Comments or suggestions: Gerard Van der Leun
Monday, December 1 (Updated)

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  • Scipio notes: To eliminate rabies you kill dogs.

  • Who's Next?
    The likely targets would not at first be American. India was chosen for a reason. It was next door to Pakistan, it had poor security, and exiting to Pakistan was theoretically possible. Indeed if there were twenty not ten attackers, then ten have escaped. The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France, Britain, are all convenient targets. All these nations lack any meaningful ways of killing the plotters, which to them is the only thing that matters in considering such attacks. -- Whiskey's Place: The Bombay World

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 30, 2008 3:28 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Kaddish - Sunday, November 30

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 30, 2008 1:45 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
And now a word from our sponsor: The Obama Gold Plate

Stuff White People Like Alert: "A collectible of the highest quality and integrity:"

PULL! **

Coming next-- The Joe Biden Chia Pet. (As foretold by Connecticut Yankee)



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 29, 2008 12:20 PM | Comments (21)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Saturday, November 29

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Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 28, 2008 9:40 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Panic

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Via bioephemera



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 28, 2008 8:34 PM | Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Friday, November 28 (Updated)

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Killer

How long, oh Lord, how long before Joe Biden...
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 28, 2008 8:01 AM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
No Internet Today.
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 26, 2008 11:26 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
What It Would Take to Kill New York -- A Simple Scenario from March, 2004

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In the news today, Feds Warn Of Terror Plot Against NYC Subways

A Pakistani immigrant was arrested and convicted for a scheme to blow up the subway station at Herald Square in 2004. There was also a planned cyanide attack on the subways by al-Qaida operatives that authorities say was called off in 2002; another aborted al-Qaida plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in 2003; and a plot to bomb underwater train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan, which was broken up in 2006 by several arrests overseas.
Not, alas, news to me. What It Would Take (below) is republished from American Digest from March 13, 2004. As you and yøur family give thanks tomorrow, you might want to include George W. Bush.

AN EMAIL ASKS WHAT IT MIGHT TAKE for Islamic terrorists to move to the next level in the United States. It wouldn't, as most of us realize, take all that much. Here's one approach, but only one. There are many.

The Elements:
One City: New York
Three Locations: The Brooklyn Bridge, Union Square, Penn Station
Terrorists: 4

The Equipment:
Plastique explosives ( 10-15 pounds) of good quality, preferably military, from one of the stashes hidden years ago around Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Backpacks: 2
Ten penny nails and ball bearings: 4 pounds
Anthrax: 2 Liters from the New Jersey stash
Machine Guns: 4 (Small) with 2 extra clips each

The Time:
Late September to Early March when the weather makes wearing coats common.

Intellectual Equipment:
An understanding of the New York subway and bridge system, an understanding of symbolism in America, a willingness to die.

The Method:
For over a year after the Eleventh, I used to think about the nature of the Brooklyn Bridge, and how easy it would be to damage this 19th century structure every time I walked across it -- which was often.

On the Eleventh I stood at the Brooklyn end of the bridge handing out water bottles to the ash-shrouded ghosts that had fled across it in endless droves.

After the 11th the Brooklyn Bridge was closed except for emergency vehicles for weeks on end. After that the bridge was guarded and vehicles vetted on a random schedule for months. Sometimes the "security" went so far as to park a police car at the Brooklyn entrance.

For all I know this goes on today.

The Bridge and what it represents and, more importantly, what it controls in the way of access to and from NYC, makes for an exquisite lynchpin for a memorable workday morning in New York City. The way to work this little terrorist scenario is as follows:

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 26, 2008 9:41 PM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
What It Would Take. Revisited.

Feds Warn Of Terror Plot Against NYC SubwaysA Pakistani immigrant was arrested and convicted for a scheme to blow up the subway station at Herald Square in 2004. There was also a planned cyanide attack on the subways by al-Qaida operatives that authorities say was called off in 2002; another aborted al-Qaida plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in 2003; and a plot to bomb underwater train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan, which was broken up in 2006 by several arrests overseas.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 26, 2008 5:03 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Obama Operative Sneaks Into White House
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 26, 2008 12:05 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Welcome Back!

If you're heading home for the holidays, here's hoping these people find you.


