Those bastard vampires, at it again

Guess what? Some Turkish vampires have apparently figured out how to make a spray-on UV-resistant film.

Yeah, guess what else?  It blocks bacterial infection and would make almost all household cleansing products obsolete.  Yeah, so not only are we about to get it from the Vampires, but when Martians Attack, you know we’re really f*cked.

On the other hand, my shower and bathroom will never smell like mildew or need to be scrubbed with cleanser again?

Could be worth it, if the Vampires will accept my blood in installments…

“Fox on the Rhine” review

Fox on the Rhine, Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson

So, as the back cover says, what if Molotov and Ribbentrop actually got a peace treaty done in ‘44?

What if the Nazis got their “screaming Mimis” deployed effectively?  And, what if Rommel was deployed to the European theatre, rather than executed?

Would that have sucked for the U.S.?  Well, yes, it would have.  The basic concept is that Operation Valkyrie is a success, but that the conspirators are unable to keep Himmler from sliding into absolute power.  Then, things happen.

The downside to this, aside from the writing, which is uneven (one of these two authors is clearly a better writer than the other), is that it tends to be a cheer-fest for Rommel that essentially depends on the U.S. acting fairly stupidly.

A note on that — for some reason, it’s popular to present Rommel as a soldier’s soldier who could make things happen and also stand up to the Reich.  Problem being, Rommel never stood up to the Reich, in any way, shape, or form.  While not even vaguely the worst man in Nazi Germany, it seems to be popular to try to make him into a better man than he actually was… particularly now that we know that the Wehrmacht was every bit as implicated in the Holocaust as the SS.

The rest of the book essentially sets up revolvers on the mantlepiece, more or less completely destroying any suspense.  The book frequently pops over to letters and historical book accounts, which is a neat gimmick, but serves to defuse the tension at precisely the wrong times, including such forehead-slappers as “Halsey’s going to take the Fleet through the Panama Canal to Europe?  WHAT???”  Okay, let’s say they do that.  Then you have the Jewish guy who’s sabotaging the jet engines — essentially creating a Deus Ex Macchina, and telling you it’s coming two hundred pages in advance.  The ending is also rushed, and badly so, with numerous statements that don’t make a whole lot of sense, such as the surrendering Germans helping the US across the Rhine.

But most damning is that the entire setup for what Rommel supposedly could have achieved is predicated upon the US more or less acting in such a way as to invite it, and in a counter-historical manner.  The US could have done fast, deep drives into france after Normandy — generally speaking, they didn’t, precisely because they were wary of the Germans throwing a counter-attack designed to encircle and cut off said lead groups.

So, what are we left with?  A decent bath-tub Patton vs. Rommel read that takes a couple interesting historical ideas, has decently-written combat scenes (though my Redleg Buddy will note that the artillery is almost completely devalued in the text, as one would expect from a book focusing on the Cav), and some real “OMG did they just write that?”

Amazingly, I agree with Ms. Napolitano

Drudge has a great big freak-out line while linking to a Yahoo News article about the installation of millimeter-wave scanners at airports.

I’m of two minds here.  First, it won’t stop several forms of explosives that can be smuggled in via carry-ons.  But second, it will absolutely shut down 99.44% of all the effective weapons which a passenger could bring onto a plane on his person and concealed underneath clothing (and I say this as a guy who’s reasonably handy with improvised stuff).

So while I’d prefer a better solution for baggage and carry-ons, I’m absolutely in favor of replacing the currently-ineffective scanners, which won’t stop a sophisticated attacker short of having everybody strip down to their underwear anyway.  It is a better and more elegant solution, in spite of the outside possibility that some bored guy might enjoy looking at electronic representations of thousands upon thousands of fat people walking through scanners every day.

Vat Meat

Another way that Vat Meat will change our lives is the death of the leather industry as we know it.  Leather is currently a throw-away product of beef production:  hide producers are paid a pittance per hide, b/c it’s ubiquitous.

