it's a conspiracy

IMAO in Pajamas:

"Saying that man didn’t land on the moon, that Bush caused 9/11, or that Obama knows what he’s doing aren’t simply other opinions — they’re false and destructive ideas, and the people who cling to them border on mental illness."

read it all

the persistence of mysticism

via the Jungle Hut:

"If myth is a view of reality invented exclusively by the human mind, then by definition, atheism is a myth."

price gouging?

investigations probably aren't necessary, but if they happen, oil companies shouldn't be first...

forever lame

(i made this free to share. copy it as much as you like, just please don't claim it's your own work)

"april showers bring may flowers"

...but around here, may showers bring tornadic hook echoes on radar. One of those hooks passed directly over my house in north Fort Worth a little before 8pm this evening.

There was no tornado or hail at my house, just some weird start-stop-start rain and winds, and a great opportunity to video several layers of clouds going in every direction simultaneously.

Others were not so lucky; some nearby, some farther away.

"after a while he began to go mad"

lileks:

It’s said that the problems of humanity can be traced by the inability of man to sit alone in a room with his own thoughts; in my case it’s always been my inability to sit in an office for any protracted period of time, particularly if there’s a poster on the wall of a kitten depending from a branch: Hang In There ‘Til Friday. No! I will not! I reject your calendrical bromides intended to give the worker drones a cheap palliative and make them concentrate their life towards the moment when the obligation to produce ceases.

!!

unfortunate

at the restaurant yesterday, my cookie should have read "if incense is the only thing you smell here, suspect a cover-up."

let them eat arugula!

it's funny because it's true

Mike Rowe calls 'em

getting America back to work

(and maybe some of his words will not go ignored inside the beltway...)

transparency in government

...equals opacity as usual

offensive to moose limbs

(very very nsfw)

so i pulled down my post about the death of osama bin laden, thinking it might have been to offensive. iowahawk more than made up for that with these three posts.

unreasonable search and seizure

updates via makezine blog:

sony's database was hacked, again.

tomtom sells gps data to cops.

---

michigan police can scan your phone without your consent.

iphones & ipads track you automatically.

two more reasons i will never own any of those products.

"king of the world!"

not in the dicaprio sense, but in the cagney sense...

compare and contrast

something i have in common with lileks sr.:

"he’d rather drive. Really: he’s never happier. A wheel, an engine, a road..."

something i do not have in common with lileks sr.

"There’s not a moment in his day he thinks “I could be on a computer, doing things.” Because he’s out, doing things."

dreamland 2

last night i dreamed i had to go back in time to rescue some artifacts from the early history of electronic music, including an analog sequencer and a laserdisc of wendy carlos' soundtrack to tron.

when i got to work today, bill and ted's excellent adventure was on tv, and an amazon order had been delivered to my desk, which included a dvd of both tron movies.

coincidence?
.
.
.
.
yes.

not stuck in an closet with vanna white*

I try not to dream-blog much, and I wouldn't have blogged last night's dream except for the way it... ended... you'll see...

---

At the beginning of last night's dream, my sister called me to explain that she and her husband had needed to fly to England suddenly for some emergency. She was in too much of a hurry to explain; she just wanted me to take her minivan to go pick up my nieces and drive to meet them there.

So I drove my car over to their house, but their van wasn't there. It also wasn't at any of the other usual places like their office, church, or anywhere else I could think of. After looking around town a little more, I stopped at a convenience store to use a pay phone. Just as I got out, their minivan pulled up beside the building and honked. My nieces and another girl were in the back, and Zooey Deschanel* was driving.

She had already picked up my nieces from school, so I got in the front passenger's side. As she drove, she told me that my sister had called and explained the situation: an anonymous call had been made to my sister pleading with her to mediate a crisis at a Unitarian church in Hirtshireville (not a real town as far as i know), England.

We drove for a long long time - through Bryan TX, Houston TX, Memphis TN, and Washington DC. The kids got very restless on the way, and we had to stop often.

(Of course, all of you know as I do that it would be impossible to get from north Texas to central England only by driving. My subconscious placed the town in an imaginary England vaguely in the vicinity of Newfoundland.)

When we arrived in the cathedral parking lot, my sister was just leaving, so my nieces went with her while Zooey and I walked in to meet with the assistant bishop. In a small office in the back, he explained to us that the previous bishop had retired, and one particular bishop wanted to take over the cathedral without any discussion, but the assistant wanted to confront him and force him to call for an election. Somehow, Zooey knew of a legal loophole to fix everybody's problems, but couldn't explain it to us (for our own safety) - we just had to hide out in the back while she fixed the problem. She walked out and the assistant locked the door and blocked it with a chair.


