robots

unless the gizmo on top is a gun or a high-powered laser, this thing doesn't look like much of a guard.

p.s. but these things could be terminator's granddad.

projection deluxe

I only had to change a few words from this lunatic's quote to arrive at the truth:

Bloggers are under attack because we try to find stuff out. We are under attack because we say what we believe to be true. (Even more annoyingly, we are protected by the Constitution.) We are a reality-based institution standing up to an anti-faith media culture, and we are paying for it...

The problem is that we are fair-minded. We know that we make mistakes. We want to get better. The fair-minded have no chance against zealots. Zealots lie because the ends justify the means, and we say, "Oh, gosh, we're going to investigate and strive and improve." Are the zealots going to investigate and strive and improve? Of course not: They have an agenda, and the agenda does not include self-assessment. The zealots are working out of the Che Guevara handbook, friends.

well, there they go again...

still trying to stifle free speech.

don't forget the vorpal bunny!

If puppets and narwhals are outlawed, only outlaws will have puppets and narwhals.

extraordinary circumstances

The Therapist finds two other Senate sellou... er, compromises have been reached.

Clinton's Teflon Coating

Provided in part by the L.A. Times.

The 2nd commentor got it right: "The only problem is that there’s so much (Clinton dirty laundry) — the land deals, the politics, the business stuff - that it’s hard to keep it all straight."

LGF

Little Green Footballs is (are?) keeping track of "the religion of peace".

space image

Buzz Aldrin, one of the men who planted the U.S. flag on the moon, hopes to re-ignite children's interest in the space program:

Today's children don't have a realistic impression of space or space travel... (but) it's not the kids' fault. Those working in the fields of math, science and engineering — the people who were inspired by the accomplishments of Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and others during the space exploration boom of the 1960s and '70s — haven't reached out enough to capture the youngsters' interest.

It's a fine goal, but I don't think the first generation of space travelers started with a realistic picture of space travel either.

funny pic

I think the German translation of "Texas Limo" is "dachshorse".

EU-oui, that stinks!

Found via the Belmont Club's temporary HQ, TimesOnline's Tim Hames refers to the EU Constitution as "a cross between the Berlin telephone directory and the prophecies of Nostradamus" :) Read the rest.

science update:

Scientists mistaken about size of Andromeda galaxy by a factor of three, yet remain sure of global warming.

Prisoner Abuse

Why aren't we being shown this kind of torture photo as often as the Abu Ghraib photos? Could it be because they actually show prisoner abuse?

they've got to be kidding...

Via Emergent No, this story is good, but a few of my readers should be alarmed by the picture at the top.

red provence blue provence

Powerline has an interesting map of the EU voting results in France. Instapundit and No Oil For Pacifists have extended commentary and links.

randoms

Maybe this would be funnier if I had actually seen the show.

Joe Friday had it right.

Set the slaves free!

What was that about no connection between Saddam and terrorists? Hm?

No Oil For Pacifists takes on the dogmatic cult of secularism.

Can you pretend to be a blue-stater long enough to infiltrate the enemy?

These calculators are useful.

Go read PlaidBerry's Rules of Engagement in the Culture War, and the three previous posts.

Clientcopia has many amusing anecdotes of the technical- and/or design-challenged. Here are three of the latest.

"Please call back during normal business hours, unless you're already dead."

"What kind of idiot breaks a hole in the hull of his boat during a storm, just because he doesn't like the guy at the tiller and thinks the storm could have been avoided?"

Spoon's Filibuster Deal for Dummies.

Homepages for two American crop duster airplane manufacturers: Thrush and Air Tractor.

Photos of strange aircraft and toy planes.

Dustbury found this weird top ten list.

Paper starship models.

government, taxes, & theology

CrosSwords asks if anyone remembers the US Constitution.

Blasphemy Law?

If they pass this law...

condemning bigotry and religious intolerance, and recognizing that holy books of every religion should be treated with dignity and respect.

Whereas believers of all religions, including the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, should be treated with respect and dignity.

...the NEA and ACLU (and others of their ilk) will be illegal. Let's hope.

Also, this moral retard would be locked away because of his silly tantrums.

new words

According to ffwd, The Washington Post asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here is an edited version of this list;

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very, high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is, like, sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a totally serious bummer.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

this just in:

Scientists remain confused about water and sunlight, yet have no doubts about global warming.

bad gas

No, it's not the 99-cent special at Taco Quasar. ;)

Some Seattle gas stations were distributing bad gasoline. Could be a refinery problem, but given the environuts in western Washington state, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an act of eco-terrorism. Stay tuned.

my first political cartoon

Okay, so it's nowhere near Cox & Forkum level, and it could be cleaned up a lot, but here's my first ever political cartoon. Click on the thumbnail to see it full size.

new titlebar

i just made a new titlebar for the site. hope you like it!

if it displays wonky or you have trouble viewing it, let me know & tell me which browser and platform you're using.

random, etc.

If Newsweek had said that someone had burned a koran and beheaded its owner, would that have been okay?

Varifrank's indignation: foreign and domestic. (profanity)

Powerline wonders:

"Year after year, the American people vote for conservative candidates. But it just doesn't matter. You can vote for conservatism, but you can't have it. No matter who gets elected, government programs spiral ever farther out of control. And--especially tonight--one really wonders whether there is anything the voters can do about it."

Interesting synthetic materials.

"Think Kafka", in reverse.

short vacation

new posts soon...

worth waiting for

Bill Whittle of Eject!Eject!Eject! has a new essay: Sanctuary - Part 1 and Part 2. Go read the whole thing.

Duuude, that's eeevil...