That changes dramatically once ranching becomes rare, and you’re either doing without leather, or else growing animals specifically for their skins.  Game-hides will go from “pick them up by the score from your local processor” to the most valuable asset the processor produces.

And that old leather coat’s going to start being worth BUXX.

Unless they actually decide to start vat-growing leather.  But why bother, when naugas are so cheap, and eat so little?

I can answer that in a heartbeat

Why were parents so awesome before they became parents?

Well, in my specific example, with a new kiddo, I’d have to call 2009 “the year of not sleeping.”  I’ve been a zombie for 8 months now, achieving nothing of any meaning or import whatsoever except making sure that Squirmy Wigglebutt doesn’t suffer malnutrition or fall on her head.

Next semester, I teach afternoons/evenings.  I’ll miss “evening come-home,” but Mr. Night Shift will actually start getting 35-40 hours of sleep per week.  I can’t WAIT.

In case you live under a rock or actually get your news from television…

Not that there’s a lot of difference, lately…

Why have newspaper circulations been dropping?  Oh, no reason….

Texans! Go vote on November 3rd: important stuff on the ballot.

There are 11 propositions on the ballot.  I oppose #7, which allows members of the State militia, etcetera, to hold other civil offices — there are other measures which are less pro-graft (given that Guard units are generally hag-ridden by local politicians already, #7 is a baaaaad move), and more pro-veteran that are deserving and you might look at.

However, three propositions in specific affect almost every citizen in the State, are overdue, and are greatly deserving of passage:

Prop 2:  “The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the ad valorem taxation of a residence homestead solely on the basis of the property’s value as a residence homestead.”

Not an issue for a lot of people, but critical for others:  this is a protection against citizens being screwed by the decision of a local and largely-unaccountable city planner, who currently can simply cherry-pick the highest tax value, and go from there.  This proposition is directly to counter abuse by the State and its Officers.

Prop 3.  “The constitutional amendment providing for uniform standards and procedures for the appraisal of property for ad-valorem tax purposes.”

Tired of your local city consistently appraising your house at 30k more than it’s actually worth?  This is the beginning of getting that practice nuked.  Vote for it.

Prop 11:  THE BIGGIE

“The constitutional amendment to prohibit the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property for public use unless the action is for the ownership, use, and enjoyment of the property by the State, a political subdivision of the State, the public at large, or entities granted the power of eminent domain under law or for the elimination of public blight on a particular parcel of property, but not for certain economic development or enhancement of tax revenue purposes, and to limit the legislature’s authority to grant the power of eminent domain to an entity.”

This is critical.  These off elections have low turnouts, and the prevention of eminent-domain abuse (which, it may surprise you, is rampant in Texas) needs to be brought to the politicians’ attention as an issue the citizenry cares about.  If they see a high turnout and overwhelming votes on this matter, they WILL sit up and pay attention.  If this passes over unnoticed like a fart in a hurricane, the developers who’ve been misusing the government to rob people legally will also sit up and take notice.

A 9/11 lament

… that we’ve learned almost nothing.  The same partisan political paralysis that had folks using the threat of terrorism is still endemic, while whose who would like to actually solve problems have about as much power as the stereotypical Iranian Moderates.

Truthers to the left of me, Birthers to the right….

Bang! Flu!

Wife just came down with the flu.

No, not a bug.  The actual flu.  Poor gal’s been sick or otherwise out of it for nearly a month solid. 

::Goes off to prep the water crackers, etc.::

Why FEDEX rocks

There’s a district sales manager somewhere working for Fedex (I know where, but I’ll let that sit) with a serious heart problem, hospitalized, and they want to fly the dude up to the Mayo Clinic to save his life.

The insurance guys (I know who these people are, too, but they have lawyers, so I ain’t sayin’ ) keep dragging their feet and basically saying “why are you guys wanting to bother with this?”

So as this rolled up the pipe, before it even made the upper-executive level, they decided they’re going to use their CORPORATE JET to save this man’s life.