Then I woke up...


and went back to sleep...


and dreamed the entire trip again...


except...


...at various moments during the second trip, we discussed ways for us to improve the course of events for everyone involved. We remembered to pick up more games for the kids, we avoided a traffic jam in Memphis, we helped the assistant maintain his anonymity better, etc...

?!?!?!?!

---

* Weird Al is partially to blame for the title of this post. Dustbury's Zooeypaloozas are partially to blame for the dream ;)

p.s. the whole thing was g-rated

hijacked email

update: i just set up another email for comments from here. so i'm un-top-posting this.

---

somebody has been sending out spam using the email address i use for comments here, and hotmail has now blocked the account (frustrating but understandable).

1) i apologize if you get a spam with my address.

2) i won't be reopening that address, so if you sent anything since march i probably didn't receive it. please use comments here until i set up another address for hatless in hattiesburg.

3) this is not near as frustrating as a previous hijacking...

stating the obvious...

...in a world not inclined to hear such things:

Pastor Jones (notorious koran burner) lives in the United States, not Afghanistan; that we enjoy the protection of the First Amendment... it is not Pastor Jones’ fault that Muslims are so frickin’ deranged as to go all apesquat over the burning of a copy of the Koran and that their doing so pretty much proves his point.

update: see also

abu ghraib redux

the sequel is worse

changing meds

the black dog
got lost in the fog
and slept like a log

---

will try to resume regular posting when things stabilize...

chiropractic care

i have now personally seen chiropractors who believe in their profession at five levels. the numbers i assigned are according to hierarchy of belief, but are arranged for effect, not in chronological or numerical order.

4) the skeletal system should be aligned so that the body can move properly

3) nerves pinched by a misaligned spine can cause pain (plus #4)

2) nerves pinched by a misaligned spine will prevent the body from healing itself properly (plus #3 & #4)

1) the *only* cause of *all* physical disease is nerves pinched between misaligned vertebrae (plus #2, #3, & #4)

5) skeletal system pain is a source of steady income (assisted by insurance, workers comp, and pamphlets about the other four)

can you fix a cfl?

this site suggests (in slightly-broken english) it is sometimes possible to fix a compact fluorescent lightbulb (via makezine)

Libyan No-Fly / Police Action / War / Airshow / ...?

so is this a bad time to bring up the phrases:

"warmongering cowboy"
"no blood for oil"
"dissent is patriotic"

?

at least when bush mobilized the armed forces, he had a goal in mind...

common ground

it's not often i agree with a leftist-socialist-labor site, but this is one: stop rfid.

and this post brings up problems surrounding "who owns science".

things to remember

two quotes from many via the jakarta globe:

"The timing is not right for political decisions and the spreading of panic," Slovenia's President Danilo Turk told reporters while on a visit to the Czech capital Prague.

"Please don't forget that there are people who are working to protect everyone's lives in exchange for their own lives," said one post on Japanese social networking site Mixi.

Japan Earthquake

Here's the "one-page" of information from USGS, more information on tabs, and a preliminary cross-section.

Here's graphics of the tsunami waves fom NOAA, and one high resolution map of the wave heights.

just raised that way

Viewpoint:

"Most people... agree that the behavior and views of Mr. Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church are contemptible and not deserving of the respect of decent people. Many commentators and cartoonists have reviled and mocked them in print, not just for their awful behavior at funerals, but for the beliefs they hold about homosexuality and American decadence.

But here's an interesting thing. The Westboro baptists are on the fringe of American Christianity, but they're roundly condemned for holding views that are actually in the mainstream of American Islam.

Whether it's their conviction that God hates homosexuals, or that God rejoices in the deaths of American soldiers, or that America is a fundamentally decadent society which deserves to be destroyed, there are a lot of devout Muslims in this country who would fervently assent to all of these."

just born that way*

There's a popular claim that homosexuals should not be ridiculed because they were "just made that way" and had no choice of their sexual preference. So why aren't homophobes accorded the same courtesy, since they were also "just made that way" and had no choice of their sexual aversions?

