Innocent Bystanders

Mitt Romney vs. Jeb Bush January 31, 2015

Unlike DrewM at AoSHQ, I was not doing the happy dance when Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. Romney may not have been a conservative’s conservative, but I thought he was a much better choice than John McCain or Jeb Bush. A good and decent man, with a huge and relevant background in management and leadership.

They’re rare in politics.

Today the NYT tells us that Mitt didn’t drop out on his own. No, he was driven out by a cabal of high-powered investors who preferred Jeb Bush:

The campaign to deny Mr. Romney another chance began almost immediately after he mused to donors at a Friday get-together in New York City on Jan. 9 that he was open to the possibility of another run. By that Sunday afternoon, William Oberndorf, a prominent California investor who supported Mr. Romney in both of his previous presidential campaigns, had emailed a group of 52 powerful Republicans, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, the investor Charles Schwab, Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois and the Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos with a blunt message: we need to support someone else.

Mr. Oberndorf wrote: “We are fortunate in Jeb Bush to have an extremely talented and able candidate who, I believe, has a far better prospect of winning a general election than Mitt. Moreover, Mitt has now run twice and has had his chance to be president. It is now time to cede the field to others.”

Well, that’s nice, Mr. Oberndorf. But let me just say this: a 3rd Bush in the White House is a non-starter for me. I don’t know where my vote will go, but it won’t be going to the GOP if they run Jeb Bush.

…and Cough, I Presume January 31, 2015

Screencap from Drudge.

Art January 19, 2015

This one will be number thirteen.  It’s starting out conventional (albeit very small), but I’m going to try something at the end that will either look really, cool, or else totally ruin it.

Caption

A Few Words Concerning Our Departed Founder January 18, 2015

[This is not a eulogy – it’s more of a look back at Michael’s history at IB. I didn’t want to write a eulogy, because I suck at them. Turns out I suck at histories too. But I just couldn’t not write something.]

First, let me say that Michael’s service will be held on the 24th. Donations for flowers may be sent to DinTX via PayPal at his gmail account, which uses “goober” concatenated with “inTexas” as his user name. If those instructions are too obscure, you may object to the management (such as it is) in the comments. Any excess $$ will be donated to a Lutheran charity.

Second, let me say that this blog was started as a kind of joke back on March 29, 2006. We had all been hanging out at Ace of Spades HQ for several years, when WordPress and BlogSpot emerged as easy ways to create blogs. Brewfan Retired Geezer decided that Michael needed a blog, and so here we are.

Anyway, this is the first post by Michael.

Brewfan and skinbad are now both authorized  to comment on the main page of this site.  (This is not a real blog, and we are not bloggers, OK?  We are commenters.)

How I ended up sharing a site with a Calvinist and a Mormon is beyond me.  My Lutheran preacher daddy is spinning in his grave.

If any other veterans of BlogWisconsin would like to post here, feel free to send me an email.  You need to set up a WordPress account and activate it by entering a password.  All I need to know is your UserID (which is case sensitive).

Or, if you’re Civetta, you may submit the 13-page application form, along with notarized affidavits from three community leaders attesting to your high moral standards and virtuous character.

New blog name will be forthcoming in a few days when Brew, skinny and I have a chance to discuss it.  Thanks for all the great suggestions.

And now, a poignant moment:

Minerva: “Register for both yourself and your son.”

-Uncomfortable pause-

Batman: “Although I’d be proud if he were, this is not my son, this is Robin the Boy Wonder.”

That always chokes me up.

Though it started as a joke, Michael took to blogging like a peeper to a window, and he quickly created a formula for success: Lots of graphics (all centered, of course), lots of humor, lively conversation (he tried to make sure that every comment was answered by somebody), and promotion of key posts. It worked really, really well until he stopped blogging a couple of years ago.

Here are his top 10 posts, which I think typify his style. I’ll also mention that only one of my 800 posts on this blog has enough hits to break into Michael’s top 10. Do you know how humiliating it is getting your butt kicked by a 7-year-old picture of an fricking shark? Michael thought his hit stats were hilarious, especially when compared to all my unemployment posts. I’ll bet he’s laughing right now at how his knock-off gummi bear post has twice the hits of anything I’ve ever written. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Unfairness of life and blogging aside, I really miss Michael’s wit and intelligence – he imprinted his personality upon this blog and made it the success it once was. Without him, the blog withered and many readers wandered off. I fear for its future, but I’ll tell you this: I don’t know about my cobloggers, but I’m committed to write posts until the end of the blog’s 9th year. I think Michael deserves it.