Go read "The Case for the Empire" and "Star Operation Freedom" (mild profanity, major weirdness).

pop culture revisionism, pt.1

Grease is not the word.
It has neither groove nor meaning.
Grease is not the time, nor the place, nor the motion.
It most certainly is not the way we are feeling,
except after eating the 99-cent special at Taco Quasar.

Ralphie coins a phrase

For those of you living in a cave (what are you doing with internet access?), there's the slang term "old school". Paralleling "back in the day", it means passe, obsolete, old-fashioned, as in "We knew about that years ago when I was in school".

In light of Rathergate, Eason Jordan, and Korangate, Hugh Hewitt coins a similar phrase "old media", which implies bogus, slanted, or poorly edited material. As in "No way could that be true, dude, that's so old media". Or "She didn't say that - you heard the old media version".

Use it early, use it often.

Liars Exposed II

IMAO observes that "Newsweek has blood on its hands, and directly caused more deaths with their single lie than any of the "torture" done by the photo-happy dopes at Abu Ghraib". Doesn't MSM have a wonderful set of checks and balances?

---

UPDATE: Reporting about the Newsweek scandal, our local news just said the magazine "is worried that the damage may be irreversible." Here's a scoop for those fact-challenged morons: DEATH IS IRREVERSIBLE, AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN. YOUR WORDS CAUSED SEVENTEEN DEATHS, AND NOTHING YOU SAY CAN REVERSE THAT.

That insipid line was followed by George Stephanoppulagus doing his well-practiced song-and-dance trying to shift focus away from the real issues. I've got another scoop for them: YOUR "APOLOGY" IS PATHETIC. BY YOUR EVASION TACTICS, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT YOU HAVE NO REGRETS, EXCEPT THAT YOU DIDN'T GET ANY PHOTOS OF THE CARNAGE.

---

UPDATE 2: Too little, too late.

---

UPDATE 3: We wish...

We also wish "more Americans would actually think about the harm these draft-dodging little Trotskyites have done to this country with their tireless campaign of hatred against conservatives."

---

UPDATE 4: "Even if (flushing the koran) did happen... what of it? Does that constitute some sort of Geneva Convention violation? In view of the hand-chopping and rape rooms of Saddam Hussein, maintaining that argument borders on the macabre."

---

UPDATE 5: Don't blame the Pentagon, Newsweek, we know what you did.

true colors

Molten Thoughts on 'Sheets' Byrd and the new KKK:

Perhaps Klansman Senator Byrd will have his last hurrah inveighing against another black American who won't sit down and shut up when told to do so by white Democrats. Perhaps black Americans will return to the Republican fold to some small extent, and thus force the Democrat leadership to do more than take their votes for granted. Either way, I enjoy seeing the Democrat facade on support for racial and ethnic minorities torn down whenever a hack politico smells fear.

so many mudslingers...

Notice the dig on blogs in this story about a Castro speech.

Speaking for up to four hours at a time, Castro thunders with indignation and laughs at the absurd as he reads the news before a live audience of Communist officials, occasionally pausing to flip through a scattering of papers in front of him hunting for a quotation.

The result is remarkably like a televised version of an Internet blog, references to outside news sources tightly wrapped in personal commentary.

The article is remarkably like a corporate version of an Internet blog, references to outside news sources tightly wrapped in personal commentary.

I'm not sticking up for Castro. Ambos lados son ridículos.

state of the nation

Confederate Yankee has two serious reads about the state of the nation.

and now for something completely different...

Marla Swoffer found this: Doubly Positive.

Speaking of...

desecration:

you people eat it for breakfast on your corn flakes. You use your mosques and holy sites as munitions dumps, you use then as sniper nests. So what’s a little water on a copy of your holy text?...

If the US wanted to desecrate a holy site, dontcha think they could just launch one of those nuclear missiles at Mecca? That would get your attention pretty quick now wouldn't it? So what's stopping the yanks? Oh, it's that common decency that those 'infidels' have in their religion... it's something you might want to check into...

Liars Exposed

(Newsweek commentary has been updated and moved to a new post.)

"In the name of multiculturalism, Europe will lose the culture that made such an idea possible."

How shady it is that our modern leftists and peaceniks can detect fascism absolutely everywhere except when it is actually staring them in the face?

You should see what's in Harry Reid's file...

A dem-witted and misleading billboard.

C-BS just never learns.

When they're not lying outright, they're just perpetually wrong.

the randoms, again

Support Cuban Liberty.

Check out these before-and-after maps of gay "marriage" state referendums.

He's back. He's on his way back. Unfortunately, Meathead's back too.

Makes me almost miss Clippy (especially the language) . . . And, heads up Gates, Windoze won't last either.

Can we PLEASE get serious about border security?

History is written by the winners, but it's rewritten by losers.

Al-QaBoom!

The left is not entirely a death-cult.

Jeopardy - Special Edition: CNN

Correction: Liberal journalists are extremely annoying, LaShawn.

Insurgents? Insurgents?!? We don't need no steenking insurgents!!

Downtown Fort Worth

I miss Leonard's Subway.

Leonard's Department Store used to have a subway line to shuttle customers to their downtown Fort Worth store from a free parking lot by the Trinity River. Here's a picture of one of the original cars. Those cars were replaced by these tres-70's cars when the Tandy Center was built. The subway line was closed three years ago, in part due to low ridership, and in part to build the new Radio Shack headquarters.

UPDATE: Here's four more pages of Leonard's/Tandy's subway images, and more about Leonards Brothers history. I also made a correction - the subway closed in 2002, not last year.

The downtown courthouse is magnificent. Its addition is wretchedly, monstrously, and hideously abominable.