(*according to the world. some of us were taught better.)

the fall of civilization

maybe:

"The Unanswered Question remains "Why did this cultural collapse happen?" We know that it did, we know that the leaders of Western countries completely lacked foresight, insight, patriotism and concern for their national identities. We know they were willing to open wide the borders of their countries to allow in the hordes. We know all of this, and much more. But we don't know WHY. If the West hates itself, where did this self-hatred come from, what is its source? Was it the shattering events of '68 that brought about an irreversible rupture with the past? Yes it was, but we still don't know why the leaders and the people let it happen. We went to bed one night with our traditions still strong, our values seemingly imperishable. And we woke up in a totally transformed world, the world upside down as some call it."

or maybe not...

another video

...and the winner of the "best use of stock photos in support of environmentalism" category is...

fred vs paul

love vs hate

3/4 time in a bottle

at a chinese buffet today which i do not frequently... um... frequent, the background music was in a style i call "mantovani strings". that may be an incorrect name, but i associate those lush orchestrations of the soundtracks of the fifties through seventies with dad's easy-listening am-fm stations and eight-track tapes back when i was young. of the few oldies i recognized were "tammy's in love", "sound of music", something like "those magnificent men in their flying machines" and some french-sounding filler music that could have been from the 1956 "around the world in eighty days".

there were a few new additions though. in that same easy style were "the rose", "for your eyes only", some nondescript sitcom theme from the seventies, and chicago's "glory of love". but then there was the beatle's "hey jude" and berlin's "take my breath away" - both of which lost a lot in translation.

those reminded me of an ongoing expectation of mine: to someday hear ozzy ozbourne's "no more tears" in a commercial for johnson's baby shampoo, soundgarden's "i awake" for some motel chain's commercial, and nin's "down in it" in a department store elevator.

The Thin Chalk Line

One of the polite quotes from this article is:

"Instead of chanting slogans in Madison, maybe it's time for Wisconsin teachers to take refresher lessons from their non-union counterparts in the Lone Star State."

A less-polite question is: "Why do union teachers in Wisconsin hate black students?"

March 2nd

Happy 175th Birthday Republic of Texas!

i also declared independence exactly ten years ago, and that had mixed results too...

the downward spiral

in which i ask two questions that are answered at zomblog:

1) when will we realize that the militant left has no sense of decency?

2) where's all the people who shout "separation of church and state"?

driving me crazy

this is funnier than this

remind me...

why are we supposed to care more about lindsay lohan's and charlies sheen's... misadventures... than about the problems of some guy that lives downtown in an abandoned entryway behind a bus stop?

libya problem

after you read this nyt article, i'll ask one question:

BENGHAZI, Libya — Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces struck back on three fronts on Monday, using fighter jets, special forces units and regular army troops in an escalation of hostilities that brought Libya closer to civil war...

An international campaign to force Colonel Qaddafi from power gathered pace on Monday as the Obama administration announced it had seized $30 billion in Libyan assets and the European Union adopted an arms embargo and other sanctions. As the Pentagon began repositioning Navy warships to support a possible humanitarian or military intervention, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told the Libyan leader to surrender power “now, without further violence or delay.”

i'd like to see all tyrants disappear, the violent ones like (q/kh/g)addafi quicker than others. but which law allows obama to seize his assets, and does that seizure constitute a declaration of war?

it's a free country

or not

those who are ruled can now communicate

the title is one comment from this article about worldwide upheaval:

"The fateful quarter-century leading up to the World War I was a time when the world of Privilege still existed in Olympian luxury and the world of Protest was heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate. The age was the climax of a century of the most accelerated rate of change in history, a cataclysmic shaping of destiny.

Sound familiar?"

it'll never happen 2

i wish there were some laws that would make our nations roads safer, or some kind of governmental authority to enforce safe driving - and i'm not talking about those few agents patrolling empty roads to collect a velocity tax.

"the fate of individual freedom in a neo-collectivist age"

Roger Kimball:

"At least since LBJ and his preposterously misnamed “Great Society” programs, the United States has been lurching down the collectivist path. The government has intruded itself in one aspect of life after the next, always with ruinous results."

crisis! crisis! git'cher red-hot crisis here!

"won't someone PLEASE think of the children getting lag-spiked on w.o.w??!!??!

if you can't say something nice,

say something funny

so basically

after my vacation around the sturgis area and having watched many american chopper reruns, i'm starting to think that biker culture - except for actual gang members - has mostly devolved into one perpetual "easy rider" cosplay.

a better valentines day thought

it's about time to revamp my previous practical valentines post:

Here's a great idea for Valentine's Day:

Give your "significant other" potatoes.

Let's take some time to rethink the common Valentine's Day gifts. First, there's roses. Their only purpose is to be pretty, and they only last about a week or two. Giving roses is like saying "My love for you is fleeting, and based solely on your appearance". Roses reinforce that message of fickleness by 1) twisting in the wind, and 2) wilting if not pampered. Roses also have thorns, and you probably do not want your significant other associating you with "pain" any more than he/she already does.