Welcome Back from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

HT: The exceptional Swiss Miss



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 26, 2008 11:17 AM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Wednesday, November 26 (Updated)

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  • Whenever I hear the word "art" I rack a shell into my shotgun:
    Liberal culture... hasn't produced any high art because it doesn't want to, doesn't know how to, and doesn't believe in it. What started out as an individual revolt against exhausted traditions... became enshrined as a Permanent Revolution against the crusty old bothersome past, the same big hunk of history that summed up the innumerable failures of the West, at least as the grave penseurs defined them. If we are the enlightened ones, then it stands to reason that the culture of the Dark Ages must reflect the sexism, imperialism, fascism, classism, and other myriad isms that stained the globe. But they'll still go see a traveling exhibit of old Masters, and they'll still pile in the halls to hear Beethoven, because those are still the gold standards for Taste, and Taste has long been their favorite, and most self-flattering, virtue." - LILEKS, (James) @ screedblog "I know what I like, too"

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 25, 2008 7:09 PM | Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink

BREAKING! Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post
WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.
"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet." - iowahawk: Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post


Posted by Vanderleun Nov 25, 2008 4:48 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Advertisement

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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 25, 2008 4:39 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Anthems for Our Time: "And it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops."

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 25, 2008 12:01 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
Tuesday, November 25 (Updated)

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Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 24, 2008 10:27 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
BREAKING! Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post

BREAKING! Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post
WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.
"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet." - iowahawk: Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post


Posted by Vanderleun Nov 24, 2008 4:43 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Gay Cowards Parades

celestialechos.jpgIn the strident and petulant gay protests that erupted after California's Proposition 8 passed I can't be the only one who noticed the broad yellow streak in the crowds. What we've seen in the last couple of weeks is a long, long way from Stonewall. Indeed, if most of the protestors ganging up on the Mormon Church weren't gay, you'd be allowed to call them sissies.

An editorial in The National Review this morning notes,

It’s also worth considering that, while gay-rights advocates cannot discuss same-sex marriage for more than 30 seconds without making faulty analogies to Jim Crow-era anti-miscegenation laws, some 70 percent of blacks voted for Proposition 8. While there have been a few ugly racist statements by gay-rights supporters, such vile sentiment has been restricted. Not so the hatred directed at Mormons, who are convenient targets.

"Convenient targets" is too soft a term for what's up in these cowardly protests. A more accurate term is "safe targets." And, as has been shown again and again over years, Christian churches and beliefs are the safest and most non-threatening targets of choice for twisted ideologues throughout the United States. There is one fact which has not escaped the notice of those who would jam their agendas down the throats of those who disagree with them: there are no consequences -- ever -- for attacking a Christian church or beliefs. None. Zero. Nada.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 24, 2008 7:09 AM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Monday, November 24

Monday, November 24

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 23, 2008 5:23 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Hairshirt Green

Bruce Sterling says goodbye to all that:

"Hairshirt-green is the simple-minded inverse of 20th-century consumerism. Like the New Age mystic echo of Judaeo-Christianity, hairshirt-green simply changes the polarity of the dominant culture, without truly challenging it in any effective way. It doesn't do or say anything conceptually novel – nor is it practical, or a working path to a better life." -The Last Viridian Note by Bruce Sterling



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 23, 2008 12:32 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do

Lest we forget exactly what the stakes were in the late election, Brian Kennedy, president of the Claremont Institute and a member of the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, remind us in this important article from the Wall St. Journal:

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 23, 2008 2:18 AM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Saturday, November 22

Saturday, November 22

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 21, 2008 9:31 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Friday, November 21

Friday, November 21

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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 21, 2008 2:25 PM | Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
What If Black Politics Was a Fiction?

A good question without any easy -- or quick -- answers.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 21, 2008 12:23 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Thursday, November 20

Thursday, November 20

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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 19, 2008 11:16 PM | Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
November 19
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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 19, 2008 5:49 AM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Abraham Obama

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Would you like your Obamraham in yellow or red?

Gary Wills, like so many others of his smitten cohort, returns to the myth of Finding the Lincoln in Obama, and yet refuses to see -- with millions of others -- that the making of Lincoln was not in his election, but in the Civil War that followed in its train.

No acolyte like Wills seems wants to underscore this brute fact of the Lincoln/Obama debate. Certainly not me. Not at this time.

