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December 31, 2009

Sarah Palin, Man of the Year

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Thus saith ォDon Surber and he's right:
"She endured the most and came to symbolize the majority of American citizens who are stunned by the attempt to rapidly dismantle this great nation of ours and transform it into another Euro-weenie socialist country that apologizes for trying to save the rest of the world over the years."

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:16 PM | Your Say (4)

Rumors of Rush Limbaugh's Death Are Premature

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Wikipedia continues it's leftward plunge: Oops! Wikipedia Pronounced Rush Limbaugh Dead | RadarOnline.com

It takes a special kind of slime to write the headline Limbaugh Rushed To Honolulu Hospital That Gave Rise To "Birther"€™ Conspiracy and Andrea Nill aka "anill" of "Think Progress"does not disappoint. Fortunately Mr. Limbaugh is doing well and recovering.

In contrast Ed Morrissey @ Hot Air gives "a personal perspective on a man who has become a friend and a mentor over the years, and whose generosity and spirit may not be as widely known as his opinions. Say a prayer for Rush and for his family, and if you can't do it for the political commentator, do it for the friend."

Much re-tweeted at Twitter: "The people calling for Rush Limbaugh to die are the same people who ask to control your healthcare." -- Althouse: "I hope he dies."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (6)

December 30, 2009

Charles Johnson Reveals His Deep Shallowness in Latest Snapshot

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Oceanclouidbank

Yes, it's another soporific seascrape sensantion for America's most autistic photographer, Charles Foster Johnson. Entitled "Oceanclouidbank" for the wisps of "clouid" in the far distance, this masterwork of Johnson's evokes the memory of the famous hosanna to Catalina Island. The oft-heard refrain in this classic is "Twenty six miles across the sea/ Santa Catalina is a waitin' for me." Many at Little Green Footballs after this stunning study in the soft focus blue-grey monochromic smear of pixels were offering seriously folding money is shutterbug Johnson would simply ride his bike across those 26 miles of sea.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:24 PM | Your Say (14)

Again we must ask, "Who is paying Andrew Sullivan for this garbage? A fool?"

It's in the magic of his face! Sullivan in December 2007 writes:
"There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in. Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can." -- Andrew Sullivan - The Atlantic 12/07

[Thanks to commenter Blastineau's Comment on AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The Obomber: First One's Always a Freebie]

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:26 PM | Your Say (4)

Who is this masked naked emperor?

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Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people:
He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency. -- Shelby Steele: Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (2)

That fat little "Obama's a great speaker" worm

Can we please stop with the

"He gives the best speeches since they put since sliced bread in a can" garbage? What speeches are you watching? They suck. Com. Pletely. Suck. He is rigid, robotic, and utterly, unmistakably lacking any convincing amount of conviction behind his declarations. There is nothing genuine or believable in anything he says, and frankly, his delivery is as unappealing as any of the last 400 attempts Oprah's people have made to make her look less like a space alien. -- The Dipso Chronicles: Wonderful Speeches? Really?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (3)

December 29, 2009

Daphne's Forming Up an Anarchistic Band of Pistoleros Down Texas Way. Be There or....

The cant of thieves runs thick and swift through our times,

a river of melody cajoling the fools and feckless into greater abandon of their father’s house. We have forgotten our faces, go and reacquaint yourselves with the men and women who forged this fine country, absorb their clear ideas of freedom and abandon every false thing you’ve been fed by the political parties that dominate our failing country and debased culture. If you are able to cast off the decades long chains of ingrained lies, you can still save the country. I believe that’s true. -- The Cant Of Thieves ォ Jaded Haven

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:14 PM | Your Say (0)

In Which, Again, the Commenters Are Smarter Than The New York Times Reporters

"The mistake is looking too hard for the bombs and not hard enough for the bombers." -- Obama Is Told of Signs That Should Have Grounded Plot - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:50 PM | Your Say (1)

Flight 253 hero Schuringa to be prosecuted

"In announcing the pending charges against Schuringa

the Justice Department spokesman said that after being treated for his burns, Abdulmutallab told a federal agent that Schuringa had slugged him in the mouth. Abdulmutallab pointed to his swollen lip as evidence of the assault.
"It's now well established in anti-terrorism operations that you cannot just go around slugging murderous terrorists in the mouth," said the spokesman. "What's fair for Navy SEALs will be fair for Mr. Schuringa. The law is the law." He added that Attorney General Eric Holder had approved charging Mr. Schuringa with assault." -- Thus saith Sensing @ Sense of Events

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:14 PM | Your Say (2)

You've got stupid questions? Charles Johnson's got stupid answers

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Charles "I'm writing as bad as I can" Johnson opens his current Obama rimming session with:
"All of the wingnut blogs are screaming that in his statement about the Northwest 253 terror attack, President Obama called the alleged terrorist an “isolated extremist.”
Leather-chaps clad Little Green Snowballer Spare O'Lake asks cluelessly :
"I agree that he didn't mean that the terrorist acted alone. So what the heck DID he mean?" [Translation: "I accept, o great leader, that 2+2 does not = 4, but tell me, pray, what does it equal? And please smite me not!"]
And because there are still a few days left to win the Moronic Answer of the Year Award Johnson emits...:
Well, if you stop trying to find something evil in it, his statement is amazingly clear: the terrorist was "isolated" on the plane, as in, he was the only terrorist on the plane.
And with that.... Bing! We have a winner!
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Item, illustration, and attitude courtesy of the ever popular Transsylvania Phoenix: Charles Johnson Hits Bottom, Digs who reads Johnson so we don't have to.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:35 PM | Your Say (3)

Good Questions Never to Be Asked

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From the latest installment of iOwnTheWorld's "The Obamas:" The Garlic Press

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:09 AM | Your Say (2)

"This is a moment in history, and he's missing it."

Revolutions happen quickly.
There is a moment here in which if the thugs in the street who are shooting in the crowds stop shooting, it's over and the regime will fall. The courage of the demonstrators and their boldness isn't only a demonstration of courage, it is an indication of the shift in the balance of power. The regime is weakening. This is a hinge of history. Everything in the region will change if the regime is changed. Obama ought to be strong out there in saying: It is an illegitimate government. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people in the street.-- Charles Krauthammer

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (2)

December 28, 2009

Sign of the Times

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

Man, Do I Hate Holiday Travel

Lemme ask you: have you ever tried to inject a glycerin detonator syringe into some plastic explosives glued under your nutsack,

while you were stoned out of your gourd, in an airplane bathroom, during Lake Erie turbulence, while some stupid hippie is pounding on the door? Take my word for this, it. is. a. mofo. I must have stabbed myself in the junk eight or ten times before I finally got it smoldering. So I stroll out of the loo, real casual-like, with my nuts on fire, and headed back to my seat to blow out the fuselage. -- iowahawk

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:09 PM | Your Say (0)

Now here's a thought

"We've spent eight years looking for little scissors and toenail clippers,"

said Ken Dunlap, IATA's director of security in North America. "Perhaps the emphasis should be looking for bad people." -- washingtonpost.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:14 PM | Your Say (4)

What the President Should Have Announced

This presumes, of course, that the president is a man.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:48 PM | Your Say (2)

Elsewhen

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The consistently wonderful and luminous BibliOdyssey is bringing you art from Classical Egypt

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

Here's the News of the Day, Week, Month, Year, Decade

We had better get used to being the civilians

who are under a relentless and planned assault from the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims. Our civil aviation is only the most psychologically frightening symbol of a plethora of potential targets. The future murderers will generally not be from refugee camps or slums (though they are being indoctrinated every day in our prisons); they will frequently be from educated backgrounds, and they will often not be from overseas at all. They are already in our suburbs and even in our military. We can expect to take casualties. --- The truth about airplane security measures. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
Used to it until such time as we have taken so many casualties that we decide, finally, to kill them and their culture wholesale. "Well begun is half-done."

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:09 AM | Your Say (3)

Golly Gee! It Really Was the Whitest Christmas Ever!

877 new snowfall records set or tied in the USA in the last week. And that's not all, for the week ending Dec 13th, there were 815 new snowfall records set. December 2009 is shaping up to be quite the snowmaker. Here's a map showing continental USA records. -- Watts Up With That?
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Look for two new statements to take hold amongst the Alarmists in the near future:

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:00 AM | Your Say (2)

December 27, 2009

Unlike Millions of Americans Trying to Fly Home from the Holidays

Comforting USA Today headline: Obamas enjoy private, secure Hawaii vacation

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:00 PM | Your Say (0)

One of the Ways of Reading

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Reading must occur everyday, but it is not just any daily reading that will do. The day’s reading must include at minimum a few lines whose principal intent is to be beautiful—words composed as much for the sake of their composition as for the meaning they convey. -- from a working library

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:34 PM | Your Say (1)

Pantyhosed Bomber Reactions: Bint #10 Reporting for Duty, Sir!

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You might think Janet Neopolitano is a brain-dead daft bint and an Obamalationist bottom and you'd be right. But just because she's got that skunk streak in her hair doesn't mean she's number 1 among the bints.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:28 PM | Your Say (5)

Smart" as in "Ass"

Barack Obama, for example, has obviously been crowned a Smart Person

virtually from the moment he entered the national scene. Now, there is zero (0) evidence i can see that Barack Obama is all that smart, at least not any more so than tens of millions of other folks. But he is definitely a Smart Person. Even I can see that. Just look at how he... um... talks in soft tones while wearing a suit, raising his eyebrows in concerned ways, and being skinny (?). Well okay, it's not clear how or why I or anyone else knows or thinks that he's Smart, what is clear is that we just do.
Another example came in the 2004 Bush v. Kerry campaign. Everyone, including Kerry, knows that Kerry was the Smart Person candidate and that Bush was a Dummy. So dumb! Not like Kerry. Lanky, graying, concerned-eyebrow, pronouncing-Genghis-like-”Jenjis” John Kerry. So Smart! Obviously, the Smart People all wanted Kerry to win on account of how Smart Kerry was. But again, objectively, there is zero evidence that John Kerry is one whit smarter than George W. Bush. None. In fact if anything there may be evidence to the contrary. -- The Smart People Crowd « Rhymes With Cars & Girls

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:14 PM | Your Say (1)

2009: The Summing Up

It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of "I feel hopeful!'' and later in the sense of "I hope this year ends soon!'' -- Dave Barry'

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:59 AM | Your Say (5)

December 26, 2009

Markets in Everything!

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Exurban League's Top 10 Suicide Underwear Brand Names

10. Fruit of the Boom
9. Depends Underarmaments
8. C4lvin Klein
7. Akbar-bombie & Twitch
6. Victoria's Secret Weapon
5. Thunder Armour
4. Nitropyserin
3. Joe Bomber
2. Kabloomers
1. Ignity Whities

Follow the link and add your own!

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:27 PM | Your Say (0)

All Reparations, All Public Option, All Death Panels, All the Time

My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate:

The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly. -- Cross the River, Burn the Bridge by Mark Steyn

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:17 AM | Your Say (0)

Media Whores

If things seem to be getting worse and worse, the outrages more egregious, and our elected officials more open and shameless about them, that's not just a coincidence. We are seeing the effects of a corrupted press. -- neo-neocon on The silence of the MSM

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (2)

December 25, 2009

Explosives in Seat 19A

Seat 19A is right over the wing and near the fuel tanks

as shown in the diagram above, taken from an NWA passenger guide to seating on an A330. The shaded area represents the swept-back wing. Presumably, Mudallad timed his actions to coincide with the lowering of the landing gear, which signified that the airliner was over Detroit. Had his explosives worked correctly, the Airbus might have crashed into the city itself with incalculable results. Yeman, as some may recall, has been the scene of the “secret war” against al-Qaeda featured in several recent posts on the Belmont Club.  Just as the press has said that such and such an attack has been a retaliation for "Iraq" or "Afghanistan"€ or "Gaza" -- pick a place, it might be a mistake to think that this incident represents a retaliation for "Yemen"€, because by extension it would be "Obama's fault". In reality, al-Qaeda declared war against America long ago for very general reasons. That war isn't over, however certain political organizations wish to believe it. -- Belmont Club: Over Detroit

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:28 PM | Your Say (0)

The Watchers Council Picks the Week's Best Posts

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The Watcher of Weasel Council Christmas winners are up.

