There’s this scientifical article on how to make sure robots do no harm. They never consulted me, though, even though I’m a leading thinker in stuff about robots. Here’s my suggestions:

FRANK SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE SURE ROBOTS DO NO HARM

* Make sure they all have prominent big red buttons on them that deactivates them.

* Never give them AI by merging the minds of different serial killers.

* Make them out of Nerf™.

* Have a limit of five weapons per robot.

* Never give them access to time machines.

* Don’t have their programming give them a hundred points per person they kill.

* Never make a robot monkey.

* No matter what excuses they give, don’t ever take off their restraining bolts.

* Install Vista on them so no killing spree can last longer than a few minutes without them needing to reboot.

* Make sure killbots have a preset killing limit.

* Put a big label on each robot saying, “Please Don’t Tease the Robot”.

Finally, I propose that each robot be programmed with Frank J.’s three laws of robotics.

FRANK J.’S THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS

1. Only kill foreigners.

2. Give children hugs unless it conflicts with the first law.

3. Do the robot dance to entertain people unless it conflicts with the first and second law.

4. Do everything Frank J. says. Ignore all other laws.

Whoops; that last law was supposed to be hidden.

Mark Kirkorian pointed out what I think was a neat idea from David Frum.

Yeah, I know; you think Frum is stupid and hate him. Shut up; I still think he has a good idea.

Anyway, Frum suggested a law forbidding campaign contributions by officials of companies in which the federal government holds an ownership stake. I would go even further, though, to separate companies held up by the government from real companies. You see, a lot of the failures are being blamed on capitalism when really the companies failing are government backed and don’t compete in a real market so it’s more of a failure of capocialism. Companies that get government backing should have to have an asterisk or some other symbol next to their name so every knows it’s not a real company and can be disdainful of it. They should be pariahs, and if someone is known to run one of these phony companies, everyone should be like, “Guess he couldn’t run a real company.” And someone else will be like, “I hear he’s a homosexual.”

Anyway, I think this would be a good way of separating out capitalism from faux-capitalism. Plus, I like coming up with new reasons to make fun of people.

John & Barry were jaw-flappin’ on Monday, in an event that untrustworthy political hacks drunk with newfound power described as merely a “productive conversation”.

Personally, I’m thinking the Presidential First Loser was angling for a career change.

I don’t know if he got the job, but I *do* wonder what job he’d get, if one were to be tossed his direction like a bowl of watery gruel to a hungry orphan.

I speculate thusly:

“Michelle’s birthday is coming up. Gonna need a party clown.”

* Dog-walker for the oft-hinted-at First Puppy. It’s not like Malia & Sasha would walk their OWN dog, since personal responsibility has never been That One’s “thing”, and oppressing his beloved Punishments with it would be unthinkable.

* Guy who jacks up the bus so that Obama has more room to throw his friends & family under it.

* In charge of protecting Obama from feral boys attacking him with steel boomerangs.

* Emergency back-up teleprompter, i.e. Cue Card Boy.

* When Obama needs to decide which special interest group is the spreader and which is the spreadee, McCain will be there to shake up and hand the Magic 8 Ball to him.

* Follow Michelle around so that when she starts screaming “I HATE WHITEY!” people will think she’s talking about him, even though she’s really just having another off-her-meds-moment.

* When it comes time to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran, McCain will push the button launching the nuclear strike, thus allowing Obama to continue his current foreign policy doctrine of blaming the Republicans for starting unilateral wars.

* As the end gets closer, SOMEONE is going to have to change Ted Kennedy’s diaper.

* Who has time to sit around all day waiting for the cable guy to show up? John McCain does!

* Not a job, exactly, so much as a fat envelope full of cash to thank him for running his campaign sorta like Custer ran Little Big Horn.

So if YOU were Obama, what role would McCain play in YOUR administration?

Me, I’d have him make sure no one had poisoned my MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and Black Forest Berry Honest Tea.

So, is it now illegal to think there is anything wrong with homosexuality and to now want to promote it?

I’m not complaining… I’m just asking!

China’s Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is

I wonder how much it costs The Onion to put together these videos, because I certainly haven’t seen any news parodies with this professional quality on either TV or internet. Hell, most news stations don’t look this professional.

When I saw a headline linked on Hot Air for a grenade camera, I thought, “Awesome idea! If we put cameras on grenades, then we can get some really funny shots of terrorists before it explodes!”

Ends up, it’s just a camera you can throw. How are we going to get any entertainment out of that?

