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August 31, 2009

KinderChic: Kid Designs, Mom Sews

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A great look! In My Shoes: Fall collection in progress Sewing up Milli's own designs has been such a great experience.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:50 PM | Your Say (1)

Memo to Self: Do Not Leave Dogs Alone


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Posted by Vanderleun at 4:38 PM | Your Say (1)

Cello Girls Then and Now

There was something about early 20th century Cello Girls


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And then there's the latest from my favorite 21st century Asian whack-job, Bai Ling:
I like the pics and what I hold touch and seduce with is so close to my body and extremely erotic, I always loved that instrument, wow! The sound is very beautifully deep and sexy, one of my favorite, just like my hot summer night lost in the deep sea in the far east....... Naked Seduction 永恒的诱惑: Just me flirting with the deep hot summer night in you.........


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Somehow I don't think you need to have come so long a way, baby.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:40 PM | Your Say (7)

"The idea of an Ivy League Huey Long is not oxymoronic."

Barack Obama in August
became a Huey for today, a rabble rouser with a better tailor, an unrumpled and modulated tribune of downtrodden Americans, telling them that opponents of his reform plan—which actually does not yet exist—are fearmongers employing scare tactics. He also told Americans to be afraid, very afraid of health-insurance providers because they are dishonest (and will remain so until there is a "public option" to make them "honest"). And to be afraid, very afraid of pediatricians who unnecessarily extract children's tonsils for monetary rather than medical reasons. And to be afraid, very afraid of doctors generally because so many of them are so rapacious that they prefer lopping off limbs of diabetes patients rather than engaging in lifestyle counseling that for "a pittance" could prevent diabetes. -- George F. Will: How Obama Is Like Huey Long

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (0)

"To understand PC one must understand the CP, for the former is child of the latter."

'White chauvinism' was the term used in the '50s in CPUSA circles for racism. After singing the praises of the Party for its commitment to racial equality, Healey continues:
However, with the white chauvinism campaign of 1949-1953, what had been a legitimate concern turned into an obsession, a ritual act of self-purification that did nothing to strengthen the Party in its fight against racism and was manipulated by some Communist leaders for ends which had nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of the whole campaign. Once an accusation of white chauvinism was thrown against a white Communist, there was no defense. Debate was over. By the very act of denying the validity of the charge, you only proved your own guilt. Thousands of people were caught up in this campaign — not only in the Party itself, but within the Progressive Party and some of the Left unions as well. In Los Angeles alone we must have expelled two hundred people on charges of white chauvinism, usually on the most trivial of pretexts. People would be expelled for serving coffee in a chipped coffee cup to a Black or serving watermelon at the end of dinner. (p. 126 emphasis added.)

Via: Maverick Philosopher: Dorothy Healey on Political Correctness

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (3)

This Old Cave

Sippican Cottage Fix Back Porch Again
Caveman told you: do not measure with runetape. Use prop and line things up. No understand measure twice cut once. No measure at all, be drinking mead and eating roasted grill flesh while Norm is still trying to finish in dark while mosquitoes feast on his flesh.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (0)

A Vacation Vacation


Obama ends frenetic vacation
On Wednesday, the president will head off to his official Camp David retreat in Maryland for a four-day break -- seeking the quiet that evaded him in the millionaires playground on the US east coast. "He is looking to get a break from his vacation," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
"I don't think you can replicate such a terrific place as Martha's Vineyard, but I do think that he's looking to get some more rest and relaxation when he goes up there," Burton said.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (3)

YUM!

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Tac Bac - Tactical Canned Bacon
is the very best canned bacon we've ever tasted. Not mushed up like dog food, this bacon is in actual strips - blessed with the magic of preservatives to last over 10 years in the can. -- ThinkGeek

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:31 AM | Your Say (0)

August 30, 2009

The Good Life.

Obama vacations in Martha's Vineyard, Bush in Crawford Texas. Nancy Pelosi wants twice the private jet that the prior Denny Hassert enjoyed. Edwards' two nations really mean his mansion and those down the road. The really tony environmentalist pundits and activists think slapping on some solar panels on a five-car garage, or putting up a windmill out in front of the gazebo, is an "offset."
I used to think that the elite left's obsession with the good life was an amusing act of hypocrisy (gone are the Democrat's Harry Trumans), but lately it seems far more interesting and complicated. It is almost a personality quirk: the more one desires to have private jets, influential friends, the status that comes with the right location, right schools, and the right job, the more likely one is to mouth the "correct" ideology. Elite liberalism, as we see with the Obamas and their cohorts (and with the Clinton clique as well), is no contradiction. If anything, privilege is the proper compensation for being "good" and "right" on things. -- Victor Hason: What We Are Learning About the Era of Obama

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:01 PM | Your Say (2)

Science Made Stupid

Someday soon scientists may be working to develop a pill that can mimic the placebo effect. -- tautologous, but highly patentable ォ Manifest Density

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:58 PM | Your Say (0)

"People Get Ready 'Cause the Train's A'Comin'...."


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Posted by Vanderleun at 3:13 PM | Your Say (0)

"Newsweek, the premiere magazine Americans turn to for week-old news when they’re sold out of Time."

I signed up for this gig to write for a top-shelf U.S. newsweekly. Jesus H. Christ on a stick, have you seen the magazine now? It’s like they turned USA Today into a magazine but left out the good parts, like Larry King’s column. My last piece, my editor tells me he wants 100 words. I go, ‘I thought this was supposed to be a feature?’ He goes, ‘It is.’ -- Daring Fireball: So Dan Lyons Called

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:48 PM | Your Say (0)

If They're In, They're Out

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote. -- 57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress - Rasmussen Reports™

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (4)

The Democrat Platform

Anarchy is order. Lawbreaking is law-abiding. Children have wisdom. Old people are stupid. Women make perfectly fine dads. If you champion womens’ rights, you should have wanted Saddam Hussein to stay exactly where he was. Murderers have a right to life. Babies do not. Abortion is a right guaranteed in the Constitution. Carrying a gun, is not. Barack Obama loves America. Ted Kennedy was the Conscience of the Senate. The best cure for the nation’s economic depression is for the government to put us further in debt. Timothy Geithner is a financial genius who is the only logical nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. Bill Clinton does right by people. Financial solvency comes from making everything artificially more expensive: food, fuel, books, data transfer, home ownership, education, cigarettes. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (1)

George Orwell

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Posted by Vanderleun at 3:01 AM | Your Say (1)

Recession Brings Unexpected Consequences to Street Begging

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Posted by Vanderleun at 2:52 AM | Your Say (1)

The Zimbabwe Option

Your money or your debt? Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Why Default on U.S. Treasuries is Likely
It is not literally impossible that the Federal Reserve could unleash the Zimbabwe option and repudiate the national debt indirectly through hyperinflation, rather than have the Treasury repudiate it directly. But my guess is that, faced with the alternatives of seeing both the dollar and the debt become worthless or defaulting on the debt while saving the dollar, the U.S. government will choose the latter. Treasury securities are second-order claims to central-bank-issued dollars. Although both may be ultimately backed by the power of taxation, that in no way prevents government from discriminating between the priority of the claims. After the American Revolution, the United States repudiated its paper money and yet successfully honored its debt (in gold). It is true that fiat money, as opposed to a gold standard, makes it harder to separate the fate of a government's money from that of its debt. But Russia in 1998 is just one recent example of a government choosing partial debt repudiation over a complete collapse of its fiat currency.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:11 AM | Your Say (2)

August 29, 2009

Best Reasons Ever to Dump Google Reader

Official Google Reader Blog
Where do Arianna Huffington and Thomas Friedman go to get different perspectives on the news? Which economics sites does Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman read?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:08 PM | Your Say (1)

Can it core a apple? O, it can core a apple.

File under "Never Gets Old" The Honeymooners - Chef of the Future


Posted by Vanderleun at 4:23 PM | Your Say (1)

Now This Is How to Bury a Politician

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Unless, of course, the bottom falls out of their "legacy:"
Instead of being placed into the ground, the coffins are hung either inside the caves or on the face of the cliffs, near the hanging coffins of their ancestors. The Sagada people have been practicing such burials for over 2000 years, and some of the coffins are well over a century old. Eventually the coffins deteriorate and fall from their precarious positions. Of course, there is always a steady stream of new arrivals to replace them. -- Sagada, Philippines @ Atlas Obscura

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:05 PM | Your Say (0)

When Andrea Mitchell Speaks, Projectile Vomiting Ensues

"Teddy Jr. said, his father told him that republicans were real people, just like democrats. This driving rain, perhaps the perfect weather for such a sad day, tears of heaven coming down." -- Kennedy Funeral: Quotes from the Morning Coverage

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:47 PM | Your Say (1)

Now Playing in Congress

The Dunning–Kruger Effect
is an example of cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". They therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than relatively more competent people. -- Wikipedia

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (2)

VIVA!

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Posted by Vanderleun at 1:21 AM | Your Say (1)

Whale Fall

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Whale fall is the term used for a whale carcass that has fallen to the ocean floor. Whale falls were first observed in the 1980s, with the advent of deep-sea robotic exploration. When a whale dies in shallow water, its carcass is typically devoured by scavengers over a relatively short period of time—within several months. However, in deeper water (depths of 2,000 m/6,600 ft or greater), fewer scavenger species exist, and the carcass can provide sustenance for a complex localized ecosystem over periods of decades. -- Whale fall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:19 AM | Your Say (2)

The Wonderful World of Having Children

Let's review....



"This is what I get for working on my computer all day and not paying attention. Oh, my God, I'm dead."

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:02 AM | Your Say (1)

August 28, 2009

Another "Lion" Done Gone

"Lion of Leinenkugel" Norm Snitker, 62, Laid to Rest
La Crosse WI -- Slowly filing past a green-and-gold casket festooned with cheese curds, lottery tickets, and bouquets of 6-pack rings, the city of La Crosse bid a tearful farewell this morning to Norman V. "Norm" Snitker, 62. Long heralded as the "Lion of Leinenkugel" for his relentless fight for free beer and shots at local taverns and supper clubs, Snitker succumbed to an exploding liver Tuesday evening during a late model modified heat at La Crosse Speedway's $1 Jagermeister night.

"Norm left an amazing legacy, and an amazing bar tab," said mourner Les Schreindl, 59. "La Crosse won't see his likes again soon."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:05 PM | Your Say (0)

Theological Question of the Day @ Ace of Spades

Who among us hasn't killed a woman and gotten a lifetime of humor out of it? -- Ted Kennedy Memorial Service Thread

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:14 PM | Your Say (0)

An Idea Whose Time Has Gone

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (2)

The Health Care Numbers Game

For those that actually care to think about it, the number of Americans "denied" access to health care is... zero. The number of Americans who can't or won't pay for health care is between 8 and 50 million. The can't is probably contained in the 8 million. Let's find them, if they care to identify themselves in English or Spanish, give them a Medicare card, and be done with it. Those that won't? Why is that our problem?

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:50 PM | Your Say (3)

Another Reason I'm Not Taking Up Cave Diving Anytime Soon

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Eyeless, Fanged Crustacean Found in ‘Tunnel to Atlantis’
A species of crustacean with no eyes and venom-injecting fangs has been discovered in an underwater volcanic cave in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:58 AM | Your Say (1)

Everything You Need to Know About Ted Kennedy

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From the brilliant Tom McMahon's 4-Block World

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:45 AM | Your Say (0)

"My Name is Roger Ebert, and I'm an alcoholic

"In my case, I haven't taken a drink for 30 years, and this is God's truth: Since the first A.A. meeting I attended, I have never wanted to. Since surgery in July of 2006 I have literally not been able to drink at all. Unless I go insane and start pouring booze into my g-tube, I believe I'm reasonably safe. So consider this blog entry what A.A. calls a "12th step," which means sharing the program with others. There's a chance somebody will read this and take the steps toward sobriety." -- Roger Ebert's Journal: Archives

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:05 AM | Your Say (2)

"Our Leggs Fit Your Leggs. They Hug You. They Hold You. They Never Let You Go!"

