« January 2011 | Main | March 2011 »

February 28, 2011

The Last Word on Obamacare

From Dennis Gartman, stock market commentator and forecaster, proprietor of the Gartman Letter, a few words on Obamacare:
"Let's get this straight. We're going to be 'gifted' with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke!! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?" -- Had Enough Therapy?:

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:55 PM | Your Say (3)

Training for "Me" But Not for "Thee"

Obama's jetset fitness trainer helps shed pounds, adds to global warming | J.P. Freire | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner
The message is pretty clear: If you're an average federal employee or your everyday taxpayer, stop driving and be careful of your carbon footprint. If you're in the White House and you want some toned arms and a firm buttocks, fly your trainer out from Chicago every week. 50,000 lbs of carbon emissions. That's how much carbon emissions are involved in McClellan's flying back and forth every week for a year.

If I was a warmal colding believer this would frost my chestnuts. But since I'm not I'll just stand on my revulsion about the personal vanity that is oozing out of this White House.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:46 PM | Your Say (6)

And the Number One Reason for Redesigning a Web Site Is...

"We redesigned the site and made it easier to use. Not that it was terribly taxing before, but I know how drunk you are and I don’t want to make it any harder than it has to be." -- Regretsy

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (0)

Over There: Last US veteran of WWI dies in W. Va. at age 110

lastww1vet.jpg

Frank Buckles enlisted for World War I at 16
after lying about his age. He made it home again and ultimately became that war's last surviving U.S. veteran, campaigning for greater recognition for his comrades-in-arms before dying at 110. Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died of natural causes Sunday at his home in Charles Town, biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said. He was 110. Last U.S. World War I veteran Frank W. Buckles dies at 110
frankbucklesat107.jpg

Mr Buckles's secret to longevity: "When you think you're dying, don't."

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (7)

On Notebooks

notebook_main.jpg


I suppose there's no getting around the fact that I'm a notebook person
-- specifically a lined, college-ruled, unnumbered pages kind of notebook person. And with one notable exception, I'm probably not too different from the other notebook snobs that you've known and mocked over the years. My trouble is that I can never bring myself to write in my notebooks..... Because as long as we focus on the romance of the supplies, we don’t have to write a damn thing until we find the perfect notebook. This strategy is effective; it shields you from the terrifying act of actually writing. And as a compulsive email checker, pipe-dreamer, and firm believer that you can’t start a project until you’ve cleared out your Google Reader and taken three showers, I can attest to its wily adaptability. -- The Weight of a Good Notebook « The Bygone Bureau

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (0)

Democracy Versus Liberty

To highlight the offensiveness to liberty that democracy and majority rule is, just ask yourself how many decisions in your life would you like to be made democratically.
How about what car you drive, where you live, whom you marry, whether you have turkey or ham for Thanksgiving dinner? If those decisions were made through a democratic process, the average person would see it as tyranny and not personal liberty. Is it no less tyranny for the democratic process to determine whether you purchase health insurance or set aside money for retirement? Both for ourselves, and our fellow man around the globe, we should be advocating liberty, not the democracy that we've become where a roguish Congress does anything upon which they can muster a majority vote. -- - Walter E. Williams

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (0)

Union busting is nonpartisan

Blue State Dems Turn on State, Local Workers | Via Meadia
Despite the differences in rhetoric, killing public sector unions is a nonpartisan policy in the United States. While Republicans are more explicit about their goal, and want to move faster, Democrats and Republicans are both taking steps that will soon reduce the public sector union movement to a shadow of its current self.... The unions are no longer bargaining for higher pay; they are not even able to resist demands for pay cuts. They are simply bargaining to stay alive.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:39 AM | Your Say (0)

Hollywood Child Abuse: ""People say, 'What are you thinking?' and here's the truth. It's generally a quote from Apocalypse Now or Jaws."

So what's driving Sheen?
One answer is Apocalypse Now, the 1979 war epic that starred his father, Martin Sheen. As he told GQ, the movie—whose set he visited as a child—is nearly always in his thoughts (an assertion he only amplified with that new tattoo, which quotes the death card that Robert Duvall's character, Kilgore, throws on his victims in the film). "I'm not just my dad," Sheen said this week in one radio rant. "I'm putting up the river to kill another part of me, which is Kurtz. I'm every character in between, save for that little weirdo with his guts strapped in, begging for water. That's not me. But there are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper." -- Charlie Sheen talks to Amy Wallace

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:10 AM | Your Say (1)

Can't Buy Me Love

Politics runs on things like money, oil and trade;
and sentiment for co-religionists like the Copts plays a very small and insignificant part in serious affairs, as probably do things like patriotism, love of country and respect for common decency. Why can a mosque can be built at the World Trade Center site? Follow the money. Is it a mystery why Islamism is so above criticism? Follow the money. Is it a wonder why people like Castro, Chavez and Khadaffi (until recently) are the darlings of the Left? Follow the money. -- Belmont Club

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

February 27, 2011

"If 'The Motown story is really a metaphor for life,' it doesn’t look as though it ends well."

mo-motown%20frock_thumb%5B20%5D.jpg


Seal at least brought some soul to the East Room (who knew? I mean, he is British and all)
but Nick Jonas, John Legend and Jamie Foxx? Please. No pipes, no chops, no fly zone. And look at that sloppy “choreography.” You could practically hear Berry Gordy’s teeth grinding above the din. -- Michelle Obama's Mirror: NoMo Motown: a Po-Mo Review

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:25 PM | Your Say (4)

Walks Like a Duck, Talks Like a Duck Comment of the Weekend. So Far.

ScottM: The two most poisonous ideas in Conservative circles are "the Left just doesn't understand" and "my neighbor is a lib and he's not for Communism." -- Father Do Not Forgive Them. They Know Damn Well What They Do. @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:21 PM | Your Say (0)

Dr. Helen on "Why Should Child Men Man Up?"

Addressing Kay Hymowitz’s new book, Manning Up:
What do you have to offer these men you call child-men if they do man up? Are you going to ensure that they have fair access to their children should they divorce? Will you make sure that they aren't hauled off to jail if the wife makes false accusations of domestic violence? Will you let them keep the earnings and property that they worked for over years rather than have them turned over to their wife, even if she cheated and was abusive? Will you shield the millions of men who live in fear of their significant other but have nowhere to turn for help? Will you make marriage, in other words, as valuable to men as you think it is for women? -- Manning Up or Wimping Out

And Captain Capitalism underscores this with: When Men Leave the Market
The "man world" is DIRECTLY related to the economic crisis we face today AND IS ALSO THE SOLE SOLUTION to our economic problems today. It is the forefront of the battlefield and is precisely where all economic analysis should be focused (that is assuming we care to solve our little economic problems we face today). You want the recession to end? You want unemployment back to 4%? You want oil back below $2 a gallon? You want the US back on the road to supreme economic and military dominance and security? You want a world where your precious little children actually have a future? Put men back in charge (of course, what is funny, is if things keep going the way they are, men will inevitably end up in charge again, but it won't be the nice ones who appreciate democracy and the sanctity of women).

HT: Morgan, who pulls the two together at Washington Rebel

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

The next time some "teacher" tells you "It's about the children" show them this speech from the National Education Association's outgoing general counsel before handing them ten pounds of hot sand and a pounding implement

HT: Maggie's Farm

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:01 PM | Your Say (7)

Nothing Kills the "Newt for President" Insanity Faster Than This

Gingrich%20and%20Callista.jpg

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:52 AM | Your Say (11)

information, n. :

From an extensive entry in The Oxford English Dictionary:
7. The giving of form (form n. 4a) or essential character to something; the action of imbuing with a particular quality; animation (esp. of the body by the soul). "To ask about how I am made, and so to ponder the information of the soul by that which lies beyond its grasp."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:20 AM | Your Say (2)

"A continuing exploration of mysteries."

