it's a gas

For decades, the corporate world has been loudly castigated for "chasing the almighty dollar". Fair enough, but the exact same thing can be said of the Occupy movement, tax-and-spenders of all parties, unions, management, workers, welfare recipients, and investors alike.

Any "war on greed" is founded on greed itself.

and counting

monday evening can’t be both honest and polite about paul ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich has not merely been wrong in his long career as a “population expert”: he has been demonstrably, repeatedly, spectacularly wrong about almost everything...

Ehrlich is most famous as the author of the Population Bomb, a book of almost sublime evil and stupidity. He dusted off the creaky old theories of Thomas Malthus... and gave them a healthy coating of panic that drove the great overpopulation scares that still swirl through intellectual circles.

According to the Population Bomb and Ehrlich’s subsequent work, we should all be dead right now. His book began with the infamous sentence, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

Except that never happened. Not in the 1970s … not ever. The localized (not global) famines were not caused by a collapse of the food supply, but by political instability.

He insisted that the global death rate would skyrocket. It’s fallen.

He swore that India could never feed 200 million people. It feeds over a billion.

He suggested or supported all kinds of draconian solutions to this imaginary problem, including putting birth control in the water supply, forced abortions, coercive sterilization, forcibly starving countries who refused to implement radical population controls, punitive taxes on people who have children and on childcare products, and good old fashioned jack-booted totalitarianism in order to “fix” the problem of global famine from overpopulation... And yet this utter sham of a man made a career as a public intellectual while being... spectacularly wrong while offering objectively evil solutions to imaginary problems. The stunning thing is that he’s still talking, and people are – inexplicably – (quoting him) in major newspapers...

terror attacks on us soil

to commemorate an upcoming anniversary of "modern justice", notice the decades when the trend explodes and when it recedes... and notice the current definition of "modern justice"

eight epsilon strikes again

if management wishes to complain about the accuracy of my work, management should learn to spell the word "accuracy" properly.

update: if management wishes to reprimand me for an action, management should not have told me to do said action in the first place.

oh man

jack baruth via dustbury:

Forget the “war on women” you’re hearing about right now, although it may well exist. There’s been a “war on men” for the last fifty years, and it’s been more successful than any of the Middle Eastern adventurism which has burned up the lives of American men... A war against the ideas of manhood, fatherhood, responsibility, dependability. The traditional American man... has been parodied, denigrated, humiliated, ironized, written out of existence. It’s no longer pleasant or even feasible to emulate our grandfathers and their unashamedly masculine lives.

racism

it

will

never

heal

if

you

keep

picking

at

it

spring training

update & bump: did instapundit reader chris fox read my post, or is the incivility of the occupy movement really that obvious?

Could we have possibly drawn a more stark comparison between the Tea Party minded and the OWS minded? We say it with Post-It notes. They say it with feces and spray paint. They made a mess of DC and Wisconsin. We cleaned it up and left it better than we found it. Oh, and we also didn’t rape or kill anyone.

i vote the latter.

---

The occupy movement is preparing for next season:

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Activists inspired by Occupy Wall Street are gearing up for spring training. They say they will teach thousands of people to lead nonviolent protests aimed at reinvigorating the spirit of the movement against economic inequality...

(Many people have) signed up for hundreds of sessions organized by more than 60 activist groups and the nation's largest unions...

It is quite telling that union-organized leftists require formal training to NOT be violent - so unlike the relatively rape-, assault-, and vandalism-free tea party movement. One must wonder whether leftism breeds violence or naturally-violent people are more attracted to leftism.

history lesson

Lileks nails it:

the Eurozone troubles have been fascinating to watch. The entire idea seemed like madness to me. Yoking disparate cultures together into a manufactured political union seemed unwise... A new generation may grow up thinking “I am a European!” but it’s a cotton-candy construct that dissolves upon contact with the hot water of current events...

Culture divides; history shapes; language binds. This doesn’t mean it has to result in conflict or adversarial stances, but they’re givens in human nature, and the most workable system is the one that recognizes them and accommodates them, not the one that pretends they are tissue-thin wisps of an old order that can be swept away with a shiny new broom...

It’ll probably end poorly...

Everything about the EU has always seemed like play-acting - functionaries and mandarins pretending to rule over a thing that does not exist, yet given the power to tax and regulate the people who live in their imaginary land...

read the rest, see also Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, USSR, and most any empire.

beetles are similar to roaches :P

i just found this band "yellow dubmarine" - which i haven't heard but can't imagine them being better than "dread zeppelin"...

man that's deep

http://xkcd.com/1040/large/

maybe time to invest in tar & feathers...

we can't vote "none of the above" to our two-headed monster and the nattering nabobs, and the french can't vote "le'pew!" to their medusa...

rotten spam

somebody left the container open ;)

i just received the most pathetic phishing scam spam ever. i would have copied it exactly, but had to change all the <> brackets to ^ so that it can be viewed as closely to verbatim text as i recieved it - not interpreted as html by your browser.