Don't get me started on the Firestone Apartments, though. The fat-cat developers (which were likely in cahoots with the city administration) booted my great-aunt out and bulldozed the house that the family had owned since the mid 30's. Grrr. Eminent domain, my pinkytoe.

(p.s. Here is the home page for the architecture links.)

good points

Varifrank measures up the UN, and finds it lacking. (mild profanity) Also read this chilling tale of crushing of dissent in old LA.

Dustbury finds value in rural people.

Educational Materials For Sale

"Learning Multiplication" textbooks. $10 each. Two for $25.

short week

Due to some minor eyestrain, I need to take a bit of a break from all non-essential CRT radiation. So there will be little or no blogging for the rest of the week. Here's a few links before I go:

Newspapers in decline, women and minorities hit hardest.

That 90's show is in reruns.

Huff Mommy & the Too Dim Crew made "a great new laundry detergent to replace Windex."

The Church of Gaia is a hall of mirrors.

Compare and contrast.

It's a good idea, so it won't be considered.

It's a bad idea, so it's a shoo-in. Next step: barcode-on-the-hand-and-forehead. Count me out.

Two from vodkapundit: fisking robertson and bogus bailouts.

Warning: Do not take this drug internally. Do not operate heavy machinery, kitchen utensils, dice, or pencils while under the influence of this drug. Halitosis may reach toxic levels while using this drug. Prehensile tail growth and pancreatic spasms are usually mild to moderate. Do not use if you are pregnant, dormant, flippant, or adamant. Capsules may escape the body supersonically from between fingers, toes, and ribs. This drug may cause dizziness, insomnia, narcolepsy, bulimia, inflammation of the knees, swelling of the earlobes, uncontrollable sweating, triskadekaphobia, and spontaneous limb loss. Take one capsule six times daily. Ask your doctor if this drug is right for you.

Snuff Films

Practical Penumbra shows us that Million Dollar Baby is actually a remake of an earlier film. Since the Academy rewards death-cult propaganda, look out for more movies, a TV adaptation, or more video releases soon.

Sick.

News From The Future!

10:37 PM, Saturday May 7, 2005

A disaster, unprecedented in the annals of human history, has occured at MIT. An event which planned to bring together time travelers from all eras, has ended abruptly with the utter destruction of the Institute and the surrounding state of Massachusetts.

Due to fantastic publicity which, as it seems now, reverberated throughout the galaxy in millenia to come, turnout was dramatically larger than expected. Preliminary estimates show that approxmately 732 octillion visitors showed up simultaneously at 10PM EDT at the precise advertised coordinates of 42:21:36.025 degrees north, 71:05:16.332 degrees west. The mass of partygoers, along with their time-traveling vehicles, spontaneously collapsed under their own weight, and created a thermonuclear explosion which was heard as far away as the Bikini Atoll.

It is hoped that the writing of this news report will serve as a warning to the future, and prevent the necessity of the writing of this news report. If the events described herein did not occur in your timeline, this reporter has succeeded.

UPDATE: Disaster averted! No confirmed time-travelers appeared!

yeah, random

News you won't hear on TV.

Varifrank's profanity is entirely warranted against comments by Putin and Schroeder. See also this related Scrappeface post.

Oh no! It looks like this guy is causing problems again...

If you think potholes are bad in your city, take a look at this. Ouch!

It's an odd 'science' that will not endure investigation, criticism and scrutiny. It's also odd when scientists rely on consensus instead of facts.

Again, I have no affiliation with the city of Hattiesburg MS, and know nothing about its politics. But it still would have been cool to see a politician named Darth "Scooter" Borgman elected.

Sig Heillary.

It takes a while, but Varifrank makes some interesting points about Mexico.

ACLU hypocrisy, part 435987.

I'm stewed, dude!

George will miss the point.

Point of View

I'd rather hang out with these people than snobs who make fun of people in wheelchairs.

random again

Molten Thought: "Speed doesn't kill. Speed differentials kill."

(pg) 15 Reasons NOT To Like Star Wars.

Lileks has blog dreams too.

Ol' Daniels went down to Baghdad,
he was lookin for an Army camp.
He'uz in Irawq,
in a big Blackhawq,
and the weather was far from damp.

Two angles on one idea.

Good quote from Charleton Heston from Echo Zoe's collection.

This should tell us something about the EU.

Molten Thought has the best solution for PBS.

The sky is not falling.

(PG13-rated) Heyyy, nice laaadieees! :)

Houston Astro Craig Biggio is on track to break the all-time record for getting hit by pitches.

The shrimp are shaking in their shoes.

Hatless in Hattiesburg (more specifically this page) is the top Google result for "cool random stuff" - out of about 4,120,000!

The continuing saga of victory.

Like I need another reason to remain a landlubber...

No bias here! Liberals love America!

Research

Power Line shows excerpts from a conference called "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right". By an amazing coincidence, it closely parallels a conference I recently attended called "Examining the Real Agenda of the Anti-religious Far Left". Here are some of the more notably similar passages:

Most Americans outside the Bible Belt have little idea of the beliefs held by millions of fundamentalist churchgoers.

Most Americans inside the Bible Belt know all too well the beliefs held by millions of atheistic activists.

We have an almost total lack of awareness of the rise of Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism, forms of theology that advocate a biblical vision of God’s kingdom on earth.

We have been exposed for decades to the rise of Atheism, Socialism, Totalitarianism and Secular Humanism, belief systems designed to eliminate God's influence on earth.

Some fundamentalists also foresee events such as The Rapture, the Times of Tribulation, Armageddon, and the Second Coming of Christ as we enter The End Days.

Some atheists also view euthanasia, abortion-on-demand, and abolition of religion as utopian ideals.