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50 Years of Pantyhose

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:52 AM | Your Say (1)

August 27, 2009

Roller Skating a Roller Coaster

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Ah... er... after you, okay? Crazy Things People Do With Roller Coasters

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:44 PM | Your Say (1)

Denver, Broke, Continues to Ignore Primo Source of Revenue:

Fine for pot in Denver could go down to $1 That's a nickle-bag in 1965 dollars.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:21 PM | Your Say (1)

First Complete Image of a Molecule, Atom by Atom

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This image of pentacene, a molecule made up of five carbon rings, was made using an atomic-force microscope. Details at Technology Review

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:24 PM | Your Say (2)

Teddy Without Tears

It's a dirty job and Gawker loves to do it:
He was the very definition of a functional alcoholic, able to achieve bipartisan compromises on important health care legislation by day and then fuck a lobbyist on the floor of a restaurant by night. He destroyed Robert Bork's chance at being on the Supreme Court, and paparazzi snapped him fucking a girl on his boat. He and Chris Dodd went out boozing and skirtchasing together. They'd later be joined by Ted's fuckup son Patrick and fuckup nephew William Kennedy Smith. After hitting the bar with son and nephew in Palm Beach in 1991, William allegedly raped one of the women he and Patrick had picked up. Ted testified. William was acquitted.

True, they wimp out at the end but, hey, they're perverts too.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:07 AM | Your Say (2)

Big Woof

Woofer: where all you say has to have a minimum of 1,400 characters. Or else.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:26 AM | Your Say (1)

August 26, 2009

And Now a Public Service Message from House of Eratosthenes

Morgan put this up "for absolutely no reason whatsoever." That's good enough for me.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:38 PM | Your Say (0)

Open Question of the Day @ Yahoo! Answers

Now that the Kennedys are reunited, can we get on with our lives?
Or are we gonna have to watch hours of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann with tears streaming down their cheeks?

Answer:
"Alas, there are days of uninhibited slobberfests ahead culminating in President Obama giving the eulogy and then trying to climb into the coffin for one last hug."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (3)

Rare Photographs of Now Extinct Beasts

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Last Thylacine yawning (No wise cracks. This has nothing to do with the item below.)

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:33 PM | Your Say (0)

For Those Of You Who Do Not Have Twitter

@ andrewbreitbart Andrew Breitbart's Twitterstream on the death of Ted Kennedy:
"Rest in Chappaquiddick/ Kennedy laid groundwork for legitimizing media-killing of conservatives. What he did to destroy Thomas & Bork is unforgivable. Mary Jo, too./ For whom did Sen. Kennedy show compassion? Bork? Thomas? The Kopechnes? Please, this is not about politics. This is about decency./ Pretending to care about poor & downtrodden (while institutionally using ill-gotten power to destroy them) is not a legacy to be proud of./ I'm more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified. Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it./ .... This duplicitous bastard spit on GWB's face when he reached across party lines. Twas a grade school trick. Even til the end, he was a prick./ In this moment I can't but recognize absolute backwardness of media & society. Bush=EVIL. Ted Kennedy=SAINT." -- via iOwnTheWorld.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:21 PM | Your Say (5)

The View from 1799

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Thomas Cooper: ADDRESS TO THE READERS OF THE SUNBURY AND NORTHUMBERLAND GAZETTE, JUNE 29, 1799
Let me place myself in the President’s chair, at the head of a party in this country, aiming to extend the influence of the governing powers at the expence of the governed; to increase the authority and prerogative of the Executive, and to reduce by degrees to a mere name, the influences of the people. How should I set about it? What system should I pursue?
1st. As the rights reserved by the State Governments and the bounds and limits set by the Constitution of the Union, are the declared barriers against the encroachments of entrusted power, my first business would be to undermine that Constitution, and render it useless, by claiming authority which, though not given by the express words of it, might be edged in under the cover of general expressions or implied powers — by stretching the meaning of the words used to their utmost latitude, — by taking advantage of every ambiguity — and by quibbling upon distinctions to explain away the plain and obvious meaning.... In addition to this I would now and then exercise trifling acts of authority not granted by the Constitution, under some undefined notion of prerogative. If by such means one encroachment should be made good, it would be a precedent for another, until the public by degrees would become accustomed and callous to them.
2. My next object would be to restrict by every means in my power the liberty of the press. For the free discussion of public characters is too dangerous for despotism to tolerate. Hence I would multiply laws against libel and sedition, and fence round the characters of the officers of government by well contrived legal obstacles. Whatever should tend to bring them into contempt should be sedition, however contemptible or reprehensible they might be. Hence too, I would impress the idea that all who were opposed to my measures were enemies of the government, that is (in my construction) of their country. It should be the business of my partizans to inculcate this, and cry down all such persons as dangerous and seditious, as disturbers of the peace of society, and desirous of overturning the Constitution. The obloquy induced by these charges, dwelt upon in the public prints under my controul, and vociferously urged by the dependants of office in private conversation, would make opposition to my measures obnoxious and dangerous, and suppress all political conversation. -- Via The Volokh Conspiracy - -

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:34 PM | Your Say (1)

Obama Reading List: Gibbs Nightmare Version

  • - The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.
  • - Easeful Death: Is There a Case For Assisted Dying? Warnock and Macdonald.
  • - Das Kapital, Karl Marx
  • - The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby
  • - The Koran

Brainstorm by marbury Any other suggestions?

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:51 PM | Your Say (4)

Snack Pack

Ferret with mouse papoose

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Wrong on so many levels.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:31 PM | Your Say (2)

Everbody Wants to Go to Heaven But Nobody Wants to Bounce

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From VVORK

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:04 PM | Your Say (0)

The Phrase That Pays

Little Bill Daggett:

Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!

Will Munny:
Well, he should have armed himself if he's going to decorate his saloon with my friend. -- Unforgiven

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:54 AM | Your Say (1)

Mr. President, the Joker's On You

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Cobb: The Icon
Obama has become, for all of his vaunted intelligence and ability to draw coalitions together, a mere caricature of himself. He is an icon, a symbol, and somebody whom I think desperately wants and needs to be pragmatic and effective. But he cannot outrun the fact that he has come to power without policy and has broken promises with every one of his constituencies. He has bristled at scrutiny and criticism, which means he will remain out there, a victim of his own image, and unable to work across any aisles.
I think these iconic descriptions of Obama will continue, and they will all be apt. He will continue to obsess over his ability to move the crowd, to be a popular man of the people rather than an ideologue or a man of strong pedigreed philosophy. All the while he will effect Machiavellian machinations behind the image and sacrifice any and all who cannot stand the white hot light of his loving media. He will be the last man standing, and nobody will know what he's really all about.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (1)

Johnson Sez...

JOHNSON.
'Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority, have the modesty not to talk. When they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous: but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.' -- The Life of Samuel Johnson

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:30 AM | Your Say (0)

August 25, 2009

Rathergate Redux: "Go to Page 130"

What was on page 130?
"Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots. For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush 'did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.' Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify." -- Bernard Goldberg: "Go To Page 130" - mediabistro.com: TVNewser

And still Dan Rather continues to drag his old and sorry ass through the courts. Good riddance.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:54 PM | Your Say (1)

Dear Liberals and Black Democrats,

You've taken our national discussion down to the level of Jim Crow and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. What in the hell are you doing? Turning back the clock forty years to make political hay? Is it worth stirring this ugly shit back to the surface, instigating people's natural instincts to categorize and separate across color lines? Do you have fucking rocks in your head? Do you really think this is wise? -- Racist , Jaded Haven

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:50 PM | Your Say (0)

Polish Diversity

Watch the hands, they tell a story: AdFreak: Microsoft ads not quite as diverse in Poland
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American Version
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Polish Version

The Asian guy miraculously survived, but only a small portion of the black guy remains. They forgot to Photoshop out his hand.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:38 PM | Your Say (5)

Limbo Lower Now. How Low Can They Go?

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"just how low the Obama administration and its Attorney General Eric Holder have sunk in making much ado about virtually nothing.... For moderates, Obama mouths words that indicate it’s actually rogue Attorney General Holder who is pursuing this against the President’s will, and that Obama himself would just as soon let bygones be bygones. Yeah, right."

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:29 PM | Your Say (0)

A Message from Uncle Vlad

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America is not motivating with whip. America is wanting nothing but cake. Cake all the time. Americans do not think of using whip in managing peoples. They are thinking “Sun Tzu” is tiny purebred dog. They are thinking “Machiavelli” is new drink on Starbucks menu. They are wanting always to be loved and never to be feared. -- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Update from Putin

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:17 PM | Your Say (0)

Must See TV

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The brilliant Bill Whittle @ Afterburner on MSNBC & The Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About The Tyranny of Political Correctness Watch it and pass it on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:00 PM | Your Say (1)

A Whole New Look for Sherlock Holmes

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"YEARS AGO, A P.I. OUT OF CHICAGO BROUGHT JUSTICE TO A DIRTY TOWN. NOW HE’S GOING TO PAY."
A sawed-off shotgun blast to the face leaves one man dead – and reveals a secret that has pursued another across an ocean and set the world’s most ruthless criminal on his trail. The man needs the help of a great detective…but could even Sherlock Holmes save him now? -- Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: Hard Case Crime's December Surprise Revealed!

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (1)

An idea whose time has come...

in Social Security, Medicare, Education... Harsanyi: Hey, how about a "private option"? @ The Denver Post
If health care is a "right," then education is a sacred moral imperative. How could an enlightened society allow a "public" education monopoly to run our precious schools into the ground? Let's get moving on a private option by means of vouchers so parents — or "victims," in this case — can blunt the influence of "villainous" super-funded special interest groups like the National Education Association. [HT" The Fat Man]

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:32 AM | Your Say (1)

From the "Yes, We Have No Brain" Collection:

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Bio-Accessories
Some will no doubt say that this is green fashion gone a bit too far – but what fun is always being eco-friendly at the expense of creative, unique and personalized style?

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:15 AM | Your Say (0)

Bai Ling's been thinking:

What I am thinking now is how lucky I am suddenly breath life and enjoy the moment of aware of life and simple lives around me, breath me, while we are watching other people as our view and we become their view. look at those photos, I want to show you what is around me on the streets, and in my glass and behind me, see there is a man with a mask on sitting behind me, wow .......can you see? Who is he? what he is doing? -- Naked Seduction 永恒的诱惑: A kiss from the hot east.............

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:11 AM | Your Say (0)

August 24, 2009

Oh, this is rich.

Obama the Candidate: A little walk down memory lane.



Posted by Vanderleun at 11:58 PM | Your Say (3)

Look, either get Aerosmith's Steve Tyler a sandwich or confine him to his room. Please.

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via: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: At last, someone who makes me look good

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:24 PM | Your Say (8)

Good Question About a Bad Question

"Why is your race one of the questions on the Social Security Number application form?" -- What Were You Thinking About? Stupid Question

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:08 PM | Your Say (0)

Pondering the Public Option

Kevin's Just thinkin'
If a "public option" that competes with private health insurance companies is a good thing, why aren't private schools that compete for students with public schools also a good thing?

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:53 PM | Your Say (1)

Led by a coward and sleepwalking to Armageddon:

Well, we've come a long way. The war on terror has become the war on the CIA. And the terrorists no longer need fear anything more harsh than polite questions posed to them on a good night's sleep and in quiet, comfy surroundings. And the timing is perfect. Obama is on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, and not bold enough to announce and defend these developments from the White House. America, apparently, is on holiday from the war on terror, too. Unfortunately, our enemies are not. -- Jennifer Rubin: CIA Breaking Down

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:43 PM | Your Say (0)

GooglePhones?

