"To prophesy is extremely difficult--especially with respect to the future." -- Old Chinese Proverb
Drive-By
TerrorWar
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Jerry Pournelle looks at the traitor who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood:
I would presume that arming oneself and shooting 43 US soldiers is (1) levying war against the United States, and (2) an overt act, and that Major Hassan should be charged with treason.
Political correctness was the cause of the Fort Hood Massacre, and we ought not forget that. The fact that someone could go through -- at government expense -- an undergraduate education with ROTC, then medical school at a US military institution, and remain a traitor to the United States is a significant warning. A very significant warning that the idea of Political Correctness has consequences we can't afford. Corruption of the Legions is one danger the Republic cannot endure.
The Legions remain faithful; but for how long when their officers are no longer faithful? Hassan had been through ROTC and a US armed forces medical school as a commissioned officer. Why was his failure of loyalty to the armed forces not detected earlier? But of course he was a Muslim, and it would not be politically correct to wash someone out of an armed forces medical school for lack of loyalty to the armed forces of these United States.
We sow the wind. We have reaped one whirlwind.
The politically correct spin is coming like a tidal wave. He is a crazy guy who happens to be a Muslim. All of that misses the point: he was disloyal to the United States, and said so openly and many times; yet he remained a commissioned officer of the United States. That is the point that is being overlooked. Whether the disloyalty is due to a psychotic episode or some other cause is not important.
Drive-By
... The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall."
Which is where, if history is any guide, an unknown number of Americans will die on a day as yet to be determined.
Citizens
Kimberly Munley, the police officer who shot the Fort Hood gunman, with the country singer Dierks Bentley.
"Prayers and thanks flooded the apparent Twitter feed of Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer hailed as a hero for stopping the shooting rampage at Fort Hood.
"One admirer sent a “bear hug.” She “is one outstanding brave cop!” another wrote. And from a third: “thank you for stopping that mad man.”
"The Twitter feed includes what appears to be a photo of Sgt. Munley. Sgt. Munley, 34 years old, was credited by Army officials with firing the bullets that brought down Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who allegedly opened fire in the base’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Thursday afternoon.
"Survivors described the scene as chaotic: the lone gunman spraying bullets in all directions, unarmed soldiers falling, screaming, scrambling to respond. Many soldiers ripped off their uniforms to use as tourniquets; others ignored their own injuries to help those more gravely wounded.
"Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, the top commander at Fort Hood, said Friday that Sgt. Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire. Gen. Cone said Sgt. Munley shot the gunman four times despite being shot herself. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” he said.
-- Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley Hailed as Hero After Fort Hood Shooting - Dispatch - WSJ
How it went down:
Kimberly Munley, a 35-year-old police officer, happened to be nearby, waiting for her squad car to get a tune-up, when she heard the commotion. She raced to the scene, according to her boss, Chuck Medley, director of emergency services on base.As she rounded a corner, she saw Maj. Hasan chasing a wounded soldier through an open courtyard. He looked as though he was trying to "finish off" the wounded soldier, Mr. Medley said.
"He looked extremely focused," said Francisco De La Serna, a 23-year-old medic who had fled the building and was watching the same scene unfold from a hiding spot across the street.
Ms. Munley's first shot missed Maj. Hasan. He spun to face her and began charging, Mr. Medley said.
The time was 1:27 p.m., just four minutes after the initial 911 call.
Authorities haven't said precisely how many shots were fired during the running gun battle between Maj. Hasan and Ms. Munley. But one of her shots hit Mr. Hasan in the torso, knocking him to the ground. With that, officials say, she quite likely prevented more injuries or deaths on the base.
Ms. Munley took two bullets to her legs. Both entered her left thigh, ripped through the flesh and lodged in her right thigh. She also received a minor wound to the right wrist. -- Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan Kills 13 in Shooting at Fort Hood Army Base; Suspect in Stable Condition - WSJ.com
Sane people know that unemployment has been above 10% for months,** but there comes a time when it is so bad for so long that not even "the most powerful man on Earth" can keep the number hidden. Drudge doesn't sugar coat it.
And this handy chart puts the real effect of the "Stimulus" in perspective.