Taking first in the Council submissions is Bookworm Room's "The Communist cat is out of the climate change bag" which notes:

[The media] don't want the American people to see or know anything about all of this and, because it lacks good visuals, it's easy to hide. There's a revolution taking place, and the media is doing its damndest to bury it.

In the non-Council submissions the admirable Michael Yon takes top honors with his reporting on Arghandab & The Battle for Kandahar:

First, let's talk about understanding "the borders."€ They are fictitious. The "borders"€ that describe the "country"€ of Afghanistan have trivial effect on the enemy, but the borders (without quotes) greatly affect Pakistan and the Coalition. The AfPak frontier will be sealed the day frogs stop croaking.

Here's the complete scorecard:

Council Submissions

First place with 2 points! – Bookworm Room - The Communist Cat is out of the Climate Change Bag
Second place with 1 2/3 points – (Tie*) – Wolf Howling - The Democrats’ Assault On Deliberative Democracy
Second place with 1 2/3 points – (Tie*) –The Glittering Eye - The Healthcare Reform House of Cards
Third place with 1 1/3 point – American Digest - What’s bad for America is good for the Obama gang
Fourth place with 1 point – Soccer Dad - Iran’s Cats Paw
Fifth place with 2/3 point – (Tie*) – Joshuapundit - Jimmy Carter Apologizes To Jews !!##!?!
Fifth place with 2/3 point – (Tie*) – The Razor - Democrats Gripping the Disemboweling Knife
Fifth place with 2/3 point –(Tie*) – Right Truth - Hundreds of British schoolgirls facing genital mutilation

Non-Council Submissions

First place with 2 1/3 points! – Michael Yon - Arghandab & The Battle for Kandahar
Second place with 2 points – The Doctor is In - Our Gnostic Masters
Third place with 1 1/3 points– Reason - The State’s Failed Experiments
Fourth place with 1 point – (Tie*) – Totus - ATTACK: Washington D.C. Nuked
Fourth place with 1 point (Tie*) – Chronicle of Higher Education - Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students
Fifth place with 2/3 points – To Which I Replied - 40 Reasons To Ban Guns
Fifth place with 1/3 point(Tie*) – Gay Patriot - Will Obamacare Passage Lead to Inverse Cloward-Piven?
Fifth place with 1/3 point(Tie*) – In Context - Ban Champagne

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:10 PM | Your Say (0)

December 24, 2009

On Liberty: The Anchoress Would Like a Word with You

header_the_anchoress.jpg"We must repeat, over and over, that Liberty is the means by which we created creatures are meant to live and to grow and be. That Liberty lives in the Truth. That Liberty lives where people can speak freely, without fear of injury or reprisals. That Liberty lives only when the press is free and unencumbered -- when it is detached from events instead of entwined in them. That Liberty lives when people refuse to be intimidated into silence or acquiescence, whether in the workplace or within the community. That Liberty is the fragile thing that diminishes whenever one refuses to acclaim it for oneself." -- The Art of the Painless Coup @ The Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:48 PM | Your Say (2)

December 23, 2009

China Screws Obama Without Even a Kiss First

China, alone of all the economic superpowers of the world, is free of socialistic environmentalism.

Without that monkey on its back, without the need to satisfy a thousand special Quango interests, China has achieved a prodigious amount of real power. Barack Obama, who is in the middle of trading what is left of American real power for European soft power, was momentarily rocked back on his heels. Has he learned anything? Obama flew back to take charge of his health care "reform" plan. -- Belmont Club » A Cycle of Cathay

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:48 PM | Your Say (1)

Let Them Eat Blood

"Asking why would Obama & Co. be so self-destructive

to push through an array of proposals that have no more than 45% of the public's support is like asking whether the English Prof who teaches incomprehensible Foucauldian theory worries whether he has only 2 students, or whether the well-off union boss is all that upset that membership has sunk to 30% of the workforce, or multimillion-dollar-earning, Sarah Palin-interviewing, Katie Couric is worried about her sinking ratings, or whether the New York Times columnists are upset that their mother paper is broke, subscription and readership down, and laying off thousands of blue-collar employees.
"Instead, for the true believer, it is all about the self, and the sense of the self -- and damn all other considerations. (We saw that with Jimmy Carter as well; that he destroyed liberal Democrat politics for a generation meant nothing; that he won prizes and jet-setted the world for thirty years meant everything. For these people, it is always about them -- all the time. Let us eat cake as they end up liberal icons for the duration)." -- Victor Hanson: Where Did These Guys Come From?

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:13 AM | Your Say (1)

"What is true will always be so...

Scientific fads and fashions will come and go, but Man will always be in the image of the Creator, a meta-cosmic truth from which our rights, our duties, and our dignity flow. Only man can -- and therefore must! -- live by the light of eternity, so that all we do, say, write, create and think, can resonate with the Real and thus 'pass the test of time.' " -- One Cʘsmos: A Much Updated Ruin From a Much Outdated Style

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Posted by Vanderleun at 8:06 AM | Your Say (0)

Obama Leaves Washington. Approval Rating Improves to -18

Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 -- Rasmussen Reports™

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:10 AM | Your Say (2)

The Avatars of Avatar

Meta-avatars: the usual suspects:

nice the way Cameron blended the Evil Corporation with the Evil Military by making the military mercenaries in the pay of the Evil Corporation, like Blackwater or Executive Outcomes. Bonus points, that. Because once you throw the profit motive at a soldier, he becomes a fucking Killing Machine! We see this all the time. Where? Shut up.
This planet Pandora was also all spiritually interconnected via roots and vines and shit, with a Mother Nature/Gaia figure called Eyra. Like Enya, I suppose. Avatar? No idea on this one. No one has gone quite that gay before. Maybe an avatar for Signs, by the 5 Man Electrical Band, if I had to reach.
Another nice meta-avatar was blending the aborigines: they rode hossie-like creatures, shot bows and arrows, and yip-yip-yipped in a fashion so stereotypical of Injuns I thought for a moment I was watching a B-Western from 1932. I was actually embarrassed for a sound effect. There's a first. And blended with the African-American-Caribbean hair braids, it was an unassailable minority in-yo-face bitchslap to us honkeys. -- Velociworld: Avatars

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:49 AM | Your Say (1)

December 22, 2009

Efficient Government Xmas Card: One Sign, Two Lies, Six Liars

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Posted by Vanderleun at 10:18 PM | Your Say (3)

Global Warming Strikes Again!

Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:34 PM | Your Say (2)

The 32 Arms of Santa Claus

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The very versatile artist, Ed Emshweller (AKA Emsh),

did a series of Christmas covers for Galaxy SF magazine in the 50s and early 60s. They all feature a four-armed Santa. I wonder if the Santa is a cyborg, mutant, or an alien. My vote is for a Mutant. All that mutative radiation from the magic dust. -- BRAIN PLUCKER

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (1)

The Reception of Sanctuary -- What I Learned from the Hoh Rain Forest

Man was wiser when he knew he shared an intimacy with the stars,

which he called 'astrology.' Man was stronger and more brave when he believed that a reward awaited he who died bravely, and well. Man was a far, far more beautiful creature when he knew the tragedy of Love was bound with the fate of a people. Today when we say words from the Bible, we sound like tepid cymbals, not fully aroused souls. The modern man is afraid to pray because he cannot sing, not really; he is afraid to lift his heart in battle because, in the depths of his anguished, pitiable soul, he does not believe in what he's fighting for.
Pathetic bastard. -- Washington Rebel

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

Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional: Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform

"There is no quick fix that will eliminate the Reid Bill's major constitutional defects.

It would, of course, be a catastrophe if the Congress sought to put this program into place before its constitutionality were tested. Most ratemaking challenges are done on the strength of the record, and I see no reason why a court would let a health-insurance company be driven into bankruptcy before it could present its case that the mixture of regulations and subsidies makes it impossible to earn a reasonable return on its capital. At the very least, therefore, there are massive problems of delayed implementation that will plague any health-care legislation from the date of its passage." -- PointofLaw

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

December 21, 2009

For a fistful of dollars

Coming soon to an election near you:

"One of the saddest sights a man can watch is during election time in the Philippines when the poor are rounded up in dump trucks and rented buses and sequestered by politicians near polling precincts to vote. There they will receive ten dollars, if that, and an afternoon's worth of gin and peanuts. In exchange for this meager handout they will troop to the precinct and vote for the villain. The luckiest of that sad crowd are too stupid or drunk to care. But a substantial number know exactly what is happening; they are fully cognizant that the pittance they are about to receive will be taken back from them a hundredfold by the corrupt politician. They know it with the certainty of a sentient cow walking into an abbatoir. But they take the money anyway. They take it because they need the money and the forgetfulness today. Today the money will buy some rice; the gin will let them forget. Tomorrow is a luxury they cannot afford. Of all the tragic sights on earth, nothing is so pathetic as watching a man sell his dignity with both eyes open." -- Belmont Club サ Motor city

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:41 PM | Your Say (1)

"The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities."

Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money.

By "they" I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness. -- Rain and the Rhinoceros by Thomas Merton

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:51 PM | Your Say (0)

Picture of the Day

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Chris Taylor found it. God knows what he was searching for.

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

Stand

Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses

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

Industrial Nations Threaten Globe Again

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Anthropogenic Continental Drift: An Incoherent Truth

A new menace to the planet has been discovered and validated by a consensus of politically reliable scientists: Anthropogenic Continental Drift (ACD) will result in catastrophic damage and untold suffering, unless immediate indemnity payments from the United Sates, Europe, and Australia be made to the governments of non-industrial nations, to counteract this man-made threat to the world's habitats.
The continents rest on massive tectonic plates. Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th century, these plates were fixed in place and immobile. However, drilling for oil and mining for minerals has cut these plates loose from their primordial moorings and left them to drift aimlessly. "The potential for damage is truly catastrophic," said Hans Brinker, a spokesman for the International Panel on Continental Drift (IPCD). "The continents are adrift due to the ruthless capitalist exploitation of the environment for profit. Unless immediate steps are taken to halt all oil and mineral extraction, we can expect a massive surge in earthquakes and volcanos by next Tuesday." The representative seemed close to tears during his announcement, a clear indicator of the severity of the threat. -- The People's Cube

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:33 AM | Your Say (2)

December 20, 2009

Instructions for Wayfarers

"They will declare: Every journey has been taken.
You shall respond: I have not been to see myself.

They will insist: Everything has been spoken.
You shall reply: I have not had my say.

They will tell you: Everything has been done.
You shall reply: My way is not complete.

You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard.
Fear not. You are the gate - you, the gatekeeper.
And you shall go through and on... "

-- Dedication from Robert Fulghum's novel Third Wish

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:58 PM | Your Say (0)

Expectations

A Moving Meditation: "We are creatures of grand and dazzling expectations.

It is our glory and our weakness. It made us explore continents, fly to the Moon, defeat tyranny, create the greatest experiment with democracy ever embarked on. It also makes us vote for plausible idiots, marry people we think something they are not, pursue careers with no future, or imagine our darling children soldiers, poets, professors, evangelists or something else we aspire to for them." -- Retriever: We Had Expected More...
HT: Little Miss Attila

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:04 PM | Your Say (1)

World to Experience an Out of Money Experience

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"The world does not have the money to buy more US Treasuries." -- Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China

Senator%20Everett%20Dirksen_64x64.pngSenator Everett Dirksen famously said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money."

This is clearly outdated. Today it would have to read:

"A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it adds up to no money."