Instead I take solace from a passage in the Holy Book of Bob Dylan:
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

-- Bob Dylan | It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Or, as Gagdad Bob says in the comments:

The problem is, the moment Obama actually does something, he will have made the transition from ideal to real. He will have undergone the formality of existing, which is always an insult to omnipotence -- not necessarily to his, but to that of his cult members. It's the same reason why you can't show a picture of Mohammed.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 19, 2008 4:54 AM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Onward Christian Soldiers

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I commend to you: Revolution of the Soul @ The Doctor Is In

It’s time for a counter-revolution. There is an alternative to our current cultural narcissism with its corrosive, calloused, destructive bent. It is not a new government program, nor a political movement; no demonstrations in the street, no marches on Washington. Its core ideology is over 2000 years old, and the foot soldiers of the revolution are already widely dispersed throughout the culture.
This revolutionary force is called Christianity, and it’s long past time to raise the banner and spring into action.
Then we must act like the counter-culturists we claim to be. Be patient with those who are difficult; be generous in time and money; express gratitude to those around us (when was the last time you wrote a thank you note to your doctor, your contractor, your attorney, to the manager of the store employee who helped you?). Lose the profanity; guard your tongue. Repair broken relationships, as best you can. Be joyful in difficult times, knowing that God is at work in your life despite your difficulties. Be compassionate rather than judgmental to those whose life choices are destructive or misguided. The tattoos and piercings we ridicule are cries of desperation from those hungering for purpose and meaning.
There's more at the link. You will want to pay attention to it.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 18, 2008 7:27 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The audacity of victory. You have to want it.

Obvious to those whose minds are not colonized:

There is no way to end a war but through victory or defeat. Defeat is embraced through various forms of nuanced language, such as "end it," "honorable withdrawal" and "redeploy." Victory requires no such trickery or vocabulary. Victory is victory.... There are many who deserve credit for the successful strategy that has brought victory in Iraq (one which must, naturally, be maintained and preserved), such as General David Petraeus, Fred Kagan, Jack Keane, Aussie David Kilcullen, Dr. Mary Habeck, and the list could go on to include every man and woman in and out of uniform who contributed and sacrificed. But the fact remains that only President George W. Bush made or would have made the command decision he made.  Only President George W. Bush, derided and vilified, had the conviction and determination to allow a path to victory when nearly everyone else had written Iraq -- and her people -- off to defeat.  Call it "The Audacity of Victory." - The Tank on National Review Online



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 18, 2008 2:09 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Republicans, Dead, Thirst for More Death

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Newt Gingrich, along with the ten thousand other Party Leaders idiots who sleep with the fishes, declares Palin won't be future GOP leader. Instead, the Newt instructs the rest of his walking dead to throw their skeletal shoulders to the wheel and roll the stone of other Republican governors up the hill. He, along with many trepanned others today, likes neophyte governor Jindal: “If you want to understand healthcare, you can do a lot worse than to bring in Bobby Jindal who may well know more about health policy than any other elected official in America and is doing an extraordinary job in Louisiana.”

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 17, 2008 11:27 AM | Comments (13)  | QuickLink: Permalink
When Will Racism Be Over in America?

The most tedious argument over the past fortnight is the one in which our pinhead pundits debate whether or not the election of Obama means racism is over.

Here's the short answer: "No."

If the election of Obama proves one thing about the race card in American politics, it proves that the race card is just to valuable a card to take out of the deck. It works and will keep on being played until it doesn't work any longer.

Which leaves us with the even more tedious question, "How long, oh pinhead pundits, how long until racism is over in America?"

Here's the less-short answer: "Racism in America will be over when the people do not elect or re-elect an African-American for President."

As to when sexism in America will be over, that's going to happen at the end of racism or shortly thereafter. In fact, given the rise of Sarah Palin and the intensity which the current ruling racists of America are seeking to destroy her, the racists know that too.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 16, 2008 10:31 AM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Way Cool New Pledge of No Allegiance

To: The Central Committee to Make America Nice Instead of Evil
From: Bill Ayers @ Newspeak Central
Re: The Way Cool New Pledge of No Allegiance

Dudes,Dudettes, (and Others Transitioning Between Genders or Just Diddling with Your Doughnut,)

It seems that people are still in a people's struggle about the Pledge of Allegiance and just don't know what is now cool. Well chill, because as we at Newspeak Central all say. "In Obama, all shall be cool."