All of which you can pretty much predict when most of the "jobs created" have been inside a government whose new slogan has to be:
"At General Obama Progressivism is Our Most Important Product"
** The unemployment rate has hit double digits for the first time since 1983 -- and is likely to go higher. The 10.2 percent jobless rate for October shows how weak the economy remains even though it is growing. The rising jobless rate could threaten the recovery if it saps consumers' confidence and makes them more cautious about spending as the holiday season approaches. The October unemployment rate -- reflecting nearly 16 million jobless people -- jumped from 9.8 percent in September, the Labor Department said Friday. The job losses occurred across most industries, from manufacturing and construction to retail and financial. --Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since '83 - Yahoo! Finance
Drive-By
Things seen that cannot be unseen from around the web. Currently showing, among others,
- Surveillance Video Of Fort Hood Shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan
- Large Hadron Collider stalled again… thanks to chunk of baguette
- What if Richard Simmons was a Pick up Artist?,
- Show Goat,
- Whale fall
- Bill of Frights: Current White House Posts Its New Simple "Bill of Rights"
- The Government Option
Citizens
No wonder the left hates Walmart. The company feeds more people more for less than any socialist system you can imagine today.
"As shoppers evaluate the impact of tight budgets on holiday meal planning, beginning today Walmart will feature select 12-pound turkeys for less than $5, helping families serve a complete Thanksgiving meal for eight this year as low as $20.*
“We’re proving that we’re committed to helping moms afford the holidays in these tough economic times,” said Jack Sinclair, executive vice president, groceries, Walmart. “That’s why we’re offering incredible pricing on the turkey and all the fixings.”
A turkey dinner for eight as low as $20
According to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, last year’s average cost of a turkey was roughly $1.19 per pound. Beginning today, select Grade A turkeys are available for 40 cents per pound at Walmart.* These gobblers are part of Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving menu guaranteeing family favorites will be on the dinner table this holiday season. Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving feast includes:
* One 12-pound Grade A turkey*
* Three 11 to 15.5-ounce cans Green Giant vegetables
* Two 14-ounce cans Ocean Spray cranberry sauce
* Three 6-ounce boxes of Stove Top stuffing
* One 5-pound bag of red potatoes
* One 12-count package of Sara Lee dinner rolls
* One 22-ounce pumpkin roll cake
-- Walmartstores.com:
Enemies, Foreign & Domestic
Last night upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I hope he never goes away
-- Variation on a nursery rhyme
Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded.
-- Gertrude Stein
Atheists, like songwriters, are always seeking lines more glib than true. Glib is golden because it obscures the fact that deep down atheism is, like a pop song, shallow. One of the more tedious quips, oft repeated with a tone that oozes ‘What a good boy am I,’ is "God is just an imaginary friend for adults.”
The possibility that God may have given glib atheists everything – space, time, a planet, evolution, and free will – that allows this bromide to roll trippingly off their tongues is something they will not and can not conceive. Their wetware is not evolved enough to perceive God should He deign to reveal himself. God is not finished buffing out their fatal flaw, although He will be, by and by. Until then they cannot grasp that, in some cases, “imaginary friends” can be as real as their friendship is illusory.
Exhibit A today are yesterday's elections which established the new truth of contemporary American politics, “Barack Obama is the imaginary friend of Democrats.” This dovetails well with another of his many roles, stand-in lower-case god for the vast majority of American atheists.
Even as Obama’s methods grow more radical, his means more aggressive, and his motives darker, and his stubbornness without will most Democrats polled persist in their belief that he really is their friend. It’s entirely imaginary, of course, since we see with every passing day that the “friendship” of Obama only lasts as long as it is needed -- by Obama. When the need is no longer there, the friendship fades like the Highland mist at dawn. The now tattered and overused phrase “Under the bus” has become code for “Any speed bumps on my road will be steam-rolled to a flat black stain on the pavement like an armadillo on an Arizona highway in August.”
And yet, if we are to believe the polls, Obama love endures
Click to continue...Like a fine wine, Julia's personality and just continues to improve with age. (The science not so much)
"Today I've turned my kitchen into a bio-chemical laboratory." Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids - the building blocks of life. (via airandspace)
InVerse
"I think I know the warm place you allude to.
Just between the thighs, is it not, my lady?"
-- Frank Harris
1.
Copulations on candelabras draped in overcoats,
And illuminated by burning children,
Guide us inside for the pearl of great price.
