verrry scarrry

for your halloween viewing horror...

zapped

Been there, done that.

rational rationale

MacStansbury tells us why he votes Republican.

Revenge Of The SOTH

Flying Space Monkey found that Speaker Of The House Dennis Hastert has a new blog.

10-30

Don't forget! Benjamin Franklin's Worst Joke occurs again this Sunday .

gaaah!

I could deal with the Sox winning the series, but not with the Astros not even winning one game...

:P

SCAM WARNING

NOT SATIRE

Watch out for this new credit card scam!

"nintendo mall"

On my way to work today, I heard a pickup blaring some tejano music, but I couldn't quite understand the words. The singer seemed to be most concerned with "a key" and "sue's cortizone"...?

:)

compare and contrast, pt. 2

this time, it's two sides of the same coin.

compare and contrast, pt. 1

noah compares true vs false, and has more evidence against the false.

UN-tied Nations

CSM shows us how to celebrate UN Day.

Liberal Hivemind

naaman says, "If it is sexist to assume that all women are like June Cleaver, then it is equally sexist to assume that all women are like Gloria Steinem. Why don't so-called feminists understand that simple point?"

che's killer says, "Difference of opinion is healthy and to be expected in a republican democracy. Liberals however seem moved to violence when confronted with opinions that significantly differ from their own."

also, a little gun control and a little gratuitous advice.

small rays of hope

The subhead of this article should be edited to say "School's suppression of kindergartner's artwork violated constitutional rights"

Found at Evangelical Ecologist, who also notes that the Church of Gaia is now selling indulgences.

bumpersticker

and remember: when cars are outlawed, only outlaws will have cars.

Ghouls

To spare you the trouble of going through bugmenot.com to access this NYPost article by Ralph Peters, I'll post the highlights here:

We'll soon reach a total of 2,000 dead American troops in Iraq. You won't miss the day it happens. The media will pound it into you. But no one will tell you what that number really means — and what it doesn't.

Unable to convince the Bush administration or our troops to cut and run, the American left is waging its campaign of support for Islamist terror through our all-too-cooperative media. And you're the duck in the anti-war movement's shooting gallery.

Breathless anchors and voice-of-God columnists will suggest that 2,000 dead is an exorbitant price to pay in wartime, that reaching such a threshold means we've failed and that it's time to "support our troops and bring them home."

All lies. Certainly, the life of every American service member matters to us. But the left's attempt to exploit dead soldiers and Marines for partisan purposes is worse than grave-robbing: Ghouls only take gold rings and decaying flesh; the left wants to rob our war dead of their sacrifices and their achievements, their honor and their pride.

Those who died in Iraq have not died in vain. Even should Iraq fail itself in the end, our courageous effort to give one Middle-Eastern Muslim population a chance to create a rule-of-law democracy has been worth the cost — for their sake, but also for ours. Without a transformation of the Middle East, we shall see no end of terror.

As a former soldier whose friends still serve under our flag, I'm especially disgusted by the pretense on the part of those who never served and who wouldn't dream of letting their own children serve that they speak for the men and women in uniform.

Our troops speak for themselves. By re-enlisting. And returning to Iraq, to complete the mission for which their comrades gave their lives or suffered life-altering wounds.

Two generations of politicians and pundits suffer from their avoidance of military service. They speak of war in ignorance and view our troops — whom they quietly despise — as nothing more than tools of their own ambitions. After deploring body counts during their Vietnam-era protest years, today our leftists revel in the American body count in Iraq.

The left has been infuriated by its inability to incite an anti-war movement in our military — forgetting that this is an all-volunteer force whose members believe in service to our country. The best the Democrats can do is to trot out poor Wes Clark, an ethically challenged retired general who will say anything, anywhere, anytime in return for five more seconds in the spotlight.

As for that "unacceptable" number of casualties, let's put it in perspective:

Our current loss rate in Iraq from combat and non-combat deaths is 765 per year. That's painful for individual families, but we would have to remain in Iraq, taking casualties at the same rate, for 76 years to rival our loss of more than 58,000 Americans in Indochina.

And Vietnam wasn't remotely as important to our national security. The terrorists we face today are more implacable than any of the enemies from our past. Even the Germans didn't dream of eradicating our entire population. The Japanese hoped to master Asia, not to massacre every man, woman and child in America.

We would need to continue our efforts in Iraq and the greater War on Terror for 532 years to suffer the 407,000 dead we lost in less than four years in World War II.

And what about our greatest struggle, the American Civil War? We would have to maintain the status quo in Iraq for 470 years just to rival the number of Union dead and for 729 years to equal our total losses, North and South.

Even our Revolutionary War, in which fewer than 5,000 Americans died in combat (many more, unrecorded, fell to disease) has to be judged in terms of the population at the time — just over 2 million. Equivalent losses today would be over 500,000 dead Americans.