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Google is really starting to piss me off
They really think that it's perfectly fine for Google to come along and attach itself to other people's work and suck all the value out of it. They did it to the news business. So why not Apple, right?

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:09 PM | Your Say (0)

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If Pink Floyd were to grow a brain...

Uprising

The paranoia is in bloom, the PR
The transmissions will resume
They'll try to push drugs
Keep us all dumbed down and hope that
We will never see the truth around
(So come on!)

Another promise, another scene, another
A package not to keep us trapped in greed
With all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on!)

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Interchanging mind control
Come let the revolution take its toll if you could
Flick the switch and open your third eye, you'd see that
We should never be afraid to die
(So come on!)

Rise up and take the power back, it's time that
The fat cats had a heart attack, you know that
Their time is coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Hey .. hey ... hey .. hey!
(repeat)

[Chorus]
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:01 AM | Your Say (1)

Poetry Kills

Let your noun be noun

To us, a sun is not quite a sun unless it's radiant, and a spring not quite a spring unless it is limpid. Here to place adjectives would be so rude as leaving price tags on purchases. Japanese poetry never modifies. There is a way of saying boat, rock, mist, frog, crow, hail, heron, chrysanthemum, that includes them all. Newspapers have been filled recently with the story of a man from Nagoya. The woman he loved died last year and he drowned himself in work like a madman. It seems he even made an important discovery in electronics. And then in the month of May he killed himself. They say he could not stand hearing the word "Spring."

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:45 AM | Your Say (0)

Loomings

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Tornadoes of Fire Approach the Parthenon

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:37 AM | Your Say (0)

August 23, 2009

Oh...Kay....

Maggie's Farm passes on this note: Let me get this straight...
We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it (and who smokes) with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.
What possibly could go wrong?

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:02 PM | Your Say (0)

"Is it me or does Ramadan get earlier and earlier every year?"

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:45 PM | Your Say (1)

Glenn Reynolds: The Early Years


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"I'm a PC."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:31 PM | Your Say (5)

Merlin Mann, Making the Clackity Noise
I’ve learned that my job is to just sit down and start making the clackity noise. If I make the clackity noise long enough every day, the “writing” seems to take care of itself. On the other hand, if there’s no clackity noise, no writing. No little stories. The stories may be in there, alongside God knows what else, but there’s no way to know. You must make the noise.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Serial killers and politicians share traits
Interpersonal traits include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, and the manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, a lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility. The lifestyle behaviors include stimulation-seeking behavior, impulsivity, irresponsibility, parasitic orientation, and a lack of realistic life goals.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:10 PM | Your Say (4)

Bill Maher or Obesity Epidemic Expanding to the Floor of the Tasmanian Ocean: Blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) aka "The Ugliest Fish in the Ocean"


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As you can imagine, with the name like the Blobfish they aren't extremely active. In fact, most of the food that they eat simply floats right by them. This deep sea fish simply picks and chooses what to eat.
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UPDATE: It would seem the Blobfish has been threatening humanity for some time:

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Posted by Vanderleun at 12:22 PM | Your Say (12)

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Uncle Spam:
Millions of Americans have received emails and read blogs and commentary on social media sites and never realized that what they were reading was carefully crafted marketing messages from the government — paid for with their tax dollars and manipulating them to support government agendas, programs and legislation.
Today’s news exposed that the White House had hired a private social marketing firm to distribute mass emails and unsolicited spam to sell President Obama’s health care plan. The firm, GovDelivery.com —“the email and digital subscription management company for the government” — hired last January by the White House, has handled social marketing emails to sell the administration’s campaigns on a range of issues, including its Supreme Court nominee and healthcare reform. --Junkfood Science: Online social media — marketing in disguise

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:49 AM | Your Say (0)

"Nothing is more natural to the academic than trying to explain the inexplicable. It is a certain failing of logic. Sherlock Holmes' dictum: "After eliminating the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth" works perfectly well. But it is so easy to talk oneself into the possibility of the impossible." -- Quote: Earnest Hooton on Piltdown | john hawks weblog

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:38 AM | Your Say (0)

August 22, 2009

Stupid Nation by Rich Lowry asks,"Just how stupid do they think we are?" Let me count the ways. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (1)

August 21, 2009


The only reasons to dig a grave are Fear, Love, and Money.
Money digs a beautiful grave. Time is not really a quotient here; the gravedigger digs deep, carefully piling the dirt for reinterment. Then he skillfully trowels the sides, forms his right angles, flattens the bottom, and climbs out with a minor work of art resting at his feet. A Money grave has pride in it. Never mind the backhoes and fancy rigs: those are splendid graves, too, and for money. But if I were going to be buried, which I hasn't decided yet, I'd want a Shinny to dig my grave. With a bottle of Kessler liquor waiting for him, and possibly a girl in Pembroke, to soak the holy soil from his spent body. Then, I think, I could rest in peace. -- Velociworld: Shinny, Wakes, and Gravediggers

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:20 PM | Your Say (0)

For Immediate Release

U.S. Government Unveils Health Care Partnership With God Inc
To finance the project, Obama said US Government would seek US$2 trillion in a 103rd round of involuntary venture capital.
Headquartered in Washington DC, U.S. Government (NASDAQ: USAGOV) employs over 4,000,000 full time workers, with projected 2009 revenues of US$1.7 trillion and EBITDA of (minus) $2.1 trillion. Founded in 1789, the firm produces a diversified portfolio of products and services including military operations, postal delivery, free money, automobiles, and I.O.U.s. Its Health Care division has been in business since 1965.
God, Inc. is a privately traded, infinitely dimensionless enterprise headquartered on the ethereal plane, and has been the largest vendor of corporeal reality, including life and death, since its founding at the alpha origin of time. Its financial prospectus and mission statement were unavailable at press time.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:07 PM | Your Say (0)

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"The grandchild, far from being incidental, is decisive.
Civilization persists when there is a widespread sense of an ethical obligation on the part of the present generation for the well-being of the third generation — their own grandchildren. A society where this feeling is not widespread may last as a civilization for some time — indeed, for one or two generations it might thrive spectacularly. But inevitably, a society acknowledging no transgenerational commitment to the future will decay and decline from within." -- Lee Harris, The Future of Tradition

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:37 PM | Your Say (0)

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Man is a beast of prey.
I shall say it again and again. All the would-be moralists and social-ethics people who claim or hope to be "beyond all that" are only beasts of prey with their teeth broken, who hate others on account of the attacks which they themselves are wise enough to avoid. Only look at them. They are too weak to read a book on war, but they herd together in the street to see an accident, letting the blood and the screams play on their nerves. And if even that is too much for them, they enjoy it on the film and in the illustrated papers. If I call man a beast of prey, which do I insult: man or beast? -- Oswald Spengler :The Decline Of The West; The Hour Of Decision

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:46 PM | Your Say (0)

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From BibliOdyssey's The Parrots

One of the most consistently fascinating and beautiful blogs, BibliOdyssey, has reached 1,000 Entries with the post, One Thousand: The Best of BibliOdyssey. Hard to argue with Peacay's selection but prepare to spend some time.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:24 PM | Your Say (0)

FOR THE RECORD
TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday's Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV's "Jackass" show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" should have been listed.

It's not the Worst Mistake in the World. -- Top of the Ticket @ Los Angeles Times

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (0)

YUM! AN OAK barrel, full of butter, estimated to be roughly 3,000 years old has been found in Gilltown bog, between Timahoe and Staplestown.
The amazing discovery of the barrel, which is being described by archaeology experts in the National Museum as a "really fine example" was found by two Bord na Mona workers. The pair, John Fitzharris and Martin Lane, were harrowing the bog one da y in late May when they noticed a distinctive white streak in the peat.
"We got down to have a look. We knelt down and felt something hard and started to dig it out with out bare hands," John explained. "We could smell it. And it was attracting crows," he added. What they found was an oak barrel, cut out of a trunk, full of butter.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:08 AM | Your Say (1)

August 20, 2009

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Ted Prays to Massachusetts As Legacy Headlands come into view the Senator asks for another legal favor to the effect of 'I support the law and democracy except for this one little exception, this one little time , when it could be sort of, well, inconvenient...:'
“I strongly support that law and the principle that the people should elect their senator,’’ Kennedy wrote. “I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.’’ Under the 2004 law, if Kennedy were to die or step down, voters would select his successor in a special election to be held within five months of the vacancy. But the law makes no provisions for Massachusetts to be represented in the Senate in the interim. -- Kennedy, looking ahead, urges a quick filling of Senate seat - The Boston Globe

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:39 PM | Your Say (1)

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Beginning in December, a sizable portion of the population of Planet Earth will want to see this film about the distant planet of Pandora as rendered in James Cameron's Avatar. The first trailer is up on Apple as of this morning. There will probably be connection issues as a sizable portion of the Internet will want to see it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (6)

"Why does it take more than 1,000 pages of legislation to insure people who lack medical insurance?" -- Thomas Sowell

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:05 AM | Your Say (0)

Quote of the Week:
You know, the one thing that I learned from this last election is that if you have a young, hip, likable, historic candidate, and you promote him through CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and all the rest, not to mention stand-up and late night comedy, the entire music industry, university, high school and even elementary school teachers, just about every major movie and television star -- and run against the oldest candidate in the history of the Republic, despised by the base of his own party, a man unwilling to take the fight to the only fields in which he can win, and representing the incumbent party responsible for two unpopular wars, a two-term President with historic disapproval ratings, in the middle of the "worst economy since the Depression"...
Well, you put all of those forces in harness and you, sir, will attain 53% of the vote! -- Bill Whittle on The Cult of Iconography

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:38 AM | Your Say (1)

Lest we forget: Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years キ zomblog A large collection of the Kill/Execute/Burn signs targeting the previous President over the years.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:29 AM | Your Say (0)

August 19, 2009

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Fiddling About: Considering what they did when fission was a pup, this does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy:
A formal mathematical analogy between the way metamaterials and spacetime effect light could allow scientists to recreate Big Bang-type events in the lab. -- Recreating the Big Bang Inside Metamaterials

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:30 PM | Your Say (1)

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Magic Bus:
Students at England’s Ellesmere Port Specialist School of Performing Arts don’t mind riding the short bus, and neither would you - if it was a low-riding, pimped out Caddy SUV bus! Info on the pimped-out bus is few and far between but it seems to be an actual bus that has received a Cadillac Escalade front-end conversion with air suspension. -- Kool Skool: 15 Examples Of Awesome Bus Mod Art | WebUrbanist

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:22 PM | Your Say (0)

A rare and amazing track. The Beach Boys from Pet Sounds doing Sloop John B a capella - no music, just vocals


Posted by Vanderleun at 6:35 PM | Your Say (1)

Rewriting Senator Everett Dirkson: "A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about unreal money." -- Twitter

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:03 PM | Your Say (0)

Like It or Not, When Palin Speaks, Americans Listen:
Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: "Drill, baby, drill." Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obama is playing politics and perhaps refusing a "Win" for some states just to play to the left with our money. -- Palin's nailin' them on foreign oil

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:14 PM | Your Say (0)

The Truck Spills Site. Take it from me, you do not want to click the "Animal Parts" link.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:59 PM | Your Say (0)

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Gays & Trannies Unite! -- Vanity Fair announces a new reality show: Man Men Starring James Wolcott? [Screen shot from Vanity Fair's home page. Probably won't last.]