The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school
that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries. Wherever we go exploring in the world around us, we find mysteries. Our planet is covered by continents and oceans whose origin we cannot explain. Our atmosphere is constantly stirred by poorly understood disturbances that we call weather and climate. The visible matter in the universe is outweighed by a much larger quantity of dark invisible matter that we do not understand at all. The origin of life is a total mystery, and so is the existence of human consciousness. We have no clear idea how the electrical discharges occurring in nerve cells in our brains are connected with our feelings and desires and actions. -- How We Know by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books

Great article by Dyson.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (1)

"One hundred trillion bits of information"

In 1949, one year after Shannon published the rules of information theory,
he drew up a table of the various stores of memory that then existed. The biggest memory in his table was the US Library of Congress, which he estimated to contain one hundred trillion bits of information. That was at the time a fair guess at the sum total of recorded human knowledge. Today a memory disc drive storing that amount of information weighs a few pounds and can be bought for about a thousand dollars. Information, otherwise known as data, pours into memories of that size or larger, in government and business offices and scientific laboratories all over the world. Gleick quotes the computer scientist Jaron Lanier describing the effect of the flood: “It’s as if you kneel to plant the seed of a tree and it grows so fast that it swallows your whole town before you can even rise to your feet.” -- How We Know by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books

No kidding, a really great article by Dyson.

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

February 26, 2011

Pigpen Comment of the Day

And in a most unlikely topic here: Especially if that drummer was Pigpen @ AMERICAN DIGEST
What has happened in the past is history. The politicians (both parties) must be reigned in and forced to once again represent the citizens and not the special interests. If you agree, then please help. If not, kindly step aside and stop being an impediment, as these are vitally important issues at hand. To ensure failure, we must simply do nothing. -- R.D.Williams

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

Dear Union Punks: Bite me! (But I repeat myself.)

Civil Myass: How About We DON’T Tone It Down for a Change?
Speaking for myself -- in a calm and rational tone as I reach to upset their crooked card table and draw my metaphoric popcult pistol -- I have to say, “I know what you're thinking. ‘Did he fire six insults or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as we're playing for the future of the Republic, and being as this is a 2010 iMac, the most powerful personal computer in the world, and would blow your premise clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? ” Or, to quote the much more pithy Don Surber, "The left wants us to be civil -- after being so uncivil for a decade. Bite me."

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:46 PM | Your Say (0)

Althouse: The Kids Are NOT All Right

Althouse: Lefty blogger loves the idea of restaurants refusing to serve people that their other customers express open hatred toward.
Who remembers anything anymore? It's today that matters. The war dead are dead, and now their memorial is a handy place to tape your signs and back your table up against so all your stuff doesn't fall on the floor. And who thinks about tomorrow? The state capitol is occupied right now and plastered with thousands of signs this week, and isn't that just great? You haven't give a moment's thought -- have you? -- to what free speech rights will apply to the next group that wants to appropriate the state capitol? Are you planning on advocating viewpoint discrimination to keep the signs you find loathsome off the walls? No. I know. You have no plan.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:42 PM | Your Say (0)

Meditations from Montaigne

michel_de_montaigne_1.jpg

"The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man;
some contribute treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one. It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies nothing is a kind of commendation. ‘Tis my comfort, that I shall be one of the last who shall be called in question; and whilst the greater offenders are being brought to account, I shall have leisure to amend: for it would, methinks, be against reason to punish little inconveniences, whilst we are infested with the greater. As the physician Philotimus said to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who he perceived, both by his complexion and his breath, had an ulcer in his lungs: 'Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails.' " -- Michel de Montaigne - Of Vanity

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:37 AM | Your Say (0)

"A choice, not an echo: Democrats desperately defending the status quo; Republicans charging the barricades."

The Rubicon of Wisconsin - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online
In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largesse in the next election. It’s the perfect cozy setup.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (1)

February 25, 2011

"Gas Prices Skyrocketing. Who was that courageous Politician who loudly proclaimed "Drill, baby drill!" ? Because we certainly needed one like that, instead of the failshit buffoon we have in office now."

Just repeating the headline found @ Serr8d's Cutting Edge

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:21 PM | Your Say (2)

Global Warming? No Problem.Small Nuke War Fixes It

More mush from the wimps: NASA GISS' computer modelers (Luke Oman et al.) were trying to solve the "global warming crisis"
and they found a solution: a regional nuclear war, for example between India and Pakistan, would reduce floods and cool the Earth by 1.25 ーC - some places by 3-4 ーC. After a decade, the temperature would still be 0.9 ーC lower than before the war. -- The Reference Frame

It's a start, but I'd vote for a small nuclear exchange involving Seattle and San Francisco first even if it would make for a bad day for me.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:54 PM | Your Say (0)

New LOLSheenCat as Patron Saint of Bloggers

I'm not big on LOLcats, but this time I'll make an exception.


cat-sheen-5.jpg

"St. Puffy of Bloggers"

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:40 PM | Your Say (2)

NY Times Dumps Ethicist and "On Language." Times Moral Degradation and Newspeak to Continue at Chancrous Media Whorehouse

The Ethicist - Goodbye - NYTimes.com

After 32 years On Language is finally coming to a close

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:24 PM | Your Say (2)

Least important "breaking" news item of the year so far

BREAKING NEWS: CBS Cancels Production On Sheen's 'Two And A Half Men' For Remainder Of Season Following Actor's Radio Rant

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:21 AM | Your Say (3)

February 24, 2011

Potential Hostage (or Worse) Americans Trapped in Libya: So far, true to his character, Obama sends in a ferry

And, I note, while on or around that ferry "stuck" in a Libyan port, all these Americans are sitting ducks for whatever faction decides to make a little trouble:
"We're in the 10th day of this blowup -- 10th day! And apparently the military, on its own initiative, is trying to provide options to the national governing authority that it has just as apparently not requested. Notice the wording in the very last sentence above. "Will provide" and "should he need them." That says to me he hasn't requested them and the military is trying to get ahead of the game without any guidance..... Instead, 11 days later those citizens get … a ferry? -- Americans left to take the ferry from war-torn Libya « Hot Air

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:49 PM | Your Say (4)

TSA Now Groping and Wanding Americans When Getting OFF the Train?

Because it's not really about security after all. Is it?

February 13:
The only bad thing on our trip was TSA was at the Savannah train station. There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area AFTER you got OFF THE TRAIN! This made no sense!!! Poor family in front of us! 9 year old getting patted down and wanded. They groped our people too and were very unprofessional. I am all about security, but when have you ever been harassed and felt up getting OFF a plane? Shouldnt they be doing that getting ON??? And they wonder why so many people are mad at them.

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

California Draining on Such a Winter's Day

As deficits mount and taxes increase, productive people and enterprises are leaving California for more hospitable states.
Inevitably, there will be a tipping point when the state divides between a large welfare population that controls the vote and the rich who live in gated communities but whose tax revenues cannot support the state's obligations. Good indicators of the outward migration are the prices of U-Haul vehicles. To rent a 26-foot truck one-way from San Francisco to Austin costs $3236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. Even so, U-Haul has to pay its employees to drive the empty trucks back from Texas. -- American Thinker: The Sad State of the State of California

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:03 PM | Your Say (3)

Tom Friedman's Volcano Wakeup Call

Today's Tom ('I'm writing as bad as I can!') Friedman column edited down to nothing but mixed metaphors and cliches:
A wake-up call’s mother is unfolding. At the other end is a bell, which is telling us we have built a house at the foot of a volcano. The volcano is spewing lava, which says move your house. The road will be long and rocky, but it will trigger a shift before it kicks. We can capture some of it. IF the Middle East was a collection of gas stations, Saudi Arabia would be a station. Iran, Kuwait , Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates would all be stations. Guys, here’s the deal. Don’t hassle the Jews. You are insulated from history. History is back. Fasten your seat belts. Don’t expect a joy ride because the lid is blowing off. The west turned a blind eye, but the report was prophetic, with key evidence. Societies are frozen in time. No one should have any illusions. Root for the return to history, but not in the middle. -- | The New Republic

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:40 PM | Your Say (3)

The Adolescent American Left in a Globalized Economy

teenbrain.jpg


Works and Days » The Rise of the Adolescent Mind

In a word, the United States is not producing enough real wealth to justify a particular standard of living among its public workforce far superior to counterparts in the private sector. We are borrowing massively abroad for redistributive entitlements. We fight wars with credit cards. We talk of cap-and-trade and "climate change" without prior worry about how to fuel the United States, as we sink in perpetual debt to import well over half our oil. We have open borders and pat ourselves on our backs for the ensuing "diversity" without worry that illegality and lack of reverence for federal laws, absence of English, no diplomas, multiculturalism instead of the melting pot, the cynicism and chauvinism of Mexico, and recessionary times are a perfect storm for a dependent, and eventually resentful, underclass extending well into a second generation, one that fumes over why things outside are not equal rather than looking within to ensure that they could be.