THAT

is why Fedex rocks:  they know that people come first.  This is the company where the executives cut their own pay rather than lay people off.

When I worked for Bank of America, if I’d had a problem like this, they’d have already been hiring my replacement by now.  Because who comes first at Bank of America?  Upper-level executives do, and those guys and gals could give two shits for the people who work for them.  The same goes with a significant number of companies I temped for, where it was obvious that anybody who wasn’t within four rungs of the top job was simply a widget to be used and replaced at will.

I don’t work for these guys:  I’m a history professor.  But I would in a heartbeat if they decided they needed my skills, and I’d do so proudly.

Celebrity Death Watch, August 09 edition

I don’t get the celebrity-worship part of this whole Ted Kennedy circus, myself.

If I’m lucky, maybe a dozen people are going to give a rat’s ass when I croak — so why are we all supposed to be manufacturing a bunch of emotion for some dude 99.44% of us have never met, and who’s known even amongst his political allies as much for his abuse of employees and drunken molestation of powerless women as he was for passing legislation?  The dude’s family got its money doing the 1930s equivalent of dealing crack.  The dude himself was infamous for being exactly the kind of heartless solipsistic rich bastard that every liberal in America claims to hate, and his personal life sounds like a recipe for How to Go To Hell.

And we’re supposed to care that this guy is gone?
::shrugs:: I just don’t get it.

Military Integration

Hat Tip:  Andrew Sullivan

Great article for those of us not in a position to actually observe — necessity begets change.

Waiting for the necessity that’ll allow my buds who are gay to get married (if they want to), and for various ethnic and religious groups to stop giving each other funny looks all day… do we need an alien invasion, maybe?  Zombies?

Attended the 2009 Chicano Activist Convention

There was an important session at the conference on academic diversity that I very much wanted to attend in order to listen to folks.

But what I found to be instructive is the degree to which the Democrats are (ab)using the Chicano vote the same way Republicans do the small-government voters (and then the so-called “conservative” shitheads get all in my face about how wanting less in the way of entitlement spending somehow makes me and my political peers fundamentally immoral, but I digress).

Several chicana activists were deeply upset about Republicans moving to make sure that illegal immigrants wouldn’t get any health care under the new bill.  And that’s fair game politically — the actual research shows that lots of illegals do pay into the system, and imho thereby should qualify on equity grounds.  I’m both libertarian-leaning and historically literate, and don’t approve of the drenchingly racist history of immigration control anyway.  (But I digress again.)

What the chicanas in question were missing is that the current bill has no healthcare provisions for illegals, because the Democrats who write the legislation have steadfastly refused to put it there.  And guess what?  It’s not the Blue Dogs who are in the senior leadership positions writing this legislation — it’s the Progressive wing of the Democrats, doing exactly what the Republicans do whenever their constituents gripe about pork.  That is, they talk out of both sides of their mouths, and openly betray their constituents while promising them the moon.

Man, and I thought us small-l libertarians were getting hosed…

I could be justifiably derided as a rube for lamenting the lack of honest politicians… but it’s sad to see people, no matter what their political stripes, being so openly played by their representatives, and on an issue where the bastards are playing so hypocritically with basic human sympathy.  It’s one thing to say “these folks shouldn’t be here and we should follow the law.”  It’s another to give the other side of the argument and promise to help somebody’s 80-something grandmother get some access to basic preventative medical care (since illegals by definition don’t get Medicare/Medicaid) while she gets by selling bottled water at construction sites… and then turn said grandmother’s family into “useful idiots” while purposefully screwing them over.

Death of bipartisanship

While I disagree wildly on the assessment (the article being openly and myopically partisan, neglecting to mention that several of the failed reform attempts would have criminalized basic health-care practices), I agree that bipartisanship is a disaster.  Americans need actual choices, and politicians shouldn’t be afraid to stake them out and stand (or fall) by them.

I have an alternate theory…

it’s called “people don’t listen for shit.”