This conference will give rigorous attention to the worldview of Dominionism, its influence in contemporary political culture and its agenda for America. While not all Christian fundamentalists are Dominionists, Dominionism’s influence is powerful and growing. Its adherents play a significant role in secretive organizations such as The Council on National Policy, which exerts a strong influence on the strategy of the religious right.

This conference will give rigorous attention to the worldview of Atheism, its influence in contemporary political culture and its agenda for America. While not all humanists are atheists, Atheism's influence is powerful and growing. Its adherents play a significant role in noxious organizations such as the ACLU, MoveOn, NEA, NOW, NAMBLA, and many more.

Dominionism is the theory that the account in Genesis in which God gave man dominion over the earth has become a political teaching advocating that Christians gain and hold power. Christian reconstructionism is the theory that Christian conservatives intend to impose Old Testament law in America.

Humanism is the theory that mankind claims dominion over the earth on his own merits. This has become a political teaching advocating that other religions must be removed from power. Atheistic totalitarianism is the plan that atheists have been implementing to destroy America.

Tax cuts combined with increased funding for faith-based social programs and decreases in welfare spending, Ms. Bokaer said, were examples of "the theological right ... zealously setting up to establish their beliefs in all aspects of our society."

Tax increases, combined with increased funding for numerous social engineering bureaucracies and decreases in defense spending, were examples of atheists zealously setting up to establish their beliefs in all aspects of our society.

Striking similarities, don't you think?

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie Review

(minor spoiler alert)

If you're hoping that this movie will faithfully re-create any one of the previous versions (radio, book, or tv) of the Hitchhiker's Guide, you probably won't like this movie. It is as different to them as the radio version and the book version are to each other. It seems that Mr. Adams liked to re-invent the story in each of its incarnations.

I had read all five of the books before I even knew that the earlier (BBC?) radio broadcasts existed. When I finally heard them, it seemed to me like he had cut the scenes of the book into jigsaw pieces, thrown away half of them, scrambled the rest in with a smaller puzzle, hammered all the pieces together, and traced over that to make a new picture which was wildly different yet familiar. I got the exact same sensation when I saw the movie, and again, I enjoyed the results.

In making those kinds of drastic changes, he and the filmmakers have succeeded in keeping the wacky spirit of the story alive. They have made it accessible to modern audiences who have no knowledge of the strange universe(s) that Mr. Adams created, and added fresh and funny surprises for the diehard fans. There are plentiful "inside jokes" that only we could pick up (example: the statue in the church entryway), and numerous new ideas (whack!) that only Mr. Adams could dream up.

The movie did seem to start a little slowly and unevenly, but part of that feeling could have been me noticing the many changes and fearing two hours of major disappointment. As it turned out, my only real disappointment was that Zaphod didn't get to keep his second head and third arm. Although not 'Oscar quality', all of the actors did quite well in their characters, and seemed to fit in with the other elements of the movie. Together they made a wonderfully campy and absurd whole, which I suspect would please the late Mr. Adams.

April Fools!

Oops! I forgot to set my calendar ahead for Daylight Savings Month... :P :)

Anyway, Here's a link to the one of the more famous April Fools hoaxes, the BBC's Spaghetti Crop hoax. The link has the story, plus an actual video clip of the segment.

go read

New additions to the religious blogroll: "Walking Circumspectly" and "Drink Deeper".

What if the IRS had discovered the Quadratic Formula?

I don't agree with all of it, but reading between the rhetoric, there are some interesting points in this article on the historical reasons for state-organized schools.

From the paraphrased-much-too-far version of Romans 14: "One person's faith allows him to watch any screen, but another man, whose faith is weak, watches only computer screens. The person who watches all screens must not look down on one who does not, and vice versa. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls."

Canada's Watergate.

I hadn't heard this Will Rogers quote before. So very very true.

They do stuff.

Chopper!

Theocracies, all.

I had seen this homemade pipe organ a while back, but I didn't see the link for this much more elaborate model. Nor did i see the links for these other homemade projects. (moved from previous post)

They find the spots, so you don't haaave tooooo.....

The solution is so easy, even a defective yeti could find it.

Googletalk generates gibberish based on recursive Google results for a small set of words. If you're into random stuff like I am, you'll like it. A portion of my first sample:

infections. are caused by the Flight crew. and cabin crew Training. and Meetings. calendar; from the Calendar screen, click the Edit button. is clicked the following window will appear: Click on the connection, tab. and click on the connection, tab. and click on the map, to zoom in on the Ground and the ground is the same as you? would have to Be a Good Graduate student Advisor, in the department of the Environment and Natural Resources is the world s largest, climate prediction experiment which is a Diamond s color is a property of the Week

Sounds like a plan to me.

Carnival of Comedy

Wooohooo! IMAOlanche! (update: and an indirect instalanche!)

Spacemonkey hosted the first ever Carnival of Comedy at IMAO. Though they're all winners, here are some of my favorites - in no particular order:

Red Robin Hood

The next Survivor series

Fighting Terrorism

Portable Music

Earth Day 2030

You may or may not have been aware that my entry was Awareness.

Good Answer!

If "Compassionate Democrats" is up there, you win the 'Feud. Survey says . . . XXX

Hitchhiker's Guide Poll

There's a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie coming out this weekend, which has the best trailer in the history of cinema (the link is a video window popup). Although I now realize how anti-religion they are, I was a big fan of the five books of the trilogy.

With that tiny bit of background, I have a couple of questions for you:

Are you planning to see the movie?
- a) You hadn't even heard of it until now.
- b) You're avoiding it like the plague, and may boycott the theater for showing it.
- c) You may rent the DVD later.
- d) You plan to see it in the theater.
- e) You're answering this from a laptop while camping out for tickets.