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

Egypt: The Reality-Show Revolution

So a revolution in Egypt is fake. It may not end happily in the long run; I doubt it will; but in the short run, it's no more than a reality-show coup.
Government has changed hands - to the extent that Egypt, now, is governed by any entity but Foggy Bottom - and it's a wrap. Everyone can party. It's true that the party was cut a little short when one of the revolution's producers was gang-raped by her own little brown brothers - so badly she spent five days in the hospital. Apparently either not everyone in that crowd was a doctor, a lawyer or a filmmaker. But who said they were? Really? And it's a wrap. But a revolution in Libya is real. This always happens: the fake revolutions start the real ones. -- Unqualified Reservations: Viscount Hinchingbrooke demurs

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (0)

Warmal Colding Update: C02 is RIGHT OUT! Soot and Ozone are BACK!

Global warming rate could be halved by controlling 2 pollutants, U.N. study says
The projected rise in global temperatures could be cut in half in coming years if world governments focused on reducing emissions of two harmful pollutants - black carbon and ground-level ozone, including methane - rather than carbon dioxide alone, according to a U.N. study released Wednesday.
I'm so pleased that ozone is back. Hit it, Commander!


Posted by Vanderleun at 11:58 AM | Your Say (2)

If more Libyan women could dress and accessorize like this, the situation there might be more polite.

aherogear_pink_3052.jpg

Image by Oleg Volk

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (4)

You can’t make this up.

"Half of Detroit’s public schools are shutting down, Libya’s burning, and the White House is holding an homage to Motown tonight. And Harry Reid calling on Republicans to “join us” in creating jobs." -- Dan @ POWIP

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:25 AM | Your Say (4)

Passive Aggression

Our society — which doesn’t lead, but polls us to see what is popular, profitable and inoffensive — forms a paradise for both salesmen (consumerism) and socialists (parasites).
In both cases, people irrelevant to your life want something from you. Whether that is your time, your allegiance, your money or just your eyes, they’re taking something from you — your irreplaceable moments. That quiet dinner you were enjoying? Not for you; they have needs, you know. Your house? Your business? Your family? Not yours; theirs. -- | Amerika:

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:59 AM | Your Say (0)

Checking in on the Proglodyte Double Standard

Tell me if I have now understood this one right. Lara Logan has the inalienable right to go wherever she wants wearing whatever she feels like,
and no one is allowed to touch her without her explicit consent, regardless of the particular cultural mores of her current locale. However, that American couple who was killed by Somali pirates pretty much deserved their gory fate for trying to impose their oppressive backward religion and narrow-minded values on other cultures, and those silly old biddies were just too dumb to understand that they can't just go to an Islamic country to do Christian missionary work passing around free Bibles, and expect to be physically safe and free from a violent response. -- The Fourth Checkraise: Dispatches from the Two Cultures

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

Climate Changer Believers a Threat to Humanity!

"... the climate change cause, which, like malaria, will also cause mass human casualties--in the form of food shortage-induced hunger and forced migration." -- Fast Company

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:31 AM | Your Say (0)

February 23, 2011

"INCOMING!:" Italian Island Takes a Hit

boatypeople.jpg

Only the beginning, folks, only the beginning:
More than 6,000 illegal immigrants have recently arrived on the small Italian island of Lampedusa, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, an unintended consequence of the people's revolution that ousted autocrat Zine el Abidine ben Ali and inspired the uprisings in Egypt and beyond. -- Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:25 PM | Your Say (4)

Le rêve est mort mais le spectacle continue

I cannot quite detach myself from the mesmerizing spectacle of an American president and his party bent on weakening and impoverishing
a once-great country and transforming it into a socialist caricature of good governance. The fascination with so noisome and preposterous a burlesque is not easily dismissed. There were moments when it seemed I was witnessing a performance, suitably updated, from the Commedia dell'arte, with Joe Biden as the feeble-minded Pantaloon, the now-departed Rahm Emanuel as the mischievous Harlequin and his brother Ezekiel as the ignorant and ostentatious Doctor Balanzone, a grizzled Nancy Pelosi as an aging Columbine, Valerie Jarrett, clever, self-important and a lover of intrigue, as the Soubrette, the necrotic George Soros as the miles gloriosus Captain Courageous, and of course Obama as the braggart and fool Scaramouche, clownish purveyor of slapstick exploits and vainglorious language. The cast can be expanded at will to include many of the other dolts and lightweights cluttering the stage. -- Pajamas Media サ Obama and Me

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:19 PM | Your Say (0)

The Continuing Crisis Continues

budgetcrisis.jpg

IMAGE FROM Word Around the Net: SACRIFICE BEGINS AT HOME

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:09 PM | Your Say (1)

Pith of the Day

Iran: the Revolutionary Guard has plenty of ammunition and would be toast if there were a real revolution. But in "Twitter vs. Rifles," Twitter doesn't usually win. -- Jerry Pournelle

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

Boyle's Law and the Physics of Politics

As you reduce the volume of the container, or add more molecules of gas,
the average distance between particles decreases, and the energy density of the system increases. Pressure also goes up, because collisions with the walls of the container become more frequent, and because collisions between particles inside the container happen more energetically and more often, the pace of chemical reactions rises as well.

This is exactly what has happened to the world, and very dramatically so, in the last few years. Not only has crowding increased in the world’s crowded places, but far more importantly, the revolution in electronic communications — in particular, the advent of massively interconnected, global social networks that operate with zero latency and with little regard to political boundaries — has decreased the average distance between individual human beings by orders of magnitude in a very short time. -- Boyling Over – waka waka waka

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:45 PM | Your Say (2)

Stealth Gay Marriage Policy Joins Stealth Reparations Policy as Bookends of Obama Plan

Statement of the Attorney General on Litigation Involving the Defense of Marriage Act

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:13 PM | Your Say (3)

Stealth Reparations: "These selfless protesters are not protesting in the name of their rights, but of your obligations.

My friends, if only you knew. If only you knew the extent of the human dysfunction
embedded in the very concept of "public employee" (I hope it goes without saying that we are dealing in generalizations). For such people, there is no feedback from the world that says: you are a failure. Or, accurate feedback is experienced as persecution, harassment, "stress." Please note that it is unfair to compare their wages to those in the private sector, since so many of these selfless idealists are unemployable. They cannot care for themselves, so we must. Thus, they are engaged in the type of bold adolescent rebellion that pits dependent children against their parents. -- One Cʘsmos: Cluelesside in Wisconsin

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:56 AM | Your Say (1)

"Incoming!" Here come the new "boat people" right on schedule

aillegalboatload.jpg

Frontex has been given instructions to start preparing for a possible unprecedented influx
of immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing Libya towards the EU, particularly through Malta and Lampedusa. The EU has raised its concern about the possible exodus of more than 700,000 Libyan citizens and sub-Saharan Africans from the country towards Europe as a result of the turmoil. -- DI-VE - News Details

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:03 AM | Your Say (4)

Ten times as evil?

If tobacco companies are evil for making 33「 a pack, what does that make the government, whose federal and state taxes now average to $3.17 a pack? -- The sanctimony of taxing smokers ォ Don Surber

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

"It's quite striking....

... the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters." --The Means of Coercion - WSJ.com

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

"Think of “public service” for what it really is,

"... a secondary form of welfare, in which “workers” pretend to work and the government pretends to “pay” them
— just like in the old Soviet Union! I mean, if it weren’t for government jobs, all of these “non-essential” personnel would be lounging around on their porches, drinking beer and firing unregulated handguns into the air or at each other — or, even worse, at us — unable to deal with the vicissitudes of life and therefore deserving of our public charity. Without public service, politicians such as Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd would have been just another couple of Irish barroom horndogs; Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, another Buddhist moonbat; and Robert Byrd a humble white-sheeted follower of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Public service gave these men jobs — real jobs — and meaning to their lives. And you malevolent capitalists want to take it all away." -- Gone, Wisconsin - National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:05 AM | Your Say (1)

"The pirates appear to have been dispatched from a mother ship"

That from this Washington Post piece raises a question.

