Tuesday, October 31, 2006

happy hatleween!

happy halloween everyone. have fun & stay safe out there.

since i'm not going to any actual halloween parties this year, here's my virtual costume:



there is also a virtual halloween party over at the right place. verrrry scarrrry...

update: Mish Mash has a better costume idea - "I have been telling people that I'm dressed up as an L^2 form of an irrotational Riemannian manifold. It is a surprisingly difficult claim to dispute."

election fraud

You don't suppose that these stories just might be related, do you?

Democrats were four times more involved in voter intimidation, fraud, suppression and disenfranchisement than Republicans.

Democrats are afraid that black voters are becoming disillusioned with the voting process.

today's pun-ishment

(possibly the best/worst/longest pun ever - don't say i didn't warn you...)

A frog went into a bank, hopped up to the teller, and said that he wanted to apply for a $50,000 loan. The teller said "Go see Ms. Patricia Wack at the desk over there". So the frog went over to the desk and said "Ms. Wack, I need to apply for a $50,000 loan". Although somewhat surprised by this, she politely asked "What is your name?" "My name is Kermit Jagger. I'm the son of Mick Jagger, perhaps you've heard of him?" Unsure how to proceed, she said "Ummm, okaaay" and gave the frog the appropriate forms to fill out, hoping that would be the end of it. To her dismay, the frog quickly completed the paperwork and handed it back to her.

She looked the forms over and said "Well, everything seems to be in order here except for one thing: I need to know what sort of collateral you can put up". "Of course" said the frog, who reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cheap snow globe with the words "Greetings from Spokane" printed in gold letters on the front.

This completely flustered her, so she excused herself by saying "I'll have to clear this with the president of the bank", and headed for the corner office. She said to the president "I don't know what to do. There's a frog at my desk that says his name is Kermit Jagger. He's applying for a loan and presented this to me as collateral". She showed the snow globe to the bank president, who nodded knowingly and said "It’s a knickknack, Patty Wack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone."

Friday, October 27, 2006

60+

don't ask me why i think this is funny...

"Bill's not here, maaaan!"

Suspicious Substance Reported At Bill Clinton's Office.

You suppose his defense will be "I didn't inhale, I was just holding for someone who did."?

prayer in school

JP's Mind found the modern example prayer:
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

11 good reasons

to vote Republican

belated baloney

the view from her points out one of the most fitting combined holidays possible: October 24 was both United Nations Day and National Bologna Day!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

a fable for today

by their fruits you shall know them...

tom waits for no man

tom waits for scarlett johansson?!?

and in related news: paris hilton will be playing the leading role in "the ernest borgnine story"...

oops

While reading this article about a cool idea for a skylight, I misread the last sentence as "This would be nice on days like today when your Florida room looks more like a Labrador."

timetable for pullout

the president is disappointed with the delays...

bringing balance to the farce

adapted from RWN via MVRWC via CrosSwords:

Looks like the Nutrooters are trying to Googlebomb so that people searching google for articles will end up with negative articles on Republicans.

Sounds like a stupid prank (and it is), but in some of the close races a Googlebomb might actually have an impact. Think about it. Who would be doing a Google Search on a particular candidate in the final days of a campaign? Probably an independent voter who is trying to get more information about a candidate. And, if the first article he runs across is a brutal hit piece, well, that could be the information that helps him make up his mind.

Would it play out that way in every case? No, but in big districts, if there's particularly damaging information out there, a Googlebomb could have the potential to sway hundreds of voters.

So, what’s to be done? Well, in my opinion, we should simply fight fire with fire. That’s why I put together a list of key races for Republican blogs to Googlebomb. How do you do that? Simply view source, grab the HTML below, and post it on your blog or in a forum that you frequent. Then, once Google picks it up, the links on these candidates should rocket up charts and help even the playing field for the GOP in the key races.

