"tangled" movie review

1) it's fun for all ages

2) it's the only musical i can remember actually enjoying

3) it has the least-annoying disney sidekick since tinkerbell

tron legacy

a one-bit review: yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!

motorcycles

i can haz tanktredz?

that was the week that was

... minor sinus infection ... mild nausea ... dehydration ... exhaustion ... sleep 70% of four days ... miss work ... awkward phone calls to & from work ... hyper-realistic marathon dreams ... lost weekend ... early doctor appointment ... food, work, food, work, food ... miles to go before i sleep ... finished shopping for presents ... shroedinger's restaurant is both open and closed ... "observando el eclipse, mientras que un perro ladra estúpido" ...

alphanumeric

don't be evil...
alpha bets
alpha bits

there's a difference?

Wikipedia defines a chomskybot as:

"...a program that generates paragraphs which appear similar to those in the corpus of Noam Chomsky's linguistic works, but are humorously devoid of any meaning, by combining at random phrases taken from Chomsky's actual works."

Of course, this refers only to the computer-based chomskybots. Carbon-based chomskybots (that infect the comments of many political blogs) differ from their silicon-based siblings in these ways:

1. they parrot chomsky's political (rather than linguistic) babblings,
2. they are more annoying,
3. they actively (rather than passively) resist factual evidence, and
4. they make far less sense.

exorcising diet

dustbury says that jeff brokaw says that:

"We do not understand diet and nutrition and motivation well enough to make general policy about it."

the only thing i'm sure about my diet is that i've lost over 20 pounds mostly by cutting back on soda from 2-to-4-per-day to 1-to-2-per-week. i wonder how much more weight i could lose if i ever exercised...

blogger's block

'nuf said

videogame history

there have been setbacks...

Thanksgiving, again and always

Psalm 107, NASB (via Bible Gateway):

1 O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,
      For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
      Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary
3 And gathered from the lands,
      From the east and from the west,
      From the north and from the south.

4 They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region;
      They did not find a way to an inhabited city.
5 They were hungry and thirsty;
      Their soul fainted within them.
6 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble;
      He delivered them out of their distresses.
7 He led them also by a straight way,
      To go to an inhabited city.
8 Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness,
      And for His wonders to the sons of men!
9 For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
      And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.

10 There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death,
      Prisoners in misery and chains,
11 Because they had rebelled against the words of God
      And spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12 Therefore He humbled their heart with labor;
      They stumbled and there was none to help.
13 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble;
      He saved them out of their distresses.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death
      And broke their bands apart.
15 Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness,
      And for His wonders to the sons of men!
16 For He has shattered gates of bronze
      And cut bars of iron asunder.

17 Fools, because of their rebellious way,
      And because of their iniquities, were afflicted.
18 Their soul abhorred all kinds of food,
      And they drew near to the gates of death.
19 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble;
      He saved them out of their distresses.
20 He sent His word and healed them,
      And delivered them from their destructions.
21 Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness,
      And for His wonders to the sons of men!
22 Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
      And tell of His works with joyful singing.

23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
      Who do business on great waters;
24 They have seen the works of the LORD,
      And His wonders in the deep.
25 For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind,
      Which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths;
      Their soul melted away in their misery.
27 They reeled and staggered like a drunken man,
      And were at their wits' end.
28 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
      And He brought them out of their distresses.
29 He caused the storm to be still,
      So that the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad because they were quiet,
      So He guided them to their desired haven.
31 Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness,
      And for His wonders to the sons of men!
32 Let them extol Him also in the congregation of the people,
      And praise Him at the seat of the elders.


33 He changes rivers into a wilderness
      And springs of water into a thirsty ground;
34 A fruitful land into a salt waste,
      Because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
35 He changes a wilderness into a pool of water
      And a dry land into springs of water;
36 And there He makes the hungry to dwell,
      So that they may establish an inhabited city,
37 And sow fields and plant vineyards,
      And gather a fruitful harvest.
38 Also He blesses them and they multiply greatly,
      And He does not let their cattle decrease.

39 When they are diminished and bowed down
      Through oppression, misery and sorrow,
40 He pours contempt upon princes
      And makes them wander in a pathless waste.
41 But He sets the needy securely on high away from affliction,
      And makes his families like a flock.
42 The upright see it and are glad;
      But all unrighteousness shuts its mouth.

43 Who is wise? Let him give heed to these things,
      And consider the lovingkindnesses of the LORD.

a matter of faith

really, in these modern times, does anybody still actually believe there's such a thing as an animator? this is just a bunch of random bits that organized themselves into a video.

;)

double & single standards

life and death

dogma and dissent

government and projection

read them all

more hints

I'm reposting my list of Child Safety Hints - with two new additions at the end of the list which were inspired by the Distracted Interstate-Driving Dads' League:

1) When seated in your vehicle, you may notice that there are several large pieces of glass all around you. These are designed to afford clear visibility to the outside world. When traveling, please use these "windows" to observe the actions and reactions happening all around you.

2) Through all of your vehicle's windows, you might observe other vehicles which appear to be growing larger. You need not be frightened, this is merely a useful illusion, one that indicates you should not get much closer. The speed of this illusion will indicate its importance. Also, it is certainly not safe for your vehicle to move in perpendicular or opposite directions to those other cars at the same time.

3) If you happen to hear a loud sound (such as a "honk"), that is often an indication that a nearby driver thinks that you should get out of his or her way. If it is safe, you should try to get out of his or her way, no matter whether you think the other driver's opinion is justified or not.

4) Please do not be confused by the varied and numerous lights around you; they are designed to help you and your precious cargo travel in safety.

4a) Through the front window, you might observe red lights, either on vehicles or on poles of various design. Please interpret these lights as indications that you need to bring your vehicle to a stop, not as indications of sale specials of limited duration.

4b) Also through the front window, you might observe green lights on poles. These lights generally indicate that it is safe for you to proceed in your travels; please do so in a timely fashion, so that others may enjoy proceeding in theirs.

4c) If you are observant, you will see many other varieties of lights and signs as you travel. Please familiarize yourself with the meanings of these lights and signs, and how to discern which ones represent laws to be obeyed. There are many resources that can help you learn, such as libraries, police and highway departments, and reputable websites. If you refuse to learn, there will be a pop quiz administered by local officers - an expensive quiz that you will fail miserably.

5) Family communication is important, but it is much less important than keeping your children safe. Please refrain from using your cellphone while driving. You might be surprised how difficult it is to communicate over the wail of sirens, or while breathing through a tube.

6) When an event occurs in the back seat which requires your immediate attention, please bring your vehicle to a safe and complete stop out of traffic before attending to that event. If your vehicle continues moving without your full attention, you will soon find your daily routine impacted by unwanted outside events.

7) There is a little-known law that can greatly increase the safety of you and your child(ren). Please set a good example for everyone by staying in the right lane except for the brief times you need to pass someone - even if the view on the left side of the road is more interesting.