Why in hell is that mother ship still afloat? -- (Wizbang)

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:28 AM | Your Say (6)

February 22, 2011

Pith of the Day

‘I just hope this thing in Wisconsin ends peacefully. Wisconsin has long been a valuable ally of the United States.’-- Little Miss

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:52 PM | Your Say (3)

Pretty good analysis.

bodyshape.jpg
Click to biggify

Via Word Around the Net: PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:04 PM | Your Say (5)

Short and sweet

Thune's not running.
At this rate, Palin may be the only man left standing. -- neo-neocon

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (13)

"Socialism, my fat fanny! It’s just plain old selfish greed."

Roger L. Simon » Wisconsin: Liberals as Reactionaries
Why has our left become so reactionary, so unwilling or unable to adapt to a changed world that they "act out" with all the juvenility of adolescents deprived of the family car keys? Some say it is because they have replaced religious faith with politics and I, an agnostic, see some truth in that. But there is more. Liberalism has become a mask for greed in our culture -- way of hiding excessive selfishness from others and, importantly, from the self. It's a deflection, really.

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

From Relativism to Radical Certainty

Buckley charged that this implausible doctrine of “academic freedom” fostered relativism,
and he evidently feared that this relativism favored error over truth. Where are we now, sixty years after Buckley’s famous warning? We find that the intellectual and moral relativism that was so fashionable in academia in the 1950s has now, in large measure, given way to radical certainty. -- ‘Wrist Slaps for Everyone’ : The Other McCain

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:21 AM | Your Say (0)

February 21, 2011

Liberal Cows Grazing on Astroturf

Power Line - Think Stupidity
One curious feature of today's left is its obsession with "astroturf." There is a reason why lefties who work for billionaire-funded web sites like Think Progress constantly talk about astroturf: it is the world they live in. They are paid by rich liberals, and the demonstrators who are bused in to left-wing protests are generally union members who are paid to attend. No one on the left does much for free. So lefties find it hard to understand that ordinary citizens ("Tea Partiers") will turn out at rallies without being paid, that conservative voters vote on principle, not financial self-interest, and that conservative activists act out of conviction, not because they are subsidized by a sugar daddy. Failing to understand that conservatism--unlike liberalism--is a movement of principle, not self-interest, they are constantly looking for the elusive, non-existent money trail.

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

The Google Spreadsheet of the Dead

Killed in Libya
INSTRUCTIONS: Help us. Please edit this page in order to add more information! EDIT LINK IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. We would like to list EVERYONE in EVERY CITY who has been killed!

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:17 PM | Your Say (4)

"A pair of 38s — and a Glock."

From NBC: An undercover agent smuggled a gun in her bra past TSA. -- Don Surber

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:01 PM | Your Say (0)

Every news cycle brings forth new uses for air-sickness bags

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush will team up to serve as honorary chairmen of a new center created at the University of Arizona to advance the national conversation taking place about civility in political debate, university officials will announce Monday. --Arizona university opens civility center after shooting - CNN.com

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

Get This Man a Hat Stat! Celebrities Caught in the Act of Being Themselves

baldtravolta.jpg


Caption: John Travolta Stares Icy Needles of Bald-Man Hatred into Poorly Concealed Photographer. Look at the bright side John: At least you have your shirt on. (via The Daily Crabbie: John Travolta Forgot His Hairpiece)

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:40 PM | Your Say (8)

WARNING: Do not fly through a radar shadow!: How BadS Happens to Airliners

A thunderstorm's violence is indescribable.
They come in six levels; the first being the tamest and the sixth the worst. Inside of a level three (half-way up the scale) is really nasty... Moving further up the food chain is, well... Bad news. Think about looking at the wing and seeing your long dead relatives sitting on the leading edge waving at you... Yikes! -- Flight Level 390: AF 447... Part 3

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (0)

INCOMING!

LIBYA: Italian official warns of 'unimaginable' wave of immigration Los Angeles Times Cue:
"They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind"

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

Attention Teachers: Your union is always the second one to screw you

From snow job to no job: The Union Label | westsound modern
Turning to our union representatives for redress as we had always done, they said they were sure sorry and that while we had been dealt an injustice, their responsibility was now with the union members at other plants who still had a paycheck coming in. Times were changing. They wished us all good luck and that was that.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (0)

Late Winter Snow Job Report Just In from Vail

Michelle Obama's Mirror: Michelle’s Vail Presidential Downhill Slide So, yesterday we mastered riding on the gondola without our skis or boots, and managed to squeeze in a fashion shoot for the local fashionista magazine, modeling the softer side of ski helmets.
skihatmichelle.jpg
Does this ski helmet make me look like a conehead?

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (6)

San Francisco: "We're #1!"

What a town! Despite oversupply, U.S. gas prices leap

Here are the latest average prices in some U.S. cities: -Billings, Montana - $2.95 -San Francisco - $3.54 -Houston - $2.98 -St. Louis - $2.99 -Tulsa, Oklahoma - $3.01 -Baltimore - $3.09 -Atlanta - $3.11 -Boston - $3.21 -Las Vegas - $3.20 -Minneapolis - $3.18

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (0)

February 20, 2011

Where have all the flowers gone?

Mario Savio, U. C. Berkeley, Free Speech Movement, 1964

What happened to all my compatriots who, in my youth, marched and sang for "freedom?"
How did they become so old, so hidebound, so mired in the past? When did they become stuck in "suppose?" How, from once striving so hard against colonialism in all its guises, did they allow their minds to become so utterly colonized by a matted mass of dim and discredited notions? -- While Mowing the Lawn @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:25 PM | Your Say (5)

Silent Movie: Gov. Scott Walker Must Die

Feel the sheer essence of "the new civility."

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:20 PM

"Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, / And now a bubble burst, and now a world."

bubblpop.jpg

At its most basic nonpolitical level, the showdown in Wisconsin is about the price of teachers; about a bubble.
It is about whether Wisconsin can continue to afford a union/monopoly supplied product whatever the disparity with the true market value of their ‘value added’ represents.  And in other parts of the world it is about the price of food, energy, or the price of maintaining juntas, politburos, kings, emirs or presidents for life. Bubbles are at the heart of many of the riots now being reported daily and globally throughout the world. Their frequency and persistence are a sign that they are cascading on to each other, like a collapsing house of cards. -- Belmont Club » Bubbles bursting

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:53 PM | Your Say (0)

State Tells Parents Baby Has to Die and Has to Die the Way the State Says

babybreathing.jpg

On orders from the Orwellian "Consent and Capacity Board:" Ont. couple's appeal to bring baby home dismissed
LONDON, Ont. — A Windsor, Ont. couple's fight to bring their gravely ill baby home to die ended in bitter tears Thursday when a Superior Court judge dismissed their appeal to stop doctors from removing the infant's breathing tube at the hospital.

The father and relatives of one-year-old Joseph Maraachli wept outside a London courthouse after an emotional Justice Helen Rady upheld the earlier decision of an independent provincial tribunal forcing the baby's parents to comply with doctors' orders.

....Maraachli and Nader went before the Consent and Capacity Board of Ontario, an independent body that deals with matters under the Health Care Consent Act, which sided with the doctors in late January and agreed that it was in Joseph's best interest to have the breathing tube removed.

That part about it being in "Joseph's best interest" is especially damning. But get ready because this is what your government has on the schedule for Americans. After all, once they can force you to wear a seat-belt, put on a helmet, stop smoking, etc because it is all in your "best interest," it's only a question of time before it is in your baby's "best interest" to have its breathing tube pulled. After all, who's going to stop it. You? You and what army?