^html style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 90% 90%; ^moz-background-clip:

^moz-initial; ^moz-background-origin: ^moz-initial; ^moz-background-inline-policy:

^moz-initial;"^^head^^style^body {margin:8px} .tr-field {font:normal small arial} img

^moz-force-broken-image-icon: 1;}^/style^^/head^^body g_editable="true" hidefocus="true"

class="editable tr-field" id=":ce" style=""^^div^
^img alt="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/logo/paypal_logo.gif"

src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/logo/paypal_logo.gif"^
^/div^

Dear Customer,^br^^br^
We are currently performing regular maintenance of our security measures. Your account

has^br^been randomly selected for this maintenance, and you will now be taken through a

series of^br^identity verification pages click on the link below

^br^^br^

^a href="http:***SPAMMINGSCUMBUCKETS***.htm"

target="_blank"^^font size="2" face="Verdana"^Verify your Paypal

account^/font^^/a^^br^^br^Protecting the security of your PayPal account is our primary

concern, and we apologize for^br^any inconvenience this may cause.^br^^br^^br^Thanks For

using Paypal^br^Management^/body^^/html^

a new national holiday

bumped to "the day of", and added this link worth reading

Since it's been over 400 years since the probable origin of April Fools' Day, I suggest that it be replaced with:

Keynes' Fools Day 

to be enacted just as soon as America recovers from the Obama Stimulus Disaster and Depression.

 I also suggest it should be celebrated exactly two weeks after the old date of April 1st...

just to clarify

A few definitions via Wikipedia:

Justice

"Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics"

Lynching

"Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob... in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that arise in communities... , have been more frequent in times of social and economic tension, and have often been the means used by the politically dominant population to oppress social challengers."

Mob Rule

Ochlocracy or mob rule is government by mob or a mass of people, or the intimidation of legitimate authorities...

Ochlocracy ("rule of the general populace") is democracy ("rule of the people") spoiled by demagoguery, "tyranny of the majority" and the rule of passion over reason...

Strangely, Wikipedia does not have a listing for "Race-Baiting Opportunist"...

jobs deletion

Jeff Brokaw seems surprised that his article keeps getting hits from searches for "cynicism" and "taxpayer":

Politicians and others who want our money have been scaring us with phony crises for decades, and after awhile, you learn to shrug your shoulders and say “whatever, pal”. But sadly, lots of people still buy this b.s., and so they help grow our government bureaucracy and increase our taxes...

...a very important point... that too many of us miss because we focus too much on blue states vs. red states... is this: too many people implicitly trust government — and therefore, politicians — to fix society’s problems... It’s time to put a stop to this foolishness. While government can always offer a solution, it is rarely the best solution.

Private enterprise is cheaper, more efficient, and provides better goods and services at lower prices, along with jobs. Private enterprise grows the economy. Good things happen in growing economies...

It’s well-past time to move into a post-partisan world, and accept the fact that the real class warfare we taxpayers face today is against rent-seekers, i.e., anybody who seeks a place in line at the tax revenue trough.

I'm surprised that any real American would enable those nanny-staters to keep slaves on their vote-growing plantation.

jobs creation

we're living it!

d.i.y.

i like reading makezine blog, even if i hardly ever make things myself any more.

i don't
think
wondermark
holds
the same
opinion
of the
d.i.y.
movement...

Dave's not here, man!

Where's Dave?

(i 'shopped this from a google satellite view of an airbase. sorry i couldn't get an acceptable thumbnail-to-preview in blogger here...)

less regulation please!

medical costs are making me sick

more randomness please!

dustbury found a question he 'couldn’t resist':

What do you think of blogs and randomness? As the question says, can a blog be too random? Would the lack of connection between topics/posts annoy readers even if the content was interesting?"

fillyjonk answered:

Can free ice cream be too free?

I’m always amused at the people who complain about blogs not conforming to what their exact wants in a blog are: they’re not paying to read them, nor are they forced to read them…

Me? I like randomness.

i followed:

fillyjonk is exactly right.

i can imagine those yammering yahoos of (y)uniformity wishing:

“One Blog to rule them all,
One Link to find them,
One Rule to write them all,
and in the Blandness bind them.”

blogosaurus

frank j of imao pondered:

“Why do scientists have to keep sissifying all the dinosaurs by putting feathers on them?”

son of bob commented:

"First they put feathers on the dinosaurs, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a dinosaur…"

then i commented:

it all started back when the eltonjohnosaurus flamboyantii was discovered…

of course, the comparison was then applied to manhattan

What a weird but effective way to present a factoid: I was just watching a History Channel show that claimed "Americans eat one hundred ACRES of pizza a day"...

the ups and downs of "non-profits"

monday evening wonders the same thing

the american eye dulls

my sister has a much higher tolerance for "reality shows" than i do, and her kids are now fans of "the voice" on nbc. i have less-than-zero interest in that show, but enough interest in finding out what the kids like for me to watch a few clips of it on youtube with them. after seeing the clips, my interest in the show has now increased to zero, because it was sorta funny for those otherwise-sweet rural gradeschool kids to be mimicking the street attitudes of ceelo & christina.

but that's not why i'm writing.

on the way home tonight, i thought of a horrible pun to describe my feelings watching the show (brace yourself...)