8) For all you "hipster" parents wanting to appear "cool" to your child(ren), please know that it is inherently impossible for any child under the age of thirty to consider their parents as cool. Any entertainment you provide to the child(ren) in your vehicle should not interfere with your primary task of driving. Please do not attempt any of the following while the vehicle is in motion:

• letting your child(ren) decide which lane(s) to occupy,
• retrieving objects that child(ren) have thrown to the floor,
• spoon-feeding your child(ren),
• playing a guessing game of "how fast am i driving now?", or
• playing any other games such as "pattycakes", "peekaboo", "this little piggy", "tic-tac-toe", "backgammon", or "twister".

rfid

problem?

free solution.

pay solution?

heresy!

...or an unreasonable facsimile:

We are all supposed to be androgynously egalitarian in our attitudes, for to be otherwise is to discriminate, and everyone knows that discrimination is wrong.

To adapt a phrase from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “You have to be carefully taught” such beliefs, and we have been taught quite carefully indeed. The de rigueur denunciation of sexism, like the de rigueur denunciation of racism, is a conditioned response, a Skinnerian reflex. Anyone who critically examines these reflexes — who disassembles them into their component parts and asks why we react this way — can expect to be indicted for these Deadly Sins of the Post-Christian Era merely for questioning the categories.

mystery missile

insecurity defined: "When someone makes an unannounced launch what looks to be a ballistic missile 35 miles from the nations second largest city (at sea in international waters), and 18 hours later NORAD still doesn’t have any answers at all – that complete lack of information represents a credible threat to national security."

i agree with the somment, not the post: "If it was a contrail from an airplane, don’t you think the military would have cleared it up by now?"

out since wednesday...

...sitting in the hospital with dad and his busted hip. he'll be okay in a couple of days; i just need to catch up on some sleep...

where are the mammoths...

...when we need them?

It was probably a lot easier back in ancient times to figure out who the stupid people were. They were the ones who did things like taunt the mammoths. And they were pretty easy to identify because their heads had been crushed by mammoths. No one ever even contemplated putting them in charge. Then again, back in that time, there wasn’t really any need for Stephen Hawking-level intelligence either, since there was no such thing as theoretical mammoth hunting studies.

Eventually civilization arose, and intelligence became more treasured. Ironically, this created opportunities for morons to thrive. No longer threatened by mammoth crushings, idiots survived and eventually evolved, developing a form of camouflage. Basically, they learned to appear to be smart while in fact being completely useless to society. We know these idiots today as intellectuals.

read the rest, and a few of the comments are interesting too, like this one:

Complex civilizations such as ours typically don’t respond well to the ideas of the Wishful Thinkers and Coercive Utopians who comprise the bulk of the modern American Left. Real trouble begins when the former two sort enable the Lord of the Flies types. Then civilization collapses in a “spread of ruin and slaughter” as Ayn Rand once put it.

We forget that the Western civilization we currently enjoy came to us at great cost, and that most of human history has been one of conflict and misery for all but an elite few.

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.

–Will Durant, The Story of Civilization

Durant’s quote applies to us, and to America in particular. We need to recognize the enemies of civilization for who and what they are. Our failure to do so and to act accordingly presents the greatest danger to all that we hold dear. Our latter day barbarians – Islam from without and the anti-intellectual, cruel and sadistic will-to-power driven monsters from within – are the enemies of Western civilization. And neither peace nor copmpromise can ever be made with them – that’s precisely the point of Lee Harris’ Civilization and Its Enemies. This is a ‘must read’ for anyone who cars about the fate of the West. Harris concludes his work with this:

...we must all struggle to overcome the collective tendency of civilized men and women to forgetfulness. For that, in truth, is the ultimate question facing us today. Can the West overcome the forgetfulness that is the nemesis of every successful civilization? If it can, then there is hope that mankind will be able to move forward to a higher stage of historical development. If it cannot, then the next stage of history will be one that we once hoped never to see again.

Unfortunately, I do believe that we will see it again. In this last century – and now, in this one – socialism, communism and all of the various totalitarian ‘isms’ provide nothing more than the framework for the exercise of power – absolute power. Absolute, murderous power, as history has so clearly shown. So, no – they don’t work, and they were never intended to ‘work’ – outside of the minds of fairy-dust wishful thinkers and coercive utopians. The ideologies represented by the totalist ‘isms’ are... responsible for the slaughter of over 200 million people over the last 100 years or so – and the impoverishment and enslavement of hundreds of millions more.

Those driven by the will to power have never given up and the very bad ideas that have animated them have never gone away. And they’re not going to shrug their shoulders and quietly walk away once a few of them are removed from positions of power.

election pre-summary

Rightwingsparkle is:

one of those people who don't count their chickens before they are hatched. That is why I haven't been gloating or gone overboard on predictions.

The most amazing thing about these elections is the fact that candidates, who fought against both parties, may actually win. When was that last time that happened? Has that ever happened? Not in my lifetime. That should be the story of this year.

I think most of us would be glad to see the last of Barney Frank, responsible for so much of the debacle of FreddieMac and FannyMae. Who really wants to continue to watch the arrogance of Barbara Boxer? Who wouldn't want to see the last of Harry Reid, the epitome of a Washington insider? Then you have the Alaska dynasty of Lisa Murkowski, whose father handed her the seat she felt entitled to, even when the people of her party voted that she wasn't. All of these career politicians may be gone thanks to a historic citizen-based revolution called The Tea Party...

The GOP may be celebrating tomorrow night, but truth is that they really didn't win, the Democrats just lost. In other words, we only voted for you because you were better than the Democrats, but that ain't saying much...

fear the beard?

the beard is weird!

...and justice for some

racism still exists in the justice department:

The Washington Post has (investigated) the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther Party case and has concluded what was pretty obvious to anyone who had followed it from the beginning: The DOJ is not interested in pursuing voting rights abuses when the victims are white and the perpetrators are black...

Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities...

"There are career people who feel strongly that it is not the voting section's job to protect white voters," the lawyer said. "The environment is that you better toe the line of traditional civil rights ideas or you better keep quiet about it, because you will not advance, you will not receive awards and you will be ostracized."

In the months after the case ended, tensions persisted. A new supervisor, Julie Fernandes, arrived to oversee the voting section, and Coates testified that she told attorneys at a September 2009 lunch that the Obama administration was interested in filing cases - under a key voting rights section - only on behalf of minorities. "Everyone in the room understood exactly what she meant," Coates said. "No more cases like the Ike Brown or New Black Panther Party cases."

Nov.2 isn't just an election this year,

It's a restraining order.

all hallows eve

lileks is not yet in the spirit:

The long orange smear of Halloween, spread over the entirety of October, diminishes the pleasures of giving in to the Halloween behind the Halloween. By which I mean:

The “holiday” concerns two things, besides candy. One: gruesome imagery understood to be jokey and powerless, and a peculiar negatively-defined affirmation of life, inasmuch as you’re not dead, and even the dead isn’t dead. Two: dressing up to be something you’re not, but professes to others an alternative facet to your personality that reflects your actual self. That’s the surface. It’s all a lark, a game, an aria in a graveyard. I don’t have any Other Self I’d like to be – although, now that I think of it, I have my father’s old blue suit . . . add a mask, a red tie, and I’m The Spirit. But who would know I was The Spirit? Oh, you’re that guy in the bad movie. Why? Argh. So I usually wear a mask I get at Walgreens and that’s it. Maybe I should just go as a killjob. I am KILLJOY! SLAYER OF PARTY CONVENTIONS!

trick or treating is not a big deal in our neighborhood, but each year i have a costume idea that i know i'd never actually use. it would consist of:

• plaid polyester shorts
• a sweaty hanes tanktop
• a thin ancient brown leather belt
• a grease-darkened northrup-king gimme hat
• at least five days of beard stubble
• old smushed flip-flip sandals
• nylon navy socks
• a tv remote in one hand and a stack of overdue bills in the other

then i'd stand on the lawn and yell "ooooooohh scaaaaaarrrrrry, i'm yoooooou in forty yearrrrrss!!!!"

