Her Now the News

Damaged Women Stage Drunken 2 a.m. March On Washington

How Can You Tell When Planned Parenthood is Lying?

When Cecile Richards' lips are moving.

"We're mostly a surgical facility." Just so.

In Anticipation of Opening Day

"My father said he saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name." "Shoeless Joe," W.P. Kinsella

Caturday on the Lynx

The Arizona Republic reports:

A north Scottsdale couple feel lucky to have made a rare sighting of three mountain lions this week on the fourth hole of Desert Mountain Golf Club's Cochise Course.

Desert Mountain resident Linda Borman said she quickly snapped a few photographs on Monday afternoon after her husband, Ty, saw the mother and her two cubs lounging on the fairway of the 546-yard, par-5 hole.

Number 1 Son advises:

1. The player is always the sole judge of an unplayable lie. Take a stroke.

2. You could get creative and call a mountain lion an 'obstruction', but you still have to define it as movable or immovable. If it's movable (as is the popular understanding of large feral cats), then you may move the mountain lion without penalty. You would only get to drop freely if the ball were 'in or on' the obstruction, and under these circumstances you'd likely have larger problems if your ball were in or on a mountain lion. If it's immovable, you get a free drop closest to the spot that you get "complete relief" from the obstruction. Feel free to imagine what "complete relief" from a mountain lion in Arizona looks like.

Alan Rickman Plays Barack Obama in New Biopic

"I Don't Care. Obama is Cool and Awesome. His Bracket Picks Were Outstanding Too."

"It Went Up in the Woods!"

"On the evening of Tuesday, March 22, 2011 while driving down Golden Valley Church Road I and a friend Carolyn Wright observed the Big-Foot Knobby or one similar to it cross the road in front of the truck we were in and run into the woods. It came from out of the field from the direction of the creek and we later took photos of feet prints in a freshly plowed field. I jumped from the truck and took this video of it as it crossed the road in front of us. At one point in the video it made a snarling growling sound and looked back at me. I also shot the other video posted with this one while I and my friend Carolyn Wright were trying to see where it went to. I heard it breaking branches as it ran out of my sight into very thick brush. If you listen to the other video you can hear me and my friend talking about what just happened in front of us. You can watch and listen to me and my friend talking in the below video."

Hey! We report, you decide. You'd think we'd have better video than this, it being 2011 and all that. Maybe Bigfoot transmits brain waves that interfere with the iPhone.

The late Mitch Hedberg provides one plausible explanation:

Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of kinetic military action!

We feel so much better now. There's certainly nothing in the Constitution suggesting that the power to declare a "kinetic military action" is reserved to the Congress.

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.

What should really concern you is the extent to which people in the White House truly believe -- know in their hearts -- that bombing Libya is completely different from invading Iraq, which latter they know to have been foolish, unConstitutional, and undertaken by a bad man with evil purpose.

Examples of what "kinetic military action" might look like.

Time to Step Up, Joe

Dumb Wars

Barack Obama, October 2, 2002:

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

As Professor Reynolds observes:

Watching the people who savaged Bush and called his supporters warmongers and so on now faced with watching the Lightbringer doing basically the same thing, only less competently, is too good a pleasure to forego.

We don't ask for much, but it would be precious for the President to explain just exactly what's different now.

Taxes Are For Little People

And we don't mean Leprechauns.

One of the things that normal people know is that various states and local governments impose personal property taxes. It's not a secret -- register your car in such a jurisdiction, and you'll be hearing from the local tax collector forthwith. And the little people know that it's not a "car" tax, but also applies to their simple, middle-class bass boat and RV.

But if you're an important person -- a member of the ruling class -- you can't be bothered to know those sorts of details. And so we learn today that Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, just couldn't be bothered with such little-people trivialities, and thus failed to pay something like $287,000 in personal property taxes on her airplane. Or maybe it's her husband's plane, and he couldn't be bothered. Something like that. It's all very amusing and annoying, and now they're going to "sell the damn plane." Such a bother. She's "sick to her stomach" about the whole thing.

Budget Burp

When Republicans propose "slashing" the federal budget by $6 Billion, as in the recent continuing resolution, they're suggesting the equivalent of going on a diet by ordering a Big Mac Happy Meal, while leaving exactly 1/3 of one fry at the bottom of the bag.

Here comes the math.

Quote of the Day

Who said:

The first time around it’s like lightning in a bottle. There’s something special about it, because you’re defying the odds. And as time passes, you start taking it for granted that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States . . . But we should never take it for granted.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Good News, Bad News

Scientists construct long-shot theory that the Large Hadron Collider could be used to send messages to the past or to the future. This is better news than that production of a Higgs Boson would result in the catastrophic end of the Universe. The bad news is no one has anything to say.