UPDATE: VF's leading closet tranny James Wolcott continues in the magazine's institutionalized gender confusion:
The Mad and the Beautiful -- Michael Guillen's movie blog The Evening Class salutes Vanity Fair's Man Men variety-pack coverage for excellence in cultural commentating and pictorial splendor, singling out Bruce Handy's elegant meditation on Don and Betty's Paradise Lost. -- The Mad and the Beautiful: James Wolcott | Vanity Fair
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Posted by Vanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (8)

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“Wow! The original Ground Zero":
One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front of a neighbor’s house, he spotted a pile of trash: old mattresses, cardboard boxes, a few broken lamps. Amidst the garbage he caught sight of a battered suitcase. He bent down, turned the case on its side and popped the clasps. He was surprised to discover that the suitcase was full of black-and-white photographs. He was even more astonished by their subject matter: devastated buildings, twisted girders, broken bridges — snapshots from an annihilated city. He quickly closed the case and made his way back home. -- Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs: Observatory: Design Observer

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:12 AM | Your Say (0)

Panetta=Putz:
• The secret assassination ‘program’ wasn’t much more than a PowerPoint presentation, a task force and a collection of schemes—it never got off the ground -- Spy Agency Fiasco

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:47 AM | Your Say (1)

ASPCA Alert! Hats, shirts, stickers, buttons, mugs, etc.... Variations of a Theme


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Posted by Vanderleun at 8:25 AM | Your Say (0)

August 18, 2009

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The Story of O:
The betrayed lover metaphor is strangely apt because it contains elements that match what has happened and is still happening to a growing segment of Obama supporters: a relationship begun in the glow of the fantasy of perfection and wish-fulfillment meets the flawed and sometimes deeply disappointing reality of who the lover actually is. Sometimes, that lover even turns out to be a con artist, a narcissist, and/or a liar. -- neo-neocon Trusting Obama: fooled us once, fooled us twice, fooled us...

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:11 PM | Your Say (2)

Tales of Modern Love: He had to go to Europe for two weeks. He told his girlfriend, but she didn't listen very carefully. Then the emails began....


JD's Man Stories: The Perils of Travel

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (1)

FU Fiji Water! So this guy walks into an internet cafe in Fiji and starts sending out emails about Fiji water...
Moments later, a pair of police officers walked in. They headed for a woman at another terminal; I turned to my screen to compose a note about how cops were even showing up in the Internet cafe. Then I saw them coming toward me. "We're going to take you in for questioning about the emails you've been writing," they said. -- Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle | Mother Jones

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:41 AM | Your Say (2)

August 17, 2009

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Last "Polaroid" Camera Standing:Fuji Instax
"I embraced digital photography more than a decade ago, but that doesn’t diminish the appeal of this kind of camera. The opposite is true. It’s great for bringing to a party and leaving pictures as a gift. At about $1 per image for the film, it’s not cheap to use, but the handful of family photos I take with it are more likely to be kept and enjoyed -- seen -- than are the thousands I have taking up space on hard drives."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:02 PM | Your Say (1)

Getting from There to Here: An important essay on race, nepotism, corruption, and ideology -- DECODING THE FAILURE by Christopher Taylor
This combination of the leftist culture and politics with the affirmative action system of promotion and power results in misery and failure everywhere, every time it is tried, in every instance of history. Sometimes the power, wealth, and momentum of an area can be so great the damage takes time to show, but it is inevitable. The United States, far from rejecting this principle and backing away from it just demonstrated it's more than willing to have more of the same by voting in an inexperienced, unready man based almost exclusively on his skin color and embraced the hard left's idiot ideology in the process. 96% of blacks voted for Barack Obama and despite protestations to the contrary such as by Colin Powell, that was largely because he looked like them, not because he was so clearly a superior choice.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:56 PM | Your Say (0)

Sippican Cottage: John Fredrick's Son
The desire and ability to stay in one place backed up with the freedom to go if you so desire, or must. The vast majority of us take all of that for granted; or worse, a very vocal minority are actively opposed to it for reasons that boil down to, in a dark unguarded moment: I've already got mine, to hell with the rabble.

Resist the assault on all of it, lest your children find themselves in a hellish shack, wishing they had it all back.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:44 PM | Your Say (0)

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Rock band tour poster is wiser than it knows. From Aesthetic Apparatus

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:47 AM | Your Say (0)

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Everything old is new again:
Apple, creator of the iPod and the iTunes store – the sworn enemies of commercially-packaged music – is getting into bed with the four largest record labels, to help them stimulate album sales. They're working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group on something called "Project Cocktail" that will produce all manner of extras to go with albums: interactive booklets, sleeve notes, photographs, lyric sheets, even video clips. Buyers will be able to call up album tracks through the interactive booklet, while leafing through pictures of the band and trying to make sense of the lyrics. Does this remind you of anything? - Dream sleeves: John Walsh on how a 40 year old idea could save the music industry

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:24 AM | Your Say (0)

Craig S. Karpel: We Don’t Spend Enough on Health Care - WSJ.com
The U.S. health-care economy should be viewed not as a burden but as an engine of growth. Medical and orthopedic equipment exports increased by 65.1% from 2004 through 2008. Pharmaceutical exports were up 74.6%. The unprecedented advances expected to come out of American stem cell, nanotechnology and human genome research—which other countries' constricted health sectors cannot support—will send these already impressive figures skyward.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:37 AM | Your Say (1)

August 16, 2009

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My system ate your comments: I've enabled a new spam catcher that needs to have its enthusiasm curbed. It kept a lot of comments off the system for a couple of days. I've restored them and hope I've got the beast under control now.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:11 PM | Your Say (3)

Just in case this image doesn't freak you out enough.... click play.


HT: Pennylegion

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:43 PM | Your Say (1)

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"Wescue me!"

This just in from my favorite brogger: Naked Seduction 永恒的诱惑 is Twapped!
I am on 67th floor so up high, maybe you know where I stay? All the crazy local life around me, massage club and fun, but my director friend does not want me to go out says its dangerous, people take guns with them to the night Clubs, anyway I am locked in but still trying to go out secretly, don't tell anyone ok?

Okay, deal. But tell the desk it's okay if I come up.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:53 AM | Your Say (1)

"It is double-think at its finest, and nobody needs it more than the Left. After all, what committed socialist likes to be reminded that
  • all government money comes from private enterprise? That would take all the fun out of spending it.
  • Who wants to tell the European Union that the only reason it isn't a nonentity like the African Union is because it stands on the shoulders of a history it despises? Where would all their moral authority go then? Fantasy is an indispensable part of modern political life.
  • Contradictions must pass unnoticed if the play is to be allowed to continue.

Yet the audience occasionally glances outside the theater. Part of the attraction that Left feels for Jihadis and primitive warriors lies precisely in that they haven't followed their politically correct instructions.

Groucho Marx once said that he would never want to be a member of a club that would accept him as a member. In an analogous kind of way the Left never truly admires someone stupid enough to believe them. Desert raiders are liked exactly because they aren't timid souls living in council housing staring down at their shoes waiting desperately for the community policeman whenever "youths" come to rob them. -- Belmont Club » You might just find

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (17)

The Confessions of Saint Gagdad:One Cosmos: Left Wing Pagan Gnosticism and Other Boyish Peccadillos
This I think is why leftists always believe such conspiratorial nonsense. In my case, because I knew that there was more to reality than met the eye, I began reading things by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Edward Herman, Michael Parenti, Eric Hobsbawm, the Frankfurt School of psychopolitical loons, you name it. I didn't even know that these people were Marxists, nor would I have cared if you had told me. I subscribed to The Nation and thought it was actually "objective." I listened to Pacifica radio. I even contributed money to them! How will I explain this to God?

Hell, Gagdad, I actually worked for Pacifica as the Director of Drama and Literature Programming for a couple of years. Verily shalt thou say unto God, with me, "Mistkaes were made."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (3)

August 15, 2009

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:09 PM | Your Say (1)

There's the dumb way, the dumber way, and the Obama way --If the Post Office took over UPS and FedEx:
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“They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about -- if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems.”

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:13 AM | Your Say (1)

And remember kids, super-heroes don't tolerate death-squads:


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Posted by Vanderleun at 11:06 AM | Your Say (0)

Beg for 5 Years. Fly to Spain. Drive to Podunk. Drop a Grand. Eat 30 Courses of About One Bite Each. It's.... It's...Dinner at El Bulli: The Greatest Restaurant in the World. Each course documented @ The Amateur Gourmet.
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Posted by Vanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (3)

August 14, 2009

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior moron at Brookings, actually gets his drool published in the Washington post because.... because... well, because The Washington Post just doesn't have enough of its own morons on salary to keep up with it's need to spew bullshit into the world:Michael O'Hanlon - U.S. Needs a Force to Serve in Congo - washingtonpost.com
For crises like those in Congo and Darfur, the United States should consider a radical innovation in recruiting policy. We should create a peace operations division in the Army with individuals enlisting specifically for this purpose. There would be risks in such a venture, to be sure. But they are manageable and tolerable risks, especially since most such deployments would be legitimated by the United Nations, carried out with partners such as key allies, and backstopped by the U.S. armed forces in worst-case scenarios.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:12 PM | Your Say (11)

Shock! Horror! NSFW! Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women


Posted by Vanderleun at 11:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Guilty Pleasures: You know it's wrong, but somehow you just can't look away -- Sexy Bikini Girls With Guns


Posted by Vanderleun at 9:55 AM | Your Say (2)

The Return Of Scipio on "Airport Land;" "For a snapshot of the way we were, see any movie from the 50s that has a scene in an airport. You will be startled. We the People were different then. Thinner too."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (2)

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George Orwell -- From the open exhibition Create Democracy

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:48 AM | Your Say (0)

The Dead (Burger) Zone @ the abandoned McDonald’s.
Yes, a McDonald’s closed in North Fargo. Nearly all the plants are ugly. They're nasty, too - they sting, they stick, they make your skin tingle if you rub up against them. It's like a garden from a Stephen King novel, because it's all off, somehow, wrong in a way you grasp straight away. The bad juju screams from this place, and you can't help but wonder if the inside is dead cold, the walls smeared with word that would be innocuous in another context but frightening here. Surely something bad happened here, and that's why it closed. I mean, look at this place. Tell me there's not something wrong here. -- Lileks
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Posted by Vanderleun at 12:35 AM | Your Say (1)

August 13, 2009

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GFY BUTTERFLY! From National Academy of Sciences: Mark Sloan

This morpho butterfly is male on one side, female on the other. Scientists call such rarities gynandromorphs. The male typically more brilliant than the female is on the left side, with less black on its wings. Gynandromorphs result from a genetic aberration, the cause of which is not clearly understood. They are unable to reproduce. Butterflies are not the only animals in which the phenomenon occurs. It can also be found among birds, spiders, beetles, lobsters, mosquitoes, and other bilaterally symmetrical animals. Among butterflies, the most dramatic specimens like this one display obvious differences between male and female wings. Such specimens have long been prized by collectors.
No wise cracks, okay?

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:24 PM | Your Say (1)

Skool SpyWarz: Dell Latitude 2100 | Wired.com Product Reviews
"The Latitude 2100 also has a network-activity light built into the top of the lid. This small rectangle illuminates when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network or an ethernet connection. It also flickers (albeit weakly) when we browsed the net. The idea? Making sure kids are not surfing the internet when they should be working on a math problem."

Hey!... Teacher!... Leave those kids alone!

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:15 PM | Your Say (0)

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Hangovers make drunks a tougher breed of character. The hangover is the mean older brother who toughens you up and teaches you how to fight back. Don’t believe me? Tell you what—you gather the gang from Starbucks and I’ll assemble the boys from Kelly’s Pub and we’ll meet in the parking lot. The caffeine crowd won’t even manage to throw a punch, they’ll be too busy texting the cops: OMG! DRNKS TACKNG US! HLP! - Frank Kelly Rich

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:00 PM | Your Say (1)

The Dipso Chronicles: Rain
This is my Americana, I suppose. Silent but for the rainfall, dog lying on the rug to gaze through the front door, child napping below me, and then this cold machine that I keep counsel with, insulting me and my autumn afternoon like a switchblade torn through the canvas. So connected, yet so mercilessly unattached.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:59 PM | Your Say (0)

Tweeting While Tehran Burns
Looking back on it, it's hard to understand how the recent Iranian revolution failed. Sure, the mullahs had guns, tanks, an air force, police, the Revolutionary Guard, the Basij, and imported terrorist thugs on their side. But the Iranian protestors had Twitter. Who could have predicted that an authoritarian regime, in control of its military and willing to spill blood, would triumph over the power of social networking? It is no criticism of the Iranian dissidents to note that in the West there was a wave of absurd, and disquieting, Twitter triumphalism connected with Iran's June post-election protests. And the praise of Twitter was, like Twitter itself, more about narcissism than sympathy with Iran.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:34 PM | Your Say (3)

If this were true, I'd buy 200 copies and set fire to them: Nancy Grace: New Book "Has a Piece of Me in It"

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:52 PM | Your Say (1)

Simon says this is a song for the times. He's right you know.