:D

tbs commentators

listening to these yankee shills during the alcs makes me long for the fair and unbiased reporting of pravda & dan rather...

a light dawns on the white house

update: one of his cohorts admit he was lying.

"Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus."

Great. What else is the President going to learn after the damage has been done? That global warming is largely a fraud? That raising taxes and increasing regulations on business is no way to stimulate an economy? That bowing to people is no way to win their respect? That taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who don't doesn't make anyone less poor?

Perhaps he'll also learn that the reason he appears to be "the same old tax-and-spend Democrat" is because he is the same old tax-and-spend Democrat. How else could he have expected to appear?

There really is a problem in this White House. Either the President was deliberately lying when he promised that "shovel-ready jobs" would be created by the $800 billion stimulus or he really didn't know that there's no such thing. If it's the former then he's malicious. If it's the latter he's incompetent. In either case he's unsuited for the office he holds.

it's a lose-lose game

"you are likely to be beaten by a seiu"

movie posters

slightly modified for the obama regime

we win

Rangers win ALDS!

...and I have a ticket to ALCS home game 2 :D

we are still paying attention

we were paying attention before the last election, and we will continue to do so. the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

inedible sausage

Paraphrasing Pelosi, "You have to eat all these greasy hairy sausage patties before we tell you what's in them."

not safe for work, play, or anywhere

environmentalists are into snuff films

"An impressive piece of work to be sure, especially when you consider the amount of effort that went into its making...

The 10:10 Project, a nonprofit NGO focused on reducing carbon, convenes a high level meeting in their posh modern conference room. After reviewing PowerPoint on the results of their latest government grant proposals and white-liberal-guilt fund raising campaigns, the 10:10 marketing team reports that previous communication efforts have not been proceeding as expected.

"Perhaps what we need is a fresh new campaign,"...

....somehow, throughout this entire process, not one of the hundreds of people involved seemed to have questioned the wisdom of an advertising message advocating the violent, sudden death of people who disagree with it."

you don't have to watch the horrid gory clip, but read the rest of the article to understand the violent mentality that sane people are up against.

map of online communities

xkcd.com/802_large/

you might find me running a ferry around the southeast blogosphere core, from american thinker and libertarian isle in the north, around eastern techblog, down to the inlet east of religious & miscellaneous blogs...

in fact, it's probably better

"An illiterate clown wins an election" - Typically this isn't news, but this time it's literally true:

SAO PAULO — Voters the world over complain about having clowns for politicians, but Brazilians embraced the idea on Sunday by sending a real one to Congress with more votes than any other candidate.

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, better known by his clown name Tiririca, received more than 1.3 million votes in Sao Paulo state in Brazil's presidential and congressional elections. That was more than double the votes of the second-placed candidate in Brazil's most populous state.

Tiririca caught the attention of disillusioned voters by asking for their support with the humorous slogan: "It can't get any worse" and a promise to do nothing more in Congress than report back to them on how politicians spend their time.

"What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you," the 45-year-old said in his campaign advertisements.

multiple choice quiz

Question:

"How does one support a system characterized largely by credentialed, centralized bureaucratic privilege and unconstrained power, while continuing to always posture as an egalitarian populist on the side of the masses?"

1) cognitive dissonance
2) habitual demagoguery
3) sheer ignorance
4) all of the above
?

tyranny

"Obama is arguing the executive has the power to execute American citizens without a trial, without even so much as an airing of the charges against them, and that it can do so in complete secrecy, with no oversight from any court, and that the families of the executed have no legal recourse.

You can’t even make the weak argument that the executive at least has to claim this power in the course of protecting national security. Because it doesn’t matter. Obama is arguing that he has the right to keep everything about these executions secret—including the reasons they were ordered—merely by uttering the magic phrase “state secrets.”...

If there’s more tyrannical power a president could possibly claim than the power to execute the citizens of his country at his sole discretion, with no oversight, no due process, and no ability for anyone to question the execution even after the fact, I can’t think of it."

read it all

stop censorship

for once, huffpo has it (almost) right: Stop the Internet Blacklist , a.k.a. S.3804

with the alleged purpose of cracking down on copyright infringement, it is loosely-worded enough to become the vastly-overreaching "commerce clause" of the next century.

on disagreement

The typical mode of academic disagreement on the left... whether the issue at stake is Darwinism, global warming, or whatever... is not to calmly reply to the dissenters with arguments and evidence to show how they are mistaken. It is rather to avoid engaging them with arguments at all and instead to punish them, vilify them, and portray them as scientific lepers. Here's Booker:

[N]othing better reveals the hole at the heart of their belief system than the fanaticism with which they turn on anyone who dares question the assumption on which it rests, who must be anathematised with all the venom once turned on heretics by the churches...

The left is trying to use science as a Trojan horse for smuggling into the culture a naturalist, materialist worldview that they want hardened into a dogma that will brook no challenge. They are totalitarians of the mind, seeking to impose a tyranny of uniform thought on a society that largely has no idea what's happening. They are contemporary Torquemadas, and the more they succeed the less free all of us will be to say, think, and believe what we wish.

pledge, contract, whatever

"House Republicans are poised to unveil their agenda for this year's elections Thursday morning, dubbed the "Pledge To America.""

(16 years ago in Washington, Republicans gathered) on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to sign the GOP's vaunted "Contract With America."... an announcer described the fete as "a Republican campaign rally promising a Republican agenda for the next Congress."

In 1994, the GOP codified core principles of small government and lower taxes into a ten-point, legislative bill of fare. Republican leaders promised to bring that agenda to the House floor and pass it within 100 days if voters rewarded them with control of the House for the first time in 42 years.

The Contract featured "The Fiscal Responsibility Act," which imposed a Constitutional Amendment requiring a balanced budget . It also included the "Personal Responsibility Act," a euphemism for welfare reform...

...in words that eerily mirror the rhetoric heard today about President Obama. "The present administration wants to take away from the family budget to have more in the federal budget," said Gingrich when discussing tax reform. "It tells you about how out-of-touch they are with the public."

If I wanted a rerun from the Republican Party, I'd rather see one Reagan than a thousand RINOs...

update: director blue has a similar reaction:

Washington's so freaking broken that the usual platitudes and rhetoric can't and won't suffice.

How about starting with... THE CONSTITUTION?... You could have come to me for the one-page pledge. It would read as follows:

The GOP Pledge to America: We pledge that every action we take will be gauged by the answer to a single question: Does it show fidelity to the Constitution, our highest law?

It really is just that simple.

We are fighting to prevent the destruction of the American way -- and the remedy is simple. It's been right in front of our faces the whole time.