The point isn't to play hocus-pocus with statistics. That's what the pro-terrorist left is trying to do — betting that you know nothing of military history. Two thousand dead isn't a magic number. Our first loss was as important as the last. We must not make a mockery of our fallen by treating them as political rag-dolls to be tossed around the media playroom. Great causes incur great costs.

In historical terms, our losses in Iraq have been remarkably light, given the magnitude of what we seek to achieve. The low casualty rate is a tribute to the skill and professionalism of our troops and their battlefield leaders. None of us should breathe a word that undercuts them while they're fighting our war.

If the American left and its media sympathizers want someone to blame for our combat losses, they should begin with themselves. Their irresponsible demands for troop withdrawals provide powerful encouragement to Muslim fanatics to keep on killing as many American service members as possible. On the worst days the terrorists suffer in Iraq, our "anti-war" fellow citizens keep the cause of Islamist fascism alive. Their support is worth far more to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi than any amount of Saudi money.

It would be wonderful to live in a world in which war was never necessary. But we don't live in such a world. And there are no bloodless wars. We should honor every fallen American. But we also must recognize that, on this maddened earth, only the blood of patriots shed abroad allows us to live in safety here at home.

Found via Cold Fury, who also has this related post.

Scotty's gift keeps on giving...

The story I found earlier about a NASCAR-designed military vehicle didn't mention the cool bulletproof windows made from transparent aluminum.

keywords

This entry on my blog is listed at #7 on AltaVista for the search term "hee haw gloom despair".

This disturbs me greatly...

:O

spam poetry 4

Fink Algiers,
dreams come true with this prospect:
"abolish everything you owe without paying another dime".

Make all the stress go away,
Bentley -
go use my ulna sandglass,
which tell is duologue wound.

a little good news?

CSM sees a larger picture in the style and substance of Bush's conservatism.

go astros!

The Astros are going to the World Series!

Glad they get to go while Biggio & Bagwell are still there.

go mish-mash!

Ryan doesn't like "reality tv" any more than I do. Make sure to read his alternative version of "Hamlet" too.

go scrappleface!

Scott Ott is on a roll. (four links)

oh my

GT, FJ, or GT?

Arrr, shiver me timbers!

Experts have finally determined the actual cause of global warming.

UPDATE: A new hope?

;)

assisted suicide?

try not to make any jokes about "shooting his mouth off"...

The Right Brothers

No, it's not a typo, it's a band (which has been added to the appropriate blogroll category).

not the baseball team

The Texas Rangers were formally created on this day 170 years ago.

spam poetry 3

(this one even rhymes)

Eminem got one
To sign, by odyssey dismay,
The first time
Here,
And hurt of summertime.


previous spam poetry: #1 & #2

10-15

Hey, it's Sweet Onion Day! Aren't you excited?

Yeah, me neither...

that's a riot

with enemies like that, who needs frien... uhh... er...

PETABOA

End Cruelty To Animals!

10-13

Hey, it's X-Files Day! Aren't you excited?

Yeah, me neither...

The Turtle Calling The Rabbit Slow

But what about Iran's response? or Red China's? or Zimbabwe's, for that matter?...

woohoo!

No Yankees? No Braves? No Red Sox? This is already a great World Series!

Allah's Wrath

Seems that the quake in Pakistan destroyed several jihadi military bases. And in other news...

Surviving militants, who had previously claimed that Hurricane Katrina was Allah's wrath against America, have renounced their claim to the Kashmir region, deeming it to have been the cause of the disaster. Further, some clerics are even beginning to question the entire premise of jihad. "It is possible that our barbaric, militant, and misogynistic ways are the reason Allah has kept Islamic countries in such a backward state." says Mullah Mustarrah al'Sens Ibbl., "Perhaps these signs are Allah's way of moving us into the modern era."

(update: forgot to mention that cheat seeking missiles inspired this one.)

bumpersnickers

All the "NPR minds" around me (and there are several) are some of the most petty, small-minded and loud-mouthed bigots I've ever had the misfortune of meeting.

That said, I'm not really a Fox fan either.

Fires

First the "Wayne Manor", now this...

"Did I Do ThaaAAaat?"

Official Motto of The Party of Urkels.

number eight, number eight, number eight...

congratulations are in order, i guess?

spam poetry 2

The play, so reunite
Lowest rate approved,
And sleep on porcelain telephony
As travel or loan jester.

(see also spam poetry 1)

Whaddya Know!

Yahoo News reports that the House of Representatives passed a bill to boost refineries. The bill would (among other things):

"streamline government permits for refineries, open federal lands including closed military bases for future refinery construction and limit the number of gasoline blends refiners have to produce, eliminating many blends now designed to reduce air pollution."

Hmm, where have I heard that idea before...?

My only post on the Miers nomination

(Not being a real writer, I couldn't get all my thoughts on the topic into a coherent paragraph, so I'll present them as a list.)

1. Opinions abhor a vacuum.
2. Rational discussion is appropriate, but intra-party acrimony only encourages the other side.
   