Next, there's chocolates. They may be well-received at first, but the risks of weight gain and health problems outweigh the benefits. Also, since 97% of the population is on some diet or another, the consumption of chocolate may lead to guilt issues about food. Those guilt issues could fester in other ways, and your "sweetie" may become addicted to guilty pleasures - anything from shoplifting to secret office affairs to drug smuggling - none of which contribute to a happy home.

Lingerie? No way! That's as insulting as saying "I don't like how your body looks - please cover it up." (Trivia: The word "lingerie" is the ancient French word for "paint job".)

Now think about potatoes. They last much longer than flowers, and are more nutritious and wholesome than chocolates. Potatoes are durable and do not melt in the sun. Even when left unattended, they will often actually sprout and grow. That part alone makes it a good symbol, but there's more! Potatoes are far more useful than almost any other gift (except appliances, which everyone knows should never be mentioned before Presidents' Day).

There are many ways to enjoy potatoes! You can:

• let them grow in a cup of water in your windowsill
• use them to copy simple graphics
• peel them, mash them, julienne them
• boil them, bake them, fry them
• make chips from them
• play games with them (okay, just two games, "mr potato head" and "toss")
• make a battery with them

Giving your loved one potatoes is like saying "I have many ways in which I show my love for you". You just can't do any of those things with flowers or candy (except for tossing them). Potatoes are roots, which reminds your significant other of the deep-rooted-ness of your love. And although potatoes may not be as visually attractive as flowers, they are still wonderful. The gift of potatoes says "It doesn't matter at all what you look like, I'll still love you".

If and If Not

One line of this just popped into my head, so I expanded on the idea to rewrite the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling from a pessimist/realist viewpoint:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
You should start looking for a better job.

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
Congratulations! You'd be a great politician.

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Try running on the Republican ticket.

If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
Stick with the thinking.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
Ask your doctor for some anti-anhedonia medication.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
You'll have no problem watching CNN.

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
Stop, learn from your mistakes, and move on.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
Please seek help for gambling addiction.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
Try out for the next season of "Survivor".

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
You must be living under a rock.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Instead of "Survivor", try out for the track team.

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you're a fictitious character,
And do not have to suffer fools like I do!

a valentines day thought

"We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and Second Hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there bravely while the rest retr . . . Mazarbul. We still . . . but hope u . . . Óin’s party went five days ago but today only four returned. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin - we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep . . . They are coming"

prayer, no; knives, yes

where is "zero-tolerance" when you need it?

theocracy?

i never would have guessed...

baby it's cold outside

coast to coast

it'll never happen

but it's an interesting idea:

"(Let the US buy Mexico) and en masse, move Israel to the Yucatan peninsula. It lacks the Biblical back-story, but it gets one of the USA’s stoutest allies out of the middle of the Musselman basket of snakes, lets those hunyaps rip each other’s guts out."

p.s. i'd never heard the word "hunyap" before, but i can guess what it means. the closest sounding word i knew was "honyock", which means an otherwise intelligent person who does something uncharacteristically stupid.

i just don't know what to write

neither did Dennis Upper.

egypt interests

update: Lileks on the abysmal coverage of the riots in Egypt:

"Here’s the problem:

I can’t stop watching the live feed on Al-Jazeera. I’ve watched dawn break on Liberation Square in the last half hour, watched Molotov cocktails arc across the screen, the thin bands of “pro-Mubarak protestors” – goons, in other words, security forces in street garb – heaving stones at the protestors...

Nothing on DirecTV covers the story. Nothing. CNN at this moment has Piers Morgan – who? WHO? – interview Baba Fargin’ Wawa about something or other, which is like cutting into the news of the Iranian revolution to grill Hedda Hopper about her favorite interviews.

Oh, update: CNN is now showing a video of events in Cairo at 4:45 AM, because they’re replaying the Piers Morgan show. I don’t know what Barbara Walters is saying about it, and I couldn’t care less.

Okay, I turned the volume up. She was talking about the protests but now she’s back to discussing her early career... I have a dish on the roof talking to a satellite in space, and I can’t pull down one channel covering this. I wonder how many other people are stabbing the remote, thinking hey, I’d like to see the story covered. It’s got to be somewhere between these 47 juicer informercials and preconception-reinforcing talk-shows.

...National and international news has to be updated hourly, or it’s still fishwrap. Without the added functionality of, you know, actual fishwrap."