Somewhere, James Madison and John Adams are looking down on us with expectant gleams in their eyes.

what's the difference?

i think it's often one key ingredient...

weird foods: crawdad, turducken, & chicken gizzards
weird foods + snobbery: escargot, caviar, & paté de foie gras

cheap mega-retailer: walmart
cheap mega-retailer + snobbery: target

music-based group activity: square dancing
music-based group activity + snobbery: ballroom dancing

sitcom with a wacky neighbor: honeymooners
sitcom with a wacky neighbor + snobbery: seinfeld

reliable sedan: ford taurus
reliable sedan + snobbery: jaguar xj-series

oversized beverages: super big gulp & colt 45
oversized beverages + snobbery: magnum & jeroboam

member of sonny & cher: sonny
member of sonny & cher + snobbery: cher

efficient use of previously-purchased items: redneck culture
efficient use of previously-purchased items + snobbery: recycling culture

seafaring criminals: pirates
seafaring criminals + snobbery: greenpeace

entertainment featuring seafaring criminals: pirates of the caribbean
entertainment featuring seafaring criminals + snobbery: whale wars

african-american government official: clarence thomas
african-american government official + snobbery: barack obama

i'm sure you can come up with more ideas in the comments...

where's the bias?

find out here and here.

truth in advertising

remember to flush

tea party collection

ny daily news questions authority

glenn reynolds thinks it's a new awakening

brad o'leary solves the mystery

hot air against over-regulation

imao's mythbusters: republicans

iowahawk's old guard response

random thoughts

imao has them too:

So was it because of Bill Clinton the tradition was started of each president getting a new Oval Office rug?

The left doesn’t have a monopoly on argument styles that immediately turn off large swaths of people.

So while O’Donnell could be a nut, you can’t say she’s too inexperienced to be a Senator. There’s no such thing. For pete’s sake, Obama almost did that job.

For a couple days now, I’ve been trying to think of some pun off of like “hyper-aware” and “Delaware”, but can’t put it together. I’ll try anyway: “The GOP isn’t only aware of conservative anger, it’s DELaware.”

speaking of dog

back when it was legal to tell ethnic jokes, rumors were often spread that the meat served in certain oriental restaurants was from animals that westerners would consider to be pets. i figured that those animals could be eaten under dire circumstances, like war, famine, or extreme poverty, but never served by a restaurant with a permit.

until tonight... i'm really wondering whether my lunch actually consisted of beef... errrrmmmmmm...

bowwowack obowwowma

re "they talk about barack like a dog" - the comments are better than the article:

You mean the Nobel Prize he won wasn’t for best of breed?

If he had only been treated like the fool he is all along we could have avoided all of this and saved several trillion dollars to boot.

He thought he could get a little sympathy from his most loyal followers – the unions – and instead gave us a glimpse into the real Obama: an over-praised nincompoop bewildered and enraged that the unwashed masses who elected him are daring to turn against him.

What goes around, comes around, Barry. You trash-talk Tea Party Patriots, Republicans, Fox News, Cops, etc. etc. When they bite back, you start squealing like a little stuck pig. Suck it up, El Presidente, you deserve it.

The fact of the matter is Obama has been treated with kid gloves compared to Bush, and Sarah Palin has been roasted compared to Obama.

how about them rangers?

texas rangers sweep the y*****s!

It's the first time the Yankees have been swept in a three-game series this season.

The Rangers swept the Yankees at home for the first time since 1996, which was also the year Texas made the playoffs for the first time. The Rangers upped their lead to eight games in the American League West...

1914, 1938, 1964

which year is it?

better late than never, i guess

fidel castro regrets communism?!?!

I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?

I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."

read both parts

lolbama 48

many people are not respecting his authoritah

believe it or not, the best punchline is four words originally written on a wall about 3000 years ago (the third picture)

somehow missing from tonight's newscast

The "religion of peace" is at it again: Eight Christians burnt to death in Pakistan after koran is (allegedly) defiled.

Paramilitary troops patrolled the streets of a town in eastern Pakistan yesterday after Muslim radicals burnt to death eight members of a Christian family, raising fears of violence spreading to other areas.

Hundreds of armed supporters of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Islamic militant group, set alight dozens of Christian homes in Gojra town at the weekend after allegations that a copy of the Koran had been defiled.

The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw petrol bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. “They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses,” Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said. Residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. “We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action,” Mr Masih said.

Police and local officials said that at least eight people, including four women and a child, were killed in the fires. Two others died of gunshot wounds. Residents said that the casualties were much higher; one claimed that the number of dead could be in the dozens as many bodies were still buried under the rubble.

Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, said that 40 Christian homes were torched in rioting. He said there was no truth to allegations that a Koran had been defiled, and accused the police of ignoring his appeal to provide protection to Christians...

Christians also face intimidation because of discriminatory blasphemy laws, including one that carries the death penalty for defiling the Koran and images of the Prophet Muhammad. The law is often misused to settle personal scores.

(emphases mine)

That article links to an interesting secular comparison of the Bible to the koran.

great quote

i especially like this in light of recent corporate... issues...

"The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred."

Obama's Economic Plan

let me guess - he wants to steal from taxpayers and flush it down a socialist sinkhole again, right?

missing the point

Though Stephen Hawking has proclaimed himself wise, his new book leaves out some important factors: Alpha and Omega.

freedom of speech...

...applies to every part of the political spectrum, much to the dismay of leftists.

breaking news

Inspired by Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" and other environmentalist propaganda, California Left-wing Radical Environmentalist James Jay Lee straps explosives to himself, fires shots and takes hostages at Discover Channel HQ in Silver Springs MD.

in case you were wondering,

i'm not going to post here with an apology for not posting so much lately ;)

i'm noticing a pattern

update & bump - read below

many years ago, my friend's dad was a long time santa fe railroad worker. just before the santa fe and burlington northern railroads merger, the atsf management began to (as he put it) "make his life more difficult", primarily with a couple of senseless relocations, and with other bureaucratic headaches of various types. from previous experience, he knew all of those were intended to get him to retire early, and not collect the final (and highest) tiers of retirement benefits.

several years ago, as mom's company was being bought out, she noticed several examples of similar managerial tricks being used to dissuade their employees from holding out for the severance package due to them.

this year, my company is in merger talks, and (while not being forced to relocate) i have been subjected to a larger number of anti-sensical bureaucratic headaches than in any previous year of my employment there.

coincidence? i think not!

;)

i just hope the severance package is enough to hold me until obama's out and the economy recovers...

--------------------

another pattern to be noticed:

after about seven years at a previous job, my then-boss decided to hold a series of meetings to expound some anthony-robbins-type of self-improvement principles he had found. though his method of presenting them was not particularly obnoxious, he did not realize what little motivation we would have to take "life lessons" from such a quirky (and pornography-addicted) scatterbrain.

at the time, that episode reminded me of a scene i had read (possibly in the h.h.g.g. trilogy) where the protagonist goes to ask advice of some acclaimed guru. when he arrives, he discovers (and the guru admits) that the guru is actually poor, sick, smelly, and hated by all his neighbors. the guru then tells the protagonist to "only follow my advice if you want to end up like me".

i quit that job within a few weeks.

fast-forwarding to today: it was suggested that i attend a "career path seminar" that was presented at work. though i actually like the supervisor who suggested it, the presenter was someone who represents everything i hope to avoid in my life and career.

now, while i'm not quitting this job without a safety net, i refuse to become a smarmy loud-mouthed suck-up for any reason, including getting or keeping a job or promotion.

normal people don’t desire to spend other people’s money

When America's founding fathers...

designed our government, they put in a bunch of measures to protect us from being pushed around by tyrants.... basically we traded having one big, petty tyrant pushing us around for a bunch of little, even pettier tyrants all competing to push us around.

the palestinian problem

how did this phase start?

