there when you most need it:

Generational warfare is all but a certainty at this point as the lie that is Social Security festers and grows unchecked. All I can say is: reality will assert itself, sooner or later. Don’t get caught short — save enough of your own money to fund your own retirement, because Uncle Sugar is going to screw you just as surely as the sunrise. Pull quote:

There will be pain. The system will gore a lot of oxen. The obvious victims will be the oldsters who have become dependent on Federal handouts. They are a powerful swing vote today, but they are in the minority. When the majority of working citizens finally perceive that it is an inescapable choice between handouts to oldsters vs. their families’ solvency, they are going to vote away the oldsters’ handouts.

Social Security only survives at the suffrance of the taxpayers who fund it. Pay particular attention to the part where it’s explained in terrifyingly clear detail that it doesn’t matter how much you paid in: you were paying a tax, not a contribution to a savings account. Uncle Sam can legally stiff you at any time.

And on the Irish financial crisis:

That Irish austerity program just went from “painful” to “Oh my God I think I just barfed up a lung”. The problem in Ireland, as in Greece, is that you somehow have to convince your own citizens to accept dire reductions in their own quality-of-life to make sure that (mostly foreign) bondholders don’t have to take a haircut. I suspect that this strategy will fail, and end in default. Which, really, is probably the best course of action for the PIIGS — get off the Euro, go back to the old national currencies, and devalue. Yes, they will be shut out of the credit markets for a while, but not for all that long in relative terms. And the alternative — extreme civil unrest — is worse.

Banned from visiting Afghanistan due to weight

Filed under: Asia, Britain, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:07

John Turner sent me this link, which could be said to point out fitness requirements for lawmakers:

Britain’s defence ministry says two lawmakers from Northern Ireland have been barred from visiting troops in Afghanistan until they can find flak jackets big enough to fit their bellies.

The ministry says Ken Maginnis and David Simpson were scheduled to fly to Kabul this week, but army-issued body armour doesn’t exceed 49 inches (124.5 centimetres), too snug for both.

A ministry spokesman said Thursday the British army offers “a wide range of sizes but, regrettably, none was suitable on this occasion.”

Alternatively, you could just roll ’em up in kevlar carpets, or something . . .

Now the sale of bogus explosive detectors makes more sense

Filed under: Britain, Law, Middle East, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

Remember a couple of items from earlier this year about a British manufacturer being arrested for selling fake bomb detection devices called the ADE-651? These devices were claimed to be so sensitive that they could even “detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills”. I figured that it was all just a kickback scam, but Strategy Page explains how the scam was not only possible but easy:

But it wasn’t just bribes that made the ADE 651 survive over a year of use in Iraq. Arabs, more than many other cultures, believe in magic and conspiracies. After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, many Moslems again blamed Israel. A favorite variation of this is that, before the attacks on the World Trade Center, a secret message went out to all Jews in the area to stay away. Another variation has it that the 19 attackers (all of them Arab, 15 from Saudi Arabia) were really not Arabs, but falsely identified as part of the Israeli deception.

[. . .]

American troops arriving in Iraq go through a real culture shock as they encounter these cultural difference. They also discovered that the cause of this, and many other Arab problems, is the concept of “inshallah” (“If God wills it.”) This is a basic tenet of Islam, although some scholars believe the attitude preceded that religion. In any event, “inshallah” is deadly when combined with modern technology. For this reason, Arab countries either have poorly maintained infrastructure and equipment (including military stuff), or import a lot of foreigners, possessing the right attitudes, to maintain everything. That minority of Arabs who do have the right attitude towards maintenance and personal responsibility are considered odd, but useful.

The “inshallah” thing is made worse by a stronger belief in the supernatural, and magic in general. This often extends to technology. Thus many Iraqis believe that American troops wear sunglasses that see through clothing, and armor vests that are actually air conditioned. When they first encounter these beliefs, U.S. troops think the Arabs are putting them on. Then it sinks in that Arabs really believe this stuff. It’s a scary moment.