Our questions and cards of aging identity
Have been checked with our hats at the door.
Within, in the gray steam composed of our breath,
The mongoloid's lips nibble the rose
That pulses and glows in the garden of meat.
No sound at all flows from the audience.
No sound at all but the wind over stones.
Surely some triple somersault is about to be performed.
Surely some deadly edged object is about to be swallowed,
To the death rasps and rattle of drums draped in black.
Surely some revelation is at hand, and it's promise,
A love without name, without years, is arriving at last.
We are decently clothed and seated quite primly.
We have read all the arguments and remained most informed.
We have all made it through to these seats, our reward.
Drive-By
- Man denied access to heart surgeon for failing to report lack of exercise on last year’s federal health return
- Pennsylvania court faces hate-crime quandary: Muslim immigrant murdered gay-rights activist who opposed construction of mosque
- Meat Czar oversees dismantling of U.S. beef industry; barns and pens converted into rest homes for elderly cows, bulls, and the transbovined
- Rare July snowstorm disrupts track-and-field events at Chicago Olympics; police round up global-warming deniers
- Community in northern Minnesota refuses to accept Maoist history textbook; Marine battalion sent in to “restore tolerance”
- Harvard’s entire graduating class of MBAs accepts job offers in China; “it’s Bush’s fault for making America such a heartless place to live” declares provost
- Divorce rate reaches 85%; Dept. of Labor sets up work camps to handle flood of indebted ex-husbands
- Supreme Court declares First Amendment unconstitutional because “it was formulated and enacted without the participation of a single woman, African-American, Hispanic, or Muslim” and therefore “violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”
-- via AWOL Civilization where there are many, many more.
5-Minute Arguments
Because "It's not about me." Gibbs: Obama 'not watching returns' (via POLITICO 44)
COMING... slow... ly... to a theater near you.
"... and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN..."
Yes, 10 whole minutes. Trust me on this one.
Enemies, Foreign & Domestic
Long ago the iconization of Obama jumped into the shark. What's coming out now is pure sharkshit: Check out What is the weather and what to wear in Seattle? and plug in your own city. Obama.... for such a real Nowhere Man he's everywhere.
American Studies
Long ago when the Web was the Net and Social Media was Usenet, I spent some years at a watering hole called The Well. From my own personal collection of lists made in those years, I came across this small selection of Sixties slang in the context it was used that I think I made around 1989.
Additions and corrections gratefully accepted.
- ACED:"We aced him out!"
- AX:"He blows a bad ax."
- BAAAD:"Hey, I checked out yer old lady today.She's baaad,man."
- BARF:"You barf after the peyote milkshakes, bro, but, hey, it's beautiful."
- BALLSY:"She is one ballsy chick."
- BALLING:"So we smoked some righteous reefer and spent the afternoon balling our brains out."
- BLOW YOUR COOL:"What ever you do, don't blow your cool."
- BLEW HIM AWAY:"The pigs just blew him away with their shotguns."
- BOONDOCKS:"Let's make it to this pad I scammed out in the boondocks."
- BREAD:"Dope will get you through times without bread better than bread will get you through times without dope."
- BRING DOWN: “No, oh no!, don’t bring me down. No, no, no, no, no…”
- BUMMER:"Bummmmmmmmmer!"
- BUBBLEGUM MUSIC:"Scott McKenzie, my ass! He's the king of teenyboppers and bubblegum music."
- CATCH SOME RAYS:"You've caught enuf zzz's, let's hit the beach and catch some rays."
- CLICK:"That town's about 50 clicks back in the boondocks."
- COPE:"I've got no dope and cannot cope."
- CRASH:"I just wanna flash before I crash."
- CRASH PAD:"Flash runs a shooting parlor and crash pad for teenyboppers in the Haight."
- DINKS:"When I was in Nam we used to waste dinks just to pass the time."
- DING A LING:"He's a star-class ding-a-ling."
- DO YOUR THING:"I do my thing and you do your thing and if by chance they meet, hey, it's yabyum."
Drive-By
US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet trick or treaters at the North Portico of the White House as they celebrate Halloween. The First couple welcomed more than 2,000 children from Washington, Maryland and Virginia schools and their families to celebrate Halloween.