...

...

...

"i watched 'the voice' the other night. at first i noticed all the performers had emote in their eye, then i noticed i had a bored in mine."

pair un balanced

msnbc's broadcast today included a lower-third graphic titled "mitt happens" - yet another shining example of the "fair and balanced" elections coverage provided by maddow & matthews team.

redirect, your honor?

obviously my writing is sporadic here, and it may become more so. since late march i've started writing something (my memoirs? autobiography? ex post facto diary? demented scribblings?) for my indirect descendants.

jeepers creepers

ttac commentors (via dustbury) noticed the jeep brand seems to kill its owners.

i pondered there "what would happen if jeep released a special “ted mcginley edition” cherokee?"

money

it's a gas

declaration of independence 7.6x10^99, pelosi 0

update 2: apparently this post caused quite the kerfuffle in imao's comments section! here is my input, with the intent to clarify - i intend no defensiveness.

• my choice of the word "shamelessly" was mostly facetious. the only semi-serious intent that word might hold was that i had no shame in the pro-America-anti-pelosi-ness of the content.
• if i had intended to truly plagiarize the piece, i would not have provided links to the original.
• harvey of imao has stated that neither he nor frank j is upset about this.
• as my archives can show, my habit is to provide a shorter excerpt with a "read the rest"-style link.
• the spirit of the length of this copied portion was to reinforce the seriousness of the threat that president hussein-o and his cronies are to the foundations of America. 

everybody cool now? i think the affected parties are...  ;)

---

update 1: wooohooo, it's an imaolanch! thanks :)

---

shamelessly copied from imao

Well, Nance, as long as we’re plucking random phrases from the D of I and hotgluing them to Obamacare, here’s a few more choice nuggets from the document you so obviously revere that might be more appropriately attached to this President and his sundry legislations:

• whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
• a long train of abuses and usurpations
• a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism
• repeated injuries and usurpations
• the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States
• refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance
• utterly neglected to attend
• the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures
• his invasions on the rights of the people
• exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without
• obstructed the Administration of Justice
• sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance
• subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution
• abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments
• works of death, desolation, and tyranny
• Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation
• excited domestic insurrections amongst us
• Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury
• deaf to the voice of justice
• A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

and some more shameless links found via imao

homage ---> myopia

like me, lileks won't watch avatar:

"It’s the fact that the big expensive movies have no soul. They’re machines - loud, noisy machines that hit you over the head and show no recognition of Disbelief, and the effort it takes to suspend it..."

mark steyn's quote was harsher:

Hollywood’s business model is to take a story that cost two shillings and... spend a fifth of a billion making it lousier. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t, but either way the industry’s living off Model T fumes. Hollywood could use its own Edgar Rice Burroughs, but instead it’s a business full of guys who can’t even adapt Edgar Rice Burroughs for less than 300 mil — and then blow it.

i think it would be a good start to outlaw the scene where the hero jumps-over-a-hundred-feet-both-horizontally-and-vertically to either land-in-a-crouched-pose-without-rolling or bury-a-sword-that's-longer-than-he-is-tall-in-a-monster's-head.

adele 21

fark points out that:

"Adele’s record, 21, overtook Pink Floyd’s 1973 release, The Dark Side Of The Moon... making it the seventh biggest-selling (UK) album of all-time."

dustbury suspects that:

"...no one has suggested synching up 21 and The Wizard of Oz."

i suggested (in his comments) that:

there’s probably some stoners out there experimenting now.

it might go with a much newer movie though, something like:

“ocean’s eleven”
“gigli”
“pi”
“raising arizona”
or the pilot episode of “24″

:)

any other suggestions?

check out the infographic below

follow this link for the pic

President Barack Obama’s Facebook and Twitter following leaves Republican presidential candidates in the dust. The president has more than 25 million Facebook Likes and more than 12.5 million Twitter followers...

Romney comes in second with 1.4 million Facebook Likes...

Newt Gingrich has 1.4 million Twitter followers...

Ron Paul is the third most followed candidate with more than 862,000 Facebook Likes and more than 130,000 Twitter followers...

Rick Santorum is next to last with nearly 130,000 Twitter followers and more than 138,000 Facebook Likes...

Gary Johnson, the libertarian who has been in and out of the race... has more than 23,000 Twitter followers and 149,000 Facebook Likes...

My guess is that these numbers represent people who need to have someone else do their thinking for them :)

i wasn't the only one to notice

mark simonson on the fonts in "the artist" movie:

The Artist won this year’s Oscar for Best Picture about a week ago. It seems to say something about the state of movies today that a black and white, silent picture—not even wide screen—wins the big prize. I’ve seen it, and it’s good, but I confess that I had to force myself to ignore most of the type in it in order to enjoy it.