However, many troops learn to live with, and even exploit, these odd beliefs. Troops at one base discovered that they weren’t being attacked much, because many of the locals believed that the base was surrounded by a force field, so the troops would casually make reference to their force field, when they were outside the wire and among the locals. This reinforced the force field myth, and made the base safer. Other troops would invent new fantasies, like a pretending that a handheld bit of military electronics was actually a mind reading device. That often made interrogations go a lot quicker. Not all Arabs believe in this stuff, and those that didn’t and worked for the Americans, often as an interpreter, could only shrug their shoulders when asked about it.

November 4, 2010

Uh-oh. This week they both picked Minnesota

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 17:14

“They” being the Two Scotts, of course:

Arizona (plus 9) at Minnesota

Feschuk: Another business-as-usual week for the Vikings, who released their most talented receiver because he didn’t finish his lunch. In other news, I went to a Halloween party last Saturday and at the last minute decided to go as Charlie Sheen’s hotel room. I ripped up some jeans, covered myself in flour (cocaine) and drew a closet door on my shirt pocket, inside which I placed a photograph of a cowering porn star. It came together nicely enough — but that wasn’t my original plan. My intention was to dress as Brad Childress, but the costume store had run out of moustaches and incompetence. Pick: Minnesota.

Reid: It will be interesting to see what fresh bit of shrewd decision-making Brad Childress has planned for this week. Will he hand over a prized draft pick for the rights to Plaxico Burress? Name Adrian Peterson the team’s new place-kicker? Lend money to Randy and Evi Quaid? Of all the people in the NFL having a bad year, Childress deserves to be their Mayor. Even Obama must be thinking: Sucks to be me but at least I’m looking better than that sorry sonofabitch, Chili. He even has to take his marching orders from a guy who sends out pictures of his Jolly Roger. It’s not the most humilating thing in the world. But not everyone can be Charlie Sheen. Pick: Minnesota.

Kevin Seifert offers a “free head exam” to Brad Childress

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:53

Brad Childress, already under fire for his bizarre trade-for-then-release actions with Randy Moss, may be edging closer to unemployment, says ESPN’s Kevin Seifert:

It appears Wilf won’t fire Childress for this incident, but Childress’ future doesn’t look promising. Independent of the Moss debacle, he has presided over one of the NFL’s biggest disappointments this season. Wilf is paying out one of the league’s highest payrolls and has two victories in seven games to show for it. So in an extended Free Head Exam format, let’s look at three issues surrounding Childress that merit further examination:

1. Childress has demonstrated what we’ll kindly call a unique relationship with the truth, at least when speaking publicly. All NFL coaches protect information for competitive purposes, but increasingly over time, Childress has clumsily expressed falsehoods that call into question the credibility of most everything he says.

[. . .]

2. I have never been a fan of committee leadership structures in the NFL, but Wilf believes strongly in his and demands that his front office work together to make football decisions. Childress is expected to work hand-in-hand with Rick Spielman, the vice president of player personnel, and Rob Brzezinski, the vice president of football operations. Wilf positions himself to settle any disagreements.

Childress has now run astray of that structure at least twice, and he has on multiple occasions noted that his contract calls for him to have final say over the 53-man roster. His personal relationship with Spielman and Brzezinski is probably irrelevant, but I would suggest that Childress has positioned himself on an island within the front office and would have few allies defending him internally if Wilf considered a coaching change.

[. . .]

3. Childress has done a fine job hiring defensive coordinators during his tenure, starting with Mike Tomlin and continuing with Leslie Frazier. So we note with some irony that Frazier’s presence provides Wilf a legitimate option for an in-season change, one that wouldn’t be realistic with a less established or experienced coordinator.

If there were ever a coordinator capable of taking over a team in November, it’s Frazier. He’s among the NFL’s most prepared men for the job, and Vikings players on both sides of the ball respect him. The potential for disruption would be minimal.