Senate

Connecticut: Ned Lamont

Maryland: Ben Cardin

Michigan: Debbie Stanbenow

Missouri: Claire McCaskill

Montana: Jon Tester

New Jersey: Bob Menendez

Tennessee: Harold Ford

Virginia: James Webb

Congress

Democrat Held Seats

(CO-03): John Salazar

(GA-03): Jim Marshall

(GA-12): John Barrow

(IA-03): Leonard Boswell

(IL-08): Melissa Bean

(IL-17): Phil Hare

(IN-07): Julia Carson

(NC-13): Brad Miller

(PA-12): John Murtha

(WV-01): Alan Mollohan

Republican Held Seats

(AZ-08): Gabrielle Giffords

(CT-04): Diane Farrell

(CT-05): Chris Murphy

(CO-07): Ed Perlmutter

(IA-01): Bruce Braley

(IL-06): Tammy Duckworth

(IN-02): Joe Donnelly

(IN-08): Brad Ellsworth

(IN-09): Baron Hill

(FL-13): Christine Jennings

(FL-16): Tim Mahoney

(FL-22): Ron Klein

(KY-03): John Yarmuth

(NC-01): Heath Shuler

(MN-06): Patty Wetterling

(NM-01): Patricia Madrid

(NY-20): Kirsten Gillibrand

(NY-24): Michael Arcuri

(NY-26): Jack Davis

(OH-15): Mary Jo Kilroy

(OH-18): Zack Space

(PA-06): Lois Murphy

(PA-08): Patrick Murphy

(PA-07): Joe Sestak

(PA-10): Chris Carney

(VA-02): Phil Kellam

(WI-08): Steve Kagen

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

anti-atheism

what c.s.lewis was for the agnostic layman, one cosmos may become for the militant atheist. here's a sample from the beginning of this (long and deep) article:
There are several ways to end up being what I call an obligatory atheist. Like every other human capacity--from math to music to hitting a baseball--the ability to intuit the divine runs along a continuum. Frankly, there are a few people for whom the realm of the sacred really does seem to be a closed book, but I actually focus a lot of my writing on trying to give these good folks a hand up, a way to "get" religion. On the other hand, a larger percentage of atheists have been traumatized or repulsed by a dysfunctional version of religion as a child. They are the ones who can get more angry, obnoxious and militant. (sounds like most that i know - hih)

Another segment of the atheist population consists of the “not smart enough” who are nevertheless extremely proud of their intellect. This in itself is a contradiction, for they have great faith in the intellect’s ability to know reality, and yet, place an arbitrary limit on what the intellect may know. The placement of this limit is not a result of logic or reason. It is actually more of a religious inclination, for it is an absolute statement about what the human mind may or may not know. And once you are in the realm of the absolute, you are reflecting one of the attributes of the divine mind.

I do not know the first thing about wine. And yet, I know that I do not know, and I also know full well that there are enologists who do know what I don’t. In fact, I am one hundred percent certain both of my ignorance and their expertise in this area. But since I am ignorant, how do I know this? Among other reasons, I know it because it would be absurd to deny the testimony of thousands of enologists who have trained themselves to make subtle discriminations in the realm of wine. If I were to object and tell them that they are fooling themselves and that there is no empirical proof that one wine is any better than another, they would properly regard me as a gustatory moron with a boorish and cretinous palate.

While numbers aren’t everything, needless to say, the numbers are on my side, in that billions of human beings have personally experienced the Divine, whereas atheism is an absurdity that makes no sense to all but a few eccentrics and misfits. More importantly, there are any number spiritual geniuses who have left maps of the domain of spirit that are every bit as subtle and detailed as the maps of science. I have been guided by these maps, so I know the territory they describe is ontologically real.

stem cell research

i'll assume by now you've seen (or heard about) the michael j fox ad supporting embryonic stem cell research. scrappleface has produced the opposing view:

cloaking device

it's a start

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

just in time for halloween

the jack-I-lantern

(via dustbury)

malmonikered

which came first - the muhammad or the wayne?

stingrays aren't ready for democracy

Following numerous attacks by stingrays on humans, including the well-publicized death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, the World Stingray Threat Level has been raised to orange.

And in related news... during a speech lauding the "big net" of the Democratic Party, House Leader Nancy 'The Carp' Pelosi said, "The President's ocean policy continues to flounder. We demand a sea change in our behavior towards all ocean creatures." She went on to declare the world's oceans a quagmire, and proposed that we all cut and run to the shore.

colony one?

AAPS astronomers may have found a solar system somewhat similar to ours - only 90 light years away! What are the odds of that?