to boldly go

bbca has been re-running star trek next generation a lot lately, so i just now noticed this... you know how movies and tv have ratings systems to warn viewers of content that could be offensive? before the tv ratings system was formalized, star trek next generation pioneered a new rating that should have been on that list:

a few episodes were rated Q for being completely unwatchable.

Lanky Skanky Ho

Apologies for the risque-nities; the subject demands them :(

With absolutely no apology to Billy Ray Cyrus, here's "Lanky Skanky Ho".

---

Montana was a name
That brought the gal some fame,
The parents once liked her cleancut ways.
But then she did a dance
A-bulgin' from her pants
That made folks want those long-gone days.

She got on MTV
for everyone to see
She's not a little kid no more.
Like Madonna's early years,
Like Gaga, Pink, and Spears,
Now she is this year's singing whore.

But don't tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
She's got a really lousy dad.
And if you tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
"Get decent" she'll probably get mad.


You can tell your kids
To close their young eyelids,
Ignore the pornographic shows.
Or tell ol' Robin Thicke
"Stop acting like a dick.
Go watch your dad's old videos".

That foam finger was vile.
With writhing so nubile.
She thinks she's giving us a shock.
Playing hooker just for fame -
That act is old and lame.
I'm bored with all the nasty schlock.

But don't tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
To stop her epileptic twerk.
And if you tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
She'll think her dad's a lazy jerk.


But don't tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
She's just another skinny slut.
And if you tell the ho, the lanky skanky ho,
She might go cover up her butt.

---

update: as usual, lileks does better, just not by as gargantuan a margin this time imnsho.

it's too late

now i'm looking forward to age 72

good news arrives in the empire of texas - just 30 years too late.

american chopper has nothing to fear..

..from russian trike

geoguessr

update & bump 2: i've discovered a new malady - geoguessosis - a condition where, when presented with a view of majestic wilderness scenery, one's first reaction is "phooey, no road signs".

update & bump 1: new high score: 30942 (same conditions as before)

my new favorite online game: geoguessr

my new geoguessr high score: 28148 (which took patience, highway signs, and guessing a bit of cyrillic - and no googling anything :D )

must. not. title. this. "n-tolerance".

nuking politics via imao: sensitivity training

update: via sultan knish "The liberal media cannot be parodied, because it overshoots all parody with unintentional self-parody... A liberalism that plans sex ed for elementary schoolers thinks a clown in an Obama mask is somehow inappropriate for children. Maybe if he gay-married the bull, they could have gotten behind it."

speaking of phony scandals...

(with an insincere apology to Hoyt Axton), here's "Phone-y Scandals":

Well the law's upside down 'cause of Eric Holder,
Lost my job to appease shareholders,
Global warming's made it all gone colder,
But maybe things'll get a little better in the mornin'
Maybe things'll get a little better.

Constitution is in disregard,
The shining city has been darkly marred,
Got beat up by crackheads in my yard,
Maybe things'll get a little better in the mornin'
Maybe things'll get a little better.

Now they're spying on my phone - what does he say?
Phone-y Scandals, Phone-y Scandals.

I've been broke since just about two-thousand-eight,
Payin' for the stinkin' bureaucrat deadweight,
Bein lied to by the fourth estate,
Sayin' maybe things'll get a little better in the mornin'
Maybe things'll get a little better.

Now they're spying on my phone - what does he say?
Phone-y Scandals, Phone-y Scandals.

The grass is legal and the prayer is not
The whole darn world is a-goin' to pot
Hard to fight this kind of foul onslaught,
But maybe things'll get a little better in the mornin'
Maybe things'll get a little better.

Now they're spying on my phone - what does he say?
Phone-y Scandals, Phone-y Scandals.
Now they're spying on my phone - what does he say?
Phone-y Scandals, Phone-y Scandals.
Now they're spying on my phone - what does he say?
Phone-y Scandals, Phone-y Scandals.

scandals

phony

"clear" is the new "opaque"

how obama is commemorating the 40th anniversary of watergate

also sprach instapundit

vdh: "let's hope"

something d o o...

those economics smell worse than voodoo

obliquely optometrically optimistic

update & bump: more clues

• the night-vision halos from the implant are no worse than the globby halos i've always had.
• the headaches from mismatched eyes are mild and should only last another two weeks.

i'll give you several clues - in an uncharacteristically upbeat form - to figure out what's been going on with me this week:

• legal blindness is to actual blindness as dirty windows are to concrete windows.
• medical advances can correct many vision problems, and have recently made multi-focal replacement lenses available.
• i did not waste money previously on a lasik procedure.
• the total cost of repairs will be less than 40% of the cost of my car, and those costs will be offset by less expenditures in the future on glasses.
• recovery times are far less than in the past.
• obamacare has not yet crippled the eyecare industry.

parsing

trying to be fair on obama's comments about the trayvon martin case (etc.) today, because i heard both good and bad portions:

First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it.

very true.

so have zimmerman's.

...The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.

also true.

But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling.

how did i know there was a "but" coming?

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

we knew about the drug use. were you into guns and mma smackdowns too?

And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

understandable - but dwelling on that past won't solve anything and usually makes things worse (see also: middle east).

There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

And I don't want to exaggerate this...

if true, please tell your msm, naacp, and black panthers to stop exaggerating it.

...but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.

inescapable? so you're saying that community is incapable of progressing out of their bias? if so, perhaps you should stop condemning those "bitter religion and gun clingers" for "bringing their experiences to bear" (not to mention homophobes, klansmen, pedophiles, and those who suffered reverse discrimination under affirmative action.)

The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

certainly if any racial disparities still exist in our justice system, they should be purged - according to rule of law, not fiat and witch hunt. but again (as you mention later), things are getting better.

and please remember, there are two kinds of disparities. those stemming from inequities in the law should be dealt with through legal channels. but i suggest that much of what is perceived as disparity comes from actual, objectively measurable, differences in who commits the crime to begin with (as admittedly you do allude to that below). since the amount of original crime stems from cultural dysfunctions, it would be best to cure those dysfunctions than "reverse discriminate" in enforcement and prosecution of crime. nobody should "get out of jail free" because of their skin color (and its history) - from manson to madoff to mumia.

Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

actually the whole "holder, sharpton, and matthews, et al" protest industry relies on that naïveté, and demonizes everyone who does not share their delusions.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys. But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it and that context is being denied.

so, which side of the fence are you on? you cite statistics that prove a difference (racist (tm)!) but that they're only an excuse and therefore not valid.

please pick one and stick with it - i know that's difficult within the chicago/beltway machine...

And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

racist (tm)!

Now, the question for me at least, and I think for a lot of folks, is where do we take this? How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do.

much better.

I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here.

oh goody! is he going to "fast and furious" some guns into chicago and detroit, or just pardon some more black panther goons this time?

Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation we can’t do some things that I think would be productive. So let me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff, so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

speaking of "traditionally"... presidents used to uphold and defend the constitution, but that hasn't stopped you alinskyites yet.

Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it would be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.

once someone who actually believes in justice heads that department, that will be a great idea.

so fire holder now.

When I was in Illinois, I passed racial profiling legislation, and it actually did just two simple things. One, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped. But the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were doing.

you might not want to brag on that "collected data" at the moment, big brother.

And initially, the police departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously, law enforcement has got a very tough job.

So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

ummm, sure.

where there's actual injustice, let's fix it. though that centralized planning approach you're so fond of is rife with injustice.

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand...

a.k.a. "but", again.

...if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?

the kind of peace and security and order that i'd like to see has nothing to do with your nanny-state solution for every single problem.

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

the answer is not ambiguous: if zimmerman had waited for martin, jumped out, hurled racist epithets (like "creepy ass cracker"), broken his nose, and repeatedly slammed his head in the concrete, then YES.

Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

yes yes yes! (if by "invest" you mean values, morals, and ethics, not some clintonesque midnight basketball nonsense.)

I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure that that’s what we're talking about here. But I do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching.

(after gasping for air and wiping away the tears of laughter) ah, whew, much better.

There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race.

tip one in that conversation: stop screaming "racist" every time the topic is broached.

I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

true. also true of other talking heads besides politicians. (i'm looking at you, sharpton... (not literally))

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

a very good idea - i hope you're suggesting all races do this instead of just the honkies?

And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. It doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them interact, they’re better than we are -- they’re better than we were -- on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.

And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues. And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions. But we should also have confidence that kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

very nice, a good ending. (provided the "union" you're talking about is america and not the afl-cio or n.w.o.)

Sympathy for the Green Bean, v.2

update and bump: this article was ahead of its time - plants can talk to each other

---

Vegetable-rights activists have launched a novel campaign arguing that vegetables -- contrary to stereotype -- are intelligent, sensitive entities no more deserving of being eaten than fish. Called the 'Think Vegetatively' Project, the campaign reflects a strategy shift by People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables as it challenges a diet component widely viewed as nutritious and uncontroversial.

"No one would ever pull a fish out of the ground and eat it." said PETV's Fred Fennel. "Once people start to understand that vegetables are just as intelligent as we are, they'll stop eating them."

The grass roots campaign is still in the germination stage and will likely face a hailstorm of skepticism. Most established health organizations recommend vegetables as part of a healthy diet, and many academics say it is wrong to portray the intelligence and pain sensitivity of vegetables as comparable to fish. University of Seattle scientist Rose Jimson contends that "while vegetables are very complex organisms that do all sorts of amazing things, to suggest they are aware and concerned about what's happening to them, that's simply not the case."

For years, the PETV, headquartered in Greenleaf, CA., has campaigned against farming and gardening, challenging claims by Jimson and others that harvested vegetables do not feel pain. PETV is also concerned about the high levels of manure in the environment of many vegetables.

The 'Think Vegetatively' Project has two goals: to depict the common practices of farming as cruel, and to convince consumers that there are ethical reasons for not eating vegetables. The project was inspired by several recent scientific studies, which discovered that certain vegetables' intelligence actually exceeded that of the researchers.

"Vegetables are so misunderstood because they grow in such distant foreign lands, like Nebraska," said Robin Carrotson. "They're such interesting, fascinating individuals, yet they're so incredibly abused." University of Edinburgh biologist Kale Green agrees, "Most people dismiss vegetables as dimwits, but in many ways, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of 'higher' vertebrates, including activists and protestors."

"There's no doubt that vegetables of all kinds are capable of learning fairly complex tasks," Green said. "They can learn from their environment and experience." Sao Paolo University researcher Rudy Baga de Treesa, for example, reported that the Chilean cave beet is able to draw detailed mental maps of its surroundings in Photoshop and post them on the internet.

To press their argument, PETV activists plan demonstrations starting next month at selected vegan restaurants and salad bars nationwide. PETV also will propose changes to standard farming practices, such as requiring that farmers perform Broadway musical numbers for the crop before the harvest.

National Farm Institute president Larry Redcorn says "It's irresponsible to discourage people from eating vegetables at a time when doctors and dietitians advise eating them twice a day. If anything, we should be eating more vegetables." He also questioned the high level of support for sparing cute vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots yet minimal concern for species like bok choi and jicama, suspecting a root of ethnic bias in those preferences.

The PETV, ignoring such criticisms, remains undeterred. Her voice quivering with emotion, Robin Carrotson exclaimed, "Won't someone please think of the cabbage!"

---

Inspiration for this came from this article, which was so bizarre it required little editing to produce a 'Scrapplefaced' version. For a somewhat more violent take on the topic, see also the lyrics to "Carrot Juice Is Murder".

Update: Welcome Carnival of Comedy #3 visitors.

(s/quantum theory/experts)

xkcd is thinking small

The Texas Abortion Bill

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators descended on the Texas Capitol Monday, the majority expressing their opposition to new abortion restrictions that a Democratic filibuster and raucous protests derailed last week.