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:32 PM | Your Say (6)

The Powers of the People

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -- Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:23 PM | Your Say (0)

"Get Guns..." When Corrupt Politics Led to Guns in Athens, Tennessee

It's 1946 in Tennessee and the time was right for fighting in the streets:
“You call yourselves GIs—you go over there and fight for three and four years—you come back and you let a bunch of draft dodgers who stayed here where it was safe, and you were making it safe for them, push you around. … If you people don’t stop this, and now is the time and place, you people wouldn’t make a pimple on a fighting GI’s ass. Get guns…”

In the early evening White went to get the guns himself. He sent two GIs to get a truck and, with a few other veterans, perhaps a dozen, he headed for the National Guard armory. There, he said in a 1969 interview, he “broke down the armory doors and took all the rifles, two Thompson sub-machine guns, and all the ammunition we could carry, loaded it up in the two-ton truck and went back to GI headquarters and passed out seventy high-powered rifles and two bandoleers of ammunition with each one.” By 9:00 P.M. Paul Cantrell, Pat Mansfield, State Rep. George Woods, who was also a member of the election commission, and about fifty deputies were locked inside the jail and going through the ballot boxes. The presence of Mansfield and Woods meant that a majority of the election commission was on hand, so the tallies could be certified and validated on the spot. More deputies were still barricaded in the courthouse, but along the streets none were to be seen. If the Cantrell forces had been a bit more wary, they might have spotted some shadows slipping up the embankment directly across the street from the jail.

Incredible history. Read it all at AmericanHeritage.com / THE BATTLE OF ATHENS

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:00 PM | Your Say (2)

"We have built the web to connect to ourselves, and it’s not designed to filter any demons out of our minds."

There is buried network of spurious arguments underneath all the comfortable hatred of incivility, here.
There is an assumption that the web is supposed to be a force for good, and only good. Who says? And secondly, that those that use the web are in some way a collective entity, a global society with shared beliefs, including various democratic ideals. These unstated assertions are deeply and profoundly wrong, but taken as a given in anti-web circles. -- Another Lesson About Cognition And The Web: Lara Logan And Hate | Stowe Boyd

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:24 AM | Your Say (2)

"People don't use the Internet as a right or as a privlege. They use it because they *can*."

The Internet itself, now draped in the jewelry of 'social media' has become a fetish.
People all over the MSM, obsessed as they are with what they don't understand about computer mediated communications, keep saying that Twitter and Facebook, Twitter and Facebook are making the difference. Twitter and Facebook. But these are manifestations of what people want - they are expressions of will, quantified in dollars, eyeballs, Oscar nominations and other neat statistics that are easy to digest. At the bottom is the awesome force of people's desire to communicate freely with each other, 24/7. It is only the defense of those people's rights to free speech that matters. Everything else comes with it. -- Logan, Rosen, Dowd, Mubarak & What The Internet Truly Is - Cobb

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:20 AM | Your Say (0)

Beijing's Fear of the Jasmine Tea Party

Today, searches for 'jasmine' were blocked on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and status updates with the word on
popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with 'political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate content.' And mass text messaging services was unavailable in Beijing due to 'technical issues', according to a customer service operator for leading provider China Mobile. -- China quashes pro-democracy 'Jasmine Revolution' with force | Mail Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (0)

Well, you gotta cut somewhere...

Obamas Not Invited to William and Kate’s Wedding

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (1)

February 19, 2011

Egyptians: This Year In Jerusalem

YouTube - للقدس رايحين شهداء بالملايين -هتاف من ميدان التحرير

"To Jerusalem We go , for us to be the Martyrs of the Millions"

Step right up. Here at the Martyrdom Deli we're proudly serving #3,185,954. Take a number and get in line or "No matzo ball soup for you!"

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:23 PM | Your Say (1)

Comment of the Week

"Workers of the world ( who make $100K with 3 month summer vacations, nearly free healthcare, and pensions for life at nearly full salary... i.e. American teachers who essentially live in France...) unite!!"

By Sherlock @ NY Times Propaganda Writers Lead Way by Cribbing from Their Socialist Mentors

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:20 PM | Your Say (3)

Dupe AKA "Moderate:"

A person who appreciates right-wing values but consistently falls for left-wing manipulation tactics. -- Washington Rebel

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:40 PM | Your Say (1)

Oregon Rep Dem Wu Clearly Nutzoid

"Wu’s behavior had raised eyebrows in the past. For example, during a floor speech a few years ago, Wu referred to the people in the White House as “Klingons,” rather than Vulcans." -- Wu staffers speak out about exodus from office | kgw.com | News | Portland, Oregon

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:10 PM | Your Say (1)

World's [Next To ] Last Matriarchal Society Soon to Be Replicated in the United States!

Sound Familiar?: High in the mountains of southwest China live the members of the Mosuo Tribe, widely-thought to be the last matriarchal society in the world.
With 40,000 residents residing in villages alongside the pristine Lugu Lake, the people of this “Kingdom of Women” have no words in their language for “husband” or “father.” Women make all major decisions, own all land and dwellings, and maintain sole custody of the children born into their society. Most importantly, the women of the Mosuo tribe practice a zuo hun, or “walking marriage,” which means that after they are initiated at the age of 13 women may take as many lovers as they wish throughout their lifetime. Any resulting children are raised by the women of the tribe and men are all referred to as “Uncles.” Paternity is never discussed or questioned. -- World's Lasts - Oddee.com

After the teachers' unions deball the males, the rest is easy.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:55 PM | Your Say (5)

"Hangmen and Husbands Happy" Mencken on "The Mob"

mencken-painting.jpg

The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world -- that he is genuinely running things.
Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power -- which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters -- which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy. All these forms of happiness, of course, are illusory. They don’t last. The democrat, leaping into the air to flap his wings and praise God, is for ever coming down with a thump. The seeds of his disaster, as I have shown, lie in his own stupidity: he can never get rid of the naive delusion – so beautifully Christian – that happiness is something to be got by taking it away from the other fellow. -- Last Words on Democracy | The American Mercury

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

A stand against the fake and self-serving

ageoffhill.jpg

"Geoffrey Hill has been a force of, and forceful presence for, poetry, reminding the contemporary world of poetry’s capacity to function as poetry; an art form that stands up for itself against the fake and the culturally self-serving." -- - The Irish Times


In Memory of Jane Fraser
When snow like sheep lay in the fold
And wind went begging at each door,
And the far hills were blue with cold,
And a cloud shroud lay on the moor,
She kept the siege. And every day
We watched her brooding over death
Like a strong bird above its prey.
The room filled with the kettle's breath.
Damp curtains glued against the pane
Sealed time away. Her body froze
As if to freeze us all, and chain
Creation to a stunned repose.
She died before the world could stir.
In March the ice unloosed the brook
And water ruffled the sun's hair.
Dead cones upon the alder shook. 

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (1)

Leonardo da Vinci's Resume

aLeonardo_da_Vinci01.jpg

The Duke of Milan thought --knew-- that he was the big deal, not some siege engine tinkerer that liked to paint broads that didn't quite smile, and needed a ducal paycheck to keep him in red wine and rose madder. A resume isn't about you; it's about the needs of the employer, and how you might meet those needs. -- Sippican Cottage:

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

Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come

afleurs.jpg
From Gwynnie @ Maggie's Farm

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (1)

February 18, 2011

Headless Body in Topless Bar

Nameless Republican Ties Obama in 2012 Election Preferences -- Gallup

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:25 PM | Your Say (3)

Royal Roughage

Royal%20Roughage.jpg

Michelle Antoinette, the queen of deified fiber, cares about you. After all, the them she's talking about is you. Too slack-jawed to feed yourselves properly, much less your kids, the First Lady is sacrificing herself by doing battle with Big Chow on our behalf. -- Out of Order the Blog:

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:56 PM | Your Say (6)

The Chalice from the Palace Holds the Pellet with the Poison

Public sector union support, however attractive in the short term,
is a poisoned chalice in today's world.  As long as Democrats are in hock to the teacher's unions, the postal workers, and the various state and federal civil service unions, they are reduced to a producer's€™ lobby for government workers.  They are tied to the 22.6 million Americans who have government jobs -- and cannot respond creatively and thoughtfully to the needs of the 280 million who don't.-- The Madison Blues | Via Meadia

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:22 PM | Your Say (6)

February 17, 2011

Fools rush in where fools have been before.

