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April 30, 2010

Steve Wynn: Government's Policies Retarded

"The governmental policies in the United States of America are a damper, a wet blanket," Wynn said.
"They retard investment; they retard job formation; they retard the creation of a better life for the citizens in spite of the rhetoric of the president." -- Wynn's remarks rattle Las Vegas gaming - News - ReviewJournal.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:44 PM | Your Say (1)

Citizen Gore

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NEWS on the MARCH! In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.
Today, almost as legendary, is California's Montecito, the world's largest private environmental pleasure ground. Here a private mountain was commission and successfully built! 500,000 trees, 70,000 tons of cement, and 14 acres of seal fur carpet are the ingredients of this regal domain. Painting, pictures, Oscar statues, the very stones from many another palace from Earth's finest antiquities! A collection so vast it can never be appraised. Enough for 100 eco-museums, the loot of the planet. Montecito's livestock: the whales of the ocean, the fowl of the air, the beasts of the plain and jungle. A private Noah's ark of the world's rarest creatures awaiting the feasting table of Montecito's lord and ruler! Like the Pharaoh, he leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the pyramids, Montecito is the costliest monument man has built to... himself!

Here in last week was held 2041's grandest and strangest funeral. Montecito's land-lord was laid to rest, a potent figure of our century. America's Kubla Khan -- Albert Arnold Gore. -- iowahawk: Citizen Gore

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:21 PM | Your Say (0)

"Undocumented Democrats"

The Fourth Checkraise: Funny thing, they asked to see my papers to let me board to plane....

Here the liberals simply want to import a low-wage servant class of latinos who they consider more suited for this task than, say, the American poor blacks who the swipples, for many reasons, don't feel comfortable inviting inside their homes as $5/hr servants. Second, since illegal immigration hurts proles who have to worry about losing their livelihoods whereas smart people with advanced degrees need not be afraid of such trite issues, supporting illegal immigration is a credible instant signal that one is not a prole. And of course, the fact that these border crossers are, as one wag put it, "undocumented Democrats", doesn't hurt either.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (2)

Schneiderman On the How-Not-To-Lead Techniques of Obama

Had Enough Therapy?: Obama Shows How Not to Lead
As we have all noticed by now, Obama does not know how to build consensus. His presidency has been about dividing the nation against itself. Shouldn't he know that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," whether in Abraham Lincoln's version or as it was first written in Matthew 12:25?
If we put politics to the side, this is all easy to understand. Imagine that you are leading a marketing group. You, or someone else in the group, proposes a new marketing plan. Part of the group loves it; another part hates it. You're the leader. It's up to you to decide. Or at least it is if that is how you see leadership. If you are sufficiently insecure you will feel that you are being tested and that you need to show who is in charge. You have to assert yourself so you will have a swagger that impresses Frank Rich.
Read all.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (0)

The Morgan. He Types for Me. (Mostly. I'm Anti-Follower)

I’m polite, pleasant and belligerent. Anti-Marijuana, pro-states’-rights, anti-abortion-for-profit, pro-child-discipline, anti-tofu, pro-meat, mostly-anti-tattoo, pro-nice-lookin’-lady-in-skimpy-clothes, anti-little-kids’-shopping-cart, pro-clean-new-socks, anti-women-with-short-hair, pro-beer, anti-Hillary, pro-dry-wine, anti-anti-war, pro-soldier, anti-made-up-learning-disability, pro-charcoal-barbeque, anti-communist, pro-Hooters’-waitress, anti-hippy, pro-nuclear-arsenal, anti-carbon-cap-n-trade, pro-family, anti-feminist, pro-Boy-Scouts, anti-needle-exchange-program, pro-Palin, anti-judicial-activisim, pro-Mike-Rowe-Dirty-Jobs, anti-George-Soros, pro-capitalism, anti-woman-politician-in-pant-suits, pro-nice-lookin’-ladies-in-short-skirts, anti-convertible-with-top-down-going-boom-chicka-boom, pro-cute-woman-giving-me-a-cold-beer, anti-Michael-Moore, pro-profit, anti-ObamaCare, pro-free-market, anti-tribal-living, pro-individualist, anti-dickhead, pro-entrepreneur, anti-douchebag, pro-nice-person, anti-sleezebag, pro-law-abiding-citizen, anti-pervert, pro-capital-punishment, anti-murderer, pro-vigilante, anti-rapist, pro-vigilante, anti-kidnapper, pro-vigilante, anti-creep, anti-weirdo, anti-whacko, pro-vigilante… -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (0)

Of a Communion on the Moon

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"So, during those first hours on the moon,
before the planned eating and rest periods, I reached into my personal preference kit and pulled out the communion elements along with a three-by-five card on which I had written the words of Jesus: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.’ I poured a thimbleful of wine from a sealed plastic container into a small chalice, and waited for the wine to settle down as it swirled in the one-sixth Earth gravity of the moon. My comments to the world were inclusive: ‘I would like to request a few moments of silence … and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.’ I silently read the Bible passage as I partook of the wafer and the wine, and offered a private prayer for the task at hand and the opportunity I had been given." -- Buzz Aldrin

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:07 AM | Your Say (1)

April 29, 2010

Obama signs off on SWAT to "Inspect" Gulf Oil Platforms

"Earlier today, DHS Secretary Napolitano announced that this incident is of national significance and the Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWAT teams to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs." -- Remarks by the President in the Rose Garden [HT: Brutally Honest]

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

"When the Eurozone Starts Crashing Down"

There will be the countries that make cars and the countries that don't.
The countries that don't will go broke and their people will be stranded, frustrated and angry. So do they make weapons? Will they loot themselves? Will a strongman have to unite them politically? Yes. Yes. Yes. That means war war war. Little war perhaps. Another 9/11. Nothing major. Another Iraq. Nothing that kills millions, but just enough to make a huge bloody scar. Just wait and see. -- Why It Means War - Cobb

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

The Invisible Hand of the Race Hustlers

The unseen third party in the Arizona immigration debate is "positive discrimination."
Asking for people to be actually subject to the same criteria is particularly objectionable because it undermine an implicit public policy goal of giving"disadvantaged" groups a leg up by making things easier for them. It's not discrimination that's bad, but the kind of discrimination that matters. In this world, it is immoral to ask a "poor migrant" to produce papers. That's "Nazism" but a "rich migrant"€™ of the same color is not only subjected to the "papers please"€ requirement but asked to post bonds, show property ownership, exhibit bank accounts, subject himself to security clearances, health checks and attend interviews with a nameless consular official sitting behind an armored glass. And then if he does all that, he can be asked to wait. And wait.... -- Belmont Club » As American as Apple Pie

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:36 PM | Your Say (0)

And the Obama Wars Rage On

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As Obama must have anticipated,
there are now no more antiwar rallies and Hollywood movies, no more anguished op-eds about either an imperial, warmongering America or a virtual police state at home. A raging Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan are distant memories. We once read that Bush as a wartime president frivolously played too much golf; we don’t read that Obama has played more golf in one year than Bush did in eight. -- Nobel Laureates and Texas Cowboys - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Conned by Cuba: Wired Science's Fool, Brandon Keim, Interview Stanford Tool Paul Drain

It's just another round of blow-jobs for Castro when Keim and Drain sit down to talk about What Cuba Can Teach Us About Health Care | Wired Science
Just a morning’s boat ride from the tip of Florida is a place where medical costs are low and doctors plentiful. It’s Cuba, and Stanford University physician Paul Drain says it’s time for the United States to pay attention to our neighbor’s shoestring success.

Really? Like this "shoestring success"?


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More disgusting reality @ Hospital Clinco Quirurgico

The loathing and contempt I hold for apparatchiks such as Keim and Drain cannot be understated.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:12 PM | Your Say (5)

In case we were running short of reasons to tell the Washington Pustule to go fuck itself...

Every blogger signing the agreement
is expected to participate in a blogger “discussion” initiated by Post editors or other bloggers at least once a week. Each blogger is also expected to stick to a “workflow plan” in which he or she will manage the other bloggers and submit extra material for a week on a rotating basis. In return for this commitment, the bloggers receive… absolutely nothing. -- Maryland Politics Watch: Why MPW Turned Down the Washington Post

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:37 PM | Your Say (0)

When I said "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," I meant you. Yes, you.

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An excerpt from Rev. Donald Sensing's recent sermon post as a comment to the item below,Side-Lines: Does God Have a Specific Plan for Your Life? Worth keeping in mind if you've a mind to keep it in.
Usually, the tasks of obeying God are not actually difficult. They only seem so because to obey God we must first disobey ourselves. Jesus knew this, which is why he said that to follow him we have to deny ourselves. It is in disobeying ourselves that we find it hard to obey God. And so God commands more often than tries to persuade.

Speaking of Sensing, his recent post about a leftoid warning the new Arizona law equals "The Warsaw ghetto under the Nazis?" is especially interesting and illustrated:
Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing that the Arizona legislature and governor have in mind for illegal aliens! We wonder nothing except where they will hide the hundreds of thousands of bodies. -- Sense of Events: Nazi Arizonans plotting mass murder!