As part of the "transition" Newspeak Central has reviewed the "old and in the way" Pledge of Allegiance. After six months of multicultural diversity focus groups this is the new one. We hope you give us hugs for it.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 16, 2008 9:04 AM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
On Fights in Which I No Longer Own a Dog

Did you ever have to make up your mind
Pick up on one and leave the other behind?
It's not often easy and not often kind.
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

-- The Loving Spoonful

BACK AT THE BEGINNING of this whole mess in the early 60s, Mario Savio got a lot of things wrong, but he got one big thing right. Mario peaked when he stood on the Sproul Hall steps in Berkeley in December of 1964 and said to me and a few thousand others, "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part..."

Now I'm pretty sure that if Mario were alive today he'd be among all those other Berkeley lifers who no longer speak to me other than to police my brain at a distance, while contemplating perfect organic vegetables in a perfect world where all the bongs have brimming bowls and cats and dogs sleep together in perfect harmony and all is, at last and finally, really copacetic in the world; that world where everyone gets a big fat check from the government, unless you are oppressed -- in which case you get two.

Ah, well, that was all long ago and all their town and colleges are all a crapulous shambles so let them go, let them go, God bless them. I come not to bury them, but to take inventory.

Now, as the Potemkin Presidency begins its rollout with YouTube fireside chats, it comes to me that I have passed, probably long ago, the "point of fulcrum" that John Fowles speaks of in The Magus: There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.

It is my habit to take an inventory of my life from time to time. Usually it is just a mumbled conversation with myself while shaving, but at other times it assumes more concrete lineaments. It is usually in two parts, the public and the private and, as is the nature of such things, the public is both more superficial and more interesting. This is that section of my current testament. The private may or may not be along later.

I find, in processing the superficial portion of this annual inventory, that there are a number of "burning social and political issues" that no longer burn in me. It is not that they don't raise my hackles and push my buttons, but that I'm pretty much beyond the "point of re-persuasion."

These are the items that make this year's list, triggered as they usually are by a popular catch phrase that just won't die.

1. IS IT ART?
This was once stated as "It's pretty but is it art?" No more. There is almost nothing created today by 99.99999% of the talentless American citizens that have the hutzpah to call themselves artists that even begins to ooze into the "pretty" unless it is the "pretty ugly." As for beauty found in the kind of American contemporary art celebrated by the Art Mafia, you can forget about it. They hate beauty and love "edginess" since their need for novelty and cheap stimulation far exceeds their need for beauty. The reintroduction of beauty as a predominant value in American art at this point would only expose how base and ugly the decades since the classic abstract expressionist period have been.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 16, 2008 7:51 AM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Quadraphreniac Diplomacy -The Nuclear Option = Hillary and Barry and Bill and Michelle

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Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers....

-- ***

Post-election ego-fluffing opportunities abound on the Barack Talk Express. Today's tidbit is the floater that Hillary's large experience shall be tapped to become the Secretary of State.

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

-- ***

Still, if Hill's got the fix in with the Big O, she'd better get the fix that'll fix her and have her hubby named Ambassador to the UN.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 14, 2008 8:01 PM | Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
A Tsunami of Good Bad News

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New York Times Company Stock Falls to $7.34

If this keeps up the Sulzberger family may have to buy it back. If they have any cash left behind the sofa cushions.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 14, 2008 7:44 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Rats: If I'd Just Listened to My Last Wife, This Could Have Been Me!

Some people have all the fun.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 14, 2008 7:11 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Movie Lines Said With No Conviction At All #1,245


In which Peter Sellers actually says, "She's are not my patient. Get dressed pleased." Yeah, right.

Found at Here’s Looking Like You, Kid who remarks:

I'm not sure wearing black hose with a peach ensemble is recommended; but when the woman is Sophia Loren -- and those black stockings are attached to the garters of a black corset --€“ just who is going to complain? - Seduce Like The Millionairess With An Accessorized Corset
And, yes, I know I'm weak for posting this. Still, I thought other weak readers might also enjoy it. Am I so wrong?

This just might be the post-O theme I've been looking for. What do you think? Take the poll after the jump.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 14, 2008 9:05 AM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
ReadRight Overflow: 300 Blogs a Day

I track about 300 blogs a day via Google Reader (If you don't have it, get it.) using a customized interface. Most of the time, items that I think are worthy or interesting are posted in the ReadRight sidebar. Today, my capture buffer overfloweth... hence the following.