Begotten, Not Made

Let's take a time out from medically slaughtering our own children to consider another side of modern eugenics, in vitro fertilization. Increasingly, IVF isn't about addressing the problem of human infertility (heck, adoption does that), but about the manufacture of made-to-order children:

What is particularly chilling (no pun intended) is Gillian's description of how she weighed the pros and cons of freezing her offspring as if she was deciding whether the lasagna she made the night before would freeze well enough to still taste good in a few months.

More HERE.

Cat Had Kittens? Global Warming!

Long ago and far away, some time in the early 1960s, Mad Magazine did a short piece on hysterical fear of the atomic bomb. Not the quite reasonable fear that -- inasmuch as such things existed -- The Suits would do something truly stupid, but the irrational fear that whatever went wrong, it was the fault of the Atom Bomb. It took the form of a short list of bad things, followed by the explanation: Atom Bomb! I can't remember what the propositions were, but the last was, "Cat had kittens? Atom Bomb!"

For all we know, there was in fact some moonbat somewhere who, at the time, had a theory about a cause and effect relationship between slightly increased atmospheric radiation from open-air tests (long since banned), and feline fecundity. But Mad Magazine thought it was funny, and it was.

We don't know why we should be surprised that today's hysteria-du-jour should be structurally different; and it's not. Earthquake in Japan? Global Warming! It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

But wait! Operators are standing by and, if you call right now, there's more!

So far, today's tsunami has mainly affected Japan -- there are reports of up to 300 dead in the coastal city of Sendai -- but future tsunamis could strike the U.S. and virtually any other coastal area of the world with equal or greater force, say scientists. In a little-heeded warning issued at a 2009 conference on the subject, experts outlined a range of mechanisms by which climate change could already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity, albeit of a scale and nature quite different from Friday's tragedy.

A 2009 paper by Bill Mcguire, professor at University College London, says that "observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere."

It's important to note that this response has nothing to do with Friday's tsunami, which is a 'subduction zone earthquake,' whereas the tsunamis discussed by scientists cited here would be the product of catastrophic events -- collapse of methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the ocean on the continental shelf, for example -- for which a tsunami would be but one of many negative impacts.

"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," McGuire told Reuters. (McGuire's 2009 paper notes that such effects will be much more pronounced in areas with significant ice cover, in other words, at higher lattitudes.)

Melting ice masses change the pressures on the underlying earth, which can lead to earthquakes and tsunamis, but that's just the beginning. Rising seas also change the balance of mass across earth's surface, putting new strain on old earthquake faults . . . .

Actually, now that we think about it, it's entirely possibly that the world's feline population, stressed by man-made climate change, will respond with increased fertility, a great number of litters, and a larger number of kittens per litter. Cat had kittens? Global warming!

Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt

The Washington Post reports:

November 2, 1922. No, really! HERE's the original source of the article, from the archives of NOAA.

When Worlds Collide

Via The Crescat.

New Advertising Policy

Here at Glib & Superficial, we have never accepted advertisements. It would have been easy to do so -- the software has a few buttons to push, deep in its guts, and advertisements appear in the margins.

But we've changed our policy, and hired an agency that scans the content of the blog, and then places advertisements calculated to appeal to those who would be reading such stuff.

Just thought you'd like to know. They'll be appearing periodically at the end of regular posts.

--------------------PAID ADVERTISEMENT--------------------

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Your Tax Dollars at Work

It's amusing when the cops set up a phony pawn shop to bust burglars trying to fence stolen merchandise. We figure they got what they deserved when a prospective john learns that he's just solicited a vice cop.

But we have to ask why the Department of Homeland Security is trolling the internet for pedophiles. Is all incoming cargo inspected, all borders secured, and all airports safe from bomb-laden grandmothers so that DHS has to cast about for something to do?

The Smoking Gun reports:

MARCH 9--In an aggressive bid to entice prospective “sex tourists,” the Department of Homeland Security last year launched an undercover web site that purported to arrange trips from the U.S. to Canada, where clients could engage in sexual activity with minors, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The “Precious Treasure Holiday Company” web site was active until a few weeks ago when its Massachusetts-based web hosting firm removed the site from its servers, apparently in response to a complaint about its content. Now, visitors to precioustreasureholidaycompany.com are greeted with the message, “This site has been suspended.”

After a year online, the DHS undercover site may have fallen victim to its own sleazy, overt come-on. As seen at right, the site’s front page carried three symbols that an FBI intelligence bulletin has identified as being used by pedophiles. Additionally, the site’s acronym, PTHC, is an allusion to “preteen hardcore” pornography. The site’s carefully misspelled motto--“We Help Make Your Fantasy’s Come True!”--also does little to mask its illicit intentions.

An account executive with the hosting firm, who appeared unaware that “Precious Treasure Holiday Company” was a government operation, said that following a site’s suspension an internal investigation is launched. Upon the review’s completion, a site is either reinstated or terminated. The executive, Jason Crawford, added that if a customer’s site is found to contain illicit material like child pornography, the FBI is contacted.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Accounting

HERE'S an article that questions whether PBS lobbying (directly or by encouraging listeners) for continued funding is prohibited either by a statute that bans using federal money to lobby for more federal money, or by the Internal Revenue Code's prohibition of political action by 501(c)(3) organizations.