Halloween at the Obama House
Seen first @ KA-CHING!
And don't miss: The inside scoop (illustrated) from Michelle Obama's Mirror's: Lady M’s Purrrrr-fect Halloween Party
Enemies, Foreign & Domestic
Clinton puzzled at Pakistan failure to find al Qaeda
Hillary Clinton, setting the argument that women are as smart as men back 100 years every day.
Drive-By
Your answers for the inquisitor
In his wine-stained satin lace,
Are as irrelevant as answers
Deduced from deepest space.
Your presence in his universe
Confirms him of your crime.
He seeks to seal all passages
Divined from space and time.
Behind the science of his spectacles
Lives a mind reduced by power.
A gesture from his languid wrists --
All's over in an hour.
"We seek to keep our faithful
Baptized, confirmed and saved
From those dark, unknown questions
That live beyond the grave.
"Hunched within my velvet throne,
My pen controls the door
That opens to the vaults of night
Above the killing floor."
InVerse
To surge, or not to surge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous battles,
Or put down arms against a sea of troubles,
And by withdrawing end them? To retreat: to fight
No more; and by retreat to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To retreat, to leave;
To leave: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leaving, what defeat may come
When we have shuffled off this Afghan soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a long war;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of polls,
The oppressor’s wrong, the talking head’s contumely,
The pangs of pacifists, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his swift exit make
With a curt order? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary war,
But that the dread that some would cry “defeat,”
That vicious accusation from whose bourn
No politician returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons
Be all my sins forgotten.]
-- By sooth it is by ye bardlette: neo-neocon »
The video was shot all stills - roughly 3225 still photos for the entire video, using one camera, hanging from the ceiling for the main body of the movie. -- Everything you wanted to know about Oren Lavie's HER MORNING ELEGANCE
Sort of speaks for itself, doesn't it? Courtesy of The Virginian.
Every six months, the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases data about newspapers and how many people subscribe to them. And then everyone writes a story about how some newspapers declined some amount over the year previous. Well, that's no way to look at data! It's confusing—and it obscures larger trends. So we've taken chunks of data for the major newspapers, going back to 1990, and graphed it, so you can see what's actually happened to newspaper circulation. (We excluded USA Today, because we don't care about it. If you're in a hotel? You're reading it now. That's nice.)
Take a look. It really is quite illuminating for a single graph:
Click to continue...Grace Notes
"I got it!" "No, I got it!" "No, we got it!"
"The New York Yankees’ Nick Swisher climbed a wall to try and catch a ball in Game 1 of the World Series..." (via Photo Journal - WSJ )
As long as we have the World Series every Autumn, I will continue to believe to the adamantine rock bottom of my soul that God blesses America and has an exceptional plan for this nation.
Look at the moment above captured in Game 1. It could be hung in the Norman Rockwell Museum and not be a tittle of a jot out of place. In every face (except Swisher's) is an expression of pure joy as they all realize that on its way to them, at that very moment, is every baseball fan's most cherished dream from childhood: The chance to catch a fly ball in a World Series game in the stands.
In another few instants only one will come up with it, but in this moment all have a chance at it and all are transported at the opportunity to transcend themselves and enter into something bigger, brighter, and finer than their lives would otherwise be.
And that's the way it is in America. That's why we see many footprints leading in and few coming out. For with all our quarrels, our disagreements, our struggles, and our incessant bickering, this remains a land where you can always get another turn at bat, where you can always, right up until six months after death, get another chance to swing for the bleachers. And where, even if you aren't a player in "The Show," you can buy a seat out on the right field line and wait there for the crack of the bat, the rise of the ball against the sky, and... it's coming, it's coming.... and whap, you got it. You're in "The Show."
And in that moment life, the universe, and everything else comes down to one great roar of joy from yourself and the rest of the crowd.
Baseball, the World Series, a high fly ball in an Autumn sky, and America. Nothing else like them ever was. "I got it!" "No, I got it!" "No, we got it!".
Via KA-CHING!
Drive-By
From time to time I take on small photographic projects. One of these is called 1,000 Photographs of New York City.