The Artist mimics the look and feel of a late 1920s silent film. The sets, the costumes, the makeup, the lighting, the camera work, the acting—even the way it’s written—makes you almost believe you are watching a classic of the silent era. Of course, you know it’s not. After all, there are recognizable modern actors in it, like John Goodman and James Cromwell. And, for me, there was the type.

Most of the fonts they used looked more or less right for the 1920s, although quite a few were badly made free fonts (or badly made commercial fonts—those exist, too). Others are not quite from the era or were applied in an anachronistic way—for example, using negative line spacing, which is impractical to do with metal type.

But the real problem was that they used type at all. Except for things like newspapers, a few other small props, and the intertitles (more on these later), type would not have been used. Movie posters, signs, magazine covers, movie titles and credits—back in the 1920s and 1930s, that kind of thing was almost always lettered by hand. Type—and it would have been metal type, back then—was not up to the job. There were too few styles, too few sizes. It just wasn’t as flexible as someone skilled with a brush. Things that are so easy for us to do with type today were practically impossible back then, which provided plenty of work for letterers.

If you’re careful, it is possible to get close to the look of lettering with modern fonts. Some are even made to look that way (I’ve made a few myself). But for all the attention they paid to other period details, there is something slap-dash about the way this stuff was handled in The Artist...

(many examples follow, some of which i didn't even catch when i watched the movie)

...In conclusion, the typography in The Artist wasn’t way off the mark—it does seem that some effort was made. And I’m sure that, for 99.999 percent of the movie-going public, it was more than sufficient effort. But it would have been great to see the typography get the same high degree of attention that the other period details in the film got.

"this is the percentage of our discontent"

via dustbury, edited:

"Class warfare resentment is just a way to translate bitterness and disappointment into personal superiority."

vd

xkcd has even worse valentines' ideas than i've had before

something's a bit off...

but we can't blame the obama administration for this one...

yet...

lesser of two evils, feh

roberta x via dustbury:

Even more sad than (the putrid slugfest of rino debates viewed through lsm lenses) is having to watch the Republican faithful as, once more, they play the Battered Bride, talking themselves into the belief that a liberty-fearing Massachusetts patrician won't be so bad, not really, I mean, at least he's not a Democrat, right? (Got news for ya, kids: in Indiana or elsewhere in flyover country, he probably would be).

read the rest

storing files in the cloud...

...is dangerous when they start evaporating for no reason.

hiss-o-fit

it's not the color of their skin, it's the thinness

work-related

okay, my job is not this bad,

or this bad,

i still want out though...

sustainable is the new unsustainable

see also "f-bombs"

islamic rage, yaawwwnnnn

personally, i'm more outraged by the beheadings, bombings, and misogyny of islam more than a film that depicts the threat.

primarily

the truth will come out

SOPA

Unlike some other sites, this blog is just too important to shut down in protest  :D  , but here's a quote about (yet another) really bad piece of proposed legislation:

(SOPA) is like shutting down a freeway because a car got stolen.

not MLK's day

which is worse: that martin luther king jr's "dream" has devolved into a "society" of gangsta-rappin-pimps-n-hos, or that somebody designed a poster showing how bad things have gotten?

that stopped clock

got one thing right

art

painting is alive and well

i'm not calling for a boycott

i'm just not going to buy these brands any more:

• 7UP
• A&W
• Cactus Cooler
• Canada Dry
• Clamato (as if anyone drinks that swill)
• Coco Casa
• Country Time
• Crush
• Deja Blue
• Diet Rite
• Dr Pepper
• Elements
• Hawaiian Punch
• Hires
• Holland House
• IBC
• Margaritaville
• Mistic
• Mott's
• Mr & Mrs T
• Nantucket Nectars
• Nehi
• Orangina
• Peñafiel
• RC Cola
• ReaLemon
• Rose's
• Schweppes
• Snapple
• Squirt
• Stewart's
• Sun Drop
• Sunkist
• Tahitian Treat
• Venom Energy
• Vernors
• Welch's
• Yoo-hoo

and here's why:

as of 5 p.m. today there is no more Dublin Dr Pepper: From here on out, per a settlement agreement just announced in the case filed by Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group in June, the Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company will now be known as Dublin Bottling Works Inc. And it will no longer manufacture Imperial Pure Cane Sugar Dr Pepper at its bottling plant.

emoticons

mcsweeney's list is almost as cool as the emoticon i invented:

8^O>

me, with goatee, surprised by something to my left

captured

this review via google maps



(sorry for preview issues. please click on image to read right half of it...)

dave barry's year in review

"This was a year in which the cast members of “Jersey Shore” went to Italy and then — in an inexcusable lapse of border security — were allowed to return."

short answer: yes

long answer: here

with no particular place to go

a meme via dustbury:

Go into your archives and post the first sentence from the first post you made each month last year.