Lawmakers convened a new special legislative session aimed at reviving the bill that would limit where, when and how women may obtain abortions in the state. Supporters say it will protect women’s health and fetuses, while opponents say it is designed to shutter the state’s abortion clinics.

More than 5,000 demonstrators gathered at noon to oppose the new abortion restrictions... State Sen. Wendy Davis, the Forth Democrat whose filibuster in the last session helped catapult her into the national spotlight, told the crowd that their support helped her maintain the effort.

...hundreds of protesters in the public gallery and surrounding Capitol corridors cheered so loudly that senators on the floor weren’t able to hear, and the bill died as the clock ran out.

With lawmakers heading back, Sen. Donna Campbell, a New Braunfels Republican said, “I believe more presence by law enforcement will help keep disruptive behavior from thwarting the democratic process.”

She said more families may turn up to express their views and “every Texan’s voice deserves to be heard. Not just the noisiest and unruliest.”

Lainie Duro sat on the Capitol floor at 8 a.m. Monday with a stack of feminist literature and sex education books.

“I’m always part of the unruly mob. We refuse to be ruled,” she said. “Poor women, women of color, rural women. If they need abortion they will not be able to get an abortion.

strategery

i'm pretty sure "lurch(ing) from disaster to scandal and back again" is his strategy...

at least it wasn't a mitsubishi ad

one wonders what lurks in the calculations of google ad algorithms...



maybe it's just supposed to be a pun about targeted ads ;)

click the link, and your airspeed may vary

sultan knish again

on the socialism-bureaucracy complex

on greivance theater

on other topics

also, vdh on vocabulary

pirates of the colorado

tonto say "ugh" about the new lone ranger movie? no, it was the audience.

update: there's already a poster for the sequel

does anybody remember laughter?

graphic humor ahead:

phones
clocks
movies
and a graph

public lynchings

sultan knish, again:

The Romans had their arenas, Elizabethan England had bear baiting and Obama's America has the trial. HLN has already shot past CNN with wall-to-wall coverage of the latest trial whose defendant is indistinguishable from a celebrity and whose coverage is barely distinguishable from that of the movie premiere.

But in between the usual criminal cases whose defendants seem like failed aspirants for the Big Brother house or Survivor, reality TV stars who found fame with a butcher knife, are the politically edifying cases. The ones that aren't just meant to humiliate and degrade the participants and the viewers, but to indoctrinate them as well.

It is into this category that the Zimmerman trial falls. It's an involuntary case based on insufficient evidence whose course was compelled by government intervention. And like the tribunals of the French Revolution or the Moscow Trials; it's there to teach us something. And the thing it's there to teach us is racism hysteria.

Racism is the new sex for a creed of politically-correct puritans who are obsessed with a new kind of prurience. As the last sexual taboos fall by the wayside, the new taboos are political and the new witch hunts are all about exposing hidden reservoirs of bigotry among celebrity chefs and lurking White Hispanic menaces.

read it all, and the preceding article.

a (sadly) hilarious must-listen

as the page suggests, listen to both links in order - james lileks on hugh hewitt

yes, let's have that conversation...

Some questions should be asked after (black) Ashley Jacob stabs (white) Heather Burke on the NYC subway:

• Will Al Sharpton condemn the obvious racism of this crime?
• Will the DOJ will send protestors to Bellevue where Ms. Jacob is being held?
• Will wall-to-wall news coverage be dedicated to creatively-edited racial epithets the attacker used?
• Will NYC prosecutors be pressured into filing charges against the victim?

On second thought, we all know what those answers are - sadly.

An Open Letter to Wendy Davis

matt walsh via imao:

...congratulations after that abortion rights filibuster you pulled off in the Texas senate this past week. The media tells me it was “historic” and “game changing” and “epic,” and I know it must have been because they only use those terms to describe, like, ten or twenty different events every day. What a heroic performance it was. You were like Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa and Harriet Tubman, all rolled into one. Except they stood for courage, righteousness, truth, peace, and love, while you stood for the billion dollar abortion industry. They protected and defended life, while you protected and defended your right to destroy life. They faced grave danger, you face the adulation, admiration and campaign donations of the media, Hollywood, the president, pop culture, the abortion lobby and millions of Americans. The parallels are striking...

read it all

algore is below sub-zero*

apparently reagan's cfc cleanup did more to slow global warming than algore's carbon credit scam ever did.

* bonus points for anyone who gets the title reference

one does not simply walk into the beltway

believe dustbury:

...there are creatures far worse than Nazis out there, and rather a lot of them are holed up even now in Mordor-on-the-Potomac

among them wormtongue pelosi and the mouth of socialism.

...and the burning O has spies everywhere...

revolutions vs liberty

sultan knish:

Some countries have revolutions all the time. After a while revolution becomes a national sport. In banana republics, the overthrow of one dictator to make way for another gives everyone a day off from work. But these revolutions, no matter how they are cloaked in the familiar rhetoric of liberty, are nothing more than tyranny by other means.

What made the American Revolution unique was that its cause was not the mere transfer of power from one ruler to another, or one system to another, but a fundamental transformation of the nature of rule. Every revolution claims to be carried out in the name of the people, but it's never the people who end up running things.

The Declaration of Independence did more than talk about the rights of the people. It placed the people at the center of the nation and its government, not as an undifferentiated mass to be harnessed for whatever propaganda purposes they might be good for, but as individuals with hopes and dreams.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

That is not merely some bland reference to a mass of people. There is no collective here, only the individual. The greater good of independence is not some system that will meet with the approval of the mass, but that will make it possible for the individual, each individual, to live a free life, not a life lived purely for the good of the mass, but for his own sake.

In a time when government mandates caloric consumption, cracks down on cold medicines and regulates every aspect of daily life for the greater good - the declaration that started it all declares that the purpose of government is not social justice, a minimally obese population, universal tolerance or even equality. Equality is acknowledged as a fact, not as a goal...