Beginning in early October of 2001 and ending at around ten in the evening of November 9, 2002, I kept a detailed photographic record of what we were like and how we lived in New York in that shaky first year of our unsought new era. During those months I took over 23,000 photographs in all the areas and neighborhoods and places in which I found myself, night and day. Of these I destroyed most. In the end, I kept about 5,000 that struck me as worth preserving for one reason or another. Of those I've narrowed it down to 1,000.
I began this tonight and will continue with it until all 1,000 images of the set are uploaded -- no matter how many days, weeks, months that may take. In general I'll try to add ten to twenty images from the set per day, but not promises.
If this appeals to you you might want to bookmark: 1,000 Photographs of New York City.
Illustration via the indefatigable iOwnTheWorld.com
"TALK-SHOW host David Letterman has been recorded on tape having sex with a female staff member - and he is worried that the footage will eventually be leaked, it's reported today." -- News.com.au
It was interesting when Pamela Anderson's "leaked" to the Internet because she still looked like, well, "Pamela Anderson" at the time. It was less interesting when Paris Hilton did it because skank is skank no matter how blond or how rich. Nowadays the concept of celebrity sex tapes is banal and boring and fills me with equal measures of revulsion and inertia. Whose sex tapes would you LEAST like to see?
Snark And Boobs has some suggestions.
- Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins
- Rosie O'Donnell and her wife
- Bill Clinton & any of his chicks
- Mitt Romney and his wife
- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
- Al and Tipper Gore
- Harry Reid and his wife
- Keith Olbermann
- Janeane Garofalo
Aside from "all of the above" whose sex tapes would you least like to see? Top of my list would be "Nancy Pelosi with Nancy Pelosi."
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, famously told the governor to “kiss my gay ass” at a Democratic fundraiser last month. Two days later, the governor responded in the veto message of one of Ammiano’s bills.
Can you decode the letter?
Via Ka-Ching!
Recent Articles
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- The Adult Cinema
↓ On the Right ↓
Protest!
ZZMike: "One of these day's I'll join a Wal-Mart protest. I'll carry a sign reading "Down With Low Prices!!! Down with Wide Selections!!!" -- AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The Enduring Greatness of Walmart
PermaLink"Hell, I even dislike their dislike of dogs."
I find myself increasingly repulsed by Muslim practices and beliefs. Middle Eastern, African, Asian, American, the country of origin makes no difference. Women and children treated as chattel, genital mutilation, child brides, honor killings, culturally accepted pedophilia, the black drapes and head coverings, no rights, no votes, little to non-existent educational opportunities, no voice, no choices, no recourse. Persecution of homosexuals. Imprisonment, stoning and whipping for morality crimes. Lack of free speech. The foul treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic countries. The demented hatred of Jews. Sharia Law. Wahhabism. Madrasas. Blind obedience to Mullahs. Praying towards Mecca -- a place on the map few will ever see. Individuality is shut down, originality and freedom of the mind discouraged. Islam pisses on human talents that fall outside the dark walls of its faith. Hell, I even dislike their dislike of dogs. -- Scheherazade Needs A New Tale « Jaded Haven
Dean Koontz on Frankenstein
s professors twist Mary Shelley’s themes—and even turn them upside down—to endorse this or that modern attitude or political viewpoint. Of the several reasons why the book is a classic, perhaps the most important is the portrayal of Victor Frankenstein as a compassionate utopian destroyed by hubris. The history of humanity is soaked in blood precisely because we throw ourselves into the pursuit of one utopia after another, determined to perfect this world that cannot be perfected.
Of all centuries, the 20th was the bloodiest because of Hitler’s National Socialism, Lenin’s and Stalin’s and Mao’s and Pol Pot’s and Castro’s versions of Communism; as many as 200 million were murdered or killed in war because of these utopian schemes. Victor Frankenstein, utopian of the first order, hoped to perfect God’s creation, to reanimate the deceased and thus defeat death, and his project could result only in calamity, for it was against the natural law and common sense.
Via KA-CHING!
Guess Who
The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.