Posted by Vanderleun at 2:00 PM | Your Say (0)

Quote of the Year

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"I'm panicked I'm going to lose my job -- and I don't even f*****g have a job!" -- Link

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

What I really don't want for Christmas

I'm joining Sippican's suicide pact on this one: Sippican Cottage: It's A Miracle I Didn't Take My Own Life In 1974 While Listening To The AM Radio

It's not just the worst songs ever. It's ersatz versions of the worst songs ever. My sister fell for this once back then. She got one advertised as: "Performed by the original artists."

"The Original Artists" were a wedding band from Nebraska, I think.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (0)

Dear Global Language Monitor, Spel Chek is Your Friendeo

The Global Language Monitor tracking the "Top Word, Phrases, and Names of the Decade (2000-2009)" discovers the cookie of the decade:

cookieofthedecade2.jpg

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

The Noughtie List: the 2000s in Review

The only two things computers are good at, counting and lists, can be found at this list of all the "best ofs" lists from the 2000s: Compiled for your time wasting pleasure @ kottke.org.

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

In the meantime, get your cut throats off my knife

"Eventually, the "€œprogressives"€ will cut their own throats.

They will be torn apart by their stupidity, arrogance and unbridled ambition. Anyone who survives long enough will live to tell a bitter, but action-packed tale of mankind's latest tragedy, made all the more pathetic by the fact it was waged for incomprehensible and insane reasons." -- Belmont Club » Year end thoughts

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:13 AM | Your Say (0)

December 19, 2009

Missing George Bush?

Commenter Mickey NTH is:

"Yeah, I miss him.  He was decent and normal.  He was an alcoholic that hit the wall and pulled himself out.  He had tasted failure and knew what it was, he had lain awake in the dark watches of the little hours when all that is good in you shrivels, and all you can hear in your mind is the jeering.

"He had all of the advantages and nearly went Full Kennedy; and then he pulled out of that dive, corrected the spin, and climbed for altitude.

"Perhaps his days in an F-102 - an aircraft that I would not wish on my greatest foe - came to him.  Perhaps it was Laura who pulled him back. Perhaps it was the examples of his parents - if you wanted Ward and June Cleaver in the White House you got it with G.H.W. and Barbara.

"I don't know, but somewhere he found that inner core of decency and followed it.  Sort of like old Queen Elizabeth II - just fundamentally decent at the core, where it counts."

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

It Seems the Obamaites Have Some Time on Their Hands

After years of cadging me for money it appears I've made their customized Xmas card list: Happy Holidays from OFA

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:56 AM | Your Say (2)

It's a Dog's Life

Few things in life rival the pathos of a miniature Weiner dog, ass deep in snow.

I can see what he is thinking. He is thinking, "If you think I'm going to poop out here, you are out of your freaking mind. Put me back inside so I can poop under your dining room table like a civilized canine." -- Villainous Company: Liveblogging the Snowstorm

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:31 AM | Your Say (1)

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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:03 AM | Your Say (0)

HISTORIC!

This week has been truly historic.

It has marked the beginning of the landslide that is collapsing the whole AGW imposture. The pseudo-science of global warming is a global laughing stock and Copenhagen is a farce. In the warmist camp the Main Man is a railway engineer with huge investments in the carbon industry. That says it all. The world’s boiler being heroically damped down by the Fat Controller. Al Gore, occupant of the only private house that can be seen from space, so huge is its energy consumption, wanted to charge punters $1,200 to be photographed with him at Copenhagen. There is a man who is really worried about the planet’s future.
If there were not $45trillion of Western citizens’ money at stake, this would be the funniest moment in world history. What a bunch of buffoons. Not since Neville Chamberlain tugged a Claridge’s luncheon bill from his pocket and flourished it on the steps of the aircraft that brought him back from Munich has a worthless scrap of paper been so audaciously hyped. There was one good moment at Copenhagen, though: some seriously professional truncheon work by Danish Plod on the smellies. Otherwise, this event is strictly for Hans Christian Andersen. -- Copenhagen climate summit: 'most important paper in the world' is a glorified UN press release – Telegraph Blogs

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:45 AM | Your Say (0)

December 18, 2009

The Republic She is Kaput

Others (again, typically Republicans) dream of a restoration of populist democracy,

in which red-blooded Americans take back their government directly - without any of those corrupt politicians. Again: dream on. The American voting population, as a collective body, is nowhere near fit to hold the reins of government. It is not some collection of misunderstood statesmen. Indeed, it knows almost nothing of the reality of how Washington actually works. It is as unfit to govern as I am to fly a 747.

Those who dream of turning this clock back, of restoring defunct political arrangements or institutions, must answer this question: why would anyone who got their hands on power, then convey it to some other incompetent party? The answer is simple: they wouldn't, and shouldn't. If their goal is personal aggrandizement, they keep the power themselves. If their goal is competence, they keep the power themselves, or transfer it to some competent authority. Thus, the Republic is not restored; should not be restored; cannot be restored. -- Unqualified Reservations: Climategate: history's message

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:47 PM | Your Say (0)

"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb. Bomb, Bomb Yemen"

File under: "I try to become more cynical every day, but lately I just can't keep up."

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson. -- Cruise Missiles Strike Yemen - ABC News

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:00 PM | Your Say (2)

Just what does "reducing carbon emissions to 80% of 1990 levels, by 2050" really mean?

Now, I have an easy way to picture 2050:

my daughter, Sibyl, will be 42 in 2050. As a student of history, I also have an easy way to picture an 80% reduction in fossil-fuel use: Germany and Japan in, say, 1944. The little Nips, for instance, had a very active alternative-energy program. I believe turpentine from pine trees was a key component. The primary sources display little fondness for this weird fuel. An 80% energy cutoff goes beyond any mere economic calculation. It is a punitive measure of military proportions - to which one might subject a defeated enemy nation - for the purpose of collective penal subjugation. -- Unqualified Reservations: Climategate: history's message

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

BurgerObama's: Home of the Whopper

Holy burning bushes! Did you know that everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agrees with the president?

Obama stressed this week that you can "talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that ... whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses and government, those elements are in this bill."

Not "some" or "most" or "Peter Orszag on a two-day bender" but "every" health care economist in the entire world would tell you as much.

This sort of exaggeration reminds us of another whopper the president unloaded. While promoting the stimulus plan in January, he claimed that "there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy." -- RealClearPolitics - Obama's Imaginary Consensus

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:15 PM | Your Say (0)

In Which Liberal Eminence Gris Nat Hentoff Agrees with Me

JW: Do you think Obama is shallow?

NH: It's much worse than that. Obama has little, if any, principles except to aggrandize and make himself more and more important. You see that in his foreign policy. Obama lacks a backbone—both a constitutional backbone and a personal backbone. This is a man who is causing us and will cause us a great deal of harm constitutionally and personally. I say personally because I am 84 years old, and this is the first administration that has scared me in terms of my lifespan." --America Under Barack Obama: An Interview with Nat Hentoff

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:19 PM | Your Say (0)

How About Giving the 3rd World a Reverse Copenhagen!

Never mentioned is the corollary of the Copenhagen shake-down:

wealthy countries produce the steel, plastics, and information-based knowledge that poor countries use: paying a Zimbabwe billions for using less carbon would be as asinine as charging them billions for R&D full costs for the cars, industries, pharmaceuticals, eyeglasses, and technology their people use, but have not invented, fabricated, and in most cases maintained and repaired. -- Works and Days サ The Long March From California to Copenhagen

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:02 PM | Your Say (0)

A rocket scientist on "climate science"

The sad fact is the science behind man-made global warming is not good science.

It is rather pathetic actually. I work with premier scientists and in fact review their missions for feasibility to return the results advertised. I would fail this mess without a second thought....
The science of global warming is a mess. They have no error budget that proves they can detect the warming they say they have detected. Their tree data is applied wrong by assuming a temp value when all you can estimate is a range (and tree ring recent divergence with current temps just proves trees are lousy indicators of temperature anyway). The alarmists have made all sorts of bogus and indefensible site adjustments, station combing while regularly making up stations from thin air to alter (or hide) the real temperature record.
Instead of explaining the data, they adjust the data to meet their explanations. The Global Climate research has not made it to a professional level of scientific endeavor as we see in more established areas of science.. If their science was so settled the supporters could answer these challenges without lifting a finger. But they cannot, instead they play PR games and smear their opponents. Houston, they have a problem. -- The Strata-Sphere サ How Not To Create A Historic Global Temp Index

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

Mr. Gobley on "The Annual Review"

We are all employed
In the service of
Something Great.
It's very possible
That we all know our
Employer
At least as well
As our Employer
Knows
Us . . .

-- Mr. Gobley: The Annual Review

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:43 PM | Your Say (1)

Andrew Sullivan's Closet Empties Out at Last

We found out Andrew Sullivan doesn't write

a healthy proportion of the posts on his "intensely personal" blog. Sullivan has drones doing about 40% ofhis posting, not including the "Mental Health Break" and "View From A Room" posts. Wouldn't it be cheaper to can the drones andhire a stoner to roll Andrew's spliffs for him? That would free up a fair amount of time for posting about Sarah and Trig, you know. Besides, it's not like he doesn't write like he's stoned anyway. You kinda have to wonder how long The Atlantic is going to allow Sully to sully the brand beforeshowing him the door. -- Dennis the Peasant: Is This A Great Week, Or What?
How long before they boot Sullivan? Listen, as long as Sullivan stays attached to David Bradley's jock he's golden.

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

Climategate: The Best Is Yet to Come!

Armed and Dangerous From Russia, with love

notes that Russian sources say:
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
and:
Climategate isn't over. Oh, no indeed -- these reports strongly suggest the most damaging revelations are still to come, when people start doing serious auditing of the "homogenized, value-added"€ data in comparison with raw datasets from real stations.

I think we're going to find that the scale of active fraud by the AGW-alarmist crowd will dumbfound almost everybody. Well, almost everybody except me. I'll be the guy cackling madly and yelling "I told you so!"€

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Aspergerian Johnsonian Fauxtography Strikes Again

Sigh. What can one do other than to pray that Charles Johnson's raging brain tumor goes into remission soon? His latest effort at schmotography is, alas, titled "Blue in Green." It looks like this:
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Note: Clicking image will make it bigger but, sadly, not more interesting

Without putting too fine a point on it, the only possible title to give this image, if one were speaking of color proportions, would be "Green in Blue." Instead, as in so many other things, Johnson gets this precisely backwards. If this sort of thing goes on with the web's worst photographer he might soon become the poster child for the expression: "Ward, I'm worried about the Beaver."

P.S. Charles, what is that stiff little sprig sticking up in the middle of the bottom of the picture? There's a concept in photography called "framing." Learn it, live it, and for heaven's sake use it. This is just sloppy.

Update: One clicks on the loathesome "Comments" wondering who will be the first to slobber and Sharmuta does not disappoint:
1 Sharmuta "Beautiful!"

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:29 AM | Your Say (4)

The Good Mask of Evil

"Now in our own day . . .

it is always in the name of good, of freedom, of concern for mankind that people are enslaved and murdered, deceived, lied to, slandered and destroyed. "Every evil screams out only one message: 'I am good!' "€ And not only does it scream, but it demands that the people cry out tirelessly in response: "You are good, you are freedom, you are happiness!" -- Fr. Alexander Schmemann,

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:48 AM | Your Say (0)

These are the good old days

"A nuclear-armed Iran is going to give America a healthy new perspective. We'll soon be longing for the days when a deep recession, massive debt, widespread unemployment, two wars, medical rationing, a jaundiced media, and inept leftist leadership were our worst problems." -- Dan Friedman

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:04 AM | Your Say (1)

December 17, 2009

Unwarranted Assumptions

There is a host of "Emergency Powers"€ already on the books

for the President to declare states of emergency based on a number of situations; military, economic, transportation, manufacturing, world trade, terrorism, internal security etc. that were granted by Congress during the Cold War and afterwards. Under those states of emergency, the president can functionally rule by decree and have it ratified by Congress later. Those emergency powers were always a two-edged sword; necessary for continuity of government if things were disrupted; but dangerous in the hands of someone whose love of the Constitution is so small that it cannot be detected with a scanning electron microscope. The assumption at the time was that if someone abused those powers, that there would be an opposition in Congress to balance him. Can you see anyone in Congress standing up to Buraq Hussein Obama? Of either party? -- Subotai Bahadur commenting @ Belmont Club » The Monkey Trap

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:33 PM | Your Say (1)

Dear GoogleMail,

If what you're telling me is, "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently" I fail to see how this will help:

MAILSUBSYTEMCHAT.jpg

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (0)

Yes it was a bad year, but let's not write it off entirely...