During the 1948 war and for many years afterward, the Western world — including the international Left — expressed hardly any moral outrage about the Palestinian refugees. This had nothing to do with Western racism or colonialism and much to do with recent history. The fighting in Palestine had broken out only two years after the end of the costliest military conflict ever, in which the victors exacted a terrible price on the losers... (particularly) the 11 million ethnic Germans living in Central and Eastern Europe — civilians all — who were expelled from their homes and force-marched to Germany by the Red Army, with... the approval of Roosevelt and Churchill.

Historians estimate that 2 million died on the way. Around the same time, the Indian subcontinent was divided into two new countries, India and Pakistan; millions of Hindus and Muslims moved from one to the other, and hundreds of thousands died in related violence. Against this background, the West was not likely to be troubled by the exodus of a little more than half a million Palestinians after a war launched by their own leaders.

the benefits of unemployment

Viewpoint: "Giving (the unemployed) another 20 weeks of leisure seems rather counterproductive and unfair to taxpayers":

No doubt there are people who struggle assiduously to find work but can't and who deserve some help. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the responsible thing to do is to provide assistance only to those who are really trying to help themselves. To simply dole out cash without monitoring the effort made by the recipients isn't charitable, it's foolish... Two years is more than long enough for those who refuse the jobs available to them or who decline to even look for work.

those wacky peaceniks...

...sure are getting violent

they vote no

via dustbury: "This "Obama is a Muslim" bit won't fly with me. You'll first have to prove that BHO worships something other than himself."

via imao: "Obama’s too competent at destroying America to be a Muslim terrorist."

1010011010

school wants to track students

apple wants to track users

google wants to track users

these aren't the mark of the beast, they're just dress rehearsals...

blogging license

i say the city of philadelphia owes me $300 for the mental anguish of having to post about this nonsense ;)

that deficit graph

obama's sending our economy straight to h-e-double-hockeysticks...

ugh, that sounds correct

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

makezine in china

in the geopolitical context of stories like these, what (if anything) should we think about this?



in general i like makezine's blog, and the self-reliance and creativity it promotes, but this... not so much...

not to build

there should be no question.

wasn't that marvin the martian...

...who got very angry indeed? not this time. referring to a different fictitious alien, lileks, "

almost lost my temper today, and as St. Yoda has noted, Anger leads to violence, violence leads to suffering, suffering leads to misquotes, or whatever . . . the freakin’ frog-goblin said.

"

agreed

Real Americans have had ENOUGH!:

The contempt for ordinary Americans displayed by the ruling class is reaching critical mass. There may never have been a time in American history when the governing, academic, cultural, and media elites have been more manifestly disdainful of the country’s values, traditions, principles, and people.

Individuals who express sincere concerns that the polices and practices of the elites are imperiling the nation’s economy and security are branded as racists and xenophobes by the anointed...

The same elites who lecture incessantly refuse to listen to the racist rabble populating flyover country. They have no problem listening, apologizing, and bowing obsequiously to our declared enemies, but insist on acting imperiously toward their fellow Americans.

When thousands flooded town-hall meetings to express opposition to Obamacare, they got Obamacare shoved down their throats. When twenty states sued,... legal elites scoffed that the Commerce Clause permits the federal government to compel the unenlightened to eat their vegetables. And when 71 percent of Missouri voters rejected the abominable bill, Robert Gibbs proclaimed that the vote meant “nothing.”

It’s certainly evident that it was, indeed, “nothing” to the ruling class. That class will pass a 2,000-page, $800 billion spending bill without even reading it. They will “redistribute” billions from disfavored groups to favored constituencies. They will rack up ethics charges like frequent-flier miles. They will take over giant car companies and financial institutions despite never having run so much as a pop stand. They will drop missile defense and open our borders because we’ve been on the wrong side of history all these years. They will shut down oil drilling in the Gulf, thereby sacrificing the livelihoods of thousands, without any empirical justification whatsoever. They will abandon our nation’s allies and embrace our enemies for no other reason than that it’s a different policy than George W. Bush’s. They will prosecute Navy SEALs but wink at the release of convicted terrorists. They will exhibit galactic ineptitude in cleaning the Gulf but assure us they can completely reorder the economy in response to the non-debateable evidence of global warming. They will raise our taxes so that our comparatives in the federal government can be paid twice as much as we are. They will sue Arizona for doing the job they refuse to do themselves. They will grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants by bureaucratic fiat. They will tell us what light bulbs to use, how much fat we may have in our diets, and how much water we may have in our toilets...

Perhaps in the recent past, with a compliant, JournoList-infected media providing cover, they could do anything. Not anymore. Americans have had enough.

(only slightly edited, to make room for this related next excerpt)

...governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

the keynes is dead!

keep him that way!

If there’s one positive to come out of the Great Recession, it should be the end of Keynesian economics as a serious policy choice. The notion you can grow the economy via North Korea-style command economics should have been long-dead... but Obama’s miserable failure may finally drive a stake through this productivity-sucking, economy-killing meme...

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AGGREGATE DEMAND.

Government spending is not demand, it is command spending. To “aggregate” it with private sector demand is like counting your dog’s ringworm as a “pet” on a census form, at least for purposes of stimulating the economy. It does not follow the same rules as private sector spending, as it is always seized and distributed according to law/fiat by bureaucrats indifferent to costs and benefits, not exchanged consensually between self-interested private parties seeking to maximize their utility. That’s why Keynesianism is “unexpectedly” falling flat on its face before our eyes: it relies on a fallacious aggregation.

yes it's an accident

...but it's also a great metaphor for the damage caused by the hot air blown by most politicians.

redefinition

(to rephrase)

multiculturalism: all those bad customs that everyone came to the US to get away from

the lemon law

"...as Rep. Pete Stark recently explained, the federal government has unlimited power to do anything and should really use that power more."

i'm ba-aaack!

...having set a new personal record for miles driven in one day(-ish) : about 660 - Oakley KS to Amarillo TX - 10am Fri to 5pm Fri, Amarillo TX to Fort Worth TX - 11pm Fri to 5am Sat.