Posted by Vanderleun at 2:27 PM | Your Say (0)

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OBAMA: The young blonde-haired girl in the twenty-third row there, seven seats from the aisle, wearing the blue and white dress. You look like you have an important question to … [waits for screen to load] … ask.

GIRL: Thank you Mister Pwesident!

OBAMA: You’re welcome, Tammy.

GIRL: Mister Pwesident, my name is Tammy Wilkerson and I’m vewwy worried about the destwuction of democwacy in our country. There were people outside the town hall tonight with signs calling you a cu … a cun … [waits for screen to load] … a cunning political tactician whose town hall meetings are mere window dwessing for a health policy even you don’t understand. What’s that about, Mister Pwesident?

-- PRESIDENT MEETS THE PEOPLE @ Tim Blair Blog

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:11 PM | Your Say (1)

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When is not-a-mob a mob? neo-neocon on The shocking radicalization of the center Right
Community organizing is the coin of the Leftist realm. But it turns out that it depends on which community is organized. If it's downtrodden minorities, the unemployed, illegal aliens, unions, or any other group composed of and/or appealing to the natural constituency of the Left -- then it's not a mob, it's a populist group of concerned citizens speaking their mind in classic American fashion. But if it's anything that even remotely smacks of the Right or the middle class or even the non-union working class, it's a bunch of pitchfork-wielding astroturfing swastika-carrying thugs.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:57 PM | Your Say (0)

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Profoundly Disturbing Site of the Month: WTF? Taxidermy! Harshing your mellow since... oh... forever.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (1)

The Health Care Battle and the Ghost of Terri Schiavo @ The New Ledger

The American people know that the same people who wanted to pull the tube from Terri Schiavo want to be trusted not to pull the plug on grandma. Which is why they are appropriately skeptical of any hint that Obamacare would leave any power in federal hands to make those decisions. Four years ago, the Left was proud of its stance on withdrawing not just medical care but food and water itself from Terri Schiavo. That was their choice. If the price to be paid is a public in need of assurance that President Obama and his plan don’t share those values and won’t encourage the same thing, well, choices have consequences, and the voiceless dead can still haunt us in ways we had never foreseen.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (1)

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Noted in Passing:The Nine Eyes of Google Street View

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:11 PM | Your Say (0)

Glad you cleared up "yr ssues:"Vibram FiveFingers @ Mark's Daily Apple
have a par – Classcs -and love em – should have got the sprnt ones cos gong fast n the classcs s not easy. F you want to sprnt get sprnts. Szng -go to the snuggest sze you can manage eg my shoes are usually Euro 43 but my choce was a 42 and they are perfect. PS am worng on a eyboard that has 2 eys broen the letter after h and the ltter after j – am not a moron or dyslexc

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (0)

Birdbrains of Science: Global warming causing birds to shrink
Global warming is making birds smaller, according to new research from the Australian National University. Climate change is being blamed because varieties of the same birds tend to be smaller near the equator and larger closer to the poles to help them conserve heat more efficiently. A study of museum specimens found eight Australian species have reduced in size by between two and four percent over the past century.

"It's astounding that our instruments are so sensitive a 2 percent reduction in bird size can be detected amongst all the other influences. Birdmometers have apparently reached the pinnacle of modern mometry."

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (3)

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"Dad always wants me to post the trucks." Okay. Here's a second site.

You Can (Sort Of) Go Home Again: James Lileks in Fargo:
An hour later I'm sitting in my dad's kitchen, one day after my birthday, which was also the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. He tells me he'd been contacted to add some recollections - if he had any - of rescuing prisoners of war from Formosa. As it happened, he did. Like all the other stories, I'd never heard this one; he never talks about it. Part of it had to do with sparing the kids the horror stories and putting it all behind him, but on the other hand I've never met anyone who lives in the present like my Dad. He's not one for backward glances. Which is why his peers doze in Barcaloungers, and he hits the highway on his Harley.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:43 AM | Your Say (2)

Slow-burn cuteness: the silent killer in which the wonderfully named "Fuck You, Penguin" asks, "How can one animal be so creepy, and yet so hairlessly wonderful?" [Warning: Aye-Aye photo at link.]

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:31 AM | Your Say (0)

More bad news for Hollywood: Gratuitous Nudity Can't Save Val Kilmer's Global Warming Movie -- American Culture:
The film, apparently once titled "The Steam Experiment," was (shockingly) released in two theaters before quickly heading for the discount bin at your local video store.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:27 AM | Your Say (1)

August 12, 2009

Dr. Johnson on bias in the media circa 1791:
'The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the Alps, sat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe; but it would be a picture of nothing.'

[As you may have noticed, I am making my way through this masterpiece for the third time and recommend it. It will improve your writing and your understanding. As Johnson would say, "Depend upon it, Sir."]

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:43 PM | Your Say (1)

And now, a public service message from American Digest sponsor and supporter, Megan Fox:


Posted by Vanderleun at 5:34 PM | Your Say (1)

After a year off, The Fourth Checkraise has returned with a host of items such as The Fourth Checkraise: Si means Si
Fidel Castro, a hero and idol to many Western liberals and intellectuals, used his position as the central planner exactly as predicted by the principle of the central planning nomenklatura always allocating the best stuff for itself: Fidel has had sex with over 35,000 women that his special security force collected to him.... Tellingly, our progressives and liberals seem to have no problem whatsoever with this.

Recommended.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:22 PM | Your Say (2)

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Ssssshhhhh..... Ratchet Down The Noise, The Truth Is Bad Enough @ Jaded Haven
Here's the best idea of all: Let's grandfather all of our socialized medical programs (shoot, just for fun, let's kick in Social Security and the vast medley of welfare programs, too) and let them slowly die out of existence. Anyone born from 2010 onward would be entirely dependent on relatives, their own abilities or private charity to provide for themselves for all of their natural lives.
They wouldn't be required to pay taxes into the current systems that support others. They would not be forced by the government to provide the basics of life to another living soul and they would not be allowed to participate in any of these government programs. Of course, some would starve to death or die from lack of medical treatment. Many might suffer from a lack of decent shelter or end up looking to charity because they made irresponsible choices in life, like remaining uneducated and skill-less, having children they couldn't afford, drugging themselves senseless or dropping their life savings at a crap table in Vegas. So be it, let Darwinism reign.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:50 PM | Your Say (0)

The Rule of Law or the Rule of a Man? "The Obama administration’s pay czar is busily making plans for America’s financial companies."

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:38 PM | Your Say (1)

Dvorak's Special Report: Is US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra a Phony? Signs point to "Yes." [HT: Cobb ]

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:23 PM | Your Say (0)

"Hey, my kid could paint better than that!" is an old cliche. Sometimes, very rarely, it's true. Michelangelo’s First Painting, painted when he was 12, is now restored and on exhibit at the Met.


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The Temptation of St. Anthony

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:53 PM | Your Say (1)

It Was Over When... "He showed me his house. He had two life-size mannequins in his living room, man and woman. They were dressed in the exact outfits his parents were married in (wedding dress and military uniform)."

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:10 PM | Your Say (2)

Thinking of getting away from it all? 5 Remotest Inhabited Tropical Islands

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:49 PM | Your Say (0)

New Supernova Image Reveals Third Dimension


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You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:29 PM | Your Say (0)

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"Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict" -- or just alert you to where the coming water wars will break out.
What the UNESCO map reveals is just how many aquifers cross international borders. So far, the organisation has identified 273 trans-boundary aquifers: 68 in the Americas, 38 in Africa, 155 in Eastern and Western Europe and 12 in Asia. Each trans-boundary aquifer holds the potential for international conflict - if two countries share an aquifer, pumping in one country will affect its neighbour's water supply.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:08 PM | Your Say (0)

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"I am here helping a friend shooting...."
This is nature, this is the mystery of life, you live in the moment and deal with what ever happens at that moment with what ever you have and can, we were hide in the street corner for a long time hopping the rain would stop, but it never did, we just have to get wet and keep our speed of walking in the night life, like yesterday we were shooting we want rain but it did not happen, then just when we left then the rain suddenly hit the ground so hard like thousend of dancer's little feet shinny in the evening lights like bright fire works, unpredictable here life is, but kind of exciting you live in the moment of being...... -- Naked Seduction 永恒的诱惑: Dance in the rain in the storm landed east.....

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:51 AM | Your Say (0)

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"I don't want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here." -- Obama's healthcare townhall transcript


Michelle Malkin -- Little girl at Obama town hall has not-so-random political connections

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:31 AM | Your Say (0)

China faw down, go boom: Forget about a Shanghai stock bubble. The whole Chinese economy's getting ready to burst. --The China Bubble's Coming -- But Not the One You Think @ Foreign Policy

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:54 AM | Your Say (0)

A celebration of Old Rock Dudes with Meg Ryan Hair


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We'd say "Laurie Anderson" after the steroids kicked in, but what's the difference?

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:44 AM | Your Say (0)

August 11, 2009

Memo to "Maverick" Meghan McCain:


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You are not a "Maverick."

This is a Maverick
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Any questions? No? Good. And remember, when the tweeting gets vacuous, the vacuous go shopping. So get ye off to the mall, kid. If we wanted a Paris Hilton of Politics we would have taken Paris up on her campaign last year. So far, you don't even rise to the level of Paris Hilton. Instead, you've got Arlen Specter written all over you.

Cassy Fiano is kinder in "Meghan McCain attempts to take on Michelle Malkin; epically fails"
Just because we aren't appointing you our new rising star doesn't mean you don't have a place here. I suspect Meghan knows this deep down, but what kind of attention would she get by acknowledging that? It's much more fun to sit there and try to fill the role of the new maverick in the Republican party.
HT: Morgan

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:43 PM | Your Say (3)

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Doormat of the Day

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:37 PM | Your Say (1)

Nine brilliant minutes: Randal O’Toole Assaults Myths of Suburbia | Cato @ Liberty Urban planners want to shape our cities. And they want our cities to shape you.


Posted by Vanderleun at 1:13 PM | Your Say (0)

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Women prefer men who are already taken: Overcoming Bias : Women Prefer Poaching
According to a recent poll, most women who engage in mate poaching do not think the attached status of the target played a role in their poaching decision, but our study shows this belief to be false. …

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:52 PM | Your Say (4)

Klinton in Korea = Krap: "Was Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea worth the time, energy, and prestige? No way." Christopher Hitchens

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:36 PM | Your Say (1)

"And cursed be he that moves my bones." A sarcophagus in an English parish church could solve the centuries-old literary debate over who really wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. -- Tomb search could end riddle of Shakespeare's true identity

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:29 PM | Your Say (1)

Borg time! 6 to 23% of Americans say yes to Cyborg Status. "If you could have computer chips wired into your brain, would you?"