We live in an age of collective tyrannies under systems that seek to maximize the ideal welfare of the group. They care nothing for the happiness of the individual. And they care even less for the notion that the individual has a right to achieve that happiness by pursuing it on its own terms, rather than through their socially-approved and market-tested form of happiness.

as always, read the rest.

insta-roundup

cause you probably missed seeing them on that obscure little site :)

the wind dies down
i'm no greenie, but i do applaud *real* efforts to try energy sources that do not burn irreplaceable resources.

filing false reports is a crime
but what else do you expect from a mob of baby-killers?

it will happen
we just don't know when or where.

it's worse
flyers can't have shampoo.

the nightmare continues

must-read update: reference zero

(reference 1)
(reference 2)
(reference 3)
(reference 4)
(reference 5)
(reference 6)
(reference 7)
(reference 8)
(reference 9)
(reference 10)
(reference 11)

the earliest known wolf blitzer video

which neither cn nor cnn will ever show ;)

rage rage against the dying of the left

Sultan Knish is a new favorite of mine, for posts like this:

It is the petty anger of men who have put so much of themselves into their hobbies because their shallow egotism permits them no more human a connection and tolerates not even the slightest slights against the objects of their impeccable tastes. It is the anger of an old elite that has become foolish and deranged and does not really know why it is angry anymore... except perhaps because it is dying.

Liberalism in those northeastern circles used to be a matter of good taste. There is nothing good about it anymore. It has become a suicide pact for angry lonely men who wait in imaginary oyster bars for a waiter who will never come, for an Age of Aquarius that will never be born and a transcendence of government that will never arrive no matter how they twist their hands, tug at their red napkins and lean forward.

Liberalism has become sick with its own disease. It is as dogma-ridden as any Red drinking sour beer in 1920s Chicago. It has nothing to offer to anyone except the ideological denunciation of thought crimes and the attendant superiority of being on the right side of the guillotine. And it has the misplaced self-righteousness of those who are busy pretending that they are angry about what is being done to other people, rather than their own egotistical anger with which they confront their sense of futility.

Liberalism, like all trends, seeks novelty, it burns brightest among the young, it plots to escape from history through the engine of progress only to discover that the mortality that is the greatest fear of the intellectual mayfly outlives the schemes of men.

expect his speech to contain the phrase "ich bin ein ost-berliner"

...and praise for the stasi.

---

update: thanks for the imao link. comments there predict also:

"Hitler seen on a bill board saying “Miss me yet?”"

“Let me be clear… Mr. Putin, rebuild this wall!”

"The Merkel & Urkel Show"

offensive pictures

at today's bleat, jon comments:

...on a 'defining deviancy down' level, Rudy Giuliani's later tiff with the Brooklyn Museum about what government supported art should be showed that approved targets by the cultural elite for boot stomping now had open support for their actions among those same elites, no matter how crude the symbol. That is even though those same elites would never give up the comfort of their own personal privileges (or sensibilities -- try picturing a mural unveiled in a public or a government-owned building in New York that, even in abstract, depicted the horrors of Kermit Gosnell's clinic in a similar fashion to Picasso's Gurnica. The Valspar gallon white flat buckets and rollers would be on that thing within 24 hours of its unveiling).

also, a related comment links a much larger ugly picture

alt-delete

...is what should happen to this control

just the facts, man

john hawkins:
right
and
left

refutation of time travel

i had read this hilarious short story elsewhere before, but recently saw it again on a site with comments, one of which is interesting:

Very entertaining to engage in the impossible paradoxes, but it's all still nonsense:

BACK TO THE NOW - Why time travel is not possible

Forget even getting to the array of unworkable paradoxes if you were to visit the past or future, there is no such thing as the past, future or any related potential to visit or interact with. By the most accurate accounting of the phenomena known as our conscious life experience, reality is only witnessed by us as individuals alone and not collectively as any universally observed form of influence we’re all being controlled by or through. We are each alone and uniquely different in how we see reality or passing time around us constantly. No such ‘universal mind’ or so documented universal account of passing time exists now, in the past or future that runs continuously, like a movie, potentially over and over again. The fact we’re all interacting with the same earthly plane of existence is somewhat deceptive in this context and in large part inadvertently serves to lend the idea that time travel can have a potential point of arrival in the past or future.

Recorded historical events, as representing the complete event from every aspect of how it was experienced by every individual who attended the event involves something that cannot be replicated or experienced in quite the same way again, even if the exact same series of actions could be observed again. Time travel is flat impossible because by definition passing time doesn't exist as another removed or detached potential destination anyway. History or the future exists strictly on record, in our memories or in our plans and dreams in our minds alone, and not as some potential real world breakthrough we can physically experience in life. It’s amazing how much energy and financial commitment from some very bright minds is being wasted on fervently attempting to find some way to make time travel in this sense a reality or proving it’s possible. I’m scarcely trying to rain on innovation, but how so many who are so very smart can appear to be so oblivious of what ought be amongst the most elementary observations of basic reality that we all experience 24/7/365 is beyond me. Just as we always hear, life is only in the progressing moment right now, and at no other time.

update: even talking about time can be difficult :)

picture roundup

my, what big ears you have!
who turned out the light?
collect call charges.
dirty words.
let them eat cake.
voices carry.
accessory to murder.
and in contrast, some obama supporters.

all via imao.

saturated with beauty

almost-unnatural nature photos

a bad trade

vodkapundit:

The Federal government has laws on the books and regulations in the registry for just about everything, except for the “just about.” And we’ve seen what happens when “everything is a crime” or when permission must be obtained before being allowed just to politic.

“Being allowed to politic.” There’s a phrase that would have driven our Founders to take up arms. After a few minutes spent weeping in sorrow for a once-free people, that is.

We used to petition our government for redress of grievances, but that’s become difficult-to-impossible under a politicized and partisan IRS following through on “suggestions” from on high.

We used to vote the bastards out when they got too big for their britches, but the permanent campaign, enabled by MSM hacks, has set that bar higher than ever. Our intelligence agencies listen in on pretty much whatever they want, without so much as a how-do-you-do. What do they do with it all? Nothing innocuous — they assure us. Even our nation’s top bodyguards are knee-deep into drugs and hookers.