Other numbers of (dubious) note:

• Grand total of miles driven this vacation: 4360 (ranks 3rd on my list)
• Number of pictures taken: 1265 (hooray digital!)
• Number of short detours just to take pictures: at least two dozen
• Number of states I visited for the first time: 5 - ID, MT, SD, IA, NE
• Number of annoying billboards seen on I-90 in South Dakota: eleventy-jillion-and-seventy-three
• Number of presidential faces seen on Mount Rushmore: 4
• Number of minutes before sundown I arrived at Devil's Tower: 16
• Number of fat old motorcyclists seen: several hundred
  
• Number of unreachable bug bites around my left shoulder blade: 4
• Number of double rainbows seen: 3
• Number of drives along the SD Badlands: 2
• Average number of minutes per morning I wasted watching the Weather Channel show anything except actual weather: 23
  
• Number of most-frequented motel: 6
• Number of inexplicable new holes in my car's front right wheel well: 1
• Number of spam emails received in those 11 days I was gone: 735
  

bad pun

just one last post before my vacation starts:


Q: Which part of the brain is responsible for the big stretch and deep breath a person takes upon waking?

A: The Pons Daily Yawn.


:D

vacation all i ever wanted...

vacation had to get away...

don't expect many posts here for the two weeks after this friday.

p.s. it is pure coincidence that i'm commemorating discovery channel's "shark week" with a sightseeing trip to the notoriously shark-free south dakota and wyoming ;)

both or neither

In bizarro world, thousands of headlines would read "Crushing of Dissent in Obama's AmeriKKKa!!!"*, and nobody would have ever heard of James Byrd Jr. and Jasper TX.

In bizarro world, the networks would have bent over backwards to show the entire Rodney King video, and only the edited portions of the Shirley Sherrod video.

Both kinds of racism are bad, mmmkay?


* Looking further, the band that was cancelled is pornographically vile, filthy, and sick, but not apparently racist.

update: the plot thickens

now why didn't i think of that?

i had both the guitar and the model...

black plague

Al-Qaeda cell killed by Black Death was developing biological weapons

here's hoping all terrorists get their hands on it - without gloves - and die without spreading it.

and now for something completely different

the kaye effect explained

what would i do for a klondike bar?

pay 50% of retail price, max.

;)

the florida virus

viewpoint is having trouble with a corrupt slumlord at the moment:

(slightly edited)

Personally, I suspect I may be wasting my time by appealing to anyone at Mid-America Apartment Communities simply because, given the evidence so far, it appears that the mentality of greed is all-pervasive in the corporate culture of MAAC. Any modicum of ethics and integrity was sacrificed at the altar of Almighty Profits long ago...

Well, today marks the one-week anniversary of our moving debacle but I have to say I... believe there are still some business people of integrity. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for the folks at The Lighthouse at Fleming Island in Florida.

On the morning after the flood, I visited Laura Hulsey - Community Manager laura.hulsey@maac.net (904) 278-6006 and instead of expressing any concern or interest for our situation, any inquiry as to our well-being, she matter-of-factly made it clear in no uncertain terms that I would be receiving an invoice for the costs of the water damage cleanup. My lightening-quick instincts told me this was an evil, otherworldly creature that relishes every opportunity to abuse and oppress tenants. One look into that cold, stupid, lifeless stare of hers makes it intuitively obvious to even the casual observer that this is so.

Years ago I learned what I call the customer's algorithm. Here's the pseudo code:

while (level of service not = acceptable) do {
escalate efforts by contacting someone higher up the corporate food chain
if ((unethical mentality flows from top down = true or
entire corporate culture = polluted or
evidence of integrity = false) or
(satisfied))
then {
quit
}
}

This provides a simple way to discover the integrity and ethical fabric of an organization. In this case, I was led to Mr. Glenn Evers - Regional Manager glenn.evers@maac.net (904) 363-2300.

I spoke with Mr. Glen Evers two days ago and, after listening to my side of the story, he indicated he would get back to me before the end of business yesterday. When that didn't happen I was cautiously optimistic that he might have found reason to believe that I shouldn't be held liable for the water damage cleanup. I was sadly mistaken. This morning the ice lady, Laura Hulsey, called. Her idea of compassion is to give me the opportunity to pay for the expense in four installments.

Our worst fears were confirmed recently when we went to the local Home Depot and as soon as they learned it was The Lighthouse that we were dealing with, they literally expressed their condolences. Apparently the abusive reputation of The Lighthouse is well known locally and, trust me, it's now, as they say, about to go "viral"...

i'm just doing my part to spread this virus ;)

don't look at that man behind the curtains pulled over your eyes

Due to some needlessly arcane technical reasons, spam filters on some of my email accounts have been non-functional, so I've had the internet equivalent of a sewage leak into my inbox lately. Ever the optimist (hah!), I looked upon this as a learning experience, and have deduced that there are only three spammers in the entire world!

One is a Nigerian fiduciary, one is a talkative exhibitionist in her late teens, and the other is a bald impotent Russian pervert who's trying to sell a truckload of wristwatches.

mlb all star game bloopers

tonight's game was supposed to be about baseball's all-stars, but some hollywood "stars" (a.k.a. attention whores) hijacked the show to lecture us about their pet causes*. yyyaaawwwnnnnnnnn. can we please get on with the game?!?!?

* (it's not a commentary on the causes themselves, just the lecturing)

"green" is the new "avocado"

Many things may be learned from the collapse of greenie hysteria:

Malthusian panic attacks alternating with utopian dreams of universal accords, anti-growth politics and anti-capitalist resentments dressed up as environmentalism aren’t going to help us.

Alcohol abuse, war, nuclear weapons and excessive emission of greenhouse gases are all bad. Those facts, however, do not make Prohibition, the Kellog-Briand Pact, the nuclear freeze or the Big Green treaty movement smart, effective or good...

...sensible and thoughtful people who want humanity to live fuller, richer lives in a cleaner and more sustainable world need to get past the naive and crude policy ideas that currently dominate green thinking and start giving these questions the serious attention and careful thought they deserve.

duh

it's so obvious, even actors are starting to understand!:

"The curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time,” Ferguson said. “Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.”

despite zer-o's efforts:

He is not teaching you how to think. He is not leading you through carefully orchestrated steps of information to help you make educated conclusions which you can look back at and question to better conclusions as you mature. He is doing the opposite. He is standing inside of reality and constructing a house of mirrors and deconstructing your ability to think logically. He’s telling you that what you “know” is not real... and some people are inclined to follow him down into a final state of babbling, blithering idiocy...

Some would point to this manner of speaking and brush Obama off as a classic liar unable to keep the lies straight, but I disagree...

We used to call this method: Baffle them with b***s***. But this is Obama, so we need to immortalize his ruthless use of rampant stupidity to make even a starving man feel full, and inspire a strange vomitous awe in those of us watching this new philosophical perversion in action.

another example:

The facts of the matter are as follows. Obama has no interest in plugging the (bp gulf oil spill) hole or cleaning up the oil because he needs the catastrophe to grab as much power as humanly possible. I am actually impressed at how much power he has to shut down coverage of the colossal damage being done and the creeping destruction of the entire state of Florida, thousands – THOUSANDS of miles of beaches soon ruined and a tourist economy devastated, punishment for voting Republican I guess. If this were Bush we would know about every fish larvae killed and be hearing a million reports of the disaster, but Bush could not have kept the press out of the spill areas. Obama – for some weird reason – can. Why is that? How is that possible? It’s impressive and terrifying all at once.

language lessons

update: i have no way of knowing if they read this post, but more recent tv ads for the chevy silverado have the same announcer with a much-less-emphasized accent. texas rangers fans and i thank them for that increased intelligibility. ;)

to the ad agency in charge of a certain pickup ad: you might sell more of that vehicle if your announcer didn't pronounce its name "ticzouss adeejon chooobee sibblydoddo"

the lie is falling! the lie is falling!

or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the present day

iran, so far away

one way, or another, iran's thugocracy should be gone soon

tweet twit

CNN fires journalist for tweeting her praise for Islamofascist

CNN International has fired one of its senior editors after she published a Twitter message lamenting the death of a Lebanese Shi'ite cleric... the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, an early mentor of the militant group Hezbollah who died in Beirut on Sunday.