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:56 PM | Your Say (0)

Did you all hear about the campaign to boycott Arizona Ice Tea...and then they found out the company is located in New York?

No, really.
Internet protesters have called for a boycott against all things Arizona, including AriZona Iced Tea, because of the state's new immigration law, which critics say unfairly targets Hispanics. Don Vultaggio, AriZona founder and chairman, has issued a statement pointing out that it is a New York business. Vultaggio also says the company's headquarters has been based in Woodbury, Long Island for 16 years and employs about 250 people. He says the business was created in 1992 by two hardworking guys from Brooklyn. -- WPIX

Their next move is to rename it "Undocumented Worker Ice-Tea" and air-drop cases along the Arizona-Mexican border.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:13 AM | Your Say (2)

Does God Have a Specific Plan for Your Life?

Here’s how you know, based on scripture, whether God has a specific plan for your life:
1. If you are a virgin and you get pregnant anyway. 2. If your donkey talks to you. 3. If an angel wants to wrestle. If any of this happens to you, God is definitely at work. He also wants you to see a counselor. -- Does God Have a Specific Plan for Your Life? Probably Not. | Donald Miller's Blog

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (2)

Dear "Climatologists,"

"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true." — Carl Sagan

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

April 28, 2010

Don't Ask. Don't Sell.

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Posted by Vanderleun at 4:06 PM | Your Say (3)

Media Whores Learn Too Late That All Pimps Whip You

neo-neocon:Obama: the press's abusive lover

"[The media] do not quite seem to understand who and what they're dealing with. Their surprise seems unfeigned to me, which is a surprise in and of itself. It appears that they didn't just cover up all the evidence -- available during the campaign to anyone willing to look -- that their man was a thinskinned, rude, arrogant, bully. They actually denied it, repressing their knowledge of and/or excusing such behavior, so strong was their need to believe in Obama.And insight dawns slowly, very slowly, if at all. The press remains shell shocked. Love is a funny thing, and hope dies hard when one is blinded by it."

Or when he's standing over you day after day whaling on your backside with a wire coat hanger.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:57 PM | Your Say (2)

Blowout!

I get a distinct feeling that the GOP may be headed toward to a seat gain in the House of epic proportions
-- somewhere over 50 seats and well above the historical high point for recent wave elections (the 50-55 seats we experienced in elections like 1946 and 1994). All in all, I don't think a 70 seat gain is out of the question. -- Why 2010 Won't Be Like 1994. (It'll Be Bigger.) @ The Next Right

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:49 AM | Your Say (3)

Flash!

On the local news this morning: "The new law would make it a crime to be in the United States illegally." The Clue Batting Cage

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

April 27, 2010

“Merkel to Athens: Drop Dead.”

Europe in Crisis - Walter Russell Mead
This is a political crisis for Europe rather than a financial crisis because the only way out for the PIGS involves a large bailout from the northern countries led by Germany and France. Germans especially don't want to pay. It has been clear for some time that the Greeks cheated and lied their way into the eurozone, and for years they have pursued selfish and foolish economic policies. Why, Germans ask with some force and logic, should German taxpayers who cannot retire until their late sixties pay the bill so that Greeks can retire at 55?

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:45 PM | Your Say (1)

I am thinking of re-evaluating my opposition to full-body tattoos

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Posted by Vanderleun at 7:42 PM | Your Say (8)

Why there won't be a "Bush III"

Jeb Bush speaks out against Ariz. law
"I don't think this is the proper approach," Bush said. The former governor recounted how, after he gave a speech Monday night in California, he was approached by a Hispanic man who was concerned about the measure leading to racial profiling and unfair targeting of Latinos.

Oh break out the fucking crying towel, Jeb. Somewhere tonight an American political dynasty is missing its idiot.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:03 PM | Your Say (10)

Now Playing in the DC Metroplex: DRACULA AND HIS ZOMBIE CONGRESS

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We assume that the cure will be worse than the disease.
We expect that the bills will be rushed through without proper debate and enacted at the stroke of midnight, like evil spells in a fairy tale. We are no longer surprised at the depth and breadth of the corrupt and shady behind-the-scenes deals involved. We know the legislations will be lengthy and complex. We do not think our representatives possess the intelligence to even understand the bills they pass -- that is, if they bother to read them at all -- and either do not appreciate their negative consequences or actually intend them to do us harm. We know that, just when we think we've driven a fatal stake into the heart of an unpopular bill, it rises and staggers forward to attack us. -- neo-neocon The calm before the storms

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:00 PM | Your Say (0)

Epitaph

What can go wrong? What happens next?
Will there soon be serious proposals to use unmanned surveillance technology in urban settings? Requests for intelligence support? Anyone who thinks this can't happen should think again. The real price of fantasy public fixes like Green Jobs or gun control to stop drug gangs in Chicago or describing those who want to stop illegal immigration as Nazis is that, by making common sense impossible, they make the use of overwhelming stupidity inevitable. If the Republic dies it will have committed suicide. RIP, SOS. Rest in Peace, Stuck on Stupid. -- Belmont Club サ Gangbusters

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (1)

Jobs

Althouse: The iPad is kind of like Twitter.

I have it, and I feel like I could be using it. But I don't really use it. Maybe I think I'm going to be using it. But I also think it's possible that I'm never going to use it. I seem to have a need for it, but I have other things that fit that need that I go back to instead over and over again. And yet there it is, over there. I think I'm going to be going there, maybe later. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:18 AM | Your Say (0)

Jobs

The iPad is the ultimate Steve Jobs device
--€“ so hypnotic that not only do people buy one without knowing what it's good for, they keep feeling like they ought to use it even when they have better alternatives for everything it does. It's a triumph of style over substance, cool over utility, form over actual function. The viral YouTube videos of cats and two-years-olds playing with it speak truth in their unsurpassable combination of draw-you-in cuteness with utter pointlessness. It's the perfect lust object of postmodern consumerism, irresistibly attractive but empty -- you know you’ve been played by the marketing and design but you don't care because your complicity in the game is part of the point. -- Armed and Dangerous » Blog Archive » Apple, postmodern consumerism and the iPad

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (4)

Jobs

"Steve Jobs is Tiffany. Once you understand that he is selling glamourous nothingness, you recognize how much time and money people have to waste. On the other hand, Steve Jobs is brilliant because he has found a way to make money by redefining talk. People don't talk to each other. They communicate via devices." -- Fifty Thousand Apps - Cobb

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:53 AM | Your Say (0)

Charles Johnson News Notes from All Over

"While deputies were speaking with one of the passengers, Charles Johnson, the deputies noticed a bulge in his mouth
and noticed that he was having trouble speaking normally, indicative that he was attempting to conceal something. One of the deputies managed to assist Johnson with removing the substance secreted in his mouth and discovered it to be marijuana. Johnson was placed under arrest and while being walked to a patrol vehicle, an additional baggie of marijuana fell from Johnson’s pants. Upon being searched, the deputies recovered a substantial amount of U.S. Currency from Johnson and subsequently discovered that he was unemployed. -- Traffic stop leads to drug arrest - WGMD.COM

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:18 AM | Your Say (3)

April 21, 2010

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A friends & family festival honoring my mother calls for me. Posting will be light for a few days.

KA-CHING! however is front-loaded and on auto-pilot.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:15 PM | Your Say (3)

Somebody's Been Raising A Generation of Schmucks

My twenty-something client Emma,
a survivor of the Berkeley public schools, had a coughing fit during our session. I helpfully got up to get her some water. When I handed her a cup, she looked at it, incredulous.
Her voice quivering, she asked, "Is this Styrofoam?"
I said yes. She stared at the cup, mesmerized by this forbidden fruit. When she finally found her words, she said, "I've never seen Styrofoam before. We learned in school that it kills baby birds." -- Robin of Berkeley Why I Am Enlarging My Carbon Footprint

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

InstaRushLanched: Couldn't Happen to a Better Blogger

Bookworm Room - What a day this has been!

I woke up this morning to discover that my post about Rush Limbaugh had been Instalanched.... And then, just as I was about to leave to take my Mom to an appointment, I suddenly got a slew of emails from the many wonderful friends I've made since I started blogging, and all said the same thing: Rush is talking about your post.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:56 PM | Your Say (0)

NAGAAA! vs The BiSexuals

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When it comes to the grievance queens of America, there's no bottom to the bitching. Bisexual men sue gay group, claim bias
Three bisexual men are suing a national gay-athletic organization, saying they were discriminated against during the Gay Softball World Series held in the Seattle area two years ago. The three Bay Area men say the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance in essence deemed them not gay enough to participate in the series.