After that, we’ll see.

If You Felt Like Internet Porn Just Wasn’t Enough… January 17, 2015

Let’s just jump right in:

…I’m transported into an orgy, where people are having sex all around me on a sun-dappled roof deck. I almost gasp when I turn my head to see a couple going at it, thrusting just a few inches away from my head.

I’m not witnessing this lurid scene IRL. I’m on an Oculus Rift VR headset at XBiz 360, a sex and technology conference in Los Angeles. The virtual sex show is the brainchild of RedLightCenter, a company that takes the idea of an X-rated virtual world and creates a full immersive experience for the user.

Ummm, by “immersive” do you mean…..

But Shuster doesn’t want to give porn consumers to imagine they’re having sex in a virtual-reality sex world. He wants to give them the opportunity to feel like they’re having sex as well.
…
One option is a Fleshlight attachment called VSTROKER that controls a Shock Spot sex machine, a motorized contraption that calls itself the “Rolls-Royce of f*** machines.”
…
However, that technology doesn’t allow the star on the other end to send pleasure back to the viewer. Enter Kiiroo, a teledildonics company that has pioneered a connected sexual experience thanks to capacitive touch.

There are more sordid details at the link, and they are fairly sordid. And yes, there’s a female version as well.

I thought the IB gents had already trademarked “the Rolls-Royce(s) of f*** machines,” but I guess that one got snaked out from under us.

Actual philosophical-type thoughts on this below the fold:

(more…)

If You Thought Charlie Hebdo Couldn’t Happen Here… January 16, 2015

This happened 13 miles from me:

Two men have been arrested and charged in what Boulder police said was a bias-motivated assault against a Jewish man at a bar on the Pearl Street Mall last month.

According to police a 22-year-old man said he was at the Sundown Saloon, 1136 Pearl St., at 12:30 a.m. Dec. 19 when three males approached him and told him to remove his yarmulke, a skullcap traditionally worn by Jewish men.

The man refused to remove the yarmulke, stating that he was Jewish.

One of the three men then struck the victim in the side of his head with a glass, shattering the glass and knocking the victim down. A second man then kicked the victim after he fell down. The victim was taken to a local hospital with a laceration to his head that required 20 stitches.

And what, you may ask, were the names of the two gentlemen who inflicted these injuries?

Bryan Jamsheed Tayefeh
Yotam Monjack

ROPMA

Being a New Yorker Apparently Trumps Being a US Citizen January 14, 2015

From CNS News:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said on Monday that giving identification cards to illegal aliens allows them to feel like citizens and enjoy some of the same benefits as actual citizens.

“We don’t want any of our fellow New Yorkers to feel like second-class citizens,” de Blasio was quoted as saying in a National Public Radio website article.

On this, de Blasio and I agree: I don’t want them feeling like second-class citizens either.

I don’t want illegal residents to feel like citizens at all.

Exports, Jan 2015 January 13, 2015

I’m just a caveman, and President Obama’s economic policies confuse and frighten me. But I know that when a man promises to double exports within 5 years, the exports data shouldn’t look like this:

In a mere two months, it’ll be official – another broken promise. [And one foolishly made in the first place.]

Manufacturing Jobs Report, Jan 2015 January 12, 2015

President Obama continues to crow over the (belated) “success” of his economic policies, despite the fact that he and his advisers have missed every prediction that they made. Speaking of failed predictions, I’m sure you were wondering how his promise to add 1 million manufacturing jobs by September 2016 is doing.

Like all of his promises, not very well:

To put his promise in perspective, there were 13,036,000 manufacturing jobs in the month President Obama was first elected. Today, after 6 years of incredible economic stimulus, there are only 12,239,000.

If he makes his +1 million manufacturing job goal (which doesn’t seem likely), he’ll still be almost 100,000 jobs short of where we were in Nov ’08.

After 8 years of sheer awesomeness.