3. Despite the bickering about her qualifications, I remain unconvinced whether or not Harriet Miers will turn out to be a good Supreme Court judge. Even though I'm still 'on the fence' about this, both my feet are on Hugh Hewitt's side.
4. On the surface, it appears that our President has not learned that appeasement of the enemies of America does not work any better on the domestic front than it does on the international front.
   
5. To paraphrase an old proverb, "Hope for a Rehnquist, prepare for a Warren."

to boldly draw where no man has drawn before

This Yahoo science report links to an image of the world's smallest fountain pen. Even though I had never heard of such an invention, which can draw lines "as thin as 40 nanometers (with) various types of inks, including pigments for painting patterns and organic materials for designing sensors", I had seen it before.

(I almost titled this post "I'm a calligrapher, Jim, not a doctor!")

unreasonable search and seizure

As much harm as the ACLU has done to the foundations of this country, they do occasionally get something right.

DNA from tens of thousands of suspected illegal immigrants, captives in the war on terrorism and others who have been arrested but not convicted of federal crimes could be added to a national database of convicts' DNA under a proposal the Senate is likely to vote on soon...

U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a sponsor of the bill, says collecting DNA from arrestees would help authorities catch rapists and killers who have arrest records but who go undetected by the DNA system because they have no serious convictions. Barry Steinhardt, who specializes in privacy law for the American Civil Liberties Union, says taking DNA from people who “haven't been found guilty of anything” is wrong. “We've got to ask ourselves whether this is a line we want to cross.”

2NOfP

No Oil for Pacifists has two good bits of reality which the "reality-based" community is likely to ignore.

O'Hair

Molten Thought found this chilling post by Madalyn Murray O'Hair's son.

Remarks on Bill Bennett

Miss O'Hara says it well:

I was listening to Bill Bennett last week when he made the remark that started this ridiculous brouhaha. There's no point in qualifying the asinine charges of racism by defending Bennett, because any halfwit gerbil knows the man isn't a racist. He was making a point, using a noxious example, to prove that the ends don't always justify the means. Nothing wrong or untoward was said.

It's kind of funny - but more sad, really - that the people screaming at Bennett are pro-abortion types who would be happy to see every woman's child aborted, black, white, Asian, or otherwise, if it were the woman's choice.

It's also funny that his accusers are the ones who are always telling us about free speech. Yet here they are, telling us what we can and cannot say, because they are offended. God forbid!

Well...turn off the radio. No one is making you listen, after all.

Most obviously, though, is that we have yet another opportunity (albeit yet another manufactured one) to have that 'discussion on race' the left is always whining about. We had an opportunity last month, too, with the aftermath of Katrina. But instead of a legitimate discussion, we had Oprah pointing her finger at America and telling us we were racist monsters (I suppose that's why waitresses, teachers, truck drivers, nurses, and salesmen dug into their pockets and sent millions to help those people we saw on our television screens every night).

Of course, we all know why that 'discusson' will never take place: the left would lose embarassingly. Tragically, in the meantime, things for the black community aren't getting better. They're practically being held for ransom by the left. Regardless, it's sad beyond words.

There are so many things wrong with the reaction to Bennett's comments - not the least of which is that those accusing him are the real abusers of black Americans.

(emphases mine)

Yach! pt.3

due to a wave of comment spam, i'm enabling word verification for comments. apologies to my good readers out there.

Gasoline's Too High

With an insincere apology to the Starland Vocal Band, here's some alternate lyrics to "Afternoon Delight".

---

Gonna buy unleaded, gonna fill my tank,
When I saw them numbers, well my heart just sank.
Only got a twenty for the whole dang week -
Wouldn't move my Suburban seven hundred feet.

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

Thinking that I can't afford to fill 'er up.
Dollar got a couple gallons, now, just half a cup.
If the war was about oil, wouldn't you just think
That the pricing of the petrol might begin to sink?

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

When the metal numbers move a dozen times a day,
You just know big oil company's gonna make you pay.

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

---

Bill of Rights may have settled during shipment, at participating dealers, except where prohibited.

Dustbury found the "truth in advertising" version of the Bill of Rights.

Machisma Machinations

LA Times makes a good point for once (before the part that says Senator Feinstein is "a sensible person who usually says sensible things."):

"Macha" characters delight in emotional disembowelment; in ordering their victims to let it all hang out. But lots of people have no desire for heart-to-hearts with strangers in public, much less on national TV. Macha is just as toxic as macho, or more so, because it's harder to laugh off."How do you feel?" has become a standard media question, a substitute for eliciting actual information. Oprah and her imitators use it; news reporters covering hurricanes use it. Macha helps demolish the emotional walls that protect people, just as hurricanes demolish their physical walls.

trendsetter, moi?

A few days ago Lileks' Joe Ohio went hatless, now there's one in Seattle, who may have written a very geeky poem...