"North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance" or "NAGAAA!" ? C'mon lads, pay a little more attention to your acronym unless you intend to use it as a battle-cry when descending on those dastardly bisexuals with your swords drawn... in which case it works. As for the disgruntled Bisexuals... dudes, get your own league. That way you can bat for both teams.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:11 PM | Your Say (4)

What Is to Be Done

In some ways, the Progressives were the opposite of what we need today.
They believed that centralization of power and professionalization of government service were the most important items on the reform agenda. To some degree, today's reformers will need to undo the work the Progressives did. The original Progressives harnessed new techniques of management and information control to create large, professionally-administered government bureaucracies. Today we need to use new techniques and technologies to break those bureaucracies down, to make small units of government more powerful, and to make government at all levels more responsive and more user-friendly. In virtually every case this will involve taking on government employees, reducing their numbers, eliminating their job security and cutting back on unsustainable retirement and other benefit levels....

But for social movements to rise past the level of ephemeral protest, they need to do more than talk about what they don’t like. They have to develop a vision of what they want, and they have to build a reform program that hangs together and produce cohorts of members willing and able to take the time to make that program work.

When populist movements don’t generate and sustain that kind of consistent political energy directed toward lasting change, we get a politics of slogans and piecemeal, contradictory populist reform. Take California, whose considerable problems are exacerbated by the result of past ballot propositions that came from spasms of anger and resistance rather than reflecting a consistent set of reinforcing and complementary ideas. Or we get movements and political figures like Ross Perot who strut their brief hour upon the stage, their sound and fury signifying nothing. -- Go Home, Mae West - Walter Russell Mead

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

April 20, 2010

Jellyfish Joe

In which Morgan flenses some character who signs him/her self "Joe America:"
"Joe doesn’t figure things out, though. He’ll never admit this, but he swims with the tide. He’s one of these characters who, with a time machine, I can motivate to take on any opinion I want him to…just by figuring out what period in which that opinion is popular, and transporting him there. You want a Joe who believes in slavery? Coming right up. A Joe of Salem who thinks we need to hunt all the witches down? I can do that too. A Joe who wants to crucify all the Christians and feed them to the lions? No mean feat…how about a Joe who believes the Lancastrians rule by divine right? Or the Yorkists? Or Julius Caesar? Or wants to help participate in Caesar’s assassination? I can do it all, just give me Joe’s warm-putty-like mind, and a time machine with a precise dial on it." -- House of Eratosthenes

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

Lest We Forget

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From the brilliant 4-Block World

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:31 PM | Your Say (6)

Don't Cover. Don't Tell.

Media Kept Well Away as Obama Clashes With Gays and Lesbians in Washington, L.A. - Big Journalism At today's demonstration in Lafayette Park across from the White House by members of GetEQUAL, a new gay-rights group protesting the"Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military, Secret Service and Metro D.C. police kept reporters far, far away, peremptorily closing the park.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:55 PM | Your Say (2)

More Mush from the Eco-Fascist Wimps

climate_desk_bug.jpgAttractive Nuisance: Should Judges Help Tackle Climate Change? | Wired Science | Wired.com

"The idea may at first seem crazy. In a legal world obsessed with claims of judicial activism, the image of a judge taking on a global problem like climate change seems like the punch line to a bad joke at an Exxon board meeting. But it turns out there is a long and proud history of judges addressing pollution in the absence of environmental regulation."

Yes, this crap is actually put out from something called Wired "Science," aka "Propaganda from our seething craniums concerning what to do if our arguments and yearnings don't get any results from elected officials and public elections."

These brain-dead blatherings come from a new operation called risably "The Climate Desk." Who? "A: The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. The partners are The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS's new public-affairs show Need To Know." Their motto? "Unfair and Mentally Unbalanced All the Time."

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

Sometime Soon

" '€œHold it right there, buddy! Drop that salt and raise them hands. Slowly, now. One grain of that sodium falls into that soup and you're in a lot of trouble." Sergeant Grimwald of the FDA Food Patrol eyes were riveted on the illegal shaker." -- William M. Briggs, Statistician » Put Down That Salt!

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (1)

"All the Horrible People..." Where do they all come from?

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The sinister Elders of Tricon,
who were surely lit unflatteringly from above in an austere modernist boardroom when they made the decision to create the Double Down, knew perfectly well that it would create panic and horror for no other reason than its configuration. The Double Down is, explicitly and unapologetically, a piece of food comedy.

And all the horrible people—for it seems virtually impossible to talk about food without being horrible—are reacting exactly as planned. The unapologetically paternalistic healthitarians, the grease-sweating Warcraft-playing fast-food reverse-snobs, the one-idea-in-their-whole-head theorists of food salvation, the paleos and the Pollanites, the narcissistic Nietzscheans who look at cheese as though it was about to go critical any second but will buy whatever’s new on the shelves at the GNC without so much as looking at the label…all the people, in short, who routinely insist on adulterating the pleasure of eating, and that includes, most of all, the types who’ve imbibed too much M.F.K. Fisher and who write pornographically about the “pleasure of eating” as if they were zooming a powerful camera in on an open mouth furiously masticating a mouthful of gnocchi. -- The Double Down: your move, America - Colby Cosh - Macleans.ca
[HT: Quotulatiousness]

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

We are just motes in God's eye

"The eruption in Iceland puts more than our knowledge in perspective.  It also shatters our bizarre contemporary faith in our power to fix the universe – the belief, shouted from the rooftops and repeated ad nauseam, that picking up litter or riding a bike or spending $100 trillion can "save the earth."€ -- Perspective « vulgar morality

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:30 AM | Your Say (4)

April 19, 2010

Global Warming Volcano Myass

Now the media are biting
on the idea that recent warming caused glacial melt which precipitated the volcano erupting beneath the Eyjafjallajökull glacier in Iceland. Which means that we should first see just how bad the recent warming that supposedly did this has been. I'm just curious but, looking at the Reykjavik temperature record, does anyone see any warming in Iceland in the past 70 years? If it's the warming that followed the strong three-decade cooling that they imply caused the activity, then please, please also discuss, for context, what surely is a record of similar results when temperatures were like this after the prior warming to current levels, say in 1941? -- » Gullible Media, Panicking Over Climate Since the ‘Titanic’ Went Down, Sinks Still Further - Big Journalism

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:35 PM | Your Say (0)

Anti-Immigrant Myass

"Anti-immigrant"" is also a lie peddled
in service to open borders -- lie by virtue that it deliberately blends "immigrants" with "illegal immigrants" to suggest opposition to all legal immigration (In fact, Americans quite clearly support legal immigration); a lie by virtue that it personalizes opposition to particular "immigrants" rather than the concept of "illegal immigration"; and a lie by its emphasis on "anti" since opponents of open borders are not "anti" anything; they are pro-law and pro-enforcement of existing statutes. Those who break the law or advocate undermining existing legislation are clearly "anti"a lot. -- Works and Days » An Age of Untruth

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:56 PM | Your Say (0)

Stimulus Myass

The truth
-- even if right now we were to go ahead with a return to the Clinton tax tables, raise the caps on income subject to Social Security taxes, have the states keep increasing their sales and income taxes, and apply new Obama surcharges on health care -- is that we are still going broke. Do the math: $12 trillion is a lot of debt ($40,000 for each of us, $200,000 for a family of five starting out in the world -- like a second home mortgage in other words). $20 trillion in just eight more years is doom. -- Works and Days サ An Age of Untruth

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

Green Myass

For now all the Gore-related vocabulary will serve two main purposes:
to make those who master and manipulate it quite rich, and the rest of us feel very good about ourselves -- all the while as some sort of carbon-based fuel helps to power our cars, or a nuclear fuel powers our homes and charges car batteries. As we see with the current unprecedented shut-down of all air travel in Europe, nature in a second, not mankind in years determines what we puny humans will and will not do. -- Works and Days サ An Age of Untruth

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:47 PM | Your Say (0)

Diversity Myass

"Diversity" does not equate to a faculty department equally divided among Marxists, liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. No, sadly "diversity" is a second-generation word that was by needs reinvented to supplant the Orwellian "affirmative action."€ -- Works and Days » An Age of Untruth

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

Civility Myass

O Ye of Little Memory!
Do we recall any American shock when the Guardian published Charles Booker's lament "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?" And I don't recall anyone felt that language was getting too heated when, Howard Dean, head of the Democratic party, fumed, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." And was it not The New Republic that highlighted Jonathan Chait’s infamous "Why I Hate George W. Bush" article? Of course, there was that thoroughly civil New York play, "I'm Gonna Kill the President." -- Works and Days サ An Age of Untruth
Seriously, fuck them and the president they rode in on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:42 PM | Your Say (0)

It is no longer a relationship. Its a relationshit.