Have you read the books?
- a) You didn't know it was a book.
- b) You didn't get past the second chapter, and burned the book to prevent anyone else from reading it.
- c) You read through some or all of them once many years ago.
- d) You read through all five multiple times.
- e) You can recite them from memory, starting at any given page number.

Kim Jong is Il

This should be unthinkable - what's pathetic is that there is such a long history of the "unthinkable".

more random links

--serious--

The Great Physician is still at work.

--interesting--

April Fools, Earth Day, same thing...

Wuzzadem responds to all scandals of all time.

Missed concerts: I would like to have heard this techno pipe organ performance. I would really like to have attended this Bel Canto concert. But the concert I would most like to have seen was the live Synergy performance in the Netherlands three years ago.

Also, if they are for real, someday I would like to hear the stalacpipe organ and the large hot pipe organ.

Looks like Instapundit & The Corner have trouble with the service at their local Home Depots. I've had the exact opposite experience. The employees at the closest store location to me are very knowledgeable and helpful. It's Lowe's that is usually "hit or miss" with employee helpfulness.

Duckwriter fires two good salvos at the left.

--not serious--

The idiot keeps saying "enchilada", and he can't even spell it correctly.

Hint: Do NOT suggest Billy Idol's "White Wedding".

You too can build your own airplane! From the look of some of these pictures, it shoudn't be too much harder than building a flying model, right? ;)

But I wonder what her Secret Service Codename was - "Untamed Shrew", perhaps?

I'm not saying it *has*, but...

Three signs the Star Wars franchise *MAY* have jumped the shark:

1) Episode 5 was broadcast last saturday afternoon, interrupted by commercials for trade schools and used car lots.

2) The commercial with Darth Vader and the M&Ms animated characters.

3) Darth Vader is blogging.

---

Update 5-03-05

4) Tootsie Pop suckers that spin in Chewbacca's head.

5) The commercial where Yoda uses the Force to steal a Pepsi - WRONG on so many levels.

quick reminder

The phrase "not affiliated with any Hattiesburgs anywhere" was the original slogan/tagline/quote for this blog. Maybe it should be returned, because there continues to be some confusion that the name "Hatless in Hattiesburg" indicates my actual location.

The name was invented only as an absurd/sarcastic take on "Sleepless in Seattle". My apologies to anyone who took it seriously, and to the steady trickle of visitors who come here searching for information on the fine city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

again, random

Once again proving themselves fair and balanced, there's no bias at the BBC. (warning: may induce cursing)

Vodkapundit turns over three different rocks. (warning: many creepy crawlies underneath)

Scary idea, but it's a long shot. FuturePundit - and many commentors - speculate on the hazards of genetic engineering. (warning: many slippery slopes)

"sometimes it takes a ghost, who cares, to bring a reminder..." (warning: mild profanity)

Obesity may not be as deadly as the (junk) scientists say. (warning: may make you want a cheeseburger)

"I am but a simple unfrozen computer animator. I know nothing of your superior ways of deer-hunting and flint-sharpening. Your ways of story-telling are like magic to my primitive ears." (warning: one of the characters is wearing a hat)

Rumor has it that Kerry is so determined to run again in three years that he has resolved, after twenty years in the Senate, to begin actually performing his duties there. (warning: you won't know whether to laugh or cry. i suggest laughing.)

LaShawn gets it wrong. (warning: will remind you how bad reno and the clintonistas were)

A collection of spreadsheet jokes (warning: i don't get a lot of these)

u-NPR-isom

Why does Instapunk listen to NPR?

I listen to NPR the way a kid who's losing a baby molar worries it in his jaw, to experience a pain that is in some curious way exquisitely uniform. It's a pain that rarely rises to the level of agony, and somehow its constant tingling potentiality of hitting that one thrumming chord cannot be ignored. NPR is there. Millions of people lap up its dreary and oh-so-polite editorializing-without-ever-coming-right-out-and-saying-it style of propaganda, and it's impossible to ignore all those highbrows listening sagely in their Bimmers and plowing their way through the ready-made reading lists that fall out of the not-so-Fresh Air of Terry Gross's interviews with the cognoscenti. The tone of it all -- from Terry to Garrison Keillor to 'What Do You Know?' to 'Morning Edition' to 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me' to 'BBC World' to 'All Things Considered' to Tavis Smiley -- varies within the same range as that moribund molar, which is to say hardly at all. Whether the intention is to be informative, thoughtful or humorous, the demeanor is almost constantly knowing, a bit weary, pretentiously allusive, and ostentatiously soft-spoken and indirect, as if we all -- NPR listeners, that is -- share such a huge set of common convictions and esthetic preferences that almost nothing in the way of straightforward comment is needed.

Or maybe it's for the soothing voices...

more pope commentary > commentary > commentary > ...

Theosebes comments: "But as he seems to be conservative in an uphold Biblical principles sort of way, I like him. He seems to upset all the right people, so I can't think it's a bad choice."

Thinklings comments: "Watch for these keywords (to be used by talking heads) over the next week: "hardline", "guardian", "doctrine", "orthodoxy", "conservative"."

Molten Thought comments: "Sure, Cokie, the real issue with Catholicism is they're just not into killing babies enough to suit you and your limousine liberal jet-set urban divas."

Beautiful Atrocities has (have?) a shocker. Cheat Seeking Missiles is (are?) pleasantly surprised. Varifrank talks to the pope's brother.

---

"Are you being sarcastic, dude?" "I don't even know any more."

sosumi

Well, I spent more time writing this post about Awareness than I had spent on almost any previous post, and it didn't quite generate the response I had hoped. So when Flying Space Monkey said that FrankJ was starting a Carnival of Comedy, I went to the registration page at Conservative Cat and submitted my post.