As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way. -- Editorial: I Told You So – Yes I Did - Galganov.com
Charles Johnson's Drool-Cup Runneth Over Even as His Site Empties
Lawrence Auster had Johnson's number 2 years ago:
"Basically LGF seems to consist of Charles Johnson consigning people to oblivion on the basis of no facts and no arguments, followed by Johnson's followers crying, "Yes, Charles, yes! LGF is the greatest website! I'm so proud to be at LGF!", along with various other grunts and one-line ejaculations that convey no intelligible ideas but only assent. So there is the marginalization of the Outsider by the Leader, and the mindless banding together of followers around the Leader based on such marginalization of the Outsider. Sound familiar? I can't say I have ever seen anything remotely resembling this kind of behavior at Brussels Journal. I have, however, seen it in abundance every time I've read "Little Green Footballs" in the few days that I've been perusing the site. Take a look at the current LGF thread, "The Mask Comes Off," and see the mindless, mob quality of it." -- The method of Charles Johnson
Cool Hats and Hollywood Communists
Dalton Trumbo wore very cool hats.
Dalton Trumbo may have been a good screen-writer. Dalton Trumbo may have been screwed by HUAC. Dalton Trumbo may still be a Hollywood darling and the subject of a recent hagiographic offering by PBS. But I am here to tell you that Dalton Trumbo was also a Communist acolyte of Joseph Stalin, a denier of the gulag, and a maligner of truth-tellers like Koestler and Kravchenko. He was in short a useful idiot member of the American Communist Party. -- Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche: Inbound, from the Internet
Gorism
Al Gore as our soon-to-be, first carbon billionaire.
Accounts included both his earlier and contemporary angry denials that he was greedy, or had used his vast network of government contacts to influence public loans, contracts, and regulations, in parlaying a 2001 net worth of $2 million apparently into a green empire of several hundred million....
To distill Gorism is to live in a 1,000 sq. ft. solar house, bike to work, and take the train on long distances; but to promote Gorism, one lives in a mansion, jets on private planes, and is chauffeured from airport to conference center—a rather heavy carbon footprint indeed. I mention that because this week he has insisted that he only invested in what he believes in and is thus not a hypocrite—sort of like a 1990s Fannie or Freddie director saying he is only taking mega-bonuses because he believes in public support for housing.
Works and Days » The Discreet Charm of the Left-wing Plutocracy
Rush Limbaugh: The Interview
Worth listening to. Just click play and listen in the background. You'll come back to the foreground often.
Headslap
At their Monday night poker game in hell, I’ll bet Stalin, Hitler and Mao are kicking themselves: “ ‘It’s about leaving a better planet to our children?’ Why didn’t I think of that?” This is Two-Ply Totalitarianism—no jackboots, no goose steps, just soft and gentle all the way. Nevertheless, occasionally the mask drops and the totalitarian underpinnings become explicit. Take Elizabeth May’s latest promotional poster: “Your parents f*cked up the planet. It’s time to do something about it. Live Green. Vote Green.” As Saskatchewan blogger Kate McMillan pointed out, the tactic of “convincing youth to reject their parents in favour of The Party” is a time-honoured tradition. -- Gullible eager-beaver planet savers - Mark Steyn - Macleans.ca
Dr. Johnson on the dangers of drinking kool-aid on command
"Yes, Sir; and from what I have heard of him, one would not wish to sacrifice himself to such a man. If he must always have somebody to drink with him, he should buy a slave, and then he would be sure to have it. They who submit to drink as another pleases, make themselves his slaves."Paging Newt Gingrich.
In Real Times
The Tea Party world
is still that of genuinely funny things -- not the sour mordancy of Letterman; it is still one of basic fears and simple joys, of aching feet and a welcome ice-cream soda at the end of the day. Some people spend their whole lives trying to get away from it; to forget the memory of people sitting around a sunny porch eating peanuts, to try with various expensive unguents to wash the smell of new-mown grass and two stroke gasoline fumes from their hair. That is what "success" all too often means in certain circles. That and a line of white powder across a table. In the end they may arrive at a palace of chrome and glass, all cold air and ice at some dizzying height above the world. But they must always remember, or forget at their peril, that it is all upborne by truth and human love. -- Belmont Club » Bows and Flows
No PROBLEM. We've Done This Thousands of Times
of the old inboard motors in these vintage wooden boats you'll know what I mean when I say heads all over the marina snapped 'round when the twin Chrysler Hemi V-8's caught a spark and roared to life. Idling out and clearing the end of the marina, there was a small voice on one shoulder telling me to start slow and take it easy as the old power plants probably hadn't been run hard in who knows how long. On the other shoulder however was the slightly more insistent voice of "Old Vatted Demerara Rum" saying "Pour the coals to her!" Throwing caution to the wind, I pushed the throttles forward as far as they would go and the old wooden boat surged out of the water and was at top speed as I passed the last dock in the marina and burst into the open water of Lake Washington.