I'm going to cheat a wee bit because some of mine are just links to someone else's quote:

jan: "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."

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

mar: 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?

apr: i have now personally seen chiropractors who believe in their profession at five levels.

may: sony's database was hacked, again.

jun: "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."

jul: john lennon, republican?!?

aug: Q: What's green and looks like an iguana?

sep: now that the freedom tower is nearing completion, maybe we can begin some foundation restoration

oct: "If in 2004 5.7% unemployment was supposed to mark a “jobless recovery,” what exactly is 9.1% called?"

nov: Ann Coulter via Instapundit didn't go far enough...

dec: i never would have known to avoid the burzynski clinic if it weren't for their threats...

the slow down

entropy? inertia? some other fancy word for laziness?

i haven't forgotten this blog, i just don't have much to say at the moment (without excessive whining).

...so just watch this strangely-relevant rerun in the meantime.

old years resolutions

no i'm not making any this year - not even silly ones like i've posted before. so here's a pic of (allegedly) woody guthrie's resolutions for some year long past.

gimme the krampus

...instead of obama claus

giftgiving

Luke 11:9-12

"9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
11 Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
12 Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

it's all about meme

I'll post my quibbles with this list of "100 Cult Films" after I answer the meme:


2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, 1968
Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988 (1)
Angel of Vengeance, Abel Ferrara, 1981
Bad Taste, Peter Jackson, 1987
Baise-moi, Virginie Despentes, Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000
Begotten, E. Elias Merhige, 1991
Behind the Green Door, Artie Mitchell, Jim Mitchell, 1972
La belle et la bête, Jean Cocteau, 1946 (2)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer, 1970
The Big Lebowski, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 1998
Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982
Blue Sunshine, Jeff Lieberman, 1978
Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985
Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale, 1935
The Brood, David Cronenberg, 1979
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920
Café Flesh, Stephen Sayadian, 1982
Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, 1979
Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942
Un chien andalou, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, 1928
Coffy, Jack Hill, 1973
Daughters of Darkness, Harry Kümel, 1971
Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero, 1978
Deadly Weapons, Doris Wishman, 1974
Debbie Does Dallas, Jim Clark, 1978
Deep Red, Dario Argento, 1975
Dirty Dancing, Emile Ardolino, 1987
Django, Sergio Corbucci, 1966
Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly, 2001
Don’t Torture a Duckling, Lucio Fulci, 1972
Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton, 1990
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Aristide Massaccesi, 1977
Emmanuelle, Just Jaeckin, 1974
Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse, 1973
Eraserhead, David Lynch, 1977
The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi, 1981
Fight Club, David Fincher, 1999
Flaming Creatures, Jack Smith, 1963
Freak Orlando, Ulrike Ottinger, 1981
Freaks, Tod Browning, 1932
Ginger Snaps, John Fawcett, 2000
The Gods Must Be Crazy, Jamie Uys, 1981
Godzilla, Ishirô Honda, 1954
The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell, 1972
Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby, 1971
Häxan, Benjamin Christensen, 1922
Hellraiser, Clive Barker, 1987
The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973
The House with the Laughing Windows, Pupi Avati, 1976
I Walked with a Zombie, Jacques Tourneur, 1943
Ichi the Killer, Takashi Miike, 2001
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh, 2008
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Don Siegel, 1956
Invocation of My Demon Brother, Kenneth Anger, 1969
It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, 1946
The Killer, John Woo, 1989
Lady Terminator, H. Tjut Djalil, 1988
The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, 2001-3 (2 of 3)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, George Miller, 1981
Man Bites Dog, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992
Manos, the Hands of Fate, Harold P. Warren, 1966
The Masque of the Red Death, Roger Corman, 1964
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975
Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow, 1987
Nekromantik, Jörg Buttgereit, 1987
Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero, 1968
Pink Flamingos, John Waters, 1972
Piranha, Joe Dante, 1978
Plan 9 from Outer Space, Edward D. Wood Jr, 1959
Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, 1985
Reefer Madness, Louis Gasnier, 1936 (*)
Repo Man, Alex Cox, 1984
Ringu, Hideo Nakata, 1998
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jim Sharman, 1975 (*)
Rome Armed to the Teeth, Umberto Lenzi, 1976
The Room, Tommy Wiseau, 2003
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975
She Killed in Ecstasy, Jesús Franco, 1971
Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven, 1995
Soul Vengeance, Jamaa Fanaka, 1975
The Sound of Music, Robert Wise, 1965
Star Wars, George Lucas, 1977-2005
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Todd Haynes, 1988
Suspiria, Dario Argento, 1977
Tank Girl, Rachel Talalay, 1995
Tetsuo, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974
This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner, 1984
Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974
Thundercrack!, Curt McDowell, 1975
El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970
The Toxic Avenger, Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman, 1984
Two-Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman, 1971
Two Thousand Maniacs!, Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1964
The Vanishing, George Sluizer, 1988
Videodrome, David Cronenberg, 1983
The Warriors, Walter Hill, 1979
Witchfinder General, Michael Reeves, 1968
Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson, 1987
The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming, 1939

On this list I'd replace the fairly mainstream

• Casablanca
• Dirty Dancing (*)
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• The Sound of Music
• Star Wars
• The Wizard of Oz 

with the far more "cultish"

• The American Astronaut
• Jacob's Ladder
• Koyaanisqatsi
• Orlando
• Pi
• Valhalla Rising

, all of which I've seen.