Now my astute readers may remember my pledge to avoid

• Whine-blogging
• Cat-blogging
• Any-other-pet-blogging
• Carnivals-of-Anything

, notice the contradictions to those rules in this post, and assume I am abandoning that pledge just to generate some fleeting fame. Although I am not technically violating the pledge, I am afraid I may have started on the long dark path towards doing so.

I feeeel so dirrrty.

;)

new to me

Have any of you heard about the A9.com search tool - good, bad, or indifferent? It looks like it has some interesting features...

Piggly Wiggly

In the 70's or 80's, Piggly Wiggly closed all their grocery store locations that I knew of in the DFW area, so I assumed they had gone bankrupt. Thanks to Dustbury, I found that they are still alive and wiggling, with quite a few locations and a very interesting history which I had never heard.

wishful thinking

Ah, if only George Stephanoppulagus (and other talking heads) would complain about the real intolerance of Islam the way he has been complaining about the supposed intolerance of Catholicism.

Is it because he knows he would be in danger for expressing anti-islamic views? That in itself should tell him something...

Papal History

With the recent news surrounding the Papacy, here is a list of previous Popes. Like most Wikipedia entries, it includes plenty of links to other relevant info.

Google searches

Sitemeter showed a referral from a Google search for "little known trivia", and my post with that title was #1 of over 950,000. Kinda funny, especially since it's not really trivia.

The "helpful telemarketing hints" post continues to be shown consistently as a Google search referral as well. Let's hope they learn something from it...

Cardinal Ratzinger on Trendiness

Via this transcript at Hugh Hewitt, Cardinal Ratzinger has some good quotes:

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking... The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14)...

being an Adult means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties.

Awareness

Saturday, Apr. 9, at 6:13pm EDT, Awareness achieved a stable orbit around the earth.

For many years in America and abroad, numerous grassroots efforts have sought to raise Awareness on a wide variety of causes, and now those innumerable hours of jogging, dancing, and biking have paid off. "Awareness is now at an all time high. I'm really on cloud nine about this," says Karen Pochissimo, president of Aware-R-Us International. We spoke with Ms. Pochissimo at the Aware-R-Us headquarters, located in the festive Roman suburb of Troppi Eventi, Italy.

Ms. Pochissimo founded the Aware-R-Us organization in 1993. She recalled how, nearly a decade earlier, she had been inspired by both the Hands Across America and We Are The World events, but also recognized their inherent logistical problems. "Hands Across America suffered from large gaps in the human chain, due to the logistical problem of getting such a huge number of people holding hands stretched all the way across the North American continent. Similarly, We Are The World suffered from large gaps in intelligibility, due to the logistical problem of getting such a huge number of egos crowded into one recording session."

Ms. Pochissimo recalled that one night, while watching a rerun of Knots Landing, she suddenly became aware of an idea, and that idea was simply Awareness. "Up to that time, I had been wandering through my life completely unaware. I had mistakenly looked to other things to erase that feeling, little realizing that Awareness itself is as easy as a walk in the park."

The idea of Awareness spread even more quickly than Karen could have expected. Numerous groups across America soon realized that by organizing a normal social activity under a banner of Awareness, attendance would dramatically increase at that event. Seemingly overnight, the Awareness movement had been launched, and it spread like wildfire.

As successful as it has been, the Awareness movement has not been without its problems. "During the early days of Awareness, groups were free to choose their own Awareness ribbon color, and conflicts quickly arose as to color ownership." recalls Ms. Charite Fausse, spokeperson for the Cause-Color Coordination Center of Cape Canaveral, FL. "By now, every possible color of ribbon has some associated cause in the Awareness rainbow. We are now even seeing a looming shortage of color patterns. So our organization stays quite busy pinning down issues of color registration, cause overlap, ribbon suppliers, and other red tape. And on rare occasions, we have to find a way to tie in some pre-CCCC-regulation color we had overlooked." She admits the organization had briefly considered sponsoring a Color-Cause Confusion Awareness week, but had quickly rejected the idea.

As you may remember, Ms. Fausse first became known for ending the conflict between Sky Awareness and Robin Egg Awareness over their identical theme ribbon color. Despite the numerous challenges she has faced over the years, Charite is elated over the success of Awareness, and proud of the support the CCCC has given to it.

In addition to the duties mentioned previously, the CCCC also keeps track of the heights to which Awareness has soared, and compiles data of the amounts that participating groups help to raise Awareness. Tuesday morning, the organization confirmed that the specific event that placed Awareness into its stable orbit was the "2nd Annual Bowl-a-thon for Athelete's Foot" event held by the East Side Junior League of North Westchester, South Dakota.

But by no means are Aware-R-Us and the CCCC resting on their laurels. Ms. Pochissimo enthusiastically states, "The next goal we have planned is for Awareness to achieve escape velocity. And in the far future, we hope to make Awareness universal."

...and remove all doubt

The Left screams because it has nothing to say.

Slavery

(Update 2: Thanks to Lenise of Paxifist for finding the link that I had lost. Apologies to CEP of What A Rummy Nation...)

The slave trade didn't disappear with the Civil War.

It's big business. Conservative estimates now place about 21 million worldwide in slavery, their labor unrecompensed and fuel for the drug and arms trade, among other grave social ills...

The primary goal right now is simple publicity--informing Americans that slavery does exist, in a virulent and cruel form--crueler, really, than anytime before in history, as many of these people are victims not only of physical abuse, but of sexual and psychological maltreatment that exceeds all preceding examples...

This is an evil that we free people should not ignore--we cannot leave these fatherless, these "widows"... to the mercy of those who exploit them.

again with the random!