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:15 PM | Your Say (1)

"Last of all comes the tyrannical man:"
If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires.
When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more. -- Plato's Republic Book IX

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:42 AM | Your Say (0)

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Food on the Tracks: The Railway Track Market of Samut Songkhram
Every day in the Thai province of Samut Songkhram, about 70 km southwest of Bangkok, a unique market is held whose vendors need feet as quick as their minds. Why? Because much of the market is located directly on a set of operational railway tracks. Eight times daily, a train runs through without care for stopping, sending vendors and visitors to action stations before business as usual resumes.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (0)

Memo: Do not bring a broom to a bear fight --
Munson told her brother Thursday night that the older bear was back and said, "I'm going to chase it off with a broom." According to the county coroner, Munson was grabbed by the bear and it slashed her head and neck with such penetrating force that Munson would have bled out in 90 seconds. -- Never Yet Melted » Bears Not Always Afraid of People

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:08 AM | Your Say (1)

"Disgracing the cowboy name." Cattle rustling on the rise again in Texas

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (0)

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Available @ No Days Off --> Shop --> Prints

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:29 AM | Your Say (1)

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"Wipe that smile off your face or else!" -- Woman attacks Mona Lisa
Screams erupted from the 40-odd tourists jostling for position around Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic painted lady when the empty terracotta mug flew over their heads and smashed into the portrait.... However, the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile was unaffected by the commotion, as the mug bounced harmlessly off the bullet-proof glass shielding her and shattered on the floor, according to the team of staff paid to guard her.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:17 AM | Your Say (0)

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Posted by Vanderleun at 3:08 AM | Your Say (1)




Sssh. Be wery, wery qwiet. We're testing widgets.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:05 AM | Your Say (0)

August 10, 2009

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"Into the air, junor birdmen!" Chinese Farmer Builds His Own Flying Machine
The device, which likely breaks almost every airspace and safety law simultaneously, is made from steel scaffold, has blades cut from Elm and is powered by an old motorcycle engine. Zhongyuan says that the ‘copter, which took three months and around $1600 to build, can soar to 800 meters (2600 feet). We’re not sure if it can even get airborne, though, as currently the machine is grounded by Chinese authorities.

Spoilsports.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:22 PM | Your Say (0)

Now this is how to apologize: I deeply, humbly, unreservedly ask your forgiveness says WESTSOUND MODERN and offers up this as a testament to his sincerity:


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Apology accepted!

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:07 PM | Your Say (0)

Meanwhile, trouble in Paradise for the Clinton lovebirds? While Hillary's reminding the 3rd World of just who wears the pants suit and is the real Secretary of State (see below), Bill Clinton Celebrates His 63rd in Las Vegas.
Turns out Mr. Clinton decided to celebrate his 63rd birthday with a dinner at one of this city’s hottest – and most pricey – restaurants: Craftsteak at the MGM Grand hotel. How pricey? The 8-ounce wagyu New York strip steak goes for $240. (Potatoes and other sides are extra)
Turns out Mrs. Clinton is stuck in the Congo where $240 buys dinner for about 500. She probably declined to phone conference in for a rousing round of "Happy Birthday."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:58 PM | Your Say (2)

"Let me be perfectly clear..."Hillary Clinton Says She, Not Bill, is the Secretary of State



In which we see it is beginning to dawn on Hillary just how deeply and badly she was pwnd by Barack Obama into taking on a role that has about as much real power these days as the Queen of England. Come to think of it, at least the Queen gets some respect.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:47 PM | Your Say (2)

No Quality in Equality:
"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other." -- Samuel Johnson

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:34 PM | Your Say (1)

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CBS Evening News twisting slowly, slowly in the wind: "Fox News Explodes, While the Liberal Media Burns" via TVNewser


Posted by Vanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (0)

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"Our old conjugal rendezvous, the Doublewide of Love."


Breaking! The Origins of the mysterious "Iowahawk" Revealed: iowahawk: You Can Go Home Again
I imagine everyone has some special favorite nostalgic spot, the one that always seems to prompt a flood of happy childhood memories. For me, that place has always been the miniature golf course outside the walls of the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:01 PM | Your Say (0)

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"We're going to need bigger towtrucks." Texting while driving while towing. From Lowering the Bar.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:05 PM | Your Say (0)

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The only "Reality" behind "Reality Check" is the bigger check you'll be sending in to the government. Was there ever an administration so frantic that it's output of bullshit was greater than whitehouse.gov's new Reality Check ? [Complete with historic video of Linda 'Rat your neighbors' Douglass of the "White House Office of Health Reform" starring as "Nurse Ratchett."] Give me a "History Check" here, please.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:50 PM | Your Say (3)

On airdropping a thirty-six foot long, 16,000-pound 155-mm howitzer, tethered to five parachutes onto Afghanistan:
Watching a piece of heavy equipment drop out of the back of the aircraft is an exhilarating – and slightly scary – experience, particularly after watching the painstaking process of loading the giant weapon inside the belly of the aircraft. Danger Room in Afghanistan: FedEx for the Front Line | Danger Room | Wired.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:59 PM | Your Say (1)

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"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."


"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss."
Everything is different this time--everything, that is, except the plan. The Democrats are seeking mostly the same policies they sought 15 years ago: mandates, regulations on insurance companies, new government-managed markets. The major difference is that this time they also want a "public option," an insurance program open to everyone and run by the government. Obamacare is Clintoncare with a little more liberalism. -- The Fatal Flaw of Obamacare - TIME

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:48 PM | Your Say (1)

Something funny happened: people started speaking truth to power to people who speak truth to power. And now the man who once inspired, starts to perspire. The king of cool begins to lose his. And the side that normally champions freedom of speech, is asking America to pipe down. -- The Daily Gut

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:24 PM | Your Say (0)

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This could come in handy:
Woodsman's Pal With Leather Handle: Standard US Army issue since 1941. Weighs less than 1-1/2 lbs. If you only work one-handed, this will feel like an extension of your arm. - Cool Tools: Garrett Wade

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:18 PM | Your Say (3)

US Debt: Who's buying this crap, and more importantly, who is going to be able to afford to buy this crap? I note that the Global Domestic Product was estimated in 2008 as US$70.65 trillion. That the federal debt limit was over 15% of that and it is evidently not nearly enough for what's planned by the Administration's Secretary of Tax Cheating:
Geithner Asks Congress to Increase Federal Debt Limit - WSJ.com Washington -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit on Friday, saying it is "critically important" that they act in the next two months.... The Treasury didn't request a specific increase in the letter.

Translation: The sky's the limit.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:09 PM | Your Say (0)

FAIL: a success story "And to think it was once just a verb"

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:01 PM | Your Say (0)

The Doctor is Back: Dr. Sanity: SHEER PROJECTION AND PARANOID FANTASY
Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the postmodern-progressive-paranoid chewing gum is brought out to plug it up. The TNG memos were a clever plot by Karl Rove. The Bush Administration was behind 9/11; Katrina was allowed to destroy New Orleans because Bush hates blacks. George Bush is about to impose a theocracy on the unsuspecting U.S. Pat Tillman was murdered because he wanted to meet with anti-war activist Norm Chomsky. Sarah Palin is not the mother of Trig and faked her pregnancy. The list of the paranoid delusions goes on and on and on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:54 PM | Your Say (0)

"There is no necessary relationship between intelligence and wisdom,
and often an inverse one. If intelligence is not in service to a Truth that is anterior to it, you end up with -- obviously examples abound, but let's say Paul Krugman. One can assume Krugman has a higher than average IQ, but it is in such total service to an a priori Lie, that the result is indistinguishable from severe mental illness." -- One Cosmos: When Infants Attack! On Reality and its Adversaries

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:39 PM | Your Say (0)

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics." -- Lazarus Long

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (0)

The Coming Ka-BOOM! Eric Raymond, 2002: Today's treason of the intellectuals
Today's treason of the intellectuals consists of equating suicide bombings deliberately targeting Israeli women and children with Israeli military operations so restrained that Palestinian children throw rocks at Israeli soldiers without fearing their guns. Today's treason of the intellectuals tells us that because the U.S. occasionally propped up allied but corrupt governments during the Cold War, we have no right to object to airliners being flown into the World Trade Center. Today's treason of the intellectuals consists of telling us we should do nothing but stand by, wringing our hands, while at least one of the groups in the Islamo-fascist axis acquires nuclear weapons with which terrorists could repeat their mass murders in New York City and Bali on an immensely larger scale.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:59 PM | Your Say (0)

Cash from Clickers "Rupert Murdoch is set to charge online readers for news content - but how do you make people part with their money?"

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:53 AM | Your Say (0)

Oh, by the way, does anyone in Washington know there's a war on?


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To summarize [Afghanistan policy], the strategy involves a few more troops and a lot of civilian NGOs, these civilians not having been deployed yet because it's too dangerous since there is little to no security, but we will know fairly quickly if this strategy works, er .... um, that is, within 18 months. There may be more troops and if so we'll provide them, but the White House is going to have a fit if the Generals ask for more troops.... Well, there you have it. But if Jim Jones is a stooge and a fool, Carl Levin is a liar. The commanders in the field have already said they are light on troops and need more. -- The Captain's Journal - Administration's Confused Position on Afghanistan

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:05 AM | Your Say (0)

August 9, 2009

Sound of world's smallest violin:Hollywood stars hit with recession pay cuts
Whether you are a thespian used to cashing $20 million-plus cheques for work on one film or $500,000, the Hollywood studios are forcing actors, directors and writers to reduce their usual pay quotes.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Of creative software and Apple's App Store: Chicago Boyz on How the Apple Tablet Could Save Computing

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Dumpster Diving


Swimming pool skip from OliverBishopYoung on Vimeo.

Details @ Dumpster Diving & Other Creative Urban Upcycling Ideas | Dornob

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:43 PM | Your Say (1)

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Using the Cash for Clunkers program a model message for the Health Care Reform plans:

Let’s call a spade a spade. The real problem here is geezers. First they get old. Then they get sick. Then they expect to see a doctor. Give them an inch, they take a mile. The suggested plan to create a special group of thanatological shrinks (commonly called the Kevorkian Corps), while undoubtedly well intentioned, is actually an inadequate response. The health care crisis demands something more fundamental. The solution is obvious, though it may at first seem a little startling. Eliminate the last car on the train. Get the geezers off the road in the same way you are getting the clunkers off the road. Give the program a snappy title: “Grants for Gramps,” perhaps, or better yet “Gold for Geezers”.

[From my favorite new blog, Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche by John V. Fleming, the Louis W. Fairchild Professor of English and Comparative Literature emeritus at Princeton University.]

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (1)

The Boys Who Cried “Racist”
It cannot be the case that every parody of a president who happens to be black is racist. And it is not good for democracy to try to counter every opposing argument with such a blood libel. The good news for advocates of limited government is that our opponents are displaying a striking lack of confidence in the actual arguments for their proposals. If they thought they could win a debate on nationalizing health care, or running trillion-dollar deficits, they wouldn’t need to reach for such smears.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:10 PM | Your Say (1)

Surprise? Organic food is just a tax on the gullible
The general public, however, had already begun to call the organic bluff, perhaps one reason Whole Foods’ sales have suffered over three consecutive quarters in the United States and Prince Charles’s Duchy Originals has seen its profits slump. That noise – half-fart, half-howl – you heard last week was the organic balloon bursting.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (1)

The presumed "evils" of the profit motive.
There is no more exasperating aspect of modern-day leftism than its insistence that anything from which someone actually makes money is somehow impure and unworthy. This results in handwringing over such nebulous tragedies as "income inequality," as though Professor Tokeworth is going to pay her nanny the same sum she earns at Cal State-Anywhere. -- The Vent #640: I don't get it (part deux)

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:55 AM | Your Say (0)

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Morgan's work @ House of Eratosthenes where he's jamming with Gagdad Bob:

To take an example ripped from this morning's headlines, it is obviously kooky for the left to regard citizens who don't want the state to take over their healthcare as "fascists." For one thing, logically speaking, anyone who wants a smaller and less intrusive government is the polar opposite of a fascist.
But in the unconscious mind, where symmetrical logic rules the night, it is the work of an instant to convert terms to their opposite. This is how we may understand what makes the leftist tick: whatever he accuses others of, is what he is unconsciously guilty of. Thus, when he says, "you are astroturfing," he means "I am astroturfing." When he says "American citizens are behaving like fascists," he means "we and our union thugs are behaving like fascists." When he says "you are a racist," he means "I am preoccupied with race and cannot see beyond it." Etc. -- One Cosmos: The Ill Logic of the Left

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:32 AM | Your Say (2)

August 8, 2009

One Mile, One Scot, One Shot, One Bullet, One Dead Taliban:
The 25-year-old waited on a shop rooftop in southern Afghanistan for three days to take out the top-level Taliban commander - called Musa - who co-ordinated dozens of attacks against British and US soldiers. -- LexisNexis .