When something of a mechanical nature goes sideways on a boat running at speed.... -- The Demon Rum: « WESTSOUND MODERN
Another Burning Question of Life
"When was the last time you sat on a couch upside down and looked about the house? Kids do that all the time, and I have done it again and thought, "Whoa - I seriously need to vacuum." And "So that's where that [object/thing] went." -- Mikey commenting on Side-Lines: One of the Burning Questions of Life
Know When to Hold Them. Know When to Fold Them.
What happens next?
The President took a lot of the nation's hopes as political capital into the Big Casino. Now, after sitting at the tables for 9 months, there's only a small pile left of what was once a mountain of chips. Is the next hand going to win him big? Is he going to double down again? Or get up and catch a cab home, in case what's left in his pocket will cover it. Or will he write out a check on the basis of the family farm and spin the wheel of fortune again on the basis of his faith in the fundamental goodness of America's enemies? Order another round of drinks for everybody on the house? Go watch a play on Broadway and keep being Diamond Jim long after all the real diamonds have been hocked for paste? Is there a point where betting on hope means stuck on stupid? -- Belmont Club ｻ Another turn of the wheel
Great Question
Exurban Jon asks:
With all the advances in scientific knowledge why has no one designed a manlier Kleenex box?
One of the Burning Questions of Life
Here's a burning question I was reminded of by the video: do you eat your candy corn in sections? And, if so, do you consider the top to be the yellow part or the white part? I've always seen the little white triangle as the "foot" of the candy corn, but I learned when I designed my costume years ago that most people see it the other way. -- neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Get ready for Candy Corn Day
The Haywood Jablome Memorial Quote of the Day
Image via Wikipedia
Would Larry David Piss On an Image of Obama?
Image via Wikipedia
"Northwest Nap"
Urban DictionaryA very deep sleep where you are unable to hear telephones, text messages, and even the Air Force. Named to honor the two fine pilots from Northwest Airlines and there little "in flight snooze"
A Cow Is Born
Ms. McCain's failure to grasp that her prominence as a "writer," rather than as a Paris Hilton-style reality show performer, is owed first to her famous father, and second, to the fact that this is the Age of the Idiot.
Idiots have come into their own in a big way, courtesy of depraved consumers, and complicit TV producers and publishers, of pixel and paper alike. The duller you are and the louder you crow in contemporary America, the better you do. Clearly, Meghan McCain is not working with much ─ and is eminently qualified to dim debate in the Age of the Idiot. A familial predisposition, it would seem. John McCain finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy and lost five jets. As IQ ace Steve Sailer once quipped, "To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness." -- By ILANA MERCER
Steve Jobs Hates Halloween
The next year, I get a bunch of guys from Pixar to come over and we make the most amazing Halloween lawn you've ever seen, with shitloads of stupid coffins and ghosts and a skeleton playing the piano. We have music, and lights, the whole works. Meanwhile, Larry comes over and brings a bunch of Navy SEAL type guys that he knows. In addition to all the stupid Halloween decorations, we rig up water cannons on the perimeter of the yard and up in the trees, loaded with a mixture of water, bleach and gasoline. We plant IEDs in the lawn, loaded with rock salt, and at each corner we put a dispenser that blasts pepper gel. We lay exposed wires across the lawn carrying enough current to knock you out, but not kill you. Then we put on our black commando outfits, and blacken our faces, and we wait. -- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
Hand me the gun. No, the bigger one.
Watching this will be either the funniest or most disgusting 2-minutes of your day.