House passes temporary measures to end 2009 ... or at least make up your minds.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (0)

Christmas Rear

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The Santa Lucia Christmas market in Barcelona

sells everything you could need for your nativity scene. Little statues of Joseph and Mary? Check. A little baby Jesus? Check. Donkeys, sheep and cows? Check. Defecating world leaders? You what? -- Telegraph
Is The Won there? Can he make the cut? Yes he can can...

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HT: Greg

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (0)

The North Korean Pyongyang Restaurant in Phnom Penh

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Posted by Vanderleun at 7:14 AM | Your Say (0)

President Like Tiger Woods Still All Wee-Wee'd Up

"And the president pushing this agenda has, with his incontinent hunger for attention, seen his job approval vary inversely with his ubiquity." -- George Will: When the Charm Rubs Off [emphasis added]

in·con·ti·nent (n-knt-nnt) adj.
1. Not restrained; uncontrolled: incontinent rage.
2. Lacking normal voluntary control of excretory functions.
3. Lacking sexual restraint; unchaste.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:54 AM | Your Say (0)

Why Bother?: New Frontiers in Health Care Legislation!

"Maybe we've actually reached the point where not only aren't they reading the bill before voting on it, they're not even writing it before voting on it." -- Hot Air

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:00 AM | Your Say (0)

December 16, 2009

President Stands Behind Fistgate Education Guy

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The “Safe School Czar” Kevin Jennings Memorial

Today, president Barack Obama announced,

"That fistgate guy is all right with me. In fact, I'm dedicating this new monument on the mall in Washington to him and Andrew Sullivan and Charles Johnson and all others that, in their youth, didn't get the education they deserved. Let there be no mistake, in Obamaland all shall feel the stark fist of removal! No longer shall we be stuck in the dark ages of the evil Bush's 'No-Child-Left-Behind.' With my guy Kevin Jennings in charge the Obama education plan shall be No-Child's-Behind-Left-Unfilled!' "

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:55 PM | Your Say (4)

Walking, Talking, and Alas Still Breathing Definition of "Fat Chance"

"Michael Moore is calling for a boycott of Connecticut because of Joe Lieberman."Leキgal Inキsurキrecキtion

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

Really Good Question

"What the hell are girls doing playing contact sports for in the first place?" -- Velociworld

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:43 PM | Your Say (0)

Creepy Sullivan "Under-blogger" confession

One Patrick Appel, under-twink blogger for Andrew Sullivan explains that up-close and personal connection he has to the shamblogger:

I've marinated in Sullivan's cerebral juices for a few years now and know intuitively what he interested in and what to bring to his attention. -- via Ace of Spades HQ
We can see right there the special appeal Appel has for Sullivan. Keep up that marination, Patrick, you little minx.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (2)

Stinksmanship

Obama at the Precipice, or Have you Seen the Girl in the Freudian Slip?

Here's what President "he's a sort of God" Obama said at a news conference yesterday that: "It's clear we are on the precipice of an achievement that's eluded Congresses, presidents for generations -- an achievement that will touch the lives of nearly every American."
He probably meant "threshold" but he said "precipice." What's a precipice? According to my dictionary, it's "the brink of a dangerous situation." And that's certainly what we have here with the Democratic proposals to "reform" (what cards these chaps are!) health care.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:41 AM | Your Say (2)

An Easy Decision

"You can sign up in the lunch room for a free, 15-minute massage next week."
"Who is giving it?"
"His name is -"
"Nope."
-- The Dipso Chronicles

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

Bleed Air

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"The atmosphere is smooth at 31,000 feet.

This is an altitude that we do not operate at much, except for climbing/descending. Most contrails are above us and above them is the sun's brilliant white orb. All of this set in a dark blue sky. My God, it is beautiful." -- Flight Level 390: Bleed Air

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:17 AM | Your Say (0)

Not Even a Kick in the Head from Teddy Roosevelt's Horse Can Tell Him

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Obama: 'On the precipice' Really? Well, jump then!

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

December 14, 2009

Think Unemployment is Really Going Down? Think Again.

The level of un- and underemployment is so huge by historical standards

as to make the usual sort of measurement questionable. With nearly 20% of the population unable to find proper work, there is a different sort of workforce. The vast majority of job creation in the US during the past two generations came from small businesses, which display only vaguely on the radar of government agencies as well as the bigger private surveys. The financial crisis killed small entrepreneurs as surely as Joseph Stalin killed the kulaks, and the roots of the economy are dead and dry. -- Spengler

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (2)

4 Old White Guys Did the Renaissance. You're Out of Luck If You Expect Another Anytime Soon

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They're White, They're Dead, and They're Still Better Than Everyone Else Combined

"Our research indicates that da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Galileo basically hoisted the entire intellectual transformation of mankind onto their shoulders while everyone else just sat around being superstitious nimrods," said Sue Viero of the Correr Museum of Art in Venice, Italy. "Here's da Vinci busting his ass to paint such masterpieces as The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, while some loser like Albrecht Dürer is doing these dinky little woodcuts that are basically worthless." -- America's Finest News Source

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:06 PM | Your Say (3)

There Goes the Neighborhood

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SPLAT! A 12-story building topples over in China. (1) An underground garage was being dug on the south side, to a depth of 4.6 meters. (2) The excavated dirt was being piled up on the north side, to a height of 10 meters. (3) The building experienced uneven lateral pressure from south and north. (4) This resulted in a lateral pressure of 3,000 tones, which was greater than what the hollow pilings could tolerate. Thus the building toppled over in the southerly direction. -- From the Mailbag (Dr. X's Free Associations) [HT: Monday morning links - Maggie's Farm]

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

States Stealing from Your Safe Deposit Boxes

How the states seize the contents of your safe-deposit box. The institutional kleptocracy that is California is at the front of the line. Of course. [HT: NoisyRoom.net:]

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (1)

American Digest Gift Suggestion

For the man in your life, the 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds grill:

grills_for_real_men_12.jpg

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:42 AM | Your Say (1)

Eric Raymond has a graph he'd like you to see @ ....

Armed and Dangerous Hiding the facts in plain sight

Isn't it curious that every time we dig into the supposedly "value added, homogenized"€ data, we find a similar pattern of "admustments"€ in that oh-so-familiar hockey-stick shape?
Why, it's almost as if the people doing the "adjusting" imposed their preconceptions on the data, fixing it to conform to pet theories that just happen to be lucrative funding sources as well. But, no, that could never happen, could it?

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:02 AM | Your Say (0)

December 13, 2009

And we have liftoff!

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ClickIt

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

Jerry Pournelle asks, "What is the temperature of the sea?"

"I can go off the coast of Florida and get 10 different values in 20 miles at the same depth and latitude. Which one do I use as "the temperature off Florida"? Now consider that question write large and tell me the temperature of the ocean." -- Current Chaos Manor mail

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (6)

The Sermon from the Mound

If you smite a king, you'd better make sure you kill him.

And if you abuse language, you'd better make certain that you kill it dead, so that it is no longer possible to even think or say truth. Only if things no longer make sense can nonsensical things be forced upon you by the left.
This diabolical project is nearly complete in academia and the mass media, where the Lie reigns supreme. But the problem with any totalitarianism -- whether in its hard or soft forms -- is that any truth threatens the whole structure. It's like science, in which a single black swan disproves millions of observations that only white swans exist. -- One Cʘsmos: If You Strike At the Word, Make Sure You Kill Him

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:13 PM | Your Say (0)

Trench of Bayonets | Verdun, France

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On 12th of June 1916 Germans unleashed a hailstorm of iron and lead upon French positions.

The attack caught the French by surprise. The 137th Regiment of French infantry was annihilated almost to a man. Years after the war the French teams exploring the battle field uncovered the clues of horrific faith of this regiment. One of the trenches was discovered completely filled in, with only a neat line of bayonets sticking out of the ground. Bayonets were still fixed to their rifles. A body was found next to each rifle. The 3rd company of 137th regiment was buried alive, almost instantaneously, dieing where they stood. -- Atlas Obscura

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:06 AM | Your Say (2)

December 12, 2009

“I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.”

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Obama's become a crushing bore:

"The Obama speechwriting team don'€™t seem to realize that. They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: "€œThere are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization.  Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic, if somewhat hollow, uplift. Pause for applause."-- Once More from the Top, Barack! by Mark Steyn on National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:15 PM | Your Say (2)

Now Really. Who Would Fight for Obama?

A commenter in Side-Lines: Bush is Back: Tanned, Rested, and Ready says, "My fear is that this new bellicosity signals an impending war to bail us out of our economic troubles. After all, it worked for FDR." Well, it did work for FDR in a way, but I don't think the cowardly lion president could inspire that sort of dedication by himself. He'd have to let a city be blown up and then he'd have to be smart enough to get out of the way. Absent both those things I don't see a lot of people ready to line up behind this non-leader. He's not fit to saddle George W. Bush's horse, shine FDR's shoes, take dictation from John Kennedy, be allowed to bring a glass of water to Ronald Reagan, or make dates for Bill Clinton or Tiger Wood. Say what you will in favor of Barack Obama but you can't tell me you're getting the "I'd follow him through the gates of Hell" vibe, are you?

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:23 PM | Your Say (3)

Rising Bullshit Levels Watch Continues @ The Fourth Checkraise

The Wikipedia page "Current sea level rise" informs us that the predicted rise in the world's sea levels by the year 2100 is 19 to 58 centimeters, which is a lot less than what the greens and progressives are telling us. -- The Fourth Checkraise: They drown while we do nothing!
First, in Scarborough, a bunch of seventh- and eighth-graders spent a day (of course, not a night, and I think I know how long that "day" actually was) sitting on a sidewalk to demonstrate against homelessness, warmly clad in thick clothing (doesn't it suck when the weather doesn't play along with your demo?) and "living" in cardboard boxes. Perhaps in a couple of years, once they enter some trendy arts and design school, they could, like, totally "reimagine the shopping cart", the perennial idea of solving the homelessness problem. -- The Fourth Checkraise: And a child shall lead them
"Climate Refugees:" concerned scientists and activists predict that there will be hundreds of millions, at least by the year 2100. And absolutely positively every single one of these climate refugees wants to leave his home solely because of global warming, and none because of, say, a corrupt socialist central planner who has decided to intentionally starve his political opponents, or whose reforms have destroyed the agricultural infrastructure of his country. -- The Fourth Checkraise: Coconuts of wrath

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:13 PM | Your Say (0)

Historic Blame Duck President: Who Says There's No Good News

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Posted by Vanderleun at 2:19 PM | Your Say (0)

NeoNeoCon has a new nickname for Obama

Blame duck.