So what do people do? What can we do?

... A government with the legal authority to listen to anything and classify everything, is a government that has lost any kind of legal restrictions on its behavior.

We’ve traded a lot of liberty for zero security.

When a state becomes this big and this lawless, it usually means a long period of stagnation... those elections seem to mean less and less, and the security apparatus keeps getting bigger and more intrusive. Better armed, too.

It’s not too late. But the clock is ticking.

that site also has a chart you should see

random thought

"Souvenir bats" means something entirely different depending on whether you're in Wrigley Field or Carlsbad Caverns.

power pigs

obama-irs collusion targets conservatives,
obama arms the irs to target conservatives,
obama-tranzi collusion to target conservatives,
obama-islam collusion to target conservatives,
obama death panels to target conservatives,
obama-epa collusion to target conservatives,
and as a sorbet,
biden points out american soldiers to the enemy.

(s/this planet/obama/)

one big gulp for mankind

sultan knish via dustbury (slightly edited) :

There are reports that Mayor Bloomberg received letters that tested positive for Ricin. I'm sure his butler and his butler's butler and his butler's butler's assistant are all very worried about their health. Not Bloomberg though, who is immune to Ricin, the Ebola virus, cholera, nerve gas, U-238, foxglove, typhoid fever and rabid bats...

Reports that Bloomberg can be kept away by wearing cloves of garlic are untrue. Bloomberg can stand exposure to garlic and sunlight. However, anything with a lot of calories will send him fleeing into the night. If you walk down the street wearing a string of ketchup packets around your neck, no Bloomberg can harm you. If you light up a cigarette while doing it and swig from an open bottle of liquor, you can hear his thin keening cries of pain drifting up or down all the way from 77th Street.

If you find yourself being chased by Bloomberg late at night, instead of trying to run, bend down and erase a bicycle lane. Bloomberg will compulsively redraw it, leaving you free to enjoy your evening. You can also distract Bloomberg by picking up a soda can and exclaiming, "I bet this is good for me."

If you find yourself backed into a corner, grab a restaurant menu without any calorie information next to the servings and recite over and over again, "It's only a tiny little steak. How many calories could it have." If you truly believe it, then Bloomberg will vanish in a puff of smoke and be reborn as an ashtray.

Other charms and unguents efficacious for deterring Bloomberg include, NRA decals, a dash of water from the Gowanus canal, cars that aren't energy efficient, two ostrich feathers tied together, a photo of Rudy Giuliani, a rare Madagascar blue chicken born at midnight, and the United States Constitution.

If your demesne is haunted by Bloomberg, try and lure him into a private jet with a trail of urban reform studies, fly him to Shanghai and hope he adapts to his native habitat in the Communist Party.

also links to this:

Psycho is the great-grandfather of scores of copycat films of diminishing quality over the decades. It presents Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who runs an out-of-the-way motel and apparently has little contact with the outside world. His alternate persona is governed by his dead mother. "She" comes to life when temptation crosses his path. The voyeuristic sight of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in semi-undress in one of his motel rooms triggers in Norman an urge to kill and eliminate the temptation. A cross-dressed Bates stabs her to death in the shower, then disposes of her body and car in a neighboring swamp. A detective, Arbogast (Martin Balsam), investigating Crane's disappearance is also murdered by Bates-as-Mother, to protect Norman from the consequences of his actions.

The parallels with Islam here are fairly obvious...

there are many more here

I.t R.eally S.tinks

NRO:

...the problem (of the IRS) is a perversely complex regulatory framework that gives the IRS — which should simply collect taxes based on an easily knowable formula — enormous discretionary power to discriminate and intimidate. That makes the IRS an un-American weapon, particularly when it is controlled by an Alinskyite will-to-power administration.

Sure, we can worry about prosecuting the weapon-wielders at some point. The urgent problem here, though, is the weapon itself. Our energy should be devoted to exposing the scandal in the light of day and shaming Washington into dismantling the IRS — which is actually planned to swell markedly, and grow even more intrusively offensive, under Obamacare...

...The moment a prosecutor — special or otherwise — takes over, the public flow of information stops. All witnesses will claim that the pendency of a criminal investigation means they cannot discuss the matter “on advice of counsel.” They will cease cooperating with congressional investigators. The prosecutor will claim that grand-jury secrecy rules bar comment about the expansive investigation (a claim the government routinely makes, even though the rules actually bar comment only by the prosecutor, investigative agents, and grand jurors — not the witnesses).

Public disclosure should be the goal here. It is the one thing that has driven the IRS story to this point. Public disclosure of the shockingly intrusive harassment of the president’s political opponents, the prohibitive legal and regulatory expenses imposed on ordinary people for merely exercising their right to participate in the political process, is what has broken through the administration’s Obamedia fortress. Yet public disclosure is precisely what would be lost if Congress were to punt its oversight responsibilities to a special counsel.

It's no Watergate

update 1: read related

update 2: The Virginian - and his commentors - go farther (read it all):

(edited)

(on the plus side,) Richard Nixon:

• ended the Vietnam war,
• ended the draft,
• started arms talks with the USSR,
• pried the Communist USSR-China alliance apart,
• opened China,
• began the USA's support for the dissidents inside the USSR,
• (aided) Israel during the Yom Kippur war,
• got Egypt to break from the USSR and expel the Soviet military,
• ensured NASA could land a man on the moon,
• integrated the officers' clubs in the military,
• signed the first clean air/clean water act,
• did not plot the Watergate break-in,
• appointed William Rehnquist,
• (and) The Nixon IRS never actually went after Nixon's enemies.

A lot of pundits on both sides are telling people that (x) incident under the Obama administration should not be compared to Watergate - where x could equal anything below:

During the IRS incident, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress directed the IRS to deliberately and illegally delay the applications of conservative (and not liberal) non-profit groups.