When doctors are outlawed, only outlaws will have doctors.

Be careful, or you'll put your eyes out.

Know Thy Friends: Dodecahedrons.

Yo, check out tha X-treme meds!

Many years ago someone claimed that oil reserves are a renewable resource. I considered the possibility far-fetched, and soon forgot about it. Every few years the reference would pop up again, and this is the first one I've seen about it since I started blogging. Probably an urban myth, but still interesting.

dem bash

Happy Democrat Day!

Ann Coulter's "It's Only Funny Until Someone Loses a Pie"

If you have any respect for Jimmy Carter, don't read this.

Photo of a related species.

in the works

probably won't post much for a couple of days. i'm actually trying to write something coherent!

=8^O

UPDATE - two quick tech warnings:

Beware of anyone directing you to a Microsoft upgrade.

Be careful about filing your taxes online.

political reads...

Power Line says "It's amazing what can happen when Republicans get to talk to America."

Captain's Quarters: The title "Divorce Canadian Style" is apt but somewhat misleading.

Res Publica has a quote from the Louisiana ACLU, to which I would respond, "The offensive ACLU and its dark overlords cannot get away with their cultural assault that mocks the word 'Liberty' and the role of Our Creator in establishing the laws upon which American law is based."

Variations on Malaise?

Chrenkoff describes two new afflictions: Post-Totalitarian Stress Disorder and Global Power Deprivation Syndrome.

Also read his report of "die Tinfoilhutträger" in the German parliament, and the "7 steps to a better world" guest post.

Whither Europe?

(i'm really liking these buckley-style headlines...)

Go read Varifrank's opinion of our european 'friends'.

Child of God

I think Wordgirl is on the right track...

Slippery Slope?

(original post date 4-8-05)

Sometimes the slippery slope actually happens. An elderly Georgia woman "is being deprived of food and water in clear contravention of her own stated wishes, and at the request of someone who should have no standing under Georgia law. "

UPDATE 1: This may or may not be a true story.

UPDATE 2: Looks like it is true.

(update 3 added 4-12-05)

UPDATE 3: It isn't over yet, but here is some good news.

Blank Blogging

I hereby declare the Hatless in Hattiesburg blog an "X-blogging" free zone. From now on, you will not see any of the following here - on a regular basis:

• Cat-blogging
• Dog-blogging
• Fish-blogging
• Any-other-pet-blogging
• Camera-blogging
• Mower-blogging
• Gun-blogging
• Car-blogging
• Art-blogging
• Photo-blogging
• Video-blogging
• Audio-blogging
• Movie-blogging
• TV-blogging
• Reality-show-blogging
• Book-blogging
• CD-blogging
• DVD-blogging
• Whine-blogging
• Wine-blogging
• Beer-blogging
• Beard-blogging
• Shoe-blogging
• Fashion-blogging
• Roommate-blogging
• Engagement-blogging
• Wedding-blogging
• Baby-blogging
• Grandchild-blogging
• House-blogging
• Barn-blogging
• Flower-blogging
• Windmill-blogging
• Restaurant-blogging
• Food-blogging

Those topics are not perpetually excluded, I reserve the right to blog on any of them. It's just that none of them will become regular features. The only -blogging you will see here is random-blogging!

Tired of the "-blogging" suffix yet? ;)

p.s. No Carnivals-of-Anything either.

Robble Robble

Go read James Lileks' Newhouse column on Sandy Burglar - er, Sandy Berger.

Actually, No

Power Line has a report from the Jerusalem Post about the beating death of Yusra al-Azzami, a 22-year-old university student from the Gaza Strip. Reacting to the horrific sight, one bystander said "This does not represent Islam."

Wrong. In the very first line of the article, Hamas states they are "operating a 'vice and virtue commando' in the Gaza Strip to safeguard Islamic values, Palestinian security officials and residents told The Jerusalem Post." If the group itself claims the name of Islam, their actions do represent Islam. Now it can be debated whether or not it is an accurate representation of the group as a whole, but it is a representation.

There are any number of examples of people "representing" a belief system particularly well (ex. Mother Teresa) or notoriously poorly (ex. David Koresh). I know a couple of environmentalists who represent their ideals in a relatively level-headed manner, but that's not enough to offset the tree-spiking terrorists who also represent environmentalism.

So if this beating was an isolated incident, it could be dismissed as an inaccurate representation. But since this is only the most recent barbaric act in a decades-long campaign of terror, it seems quite accurate. I will be glad to acknowledge any counterexamples if there are any, but I won't hold my breath waiting for them.

There's a thought

Cheat Seeking Missiles has an insight into why gas prices are so high. They forgot one related factor - the ridiculous number of "boutique" formulations of gasoline required by different regions and municipalities.

little-known trivia

The Big Ben in London is the world's largest example of a neighborhood watch program.

They call him Bruce?

Fraters Libertas torpedoes some lousy lyrics by some guy named Springsteen.

new disease

rintintinnitus: the sensation of barking in the ears.

can you say "addicted to ellipses"?...

more random links...

RWD said Monday, but he didn't say which Monday...

Good riddance to big brother...

Blue Goldfish asks "At what point does a church stop being church? Christ knocked over the money-changing tables at the Temple. Should we begin to knock over the power-point projectors...?"

Well, there they go again...

Were McVeigh and AlQaeda linked? New evidence...

LaShawn, Michelle, and to a lesser extent Rightwingsparkle, have been battling idiot trolls. (warning: foul language.) (UPDATE: Little Green Footballs has even more.) I wonder why the trolls don't pick on someone their own size - perhaps a paramecium? It's like the cliffs of Dover being "attacked" by a dust storm...