The most persuasive reason to renounce daring progressive opinions is the inevitability with which sooner or later the fool finally adopts them. -- Don Colacho’s Aphorisms: #2,798

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (2)

How the politico/media establishment deals with the budget crisis

"Somehow protecting future generations from possibly having to endure the hardship of an extra tenth of a degree over the next century is a high moral calling, while fighting against the certainty of mortgaging their financial future with trillions in government debt is the work of the devil. Odd." -- Instapundit

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:27 PM | Your Say (3)

Dear Demodementedcrats, Tell me again about how very uncivil our politics have become. Thank you.

kerryobamahanging.jpg

"Supporters of Pakistani religious party Jammat-e-Islami hang an effigy during a protest against the visit of U.S. Sen John Kerry and the statement of the US President Obama regarding release of a U. S. consulate employee Raymond Davis who allegedly shot dead two Pakistanis, in Karachi." Kerry? Apparently the 2004 election results never reached Pakistan. -- Daily scoreboard « Don Surber

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:21 PM | Your Say (1)

FU Hillary. We'd Prefer to Keep Our Jobs

BAHRAIN: Clinton expresses 'deep concern,' urges restraint

BAHRAIN: Crackdown 'regrettable' but necessary, foreign minister says

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:43 AM | Your Say (0)

Storm Troopers Are Not A Luxury

Former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak got lazy and greedy
by filling his "regime maintenance" forces with conscripts (as troops) and recent college graduates (as officers). Theses security forces, like the 325,000 paramilitary police in the Central Security Services (belonging to the Interior Ministry, nor the Defense Ministry), were more loyal to the people than to the small group of corrupt politicians running the country. Things had gotten so bad that the small secret police force had taken to hiring criminal gangs to harass or intimidate visible opponents of the government. These thugs fled if faced with serious opposition. And that's what they got during February, 2011. --Strategy Page

Of course America's government would never have storm troopers at the ready to suppress the people. Would it? But, if it did, who would they be?

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:34 AM | Your Say (8)

Through the Warp gate...

Sixty knots on the tail pushes us through the Warp gate early (500 knots)... Gotta love these winter winds!
One hundred knots on the tail abeam LAIRE intersection... Groundspeed 560 knots (644 mph).

One hundred-sixty knots southwest of LAIRE... Groundspeed 613 knots (703 mph).

One hundred-one souls, two cats, and one pocket dog riding the jet-stream in a pressurized digital tube over the dark and cold waters of the Pacific... Amazing stuff! --Flight Level 390: Light Storm

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:08 AM | Your Say (0)

The Wimpy Economy

wimpy.jpg

It's Tuesday in America
Who's going to pay for this? Don't ask because if somebody does then President Obama can simply stop mailing Social Security checks to grandma until everyone sees reason. Can't stop the music. There's nothing in the world which can't be solved, as Jennifer Rubin observes, with more PR and more pork barrel. But wait, what day is it today? J. Wellington Wimpy captured the Federal Government's attitude towards problems in his famous line. "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." President Obama's problem is that it's finally Tuesday in America. It's Tuesday all over the world and nobody has given much thought to what happens when the dread day finally arrives.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:42 AM | Your Say (0)

February 16, 2011

Artifacts of Ancient Civilizations

paper.jpg

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:45 AM | Your Say (6)

February 15, 2011

The Litany (from Wired, 1997)

This is the litany :

Our resources are running out. The air is bad, the water worse. The planet's species are dying off - more exactly, we're killing them -at the staggering rate of 100,000 peryear, a figure that works out to almost 2,000 species per week, 300 per day, 10 perhour, another dead species every six minutes.We're trashing the planet, washing away the topsoil, paving over our farmlands, systematically deforesting our wildernesses, decimating the biota, and ultimately killing ourselves.

The world is getting progressively poorer, and it's all because of population, or more precisely, overpopulation. There's a finite store of resources on our pale blue dot, spaceship Earth, our small and fragile tiny planet, and we're fast approaching its ultimate carrying capacity. The limits to growth are finally upon us, and we're living on borrowed time. The laws of population growth are inexorable. Unless we act decisively, the final result is written in stone: mass poverty, famine, starvation, and death.

Time is short, and we have to act now.

That's the standard and canonical litany. It's been drilled into our heads so far and so forcefully that to hear it yet once more is ... well, it's almost reassuring. It's comforting, oddly consoling - at least we're face to face with the enemies: consumption, population, mindless growth. And we know the solution: cut back, contract, make do with less. "Live simply so that others may simply live."

There's just one problem with The Litany, just one slight little wee imperfection: every item in that dim and dreary recitation, each and every last claim, is false. Incorrect. At variance with the truth.

Not the way it is, folks. -- The Doomslayer, Ed Regis, Wired Magazine, 1997

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:13 AM | Your Say (3)

No people's revolution; there was a military-orchestrated coup disguised as a people's revolution.

Pundita: Now that the Gamalists have been toppled, how does Egypt's old guard plan to staunch the country's brain drain? Cut to the sound of chirping crickets.
The coup was directed not at Hosni Mubarak but at his youngest of two sons, Gamal, and at Gamalists -- the Egyptians who backed Gamal's economic reforms and plans to transit Egypt to a genuine democracy. The trouble started when the Gamalists also fell prey to the Puffy Head syndrome. They overestimated their intellectual brilliance and power. So they began displaying open contempt for the old guard in Egypt's military and for Omar Suleiman, who's a staunch defender of the old guard.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:45 AM | Your Say (9)

February 14, 2011

Round up the usual camels

RUSH LIMBAUGH: After the election in November, repeal Obamacare, defund it all, doesn’t happen, number of other things that voters who sent all these freshmen to Washington to stop, arrest, cease and desist, if it doesn’t happen, we go Egypt on Obama. -- The Gateway Pundit

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:02 PM | Your Say (5)

Why Dogs Rule and Cats Drool!

garfieldjpg.jpg

Any animal requiring
an indoor artificial outdoor environment to relive itself in rather than simply using the god damn dog door and shitting in the woods, has not earned the right to sleep at the foot of my bed as a pet in good standing and should just permanently stay the hell outside where nature obviously intended. --Dogs and Cats | westsound modern

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:40 PM | Your Say (3)

Dubious Valentine Achievements of Disney

mickeyminnie.jpg
Ah, those wonderful days before subtext.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (1)

Dubious Valentine Achievements of the Victorians

valentine.jpg
Puts a whole new level on "touchy-feely" cards

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (0)

February 13, 2011

China Getting Rich Off Green Dumbth

China gets a green free pass:
China has always been smart about spotting business opportunities in the West, and is indeed gearing up to sell us all the electric cars and taxpayer-subsidized solar panels and wind turbines we can, or more accurately can’t, use. Because if we’re dumb enough to buy technologies that currently don’t have a prayer of powering a modern economy, they’re certainly smart enough to sell them to us.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:09 PM | Your Say (1)

Mawlana Sayid Abul Ala Mawdudi

"Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man.
Islam doesn’t look for a nation to be in a better condition than another nation. Islam doesn’t care about the land or who owns the land. The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy. In order to fulfill that goal, Islam can use every power available every way it can be used to bring worldwide revolution. This is Jihad." -- Joel Richardson, Will Islam Be Our Future? Chapter Fifteen

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:17 AM | Your Say (8)

February 12, 2011

The Suicide Cult of Non-Discriminaton

This liberal principle of destruction is utterly simple and radically extreme.
Yet very, very few people, even self-described hard-line conservatives, are aware of this principle and the hold it has over our society. Instead of opposing non-discrimination, they oppose multiculturalism and political correctness. But let's say that we got rid of multiculturalism and political correctness. Would that end Muslim immigration? No. Multiculturalism is not the source of Muslim immigration. The source of it is our belief that we must not discriminate against other people on the basis of their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion. A Real Islam Policy for a Real America

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:25 PM | Your Say (3)

"This is not a happy ending but the beginning of something potentially very dark. "

Iran is nuclearizing, Turkey is Islamizing, Egypt is ...what exactly?
Well, we'll find out. But, given that only the army and/or the Muslim Brotherhood are sufficiently organized to govern the nation, the notion that we're witnessing the youthful buds of any meaningful democracy is deluded. So who'll come out on top? The generals or the Brothers? Given that the Brotherhood got played for suckers by the army in the revolution of '52, I doubt they'll be so foolish as to make the same mistake again - and the hopeychangey "democracy movement" provides the most useful cover in generations. -- SteynOnline - THE SUPERPOWER AS SPECTATOR

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:20 AM | Your Say (1)

At CPAC, abortion out, gay parties in.