Pro Commerce: Just the facts, please
Nearly every Japanese now believes that President Obama is the rudest American president in history. To make a statement "nearly every Japanese" is not an exaggeration. The Japanese often have opinions that are held by 96% of the population. It is a very homogeous society.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:32 PM | Your Say (3)

I need an invention

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What I need, what I really, really need, is a long-distance thought-controlled flying Wad-O-Socks®. I need this so every time some brain dead bozo like Bill (Heywood Jablome) Clinton open his yap to flap pap, I can just vector the Wad-O-Socks® into the his blathering gob with a JATO assist. I wouId like to buy several gross of this item. I will pay real folding money for them.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:42 PM | Your Say (5)

"Why the Democrats aren't doing anything about the economy"

Word Around the Net on CREEPING TYRANNY
Sure, they will make noises about plans being to work on the economy and about how they want to fix jobs, but their goals have nothing to do with economic health. That's why they aren't doing anything about the deficit, because they don't care about the deficit. The best way to test this is to confront any leftist you know about why they shared conservative concerns when President Bush and the Republicans in congress were running up deficits but now don't care. Its because the deficit wasn't the issue at all, it was what the money was being spent on. The number was irrelevant, it was simply that this number was a result of spending they didn't like under Bush and embrace under Obama....

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (3)

April 18, 2010

Rick Perry is NOT Running for President

Our loss: Rick Perry on Obama, W, and Running for President - Newsweek.com

Newsweek: Everybody wants to know about your plans for 2012. Are you considering running and would you consider it? Perry: No and no.

NW: You are not considering running for president. You will not run for president. Perry: That's correct.

Under any circumstances? Perry: That's correct.

Vice president? Would you be willing to consider that? Perry: No. I don't care about going to Washington, D.C.

Your party could not come to you and say, "Governor, all the other alternatives are wanting. You're our guy." Perry: There will be an alternative that is not wanting. I have a great interest in who this individual is going to be, but I want to be a governor who is leading a state. Our policies, and the results of those policies, are worth having a national dialogue about. I want people elected to Congress, to the United States Senate, and to the presidency in 2012 with the express message that we are going to go to Washington and try to make Washington as inconsequential in your life as we can. I want the states to become the laboratories of innovation and experimentation. And I want to get this country back.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:44 PM | Your Say (3)

$70 Million: Temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork

Do it for the children. The drunken, fat, trust-fund children:
The amount of taxpayer money being funneled to a Dorchester shrine to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has ballooned to $38 million and could rise to at least $68 million this year, infuriating watchdog groups who insist the project should be privately funded. With $38.3 million in federal earmarks already secured for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Sen. John F. Kerry and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden) have in recent days tapped the government for $30 million more in the next budget. -- Watchdogs: - BostonHerald.com

Moral: Even a dead pig can suck slop from the trough. [HT: The Powers That Be]

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (2)

One More Thing on the Cute-Conservative Ugly-Liberal Issue…

As a modern culture,
we are coming perilously close to codifying a taboo against exceptionalism. This soft prohibition against noticing one woman is more gorgeous than another, or that conservative women are more appealing than liberal women, is simply the visible tip of the dorsal fin of something much, much larger. And dangerous.
This country has now spent generations worshiping at the alter of weakness, deliberately mixing up superior achievement with substandard achievement. It’s been making safety nets into hammocks. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (2)

April 17, 2010

Crack Business Opportunity

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Would Anyone Like to Rep the Backtacular Gluteal Cleft Shield? To whom this may concern,
I am the designer of a product called the Backtacular gluteal cleft shield. It’s a hypoallergenic adhesive patch that is applied directly to the skin above the gluteal cleft area of the buttocks. The patch is made of denim with a rhine stone and/or rhine stud design. The product stops gluteal cleft exposure when wearing low rise apparel. The picture of Jennifer Garner below is courtesy of the TMZ ” Crack Is Wack” section of the TMZ website. The Backtacular Gluteal cleft patch is patent and trademark pending. I would appreciate your consideration in taking my company on as a client. Thank You, Kimberly Brewer

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:46 AM | Your Say (9)

April 16, 2010

Never an "If", But the "When?" is Now


Via All That's Interesting

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:14 PM | Your Say (2)

The Potemkin Presidency

Another Soviet-style performance: Obama's NASA speech was completely staged -- not a single NASA worker was permitted to attend

BARBREE: ...I'm a little disturbed right now, Alex. I just found out some very disturbing news. The President came down here in his campaign and told these 15,000 workers here at the Space Center that if they would vote for him, that he would protect their jobs. 9,000 of them are about to lose their job. He is speaking before 200, extra hundred people here today only. It's invitation only. He has not invited a single space worker from this space port to attend. It's only academics and other high officials from outside of the country. Not one of them is invited to hear the President of the United States, on their own space port, speak today. Back to you Alex.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:41 PM | Your Say (0)

Roll On, Columbia

For now, the United States remains what it was.
After a decade of relentless focus on American incompetence and American decline, and after an economic crisis widely blamed on the failures of its capitalist model, the United States remains exactly what it has been since the Second World War: the leading power in a global system of trade and political relations that is the most dynamic force on earth. -- Walter Russell Mead

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:28 PM | Your Say (1)

Fish. Barrel. Bang!

"This is the lame duck Congress to end all lame duck Congresses, and it has its own agenda." -- neo-neocon

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

The Palin Effect

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

Tall Poppy

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This is where "tall poppy syndrome" gets you.
People are recruited to the (progressive) movement because it passes itself off as a way for the shorter poppies to gain access to the privileges of society available to others. Who could ever say that's a bad thing. But since it consists of nothing but a sustained "lopping" of the taller poppies, before you know it everyone's trying to avoid being tall. The beauty of women, or lack thereof, is just a microcosm of everything else. Here & there you'll find a liberal who knows how to start a fire without matches, jump-start a car, change a tire, fire a rifle, defend a home from a burglar...and they have Alyssa Milano. But these are exceptions. Overall, they can't really do much of anything. Even the liberals who are rich, either inherited it, played "jury lottery" swindling it out of others who worked for it, took bribes, or picked it up through some other means not fit for printing on a 1040 or 1099. -- Morgan

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:47 PM | Your Say (3)

India, Pakistan and “Pax Obamicana”

The Obama administration has antagonized India in the hope of mollifying Pakistani irredentism, just as it has antagonized Israel with the dubious argument that if Israel makes concessions to the divided, ineffectual Palestine Authority, it will be able to mollifyIran. Nothing will assuage the Palestinians, who are failed before coming a state, nor the Pakistanis, whose failure is ineluctable. -- Bashing our best ally in favor of a failed Muslim state - I mean India -- Spengler

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:17 PM | Your Say (0)

Oh Just Sit On It

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Pants. Have to get that fabric and get some pants made. Maybe a "Utilikilt." Pass on the hug. --Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: Adios Amigos. Hola Czarinna de Diplomacia

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (0)

Amazed

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--4-Block World

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

The rule of the internet

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last ten years
– aside from the fact that a man who can write a self-refuting line like “Only a Sith believes in absolutes” and be paid a billion dollars – it’s this: web communities create in-breeding. It’s less the planet-holding-hands-and-singing-the-Coke-song than Cities in Flight, domed off, heading on different trajectories. If you doubt this, subscribe to a few Twitter feeds from people who believe different things than you do, and you will find dross passed off as insight, biscuit-crumbs strewn as if they were pearls on silk, all because the writer believes he or she is speaking to an audience that need not be persuaded. The worst part of the internet is its ability to let the pre-persuaded accrete, and declare the sun moves around them. -- Zep, Tot, Tweet, Tumbl

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:46 AM | Your Say (1)

The other rule of the Internet:

PEOPLE WANT STUFF.
They don’t necessarily care what it is, as long as it is NEW TO ME. It can be OLD STUFF that has 503,025 views on YouTube, or LITERALLY OLD STUFF that some kind soul took the time to digitize and upload. But the days of a magazine once a month, a newsmagazine once a week, a paper once a day, a TV news broadcast twice a day and radio headlines on the half-hour – well, that’s practically Victorian, brother, real old Morse-lamp and carrier-pigeon style. STUFF must be provided every time we mouse up to the bookmarks. That’s why you have bookmarks, isn’t it? If someone doesn’t have STUFF someone else will. -- Lileks, Zep, Tot, Tweet, Tumbl

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:45 AM | Your Say (0)

The Alien's Impression

If I was the alien living in some kindly homeowner’s laundry room and pestering him daily with questions about the weird little quirks in our modern culture, and I relied on Memeorandum for my daily updates — which I probably would — I’d be pretty sure the country’s current leadership was some guy named “Tea Party.” And by “pretty sure” what I mean is, ready to swear to God about it…or…whoever. At least, that would be my impression after skimming headlines for awhile. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:51 AM | Your Say (0)

April 15, 2010

Cosmic Loserdom

A major problem for our culture is that, because its values are inverted, we often elevate the lowest caste to the highest
-- hence, the production of a type of art that not only holds no appeal, but is disturbing to anyone who is remotely awake. The vile man not only likes such things, but is attracted to them precisely because they mirror his own disordered interior and therefore legitimize his sordid existence. People need Light, but if they can't see it, they will demand vivid Darkness instead (ironically, they call it "realism"). Gravity takes care of the rest.