Although I agree with LaShawn on most points, I disagree with a couple of her pet peeves about bloggers. #9 and #10 in her list complain about bloggers who remain anonymous. I contend that there are too many scammers & crazies crawling on the net looking for personal info. Now my main pet peeve is blogger who uses a brown template with a lot of little squares underneath the title - what's up with that? :) I'm kidding of course...

If you thought the Monty Python limerick was bad, check this out, and this related photo...

Speaking of writing good headlines, Dustbury will be added to the blogroll...

Whither Spam?

see, i can write headlines as well as william f buckley :)

Via Molten Thought, spammer gets nine years in prison.

From the linked article:

Thousands of people fell for his e-mails, and prosecutors said Jaynes' operation grossed up to $750,000 per month.

In a way, it's surprising that so many people still fall for these scams, but in a way it's not. The way humans are, some will always find ways to cheat money out of others. But how can we educate the people who fall for spam, without resorting to sending spam ourselves?

re: certain co-workers

If I were to make residence in another state, I would make it a point not to ridicule the natives of that state. Apparently I'm in the minority here - the minority that has a little class.

the randomness continues...

Some of these airplane designs are cool, but some of them are worse than my grade school doodles. Seriously.

Monty Python movie in limerick form.

It is possible to learn something constructive from a liberal! (via Mish-Mash the Muckraker...) On a completely related note, would anybody be interested in buying a one-of-a-kind Hatless in Hattiesburg t-shirt?

Something's fishy about this picture...

The Walmart where Varifrank shops sounds worse than the one where I shop.

Saints

Hugh Hewitt has this post about wanting a patron saint for bloggers. In it, he refers to this alphabetical listing of all patron saints. I had no idea there were so many.

I'm not being facetious or sarcastic in any way, but can any of my Catholic readers explain the reason for and practice of the patron saint system? How important a role does it play in the church services or everyday life?

p.s. I also have no idea what to make of this, if anything...

random roundup

here's a bunch of random links - some serious, some not:

Two related articles by Mark Steyn about commentary about the Pope. From the first article:

The root of the Pope's thinking - that there are eternal truths no one can change even if one wanted to - is completely incomprehensible to the progressivist mindset... It requires tremendous will to cling to the splendour of truth when the default mode of the era is to blur and evade.

Some surrealist art links.

Arizona Minutemen.

My stock in Pat Sajak has gone up upon discovery of this post.

In this enlightened age, how can it be that there is a return to segregation in Detroit?

I'm undecided on this discussion about environmental policy, but it is thought-provoking.

Lapses in airport security. Don't worry, they're being fixed.

Sign me up for this time travel deal. Can I schedule it to be picked up in 1979? . . . . . Hmm, guess not. Never mind, I'll do it myself.

On the problems that surround filesharing.

I knew they were coming, just not this soon.

Scrappleface does it again.

Recent blogroll additions: Cheat-Seeking Missiles and Discerning Texan.

Benefits of a messy office.

Also, a "Which file extension are you?" quiz. Mine was .* (wildcard) - bet you didn't see that coming...

The Big Picture

Hugh Hewitt says "This post is guaranteed to make zero sense to the non-believers. In fact, it will amuse them."

Net Attack

As the story goes, one of the main design concepts of the internet was to have a communications system that could survive a nuclear attack. Fortunately that feature was never directly tested. Now we are in the process of finding out whether or not the internet can stand up to sustained bureaucratic attacks.

Internet Crackdown in China

Yahoo vs. French yahoos

California Real Estate restrictions

Blogger detained in Bahrain

No private registration for US domains

Iranian Blogger Sentenced to Prison

Canadian Coverup

Harrassment of Malaysian Bloggers

ADDITION: Utah blog registration

At least nuclear warheads can be dismantled...

Crushing of Dissent, pt.2

A couple of North Pacific tin-pot dictatorships are trying to clamp down on free speech in blogs.

now that's city planning!

(note the date of the article)

"You always hear people complain about the weather, but someone is finally actually doing something about it."

It's still not enough to make me want to move back, though...

---

This one, however, doesn't look like an April Fools' joke.

school shooting commentary

Bruce Thornton at VictorHanson.com looks into the explanations given for the recent school shootings. The article starts with this:

The commentary on the recent murder of 9 people by a teen-aged gunman at a Minnesota Indian reservation school tells us as much about our cultural dysfunctions as do the killings themselves. As the pundits pore over the killer's life, every possible cause is analyzed except the one that really counts-the spiritual problem of human evil.

Read it all.

art commentary

A cartoon commentary about "Real Art" at Reason Online - via Texas Best Grok. It contains some offensive imagery, which is part of the subject of the commentary.

forgot to post yesterday-

Happy Franklin's Stupidest Idea Day!

emailed humor

(attributed to gfcl.net)

Math Teacher Arrested

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual - later discovered to be a public school teacher - was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, the U. S. Attorney General disclosed that he believes the man to be a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult," he declared. "They seek average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to argue, there are three sides to every triangle."

When asked to comment on the arrest, the President stated, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. I am gratified that our government has shown us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs, who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."

The President warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen, unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor in random facts of vertex." He concluded, "Like my father used to say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle I am certain of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens."

yeah yeah

i know this is an april fools, but still - t'would be nice!

Attacks on Morals

Theosebes has been keeping an eye on the numerous attacks on America's Christian moral foundations. Here are three of the latest:

ACLU against abstinence

Colorado court against the Bible

California judge against marriage

Although Christian moral values in America have always been under some level of attack since the country's beginnings (and there has always been opposition to morals in general), the histrionic open attacks have been going on for nearly forty years now. I'm glad to see members of the pro-moral movement make their voices heard more and more clearly.