Seifert always seemed a calm and level-headed writer, both when he was with the Star Tribune and now with ESPN. The tone of this article is scathing . . . I can’t recall reading anything Seifert has written that expresses so much barely concealed dislike for the subject.

Chutzpah, or the new Cook’s Source plagiarism service now open

Filed under: Food, Law, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:19

Did you know that the internet is not public domain? The editors at Cook’s Source apparently thought it was, because they printed an article without the permission of the original author, and then told her that she should be happy they didn’t bill her for editing it. (It’s an article on medieval cooking, with original spelling preserved from the source texts: of course it would look weird to a modern eye.)

The exchanges between the original author and the editor make for amusing reading:

After the first couple of emails, the editor of Cooks Source asked me what I wanted — I responded that I wanted an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine and $130 donation (which turns out to be about $0.10 per word of the original article) to be given to the Columbia School of Journalism.

What I got instead was this (I am just quoting a piece of it here:)

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

H/T to John Scalzi for the link.

The continuing dramedy of the A400M

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Europe, Germany, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Remember when the opposition were up in arms that Canada wasn’t going to be buying the new A400M for the Canadian Forces? That decision is looking better and better:

Germany has cut its order for A400M transports from 60 to 57. This was in response to demands from the manufacturer for more money. This is not a new problem, but for those who have already ordered the A400M, it’s getting old. The new European military transport, the A400M, is already three years late and billions of dollars over budget. Those who have already placed orders (for 180 aircraft) have been told that the price they thought they were going to pay ($161 million per aircraft) will go up twenty percent. In response, some major buyers said they were considering cancelling their orders. In turn, the manufacturer said that such actions would force the cancellation of the project. With the German reduction of its order, it looks like the A400M will be getting more expensive, to the point where it will be twice what the new C-130J costs. The A400M made its first flight 11 months ago.

[. . .]

During the Cold War, such air transports were very low priority in Europe, because if there was a war, the mighty Red Army of the Soviet Union was going to home deliver it. But now all the action is far away, and the military needs air freight for emergencies and other urgent missions. For that reason, the Russian An-124s get a lot of work from NATO nations. This aircraft can carry up to 130 tons of cargo, as well as outsized and extremely large cargo. The more numerous American C-17 can only carry up to 84 tons, while the new A400M can lift a maximum of 40 tons. The advantage of the two smaller airlifters is the ability to operate from shorter unpaved runways, which makes them less dependable on existing infrastructure. Russia has put the An-124 back into production, partly because of the delays in the A400M project.

Globe editorial: “Mr. Clement has much to explain”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:56

I keep wondering if there are any actual conservatives left in Stephen Harper’s merry band of economic nationalists:

Tony Clement, the federal Minister of Industry, has much to explain after his laconic rejection of BHP Billiton Ltd.’s application for permission to proceed with its offer to buy Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.

Canadians and investors around the world — not least Potash Corp.’s own shareholders — are entitled to learn what Mr. Clement thinks is the meaning of “net benefit” to Canada, in the words of the Investment Canada Act. Evidently, in his and his colleagues’ minds, free markets and the free flow of investment are not sufficient.

Canada, as an exporting nation, has far more to lose by kicking off this kind of protectionist move than any imaginable gains. We might as well write off any economic growth from exports if this is the new modus operandi of the federal government.

Something I’m adding to my Christmas list

Filed under: Books, Humour, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:40

H.L. Mencken was a literary giant in the 1920s and into the 1930s, but fell from the pinnacle of popularity as the Great Depression hit. His consistent opposition to FDR and the New Deal moved him further and further away from the limelight, and his outspoken opposition to the war rendered him all but unpublishable from 1941 until his death. A large collection of his shorter works from 1914 through 1927 were published in Prejudices, running to six volumes.