And, while we're at it, this is the same word-smithing neoneocon who early on (2005!) came up with this handy meme for explaining the kind of treatment Obama gets from the media:

"a phrase whose time has come: press pass"
Definition: the strategic spiking of a story that, if properly investigated, would be likely to reflect poorly on someone the MSM considers a friend or a good guy.
-- neo-neocon: Press pass: spread the word

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:06 PM | Your Say (0)

Alarm Clocky from Hell

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neo-neocon lauds "Clocky:" and hitting that snooze alarm The product description says it all:

Clocky is the alarm clock on wheels that runs away beeping! You can snooze one time, but if you don't get up, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand up to 3 feet high, and run around your room as if looking for a place to hide. You'll have to get out of bed to silence Clocky's alarm. Clocky beeps in an R2D2-like robotic pattern so that you are sure to hear him. He's kind of like a pet, only he will get you up at the right time! You can set Clocky to run away right when the alarm sounds, or set to snooze one time before he runs away. Clocky features a customizable snooze time up to 9 minutes long. You can also turn off Clockies wheels if you don't want Clocky to run away one morning.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (1)

Stimulus Numero 2? Here's a Brilliant Way to Spend It!

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Trickle down problem?

"Here's my proposal to correct the problem. The government buys a Walmart gift card for every man, woman and child in the United States with the generous sum of $2,500 attached. Mine is a modest proposal, so I rounded down a little to save us all some debt. Why Walmart? Well, Wally World is already socialist in nature – limited choices at “fair” prices. And, you can buy almost anything there. Seniors can get their drugs... the kids can buy a variety of toys... liberals will find all their favorite Obama authored books and Bruce Springsteen CDs... conservatives can stock up on guns and ammo... why, if it is a superstore, the spendthrifts among us can even get food there! And think how stimulative it would be! Every manufacturer with products at Walmart would see revenues go through the roof. Toy makers, tire and hardware manufacturers, plant and food growers, drug makers... you name it! Jobs, jobs, jobs and not just at Walmart or whatever alphabet soup of government make-work programs Obama's team is yet to reveal. I'm a genius! -- The Western Chauvinist: Buy the Numbers?

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:27 AM | Your Say (2)

IOwnTheWorld Strikes Again!

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If they only had a budget like cracked.com iOwnTheWorld would, dare I say it?, rule the world! (Which is a scarier thought than imagining the Obamas' favorite sexual position.)

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:45 AM | Your Say (0)

Anchoress: "I say you are no Congress. Go Home."

Go home, Congress,

and give America a break from your freakish certainties, your falsities, frailties and your folly. Turn off your blackberries and stay off the television and try to find whatever scraps of humanity still remain buried beneath the crust of stinking, corrupt ambition you’ve allowed to grow on you. -- The Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:23 AM | Your Say (1)

December 11, 2009

The Secular Religion of Hidden Shame

What a lot of people do is try to escape their sense of shame dishonestly
by constructing elaborate moral frameworks that allow them to parade their virtue and their lavish repentance without any real inconvenience to themselves while simultaneously indulging in self-righteousness by condemning others for their impenitent evil.  That’s the bad version of religion – the sort of religion Jesus came to dismantle.  And that’s exactly the sort of religion leftism is:  an elaborate system for hiding shame behind a cheap mask of virtue.  That’s why they demonize any opposition.  To them, we’re not just disagreeing with them, we’re threatening to tear off the mask of their virtue and reveal them to themselves.  Which, without God or sufficient whiskey, would be unbearable. -- Andrew Klavan: My Way Into and Out of the Left – by Jamie Glazov | FrontPage Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Al Sharpton Blasts Tiger Woods for Lack of Mistress Diversity

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“Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?”

Sharpton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women. Sharpton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines. -- Celeb Jihad

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:07 PM | Your Say (11)

Something Wonderful: First Notes

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A subtle and haunting image by Ralph Gibson [Click to enlarge]

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:12 AM | Your Say (0)

The Worship of the Database

It is a central tenet of our faith in science

that the new will encompass the old in one endless and eternal conservation of sense and sensibility. In this cathedral we worship a database. We can see outward to the edge of what is, and downward into time was to (almost) the moment of Creation. We can see inward into (almost) the mute heart of matter. We have the proven method. We have the hard evidence. We know that nothing is, in time, beyond our knowing. All doubt has been removed. We are the Alpha and Omega. Our science is now as eternal and as deeply grounded in truth as... well, as astrology was in 5 B.C. -- The Star

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (3)

December 10, 2009

Bush is Back: Tanned, Rested, and Ready

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"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.

For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world," he said. "A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler'€™s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda'€™s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."€ -- iOwnTheWorld.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:06 PM | Your Say (4)

Obama: "the Captain Marvel of democrat politicians. "

Bill Clinton’s respect for the American spirit;

Al Gore’s exaggerated perception of one’s own achievements; Ted Kennedy’s raw, predatory narcissism; FDR’s bullshit vision of countries spending themselves out of recession; Jimmy Carter’s competence; and here, on display, we see Lyndon Johnson’s manners. -- House of Eratosthenes

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

"Its tribe has been around for 450 million years at least. And it has the unique property of glowing in the dark if you shine black light on it"

Translucent beige in color.

Two inches long. Armored, segmented body, covered with spiky hairs. It’s equipped with a total of fourteen legs. One pair adapted to serve as jaws, one pair as pincers, another pair under its abdomen that are specialized sensors, and four pairs of walking legs. -- The Simple and the Complex

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (3)

Dumb Local News About Global Warming

Headline writers having a good time: BOVINE STUCK IN FROZEN CREEK

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. – A rescue is under way to rescue a cow that was trapped in a frozen creek in South Kitsap County. It's happening just south of Port Orchard near Lider Road and Blackjack Creek.
Video from SkyKING shows the cow has been moved to dry land. Several people are rubbing the cow, presumably to keep it warm.
Or, since it's out in Port Orchard, it could just be foreplay.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:08 PM | Your Say (4)

Not Street Legal But Who Cares?

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The Christmas Truck

All Marshall needed to create his twinkling wonder on wheels, was a generator, a few strands of Christmas lights and some duct tape. And that's basically how the Christmas Truck was born. It has between 50 and 70 light strands, each featuring 50-100 light bulbs. That ads up to a total of over 3,000 lights.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:25 AM | Your Say (2)

December 9, 2009

The Career Path for Obamacare Doctors: Earn Less, Owe More

Just where are the doctors for more patients going to come from?

The six-figure salaries typically ascribed to doctors do not fall into their medicine bags right after they graduate from college. Medical residents earn less than $46,000 a year but the schooling to get that opportunity is quite expensive. In 2008, the average U.S. medical school debt was $155,000.... The U.S. Department for Health and Human Services estimates that 7,000 additional primary-care physicians currently are needed in under-served areas. By 2020, the U.S. is looking at a shortage of 66,000 primary care doctors nationwide. In fact, medical groups have concluded the U.S. will need between 85,000 and 200,000 additional physicians in general by then. -- Grand Rapids Opinion

Here's some chilling numbers that might chill the fire to become a doctor:

"If present trends continue and physician incomes increase at 3 percent per year, by 2033, the average physician will be earning $40,000 per month after expenses, from which he or she will have to pay $18,000 in combined federal, state, and payroll taxes, leaving $22,000 for personal spending. If borrowers use the standard 10-year repayment period, they will be spending half of this remainder to retire their medical education debt. If they opt for the more manageable 25-year repayment period, they will pay approximately $6,000 per month for educational debt service, and they will be in their fifties by the time the loan is paid off."
This assumes of course that, under Obamacare, physician incomes actually do increase. But even if they don't the debt service will not.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:58 PM | Your Say (6)

Obama to Norway: "So long, thanks for the fish. P.S. Fuck you."

Nobel peace prize: Norwegians incensed over Barack Obama's snubs

The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children's event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.
For once, I agree with Obama. Couldn't happen to a greater group of sardine suckers. Dear Norway, get stuffed you vast suppurating sink hole of dickless doughnuts. if your women weren't blonde, big breasted and bored, nobody would know you were on the face of the earth.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:50 PM | Your Say (5)

I'm Voting "Barbarian"

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The psychological conflict

between a modern socialist and the knuckle-dragging traditional American barbarian revolves precisely around the question of whether society should run under a "distributed program"€ or an imperative one.  Whereas one side believes that government should be limited to tasks that the individual or local government cannot perform and that relationships between the parts are regulated by a distributed program expressed in the Constitution and Judaeo-Christian tradition, the other side believes that "government should be there for you"€. It should be there for you in the bedroom, in the playground and wherever else it can insinuate itself. -- Belmont Club | Don'tt Fence Me In

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:17 PM | Your Say (0)

1 More Reason to Love Doug Ross @ Director Blue

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Illustration from Larwyn's Linx: The Further Dismantling of Health Insurance

UPDATE: Mr. Clippy originally done at Bore Patch: What happens when you run the Climate Models? Kudos!

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:06 PM | Your Say (2)

Global UnWarming Whacks Seattle

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Move along skeptics. Nothing to see here. Bonechilling: December freeze drops to record lows

SEATTLE --The December freeze continues

as Washington state sees more record low temperatures. "Things definitely frozen up around Western Washington, even colder today than it has been by a couple of degrees," said KING 5 Meteorologist Rich Marriott. "It's dropped down to 18 degrees at SeaTac Airport. That's three degrees colder than it was yesterday, which breaks the record at SeaTac of 21 degrees.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (0)

The Same People Who Will Be Responsible for Your Medical Information

Massive TSA Security Breach As Agency Gives Away Its Secrets

Online Posting Reveals a "How To" for Terrorists to Get Through Airport Security
Getting that secure feeling yet?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:34 AM | Your Say (0)

It's Not the Lawyers. It Might Be You

America is not failing because of lawyers.

Sneaky lawyers, Hip Hop "artists", politicians like Obama, about 90% of what's on tv (including sports), the ever-present, sickening, skanky-snarky Cult of Youth are symptoms of America not being able to take care of itself. America's immaturity (today's students are more narcissitic than ever), not her scar tissue, is what's driving our decline. -- From Washington Rebel's series What I Learned as a Prosecutor

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (1)

Death of the Gatekeepers

Congress is talking about bailing out newspapers this month.

The FTC is targeting bloggers. What, do you suppose, is that all about? Perhaps unsurprisingly Crichton saw this coming years ago:
The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?

Media and science have merged, assuring the doom of both institutions in their present form. -- Science is Dead | finem respice

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

ObamaCare Strikes AIDS

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As the Obama administration slowly unveils its global AIDS plan,

the drive to put more people on drugs is being scaled back as emphasis is shifted to prevention and to diseases that cost less to fight, including pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and fatal birth complications.... "I'm holding my nose as I say this, but I miss George W. Bush," said Gregg Gonsalves a long-time AIDS campaigner. "On AIDS, he really stepped up. He did a tremendous thing. Now, to have this happen under Obama is really depressing." -- NYT
Really Gregg? What party of "This guy's a phony." did you fail to understand before the election?

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:28 AM | Your Say (1)

December 8, 2009

The Death Of Mistakes Means The Death Of Rock

Want to hear a really sloppy record?

It's a good song, but the recording's a mess. The drums consistently drag the rhythm; the bass player isn't quite sure how his part is supposed to go. If you listen carefully to the end of the second verse (around the 48-second mark in this video), the whole band gets lost for a moment and ends up adding an extra beat by accident. -- - Monitor Mix Blog : NPR

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:55 PM | Your Say (4)

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!

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Illustration by iOwnTheWorld.com

'Gore Effect' Slams Copenhagen With Subfreezing Temps

Amidst new revelations of data manipulation by scientists hoping to 'prove' global warming, the infamous 'Gore Effect' has socked Copenhagen. One intrepid warmist reports that temperatures are hovering just above zero.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:36 PM | Your Say (0)

Connecting the Dots

American Thinker: Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity

Let's move on to Tiger the metaphor. Because anyone with four functioning brain cells gets that if this comprehensive a charade can be sustained for a decade as Woods and those around him amassed billions, it can happen elsewhere. It can happen right in front of our eyes.
If I were watching the public's disgust with the newly revealed Tiger Woods from an office in the West Wing, I'd be concerned. Because Barack Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this nation has seen. His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a public record or accomplishments, and the public's willing suspension of critical evaluation of his résumé allowed his handlers and the media to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:22 PM | Your Say (1)

Perhaps, at some point, Harry Reid will be rendered into a wet splotch on the floor and mopped up.