The lowest caste, the chandala is characterized by a "decentralized subjectivity, centrifugal and without recognized limits" (one thinks of Tiger Woods). But in a deteriorating culture such as ours, the outcast becomes the in caste, the one everyone aspires to, for he seems the most "free." The centerless losers envy and idealize fellow losers such as Tiger Woods, just because the latter has the resources to live out the dreams and fantasies of his cosmic loserhood. -- One Cʘsmos: Everybody's in Show Biz

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

Everything You Need to Know (and Already Knew) About the Colonized Mind of Terry Gross

Terry Gross: What I Read | The Atlantic Wire
"When I'm not listening to Morning Edition I put on satellite radio. I listen to Willie's Place, which plays '40s, '50s and '60s country and Siriusly Sinatra. I used to listen to some conservative radio in the morning to hear the talking points of the day. When I arrive at my office I read the New York Times with CNN or MSNBC on in the background. Between noon and 1:00 p.m., I'm hosting the show or doing live introductions. After the show I'm reading materials for my next interview or working on questions. I subscribe to a lot of magazines: Time, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Harper's, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker and The New Republic. I read them all kind of like they were catalogs. I read the table of contents and look for interesting story ideas we might want to pursue."

Like so many others, she's been so ill for so long she doesn't even know she's infected.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:06 PM | Your Say (5)

Rodger the Real King of France is having "bad thoughts."

"I've always felt that the cabal
that engineered Obama's election would one day see him as too great a liability, and arrange for his "hasty" exit. I think Obama has reached that point. I'm not saying this because I applaud it; I do not. But a martyred Obama may now be worth more to them than the living, monstrous joke he's become. Does he have any visits to Smolensk scheduled?" -- "I'll share this with you." Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:39 AM | Your Say (1)

Democracy Is Coming to the U.S.A.

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Posted by Vanderleun at 8:17 AM | Your Say (3)

April 14, 2010

We know the feeling.

"Casual browsing is a path
through little things that snag on the synapses, endlessly recycled and clipped. Ultimately, stealthily, the Internet of Things is replacing the City of Experience. Our perception of the real world is being consumed by our desire to see things through the lens of the screen. Or the pad. The mind alone is no longer enough to store the visual experience of modern life. The temptation to drag and drop the folder called "scrapbook"€™ into flickr uploadr is getting stronger and stronger." -- Highways, byways, backstreets, canals and beneath the waves « things magazine

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

"The Moral Depravity of Radical Feminists"

Stuart Schneiderman is not pleased with Joan Scott:
Scott does not merely want us to tolerate these barbaric practices; she wants us to embrace them.
She believes that by refusing to respect those who practice honor killings (or stoning) we have caused them to hate us. By implication, if we embrace honor killings as a curious but not morally condemnable custom, the people who murder their daughters for holding hands with a boy will suddenly like us and will abandon their jihad against us. -- Had Enough Therapy?

Update: For a personal look back at this psycho, I refer you to the comments to this item.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:19 AM | Your Say (6)

Now Showing on the Roads of Maine

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Posted by Vanderleun at 1:40 AM | Your Say (0)

April 13, 2010

Does Obama ask himself the following question:

"If bowing is a sign of respect, why don't these leaders bow to me?" -- Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:38 AM | Your Say (3)

April 12, 2010

You Don't Want To See Their 2012 Prediction, Do You Barry?

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By HippieCritic @ iOwnTheWorld.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:03 PM | Your Say (0)

Not In It for the Attention, Mind You

Still, it's just magical when a Thinking Right post from last year gets a comment like this:
I really liked your post and I will really say that the last post posted about this topic explained everything in the posted post. And this post is really a booster. I will say that the starter of this post was really in need of this information and so was I, I did search for this topic, but bang you people posted about this. Thanks all for posting this thread and really making valuable contribution. It really will help me and the post starter as well! -- Patio Laycock of Patio Furniture

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:17 PM | Your Say (1)

As long as someone, somewhere, is still dumping on Charles Johnson I remain a happy man.

I mean I can't do it all. Hence, Dennis the Peasant: There's No Cure For Stupid...
Little Green Footballs mega-dimwit Charles Johnson takes a brief break from posting pictures of his comic book collection and decides it's time to panic. Or, at the very least, time to prepare to panic:
"The Methane Apocalypse Some very frightening news from the world of climate science, as an international scientific team discovers that the Arctic permafrost in Siberia may be starting to leak huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. And if this proves to be true, my friends, it will put every other concern of human beings on the back burner."
Actually, Chuck, if we've going to have huge clouds of methane floating around, I don't think we're going to want a back burner around, period. Remember when you were 16? Baked bean dinner; back seat of dad's car; Bic lighter?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:11 PM | Your Say (3)

Hand me the Clue bat. No, the bigger one.

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"Hillary Clinton fears al-Qaeda is obtaining nuclear weapons material" - Times Online Sigh. What a sad, clapped out old prostitute this one turned out to be. For someone who once was touted by her pimps as "the smartest woman in the room" she's become stunningly stupid at an amazing rate.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:25 PM | Your Say (6)

Money for Nothing and Chicks for Free

"When there's no money left in the till talk inevitably turns to what color of the garbage bins should be or whether Christians should be allowed to wear crucifixes to work.
The really important public issues like carbon trading take center stage. Across the Atlantic in California, Victor Davis Hanson was noticing the same obsession with irrelevant forms in a state facing the same challenges as Britain. As the actual poverty rose in California the "socially conscious" turned in upon themselves, living in overpriced, politically correct communities, seeking solace in ambiance -- that is, living among people like themselves. Why? I have a theory. It allows them to be liberal and progressive in the abstract, without having to live the logical consequences of their utopianism, or deal with the underbelly of American life.
"This may explain the strange inverse relationship between shrinking resources and growing promises. When you can't provide the real then promise the fake. The bleaker the reality the more soaring the vision. The higher the price of oil, the smaller the military budget, the costlier the medical appliances the more grandiose the goals of the administraton become. Why aim for incremental environmental improvement when you can make the seas can fall.  Never mind if one must accept a nuclear Iran; at least we'll have a world without nuclear weapons! If Israel can give up Jerusalem there'll be peace in the Middle East at last! Why fix the health care system where it's broken? Fix it all.
"And it's all going to happen in the future, that wondrous, inexhaustible cornucopia of a place which will lend us everything we want, and roll it over when we can't pay. It will do it even though its peopled by people that are too much trouble care for; like the children who should never be born because pregnancy, according to one judicial nominee being considered by the administration, is "involuntary servitude'€ comparable to slavery.  Can you have a future without people, without cheap, abundant and secure energy? Can you have a future without truth? Why sure you can. Just you wait and see." -- Belmont Club » I Want My MTV

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:09 PM | Your Say (4)

April 11, 2010

Get Me the Toddler Leash. No, the Bigger One.

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FLOTUS FASHIONS: Recycling tablecloths and tiedyes since 2008!

Words. Fail. Can somebody please intervene? This woman clearly should not be allowed to dress herself.
"Such a busy day. Not even time to change our clothes. But then, it was a nice opportunity to show off our dress in the light of day, because the skirt has an odd interesting effect, fading to purple." -- Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: The Work of the Fashion Forward is Never Done

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:03 PM | Your Say (6)

"What they all think of as some kind of Utopia

— on my planet, and Ike’s planet, we call that “jail.” That is what we need. A special jail. Part of the reason 2010 is shaping up to look like a promising election year, after all, is this growing feeling that there are indeed two cultural halves of our country, and the wrong half is being driven underground. So let’s go the other way. We should have one single Supermax prison for the entire country, and put all these people into it — the stoners, the gang-bangers, the feminists who are upset that Michelle Obama is being made to look like a proper, effective and content housewife. The peaceniks, the enviro-weenies, the socialists who don’t want to be called out as socialists. They don’t like freedom anyway, so they’d probably be happier that way. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:52 PM | Your Say (4)

James Cameron -- I Accept

"I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads." -- James Cameron 
James Cameron I accept your offer, I'll even drive myself to your gigantic gated Malibu double mansion to shoot it out. I will participate in a public discussion. I think it’s important for the man who uses 1000% more mined resources than the average American, lives in a home 1000% bigger than the average American and drives/flies 1000% more than the average American to explain how the Average American is destroying the planet. -- Big Hollywood

Issued March 25. No response from wimp.

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

Glozell sez "Ah Luuuv Amurica" Can YOU Dig It?

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Why is SNL still screwing around with their "had her moment" Tina Fey when with Glozell they could really ride the edge? Washington Rebel review's Glozell starring in: Your Higher Taxes pay for My healthcare thanks President Obama Healthcare Reform
This is the funniest goddam thing I've seen in weeks. Months. For some unaccountable reason, there are people who don't get this. Jesus, pay attention. I've known and lived with lots of Black folks, and I guarantee they get it. And the ones who aren't laughing their asses off are gonna go ballistic. Along with every childish / living-with-their-parents / spoiled / un-toilet-trained / entitled/self-righteous little pissant on the planet.
Check it out at: Your Higher Taxes pay for My healthcare thanks President Obama Healthcare Reform

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (5)

April 10, 2010

Facebook Nugget of the Year So Far

Facebook is, for the most part, something I just cannot keep up with. Nor do I try. But every so often it yields, via a good Facebook friend, a bit of work that is worth all the time not spent there. This is such a moment. Simple. Elegant. To the point. Even more impact when you click on it.