  • The Anglo-American Interregnum:
    "Said Interregnum, which we are of course still in, has been a period of global monotonic decline in official authority. As in the late Roman period, declining official authority, declining personal morality, and increasing public bureaucracy are observed in synchrony. This is not in any way a coincidence. The combination is an infallible symptom of the great terminal disease of the polity - leftism. Leftism is cancer. At least in its present adult, sclerotic and non-fulminating form, it is extremely slow in its progress, but the end is not in doubt."- Unqualified Reservations: Patchwork: a positive vision (part 1)

  • NATO For Sale "Red Storm Rising," the Remake.

  • Belmont Club » If no intent, why the capability? "Some will argue that neither the West nor Israel have anything to worry about so long as it "reaches out" to Teheran; so long as it keeps the Ayatollahs happy. The problem with relying on pure diplomacy while allowing Iran to acquire an offensive capability is that if diplomacy fails, it fails catastrophically."

    Continued...

    Posted by Vanderleun Nov 13, 2008 1:10 PM | Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Seven Wonderful Minutes with Dennis Miller

1. "Women on the left hate Palin because she has a great sex life. Most of the women on the Upper East Side... their husbands haven't been aroused since Norman Mailer signed copies of the Executioner's Song back when Rizzolis was a bookstore."
2. "I'm happy now that it's over that Obama was elected. Obama is so smart that when two dim mindless magpies like Reid and Pelosi trundle down to sell their tired Willy Loman wares he's going to ignore them. I hope Obama does so well that four years hence I'm salivating to vote for him."
3. "Barney Frank wants to be arrested."



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 13, 2008 11:32 AM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"When is it my turn? When can I destroy humanity?"

"An animation with Jules, a biologically designed robot. This animation was created to test the limitations of his servos and experiment what he can and cannot do."



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 12, 2008 8:41 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
War in Afghanistan Seen As a Burrito

Afghanistan. Where every day is Halloween.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 12, 2008 7:08 PM | Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Bailout Plan Revamp Sends Dow Down More Than 400 Points


Posted by Vanderleun Nov 12, 2008 1:31 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
The New York Times of the Future -- If It Has a Future

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Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 12, 2008 10:40 AM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
An Old Media Trend I Endorse

Color me with many coats of Schadenfreude. I know, I know. I'm weak. I can't help it, but I just love stories like this: Times Company Stock Hits Another 52-Week Low

"With the new charge and related tax adjustments, the Times had a net loss of $106 million, or 74 cents a share, in the third quarter, compared with a profit of $13.4 million, or 9 cents a share, a year earlier."

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 11, 2008 7:17 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
What can a world of highly amused men say to Guy Ritchie except...

"I told you that bitch was cray-zee!"

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 11, 2008 1:41 PM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Your Political Opponents: A Visual Guide for All Americans

Here's a handy chart for you to print out and keep handy for those tough calls in online forums or comment threads.

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Chart by The New York Times, 1913, for "Nearly 15,000,000 School Children Are Defective." Today, it could be used by the Times as an internal organization chart.

  • See also Cobb: Three Degrees of Stupidity an enlightened discussion of fool, idiots, stooges, the doofus, the airhead, the twit, the spaz, cretins, dolts, and retards.


Posted by Vanderleun Nov 10, 2008 7:26 PM | Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Racism Ends Forever



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 10, 2008 12:55 AM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Visions of Obama

Ain't it just like the Left to play tricks when you're tryin' not to riot?

We sit here stranded though we're all doin' our best to deny it
.
The Dems claim a mandate for change, temptin' you to defy it
.
Hope blossoms on the opposite side
.
In our camps the flamewars abide
.
The talk radio station plays nice,

But it's got nothing, really nothing, to entice.

Just Limbaugh and Hannity so entwined
,
And these visions of Obama that conquer my mind....

In our empty treasury the pols play blindman's bluff with the supply chain

And the leftoid bloggers they whisper of escapades on the Palin Campaign

We can hear Abe Lincoln slap his forehead

Ask himself if it's him or us that's really insane

Neoneocon, she's all right, she's stayed clear

She's delicate as she posts to the 'sphere

But she just makes it all too concise and too clear

That Obama's not here

The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the comments at her blog

Where these visions of Obama have come up from the bog

Now, little boy Ace, he takes himself so seriously

He slags Andrew Sullivan, he likes to post dangerously

And when bringing O's name up

He speaks of a farewell finger to thee

He's sure got a lotta gall to be so scrappy and all

Hosting open thread squawks for recall while America's at the mall

Oh, how can I explain?