---

update & bump: here's more insight

this is one of the few articles i could find that was more concerned with the big picture of what's currently happening in egypt than that country's internet cutoff.

office space

You mean there's someone else out there who has to deal with unfair complaints from co-workers? Inconceivable!

Lileks handled a banal assignment with intelligence and humor, and...

"...received a substantial dressing-down for not following orders and carrying out my assignments, and held my tongue throughout. There are moments in life when you sit there and take it, because there’s only one response possible and it would just spoil everything, forever, permanently. The sort of response that burns working relationships down to the ground and salts the earth.

I actually replayed that event in my head today, and tried to remember what I wanted to say. I was glad I did not say it. But let’s just say that was the last time I got assigned to a banal, straight-news story that involved going out and talking to someone.

Ever unloaded on someone at work? Come to think of it, I never have. The few times someone’s taken me to task I’ve either taken it because I deserved it, or because I’m not an Escalator. My instincts are to de-escalate, perhaps because I fear what would happen if plain truths were spoken with bounteous gusto. Or maybe because I’m chicken. Or maybe because I don’t care. A man can live with two out of those three."

My instincts are also to de-escalate, for similar reasons. But, his "moments in life" are my "at least twice a week"...

i have a dream

...that someday the naacp will quit segregating itself from white america.

fair and balanced

update 3: igst asks a similar question,

"Why are 1 million black men marching in DC seen as a culmination of racial pride, but a gathering of a few hundred white people is seen as a slathering mob intent on oppressing others?"

---

update & bump 2: why is it that when a radical islamist goes on a shooting spree while shouting "allah akbar!", the media refuses to speculate on his motives, but when a nihilist atheist goes on a shooting spree, the media falsely paints him as a right-wing extremist?

---

update & bump 1: just in case you had any doubts of liberal's utter hypocrisy, they are now trying to ban "threatening symbols and language".

i found a related quote in a different story:

"All their talk about “common sense” and a “reasonable middle ground” is just that—talk. It’s a smokescreen to allow them to advance from their beachhead, never to ease back and practice some of that “compromise” they’re continually hitting us over the head with."

---

divisive speech criticized by major media outlets:

• sarah palin, "blood libel"
• anti-homosexuality speech
• anti-islamic speech
• anti-dnc candidate speech
  

divisive speech not criticized by major media outlets:

• jesse jackson, "hymietown"
• jeremiah wright, "g**d*** america"
• al sharpton, "white folks was in caves", etc...
• weathermen's domestic bombing campaign
• bill ayers' warmongering
• black panthers, "off the pigs"
• new black panther voter intimidation
• malik shabazz's anti-semitism
• robert byrd, "race mongrels"
• mike wallace, "watermelons and tacos"
• lbj, "n**** voters"
• hillary clinton, "f**** jew b*****"
• louis farrakhan, "the white man is our enemy"
• susan sontag, "the white race is a cancer"
  
• obama's "bitter gun clingers" quote
  
• bush-hitler imagery
• bush-vampire imagery
• "buck fush" t-shirts
  
• etc.
• etc.
• ad nauseam,

and certainly not criticized by major media outlets are the actual terrorist actions of any of these people (unless political points could be scored for the left by criticizing them)

worst. year. ever.

there were only three bright spots:

1. The Yankees did not even get into the World Series.

2. There were several days during which Lindsay Lohan was neither going into, nor getting out of, rehab.

3...

read it all

sorely needed

photoshop etiquette

if only it were that easy

imao: "The people who own the money should just be able to say, “I’ve decided to keep that money and spend it myself.”"

on religion

the next time an atheist makes the absurd claim that "religion has caused the most human suffering in world history", ask them how many hospitals were founded by atheists.

common misconceptions

1) that wikipedia is absolutely accurate

the beat goes on

the problem is that, in fact, the lunatic left has no decency.

more than a thousand words

see them,
read them,
and read more

a steven wright moment

isn't it ironic that honey doesn't have more b vitamins?

i can haz constatooshun?

important document is important

the gratingest story ever told

craig winn via igst:

Simply stated, if we are to believe the Islamic scripture’s portrayal of this “prophet,” Muhammad was the most repulsive, and thus the least qualified, divine messenger in human history. His Qur’an recital serves as proof. By any rational, literary, historic, or moral criterion it is the worst book ever written.

even in a world with "origin of species", "mein kampf", "das kapital", and "the god delusion" in the library, i still have to agree...

random p.s.: when thinking of post titles, grated minds think alike

"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.