During the Benghazi incident, the Obama administration:

• directed the military to not aid or rescue its representatives under attack,
• fabricated and actively spread lies to deflect blame from Islamists,
• refused for months to release any information about the coverup,
• blamed lower-level operatives for any mistakes, and
• threatened witnesses who might contradict the Obama administration's lies.

During the AP spying incident, the Obama administration directed the Justice Department to deliberately spy (in an illegal, i.e. warrantless, manner) on the contacts of a press organization.

The Obama administration has knowingly appointed numerous tax cheats to high office, while directing the IRS to harass his opponent's contributors.

During the Solyndra incident, the Obama administration:

• wasted a half-billion dollars on a failing company, and
• made sure his donors benefited from its bankruptcy.

The Obama administration's Eric Holder has perverted justice by:

• actively preventing Arizona and other states from securing our border with Mexico,
• dismissing the charges in the Black Panther Party voter intimidation case solely for racial considerations,
• refusing to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act,
• giving automatic weapons to Mexican druglords while preventing law-abiding Americans from owning those same weapons.

Under ObamaCare, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have:

• strong-armed Congress into passing the bill without reading it,
• misled the American public about its costs, benefits, and legality, and dismissed their legitimate concerns,
• actively harassed its most vocal opponents, and
• piled on trillions of dollars of debt, while asking for the unconstrained right to create more debt.

And on countless occasions, the Obama administration has lied to Congress while under oath.

Now to be fair, let's include the facts about the Watergate scandal: Nixon operatives drew up an 'enemies list', then carried out two burglaries. Then Nixon and several members of his administration engaged in illegal wiretapping, destroyed a few documents, and perjured themselves before Congress.

Conclusion: The pundits are correct that it is wrong to compare Nixon to Obama - but only because it's so insulting to Nixon.

double vision

two takes on google glass:

xkcd
vodkapundit

aka "it's not paranoia if everyone is out to get you"

imao: "worrying about government tyranny is the exact sort of thing that will get you audited."

as a sorbet

i've known a lot of people who were into sci-fi. some were almost to the trekkie stereotype, but never as momomaniacal in their tastes - star trek, star wars, blade runner, red dwarf, etc., were cool with them, as were monty python, (the first) highlander, princess bride, or whatever. about half of those friends were also into the early doctor who episodes. apparently the old series had been broadcast on kera in dfw for a while, but i never saw more than 3 or 4 episodes 'back in the day'.

much later, when bbc america revived the series with rose and the 9th doctor, i finally got to see enough episodes to understand the premise, liked it, and kept watching until just after the 10th left. then last month, bbc reran some of the oldest episodes, so i tried to watch a couple...

ugh...

other episodes might have been better, but the parts i watched were so stiff and staged that they made 'star trek original series' look like cinema verite.

let them eat cake

lots and lots of cake

what can you do in four-point-five parsecs?

if you're iowahawk, write a hilarious mashup

two faced

"won't somebody please think of the children?"

(via imao)

who can it be knocking at my door?

stay away, don't come round here no more.

"support and defend" - what a concept!

dustbury points out that an internet tax cannot be enacted...

"...without actually amending the Constitution*. Then again, relatively few members of Congress pay anything more than lip service to the Constitution, and then only when they need it to support their own positions."

* specifically Article 1 Section 9: No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

the ny beverage ban

he's back

iowahawk makes last week's news better, including these gems:

At the Boston Marathon, someone set us up the bomb...

Asia shakes, China quakes, nature on a bender
Ricin perpetrator is an Elvis imitator
He wrote, I quote, Return to Sender...

Terrorist on the loose, the Chechens have come home to roost
Inconvenient time to be for immigration amnesty...

twofers

visual aids for identifying hypocrisy
on rights
on religion

update 1: read a related report

update 2: on newsworthiness

update 3: also on newsworthiness

sheer speculation

the fbi is not searching for this guy in relation to the boston explosions:

time to ban knives, fists, and blunt objects

the statistics are frightening*

* no actual fright involved ;)

which hunt?

this story is both sillier and scarier than the old monty python bit.

yes, virginia, there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq

i wonder why* the media is not reporting this as widely as their decade of anti-bush propaganda...

(* by "i wonder why" i mean "i already know why"...  :P  )

truth in advertising

apparently that tiger woods ad was a step down from the one nike originally wanted to run...

sadly true

G.K.Chesterton in 1924:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

the collectivist mindgame

read them all.
part 1
part 2
part 3

this summary appears in part 2

Most modern-day leftists in Western countries have abandoned the idea of a violent revolution, having replaced it with "the long march through the institutions" as part of the culture war to transform the society through cultural hegemony. Instead of commanding firing squads, they play mind games of manipulative illusions, in which the demonization of dissent plays a crucial role...

Maintain the perception of being constantly under attack. Don't examine the opponents' beliefs, nor answer their arguments. Discredit any media channels that offer them a platform. Enforce the following media template: the opposition is evil, treasonous, unfathomable, and psychotic. They can't be reasoned with. They are inspired by fascism and financed by a conspiracy of shady oligarchs. Defame their donors. Whatever the mischief you're planning to pull off, accuse them of doing it first; then proceed as planned, describing your actions as a necessary intervention. And ridicule, ridicule, ridicule!

This is what made it easy for Stalin to purge his opponents: by the time he charged them with treason, the orchestrated media coverage had already made them universally hated.

#ObamaSatan

imao sees that there's more to the controversy than just the pictures:

“Bow down and worship me and I will give you free health care.” #ObamaSatan

“Jump off this building and trust government programs to catch you.” #ObamaSatan

“Why go hungry? Can you not change these jobs into foodstamps?” #ObamaSatan

“The fall of man was the fault of the previous devil.” #ObamaSatan

“Not only should you eat the forbidden fruit, but you have a right to it and it should be subsidized.” #ObamaSatan

“If this is paradise that the Lord has made you, where is the free birth control?” #ObamaSatan

“Were you going to be in this desert awhile? I might play a couple rounds and tempt you later if that’s okay.” #ObamaSatan

“I promise the most transparent evil scheming ever.” #ObamaSatan

“God didn’t build that.” #ObamaSatan

“I’ve never once run a planet, but I’m still sure I can tell God how to run the universe better.” #ObamaSatan

update 1: i thought up a couple more

“Render unto Caesar, period.” #ObamaSatan

“We do not have an overheating problem down here.” #ObamaSatan

“I remember the good old days before we had Occupy Wall Street we had Occupy Swine Herd.” #ObamaSatan

“I hate those bitter clingers too.” #ObamaSatan

“I’ve now been in 665 states — I think one left to go.” #ObamaSatan

“I think when you spread the death around, it's good for everybody.” #ObamaSatan

“I can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.” #ObamaSatan

update 2: "momma, obama ain't de debbil!"

