Protection money for Columbian terrorists: 1.7 million dollars. Paying off the U.S. Justice Department: 25 million dollars.
Being sued by the relatives of 144 victims of the terrorists you paid: Priceless.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Death Squads Are Bananas! Be Ay En Ay En Ay Ess!
Protection money for Columbian terrorists: 1.7 million dollars. Paying off the U.S. Justice Department: 25 million dollars.
Being sued by the relatives of 144 victims of the terrorists you paid: Priceless.
I'm Sorry, The Brain You Have Dialed Cannot Be Reached Right Now...
I'm suffering from a severe case of Total Spontaneous Brain Failure. I'll be more entertaining as soon as I get this issue sent off to the printer. Until then, here are some pictures of monkeys.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Buh-nie!
Here's the thing: I don't like gardening. I do like having bunnies in my yard.
My neighbors may hate them, but the hippity-hoppity little buggers can claim sanctuary in my yard whenever they want.
I'm Deadspot, and I support this message.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Bureaucracy FTW!
The kangaroo courts are in trouble. The last incarnation of the unconstitutional tribunals declared the detainees were "enemy combatants," but the legislation authorizing the new incarnation of the sham courts only allows for trial of "unlawful enemy combatants". A military judge has now ruled that an "enemy combatant" is not the same thing as an "unlawful enemy combatant," and tossed out the government's charges in two separate cases.
That missing "unlawful" in the description does not appear for any of the 380 detainees, meaning that cases against all of them can be thrown out on the same grounds. Of course, as bureaucracy giveth, so it taketh away. If the government holds an administrative hearing to change the status to add the missing "unlawful", it can refile the charges.
The government has 72 hours to appeal the decision. However, it turns out that they have not yet bothered to even set up the appeals court (the military commissions review) for this process. If they choose to file an appeal, they'll find that court to which they must appeal doesn't actually exist. I would imagine that this whole "failure to exist" thing may cause some problems for them.
Still, given their ability to find nonexistent voters in the last election, filing briefs with a nonexistent court should be a walk in the park... a nonexistent park.
That missing "unlawful" in the description does not appear for any of the 380 detainees, meaning that cases against all of them can be thrown out on the same grounds. Of course, as bureaucracy giveth, so it taketh away. If the government holds an administrative hearing to change the status to add the missing "unlawful", it can refile the charges.
The government has 72 hours to appeal the decision. However, it turns out that they have not yet bothered to even set up the appeals court (the military commissions review) for this process. If they choose to file an appeal, they'll find that court to which they must appeal doesn't actually exist. I would imagine that this whole "failure to exist" thing may cause some problems for them.
Still, given their ability to find nonexistent voters in the last election, filing briefs with a nonexistent court should be a walk in the park... a nonexistent park.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
How's That Surge Working Out For Us?
How do the Republicans think we can control all of Iraq when we can't even control Baghdad? We now control less than a third of the city. As I see it, that makes the insurgency and the militias more than twice as effective as we are.
You think it's bad now? Don't forget, once the Brits pull out of the south, our supply lines from Kuwait will be completely exposed. Running supply convoys through there is going to look like something out of the Road Warrior. It's only a matter of time until we'll have to airlift supplies into Baghdad. If you hurry, you may still be able to find some veterans of Stalingrad to ask how that will turn out.
Control Iraq... hell, we can't even control the Green Zone. Remember when they walked in and bombed the Iraqi Parliament while they were having lunch? What will it take for them to admit that this was a failure? It's hard to come up with a set of victory criteria that include transitioning from control of the whole country to being penned into a third of the capital.
If only someone could have predicted that this was a bad idea before we invaded... Oh wait, I did.
You think it's bad now? Don't forget, once the Brits pull out of the south, our supply lines from Kuwait will be completely exposed. Running supply convoys through there is going to look like something out of the Road Warrior. It's only a matter of time until we'll have to airlift supplies into Baghdad. If you hurry, you may still be able to find some veterans of Stalingrad to ask how that will turn out.
Control Iraq... hell, we can't even control the Green Zone. Remember when they walked in and bombed the Iraqi Parliament while they were having lunch? What will it take for them to admit that this was a failure? It's hard to come up with a set of victory criteria that include transitioning from control of the whole country to being penned into a third of the capital.
If only someone could have predicted that this was a bad idea before we invaded... Oh wait, I did.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Veddy Interesting
Sony has announced that it will be lowering the price of its Blu-Ray players again, driven by high demand and lower production costs. The recent cut took $100 off the cost of the players, bringing them down to about half the cost at launch, 6 months ago.
Fabulous. Go, Sony, go.
Now, to frame it in terms that I give a rat's ass about, what does this mean for the cost of the PS3? The PS3 is so ridiculously expensive compared to other nextgen gaming systems because Sony used it to leverage their position in the battle over the next DVD format. By building a Blu-Ray player into every PS3, they were able to increase the number of households that have adopted Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. However, the increased expense slowed adoption of the PS3.
The justification for the higher price on the PS3 was the expense of including a Blu-Ray player. If those now cost half what they did 6 months ago, when will we see a corresponding drop in PS3 prices? This would be a huge benefit to Sony, so I can't imagine that they will delay it any longer than necessary. The higher price has been the single biggest complaint about the new system, and if Sony wants to maintain their dominance of the gaming market, they have to do something about it sooner rather than later.
Fabulous. Go, Sony, go.
Now, to frame it in terms that I give a rat's ass about, what does this mean for the cost of the PS3? The PS3 is so ridiculously expensive compared to other nextgen gaming systems because Sony used it to leverage their position in the battle over the next DVD format. By building a Blu-Ray player into every PS3, they were able to increase the number of households that have adopted Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. However, the increased expense slowed adoption of the PS3.
The justification for the higher price on the PS3 was the expense of including a Blu-Ray player. If those now cost half what they did 6 months ago, when will we see a corresponding drop in PS3 prices? This would be a huge benefit to Sony, so I can't imagine that they will delay it any longer than necessary. The higher price has been the single biggest complaint about the new system, and if Sony wants to maintain their dominance of the gaming market, they have to do something about it sooner rather than later.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Big In Japan
New from the folks that brought you Godzilla and instant ramen in a cup: a pillow that won't betray you. You know, in case worrying about pillow betrayal is something that keeps you awake at night.
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