The books are back in print, in two large volumes, through Library of America. An excerpt from the New York Review of Books just starts to get interesting before the cut-off for non-subscribers:

The material that H.L. Mencken published in a series of six volumes under the title Prejudices was a collection of his journalism written between 1914 and the late 1920s. Most of it, he told a good friend on publication of the first volume in 1919, was “light stuff” with an occasional “blast from the lower woodwind” that would “outrage the umbilicari, if that is the way to spell it.” Such books, he added, were “mere stinkpots, heaved occasionally to keep the animals perturbed.”

Most of the pieces in the first volume — or “series,” as it was called — had originally appeared in The Smart Set, the magazine he had edited since 1914, but they also included articles published in newspapers, as well as material written especially for the book. A painstaking editor of his own work, Mencken also did a good bit of rewriting; stinkpot or not, this was not to be a quick harum-scarum hustling of secondhand goods but a high-quality piece of prose from a master.

Its commercial success surprised him as well as his friend and publisher, Alfred Knopf, who seemed to realize for the first time that Mencken had a promising future, or, as he expressed it to his author, “that H.L. Mencken has become a good property.” The book was quickly followed by Prejudices: Series Two, Series Three, and so on to a final Series Six in 1927, by which time Mencken had developed from a good property into the most exciting literary figure in the country.

H/T to Mark at Unambiguously Ambidexterous for the link.

November 3, 2010

Will it really be a big change in Washington?

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:36

Maybe US politics have become “post-racial” after all

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

One of the worries before the US midterm elections (aside from the Democrat fears of a Republican “tidal wave”) was that the number of female elected representatives would drop. That may have happened, but the unexpected result is an increase in the number of minority candidates elected:

The Republican wave produced groundbreaking results for minority candidates, from Latina and Indian-American governors to a pair of black congressmen from the Deep South.

In New Mexico, Susana Martinez was elected as the nation’s first female Hispanic governor. Nikki Haley, whose parents were born in India, will be the first woman governor in South Carolina, and Brian Sandoval became Nevada’s first Hispanic governor.

Insurance company owner Tim Scott will be the first black Republican congressman from South Carolina since Reconstruction, after easily winning in his conservative district. Scott, a 45-year-old state representative, earned a primary victory over the son of the one-time segregationist U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond.

In Florida, veteran Allen West ousted a two-term Democrat to a House seat. He is the first black Republican elected to Congress from Florida since a former slave served two terms in the 1870s.

The last black Republican in Congress was J.C. Watts of Oklahoma. He left office in 2003. There were 42 black Democrats in Congress this term.

Liberty: consistency matters

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

James Delingpole, after suddenly discovering a man-crush on Marco Rubio, outlines how the Tea Party can still succeed:

[. . .] I’d suggest that the key lesson of yesterday’s mid-terms is this: it is simply not enough to stick a Tea Party label on any old candidate and hope that the US electorate’s growing antipathy towards Big Government will take care of the rest. Christine O’Donnell was more than proof enough of that. Not only did her candidacy allow the liberal MSM to tar the entire Tea Party movement as the natural home of anti-masturbation ex-witches and other fruit loops. But it demonstrated a worrying complacency and ignorance within the Tea Party movement about what it stands for and what it ought to stand for.

Christine O’Donnell puzzled me . . . if she’d actually been a witch, then her anti-masturbation activities made no sense. I’ve met lots of witches, and it’s hard to imagine any of them being anti-sexual in that kind of dogmatic manner. I didn’t follow the story, but I assume that she lost on the basis of both accusations influencing different voting groups.

So, if O’Donnell and other marginal candidates can’t depend on just wearing the “Tea Party” label to get elected, what do they need to do?

The Tea Party does not stand for: banning lesbian or sexually active single women from teaching at schools; discouraging onanism; banning abortion; keeping drugs illegal; God; organised religion generally; guns; or, indeed, Sarah Palin.

The Tea Party stands, very simply, for small government. So long as it understands this, a presidential victory in 2012 is guaranteed. If it forgets this — or doesn’t understand it in the first place — then hello, a second term for President Obama, and bye bye Western Civilisation.