"I've hardly heard much talk of abortion or other social issues at the conference -- and when I have it seems vaguely discordant or anachronistic. Most people wanted to discuss the economy or the looming dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood. And, of course, who would be best to put Barack Obama out of office. -- Roger L. Simon » GOProud Party Breitbart's Proudest HourParty on death-thirsting party dudes. Party on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:09 AM | Your Say (3)

Obama: Lets's Build the World's Slowest High-Speed Rail!

Holy steam engine, Batman!
The United States should follow the example of Japan and China and build high-speed rail, Biden said. "If we do not, you tell me how America is going to be able to lead the world in the 21st century," he said. -- Sense of Events
File under "How to lead by following."

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

The Times Sime: "I really don’t understand why anybody pays good money for this."

The only explanation I can see for this batch of codswallop finding its way under my nose,
is that these clowns really do live, literally and figuratively, on an island. Outside of that island they only acknowledge Washington, DC, and that place only grudgingly. They figure out what is going to happen based almost entirely on what it is they’d like to see happen. And then, when what happens is completely different, they forget all about it. When they’re forced to recollect it, they engage in a little bit of creative rewriting of history to blend what really happened with what they wanted to see happen…and then they erase everything that is not exactly like the blend. -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:18 AM | Your Say (1)

Real Dictators Know Guns Trump Tweets

So to the Wall Street Journal's plaintive musing, "Will Cuba be the next Egypt?" one can only answer: are you kidding?
Repression works if you are anti-American, but only if you are anti-American. Yet once the unlimited brutality is allowed, as the Iran has discovered, then what doesn't make you stronger kills you. CNN notes that the Iran's last round of repression, rather than outraging the protesters, has made them gun-shy.... Bullets work and they work better when you don’t listen to the White House. Which ironically means that the President will use diplomatic language in dealing with Teheran, and not the language he used with Mubarak. -- Belmont Club » Contagion

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:20 AM | Your Say (0)

Nice, but not exactly parallel

sarah-palin-usa.jpg

"Determining what is the cause and what is the effect tends to be an insoluble problem in history."-- Don Colacho’s Aphorisms: #2,767

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:03 AM | Your Say (0)

February 11, 2011

So, does this mean…

... that if a few million people came to the Mall in DC protesting the Obama administration and demanding his resignation, he'd say "the people have spoken" and pack his bags and go home to Chicago? -- neo-neocon

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:18 PM | Your Say (3)

The secret desire of the left has been limed before:

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult
around tall idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

"The Call of Cthulhu" by H. P. Lovecraft, 1926
II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse
--Fat Man comments on PEWSLAG: The American Progressive’s Monopoly on the Seven Deadly Sins @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (5)

February 8, 2011

Microfilm will abide

There's still a place for microfilm. The work I did will still be in the archives of the Walters Art Museum in five hundred years, about four hundred fifty years after the last of the lousy digital "archives" have all faded or become corrupt. In five hundred years, you'll need a computer whiz to recover that data. As to mine—you just need a magnifying glass—but that's the victory of the salesman, selling ease and convenience with enough sunshine to drown the down-sides in a glossy glare of this-is-how-we-do-things-now. -- No Tool is Gone, Under the Sun | MetaFilter

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:27 PM | Your Say (2)

"Purple fingers do not a democracy make. "

A society which has no history of Freedom, which has gone from Pharaohs,
to Caliphates, to Foreign Occupation, to Presidents-for-Life, all of it overshadowed by the threat of force, is a land totally devoid of even the simplest idea of what freedom is. At the moment, all the talk about "Freedom" in Egypt is little more than people using this month's new buzzword. -- Diogenes' Middle Finger: On Egypt:

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

That Arabic Language Course That's Subverting Dallas? Nothing but Horshit. Daphne Tells You Why

[Don't trust] .... "the version rolled out by the incompetent MSM or certain Muslim-centric schtick bloggers.
They have propagated a fallacious story about mandatory cultural studies, Arabic immersion in all subjects for the entire student body, a district wide pilot program to push an insidious islamic agenda (masterminded by Obama) down the throats of innocent, upper-class, suburban white Baptists. They're having conniption fits over Middle Eastern desserts possibly being served at school parties. Holy smoke, it's a wonder my sixth grade Spanish class got away with serving tacos at our parties before we happily beat a pinata to shreds while singing La Cucaracha at full bellow. -- Smoke And Mirrors ォ Jaded Haven

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:15 PM | Your Say (3)

Revolutionary? Let’s put it in the simplest language:

... every leftist's revolutionary society has required an iron curtain to surround the inhabitants.
The leftist Revolutionary Dream is not what human beings want or are willing to live with, if they can escape. --- Pro Commerce: Revolutionary equals anti-commerce?

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:59 PM | Your Say (0)

February 7, 2011

Philadelphia Jones and the People’s Clinic of Doom — This Time, It’s Personal.

Because if there’s one thing we can’t have, it’s inspectors traipsing around abortion clinics, making sure all the bureaucratic niceties are observed —
as if docs have time for stuff like that when there’s a world of babies about to be “born,” waiting to be scissored to death. Give a provider a break! Oversight would just scare away the poor, often underage, mostly minority women who brave the throngs of screaming hate-filled “pro-lifers” in order to exercise their Right to Choose. When 41 percent of the pregnancies in New York City are mercifully terminated, as they were in 2009, we know we’re doing something right, and we simply cannot rest until that number reaches 100 percent. What a defeat for the forces of intolerance that will be. What a thumb in the eye of the Archbishop of New York and that Nazi Pope in Rome, too!
While it’s true that the alleged details of Dr. Gosnell’s practice can make you squeamish right-wingers uncomfortable, our brave women are made of sterner stuff. They know the parasitic clumps of cells in their wombs — punishment-by-“baby” for the simple, innocent, joyous act of sexual intercourse — are being eliminated for a higher, nobler cause than mere Christianity. We progressives don’t believe in the afterlife, unless we’re trying to fake some sort of “faith” on television, but we do believe in, shall we say, an eternally resonating resonance that proclaims to the universe: We were here. We lived. We killed. Mission accomplished. --The Charnel House of Blackmun - David Kahane - National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:11 PM | Your Say (2)

Boogeymen

The state encourages the media promotion of boogeymen-- in the 1970s serial killers, today pedophiles and etc--
because it makes the populace demand increased state control in their private lives, which is the precisely the natural single goal of any state. The state and the media effect this encouragement by pretending not to know of the boogeyman's nonexistence. Says a Congressman: "you mean there's an epidemic of baby rapers out there? Wait-- did you say rapers or rappers? The hell you say! Elect me, I'll make sure we buy thousands of cameras from my supporters at Nikon to monitor our streets, we're going to need tech support so let's bring in Google...." None of this is consciously planned in advance, it doesn't have to be, it is in the nature of things: individual selfishness always finds a way, and that way leads to indoor recess for all of us. -- The Last Psychiatrist: Or, You Could Just Nuke The Bitch

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:48 AM | Your Say (0)

Repairing Black History Today

Imagine if Michelle Obama, instead of taking on the trumped-up childhood obesity epidemic, had chosen the broken black family as her pet issue.
Mrs. Obama is in a unique position to do some real good. She's fully qualified to speak about the virtues of the intact black family, having emerged from one and created one of her own, and she has the ear and the admiration of the black community. But she and her husband rarely mention it. -- Pundit & Pundette

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (4)

Women in the Cairo Street Scenes: a Troubling Photo Essay

My reading of these photos suggests that Egyptian women have already been Islamified.
Whether they have done so to please their loving (or abusive) families or a favorite mullah, whether it was peer pressure from girlhood on that did it; or whether it was the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood being preached in every mosque, on every media channel, and in school that did it, the fact is: t is done. Women are veiled. Such women—and their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood to run their country. -- Phyllis Chesler, Israel National News

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:56 AM | Your Say (2)

Let me be the last to wish President Reagan a happy 100th birthday, but

.... I gotta say that after the last few days I'm glad we don't have to do it again for a century.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:03 AM | Your Say (2)

February 6, 2011

Stacy McCain asks and answers, "How many times have we heard variations of this argument?"