It's so hard to rant on

And these visions of Obama, they kept me up past the dawn

Contemplatin' congress, your sanity goes up on trial

Voices blather this is what lobotomy must be like after a while

But Pelosi musta had the Biden Botox blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

See the Little Green Footballs all freeze

When the jelly-faced Kossacks all sleaze

Hear the ones with dementia say, "Jeeze

Find us more killers to appease."

Oh, tax-hikes and deficits swarm in our new head of state
Where these visions of Obama are not up for debate.

This blogger now speaks to the Anchoress who's trying hard to pray for him

Sayin', "Name me a politician who's not a parasite and I'll go out and I'll campaign for him"

But like Michelle always says

"Can't find a decent Dem much, can ya man?"

As she, herself, prepares to napalm them

And the real Messiah, He still has not showed

We see the Cross we emptied now corrode

Where Liberty and belief once had glowed

Mr. Death, he now steps to the road

He writes they're coming for more money than they're owed

On the back of the Jihad truck that loads

While the next 9/11 explodes

The harmonicas play high fading blues for John McCain
And these visions of Obama are now all that remain.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 10, 2008 12:20 AM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Five Found Objects - Hipsters, Tricksters, Mutants, Nymphettes, and the First Hundred Days

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The kids are not all right: Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization | Adbusters

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

Photoshop: For Real
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Click to enlarge

Via Design You Trust. World's Most Famous Social Inspiration. On Flickr - HOW IT WAS MADE.

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Fluffball of the Future: Admit it, you knew that all this genetic engineering stuff would come to this. Ball o fluff by *HumanDescent on deviantART

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Alice, Updated. I approve. From the Lee Moyer interview @ LCSV4 The Illustration News Portal

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From FDR to GWB: GOOD Sheet: The First 100 Days» "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people," Franklin D. Roosevelt told supporters in 1932 while accepting the presidential nomination. When he took office the following year, he spent his first 100 days enacting a dizzying number of reforms designed to stabilize an economically depressed nation. Since then, a president's first 100 days have been an indicator of what he is able to accomplish. In January 2009, the clock starts again.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 8, 2008 9:36 AM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Internet Mosh Pits I Am Ignoring for the Moment

wtfthisshit.jpg1) Joe Lieberman - fate thereof. Joe, when the going gets DemDumb, undumb Dems get going.

2) The endless muck suck by former "aides" to Sarah Palin.

3) That video of the slop-talking, brain-dead elementary school teacher trying to pass on her disease to the kids in her "care." Fire and forget.

4) The neck and neck Speedo pose-off between Andrew Sullivan and Keith Olbermann for "First Lewinski" role in the forthcoming docudrama, The Admin of O. (Got to admit that, in purely technical terms, Sullivan's got the hot hand in this one, but Olbermann's sucking up fast from the rear.)

5) The frothing stomach-churning buzzkill sweeping Woodstock Nation as more and more Obamacons realize that the 56 million Americans who voted against Obama are not going to be easily persuaded to join the Borg. Plus, they vote. Double-plus, they're re-organizing. Triple-plus, they're armed and sending Mission Packs of ammo to each other for the holidays.

6) Any wisp of an iota of a scintilla of a jot that Mike Huckabee will be stumping in Iowa this month.

7) Any auto-fellationist "Greater Good" revisionism from the press about how the press was the national savior in our recent "difficulties." (With a note to self to get back to doing what little I can to help kill these parasites now that their oxygen from the Election ad budgets has been shut off. Joke: "What do you call a journalist in New York City starting in February of 2009?" "Waiter!")

8) Pretty much any story with enough grease on its groin to ooze its way onto memeorandum. For now.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 7, 2008 2:41 PM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
4-Nu-Corps-4-U: Classroom Corps. Health Corps. Clean Energy Corps. Veterans Corps.

Okay, here's the plan. If you like your sea-to-shining-sea community organized America Serves | Change.gov has 4 new corps for U.

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
Now you may not like the idea of cradle to grave government service opportunities, but others - who are, needless to say, your betters - do. Adding the 4-Nu-Corps-4-U to Americorps and Peace Corps expands the universe of re-education programs beyond your dreams.

