Hey!

Laconic Blog is coming back on line after a hiatus! Anyone who can come up with this T-shirt slogan has to be worth checking.

We Come In Peace

No, really.

Smack!

This is actually rather funny on several levels - it is also a good thing in and of itself. Last month John "Magical Mystery Hat" Kerry and his fellows on the Democratic side of the Senate, derailed the appointment of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium. Why? Because Fox had contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group that Kerry and his sycophants claim sunk Kerry's bid for the Presidency. (That claim is bull puckey, Kerry sunk Kerry - and he and a lot of others people know it. That is why magic hat boy isn't running again.) But today, Bush took advantage of the Congress being in recess and appointed Fox anyway. Good for him.

The Democrats have been abusing the hell out of the nomination process for a long time. A president has a right - regardless of what party he is from - to have the people he wants serving in his administration. In years past, the Senate might give a nominee a hard time, but they very seldom rejected them out of hand. It has become commonplace lately - and that is going to come back around in that big, old karmic wheel.

But, as Powerline notes, the "discrediting" of the Swiftboat vets exists only in the minds of the left and in the MSM. Remember Christmas in Cambodia? Never freaking happened - Kerry flat out lied his magic butt off - for years. The Swifties called him on that and nailed his hat-clad butt to the wall. Despite the screeching from the left, Kerry got caught out and sank himself in the eyes of the voters. Bush did the right thing by ignoring the Senate. Let's face it, it isn't as if Belgium will be a hotbed of controversy anytime soon - one hopes.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler, a Vietnam vet, is very, very happy. The left is is a major snit - go look at Memeorandum. They are going totally ape over this. Like I said, funny on a lot of levels.

Seitan Worship And PETA

No, no, no. Not the bad, fallen angel with the goat hooves, horns and a tail (at least in some popular illustrations). Seitan is flavored wheat gluten which can be made to very closely resemble various kinds of meat in both flavor and texture. And there is a lot of it in pet foods. One of my commenters is a blogger, Terrierman (aka Patrick Burns), who has been following the pet food recall scandal - and it is one - closely. He has a great post up about this substance and its relationship to PETA.

Some reporters seem to have taken to quoting PETA about this dog food tragedy – never mind that PETA knows nothing about dog food or nutrition, opposes ownership of both pet dogs and working dogs, euthanizes more than 85 percent of the dogs given up to to it, and steals dogs from shelters in order to kill them.

The poor quality of the reporting on this dog food story is amazing. For example, in all of the writing, no one has taken the time to ask a basic question: What the hell is wheat gluten, and why is it in our dog food?

Here's the answer: Wheat gluten is synthetic meat made from processed wheat.

In vegetarian cuisine, this stuff is called Seiten, and if PETA had its way, not only would your dogs and cats be eating nothing else, but so would you.

The picture at the top of this post is a Taiwanese can of "mock duck" made from 100 percent wheat gluten.

And you must go over there to see the mock duck meat-like substance to believe it. Pass the orange sauce.

And Folks Think That I Don’t Get Out Enough

Ok, so I spend inordinate amounts of time searching for animal stories. When I'm not battling, tweaking or fixing computer hardware. But I actually really do have a life. Well, of sorts, anyway. But I have not spent years and years turning a 1973 Land Rover into an exact replica of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Which is what these folks did.

She's watched the movie hundreds of times, seen the West End show and even has a lunchbox featuring the magical flying car.

Now, thanks to her husband and four years of oil, sweat and tears, Carolyn Pointing has her own full-size Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

The 42-year-old police constable, who fell in love with the film as a three-year-old, said: "It's a dream come true."

Husband Nick, 41, a manager for Marks & Spencer, spent every spare minute building his creation using the chassis of an old Land Rover.

Now the couple, from Sandown, Isle of Wight, plan to take a 12-month career break and tour the world with the car raising money for charity.

Mr Pointing said: "I had already taken Carolyn to the London stage show, bought the DVD and a toy model so in a way this was the logical next step.

"Early one Sunday morning as we sat up in bed discussing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I said, 'All right, I'll build you one then!'"

Mr Pointing taught himself how to weld and started work on the car in 2003. The project has dominated their lives ever since.

You really have to see the pictures - they did an outstanding job with it - I haven't seen the movie in years now, but the car sure looks right. They even have video at the Daily Mail site. One question, though: does it actually fly? THAT would really impress people. The Pointings really should go talk to the Aussies - who have been holding out on us for years. The Pointings haven't spent enough time on the project, apparently. They now plan to drive the creation to Australia - presumably to pick up the hovercar parts. What some folks won't waste time on. Well, back to sculpting my exact replica of Mount Rushmore out of liverwurst.

Why We Should Be Allowed…..

…..To buy full automatic weapons. An alert reader sent us this 100% genuine Famous Wire Service Grade™ photograph that shows exactly why.

More Things To Make You Go, “Hmmmmmm?”

Close on the heels of the story that the global average temperature of Mars has risen almost the exact same amount that Earth has experienced in recent years comes this dire warning: Solar energy bursts are putting the Global Positioning Satellite network in serious jeopardy. Along with a lot of other high-tech things on the Earth and nearby orbit.

"Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing…..

……The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on Dec. 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.

Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, with the next peak expected in 2011.

If that increasing level of activity produces more such radio bursts the GPS system could be seriously affected, the researchers said.

And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event.

There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.

That's why it's essential to learn more about the sun's behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said.

In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.

"The effects were more profound than we expected and more widespread than we expected," added Kintner.

Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.

Again, there is a lot more going on that needs to be looked into before declaring the "science" of global warming settled and attempting bureaucratic inquisitions (and a festive auto de fe or two) of people who want answers to those questions.

Just An Excitable Boy

I came across my copy of the Warren Zevon retrospective Genius when moving a few things around. I popped it into the computer and have been listening to it for a while now. His music is too good not to share, so I found this video of Warren performing Excitable Boy live over at YouTube. Warren Zevon would have been 60 years old on January 24th of this year. (And Genius is essential listening!)

A Plea For Immediate Action

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard want to go on record as being the first to call for immediate action. We demand that Al Gore carry his message about global warming to Mars at once, before the polar ice cap there disappears entirely.

Shifting dust storms on Mars might be contributing to global warming there that is shrinking the planet's southern polar ice caps, scientists say.

Computer simulations similar to those used to predict weather here on Earth show that the bright, windblown dust and sand particles affects Mars’ albedo—the amount of sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface.

The research, detailed in the March 5 issue of the journal Nature, suggests these albedo variations play an important role in the climate of Mars. It could also potentially explain how global dust storms are triggered on the red planet.

A darkening world

Researchers from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey fed two albedo maps of the Martian surface into a computer model called the Mars general circulation model (MGCM).

The model calculated the surface temperature and wind intensity on Mars at the times the maps were made. Both maps show the same area on Mars, but one was made using Viking data collected in the late 1970s, while the other was created with Mars Global Surveyor data collected in recent years.

Across the past two decades, the model showed the surface temperature of Mars has increased by about 0.65 degrees Celsius (1.17 degrees Fahrenheit).

This demands immediate sacrifice on the part of the Martians. Surrender all your electricity to Gorezilla at once. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are opening a fund-raising drive to collect enough cash to entice Al Gore into journeying to Mars right away. We're kicking in that 37 cents we found in the sofa cushions.

</humor> Now, shouldn't it make you go, "Hmmmmm?" that the Martian global average temperature has risen almost exactly the same amount as the Earth's temperature has? The First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming™ has a bit of 'splaining to do here, I think.

Red (Geek) Alert

Ed Morrisey has posted a picture of his arduous daily grind. Warning: serious geekage. Ed has three computers up and running at once. On a serious note, his wife is home from the hospital. That's good news for them. Here's wishing her a speedy recovery.

(I don't have the heart to tell him that I always have two main PC computers up and running in my home office (connected with a KVM switch to a single monitor) and at least one laptop either on or ready. At one point I had five different computers on with various things being done on - or to - all of them. (I have to put different desktop themes on each one to tell them apart…..)

And tomorrow I start a really major overhaul of my daughter-in-law's PC. So there will be various bits and pieces of computer strewn about the room as well…..

Iran To Free British Hostages

Well, hopefully the Iranians won't renege on their promise, anyway. Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced he was "pardoning" the captured British sailors and marines and would allow them to leave Iran. Damned nice of him to grant them a pardon for Iran's piracy, isn't it. But hopefully, they are going home soon.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met with some of the 15 British military personnel held in Iranian custody for almost two weeks, shortly after pardoning the group and vowing to set them free.

Iranian state television showed footage of Ahmadinejad shaking hands, smiling and chatting with the detainees who were dressed in suits. One of them was heard to comment in English: "We are grateful for your forgiveness."

Iranian state television said the 15 would leave Iran by plane on Thursday, agencies reported.

Ahmadinejad announced the amnesty at the end of a lengthy news conference on Wednesday in which he said the detainees had violated Iran's territorial waters and called their release "a gift to the British people."

"I declare that the people of Iran and the government of Iran — in full power to place on trial the military people — to give amnesty and pardon to these 15 people and I announce their freedom and their return to the people of Britain," Ahmadinejad said.

The action was a goodwill gesture for the Iranian new year, he said, adding that Iran had received a letter from Britain promising not to intrude into Iranian waters.

"The British government sent a letter to our Foreign Ministry and said it would not happen again. Of course, our decision had nothing to do with the letter. It's a decision made by our government to give a gift to the people of Britain," Ahmadinejad said in answer to a reporter's question.

Hopefully,we will find out exactly what the hostages were being pressured with shortly. Because they surely were under enormous pressure from the Iranians.

Things That Hardly Matter

John Stossel continues to write about the "Fear Industrial Complex" this week over at Real Clear Politics. In this week's installment, he covers why the news media is completely unable to separate real statistical worries from irrelevant, wildly improbable events that shouldn't even concern us. One major reason: mathematically challenged English majors inhabiting America's newsrooms. (Five out of four reporters don't understand fractions.)

Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming "crisis" and the coming of bird flu.