(*) = I couldn't make myself finish watching
(1) = All three versions: Japanese, English subtitles, English dub.
(2) = Seen at the live performance of Philip Glass' new soundtrack for the movie.

another special time

Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel

a mere adjustment of terminology

December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - a greedy power-crazed cocaine-addicted totalitarian (a.k.a. F.D.R.) feigned surprise when the oil war he and his socialist cronies started was suddenly waged by conventional means, against the will of both the Japanese and the American people...

celebritis

a
sane
world
would
not
find
obnoxious
boors
or
common
prostitutes
noteworthy

now that's progressive!

sorry about your cat

2012 or not?

this is true at least as far back as the war of northern aggression.

obama's great depre.... squirrel!

remember the old crude joke about "athletic supporters"? obama's "job supporter" joke is worse.

does everything he touch turn to... ahem, the opposite of gold? maybe that's what "shovel-ready" refers to...

scifi poster art

star wars & firefly

the barbara streisand effect strikes again!

i never would have known to avoid the burzynski clinic if it weren't for their threats...

something i thought on the way home 5

when was nougat invented?

body count

"fast & furious" seems to be killing people at a faster rate than the iraq war.

Thanksgiving Delayed

My holiday and travels have been delayed this year. This post should not have been delayed - sorry.

Psalm 107, KJ21

O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good;
for His mercy endureth for ever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy,

and gathered them out of the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.

They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way;
they found no city to dwell in.

Hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.

Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble,
and He delivered them out of their distresses.

And He led them forth by the right way,
that they might go to a city for habitation.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

For He satisfieth the longing soul,
and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

They that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
being bound in affliction and irons,

because they rebelled against the words of God
and contemned the counsel of the Most High,

therefore He brought down their heart with labor;
they fell down and there was none to help.

Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble,
and He saved them out of their distresses.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and broke their bonds asunder.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

For He hath broken the gates of brass
and cut the bars of iron asunder.

Fools, because of their transgression
and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.

Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat,
and they draw near unto the gates of death.

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble,
and He saveth them out of their distresses.

He sent His word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destructions.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and declare His works with rejoicing!

They that go down to the sea in ships,
that do business in great waters:

these see the works of the LORD
and His wonders in the deep.

For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind,
which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven,
they go down again to the depths;
their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man,
and are at their wits' end.

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble,
and He bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm,
so that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they are quiet;
so He bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness,
and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people,
and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.

--------

He turneth rivers into a wilderness
and the watersprings into dry ground,

a fruitful land into barrenness
for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

He turneth the wilderness into a standing water
and dry ground into watersprings;

and there He maketh the hungry to dwell,
that they may prepare a city for habitation,

and sow the fields and plant vineyards,
which may yield fruitful increase.

He blesseth them also so that they are multiplied greatly,
and alloweth not their cattle to decrease.

Again, they are diminished and brought low
through oppression, affliction, and sorrow.

He poureth contempt upon princes,
and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way.

Yet setteth He the poor on high from affliction,
and maketh their families like a flock.

The righteous shall see it and rejoice,
and all iniquity shall stop her mouth.

Whoso is wise and will observe these things,
even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD.

"lol-art"

i suggest that title for this site (which dustbury may or may not have been asking for here)


edit: although, that site may be one of the reasons for the commandment against making graven images :/

money

maybe listen to this as you view this?

"Save us from the ideological conformity of multiculturalism"

, the cult which labels postmodern conservative as "exemplary of a larger cultural, political, economic, historical force called “America” which in theory represents the worst thing that could ever happen to humanity."

something i thought on the way home 4

my floors are really sticky.

"chakra, not sutra"

is this the soundtrack to a bollywood spy movie?

never make an appointment with dr. acula

at the doctor today, they needed a blood sample from me. instead of having it taken in a regular room, they sat me in a chair in towards the rear of their workers' office, next to the timeclock, break table, and some shelves with medical and office supplies.

one of the items between my outstretched arm and the water cooler was an empty five-gallon bottle.

feel free to imagine the snarky comment i made upon noticing it. :)

something i thought on the way home 3

what do all the other dorm residents feel when one person always plays disco music too loud?

something i thought on the way home 2

what do you call somebody who can only talk about their diet?

free thinking

wrymouth finds it "instructive to continually contrast theism with atheism."

something i thought on the way home 1

what do you call it when cigar smokers live together?

map projections

i only know two people who would laugh at this, and i'm one of them. anyone else out there get it?

and/or snake oil

quoth the lileks:

