Caturday

Derp Cat says: "Never read the online comments to a news article.".

Because It's Friday

Big miniature steam.

Taking One for the Team; Party of the Confederacy Edition

Paul Ryan, the former nominee for vice-president, was elected as the 62nd speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday, as the Republican party sought to prevent a disintegration of its congressional majority. The Wisconsin congressman was elected with 236 votes, and received a standing ovation in the chamber.

There are 247 Republicans in the House, so either nine guys were out of town, or some of them sat on their hands.

In other news, the clown who came up with the Hastert Rule pled guilty to hiding transactions. The transactions he was hiding-- paying $3.5 million on hush money to cover up sexually abusing kids. That they let him off he hook from the charge of lying to the Feds sort of signals that they didn't have much of a case, but they had enough that Hastert chose not to roll the dice by going to trial.

More Medical News to Brighten Your Day

If you're under 50, you probably have herpes.

That's a global assessment, though. The infection rate's lower in the Western Hemisphere.

Bring in the Derp. There Has to Be Derp; Fake Gun Edition

Some group of assholes has a high-five figure Indiegogo campaign to make a "less-lethal" pistol.

It's a fucking con job. They claim to be making the gun themselves, but as Tam has pointed out, the gun is a Tippman TiPX paintball gun. They aren't making shit. Peppershot paintball rounds are paintball rounds loaded with the same crap spewed out by pepper-spray canisters.

Other than the derp that Tam pointed out, about how these guns are supposed to be a better alternative to black powder guns (yeah, I know), this campaign is a con job, designed to grift money from chumps who don't know that both the gun and the ammunition already exist.

Sooner or later, don't be shocked if the consumer protection people are found to be looking into this one. But it's taking place in Chicago, so the proper palms might already have been lubricated.

UPDATE: The Pepperball pistol. Need I say more?

National Cat Day

Which is every day in my home.

Do something, though, for the cats without homes. Drop by your local shelter, give them a donation and, if you have room in both your heart and your home, adopt a cat or two.

Guess Who Just Locked Up a Few Ten Million Votes

And sent a chill down the spines of the Statist Lobby:

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders announced his support Wednesday for removing marijuana from a list of the most dangerous drugs outlawed by the federal government — a move that would free states to legalize it without impediments from Washington.

Uncle Sam's Flying Club & Its New Bomber

Northrop Grumman Corp, maker of the stealth B-2 bomber, beat out a Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp team to develop and build a next-generation long-range strike bomber, the U.S. Defense Department said on Tuesday.

The Zoomies say that the bombers will cost $564 million a copy. They have to be the baddest bald-faced liars around to say that.

Anyone who believes that figure is smoking crack. The B-2s were supposed to cost $571 million per, but ended up costing over four times as much. The F-35 was touted by the Air Force as being a cheaper alternative to the F-22, but the F-35s are likely to end up costing twice as much as the F-22s did.

And then there is the KC-46 program, which began in 2002 as a sorta COTS program, using airframes currently in production, but the program became mired in protests and counter-protests and as of now, the damn planes still haven't entered into operational service.

It's taken them 19 years to bring the F-35 into operational service (and I suspect that the F-35's first operational squadron is a Potemkin operation). Based on the Air Force's program management skills, only a fool would expect to see these new bombers flying operationally before 2030.

The "YouTube Effect"

You can find a lot of cops, from the Feebie Director on down, who are moaning about "the YouTube Effect".[1]

There is a simple response to that: "Suck it up, Buttercup."

Every person with a smartphone (and a lot of dumb ones) is now, in essence, carrying a video camera with them everywhere they go. Those videos can be uploaded in a matter of minutes. That's not going away.

Police had best get with the program on that.[2] Whatever they do, if there are witnesses, there will be video, and that video may be on the Internet before the cops begin violating people's civil rights and confiscating their phones. Like every other tech genie, this one is not about to be stuffed back into the bottle.

Law enforcement seems to love them the idea of putting video cameras everywhere and tracking people's movements. People are now returning the favor and, surprise, surprise, the cops don't like it very much.

Too bad for them. Suck it up, Buttercup.
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[1] Most hypocritical of which is the mayor of Chicago, whose police department has set highwater marks for thuggery and corruption over the years.
[2] They should have since a bunch of LAPD goons tuned up Rodney King.

Beating Kids in Residential Care Facilities is Legal in New York

Oh, sure, it's technically illegal, but since the State rarely prosecutes anyone for doing it, then it is de facto legal to beat the shit out of the kids.

New York has a long and sordid record of closing its eyes to such things. Gov. Cuomo doesn't seem to give a shit, as long as nobody's smoking.