Gearslamming Candidate Grabs Coveted Iowahawk Endorsement
"Canuck reader Maryann Crabtree forwards this photo of the candidate posing proudly in front of his Two Lane Blacktop - worthy 1955 Chevy 210 2-door sedan. Note missing rear bumper. Note radiused rear wheel well. Note nose-up gasser stance. Note the all-bidness custom paint, which appears to be a blend of Hugger Orange and Riverside Red. An educated guess tells me that lurking under the hood is a high winding destroked 301 small block, mating a 2-bolt main 327 with a 283 crank, with a set of Doug Thorley or Hooker headers huffing through glass packs. White ball Hurst shifter atop a Muncie 4-speed, natch. Visual cues indicate this photo was taken circa 1969; thus, while his Congressional cohort was tripping on brown acid in the mud at Max Yasgur's farm, Mr. Hoffman was gearslamming down the quarter mile at Fulton Speedway. (via iowahawk: Iowahawk Endorses ) @ Van der Leun
“Hey boys, We’re from Seattle and we’re lost…Can you help us out?”
filmed in and around these counties, understand that the foul mouthed, hot tempered, illiterate rednecks featured on this show are the creme de la creme of mossback society. Supported mostly by what is left of the logging industry in these parts, they live largely in dilapidated singlewides surrounded by clearcut woodlands and collections of the rusted remains of every car, truck, motor, transmission, and assorted piece of machinery or scrap metal that have been handed down through generations from father to son. To a city boy like I was at the time, they were suspect in every way. Which leads me to the proverbial hole in the donut of this tale. -- WESTSOUND MODERN
I'm slowly becoming convinced I have Attention Deficit Diso-look-a-puppy!
The Spirit Of Ecstasy
is the name of the hood ornament on Rolls-Royce cars. It is in the form of a woman leaning forwards with her arms outstretched behind and above her. The Spirit of Ecstasy carries with it a story about a secret passion between John Walter Edward Scott-Montagu and his secret love Eleanor Velasco Thornton, his secretary. -- Best of Wikipedia
Peggy Noonan Still Doesn't Get It...
What Noonan is so far refusing to understand is that, although Obama is narcissistic and likes adulation, he's not primarily interested in popularity -- except as a tool to policy. Policy is paramount, and his goal is not to be responsive to what the American people want, nor to hear their actual concerns and then to shape policy around them. His goal is to tell them what they want, to lie if required, to silence and ridicule and chastise and threaten the opposition, and if necessary to pull every political trick he can get away with in order to ram his agenda down our recalcitrant throats.Why neo-neocon is not writing a column for the Wall Street Journal is a mystery that passeth all understanding.
The Four Rules of Lying
That way even those who know he is lying will think he is lying in a “good” cause. If the last refuge of scoundrels is the flag, the ultimate protective banner is the Red Flag. Hannah Arendt once wrote “Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear.” Find the hole in your audience’s brain and drive your truck of manure through it.The second rule is to put forward the most extravagant claims.
Don’t be half-assed about lying. The more extravagant the fib the better. A sufficiently resourceful fraud clears his path of unbelievers by sheer audacity alone. Tell a big enough lie and no one would believe you could be so bold. As the fictional Rudolf Rassendyl proved in the Prisoner of Zenda that it is better to pass yourself off as King of Ruritania rather than a minor noble. A minor noble may be questioned, but the King will not be. It is all or nothing. And given that no one wants to tug at the Royal Robe to see if it is real ermine, the fraudster often gets it “all”.The third rule is that when questioned, destroy the questioner.
When impersonating the King be determined to have everyone who doubts your identity thrown in the tower for treason. Once you succeed in beheading the first challenger there will be no second challenges.The fourth rule is the most important. Avoid trying to bluff those who are too big to be faced down.
What undid both Fairey and Ward Churchill was that they didn’t know when to stop their imposture. They finally took it too far. Fairey, who had been successful up to that point tried to bluff his way past a major news organization and failed. Ward Churchill was already a professor when he made his “little Eichmanns” speech after 9/11 unleashed a tide of outrage he couldn’t outface. If Fairey had not launched his poster and Churchill had not made his “little Eichmanns” speech, they might still be intellectuals in good standing.
WH: 'If we've lost Anderson Cooper, we've lost one of our best tea-baggers."
I have an uneasy feeling only 10 months into the new administration that we're beginning to see the symptoms of this same kind of animus developing in the Obama administration. And as those of use who served in the Nixon administration know, that can get you in a lot of trouble... Don't create an enemies list." -- Anderson Cooper Compares Obama to Nixon, Spotlights Declining Approval Ratings | NewsBusters.org
You must remember this....
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