In other words, Delingpole is calling for the Tea Party to be true to a minarchist vision: the least possible government to get the job done.

If you are against Big Government, you are for liberty. If you are for liberty you are also for free citizens’ right to choose whether or not they get out of their trees on cannabis, or indeed whether or not they have the freedom to terminate unwanted pregnancies or never, ever, go to church and in fact worship Satan instead.

Liberty is not a pick and mix free-for-all in which you think government should ban the things you don’t like and encourage you things you do like: that’s how Libtards think. Libertarianism — and the Tea Party is nothing if its principles are not, at root, libertarian ones — is about recognising that having to put up with behaviour you don’t necessarily disapprove of is a far lesser evil than having the government messily and expensively intervene to regulate it.

Monty: The flushing sound you just heard is California’s future

Filed under: Economics, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:57

Monty pronounces the final doom of California:

That sound you just heard was the State of California irretrievably flushing itself down the toilet.

[. . .]

California’s most dire problems right now are related to public-employee obligations (pensions and healthcare). The power of public-employee unions in California have held the State and local governments in thrall for years, and with the election of Jerry Brown as Governor, the people of California have opted to spray kerosene on a blaze that was already threatening to overwhelm them.

[. . .]

Well, the die has been cast, California. You have placed your fate into the hands of a political party and a governmental machine that cares for nothing except what it can squeeze out of you to keep the party-train rolling. There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when you will have cause to bitterly regret what happened last night, and to wonder when the disaster truly became unavoidable. Well, now you know: it happened last night when you elected Jerry Brown as your governor. You chose to kowtow to the labor unions; you chose to believe comforting lies rather than the horrible truth.

You will reap the whirlwind.

Update: A couple of Twitter updates from Iowahawk sum things up nicely.

10:28: Boxer, Brown, no on Prop 19: congrats, California. You have officially gone Full Retard.

11:05: And as if California wasn’t already full of idiots, lunatics, and drug abusers, I’m flying there this afternoon.

November 2, 2010

James Delingpole: “Thank God for the Tea Party!”

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

James Delingpole clearly wishes he could vote in today’s American elections:

Arriving back at Heathrow late on Sunday night I felt — as you do on returning to Britain these days — as if I were entering a failed state. It’s not just the Third World shabbiness which is so dispiriting. It’s the knowledge that from its surveillance cameras to its tax regime, from its (mostly) EU-inspired regulations to its whole attitude to the role of government, Britain is a country which has forgotten what it means to be free.

God how I wish I were American right now. In the US they may not have the Cairngorms, the River Wye, cream teas, University Challenge, Cotswold villages or decent curries. But they do still understand the principles of “don’t tread on me” and “live free or die.” Not all of them, obviously — otherwise a socialist like Barack Obama would never have got into power. But enough of them to understand that in the last 80 or more years — and not just in the US but throughout the Western world — government has forgotten its purpose. It has now grown so arrogant and swollen as to believe its job is to shape and improve and generally interfere with our lives. And it’s not. Government’s job is to act as our humble servant.

What’s terrifying is how few of us there are left anywhere in the supposedly free world who properly appreciate this. Sure, we may feel in our hearts that — as Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe put it in their Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party manifesto — “We just want to be free. Free to lead our lives as we please, so long as we do not infringe on the same freedom of others”. And we may even confide it to our friends after a few drinks. But look at Australia; look at Canada; look at New Zealand; look at anywhere in the EUSSR; look at America — at least until things begin to be improved by today’s glorious revolution. Wherever you go, even if it’s somewhere run by a notionally “conservative” administration, the malaise you will encounter is much the same: a system of governance predicated on the notion that the state’s function is not merely to uphold property rights, maintain equality before the law and defend borders, but perpetually to meddle with its citizens’ lives in order supposedly to make their existence more fair, more safe, more eco-friendly, more healthy. And always the result is the same: more taxation, more regulation, less freedom. Less “fairness” too, of course.

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