"Dark matter and dark energy. Things they can’t find, but must exist, because otherwise there’s no explanation for what this happens or this doesn’t. You can marvel at the human ingenuity involved in creating these theoretical constructs, explaining the vast mysteries of the deep; you can also say hmm. Phlogiston."

gag reflex

this month's readers digest has a picture of michelle obama on the cover (with a particularly draculesque hairdo), with a quote saying,

"everything we do must be for our children."

her husband's policies imply the logical followup:

", and everything we spend must be from their children."

coincidence?

two families of evil plastic freaks on tv happen to have the same last name!

their social contract is unwritten

house of eratosthenes explains

"(the occupy movement) lusts for a glorious day in which it emerges as the top dog, which is an upcoming revolution, and it does all of its smaller things by means of smaller revolutions. If you want something, you immobilize something else until such time as someone is bludgeoned and browbeaten into giving you what you want. Annoyance is the new coin of the realm. If you want a hot dog, you annoy somebody. If you want a place to put up your tent and crash for the night, you annoy somebody. If you want a job, you annoy somebody. If you want to be heard, you annoy somebody.

And, lately, it seems…if you have the opportunity to be heard and you’re having trouble figuring out what to say…yes, you annoy people until that problem, too, is solved. Just like any other. Any time you find yourself lacking in anything, it must be because someone external to you has not been given the proper motivation, so you find a way to interfere with what they’re trying to do, and then you get what you want...

We’re seeing this alternative, subversive social contract break the surface and getting a good look at it. And we’re seeing how much it stinks. We’re seeing, right in front of our eyes, how a miniature “society” of sorts functions as it operates according to this model. We’re seeing how it leads inexorably to chaos, rancor and despair. The subterranean social contract is being given a “job interview” and it is being found to be lacking."

read it all, including comments

...and this one, and, well, most everything on the site :)

coining a phrase

the other mccain via dustbury:

hypodrachmaphobia (n)
The fear that somebody else might be making more money than you, triggering a strong urge to covet, followed next by hate and then a compelling need to get a tax law passed that will help redistribute some of that bad, bad capital your way.

there was also a comment there which read:

I have nothing against Michelle Obama on a personal level – nor do I her husband - but the Michelles of the world justify their arrogance and ease their gnawing sense of empty accomplishment by confiscating and redistributing the product of someone else’s labor, innovation or intellect - not for the benefit of the recipient – but because they are angry, frustrated and/or embarrassed that even with their self-anointed superiority the creation of that wealth is beyond their ability to achieve. They, like the reality-show fans, judge their superiority and worth based not on their true accomplishments (or lack thereof) but based on people they presume to be worth less than themselves.

compare and contrast, yet again

Ann Coulter via Instapundit didn't go far enough...

Herman Cain, African-American:

• facts so far: a couple of vague accusations of sexual misconduct have been made, with little evidence.
• media reaction: histrionic wall-to-wall coverage.

Bill Clinton, Caucasian:

• facts so far: many specific accusations of sexual misconduct have been made.
• media reaction: repeated denials and claims of Republican witchhunt.

Clarence Thomas, African-American:

• facts so far: accusations of sexual misconduct were made, which proved false.
• media reaction: histrionic wall-to-wall coverage.

John Edwards, Caucasian:

• facts so far: had extramarital affair while his wife was fighting cancer.
• media reaction: repeated denials and claims of Republican witchhunt.

The obvious conclusion: the media is racist.

If they object, point out how the label is much more correct in this context than when they slander the tea party with it.

mark of the beast, anyone?

evil
only
advances
when
good
people
do
nothing

less than meets the eye

"It’s ridiculous to think about “Transformers 3” for more than six seconds", but a couple of minutes reading about why it's ridiculous is quite entertaining.

new quotes

i just added a few quotes about freedom to appear in my subheader from this good source.

just in time for valent... er, halloween?

some guys really know how to wooo a lady...

occupy wall street

update 4: today i took a stand that had more actual effect than any of these occupy-ers ever had. when i went to city hall to pay my water bill, i took a good long drink from their water fountain. wooooo stickin it to tha man!

:D

update 3: do i need to draw you a picture?

update 2: dustbury expands on the phenomenon

update & bump: has it occurred to anyone else that we might not be in obama's depression if the "tea party" had gotten the favorable press coverage that the "occupy" is getting?

for fair-and-balanced coverage, the media-infotainment complex needs to come up with a derogatory term for these protestors like they did for the tea party. how about:

• dirt-baggers
• the pot party
• soros-turf
• left-wing lunatics
• the maples
• bloodsucking commies
• chumps
• bitter hobos clinging to drugs and chomsky

that being said, i'm just as against "the looters" as they are - it's just ironic/funny/sad/revolting that their whole scheme is being astroturfed by a bunch of looters.

this is a song of hope

VDH in the House of Eratosthenes:

If in 2004 5.7% unemployment was supposed to mark a “jobless recovery,” what exactly is 9.1% called? If Bush’s average $500 billion deficits over eight years were abhorrent, what must we say of Obama’s average $1.6 trillion over three? Really bad?

a good start

i'm not eating crow yet, maybe just setting the table for it...

dawning on america

a few people get it:

Obama is great at math. He divides the country, subtracts jobs, adds debt and multiplies misery.