Bird flu was called the No. 1 threat to the world. But bird flu has killed no one in America, while regular flu — the boring kind — kills tens of thousands. New York City internist Marc Siegel says that after the media hype, his patients didn't want to hear that.

"I say, 'You need a flu shot.' You know the regular flu is killing 36,000 per year. They say, 'Don't talk to me about regular flu. What about bird flu?'"

Here's another example. What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for "20/20," I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I'm sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don't know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Media exposure clouds our judgment about real-life odds. Of course, it doesn't help that viewers are as ignorant about probability as reporters are.

To demonstrate that, "20/20" ran an experiment. We asked people to put on blindfolds and then to pick up a red jellybean from one of two plates that held a mixture of red and white jellybeans. We offered $1 to anyone who could pick up a red bean.

Here's the catch: While one plate held 20 jellybeans and the other 100, the plate with 20 beans had a higher percentage of red ones. We put up signs that told people this clearly: "10 percent red" of the small plate and just "7 percent red" of the big plate.

Surprisingly, even with the percentage signs in front of them, a third of the people picked the plate with 100 beans.

Actually, it doesn't surprise me one bit, but then I understand math a little more than the average American. One thing I take exception to with Stossel this week, though. Just because some things are actually statistically unlikely does not mean they should not be addressed. Specifically, he mentions that terrorism is statistically unlikely. That, strictly speaking, is correct. Most people , at least in the US, will be unlikely to be direct victims in the short term. However, in an age of nuclear weapons terrorism is not something to be ignored. Because the odds would change drastically with the first mushroom cloud. Better to address it before that day arrives.

Sad News

We regret to inform our readers that one of the icons of many American's childhoods has given up. Thrown in the towel. Stopped doing what he did best. We're so upset we can hardly type. But we just got the news and thought our readers should know. Wile E. Coyote has given up on chasing the Roadrunner. In fact, he's moved to Chicago and developed a taste for fast food. Specifically, toasted submarine sandwiches.

Shortly after lunchtime on Tuesday, a docile coyote nonchalantly wandered through the propped-open door of a Quiznos submarine sandwich shop in downtown Chicago.

The handful of startled customers calmly walked out of the shop, Quiznos manager Bina Patel said.

"It was kind of like a medium-sized dog," Patel said. "At first, we thought it was a dog. We don't get dogs walking in, but it's more believable than a coyote."

Officials picked up the year-old male about 2:30 p.m., an hour after it had entered the restaurant at 37 E. Adams St. in the Loop, said Anne Kent, director of Animal Care and Control.

The animal ate nothing and no on was harmed.

Coyotes are more partial to small rodents, rabbits and trash, animal control officials said.

The coyote was the second in less than a week picked up in the city. A 2-year-old male was found near 31st and Wells Streets on Friday. He was taken to the Flint Creek Rehabilitation Center in Barrington, home to all of Chicago's transplanted urban coyotes.

How can we go on knowing that Wile E. Coyote will never again use Acme products in a futile attempt to catch and eat his Nemesis? Oh the humanity.

Mexican Standoff

Some people appear to continue to be completely oblivious to the real dangers in the world today. A krazed kinkajou kommando of the Animal Uprising™ hijacked a bus in Mexico City yesterday. And the driver simply continued driving his route. For more than an hour.

MEXICO CITY - A kinkajou, also known as a honey bear — that escaped from a Mexico City zoo boarded a bus and attacked a passenger, officials said Tuesday. The kinkajou, which is about the size of a small dog, got on the bus at about 11 p.m. Monday after escaping from the San Juan de Aragon Zoo.

The animal sat next to the bus driver for almost an hour as he drove through the city, and scratched and bit a 20-year-old female passenger when she tried to hold it, the Mexican news agency Notimex said.

The last time we wrote about a kinkajou kommando, it at least had the good taste to savage Paris Hilton. We found it hard not to root for the animal in that particular case. What concerns us about the Mexico City incident is the driver who simply kept driving his route while the krazed killer sat beside him. The may be a completely new manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome. We'll call it the Way South of Stockholm Syndrome.

Why I Hate Microsoft, Reason 521,047

Heads up, Windows users. There is a new - critical - security update that you must install as soon as possible. Update KB925902 addresses a major security flaw in Windows (that is what it is for Windows XP, I have no idea whether it is the same for Vista. BOTH operating systems are vulnerable.). Believe it or not, hackers can gain control of your computer through the cursor, of all things.

Microsoft was so worried about the hole — which allowed hackers to break into personal computers and install malicious software — that it pushed out the critical security fix a week ahead of a regularly scheduled update.

The Redmond-based software company told customers last Thursday about a vulnerability in ".ani" files, which are used to change the cursor into an hourglass while a program works, or into a dancing animal or other animation on specially designed Web sites. Security experts said the hole was actively being exploited by hackers to install keystroke-logging programs.

Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at iDefense, the research division of VeriSign Inc., said a group of Chinese hackers was using the security hole to steal and sell log-ins to the popular "World of Warcraft" multiplayer computer game.

Microsoft said it has known about the vulnerability since December.

Get ye to the Windows update site and get the patch. This appears to already be a fairly large - and rapidly growing - problem. And I now have to rebott the system, the patch has been downloaded and installed on this computer.