Some have speculated that Reid is simply "losing it"

--but from the years in which we've been observing Reid, we'd say he never had it in the first place. Yesterday's statement on the Senate floor was vintage Reid. He has a propensity for saying things that are splenetic, inappropriate and ignorant, such as his embarrassing series of claims a few years ago that Clarence Thomas was unintelligent.
This, however, raises a question that has long puzzled us about Reid: How did such an unappealing man who says so many foolish things get so far in politics? He has been elected to Congress six times, and the Senate's Democrats chose him as their leader. Maybe he has exceptional backroom skills, or comes across better in person than on television. And of course the polls show he is in trouble with the voters back in Nevada. Still, his success to this point seems something of a miracle--an inspiration to dour, foolish men everywhere. -- The Mystery of Harry Reid - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:39 PM | Your Say (3)

The Blobs!

Giant Jellyfish!!!

They came from the deep -- swarms of giant jellyfish that can sink trawlers and strike fear into the hearts of fishermen. Growing to almost seven feet wide, weighing a sumo-sized 450lb (200kg), and armed with myriad stinging tentacles, Echizen kurage sound like the stuff of Japanese sci-fi, yet the threat they pose is as real as it gets. Since 2005, these slimy horrors have been wreaking havoc in the waters off the coast of Japan -- and how to stop them is anyone'€™s guess.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:26 PM | Your Say (0)

On Why a Constitution is Not Enough

"If a government is nothing but representative in the constitutional sense, a representative ruler in the existential sense will sooner or later make an end of it; and quite possibly the new existential ruler will not be too representative in the constitutional sense." -- Eric Voegelin

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:20 PM | Your Say (1)

Celebrate Christmas

I celebrate Christmas,

the time of the year where the most tolerant of the religious is celebrated, the time when a religion grew-up so much that it was willing to undermine itself to be inclusive of others... I celebrate that the people who bled and died, or risked even worse for my cozy fat-ass, believe that a god was incarnated as a man named Jesus on December 25th, and that that man even in the throes of a truly miserable death, forgave those who did the nailing... There is only one way to be inclusive on Christmas... That is to , no matter WHAT you are or what you believe, shut the fuck up about how special you are, and consider that you are nothing but a meaningless drone in this world without this crazy religion, and this archaic god of Judeo-Christendom that convinced the founders of the only one place on this earth, that you were free to be, in whatever way you choose... -- The Anticrat

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:51 PM | Your Say (0)

Ask Not If Your Present Government is Nucking Futz. Know Instead That It Is.

With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate,

the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon. With this doomsday machine activated, Mr. Obama hopes to accomplish what persuasion and debate among his own party manifestly cannot. -- EPA Regulates Carbon as Dangerous Pollutant - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:05 PM | Your Say (3)

Cobb Scores @ Galco's, Greatest Soda Shop in the World

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Going to Galco's is not about sour grapes.

It's about Nugrape and Big Red and Faygo Rock&Rye and Kackapoo Joy Juice and all those old brands you thought were gone. It's about crazy flavors you never knew existed much less made into a soda. I can't even imagine a Dandelion and Burdock soda, but there it is right at eye level on the shelf.... You wouldn't think that there are details in soda, but there absolutely are. In fact, soda is exciting again. We've all been dumbed down with the mass market sodas, because as soon as you open the top on one of these rare brands you smell it. When is the last time you appreciated the smell of a soda before you chugged it down? I'm telling you it's a new experience. Not just shopping for the stuff, which is a delight in itself, but actually drinking it down. -- Galco Saturday - Cobb
I envy Cob his location. I'd have to fly in. For those of you who don't know about the wonder that is Galco's, check out Something Someone Wonderful @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (0)

Mann-made after all

"Giving discredit where discredit is due, global warming is Mann-made, so named after Michael Mann, creator of the totally debunked “hockey stick” graph." -- BizzyBlog

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

QOTD

"Obama is one bow and one apology away from a circus." -- Victor Davis Hanson

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

“At the bottom of all serious disagreement you always find theology.”

“[Ideologies] indulge in constructions that are intellectually not tenable.

That raises the question of why people who otherwise are not quite stupid, and who have the secondary virtues of being quite honest in their daily affairs, indulge in intellectual dishonesty as soon as they touch science. . . . The overt phenomenon of intellectual dishonesty then raises the question of why a man will indulge in it.” -- VoegelinView It's not the money, dummy!

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (1)

Plants Need More Respect

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These green blobs are chloroplasts

- in this instance packed inside the cells of a moss leaf and magnified around 400 times - upon which our collective future depends. Using only energy from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they produce the oxygen we breathe, control the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, directly or indirectly via plants and animals, produce all the food we eat. Currently 6.3 billion of us depend on them for our survival. By 2050 9 billion of us will need their services. Maximum respect for plants, then. -- Beyond the Human Eye: The Ultimate Solar Cells

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:53 AM | Your Say (1)

December 7, 2009

The "worship of intelligence"

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One Cʘsmos: Scientistic Simpletons and the Church of the Immaculate Deduction

Perhaps this idea of the "worship of intelligence" is new to you, but it is the blue thread that runs through the modern left extending over the past century or so. Although it is primarily a narcissistic exercise in self-flattery, those who are not members of the cult are not just considered wrong, but dismissed as morons. But one of the bases of wisdom -- which transcends the mere intellectualism of the tenured -- is to know the limits of intelligence. And the left repeatedly fails in this regard, again, because of the replacement of God with human (small r) reason.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:26 PM | Your Say (4)

Once Upon a Time...

... scientists, unlike prophets, were inductive.

They sought to interpret evidence in empirical fashion, rather than twist it to "prove" preexisting suppositions. The Enlightenment taught them to welcome transparency and free expression, not (as in the Medieval Age) to form cabals to hound out heretics. Public intellectuals and grassroots activists were devoted to promoting proven ideas, rather than making fortunes through the shrill advocacy of unproven ideas. In the age of cynicism, penances were sold to sinners to allow them without guilt to satisfy appetites that conflicted with their doctrine; by contrast, the lives of moralists reflected the simple creed they advocated for others.Governments acted on scientific consensus, not theories that were the most favored or trafficked in popular culture. Debates, not propaganda cinema or cheap invective, adjudicated honest disagreement; people of the lab and library, not Hollywood celebrities and rock stars and their wannabes on campus, informed the public about scientific dispute.
How strange: This was to be our new age of science; instead, we are getting alchemy, the inquisition, and the reign of the superstitious. -- Thoughts on Climategate, Van Jones, and Al Gore - Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner on National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:52 PM | Your Say (0)

What it means to become a citizen of the United States of America, Natural born haters take note.

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Maria Anne Pilgrim, originally from Canada,

cried as she took the Oath of Allegiance from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to become an American citizen at New York’s Ellis Island Friday. Ms. Pilgrim served in the U.S. Army. -- Pictures of the Week: Nov. 30 - Dec. 4 - Photo Journal - WSJ

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:02 PM | Your Say (1)

Charlton Heston: Speaking Truth to Cower

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A democrat who later turned Republican, he told President Clinton that: "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."€ In 2000, then speaking out against candidate Gore, he wielded a replica of a Revolutionary War musket, and bellowed: "Mr. Gore: 'From my cold, dead hands!' " -- Iconic Photos

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:20 AM | Your Say (8)

Things Morgan Knows

144. In what deserves to be called “science,”

you save the drama for your mama. People debating science, getting angry and testy about the skepticism from others, are advancing and defending what would more properly be called “religion.” -- House of Eratosthenes
[The entire file of All the Things I Know is worth your review. You'd be surprised how many of these things you know too.

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
-- Pope]

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:39 AM | Your Say (4)

December 6, 2009

"We here at The Times are not scientists"

The NYTimes most dickless editor Clark Hoyt sees his ass carried into him on a platter by his commenters @Stolen E-Mail, Stoking the Climate Debate

"The defense that, "We here at The Times are not scientists," is specious. You are also not generals, physicians, nor accountants. You certainly don't hesitate to aggressively investigate and question war planning, mammogram recommendations, or Bernie Madoff. You sound like an air-headed Barbie doll lamenting how hard science is.
"Many of your readers, while not scientists, do have a rudimentary understanding of statistics, regression lines, and correlation. Courses in statistics are required for most hard and social science degrees at the bachelor level. If Erica Goode doesn't understand them, then hire someone who does. At today's unemployment rate, I'm sure there are thousands of grad students who could do the job adequately.
"Or if science is just too gosh darned hard for Ms. Goode, then her section of The Times might be the place for you to target your layoffs.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:51 PM | Your Say (2)

They Call the First Big Snow in New England "The Widowmaker"

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Posted by Vanderleun at 7:29 PM | Your Say (2)

Fear of Aging

Everyone has it,

but too many have it matched with the crippling misconception that only youth is beautiful. Not so. Museums are kept for a reason. The museums of our youth are our children. They are holding something in them, something that looks a lot like what we once were. They are our cave paintings and hieroglyphics and frescoes, keeping the record of everything beautiful in us, even if we are just flat-panel televisions to them for now. --- The Dipso Chronicles: Building

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:25 PM | Your Say (1)

California to Poor and Aging Women

... drop dead.

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

Time for Keith Briffa and Phil Jones to Go Directly to Jail

Email - HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

From: Phil Jones
To: "Michael E. Mann"
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004

Mike,
.... The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see it.

I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them
out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
[Emphasis added]
Cheers
Phil [Jones]
====
How even more deliciously ironic

would it be if, in their lustful, Dr. Hendronsian2 self-aggrandizing rush to be the first to save the planet from the Neomalthusian horrors of free market economies, Phil Jones and Keith Briffa have stunted the world into inaction and indecision by disastrously overplaying their hand and, in the unlikely event that the Earth's climate is in fact characterized by unchecked positive feedback systems, thus doomed the human race. -- Eulogy? | finem respice

As Power Line puts it in Skeptical, For Better or Worse

We've covered the Climategate scandal extensively. It is the most important scandal of our time. Climate alarmists are trying to impoverish the world, ostensibly in order to cool it down but really, in my view, to achieve the liberal holy grail of government control over everything. The scandal comes along at a critical moment to cast doubt on whether the "scientists" behind the global warming scare are doing science at all. Rather, their own words suggest that they are engaging in a combination of politics and fraud.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:07 PM | Your Say (4)

Serial Liar & Auto-Fellationist Charles Johnson Exposed (Again)

Weasel Zippers discovers Charles Johnson Shocked, SHOCKED to Learn There are Actually People Who Don't Believe in Man-Made Global Warming..... like, well, Charles Johnson:

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Charles Johnson Now
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Charles Johnson 2007

I have to admit that is fun watching this person tie himself in knots while continuing in his daily exhibition of auto-fellatio. How does he do it? It's a gift.

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

A "Consensus" of "25, Not 2500"

I keep getting the "2500"³ scientists number thrown at me by alarmists,

I am starting to believe the number is closer to 25, not 2500.  Sure there are many folks who have participated in work that has become a part of the IPCC, but it is old news that though those folks are counted as believers, many reject key aspects of the IPCC findings.  It is becoming increasingly clear than when people talk about the consensus, it is a position being espoused and communicated and driven by a handful of folks over and over in different outlets.  The same folks were advisors on Gore's movie and run Realclimate and are advisors of the President and  were leaders of the IPCC process and were featured in many of the CRU emails. -- 25, Not 2500 | Climate Skeptic

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:03 AM | Your Say (0)

"All theory, no practice."

"It’s been quite a while since you’ve heard a hardcore bay-area liberal say “they should do xxx, it was tried in yyy back in zzzz and it worked pretty well.” No precedence. All gonna-dooz. No have-dunz." -- House of Eratosthenes

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

Leadership from the Rear in Your Rear

Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate-change debates,

promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million Americans in 2050, so Obama's promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875. That. Will. Not. Happen. -- George F. Will - The last chance for Earth -- until the next one

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

What Climategate is all about

Embedded Communists in the West trying to bring the West down. Last time around they were taken by surprise but not now. Just another front in the Cold War (no pun intended).