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This from Oleg Volk's Amazing SiteCheck it out.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:18 PM | Your Say (4)

Global Warming: Two Photos That Prove It's a Scam

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Gee, that Arctic sea ice really seems to have thinned out over the last thirty years. Not. -- Details @ Doug Ross

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:37 PM | Your Say (3)

"It's dark as a dungeon, and damp as the dew. / Where danger is doubled and pleasures are few."

I never wanted to go down in the mines,
although there was plenty of opportunity. When I was a kid the local radio station broadcast the mine reports every morning, right after the stock market report which was about pork bellies and grain prices, not Wall Street. Springfield, Illinois was ringed by coal mines owned and operated by the Peabody company, and every a.m. local breakfasts were dished up to the sounds of the announcements about which mines were working, and which closed. The local pawnshop where I bought my first banjo had earlier been the source of cans of calcium carbide, intended for miners' lamps and the perfect ammunition for home-made cannons which would handily rupture an eardrum. Older men, retired from the pits, worked in their gardens and shops with hands tattooed by the ingrained ink of years of coal dust.... -- Dark As A Dungeon @ Washington Rebel

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (3)

April 9, 2010

Greenie Statement of the Day to which the only humane response is, "Go fuck yourself you miserable piece of shit."

by SgtMaj on Tue Apr 06, 2010
"I really hate to be so harsh, and I know this is going to sound like trolling, but I really don't care about the miners. If you work for the oil/coal industry you're working to destroy the environment and you deserve whatever karma throws your way. Sorry." -- TreeHugger Forums • View topic - King Coal is in overdrive this week

Update: 4 missing W.Va. miners dead; final toll at 29

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:48 PM | Your Say (9)

Voters to Stupak: Door. Ass. Bang. [Updated and bumped]

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Rep. Bart Stupak won't seek reelection - Mike Allen and Josh Kraushaar - POLITICO.com "Now with health care done, he’s retiring." [Soon we'll find out what plum job he sold his vote for.-- Ed]

Update: BigFurHat is, ahem, on the money when he says: Check Stupak's Freezer
I am dead serious. This guy's bank accounts have to be investigated. Look under his mattress. If he was persuaded to NOT retire just to hang around to vote for the passage of health care, what was all the posturing and hold-out about? Particularly in light of the fact that that video surfaced where he said he would vote for the health care bill despite the abortion funding provision being in it. This guy is dirty.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:41 PM | Your Say (9)

Call for Scenarios

Cobb wants to know:

the financial meltdown scenario that makes domestic politics turn violent. -- The Failure Nobody Wants To Talk About - Cobb

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:30 PM | Your Say (7)

"Just How Bad Do You Have To Be For The KKK to repudiate you?"

This from the Ku Klux Klan, LLC website:
"News Release NOTE: The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. has not or EVER will have ANY connection with The "Westboro Baptist Church". We absolutely repudiate their activities. The Ku Klux Klan, LLC." -- Wolf Howling: Over The Top

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:04 PM | Your Say (2)

Proof Positive Jackie Kennedy is Still #1

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The very next editor, writer, or pundit who compares Michelle Obama to Jackie Kennedy is going to be sent to Room 101 and fed to rats. This report just in: Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: Hair Recovery Act of 2010
Personally, I’m not sure the swept back look is the best way to go with the botoxed forehead and Vulcan brows, but to each her own. We didn’t want to draw too much attention to the new hair since it’s not, well, all it can be yet. So as a diversion, we wore an interesting ensemble of multiple prints and geometrics in black, white and blue that was, well, really more than it should have been. But interesting. In a postmodern way.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:29 AM | Your Say (14)

April 8, 2010

Worst TV Network EVAH

Is it that thing that Al Gore did that nobody watches or can remember the name of? No. Not even close. It is, drum roll,
The Oprah Winfrey Network, launching Jan. 1, will also include Oprah’s Next Chapter, a new one-hour show that will feature Winfrey hitting the road to have “more riveting conversations with the people we all want to hear from, in some very unexpected places.” The show, from Harpo Prods., was one of five new series announced today to advertisers in New York, including Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind; Your Own Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star; Gayle King Live!, and Why Not? With Shania Twain... Other programs that have already been announced for OWN’s launch in January include Breaking Down the Bars (a one-hour show that goes inside prison walls); In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman (a show featuring a sex therapist); Inside with Lisa Ling (a [non-gynocological] investigative series); and Searching (a show that attempts to reunite long-lost friends and family members.) -- EW.com

HT: HillBuzz who sums it up as: "Oprah's Weird Noises€ network (OWN), that she plans to launch on January 1st. Which, we predict, will be regularly watched by all of 12 people."

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:35 PM | Your Say (3)

I don't want to ask. I don't want to be told.

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Velociman writes:
"I am, however, considering that other great exercise in reversal of fortune: the capture of an albino. As Erskine Caldwell so delicately informed us in God's Little Acre, albinos can find treasure long buried or hidden from we normals. Doubloons, pieces of eight, even pocket change and the occasional penknife. It must be metal, I believe. To my understanding the albino cannot ascertain buried paper tender. But that's just scrip anyway, foisted upon us by a bankrupt government, eh?
They're like fucking leprechauns, these albinos. Plus one does not have to deal with the Irish in the process, the codswaddlers. Albeit, like leprechauns, the albino must be captive. Why, he's not just going to walk up and give you the booty. He acts upon duress, unfortunately, and you must be prepared to use coercion, stringent coercion if necessary, to force him to bely his gifts.
I love it when a plan comes together. Of course, all I have now is duct tape, a Taser, and a divining rod. --Velociworld: Changing My Luck

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:31 PM | Your Say (1)

In which we give thanks to a merciful God that there is no video tape

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Rachel Maddow and Her Girlfriend Give Up TV on Weekends
The couple met in 1999, when Maddow, who then worked odd jobs, was hired to do yard work on Mikula's property in the Berkshires. "It was very Desperate Housewives," jokes Maddow of how their relationship began.

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:18 PM | Your Say (4)

Climate Story of the Day to Which the Only Rational Response to Greenies is, "Oh, go fuck yourselves."

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"In the past environmentalists, from Lord Stern to Sir Paul McCartney,

have urged people to stop eating meat because the methane produced by cattle causes global warming. However a new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduce another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. Authors of the paper, published in Nature, say the research does not mean that producing livestock to eat is good for the environment in all countries. However in certain circumstances, it can be better for global warming to let animals graze on grassland." -- Secondhand Smoke

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

Malware

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We were strong, vital, and industrious.
We couldn’t be defeated by any known method of warfare. But with our success came complacence. And one day the deadly enemy snuck undetected through the gates inside the Trojan Grasshopper. We let them in because of their gilded promises. Promises that by merely throwing in a few twigs and branches into the gleaming chrome machine, riches would pour out of the chute in abundance, enough for everybody everywhere. No one would ever go without again. We would be cared for equally, from cradle to grave. It sounded so good. -- Motel Zero

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:17 PM | Your Say (2)

Curiously we have reached the point where "Oh, go fuck yourself" is the only reasonable response to climate stories

"Curiously a high proportion of the adult birds we see die tend to be dying [due] to factors related to climate and weather," Mallory said. -- Climate link found in strange Arctic bird deaths - Science- msnbc.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:23 AM | Your Say (5)

April 7, 2010

This "Cinco de Mayo" is "El Día de los Muertos" for LA

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Democrat Utopia of Los Angeles Goes Broke on May 5th "The L.A. City Controller says the city could run out of cash by May 5th." Let's party like it's "The Day of the Dead."

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

moPad© : Second Generation iPad In Stores This October

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Put MO-power In Your Life With The moPad

First you take pictures of all your clothes and accessories with the built in camera. Then, when you want to throw together a fashion forward look, you hit the What Would MO Wear icon on the touch screen and voila!

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:43 PM | Your Say (1)

David Frum can come in now. His time is up.

"I'M WATCHING DAVID FRUM ON KUDLOW (via DVR) and I'm just deeply, deeply unimpressed. A guy who poses as the only smart guy in the room really ought to be, you know, smarter." -- Instapundit

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:35 PM | Your Say (3)

President Obama's Chief of Staff explains his plan for re-energizing the economy and preventing future recessions.