Nasr, a 20-year CNN veteran based in Atlanta, departed from the channel after "a conversation" with Parisa Khosravi, a CNN senior vice president...

A CNN spokesman said: "CNN regrets any offence her Twitter message caused. It did not meet CNN's editorial standards."

"It did not meet CNN's editorial standards" just means "she should have praised terrorists on-air, not on-line."

and now for something completely different

the name "sidecar" takes on a whole new meaning

opposing theories

my money is on adam smith... or maybe john galt...:

Mario Rizzo and Gerald O’Driscoll point to dueling letters to the editor from 1932 in The London Times by John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek on whether government spending can help cure contemporary economic woes. The letters, unearthed by Richard Ebeling, show that today’s debates over economic policy are, in many respects, a rerun of the debates of the 1930s.

this comment summarizes the fight:

The question is: do we believe economic theories that had been around and verified by 150+ years of observation and practice; or do we believe an economic theory postulated by a political activist who proposed his ideas during an economic recession in order to increase their play in his target audience (governments)? Keynes provided a convenient cover for expansion of government power, which was part in parcel with the current theory of expanding government on a ‘scientific basis.’ It didn’t matter that the science was wrong or absurd (e.g. eugenics), it only mattered that it sounded good and gave cover to expanding government power.

losses

it's like... kids ain't thinkin'... n' stuff... ya know? ;)

Loss of... the ability to formulate and enunciate properly constructed sentences that reflect clear thought -- is growing at a staggering rate in the United States. Even among students whose academic aptitude is well above the national average, my years as an undergraduate business professor show that four out of five will make grave spelling errors in written assignments or exams, and about half that regularly commit grammatical blunders...

What is being lost is the capacity to think in terms of cause and effect, of distinguishing between differing levels of argument, and particularly any appreciation for abstraction. Increasingly, students expect to be spoon-fed with concrete examples, operational instructions, mechanical repetitions, and pictorial representation. The loss of language is but a symptom of the loss of thought -- and losing thought means losing much more...

Students have constantly been told that there is no essence and meaning to things, and that they are only what they want themselves to be. They have been fed a heavy diet of relativism and indoctrination in one of the changing variants of collectivism -- feminism, socialism, and nationalism being only the most prominent among them. They are taught what to "make" of themselves, how to "construct" an identity in a category that is politically desirable, but not to discover what -- or rather who -- they are and for which purpose they are in the world.

via nicole via dustbury

as true as ever

A reminder of what some of us have long known: the president is trying to destroy America:

The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Charles Rangel* said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."

These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.

and some of his friends have bigger goals.

a mixed message

Happy birthday America! Get well soon!

out of touch

the pot calling the kettle bl... um... ferrous-american?

update: see also...

pun time

Did you hear that Adam Ant started a new band with former Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane band members? He calls their new style of music "antacid".

Martha burst into her husband's study and asked "What are you doing with all those computers?" George replied "I'm putting them on my network for lan's sake!"

revisionism

i haven't ever been in a left-coast school, so i can't verify this kid's story, but i did see some similar underlying leftist drivel portrayed at the monticello and new gettysburg reeducation camps a couple of years ago...

by the sackload

ann coulter, monday evening:

“When liberals say, ‘nothing is sacrosanct,’ they mean ‘nothing other Americans consider sacrosanct is sacrosanct.’ They demonstrate their open-mindedness by ridiculing other people’s dogma, but will not brook the most trifling criticism of their own dogmas.”

and now for something completely different

the two oddest b-17 variants you may ever see: real and imagined

you can't spell "Big Oil" without "B.O."

update & bump: the crude thickens...

what’s not receiving a lot of focus is Obama’s own economic interests in preventing Gulf drilling... Obama’s wealth is largely held in two Vanguard funds. Vanguard was among the companies that dumped BP stock shortly before the disaster. It now turns out that BP informed the office of mineral managment that there were problems with the well back in mid-February. That led to the sacking of Birnbaum, no doubt, though Pelosi tried... to blame it on burrowed-in Bush holdovers. Apart from the timing of the stock dumping, and the revelation that the feds had indeed been informed earlier on of potential problems, there’s the issue of Soros’ timely investment in Petrobras, backed up by US billions. Many of us found it scandalous that Obama was opposed to US offshore drilling before the disaster, but ready to invest in offshore drilling for Brazil, which... has the greatest biodiversity on the planet.

---

Chicago corruption reaches across the Atlantic...

Obama is the top recipient of BP (British Petroleum) PAC and individual money over the past 20 years.

U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study.

...and into the Gulf of Mexico...

everybody draw muhammad - 5/20

update & bump: if you missed the celebration, you can study at home for next year ;)

the site is dead. long live the sites.

if you need any ideas, here's one inspiration out of many (avoid the "extreme muhammad" page).

how shall we impeach thee?

let us count the ways!

world cup soccer

bzzz! bzzzzzzzz!!!

update: i just thought of one "fun fact" imao missed:

The etymology of the name "vuvuzela" is obscure. Popular myth says that the name "vuvuzela" was coined when a drunken French soccer fan slurred out the name "beelzebub". However, the word is actually the name of the Mayan god of the root canal, a giant flaming bronze alligator whose sharpened drill-like snout bored through the eardrums of his "patients" to perform dental surgery. There is only one hieroglyph in existence of that accursed name, as the mere thought of the "vuvuzela" was simply too gruesome for the Mayan blood-cultists to handle.

:)

the not-so-dark underbelly

update: i just found a cool site that displays airspace maps using the google maps interface - runwayfinder.com

living under one of the most complex airspaces in the us, i see quite a few aircraft every day. lots of airliners around dfw, military aircraft around carswell-nasjrb, and fedex 777s around alliance. i did have two unusual spottings recently though:

the unmistakable outline of a piaggio p.180 avanti today, and an ac130 gunship with a view almost this close a couple of weeks ago.

:D

year of the weasel

order your copy of "the plutarchist cookbook" today!

epic fail

"(People voted for Obama) because he was a good speaker and said nice, positive things. And I guess a lot of people thought that’s what he’d do as president: stand around and say positive stuff. But when Obama became president, he rightly realized he was actually supposed to do stuff. So he’s tried to do stuff to the best of his limited ability. The result is trillions more in debt, a still failing economy, and half the ocean covered in oil, but hey, he’s trying. And we’re going to yell at him for doing a bad job? It’s like we took a fry cook from McDonald’s and decided to make him a neurosurgeon because he looked good in a surgical mask and then got mad at him when he killed his first patient. Who is really to blame here?"

i think it's still debatable, president hussein may or may not know what he's doing...

update: another vote for the "incompetence" angle

Racism (D)

funny how imao isn't joking this time...

are you smarter than a fifth grader?

or congress?

surprise surprise surprise!

the acorn points to the tree it fell from:

The radical activist group ACORN "works" for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators' reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN's Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws. All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

Project Vote is ACORN's voter registration arm. Project Vote continues to operate despite the reported dissolution of the national structure of ACORN... One employee told the FBI that ACORN headquarters is "[working] for the Democratic Party."