(slightly edited)

Satan is actually effective at his job.

He works very hard to achieve his aims.

He doesn’t take lavish vacations.

He supports his armed forces, (and) believes in their mission and their goals.

He does not vote “Present” on anything.

He does not say “Uh” or “Um.”

He understands economics on at least a grade-school level, and may have cracked open a textbook about it at one point.

He understands supply and demand.

He understands taxes and incentives.

He recognizes Ponzi schemes for what they are.

He would never refer to a terrorist as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”

Satan... knows that if something is truly torture, people don’t volunteer to undergo it as a demonstration of how bad it is.

when in rome

Also sprach Vodkapundit:

"(the) Progressive Left is at war with religion, especially America’s many, many... churches. Progressivism is an orthodoxy unto itself, and cannot tolerate dissent — especially faith-based, First Amendment-protected dissent... For Progressivism is a jealous god, and shall have no gods before it."

why isn't everyone scared of clowns?

that guy is giving real circus carnys a bad name.

Mayor Bloom-Ban

The story does not go on to read:

"The grass-conscious mayor made the comment just hours before the judge ruled against the controversial ban and also discussed the prevalence of walking among low-income families. “With so many poor yards suffering the worst of this epidemic... It would be irresponsible not to try to do everything we can to save the turf,” Bloomberg said.

Reality shows that there’s been a rising gorge from sane people against power-mad plutocrats dictating their every footstep. “First he came for the smokers, and I didn't speak out because I didn't smoke. Then he came for the grease, and I didn't speak out because I was a vegetarian.” said one resident who preferred to remain hatless."

related - lileks (edited):

How did we get to the point where we talk about what Piers Morgan thinks? He tweeted (some totalitarian b.s. supporting the ban) He’s the latest in a long line of scolds and fussbudgets who want to slap Bad Thing X out of your hand for your own good...

Not "encourage." Not "exalt." Not "inspire by example." MAKE. It's always MAKE with these people. If you can't make people do things, how are you going to get anything done? That Volga Canal isn't going to dig itself, you know...

Never trust anyone whose frustration with the limits of persuasion lasts less than three seconds.

update 2: the people's cube also reports

yeah i'm still here

should be back eventually...

in a sane world,

this phrase would not be necessary: "binders full of water"

“the Left’s habit of focusing on irrelevant minutiae that no sane person would think twice about in an attempt to draw attention away from the failures of Barack Obama.”

...the rest of the story

The reason for the Benghazi coverup is because Obama was reading "My Pet Goat", and it took him much longer to finish than Bush.

(p.s. more than the title was inspired by paul harvey)

first they came for the rich folk...

then they came for the prudent...

Democrats in the Senate on Thursday (October 2010) held a recess hearing covering a taxpayer bailout of union pensions and a plan to seize private 401(k) plans to more “fairly” distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone.

just look for the union label:

In February (2010), the White House released its “Annual Report on the Middle Class” containing new regulations favored by Big Labor including a bailout of critically underfunded union pension plans through “retirement security” options.

The radical solution most favored by Big Labor is the seizure of private 401(k) plans for government disbursement — which lets them off the hook for their collapsing retirement scheme. And, of course, the Obama administration is eager to accommodate their buddies.

(via dustbury, more or less)

some reruns are worse than others

via imao, also:

Why you might ask does our “Great Leader” want to disarm the populace? Why does the idea of people with AR-15 bother him so? For the same reason an armed citizenry bothered Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Chavez and Hitler. When one is poised on the edge of the greatest power grab since, well ever, one must make sure the populace doesn’t have the means to fight back. One also wants to make sure that the army, which is made up of good people, doesn’t have to make the decision between the elected officials and their fellow citizens. It is questionable whether or not members of the armed forces would fire upon fellow citizens. If however he can confiscate enough weapons from the legal owners only the police, military and criminals will have guns. He will be declaring open season on America. People will not be able to protect themselves against the government and its parasites.

read the rest

a better ban

rather than banning defensive weapons, why don't we ban violent assault movies?

it's only fair

gormogons via imao:

Fair is fair. The media have declared the Second Amendment ineffective. We get it.

But guns are only half the problem, right? Someone has to pull the trigger. So in the same spirit that the media are looking out for our best interests, the Czar would now propose that we look out for the media’s best interests...

1. The media want to ban assault weapons. Okay, then we propose banning “incitement reporting.” The term is just as nebulous, but basically will cover all reporting of mass shooting, sensationalized reporting of criminal activities, breaking news stories designed to provoke fear and insecurity. For example, doing a biographical piece on a mass shooter gives him the fame and attention he sought but was denied in life. And thus it appears, we know now, to inspire the next mass shooter to do the same. If a news agency reports on the shooter’s name, speculates on his political affiliation, his motivations, his former life, where he got the guns, and so on, that’s $10,000 in fines and up to 5 years in prison. After all, we are here to protect the children from the next guy.

2. The media want to limit magazines to five rounds or less. In fairness, the media will be restricted to five seconds per story. After all, that ought to be enough. And yeah, you could just change topics and get another five seconds and defeat the point, but if you can’t cover the story in five seconds, maybe you’re a crazed nutjob who dwells on unpleasant topics. And something oughta be done to stop you.