Sorry to take so long on this, but I’m busy. Anyway, here are the entries for a logo to the Republican Underground (and hopefully I’m not missing any as I didn’t organize this well). Anyway, tell me what you think. Maybe we can use one as a stamp on Republican Underground posts:

Continue reading ‘Republican Underground Logo Submissions’ »

The Democrats had an early victory in not being a bunch of whiny babies when they overwhelmingly voted 43-12 to keep Lieberman in their caucus. Not good for us, because if the vote had gone the other way that would be an early indication that the new Democrat majority is going to be an epic failure.

Anyway, this small act of basic political sanity has got the howler monkey left shaking their cages and screeching. The Kos Kids are losers, and no matter what happens politically, they will always be losers. Bitter hyperventilating ones. An Obama win doesn’t finally give them meaning to their useless lives or move them out of their parents’ basement, and that fact is already dawning on them.

Anyway, learn from them. Don’t make politics more important than it really is or you’ll just end up as angry, crazy losers. Surveys show that conservatives are happier than liberals both in years their party is in power and years it isn’t, and the Kos Kids make that easy to see why.

I’ve always had a vague idea of what Jonestown was and know that’s where the phrase “drink the kool-aid” comes from, but I had never really looked into it before (it happened the year before I was born). Jonah Goldberg linked this yesterday, and I finally looked into it (well, checked Wikipedia) and found out it was all about Communism and Socialism (and also, it was Flavor-Aid they drank). Apparently, they tried to set up their own Communist state (and many liberal politicians were supporters of Jim Jones) and when the state was total crap they decided to commit suicide. I just assumed it was some guy saying he was Jesus, not Marx.

So why didn’t I know about this? You’d think it would be a bigger talking point for Conservatives when Socialism rears its ugly head.

Anyway, I guess the lesson of Jonestown is if someone wants to create a Communist or Socialist state, say no. And if they do anyway and it’s a total failure and they want mass suicide to teach everyone a lesson, also say no. Finally, never trust anything that comes from San Francisco.

This message is aimed mainly at blacks, but it’s got good points for everyone to hear:

Why do we have RINOs? They’ve been making a resurgence as of late, trying to argue that if we were just watered down Democrats we could totally win elections. So let’s give up on our principles because then we can win that center who is primarily defined by not knowing or caring much about politics.

Of course, they don’t put it that way. They instead single out social issues as the problem — even though that’s something we share with the blacks and Hispanics we’re supposed to be adding to our ranks. They argue that fiscal issues are the important ones, and our even mentioning social issues in passing might be scaring away people who would support our visions of limited government.

Now, the main problem with that argument is by experience we know that about every Republican who is a squish on social issues can also be expected to be a squish in the areas of taxation and government expansion. It’s possible for someone to be hugely conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues just as it’s possible for someone to have one eye that’s blue and one eye that’s brown, but it’s not something you’d want to base a political party on.

So how are abortion and low taxes related? Conservatism isn’t made from just picking and choosing different issues; it’s a philosophy inherent to about anyone in America who does a hard day’s work and has a family to take care of and bills to pay. Basically, it comes down to trust. A conservative trusts himself and his fellow man. That’s why he doesn’t feel the need for a giant government because he knows he and his fellow man can take care of himself. He also doesn’t worry about owning a gun or if his neighbor has one because again he trusts himself and those around him.

And that’s where the social issues come in. If you have someone with radically different values — like someone who thinks sucking the brains out of a baby is just peachy — the trust is not there anymore. If you have a politician who doesn’t understand fundamentals issues of morality, can you really trust he gets the other issues even he does say the right things?

And that’s something we have to be wary of: A person can parrot conservative issues without really understanding them. But if someone doesn’t have a coherent political philosophy, you can’t expect him to be stand strong on the issues you care about. That’s why we need to be cautious of anyone calling himself a conservative who has been in politics his whole life. To really be a conservative, you have to live a conservative life; it’s not just about saying the right things. And that’s where experience trumps smartee-soundingness every time.

But the RINOs simply are politicians who can say the right things on a couple issues but don’t have a coherent political philosophy they believe in. They just like being politicians — which isn’t very conservative. If a RINO can get more political power by going against the party, they will every time because there isn’t anything more important to them than that.

So why do we have RINOs? Because we tolerate them. Sometimes they’re useful because they’re the best that can be elected in a few liberal districts. But if we ever can do better, let’s not pretend that squishiness and lack of principles is a virtue. RINOs are an ugly necessity at time, but they should never be who we rally around.

I was behind a really cool truck the other day on the way to work yesterday. On the back of it, it had the Decepticons symbol. The personalized license plate was “MR PLOW”, and it had a bumper sticker that said, “What Would Scooby Do?”. That made my morning.