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:53 PM | Your Say (4)

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When the time comes, I've got to remember to do this to my Mercedes. From the fascinating There, I Fixed It: Epic Kludges & Jury Rigs

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (1)


Q: "Would Jesus carry a gun?" A: "No. They didn't have guns back then."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:00 AM | Your Say (1)

Vegetius, a Roman writer of the fourth century AD, said,
"Let him who desires peace prepare for war." Carl von Clausewitz sharpened the point: "The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms." Darfur has made clear that that is not just a metaphor. -- The Essence of War: Clausewitz as Educator - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:53 AM | Your Say (0)

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Edifice Complex: In North Korea they pour their deficiet into things you can see: Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea's massive "hotel of doom"
According to the original plan, the hotel was supposed to open in 1989, however construction problems forced the government to postpone its opening several times. In early 1990s multiple problems hit the project, low quality of materials, electricity shortages in the city, famine in the country, all became serious obstacles to completion of the building and the expected foreign investment never materialized. Finally in 1992 construction was halted, citing financial problems. Japanese sources estimate that the project swallowed over 2% of North Korea's GDP, or roughly 750 million US dollars.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:31 AM | Your Say (3)

August 7, 2009

"If it were not for double standards, the Left would have no standards at all." -- Mr. Bill

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:50 PM | Your Say (0)

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One hot pussy: Florida man blames his cat for over 1,000 porn downloads

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:38 PM | Your Say (0)

The Ghosts in Our Machines:
Being so death-haunted explains our birth dearth to some extent; we get little solace from thinking about the children who will live on after us. Nor do we get much satisfaction from producing any accomplishments that will stand the test of time much better than we can as biological beings, and that’s why there’s so little building or writing for the ages these days. Being so death-haunted also helps to explain the extreme measures taken by the old to look young, not to remind us that they’re dying It’s one reason why the old are increasingly separated from the rest of society, and their care turned over to workers. It might even have something to do with why physicians have less time for their dying patients, and why the best and the brightest medical students are choosing dermatology—which, as medical specialties go, has very little do with either birth or death. Is death God’s will, or an unexpected accident? Today, we are reluctant to answer. -- Solzhenitsyn On Our Future — Civitate

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:22 PM | Your Say (2)

"I am the President.... I am the President.... I am the President... You can hear nothing but the sound of my voice... I am the President... Hey, I said "I am the President. Shut the fuck up! I am the President."


Posted by Vanderleun at 1:34 PM | Your Say (3)

Single-Payer Groceries:
First, all groceries will be paid for by the taxpayers, who are sometimes confused with "government" by the media. Anyone at any time – even illegal aliens – can walk into a grocery store and walk out with whatever groceries and other items they "need." A national government I.D. will be needed so that the state can "track" our grocery purchases with it. It will be as easy to obtain for illegal aliens as it is for citizens, since illegal aliens are such an important voting block in support of the American Socialist Party. The government grocery stores will keep track of all food purchases so that they can better administer the state’s new anti-obesity/mandatory exercise campaign. The stated purpose of this "campaign" will be to cut healthcare costs by forcing us all into healthier lifestyles (as defined by the state). With government in charge of health and lifestyle planning, that old saying will be altered to say "a ton of prevention for an ounce of cure." .... In response to the government-created explosion of food costs, the government will wage nationwide propaganda campaigns to raise taxes, complete with televised pictures of starving babies, similar to the "feed the children" television commercials that raise charitable donations for starving children in the Third World. All opposition to the tax increases will be denounced by Nancy Pelosi and her comrades as "Hitler-like," and worse.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:54 AM | Your Say (0)

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flag@whitehouse.gov? Well, according to the law,5 US Code ァ552a(e)(7) commands that any Federal agency
"(7) maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity;" -- Implications and details @ Of Arms and the Law: Privacy Act request to report health plan objections

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (1)

Patently Obvious: Simon @ Power and Control brings us this patent:
Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH3, and COCH3. ##STR1##

And who was granted this medically significant marijuana patent in 2003? The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services of course.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:21 AM | Your Say (0)

August 6, 2009

Plato on Drones in a Democracy:
In the oligarchical State [drones] are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones.... The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. -- The Republic, Book VIII

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:54 PM | Your Say (1)

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Dr. Johnson on critics of political positions: "I think I have not been attacked enough for it. Attack is the re-action; I never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds."

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:41 PM | Your Say (0)

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Achtung! Do you know this girl? Report her to the White House. -- Perfunction

And remember, kids, Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent.

Note: August 4th was the 65th anniversary of the betrayal of Anne Frank
On the morning of 4 August 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.[32]

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (21)

August 5, 2009

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iowahawk: Know Your Town Hall Mob Agitators!
Here we see typical everyday hometown American citizens freely expressing their spontaneous health care opinions in an uncoordinated manner. Note the fine grassroots sanserif display font typography of their signs, spontaneously designed for maximum television legibility. Note that these citizens have coincidentally chosen their signage to color-match with their t-shirts. This will help independent grassroots organization leaders locate the citizens to distribute town hall seat assignments and bus departure schedules. You may also note that these hometown neighbors are carrying spontaneous chant cards.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:24 PM | Your Say (0)

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Posted by Vanderleun at 10:05 PM | Your Say (1)

Don't ask. Just go: The Festival Of The Falling Babies

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:54 PM | Your Say (1)

What Not to Wear according to the sartorially splendid Exurban League
Exurban League has assembled a sartorial tip sheet for our fellow greedy plutocrats. Leave the Brooks Brothers in the closet and don some authentic protest wear.


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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:37 PM | Your Say (0)

Nancy, Bitch of Buchenwald, speaks:
Reichswhore Nancy Pelosi claims town hall protesters are "carrying swastikas." She is an immensely stupid woman. Not only is her claim that people are "carrying swastika" standards into these town meetings absurd on its face, but her implication is even more absurd: Bear in mind she thinks the proof these protesters are hired by astroturf firms is that they're carrying swastikas. Right. When you hire a bunch of people to pose as ordinary citizens at town halls, of course you give them giant swastikas to carry in on their shoulders. So they'll blend in. -- Ace of Spades HQ

Meanwhile, deep in Ace's comment section we hear this cry for help:
Barack,

My neighbor Squidward's behavior has been suspicious lately. I fear that he has been conspiring against the government. My friend, Patrick, overheard him say to someone at work (we both work in the same place), that if we don't conform to the Furher Obama that we will be forced to walk the plankton! I live alone with only my pet snail, Gary, for company. I fear for my safety. Please help me.
You can find me during the day working at the Krusty Krab. At night I am at home in my Pineapple under the Sea.

Sincerely,
SpongeBob SquarePants
Bikini Bottom

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:43 PM | Your Say (0)

Obamaworld....
is not like that of 1984 (except for his habit of Orwellian Newspeak); it's a kinder, gentler universe more like that of Brave New World, where people are ministered to for their own good, soft music plays in the background, and we've got sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Meanwhile, liberty is just as dead in that world as in the other. And it's hardly necessary to kill people for that to happen.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:22 PM | Your Say (0)

Tales of the Big Purse:
I've been to jail once. I was picked up hitchhiking off I-10 in Kerrville by a local cop. Fourteen years old and heading for a dream located anywhere well past home. I had a ham in my purse, five bucks in change and a fierce intention to find someplace better. I spent two days in their three cell lock up before my mother flew in on a friend's private plane to retrieve my wayward ass. -- A Day In The Shade @ Jaded Haven

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:14 PM | Your Say (0)

Honeymoon is so over: '5,000% sure I want him whacked'
Investigators say twice during this meeting Dippolito reported she was sure she wanted him killed. "I will be very happy," she is reported to have said. She agreed to pay the 'hit man' $3,000 when the job was complete, according to the police statement. "The undercover officer asked her one more time if she was sure about having her husband killed. She responded, 'I'm not going to change my mind. I am 5,000 percent sure I want it done. When I set my mind to something I get it done.'"

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:50 PM | Your Say (1)

Presidential approval tracker
The Gallup organization first started asking Americans how they approved of the job the president was doing in the 1940s. See how each president since then has fared in the approval poll, look at some news events that influenced public opinion and compare how approval ratings evolved for each president.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Facade:
The great man had the other great men in his pocket. He could call out the guard on a whim. He could kill a man legal. He could kill him any which way. He could do what he pleased. He could live in the shadow of a boneyard in a palace and there were none dared to squeak. The men said we'll vote and stick together, and the great man just put one more man in charge of them, the new black prince of the county with the thing with the letters behind him. It was organized, but not like you'd think. Things would go on behind a velvet curtain. If they drew it back you'd see the smirk of the hyena in there. -- Sippican Cottage: Coal Breaker

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:36 PM | Your Say (1)

Relax. Junkfood Science says There's nothing to fear.
It’s not like the government will install 24-hour surveillance cameras into our homes to make sure we’re behaving correctly, that parents are feeding their children properly and children are eating their vegetables, doing their homework and going to bed on time. It’s not like government guards will be sent to carry out home checks.

It’s not like the government will target tens of thousands of people for having bad behavior and place them in sin bins to improve their sinful behavior. It’s not like we’ll have to sign good behavior contracts which set out our duties for good behavior and if we refuse, we could lose our homes, have our children seized by the government, be fined and imprisoned.

It’s not like teachers will report us to the government if the school believes parents haven’t followed the contract. It’s not like our neighbors will spy for the government and report bad behaviors and bad habits like drinking or failing to follow the government-prescribed proper eating plan.

No, nothing like that could ever happen in this day and age. That would be right out of Nineteen Eighty-Four and that was a novel, not a government blueprint.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:24 AM | Your Say (4)

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On "Democracies that have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the [ 61 ]same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. -- -- James Madison in The Federalist Papers/No. 10

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (0)

Congressmen upset over citizens showing up at meetings and sharing their opinions of Congress?

White House ads talking about "Calling out the mob?"

Well.... Let's Review:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." -- First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (1)

August 4, 2009

500 PENCILS

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:03 PM | Your Say (2)

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Samuel Johnson:
"'The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the Alps, sat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe; but it would be a picture of nothing."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:50 PM | Your Say (1)

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United Nuclear - Caffeine Soap
Do you wake up in the morning feeling like a zombie, standing there starting at your coffee maker waiting for it to produce that cup of Joe to bring you back to life? Want to speed up the process?

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:34 PM | Your Say (0)

A surviving brass "B" might mean Times New Roman should be called Starling: The history of the Times New Roman typeface
“Gerald sent me some pattern plates and said, ‘Do these look familiar?’” Parker said. “I said ‘yes, they’re Times Roman.’ He said, ‘No, they’re much earlier than that.’”

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (2)

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And the Gilded Horse Apple Award for Greatest Use of Bullshit by a Feminist goes to...Meet Animal Meat
Informed by feminist investigations of embodiment and bodiliness, we ask: How do we understand our bodily relationship to other animals? How do we embody animals, and how do animals embody us? How are carnal modes of incorporation, intimacy, and inhabitation kinds of contacts forged between “HumAnimals”? If, as Donna Haraway writes, “animals are everywhere full partners in worlding, in becoming with,” then how do embodied encounters with animal matter necessarily constitute categories of “human” and “animal”? What is the meaning of meat, and the meat of meaning?