"President Obama's administration has been working diligently
to perfect what is often seen as a crude and much maligned concept of an economic system that can provide not only positronic endibulation, but also supply inverse bilateral erapsilance, thereby enabling automatic synchronization of actuarial credisrodicants.
"We refer to this groundbreaking fiscal emarsifoliation technique as the Obamanation Destrafulating Rescamulator and believe its introduction to the current economic recession will bring instant antidismarnication and redistribulation not only to Wall Street but to mortgage lumorizators and loan gefinerationists all across the torminic spectrum."
"The basic premise of our nation's fiscal system has always been, of course, reliptification and dehusticating, but in the absence of proper fedeglation, a dreaped fenata can occur almost without warning, throwing reminatusilage and gradofleximission into deep scintillious egrappocation, or if you prefer, a classic nopped fenata." -- Grouchy Old Cripple: From Rahm [HT: Poretto]

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:55 PM | Your Say (2)

Hot Dating Opportunities in Orbit

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Zero-G: Do the math and imagine the possibilities! Kuriositas: Four Women in Space at the Same Time
Today marks the day when more women than ever before are working in space. Four women will rendezvous at the International Space Station - the largest ever gathering of women in space.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:24 PM | Your Say (9)

Riot, Bullets, Flames and Death in Bishkek

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Tumblr blog radio free mars is following the violent upheaval in Kyrgyzstan with a photostream. It's not pretty.

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

Freedom's Just Another Word for Pissing People Off

Freedom, therefore, must possess the intrinsic authority and ability to occasionally piss people off.
Or — to not piss anyone off at all…but at least possess the option. Those of superior rank, those of elevated station, those with letters in back of their names, those who hold “chits” on other persons in positions of enormous power — they have to be able to get red-faced, screaming, shouting, plate-throwing goblet-shattering mad, and not able to do a single thing about it. While you go on your merry way. Watching South Park, or blogging, or driving wherever you want. -- House of Eratosthenes

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

How Boys Become Pilots

Flight Level 390: Morning's Earliest Light July 23, 1959
I was a little kid in a pressed white shirt and the hated bow-tie my mother forced me to wear on our first airline trip. My father and I were standing just short of the cockpit door waiting for the flight attendant to ask the captain if a well dressed young man could visit. I can remember (almost) every detail. It is where it all started... For better or worse.

There's more to the story.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:50 AM | Your Say (0)

April 6, 2010

Flying the Blackbird

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You'll want to click the image to enlarge

"... The Mach continues to increase.
The ride is incredibly smooth. There seems to be a confirmed trust now, between me and the jet; she will not hesitate to deliver whatever speed we need, and I can count on no problems with the inlets. The cooler outside temperatures have awakened the spirit born into her years ago, when men dedicated to excellence took the time and care to build her well. We are a bullet now - except faster. Screaming past Tripoli, our phenomenal speed continues to rise, and the screaming Sled pummels the enemy one more time, laying down a parting sonic boom. In seconds, we can see nothing but the expansive blue of the Mediterranean. I realize that I still have my left hand full-forward and we're continuing to rocket along in maximum afterburner." -- Dark Roasted Blend: Monstrous Aviation: World's Biggest Airplanes, Part 3

Updating and bumping to include this fascinating comment from Donald Sensing:

One Sunday a few years ago the pilot of the Blackbird that sits in the Smithsonian visited my church. His name was Ed Yeilding (sic) and he was then employed as a transcontinental airline pilot.

The time mark for the flight began when the 'bird crossed the beach in

California and stopped when the plane became over water of the Atlantic. Elapsed time: 64 minutes.

He said they always took off with a half-fuel load because of weight, then refueled aloft. The SR-71 gulped fuel at a prodigious rate. At afterburner, he said they had to refuel every 90 minutes. But of course they had flown 3,000 miles.

One time he was on a proficiency flight above the US and was monitoring Denver Center. He heard a student pilot call the center, give his altitude as 5,000 feet and request a ground speed check.

"100 knots," came the answer.

Then a Navy pilot apparently decided to rub the nose of the student pilot and he called in for a ground speed check, giving his altitude as flight level 350 (35,000 feet). "650 knots," came the answer.

So Ed keyed the mike and said, "Denver Center, this is Air Force [tail number], request ground speed check at flight level 900."

"1,775 knots," the center responded (2,042 mph). And all was quiet thereafter.

Then there's the old story of the sled driver who asked a flight-control center for permission to head on a certain course at flight level 700.

The center controller chuckled and said, "If you can get to it, you can have it."

"Roger," the pilot responded, "descending to flight level 700."

Quite a plane, and quite the men who flew it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:43 PM | Your Say (9)

"Blow Jobs First," Access Later. Dumb Looks from Gibbs Still Free

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"Yes, mine is only this big. But it can still fuck you."

[Among the White House Press Corps] there is a growing sense
that access is traded for positive stories -- or perhaps worse, an agreement that things learned will not be reported in the near term. The White House is working hard to secure deals that yield fluffy, feel good commentary about the Obama White House. One American White House reporter used colorful terms to describe the arrangement. The reporter said, "They want 'blow jobs' first [in the press sense]. Then you have to be on good behavior for a bit or be willing to deal, and then you get access." -- Communications Corruption at the White House - The Washington Note

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:02 PM | Your Say (4)

Christopher Taylor is Confused

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My confusion comes from this:
do [these Leftist pundits] not remember? Or do they figure people are stupid and forgetful enough not to remember? What is their motivation with this nonsense? Are they so isolated and filled with goofy theories that they simply are unaware of the recent past? Could Chris Matthews possibly have forgotten he used the term regime in exactly the manner he said nobody else ever had before Limbaugh? -- Word Around the Net: CONFUSION

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (4)

First, Last, and Only Good Reason to Buy an iPad

Rolling Stone's Rock and Roll Daily gets it right in Is the iPad Better Than Your iPod? The Ultimate Music Test Drive
"The iPad’s built-in e-reader is miles ahead of the Kindle thanks to its fast page finger sweep page turning and color capability — perfect if you’re looking at vintage photos of Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones 1969 tour in Ethan Russell and Gerard Van der Leun’s memoir Let It Bleed."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (2)

The Morning After the Morning After the Night Before

Althouse wakes up with her hot new iPad and wonders....
I have a laptop (MacBook Pro) and an iPhone, so what am I doing with an iPad? I'm not going to pick it up from my bedside to check the time and a couple websites when I wake up. I'm not going to read it from a completely supine position, as I often do with the iPhone, when I'm in bed and not ready to sit up. I might use it in bed if I am sitting up, because it turns on instantly and if I'm ready to read but not yet inclined to write. It's very nice for checking email because of the relatively big, bright screen and the way, in landscape mode, I can see the list of email to the left and display any given item on the right. I appreciate that I can lock it into landscape or portrait mode and read while lying on my side. That's something the iPhone won't do. Of course, the iPhone, unlike the iPad, is a phone, and that makes it the one thing I want to have near me all the time.

Short honeymoon.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (1)

April 5, 2010

The Marching Mammary Morons of Portland

They got em in Portland... in spades:
About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity.... Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on. -- Brutally Honest: Women go topless in protest, then get angry when men ogle

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:11 PM | Your Say (5)

Text of the Month

"Ricky Martin is gay. You owe me $10 from 3rd grade." -- Texts From Last Night

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:44 PM | Your Say (0)

This just, er, in...

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via The Twin Balls of Doom for Dems via westsound modern

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

The Cloud Library of Alexandria

As digital recordings displace physical ones, the risks expand.
Think about books. Google's effort to scan every physical book ever published into its database has been compared to the creation of the great library of Alexandria. Should Google (or another organization) succeed in creating an easy-to-use, universally available store of digital books, we might well become dependent on that store - and take it for granted. We would stream books as we today stream videos. In time, we would find fewer and fewer reasons to maintain our own digital copies of books inside our devices; we would keep our e-books in the cloud. We would also find it increasingly hard to justify the cost of keeping physical copies of books, particularly old ones, on shelves, either in our homes or in libraries.

At that point, if we hadn't been very, very careful in how we developed and maintained our great cloud library, we would be left with few safeguards in the event that, for whatever foreseeable or unforeseeable reason, that library was compromised or ceased to function. We all know what happened to the library of Alexandria. -- Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Digital decay and the archival cloud

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:55 PM | Your Say (4)

Found Writings, Liberal Narratives & A Strange Realization

As is often the case, Cobb writes for me:
Today's strange realization is that all of my desire to be a serious and important writer is challenged by the fact that it is my avocation and not my vocation. I write very much like the first essayists. It is not a profession, I don't need the money for doing it. It makes me more truthful in some ways, and more lackadaisical in others. Beyond my own peace of mind, I can't really suggest what all of these thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of words mean on their own. It's all just effort. What it accomplishes is a puzzle I have no editors or researchers to help me sort out. I just know what creative engine I have and what I blurt is writing, and what you are doing is reading it and hearing my unique style and tenor. I will never put the entirety of my writing into context. I just put it out there. I'm a writer.