Lack of leadership, the first-ever federal credit downgrade, a failed debt deal, unemployment nearing record levels, fresh warnings of a double-dip recession, and the most toxic political climate in Washington history ... can you trust President Obama?

The Solyndra scandal continues to unfold, with half a billion taxpayers’ dollars down the drain. What did President Obama know and when did he know it?

For as this radical leftist’s regime has displayed deep red colors from day one, renewed claims of post-racial harmony, a moderate political agenda or murky, feel-good screeds about hope and change will not sell this time around to any but the most rabid of the Obama base.

Three years ago, mouthing vacuous speeches and making vacant promises, Obama lied, schemed and intimidated his way into the White House while his campaign committee of left wing journalists provided critical cover for personal and political histories which would have doomed the candidate had they seeped through the wall of media silence.

I am so tired of Obama big deal plans for the economy that are so poorly conceived they will never pass Congress. Why does he just stay with what he does best, take an expensive vacation.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of the National Restaurant Association on Monday that Americans need to “adjust” their tastes so that they like the kind of food the government believes they should eat and “we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.” Can we say “Big Brother” (Moochelle) is “looking out” for our best interests?

post-hurricane

I guess The Muffin Man don't care about white folk.

Letter to a Young Composer

solid (but not easy or popular) advice

blues how-to

UPDATE & BUMP:
this guy, well this guy ain't followin' rulez,
i said
this guy, now this guy ain't followin' rulez.
he say
"spendin' money on a geetar? aw, that's a game for foolz!"

---

Various versions of this list have been on the internet for many years,

HOW TO PLAY AND SING THE BLUES

1. 82% of Blues songs begin with the words "Woke up this morning..."

2. The next most popular first line in a Blues song is about the singer's spouse or girl/boyfriend, like

"Well I got me a woman..."

3. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues unless you stick something nasty in the next line like

"I got a good woman with the meanest face in town."

4. Writing a complete Blues verse is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then write another line that follows and almost rhymes:

"Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. She look like Janet Reno, and she weigh 800 pound."

5. The Blues is not about choice. If you stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch. There ain't no way out.

6. The only cars that may be in the Blues are American-made: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Other forms of Blues transportation are Greyhound bus or a southbound train. The Blues do not travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUVs. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle.

7. "Fixin' to die" also plays a major part in the Blues, therefore only adults may sing the Blues. In the Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis. Teenagers can not sing the Blues - they ain't fixin' to die yet.

8. Great places to have the Blues include Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. The Blues can also take place in Texas, the Deep South, and occasionally in New York City. The Blues may not be set in Hawaii, Canada, Scotland, or Estonia. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. You cannot have the blues anyplace that don't get rain.

9. You can't have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall - first off, the lighting is wrong. If your means of travel is restricted, at least go out to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. on a highway
b. in a jailhouse
c. in an empty bed
d. at a crossroads at midnight
e. at the bottom of a whiskey glass

11. Bad places for the Blues:
a. on a golf course
b. at a gallery opening
c. at an Ivy League college
d. on a ski slope
e. at Neiman Marcus

12. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it.

13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?

Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you earned a Doctorate
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

14. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg 'cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

15. The Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

16. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. stale black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

17. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken-down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

18. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Ella
c. Big Mama
d. Bessie
e. River Dumpling

19. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie
e. any two initials (preferably the same letter), such as B.B. or J.J.

20. Persons with names like Amber, Jennifer, Tiffany, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

21. If you're having trouble making your own Blues name, try this:
a. Name a physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. Add the name of a fruit (Lemon, Lime, etc..)
c. Add the last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Examples: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jackleg Lemon Johnson.

22. No matter how tragic your life, if you own a computer you cannot sing the blues.

, but I've spotted a flaw in it.

According to rule 21, "Narcoleptic Papaya Roosevelt" is a valid blues singer's name, and that just can't be right...

singing in the rain

i don't like musicals, but a few hours ago i really understood this bit

sparks glow in dim bulbs

last year, president hussein produced a few prophetic gold flakes from this slagheap of words about solyndra:

...through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans...

...many in this community are still reeling from the effects of the recession...

...it was all the more painful and heartbreaking because the factory had been held up as an example of how America could lead in manufacturing.

...there’s a ripple effect. It’s not just localized to this area.

the truth of the matter is, is that when you’re in Washington a lot of times all you’re thinking about or all that’s being talked about is politics -- we end up getting caught up in the moment instead of what is important for the future.

of course it has to be taken out of context to extract the truth ;)

---

also, today the old gray mare got something right about sarah palin for once.

revitalization

now that the freedom tower is nearing completion, maybe we can begin some foundation restoration