According to one report, an ACORN employee said the purpose of "[f]raudulent cards" was "[t]o cause confusion on election day to keep polls open longer," "[t]o allow people who can't vote to vote," and "[t]o allow to vote multiple times."

Another report quotes an employee saying, "Project Vote will pay them whether cards fake or not - whatever they had to do to get the cards was attitude." Project Vote pays based on the number of cards and "that's why they were so reckless," the report says.

the darker underbelly

"A more obvious spectacle of... cultural suicide cannot be imagined."

"(Islamofascism's) goal is hegemony over the Near East, and the imposition of Sharia law, a draconian system of theocratic misogyny. Rather than heaping scorn and abhorrence on these fanatics, the modern intellectual helps, aids, abets, forgives and excuses them, even to the point of refusing to admit what he sees and knows. Instead of expressing solidarity for women trapped behind the veil, or for homosexuals stoned to death by this inhuman law, the modern intellectual blames the Christians for seeking theocracy, heaps scorn and mockery on Christ, and upbraids as racism jokes, criticism, or any other opposition to the Jihad program."

read it all, and this related post

insanity

the least of my objections to this plan to tax new media to support newspapers is that it's not very environmentally-friendly.

blue O cult

History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men...
CRUDEZILLA!

it could always get worse

for instance, the media could show up...

or census takers...

philistines

update 1: did you know that sabres and molotov cocktails are considered humanitarian aid? only to the philistines...

---

a society of darwin award winners

(The Palestinian people are) backwards, genocidal, hyper-violent, sad-sack Nazi wannabes led by terrorists who would happily murder every Jew on the planet if they could get away with it.

(The Israelis are) a tiny Western democracy surrounded by backwards savages who want to murder them down to the last child because they're Jews. Moreover, despite all the claims to the contrary, they're the most restrained people on earth. If you don't believe that, consider the fact that they could simply drive the Palestinians off their land and take it at any point, but instead, they've chosen to permanently live beside of millions of people who make the Manson family look sane. If the Israelis were somehow replaced by Americans, we'd drive the Palestinians off their land at gunpoint in six months tops -- and we'd be perfectly justified in doing so.

So, that brings us to the relief flotillas... this time around, the Jew-haters on the flotilla made a critical Darwin-Award-worthy error: they assaulted an Israeli commando team with knives, sticks, and guns.

via directorblue

bounty

the quicker picker upper

live and learn

if you can

environmentalists didn't cause the oil spill

, but they sure helped:

(quite edited)

Why do we drill in the ultra-deep of the ocean? Environmentalists.

Since it is so much easier, cheaper, and safer, oil companies would much rather drill on land or shallow water. But over the years, environmentalists have succeeded in pushing drilling off land and away from our coastlines.

There are many small pumping units off the side of the road all over the Texas and Oklahoma oilfields, but the pumps are hardly noticeable. If BP had a drilling accident in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (which has had a 30-year ban on drilling), it would have been on barren land and affected almost no one. But now, we have the biggest environmental disaster in our history.

The people who would like to blame a lack of regulation never stop to consider that part of the blame lies with pushing rigs so far out.

This is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences.

that nutty acorn

...is trying to grow roots

a memorial to forget

to spite the black dog that keeps following me, i will write my recent random bits o' news in the most optimistic light i can think of, and leave it to you to read between the lines:

• recent complaints about my work product were largely baseless, and therefore did not result in any formal reprimands.
• ambulance service response is very quick in a small town.
• my niece's arterial wound is healing nicely, and she should not remain anemic for more than a couple of weeks.
• dad's nursing home noticed the changes in his symptoms, and quickly notified both the emergency services and the family.
• there is a medication for dad's symptoms, and his doctor will return him to the proper dosage shortly.
• my new (to me) van transported me safely all the way to the aforementioned small town, and more than 90% of the way back.
• only the outer tread of one tire departed the vehicle, and it did not hit anyone.
• the inner tire was sufficient for me to safely pull over.
• the inner median on west loop 820 is quite spacious.
• the temperature was only in the low 90s, below today's record high, and a nice breeze was generated by the passing cars.
• a convenience store was less than a mile away, and the personnel there were quite helpful.
• the cab of the tow truck was air-conditioned.
• though the ntb nearest to my house was closed for the holiday, there was ample parking for us to leave the van.
• my budget allows the purchase of towing and repair services.
  
• i live in a country awesome enough that these minor events are the biggest of my worries.
  

worried yet?

some particular quotes stood out to me from this article about the largest plunge in the m3 money supply since the great depression:

The US has just tried the biggest fiscal experiment in history and it has failed.

...the dominant voices in US policy-making (Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Mr Summers, Fed chair Ben Bernanke) are all Keynesians of different stripes who "despise traditional monetary theory and have a religious aversion to any mention of the quantity of money"

Mr Bernanke no longer pays attention to the M3 data... The sudden slowdown in M3 in early to mid-2008 - just as the Fed talked of raising rates - gave a second warning that the economy was about to go into a nosedive.

Mr Bernanke built his academic reputation on the study of the credit mechanism. This model offers a radically different theory for how the financial system works. While so-called "creditism" has become the new orthodoxy in US central banking, it has not yet been tested over time and may yet prove to be a misadventure.

disaster averted

the hole has been plugged!

:D

black markets

the lesser of two evils

the ottoman empire...

...should not be here.

where the streets have odd names

the author of dustbury said that he's not worthy of a street that shares his name:

house link

i wonder if he's as worthy as feliks gwozdz:

map link

having driven past that street countless times, i always wondered who feliks gwozdz was and why he had a street named after him. after many years, i found out (via the newfangled inter-tubes) that he was the tarrant county medical examiner from 1969 to 1979 (the tarrant county medical examiner's office is on that street). the only other info i could find about him online was that (just months before his death) he refused to order the exhumation of lee harvey oswald. it's also *remotely* possible that he was a classmate of karol josef wojtyla, who later became pope john paul the 2nd.

do any other fort worth/tarrant county residents know anything else about mr. gwozdz?

roasting richard dawkins

both too late and prematurely:

"this whole "New Atheism" movement is only a passing fad-not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current "marketplace of ideas" particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally trivial that it has to be classified as just a form of light entertainment, and popular culture always tires of its diversions sooner or later and moves on to other, equally ephemeral toys."...

To be fair, the shallowness is not evenly distributed. Some of the writers exhibit a measure of wholesome tentativeness in making their cases, and as a rule the quality of the essays is inversely proportionate to the air of authority their authors affect... The whole project probably reaches its reductio ad absurdum when the science-fiction writer Sean Williams explains that he learned to reject supernaturalism in large part from having grown up watching Doctor Who.

read the rest (via viewpoint, again)

...and a somehow-related quote:

“Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world. It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on ‘remaking America.’”