Office of Naval Contemplation

11:44 pm - Caption Contest CXVIII

11:44 pm - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Contest CXVII is stride:

Now I am the Geek King!

myshanter

LOrd, let hom notice my shirt is not red.

dragonluk

Must... control... screwdriver of death....!

scaper84

All bets were off once the RSC started using live steel.

05:51 pm - First line meme answers

There are two unclaimed lines amongst the ten I put up last month. They are:

8. The Bachelor Home Companion: A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig, by P.J. O'Rourke

9. The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek

02:48 pm - Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

11:25 am - Fun fact of the day

Under common law, rotating a donut in place by 90 degrees may be considered larceny (theft), but rotating a pie the same way cannot.

The difference being that the common law definition of larceny requires that the thief gain physical control of the object and move the entire object. The entirety of the rotated donut has moved, but the exact center of the rotated pie has not.

Of course, in either case, the thief must intend to steal the confection in question. If you're just rotating donuts for the lulz, there is no theft. Case law around the distinction in question generally occurs when a thief is interrupted in the process of stealing, and it's an important question whether the Rubicon was crossed before the would-be thief is interrupted. For example, a guy trying to steal a wheelbarrow has only committed larceny once the wheel has moved across the ground, not just when he lifts the handle.

12:45 am - Hypotheticals

In which I invite those who blame the Fort Hood shootings on Islam (because the lone nutjob who pulled the trigger called himself a Muslim) to apply the same principles to the Kennedy Assassination and the Oklahoma City bombings.

12:08 pm - I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot

Today is the 404th anniversary of the foiling of a coup plot whose goal was to replace the British government with a Catholic theocracy. For some reason, the trigger man for the key element of the plot has in recent years come to be regarded as a hero for freedom and liberty.

Possible culprit #1 -- A hyperfocus on what the Gunpowder Plot was seeking to replace, while what they wanted to replace it with has largely been forgotten.

Possible culprit #2 -- Mel Gibson, who in Braveheart and Braveheart II taught us to equate fighting for liberty with slaughtering the English.

Possible culprit #3 -- V for Vendetta, which is awesome as a work of fiction, but which reinforces the confusion about the historical situation by showing us a highly charismatic Anarchist who wraps himself in Guy Fawkes symbolism.

02:48 am - Caption Contest CXVII

[Yes, that's David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. No, it isn't photoshopped.]

08:01 pm - Let the anvils ring

02:37 pm - Caption Contest CXVI

02:35 pm - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Context CXV is evilben:

Everyone always thought of Pandas as cute and lovable. This is why their child pornography ring came as a shock to the world.

rustycoon

"Oh shut your whiny trap and smile, punk. I'm a baby panda - you don't know the FIRST THING about embarrassing photos."

06:02 pm - In the mail

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States) [Hardcover]
By: Gordon S. Wood

Peter the Great [Mass Market Paperback]
By: Robert K. Massie

The Night Watch (Watch, Book 1) [Paperback]
By: Sergei Lukyanenko

Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel [Paperback]
By: Seanan McGuire

06:07 pm - First lines meme (from kamili)

Post the first line (or few lines) from ten of your favorite books, then let people guess (in the comments) what books they're from.

1. The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. Snow Crash, guessed by dragonmagelet

2. "I've watched through his eyes, I've listend through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get." Ender's Game, guessed by kamili

3. When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. Lord of the Rings, guessed by kamili

4. Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, guessed by dragonmagelet

5. I always get the shakes before a drop. I've had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can't really be afraid. Starship Troopers, guessed by scaper84

6. I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army. Old Man's War, guessed by scaper84

7. A dark, stormy night. A coach, horses gone, plunging through the rickety, useless fence and dropping, tumbling into the gorge below. It doesn't even strike an outcrop of rock before it hits the dried riverbed far below, and erupts into fragments. Soul Music, guessed by gnatdbug

8. This book is addressed to the true bachelor, an adult male and a gentleman, who has never married and never intends to. We are a select group, without personal obligation, social encumbrance, or any socks that match.

9. When the course of civilisation takes an unexpected turn, when instead of the continuous progress which we have come to expect, we find ourselves threatened by evils associated by us with past ages of barbarism, we blame naturally anything but ourselves.

10. There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted The Book of Common Prayer, guessed by rsmith23

07:52 pm - Reading list

I have an Amazon.com Visa card, which gives me amazon gift certificates as a kickback for 1% of everything I charge on it. Since I recently bought and renovated a fixer-upper house and charged most of the renovation expenses to my visa card, I now have a huge pile of gift certificates to use, and I need to figure out what to buy with them.

So far, my list is:
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

I need more books on this list. Any ideas?

10:16 am - Caption Contest CXV

10:13 am - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Contest CXIV is evilben:

Years before Robin, Batman tried taking other sidekicks home from the circus.

baronlaw

The Batmobile just wasn't good in the African jungles, this did not stop Batman.

daedalus4096

Holy pint-sized pachyderms, Batman!

11:47 am - Caption Contest CXIV

11:43 am - Caption Contest Winner

The winner of Caption Context CXIII is random_girl:

And that's when the hitter realized the catcher was a zombie bent on the destruction of the entire team, nay, the entire crowd.

01:10 pm - Originals of TMBG covers

12:25 pm - Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

In which I dislike community ratings

10:59 pm - Caption Context CXIII

10:56 pm - Caption Contest Winners

The winner of Caption Contest CXII is makellan:

This one time, at Burning Man...

evilben

And with this baby, King Leonidas realized he didn't need 300. Three would do.

11:49 pm - Why California's economy sucks

In which I note my Vice Mayor proposing forbidding businesses from creating new jobs in Sunnyvale

12:00 pm - Fast, good, cheap. Pick any two.

In which I note that any health care system contains tradeoffs between choice, cost, and universality.

06:15 pm - Disturbing realization of the day

The King from Burger King commercials is never referred to by name, and he wears yellow clothes under his robes.