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

Reynolds: No One Can Crack "The Code"

The United States Code -- containing federal statutory law -- is more than 50,000 pages long and comprises 40 volumes. The Code of Federal Regulations, which indexes administrative rules, is 161,117pages long and composes 226 volumes.
No one on Earth understands them all, and the potential interaction among all the different rules would choke a supercomputer. This means, of course, that when Congress changes the law, it not only can't be aware of all the real-world complications it's producing, it can't even understand the legal and regulatory implications of what it's doing.

There's good news and bad news in that. The bad news is obvious: We're governed not just by people who do screw up constantly, but by people who can't help but screw up constantly. So long as the government is this large and overweening, no amount of effort at securing smarter people or "better" rules will do any good: Incompetence is built into the system. -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Progressives can't get past the Knowledge Problem | Washington Examiner

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:22 PM | Your Say (1)

"On every political question I can think of...

... the Left prescribes, and is successfully imposing, policies that are the opposite of fecund -- whether the thing to be sacrificed is merely wealth and savings, or (in the case of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, even "same-sex marriage") the very means of reproducing our species. Moreover, I find each policy advanced by "fait accompli" in the absence of serious public discussion and with the help of a propaganda (from "global warming" to the arguments for "Obamacare") that is essentially deceitful." -- David Warren

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

Cargo Cults in America

When Barack Obama, Orator,
speaks in loud booming sonorous tones about (whatever the hell it is he's talking about), and people (whom I guarantee you don't know what the hell he's saying and won't remember the substance of it two minutes after hearing it) praise what a great Orator he is and all that, this is essentially cargo-cult behavior centered around imitation of video clips of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Obama is trying to invoke the effect of being an MLK-like figure, i.e. to be popular and adored; the audience is trying to reenact the inspiring experience of listening to an MLK-like figure. If both sides play along, both succeed in getting what they want.) Similarly, passing a "historic"€ health care bill whose contents nobody voting on it understands or even has looked into is, likewise, cargo-cult behavior based on mimicking the mythical "New Deal"€ era. -- The Cult Of Superman's Father « Rhymes With Cars & Girls

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

The New Children of America

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The Pet High Chair
Satisfying a mutual desire for companionship, this high chair permits your dog or cat to accompany you at the dinner table. The high chair clips securely to tables up to 2" thick and its height adjusts without tools to elevate your pet to near eye level. It has a frame of powder-coated 5/8" steel tubing and its arms are rubber-coated so they will not mar table surfaces. By providing an alternative to sitting on your lap, running disruptively underfoot, or outright banishment, the chair assuages a pet (and its owner's) frustration, and promotes more refined behavior. The chair's 600-denier tan/brown nylon fabric cleans easily. Two tethers on the chair protect your dinner guests against any lapses in etiquette.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:25 AM | Your Say (11)

Fauxtography "Savant" Johnson Pwnd by His Own Petard

How sweet it is. Neokong @ Redstate has caught Charles Johnson falling for a photoshop, and a really bad one at that: Charles Johnson posts an obvious photoshop to try and smear Tea Partiers.


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Look at arrow one. It is pointing to something in the middle of the board that appears blurry yet the black writing is crystal clear and appears almost to be floating independent of the sign board.

Now look at arrow two. Can you see what looks like a whitish halo around the birther bumper sticker ? I clearly see it and once again it (the sticker) is crystal clear while the sign it is on is slightly blurry and faded and what is that dark black shadow to the bottom right?

I have never seen a shadow that can completely black out something. Where is the corner…?

Now look at arrow three. There is a definite albeit fine black border to that sign that to me makes it look super imposed as the objects even close to it again appear out of focus.

Now examine the sign board itself. It appears to be made of some sort of cheap wall paneling by the looks of the light wood grain. The edges are perfect as there are no splintered edges that would be visible if someone cut it to size in their garage.Examine the black writing itself. It just looks phony to me.

And phony it is, but nearly 400 comments in, Johnson still hasn't tumbled. Instead of figuring out he's been had, that he's picked a fake cherry, Johnson's off asking questions nobody cares about, questions such as,
Remember when the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz labeled LGF commenters as “vile,” suggesting that blog comments need better policing?

Actually, Charles, we don't remember it. We doubt anybody but you remembers it. And even then you probably don't remember it correctly. Mote in thine own eye, remember? If you plucked it out you might, just might, be able to see the fraud staring you in the face on your own home page.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:59 AM | Your Say (6)

April 4, 2010

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.

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We are not interested in the good of others;
we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." -- 1984

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:07 PM | Your Say (3)

Droner-in-Chief

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When you start to bore the Washington Post, it's time to STFU: The great elaborator: Obama gives 17-minute answer to health-care query in N.C. - washingtonpost.com
Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said. He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer -- more than 2,500 words long -- wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, "F-Map"). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as "FICA").

Whew, even the WAPO condensed version is like having a two foot section of rebar nailed down you spine.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (2)

iCade, the $150 iPad Accessory

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To use the iCade, gently slide the iPad into the docking cradle. The docking cradle uses a standard 30 pin connector to link the iPad to the professional-grade arcade controls. Once the iPad is in place, launch the iCade App (available free in the App Store April 3rd) and it's game on! -- ThinkGeek :: iCade - iPad Arcade Cabinet

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:03 AM | Your Say (1)

April 3, 2010

"Feelings. Nothing more than feelingssssss....."

He is the very model of the perfect palliative president:
Obama understands why you feel those negative emotions. The actual ideas you express don't really matter. They are to be disregarded — they're the things you say when you get mad or depressed, because of all the problems — problems that he aims to solve, in his way, for your sake, because he knows better. Now, if you would please, quiet down, and let him get on with the work of giving you what you need. -- Althouse

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

Oops...

Only Indicted Militia Member With Party Affiliation Is... a Democrat

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:07 PM | Your Say (1)

Stop Journo-Politico Violence Now!

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Journo-Politico Violence: Deadly Threat or Menacing Trend? by Iowahawk @ Big Journalism
At the Media Violence Project, our charter is to protect public safety by researching, documenting and raising awareness about the ever-increasing wave of violent, disgusting crimes perpetrated by members of the American news media.

Must. Read. ALL. HERE. NOW

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

Social Critics in Drag Disguise

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While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

-- Dylan, It's Alright Ma


Commenting on Andrew Leonard's uber-patronizing and inane The deplorable rise of the plastic Easter egg @ Salon.com Michael Jorris gives the snob both barrels:
If he ever knew my mom that plastic egg (with candy in it) was not disposable until it actually broke. Another Easter, same plastic eggs, same baskets, same plastic grass - but new chocolate bunnies!

You know, after 60+ years you would think that these critics would get tired of dragging out the same old accusations they have always leveled about American popular culture, but no!  Year in, year out; season in and season out - it is always the same.  

The Gross Vulgar Masses will consume more than the critic wants them to consume. The GVM will have more fun than the critic thinks they should be alloted.  I remember reading them years ago, and the tune never changes.  The GVM need a governess, and that critic is suited up and ready to do that.

Imagine disparging people of no special 'birth' or special 'attainment' for making their lives as comfortable and pleasant as they can?  What kind of hound do you have to be to do that?
Screw them all and the horses they rode in on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:41 PM | Your Say (1)

White House Bud and Bong Master Splits for Tinseltown

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West Wing to Be Down to Seeds and Stems by Summer: Kal Penn returns from Washington for Christmas-themed 'Harold & Kumar' movie | EW.com
Who needs Washington when you can have White Castle? Kal Penn’s reps confirm that the actor will leave his post as Barack Obama’s associate director of public engagement to return to his acting career. First up for the actor: a new Harold & Kumar movie, this one with a Christmas theme. [HT: Hillbuzz]

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:16 PM | Your Say (0)

April 2, 2010

The Tower


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April, 2005, Seattle

Click Image

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:23 PM | Your Say (0)

April 1, 2010

"What can't break is trust."

Cobb hits it out of the park in: Gary, Jerry, Belinda and Faye - Cobb
I had just watched Die Hard 4 and remember the line that it took FEMA four days to get water to the Superdome. In fact, Home Depot had water there sooner, and food, and clothes. For my predicament, Chase had my money, CVS had my gas and four hustling people from Ohio had my back. As Jason Statham said, transportation is a precise business. It takes a lot to get my ass from LA to Cleveland and back in one piece. That includes the pilots, the girl who served up my crabcakes, the flight attendant who poured my Jack & Coke, the programmer who let me buy my ticket online. I do and I don't take it for granted. I know all things work together for good, most of the time. But at any moment things will break.

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

Restoring to the Original State

"We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true." -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

File under: "Oh, shut the fuck up"

The always damp Andrew Leonard on The deplorable rise of the plastic Easter egg @ the damper Salon.com

I still can't get my head around the fact that this weekend, millions of children will, knowingly or unknowingly, reenact ancient rituals honoring the mystery of life by hunting for plastic eggs that symbolize the exact opposite of fertility and birth. Instead of resurrection, plastic eggs are all about everlasting nonbiodegradable un-death, inauthenticity and cheap disposability, not to mention global economic trends eating away at the livelihood of blue-collar American workers.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:47 AM | Your Say (3)