If the peoples of the West allow this treason, we deserve what happens.

It is insanity. At what should be a level of great accomplishment, we are letting a pack of Baby Boomer Communist plants, a pack of traitors who are in aggregate the largest and most privileged group of people in the history of the West, destroy us.

When will we rise up and call them by their true names.

This is one of the great insanities of History. What a failure of our civilization.

They will reverse all that has been accomplished that last 60 years.

They seek our destruction and humiliation. -- Commenter Mongoose @ Belmont Club サ The logic of enlightenment

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:58 AM | Your Say (0)

December 5, 2009

What can I tell you? I just like this.

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Posted by Vanderleun at 8:23 PM | Your Say (1)

The Pigs Are Rushing the Trough Ahead of the Slaughter

One of the things that is to easy to predict

about the next few years and even months is that the poor will get much poorer and a certain subset of the very rich will get much richer. The problem is that people are beginning to understand this: that Socialism is for the few, not the many. It's not sold that way, but that's the way it will work out. Thus the rush to sell as many of these products before people open it up and see the actual contents of the box. -- Belmont Club サ Stampede

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:28 PM | Your Say (1)

Being the President of the United States is not the same thing as playing a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Knowing who the Minister of (fill in the blank) is

for the country of (fill in the blank), and knowing how to pronounce the name. We place a lot of importance on this, and this is an awful mistake. It means debate moderators and interviewers — who I don’t trust — can all-but-eject promising candidates from the running, simply by coming up with challenging questions. And you’ll notice they never ask the same question of all the candidates, or even many of the candidates. It’s targeted. They don’t deserve to wield this kind of power, nor are they worthy of wielding it. And being the President of the United States is not the same thing as playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. This is bone-headed stupid and we have to stop it. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:41 PM | Your Say (0)

Obama's Man in Education's Title Clarified

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Kevin Jennings: Psssst.... candy?.... comic books?... YA best sellers?

Kevin Jennings AKA "Obama's Kiddie Porn Czar" [Coined by the Anchoress about whom not to like what is there?]

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (0)

We note, in passing, that the man who shot 4 police officers to death last weekly strangely fails to make this list...

Also, this hasn’t exactly been a good year for black men in the news.

Plaxico Burress was locked up for accidentally shooting off a gun in a club. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was locked up for intentionally shooting off his mouth at his own home. And Michael Jackson died after being shot full of propofol. Chris Brown brutally beat Rihanna. Former Representative William Jefferson was convicted. And most recently, the “personal failings” of Tiger Woods portray him as an alley cat. Meanwhile, the most critically acclaimed black movie of the year, “Precious,” features a black man who rapes and twice impregnates his own daughter. Rooting for the president feels like a nice counterbalance. -- Op-Ed Columnist - Black in the Age of Obama - NYTimes.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:53 AM | Your Say (0)

Unlike Clinton, Obama Does Not Feel Their Pain

Blacks are living a tale of two Americas — one of the ascension of the first black president with the cultural capital that accrues; the other of a collapsing quality of life and amplified racial tensions, while supporting a president who is loath to even acknowledge their pain, let alone commiserate in it. -- Black in the Age of Obama - NYTimes.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (0)

Whores for Whores

Danish Prostitutes Offer Free Sex to Climate Conference Delegates

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:21 AM | Your Say (2)

At least it wasn't "Get a Grip on Your 9 Iron"

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Tiger Woods drives sales of physics book sky-high

A series of pictures released by Florida police of Woods's wrecked SUV includes a shot of the back seat, complete with waterbottle, towel and furled umbrella. But there among the shards of tinted glass in the footwell sits a well-thumbed copy of a paperback with the golf-appropriate title clearly visible: Get a Grip on Physics. This incidental role in Woods's domestic drama has been enough to create a rush to get hold of the book, with the title's sales rank on Amazon.com jumping from 396,224 earlier in the week to a high spotted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal of 2,268.
HT: Saturday morning links - Maggie's Farm

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

December 4, 2009

"The new device will retail for $395."

New Device Desirable, Old Device Undesirable

"The new device is an improvement over the old device, making it more attractive for purchase by all Americans," said Thomas Wakefield, a spokesperson for the large conglomerate that manufactures the new device. "The old device is no longer sufficient. Consumers should no longer have any use or longing for the old device."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:48 PM | Your Say (1)

More Compassion for WH Party Crashers Please

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Just a couple of white schmucks lost in the booze.

Is it really appropriate and politically correct

to call them party crashers just because they trespassed on Mr. Obama? Does that make them criminals? Isn't that discrimination? Shouldn't they be rewarded for such bold and brave behavior? Maybe they were just trying to feed their family?
I would suggest that it's more appropriate to call them "undocumented guests." -- Brutally Honest: A letter to the editor

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:18 PM | Your Say (2)

Tina Brown, Who Previously Threw Her Panties on the Stage Whenever Obama Opened His Mouth, Is Having Second Thoughts

"I have come to the conclusion that the real reason this gifted communicator has become so bad at communicating is that he doesn’t really believe a word that he is saying."
Obama's Fog of War - The Daily Beast
Mongo say read hole thing...

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:12 PM | Your Say (1)

A Quick Surge followed by a Quick Pullout

Obama has invented the "Catholic Birth Control Counterinsurgency Strategy." -- Commenter Don Rodrigo in Side-Lines: I Am Proud to Lead You Men to the Nearest Off-Ramp

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:56 PM | Your Say (0)

Be Prepared

"Oh how we burned in the prison camps,

later thinking: what would things have been like if every police operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? If, during periods of mass arrests, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood that they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers or whatever was at hand? The organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt." -- Left Exposed: Alexander Solzhenitsyn -

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:58 AM | Your Say (3)

Read This Book Every Fuckin' Day

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Fortunately there's only one and it can be bought and burned:

"This is a self help book for adults. I spent a while writing down everything i could think of that a person should do in a day. Mostly just reminders and tips, but written in a way that makes more sense to me than that pantie waist chicken soup crap. Things like "Think before you speak. Most people talk too damn much. Try to be relevant and precise. Use language to your advantage. On the other hand don't let your fuckin mouth get you in to trouble." -- by delugeonal on Etsy

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (1)

On News Stands..... Never!

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via Larwyn's Linx: Just Die, Seniors - Half a Trillion Gone From Medicare

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:26 AM | Your Say (1)

Not Communism -- Rather, Dictatorship!

What is the preferred instrument to force

egalitarianism on those 'type A's' who work their tails to the bone earning while others sit and wait for welfare checks? The dictatorship. Whether it be a Central Planning Committee or a Strongman in the vein of Juan Peron, nothing says dictatorship like the suppression of all public criticism, writing and voting on legislation in secret and calling detractors unpatriotic. Next we'll have an unelected board deciding just what speech is free and what is treason. All we need is the resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine to make all opinion 'equal.' Some opinions will of course be more equal than others, but you will know your Animal Farm by who inhabits it. -- Director Blue

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:23 AM | Your Say (0)

Play that funky music...

It always struck me as ironic

that a generation of the hardest working musicians on the planet in the sixties produced a genre of music that a generation of the laziest people (in the universe) in the seventies and eighties listened to while consuming large quantities of alcohol and drugs. By the nineties everybody was hung over and depressed, henceforth the music was self absorbed and poorly executed not to mention infantile, but I digress. -- Not Communism -- Rather, Dictatorship!

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (0)

John Brain's History of Kustom Biking

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From 1958 to 2008: The first kustom bicycles were simple affairs;

old 24 and 26-inch balloon-tire bicycles were stripped of extra parts, given a paint job and maybe some decals, and were then outfitted with 6 to 8-inch riser handlebars and long goosenecks. Handlebar height was the key visual element to these bikes, the higher the better. -- Introduction

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Posted by Vanderleun at 7:54 AM | Your Say (3)

I Am Proud to Lead You Men to the Nearest Off-Ramp

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Now I want you boys to do your nation proud.

No killing, no dying, and make sure you're at the car pool pickup shelter at 5:30 sharp so we can all get back home in time for my re-election campaign. I'll be right across the street at Starbucks negotiating a peace partnership with some of the moderate Taliban leaders, so I don't want to hear about any shenanigans. -- iowahawk

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:54 AM | Your Say (3)

Charles Johnson Bites the Wax Tadpole @ Bite Me Comics

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BITE ME! Comics presents...: The Green Lizard!

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Plus... bonus Headline of the Day! Anderson Cooper going down faster than Charles Johnson on Andrew Sullivan. viaThe Daley Gator

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:21 AM | Your Say (0)

Good News! Dallas Morning News Editors No Longer Report to Democrat Political Czars. Paper May Live.

At The Dallas News, a New "Bold Strategy": Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers - Dallas News - Unfair Park

As of yesterday, some section editors at all of the company's papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr's team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. In short, those who sell ads for A.H. Belo's products will now dictate content within A.H. Belo's products, which is a radical departure from the way newspapers have been run since, oh, forever.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:11 AM | Your Say (0)

December 3, 2009

The Historic Presidency: "Black Unemployment Reaches Great Depression Levels"

File Under: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish."

The Black unemployment rate is officially 15.7 percent nationwide compared to 9.5 percent for whites. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are troubled by what they believe is the lack of response to the economic situation that is confronting them on the part of the administration... Joblessness for 16-to-24-year old Black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population according to the Center for Labor Market Studies. As reported by Black Voice News Online [Pointer via the brilliant DOUG ROSS]

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:16 PM | Your Say (1)

Everything Wrong With America In One Picture

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What's wrong with this picture? Let us count the ways.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the hairdresser is swisherrific. I mean, just look at that belt buckle. Would we be able to win WWII if we had to fight it over again with the current crop of American men? Or would we chastise the fearful warmongering Americans for antagonizing the millions of moderate Nazis? Phony umbrage and secular piousness are the cheap and easy virtues of a soulsucked people. So easy, you can do it too! I'l get you started. "Xenophobe!" Congrats, you're now better than Jesus....
When a free nation is invaded by a foreign force wthout lifting a single weapon to defend itself, when it puts itself in hock to a Communist overlord, when it has 152 varieties of color protecting conditioner on its store shelves, the doomsday clock has moved a minute closer to the midnight hour. -- « Roissy in DC

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

Requiem for Cindy Sheehan

I guess Cindy imagines that it is still the year 2005,

back when such an event wouldn't have quietly passed by without the anti-war left going apeshit with hysterical screeds about how the Bushitler's corporate AmeriKKKa has become a totalitarian police state. It's the tale of sound and fury that has been played out many, many times before, the eternal tragicomedy of the Useful Idiot. It's equally pathetic (or hilarious, depending where you stand) every time, that morning after the power has changed hands and the Useful Idiot, hope and change gleaming in her eyes, eagerly arrives at the table looking for her fair share, and the new leaders simply ignore the Useless Eater. -- The Fourth Checkraise: Not so much anti-war as pro the other side

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:57 PM | Your Say (0)

Headlines Charles Johnson Was Not Expecting

Christian Right Blogger halts his Islamphobic diatribes against Muslims

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:45 PM | Your Say (0)

ObamX: Something to Make Everyone Feel Gooooooood!

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Obama Ecstasy pills hit the streets

PALMVIEW, Texas - President Barack Obama's approval rating may be hovering in the 50 percent range, but that doesn't mean America's Commander-in-Chief isn't catching on with new constituents. There is now a line of Ecstasy pills made in the image of the 44th president of the United States, according to Texas police who have snatched a batch off the streets.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:59 PM | Your Say (0)

Climategate "isn't only about the credibility of global warming."