And while you contemplate that meet "Meet Animal Meat" keynote speaker, Judith "Jack" Halberstam, Professor of English and Gender Studies at USC.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:12 PM | Your Say (5)

Feeding the world isn't for sissies like Michael Pollan: The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals
Farmers have reasons for their actions, and society should listen to them as we embark upon this reappraisal of our agricultural system. I use chemicals and diesel fuel to accomplish the tasks my grandfather used to do with sweat, and I use a computer instead of a lined notebook and a pencil, but I'm still farming the same land he did 80 years ago, and the fund of knowledge that our family has accumulated about our small part of Missouri is valuable. And everything I know and I have learned tells me this: we have to farm "industrially" to feed the world, and by using those "industrial" tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task and leave my grandchildren a prosperous and productive farm, while protecting the land, water, and air around us.
Pollen's other grand idea is mandatory household composting, with the compost delivered to farmers free of charge. Why not? Compost is a valuable soil amendment, and if somebody else is paying to deliver it to my farm, then bring it on. But it will not do much to solve the nitrogen problem. Household compost has somewhere between 1 and 5 percent nitrogen, and not all that nitrogen is available to crops the first year. Presently, we are applying about 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre to corn, and crediting about 40 pounds per acre from the preceding years soybean crop. Let's assume a 5 percent nitrogen rate, or about 100 pounds of nitrogen per ton of compost. That would require 3,000 pounds of compost per acre. Or about 150,000 tons for the corn raised in our county. The average truck carries about 20 tons. Picture 7,500 trucks traveling from New York City to our small county here in the Midwest, delivering compost. Five million truckloads to fertilize the country's corn crop. Now, that would be a carbon footprint!

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:43 PM | Your Say (1)

Ah boating! WESTSOUND MODERN wants it bad.
Can you imagine the fellow readying his fishing gear at 5:30 AM on this tranquil mountain lake, drowsily raising his first cup of coffee to his lips as he opens the cabin door to behold the sunrise, and then have this 3,000 HP slab of mahogany blast by the cabin just off the end of his dock at 170mph?

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:58 PM | Your Say (7)

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Not-the-President Clinton meets with Dead Guy

Bill Clinton, the Jesse Jackson of the Obama Age:
"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it," the news agency reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view. "The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them." -- N. Korean leader reportedly pardons U.S. journalists

I must have missed the memo where Bill Clinton was given any sort of official status when it comes to international diplomacy. I thought that was reserved for his politically gelded wife.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:10 PM | Your Say (0)

Russia to Obama, "F.U.:"
Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S. “I don’t think they’ve put two first-line nuclear subs off the U.S. coast in about 15 years,” said Norman Polmar, a naval historian and submarine warfare expert.

Don't recall this little problem during the Bush years, do you?

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:52 PM | Your Say (0)

The White House sez Please take a moment to rat out your neighbors.
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov

Whatever you may think about health care, "flag" has got nothing to do with patriotism, but a lot to do with the rising tide of Big Brother bullshit.

There a video at the link from a woman paid to pump out the Obama propaganda who complains about people (citizens) with 'an internet connection and a lot of time on their hands.' Not an internet connection and a staff and a pay-check like, well, her. Also check her video at 20 seconds to see the pointer to the Drudge Report. I guess Matt Drudge is this month's Rush Limbaugh for the professional Obamallationists at the White House.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:42 PM | Your Say (2)

This just In: Joker Outraged Over Obama Poster Plus

Don't blame me...I voted for The Penguin.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:45 AM | Your Say (0)

August 3, 2009

When the pain doesn't stop for nine years:
When I hurt my arms it was terrifying; the pain felt like nothing I'd ever had before, and it was with me 24/7. The best I can do to describe it is to say that among its many horrific qualities was the feeling of having sustained a severe sunburn on the entire surface of both arms. But with a real sunburn, there are salves and ointments to apply, you know why you're hurting, and you know that in a few days the pain will go away. -- neo-neocon Chronic pain, health insurance, and me

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:39 PM | Your Say (0)

Proof positive of the "Intelligent Design Theory"


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I think that the Intelligent Design Theory requires deep and prolonged research. I will be reporting back here with similar exhibits from time to time. Since the Googacle reports Megan Fox pictures @ Google Images = "About 5,540,000," I should be at this for quite some time. Stay tuned for exciting new discoveries and revelations.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (1)

"Light Fuse and Get Inside." Vintage Village Idiot Performs:
At the Fowlerville Family Fair here, John Fletcher wrapped himself in more than 12,000 firecrackers and got ready to set them all off. He tucked his ponytail under his protective suit, grasped a cigarette lighter with his left hand and planted his feet in a hydraulic bucket crane. As about a hundred people looked on, he gave the order to raise the bucket. "I started to cry a little bit when I put my goggles on and saw the crowd," Mr. Fletcher recalls. He admits he was scared. -- When You Perform in a Firecracker Suit, Every Show Ends With a Bang - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (1)

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The Brits are SO effin' screwed. US next?:
THOUSANDS of the worst families in England are to be put in "sin bins"€ in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday. The Children's Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes. -- Daily Express

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (6)

Traitor and spy Anthony Blunt, 1937:
Certain changes will inevitably take place in the forms which artists use to express the ideas of the classless society. The conception of a painting as a unique private possession will disappear....The easel painting, which was the particular art-form evolved at the time of the Renaissance when art became essentially private, will become of secondary importance, and instead mural painting will be developed in a form suitable to the decoration of the communal buildings devoted to the culture and recreation of the workers. -- Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche: Tragic, to be Blunt

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:54 AM | Your Say (0)

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The Hot Waitress Index:
The hotter the waitresses, the weaker the economy. In flush times, there is a robust market for hotness. Selling everything from condos to premium vodka is enhanced by proximity to pretty young people (of both sexes) who get paid for providing this service. That leaves more-punishing work, like waiting tables, to those with less striking genetic gifts. But not anymore. -- New York Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:04 AM | Your Say (0)

Flight Level 390: Opposite Direction Traffic
Underneath, Gen. Robert E. Lee's home with row upon row of white headstones painted orange by the morning sun. It is one of those Oh My God moments. I tell the co-pilot about it but he cannot see it from his side. Good Lord, look at that... And then it is gone as The Electric Jet punches the broken cloud layer and climbs into the blue above.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:42 AM | Your Say (0)

Thanet Earth and the Crystal Palaces of the Coming Salad Crisis Era

It's huge, massive, perhaps so gargantuan that illegal migrant workers might go undetected among the wild thickets of cucumbers and peppers, lost in the din of pneumatic harvesters, sonorous simulant thunderstorms and the reverberated rustlings of tomato leaves. It's just huge, massive, gargantuan.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:54 AM | Your Say (1)

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As ye 'so,' so shall ye speak
The so in question, the so that begins a sentence with no earthly reason to do so, is not a tool of enhancement or logic – it is the poster-child of illogic. This so is a pause, a ploy, a nonreferential reference at the beginning of a conversation. It is a transition from nowhere. "So how are you?" evokes a disclosure of no thing, "So I'm fine." Somewhere, somehow, not so long ago, this so came to be a place-marker, a pretender, a vamp-'til-ready sort of miscreant. You know, like you know used to be? Or like like once was?

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:34 AM | Your Say (0)

August 2, 2009

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Peek-A-Boo!
35-year-old Liu Bolin, from Shandong, China, manages to camouflage himself in any surroundings, no matter how difficult they might be.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:52 PM | Your Say (0)

I want one.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:50 PM | Your Say (1)

You're Maureen Dowd, and you're scared.
Sure, the face in the mirror has dried around the eyes and the mouth -- but you're of Irish stock, you know, and they're known for that white and fragile complexion. Nothing that your favorite moisturizer, Creme de la Mer, a mere $130 an ounce at the preferred store of the women of the Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, can't handle. And, of course, a ban on updating the headshot accompanying your column; not that you care, just that you have better things to do than sit for a photo of a face that hasn't changed in a decade, right? -- Stuart Schwartz @ American Thinker

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:42 PM | Your Say (0)

President Shifty:
This furtiveness on Obama's part ties into his secrecy about other aspects of his life. I'm referring most particularly to his school records, from Occidental and Columbia and Harvard Law. These, we know he could release. This failure of his leads inexorably to the perception that the man is hiding something, although we don't know exactly what or exactly why. But our guesses fill the void, and it's not with innocent explanations. -- neo-neocon サ Blog Archive サ On the nirthers and the press

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:32 PM | Your Say (0)

August 1, 2009

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Spotted in Los Angeles and Seattle. Linked to the shadowy Conservative Resistance Alliance (CRA).

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:49 PM | Your Say (3)

"Okay, so, a dago, a wop, and a chink walk into a bar...."

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:53 PM | Your Say (0)

"BWAIN!" Arnold's secret Sacramento bwain trust.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (0)

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"Protectors of the Tab:"
They were grumpy and stuck in the past a bit, and reveling in a smug feeling of "you'll never know what it was like to be me, it was so much harder back then, and meant so much more." As with just about everything else, those who had already done it liked to imagine that political correctness, dreadlocked liberals, and some unnamed congress people had stepped in to forever erase the challenge and honor that used to be required to pass the course. - The Dipso Chronicles: We Used To

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:39 AM | Your Say (0)

Will Amazon's Kindle Will Replace the Book -Pundits Say "Yes" Oh, really? I say it will until the first time it's lost or stolen with about $500 worth of books on it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (1)

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Via brown cardigan

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (2)

The bottom's in sight:
The many symptoms of civilizational decay that lay partly concealed beneath the surface of society only recently came into full view, in the open pornography, the open nihilism, the despairing flippancy, visible throughout our contemporary public life. But the pond was long draining, and it is only now we see fish flopping in the mud.

Euthanasia is the final "life issue," the clincher for what the last pope called "the culture of death." Even when legalizing abortion, we agreed only to the slaughter of human beings we could not see. It was still possible to look away, to pretend we were not killing "real people," only "potential people." But when we embrace so-called "mercy killing," we embrace slaughter not only for the sick and old, but ultimately, the "option" of easy suicide for ourselves. It will be hard to go lower. -- The killing fields @ David Warren

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:19 AM | Your Say (0)

Snooze-inducing Patented Rant Alert: Can we all just agree not to use this quote for about 5 years?
"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." - William F. Buckley, Jr -- American Thinker: Liberalism and the Dumbing Down of America Okay, okay... we get it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:14 AM | Your Say (0)

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As the “Domestic Goddess”
dons the famous moustache, transforming into “Domestic Goddess Hitler,” I notice that she’s beginning to have fun.... As we wrap up the shoot, Barr puts her Swastika armband, one of the gingerbread victims and a Polaroid of herself in the costume in a Ziploc bag, making it look like evidence from some bizarre crime scene. She plans on bringing it to her 13-year-old son when she picks him up from school. “Maybe this will make my kid like me,” she says with a sigh. -- Heeb: The Germany Issue: That Oven Feelin'

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (0)

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"Not all voices are demonic.
I once met a man who heard happy voices. I was walking down the hall of the locked ward in the hospital’s inpatient facility (“Club Head”, we called it) and a young man with dark curly hair approached me, staring into space, smiling, giggling, laughing. He turned his head to whisper to someone who was obviously not there. We passed each other and I heard him chuckle and say, “That’s very funny.” I knew he wasn’t talking to me–I hadn’t said or done anything–and I knew he was psychotic (I recognised the symptoms). At dinner that night I asked my roommate about the young man. “Oh, that’s Kevin," he answered. "He hears happy voices.” I immediately hated Kevin."-- BEING CRAZY IS NOISY | More Intelligent Life

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:30 AM | Your Say (0)