3. The media want to eliminate semiautomatic weapons. After all, there is nothing more dangerous than having a spring reload your weapon with the next bullet even if means you have to consciously pull the trigger to fire that next bullet. The point is you are letting the tool do some of the work for you. In response, the media can no longer use the internet to research or source a story. From now on, reporters need to manually fact-check stories with primary sources only, and rely on no automation whatsoever... even though using the web isn’t fully automated, but you get the idea. It makes it too easy to misreport something.

4. The media believe certain highly-effective calibers must be eliminated because they could inspire people to violence. Likewise, we suggest that the media no longer report on certain topics, such as Hollywood celebrities (which could inspire people to greedy narcissism), sex crimes (because they could inspire people to commit rapes), popular technology (because it forces sociopathic...hey, you know what? You can figure this out for yourself!). In fact, there will be no reporting on entertainment news, sports, weather, traffic, politics, or anything outside simple, harmless vanilla topics like local news, lost dogs, kittens rescued from trees, and other feel-good topics.

5. The media think that the public should rely on police for home protection, and not firearms. In trade, the media will no longer rely on reporters to report news in a timely and accurate fashion, but must call a third-party to travel from wherever they are to the scene, gather the pertinent facts, and then issue a report back the next day or so which must then be fact-checked in accordance with item 3, above. This seems inefficient and even stupid, but reporters should not be trusted to get anything right, especially when someone they don’t know who might be miles away can do it just as easily. For the most part. If everything goes right, that is.

6. The media suggest all guns and even ammunition should be registered with a federal authority. Sure, and the media shall therefore register all news stories with a federal authority prior to receiving permission to print them. Yes, this will be a slow, pointless, and laborious process—and one that will clearly indicate which person compiled the story, who specifically wrote it, who the editor was, who approved the story for transmission, and who formatted or typeset or prepared the story the recipient saw. Names and addresses and phone numbers. Because that won’t ever be abused by the public.

Of course, media types would read this and lose their lunch over how stupid these suggestions are: how trivial, insulting, and off-the-mark they are. Each one of these is ludicrous, will do no benefit for the public, and will be nothing but foolishness. Exactly. Don’t like it, do ya?

i also propose a class-action lawsuit be filed against the manufacturers of stories that inspire copycat killers.

enemies at home and abroad

indirectly linked from instapundit

Democracy depends on an independent, investigative, even "adversarial" press. Without the disinfectant of sunshine, corruption runs rampant in the halls of power...

While the trend toward corrupt, self-dealing statists buying a permanent voting majority with other people's money has been in place a long time, the collaboration of America's once proud press is stunning and new.

The print and broadcast media still dominate the national dialogue, and have succeeded in downplaying to outright non-coverage of everything damning to the Obama regime. It's as if Woodward and Bernstein helped Nixon cover up Watergate, and outed and smeared Deep Throat as a subversive crank.

Consider the economy. Remember the relentless drumbeat of "recession," "hardship," and "struggling families" stories during the George Bush I re-election campaign? We got none of that during the Obama re-election, despite the economy being much worse now than in 1992.

How about Benghazi? The incompetence, utter disregard for American lives, and cover-up should have been the final nail in Obama's re-election campaign, a Jimmy Carter foreign policy disaster after four years of a Jimmy Carter economy. But the media were more interested in criticizing Romney's statement on Benghazi than covering what actually happened.

Fast and furious, Black Panthers, warrantless wiretapping, drone strikes... the list goes on and on. How much did you hear about those in the mainstream media and how much would you have heard if a Republican were in office?

Journalists have always been left-leaning as a group and overwhelmingly always vote Democrat. But even when Journolist-ing, though they were using unethical tactics to manipulate an election, they could at least rationalize it by the notion that they were opposing those currently in power, i.e. a truly "adversarial" press. Now that their guy is entrenched in power, they no longer have that fig leaf.

Journalism didn't just die. It went to work for the enemy.

made up words

believe it or not, a friend of mine helped me write a perl program to generate words* like the ones dustbury found in his spam folder - so i had at least as much fun coming up with some definitions for them as he did:

• "viscent" - n. - a small coin minted in honor of a viscount.
• "simposconcia" - n. - the practice of electing morons to positions of leadership.
• "gramazing" - adj. - in a manner that elicits wonder in cows.
• "reextruch" - v. - a medical term for the action of giving yourself leg cramps
• "matempendully" - adj. - in a manner similar to the flabby upper arms of a maternal ancestor.
• "recroutratess" - n. - a woman who serves seconds at a german restaurant.

and two of them are proper names.

• "disgroonesset" is the name of a massachusetts island, derived from the algonquin words for "fever and vomiting".
• "squero" is a vehicle produced by a pontiac-scion joint venture.

* as a phonotactic experiment related to conlangs, not for spam.

a country run by idiots

found in a forum (edited)

You know a country is run by idiots when you can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.

You know a country is run by idiots when the government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.

You know a country is run by idiots when a seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.

You know a country is run by idiots when children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools.

You know a country is run by idiots when working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) while unmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.

You know a country is run by idiots when hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing, and free cell phones.

You know a country is run by idiots when the government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).

You know a country is run by idiots when being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.

You know a country is run by idiots when politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.

You know a country is run by idiots when the rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.

You know a country is run by idiots when parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.

You know a country is run by idiots when being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".

You know a country is run by idiots when you have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.

You know a country is run by idiots when an 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched.

You know a country is run by idiots when using the "N" word is considered "hate speech" but writing and singing songs about raping women and killing cops is considered "art".

and...

You know a country is plagued with idiocy when they vote in those kinds of idiots.

al gore jazeera

i'm guessing that al jazeera made this purchase to rid themselves of their pro-America image...

:P

edit: i promise, i did not see this imao post before i wrote this one.

sick sad world

it's difficult, but necessary, to remember
THIS
in light of
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this, and
this,
among
other
things

happy new year

my resolution is to replace one longum with two brevia ;)

wrong wrong oh so wrong

the name should be "BEST titles of 2012"

neither gone nor forgotten

...just haven't had anything to say

may be back after the holidays...