If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals,

serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it. -- Daniel Henninger on Climategate: Science Is Dying - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:05 PM | Your Say (0)

Senate Democrats Cut Funds to Fight Breast Cancer. AIDS Funding Left Intact

Democrats to American Women Who Vote for Them: "Suckers!"

"Casting its first votes on revamping the nation's health care system, the Senate rejected a Republican bid Thursday to stave off Medicare cuts and approved safeguards for coverage of mammograms and other preventive tests for women. -- Senate votes to keep Medicare cuts in health bill"
Oh, by the way, as for all those seniors that vote Democrat and pay AARP, be especially happy: "AARP, the seniors' lobby, threw its weight behind the Democrats."

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:55 PM | Your Say (0)

Madoff was a relative piker compared to the perpetrators of Climategate.

neo-neocon quotes an Ace commenter in "Climategate: using the tried and true Madoff approach"

What the CRU is doing is identical to what Bernie Madoff did.

Bernie asserted that his investment scheme was legit.

Bernie didn't share his raw data.

There were skeptics who doubted that Bernie’s investment strategy was legit.

But.... The statements put out by Bernie Madoff's company were "peer reviewed"by a government regulatory agency. So the skeptics were simply kooks who didn't understand investing - despite many of the skeptics having expertise in the area of finances and regulations.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (1)

For a moment you think you want to know the back story, but then you decide to just hang around for the next spin cycle.

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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (4)

The Food Channel is Dead to Me. Dead.

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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (12)

The Cooling World Newsweek, April 28, 1975

Brrrrrrrr......

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.” -- Newsweek

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (1)

There's so much to love at This Ain't Hell's Charles Johnson defenestration I just have to quote it twice

You know how you go out early in the morning on your bike,

and you go to the beach, and you sit there, and you wait... and you wait... and suddenly the sun comes up. And you have perfectly situated yourself to shoot the sun rising over the water (or I guess setting since you are west coast) and you have it centered between two volleyball nets, and you come up with a pithy title like, "Splitting the Nets, a Sun is Born." And you tell us how you shot it with a Kodak Whatthefuck 1400 with a Whocares lens with a shutterspeed that is slower than that of Belladonna's ring? -- This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here "Why I Parted Ways with LGF"

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:13 AM | Your Say (0)

Good Guess! The Untold Origin of the Pamela Geller vs Charles Johnson Kerfuffle

"Maybe Johnson measured dicks and Pamela won." -- via This ain't Hell which also, in the same clip, brings you this hilarious clip:

We weren’t walking together on that path numbnuts, you just happened to be walking in the same direction. So please quit with the martyr act and go ride your bike, take pictures and put up a post about the latest crazy blog shit you invented.... If you want to go with the martyr act [Charles], you might find solace in this little clip. Playing the part of you is Flounder [edited for correct person], playing the part of the rest of the Right Wing Blogosphere is the rest of the fraternity.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:51 AM | Your Say (0)

Cutting Slack is So 2008

Doc Weasel does have his moments:

If every rightblog doesn't get off it's fucking ass and start acting like the opposition, tearing down the Democrat brand and destroying Obama in every way possible, they should get the fuck off the net. Or at least quit pimping votes for "Best Conservative Blog"€. Because you aren't. You actually hurt our cause with your pissy little whinging shit. -- docweaselblog

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:26 AM | Your Say (0)

December 2, 2009

The Clinging Beggars of China

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To make sure they squeeze some money out of them, young Chinese beggars have begun clinging to the legs of their victims. -- Oddity Central

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:01 PM | Your Say (0)

PLEASE DO DEBUNIK IT, BUT TRY NOT TO PANINIC

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"Hey, my typing fingers would be shaky too if I was watching my dreams die." -- Jim Treacher

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:22 PM | Your Say (1)

Pound for Pound Roger Kimball is the best art critic in America since Robert Hughes

The art world vs. the world of art The New Criterion

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:11 PM | Your Say (0)

The Karen Carpenter-Mama Cass Effect

You know, if Nancy Pelosi would just share half of her Botox with Hilary Clinton they'd both look a hell of a lot better.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:07 PM | Your Say (0)

I'm Sorry But Exactly What Tip Are They Talking About?

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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:04 PM | Your Say (1)

Tiger's Wood

Who would have thought a hot former Swedish au pair wielding a golf club

over the prone semi-conscious body of an international superstar multi-gazillionaire in the middle of the street next to a wrecked Cadillac SUV would attract this kind attention, especially when the Tiger Woods franchise made clear its desire for privacy by telling the cops to pound sand and most certainly did not license the public release of any highly personal and private bimbo voicemails. -- Jules Crittenden サ Current Events Commentary

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:41 PM | Your Say (4)

Fat Gore Fly in the Google Ointment?

Does Al Gore's position on Google's senior advisory board have any bearing?

In Al's bio at http://www.algore.com/about.html he says:
A member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc. Gore is also Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
It seems he has done some "advising" of Google's search quality in the past. Here's a story from the New Yorker via Newsbusters about that very subject. There is some history there that has some bearing on the current situation.
In the case of "Climategate"€, Mr. Gore's ability to continue his current speaking engagements might be hampered. Thus, there could well be a motive for him doing some "advising"€ in this case. A phone call might be all it took. -- Google trends on "€œclimategate"€ show public interest increasing -- but troubling questions loom @ Watts Up With That?

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:07 PM | Your Say (3)

Der Spiegel Has Obama's Number

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match.

US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free. - Opinion: Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
Well, at least the Germans are twigging to this doofus.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (1)

R.I.P. Science

Science, as we have understood it since Francis Bacon, is dead.

Like a zombie, it retains a few of the superficial characteristics of life -- lab coats, test tubes, and the occasional Large Hadron Collider -- €” but none of the essentials that constitute honest intellectual inquiry capable of producing objective, trustworthy conclusions. It cannot and will not be revived until scientists worldwide wean themselves away from governmental funds.

Nothing is more addictive than government funding... and governments have no better lever with which to acquire justifications for increasing their power than the "€œfindings"€ and "€œdiscoveries"€ of government-funded science. Draw the moral. -- Francis Poretto in a comment on Pajamas Media » Pielke Sr.: Climategate Emails Just a Small Sample of a Broad Issue (PJM Exclusive)

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (1)

Take Your President to Work Day

OK, now Obama’s presidency is becoming super embarrassing.

I honestly feel like someone is going to come out and pat him on the head all patronizingly....

Here'€™s a tip for you, Barry. Firstly, stop with the ridiculous super-serious face!

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That always makes me cringe, especially when it is combined with almost incomprehensible rhetoric --€” rhetoric that shows that you’ve never owned a business, ran a business or even worked for an actual business. It simply makes you look like a little boy playing "business Daddy"€ dress-up. -- iOwnTheWorld's Heck of a Job (Policy), Barry!

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (0)

Kevin Kelly on The Technium

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Penny Thoughts on the Technium (Video of the text at the link.) [ The Technium is a book that has been drafted online by Kevin Kelly for publication by Viking Penguin. The full background can be found at the link. ]

The technium is anything useful that a mind makes. That doesn’t even have to be a human mind. Any mind. So that includes not just the gadgets but it also includes the law, our writing. Many aspects of civilization are part of the technium. Not just hardware. And I go on to say that in fact that the greatest technology humans ever invented is humanity itself. We domesticated ourselves. We turned ourselves into part of the technium because we cannot live as a species. We cannot live without technology. We’ve invented ourselves. And it’s our greatest invention so far.

Technology as a whole is deterministic. It has an agenda and there are certain aspects of it that are inevitable. And what our choices are is in how convivial we make them. Whether we make them open or closed. Whether we make them evolvable (or not). Whether we make them prone to diversity (or not). So we have choices in the character of these technologies. And not necessarily whether we have the technologies (or not).

What I’m proposing is the pro-action aproach to technology which means we have to use things in order to find out about them. That we actually have to engage with technology. The only way we can determine whether something is good or bad for us, is through use. I don’t think we can control it because I think that technology is a cosmic force. Technology began not with humans but preceded it into biological evolution. And even preceded it further back to the big bang. So this exotropic force. A force of self-organization is running through galaxies, stars and planets. It runs through life and is extended into technology and that self-organizing living force is what we are having to ride. What we’re doing with the web is actually making a very large scaled global organism that in a few decades or so we will be able to identify as an organism in every sense of the word.

For many years the dogma was that evolution was offloaded from the genes into culture. Our bodies stopped evolving because culture took it over. But in fact it turns out that genetically we are actually accellerating in our evolution. That our genes are evolving faster because of technology. Reading & writing changes. Permanently rewires the brain. It’s for sure we’ll see (with enough evidence) that people who use Google and offload their memory to the cloud, it will affect our brains. So we are absolutely changing ourselves.

I‘m interested in how people personally decide to refuse a technology. I’m interested in that process, because I think that will happen more and more as the number of technologies keep increasing. The only way we can sort our identity is by not using technology. We’re used to be that you define yourself by what you use now. You define yourself by what you don’t use. So I’m interested in that process.

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

Wonderful.

"We continue to live in the universe of the cosmos and not in the universe of science." -Tanis Evans

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:47 AM | Your Say (4)

December 1, 2009

Jacob Weisberg, Silver Tongued Schmuck

Keep in mind that Weisberg is a flatterer, not a critic, of Obama's.

When he says the president may end up burdening the country with an "imperfect behemoth," he means it as praise, and lavish praise at that. Objectively, this is faint praise at best--and that is just the tip of the Weisberg. By his standard of presidential greatness--the making happen of "big, transformational things"--George W. Bush was a great president if you believe that the liberation of Iraq was the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. -- He Hasn't Accomplished Nothing - WSJ.com

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

"This isn’t climate science, this is climate scientology."

Charles Martin pummels "Fraud Denier" Phil Plait in The global warming emails non-event @ (Very) Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Phil, this is really shameful. If you think there was no attempt to silence scientists with differing ideas, call up Roger Pielke (either of them). Have a look at Hans von Storch’s web page.

As for fraud, I don’t believe that Hansen, Mann, Jones, and Schmidt have been holding secret Climate SMERSH meetings to plan a conscious fraud. It’s much more insidious than that: they simply decided on the Right Explanation for the general warming trend (that nobody I know of questions), and then apparently ensured the “corrections” and splices matches that Right Explanation. They didn’t massage the data, they waterboarded it into submission. They then conspired to prevent people, even people like Pielke Sr who believed in general in both the warming and anthropogenicity, but who believed in other mechanisms for the anthropogenic forcings, from being published.

Oddly, when we look at the data, we find that the corrections dominate the raw data signal, and constitute most or all of the temperature change that was then published as a “result.”

On the FOIA front, they clearly conspired (in 20 emails rather than 2) to find ways to prevent their data from being released. Jones even requested certain emails be deleted after they were requested via FOIA.

So, I suppose if you think manipulating data, misconduct in peer review, and what appear to have been multiple felonies are nothing, I can’t argue.

But this isn’t climate science, this is climate scientology.

HT The Gormogons: Credit Where It's Due

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:46 PM | Your Say (0)

The Real Obama Afghanistan-Bananastan Speech: "After months of indecision, the president has finally resolved to be irresolute"

It's hard to admit that the president not only has no clothes, he has no balls.
"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down! Let every nation know that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, to ratchet back our presence after the buildup! Either you are with us or you are with those who would fail to make clear that a significant American presence will remain, not just for a while but for a long while!" -- Decisions, Decisions - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:11 AM | Your Say (0)

Everything New Is Old Again

What was once in print and paid for is now online and free.

What was once confined online - the long-form blog - is now breaking back into print. There are some inversions at work. Traditionally, the most valuable commodity was imagery, yet now pictures seep online for nothing, given away like candy to entice people to actually do more than merely click around. Instead, long form journalism, whether in the form of the multi-thousand word piece of investigative writing or even the dense, multi-layered blog post, is the new in-demand media commodity. The challenge is to get people to pay for it. -- things magazine: an online journal about objects and meanings

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:35 AM | Your Say (0)