Exactly where is the money for these corps going to come from, you ask?

Silly wabbit, it will come from those antiquated corps of yesteryear. You know, organizations like the Marine Corps.


HT: Belmont Club



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 7, 2008 9:27 AM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Rancor, Regrets, and Recriminatoons

Morning and mourning afterthoughts are filling up the "Newest" category @ Some Ecards

Examples:
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Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 6, 2008 6:12 PM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
In an Changing World, Some Things Never Change

Comics.com has made it's archives free and searchable. This includes over 21,000 Peanuts @ The Peanuts free online library

Here's Peanuts #2 from October 3, 1950:
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Here's today's strip:
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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 6, 2008 12:50 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
South Park: The Morning After the Night Before



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 6, 2008 12:30 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
It's Just This Simple

Essential Graphs from 4-Block World

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Posted by Vanderleun Nov 6, 2008 11:51 AM | Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
These Just In

It would seem that some people just don't know the difference between November and January:

Stocks fall as investors ponder Obama presidency

Baghdad rocked by fresh bombings

Gaza rockets fired after clashes

Iran army warns US forces to steer clear of borders

Russia to move missiles to Baltic

Perhaps George Bush, as a parting gift to an ungrateful nation, could remind them.

HT: Dan Friedman

In the meantime, proof again of the old French maxim: "Never a rose without a thorn."


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 5, 2008 3:25 PM | Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
You know, if I see one more message telling me to vote....

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... I'm voting to bring back the Divine Right of Kings.

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Hummm, it was sort of a white guys' club after all, wasn't it? Who knew?



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 4, 2008 12:54 AM | Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"A twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive."

'All hands on deck, we've run afloat!' I heard the captain cry
'Explore the ship, replace the cook: let no one leave alive!'
Across the straits, around the Horn: how far can sailors fly?
A twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive.

We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die.
No lofty peak, nor fortress bold, could match our captain's eye.
Upon the seventh seasick day we made our port of call,
A sand so white, and sea so blue, no mortal place at all.

We fired the gun, and burnt the mast, and rowed from ship to shore.
The captain cried, we sailors wept: our tears were tears of joy.
How many moons and many Junes have passed since we made land?
A salty dog, this seaman's log: your witness my own hand.
- Procol Harum



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 2, 2008 2:39 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
All Things Must Pass

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A long, long time ago
On graduation day
You handed me your book
I signed this way:

"Roses are red, my love.
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet, my love.
But not as sweet as you."

Bobby Vinton

World's first blue roses after 20 years of research

The blooms are genetically modified and have been implanted with a gene that simulates the synthesis of blue pigment in pansies.... The world's first genetically modified blue roses were created in the laboratory four years ago, although further research was required to make them safe to grow in nature.
I'm never fond of reading the phrase, "to make them safe to grow in nature." I always wonder what happens if there is a slip-up. But then I'm so old-fashioned in this regard. Rampant genetic modification? What could possibly go wrong?



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 2, 2008 9:37 AM | Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
America: 2012

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be....

- Tennyson

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Nov 2, 2008 8:35 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
Terror at the Stranger in Seattle

Local scribbling Seattle schmucks find themselves hoist by their own petard. Run and hide like little girly-men.

Chicago Boyz posts Tit for Tat

after "the Stranger, a leftist rag in Seattle, Wa. decided it would be funny to write a supposed review of local haunted houses in which the scariest houses where those that had Republican campaign posters in their yards. [h/t Instapundit] Presumably trying to be thorough, they displayed the addresses of the houses prominently in the article.
and calls for some turnabout:
I figure that turnabout is fair play, so I did some Internet research and found the address of the paper’s editorial director. 

Chicago then asks:

"If a reader in the Seattle area would like to swing by and take pictures, we could post those, you know, just to be thorough."
Happy to oblige.

1146 16TH AVE E
SEATTLE, WA 98112

Stranger offices
1535 11th Ave. 3rd Floor
Seattle, WA 98122

Once the story made it to Instapundit and other pages, the brave Stranger Staffers redirected the link to their brave expose to Drudge and shut down comments on the subject at "The Slog," the Stranger's blog.

Too late though: Copy of the page with addresses blanked is HERE.

Brave, brave new worlders.



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 1, 2008 3:32 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Let's Review

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HT: Wheat & Weeds



Posted by Vanderleun Nov 1, 2008 10:28 AM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
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