Inevitably, the maddeningly unctuous Public Broadcasting nobility patiently explains that their accounting is very, very strict and sophisticated, and no federal funds are EVER spent on lobbying -- only private donations.

This is a common argument, nevertheless ridiculous for being so common. If I give my son a bus pass so he doesn't have to pay his own money to commute to work, and he then spends some of "his own" money on hookers and crack, I'm pretty confident that I'm subsidizing drugs and prostitutes.

I remember years ago attending a function at the Smithsonian Institution, and noting the presence of an open bar. My acquaintance -- a very minor Smithsonian official -- explained that no federal funds were used to buy the booze (which would have been contrary to law), but instead it was purchased only with private donations. The little tooth-picked hot dogs, on the other hand, were federally funded.

This Sign is NOT in Front of My House

But it could be. And it might be yet.

Presented as a Public Service

Meet the sexiest woman in America.

Border Patrol Brings Beanbags to a Gun Fight

"Border Patrol agents shot beanbags at a group of suspected bandits before the men returned fire during a confrontation in a remote canyon, killing agent Brian Terry with a single gunshot, records show."

Charlie Sheen Not Available

"Muammar Gaddafi has accepted an offer from Venezuela to mediate in Libya’s political crisis after talks with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, Al Jazeera has learnt."

Gerber Recalls 60,000 Jars Of Baby Poison

From The Onion.

The Suicide Bomber Game: Viral Video

First the video, then British press reports, followed by some worthless comments.

The YouTube poster says he found the video posted on Facebook by this guy, but the link now says the video is unavailable.

The London Daily Telegraph says:

A video believed to feature Pashtun school children in south-east Afghanistan recreating a terrorist attack has been posted on social networking sites.

The 84-second clip appears to show a veiled boy bid farewell to his friends before approaching a group of children nearby and blowing himself up.

Sand is tossed in the air to simulate the detonation as children fall to the ground. As the dust settles, their playmates gather round and pretend to identify the dead.

The amateur video has been circulated on the internet in Pakistan in recent days and has drawn mixed reactions in the region.

"It's horrifying and alarming. These children have become fascinated by bombers rather than condemning them," Salma Jafar of Save the Children UK in Pakistan told The Guardian.

Pakistani media commentator Fasi Zaka called the suicide bomber clip "the most amazing amateur video I've ever seen".

"It's disturbing but also sophisticated and creative – a one-camera shot that captures it all," he said. "They are reproducing what they see in their lives around them," he added.

While the spontaneity of the production has been questioned by some viewers, who observed that the height of the camera indicates it was filmed by an older member of the group, the video highlights the disturbing psychological impact of Taliban violence on the youth of the region.

The article in The Guardian says:

The suicide bomber, his faced cloaked in black, solemnly approaches a line of comrades, hugging each one in turn. Wailing jihadi chants fill the air. The bomber turns and makes for his target. A sentry tries to stop him but he tugs the cord.

Boom! Smoke fills the air and bodies go flying. As the dust settles a crowd rushes forward to examine the dead – some of whom seem to be struggling not to giggle.

This amateur video of Pashtun children enacting a suicide bombing has circulated on the internet in Pakistan in recent days, highlighting the disturbing psychological impact of Taliban violence on a generation.

The unsettling 84-second clip has divided opinions, with some amused by the smiling child actors and fake explosions; others appalled by evidence that suicide bombers have become playground heroes of sorts.

"It's horrifying and alarming. These children have become fascinated by bombers rather than condemning them," said Salma Jafar of Save the Children UK in Pakistan.

"If they glamorise violence now, they can become part of it later in life."

The origins of the homemade video, which first surfaced about a week ago, are unknown.

Ahsan Masood, a Pashtun from Waziristan who posted it on Facebook, said he believed it had been filmed in Khost, Afghanistan.

Masood, who works as a truck driver in the UAE, said he received the video from a friend's mobile phone. "I thought it was funny," he said.

The video is obviously staged. It's not simply random footage of children at play: the video quality is too great, and the children's movements are too limited and purposeful. What comes through to us is the happy and enthusiastic participation of the children.

The American equivalent would be a group of kids playing out a gangland drive-by shooting: half the kids (wearing blue do-rags) ride their bikes past a group of kids (wearing red do-rags) hanging out on the corner, and pretend to gun them down.  The kids who get shot clearly have the best parts, what with gruesome facial expressions and much flopping around.

We don't think this is "chilling" or "gruesome" or any particular indication that South Asia and the Middle East are producing a generation of sociopathic suicide bombers.  We are aware of no study suggesting that those of us who grew up playing Cops & Robbers or Cowboys & Indians have produced a disproportionate number of adult burglars.