“Oh, Buckley purged the Birchers and therefore, we must now cast aside Uncouth Person X and distance ourselves from Populist Organization Y, because above all else, the Official Conservative Movement must maintain its precious respectability!”
If we had listened to that argument in 2009, there never would have been a Tea Party movement. Republicans would have rolled over and played dead and gone along with the whole Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda because it was not respectable to oppose Keynesian “stimulus” spending, cap-and-trade, nationalized health care, and so forth. -- Hey, Remember That Crazy Conspiracy Theory Glenn Beck Was Talking About? : The Other McCain

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:21 PM | Your Say (8)

It's 3 AM and He's Clueless On Cairo



Hillary was right about her 3AM slur,
and Obama is acting as any 2-year Senate veteran might in such a crisis. There is no consistent support from the Left for democracy movements overseas. Strongmen like Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad, or Assad are weirdly seen as either untouchable or genuine in a way a Mubarak or a Jordian King is not. And that latter are vulnerable only when it looks like they may fail; if they seem stable, we hear not a peep from Obama about their human rights records. -- Victor Hanson

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

Noted

Those who replace the “letter” of Christianity with its “spirit” generally turn it into a load of socio-economic nonsense. -- Don Colacho’s Aphorisms: #2,732

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

Attention Terrorists: Ride a helicopter into the heart of New York City for only $2000. Bonus: No Security Check!

It's pricey, but what's money when mass destruction is your hobby?
"We flew from 34th St. to Teterboro in the Bell 430, and from there up and around the city in a Challenger 300. Picture leather seats, hardwood veneers and relative quiet. No headsets, microphones or security check required." -- How To Commute By Private Jet Or Helicopter In New York City

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (2)

Contingency Plans: Ships, Marines Positioning Near Egypt

Senior US Marine Says "Multiple Platoons" Are Headed To Egypt
This senior Marine told our source that the Pentagon will deploy "multiple platoons" to Egypt over the next few days and that the official reason will be ‘to assist in the evacuation of US citizens." Our source was told that "the chances they were going over there went from 70% yesterday to 100% today."

EGYPT: Pentagon moving warships, preparing for possible evacuations - Los Angeles Times
The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.
HT: Quotulatiousness

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (2)

And Now a Word From Charlie Sheen.......

"You've got wars, famines, Egypt about to burn to the ground, Alec Baldwin threatening to run for congress, crazyass muslims running around cutting peoples heads off and a world class boob running your country, and all you people are talking about is my bullshit! That's pathetic!" - Charlie Sheen (Diogenes' Middle Finger)

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:20 AM | Your Say (8)

February 5, 2011

"Every person attending the Superbowl will be patted down...

... And I guarantee you that the thought will not occur to any of the 80,000 or more persons being patted down as they enter Cowboys Stadium tomorrow (1) that the reason for this humiliating treatment is fear of terrorists; (2) that all the perpetrators and planners of recent terrorist attacks in America have been Muslims; and (3) that if we didn't have Muslims in America, we wouldn't have Muslim terrorists in America, and we wouldn't have to be patted down when entering a football stadium." --- View from the Right

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:31 PM | Your Say (1)

Most mainstream Republicans are looking for Mr. “Anyone-but-Palin.”

Palin detractors are now comparing her – unfavorably – to Ronald Reagan whom they pretend to admire.
Reagan, the man who left office with an approval rating lower than Palin’s during her governorship was classified as an “amiable dunce” by “Whiz Kid” (and Liberal icon) Clark Clifford. He was accused on “Sleepwalking through History” by veteran newspaperman Haynes Johnson. SDI was ridiculed as “Star Wars” by Senator Kennedy because as everyone knows, you can’t shoot down ICBMs. Meanwhile, we are reminded that Jimmy Carter was touted as smart because he was a nuclear engineer and had a degree for Evelyn Wood’s speed reading class. Credentials are everything until you want something done. -- The Virginian: Palin vs. Reagan

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:04 PM | Your Say (4)

The Best Quotes From Ann Coulter’s 2010 Columns (34 Quotes)

"I think it's fantastic that the Democrats have finally come out against race discrimination.
Any day now, maybe they'll come out for fighting the Cold War. Perhaps 100 years from now, they'll be ready to fight the war on terrorism or champion the rights of the unborn. It would be a big help, though, if Democrats could support good causes when it mattered. -- | Right Wing News

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

"The USG is now the enemy"

In the long history of the American Republic, never, I think,
has there been a time where the Government of the United States was ideologically committed to the wholesale destruction and replacement of the American people, their history, their identity, their ideals and their very being. The Civil War is a partial exception to that and, I’m starting to believe, a lesson that we Americans for too long smugly ignored. -- Capitalist Liberal Multicultacracy | Hail To You

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:56 AM | Your Say (2)

"Apres moi, le deluge"

For 30 years since, Hosni Mubarak
has tried to advance his country in the direction Sadat pointed, while fully aware that he was straddling a volcano. Those who judge Mubarak by the standards of western constitutional democracies must tinge every observation of Egypt with fantasy. --davidwarrenonline.com - NEWSPAPER COLUMNS

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:43 AM | Your Say (3)

February 4, 2011

Dangling Conversations

I know many liberals and have asked them all the same question,
“You detested that Bush spent so much money and raised our national debt, yet Obama is quadrupling this debt and has, in fact amassed more deficit spending than all other Presidents combined. Does this bother you?” Every single time the answer has been, “No, it doesn’t bother me because he is spending money on things that need to be done.” To which I state something along the lines of, “You mean like A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film, or $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees, or $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service, or lastly, how about $850 million for Amtrak.” This is usually where the conversation either turns ugly or ends -- Liberal To English Translation [Reader Post] | Flopping Aces

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:08 PM | Your Say (0)

If Egyptians Want Islamism They Deserve to Get It. Good and Hard.

If Egyptians are bound and determined to be ruled by Islamists, they cannot be held back forever.
They might not ever get it out of their system until they see what it's actually like. They won't be dissuaded by dialogue, and they won't be dissuaded by prison. Islamism is like communism for some people. It looks good from a distance on paper, but up close and in person it's ghastly. --Michael Totten - What If There Is No Way Out?

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:24 PM | Your Say (5)

Common Cause to Become "Hypocrisy Hub"?

So here we have a corporation that advertises itself as a "grassroots organization" while exercising its First Amendment rights
to advance the position that corporations do not have First Amendment rights, only individuals do. Some individuals, participating in the corporation's "grassroots" rally, exercise their First Amendment rights in ways that harm the corporation's image. The corporation responds by exercising its First Amendment rights to denounce those individuals for having exercised their First Amendment rights. And it does in its capacity as a faceless corporation, by issuing a statement for which no individual--not even CEO Bob Edgar--takes responsibility. For the sake of truth in advertising, Common Cause should change its name to Hypocrisy Hub. -- Everybody Does It? Really? - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:27 PM | Your Say (0)

Auster's First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society:

The more troublesome, unassimilable, or dangerous a designated minority or non-Western group actually is, the more favorably it is treated. This undeserved favorable treatment of a troublesome or misbehaving group can take numerous forms, including celebrating the group, giving the group greater rights and privileges, covering up the group's crimes and dysfunctions, attacking the group's critics as racists, and blaming the group's bad behavior on white racism. -- Clarifying the First Law

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:27 PM | Your Say (0)

Carter Kowtowing is Now the NewOld Policy

There are no excuses for the contradictions. How can it be that Bush's America understood the problem of repression in the Arab world, but Obama's America ignored it until last week?
How can it be that in May 2009, Hosni Mubarak was an esteemed president whom Barack Obama respected, and in January 2011, Mubarak is a dictator whom even Obama is casting aside? How can it be that in June 2009, Obama didn't support the masses who came out against the zealot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while now he stands by the masses who are coming out against the moderate Mubarak? There is one answer: The West's position is not a moral one that reflects a real commitment to human rights. The West's position reflects the adoption of Jimmy Carter's worldview: kowtowing to benighted, strong tyrants while abandoning moderate, weak ones. -- The Arab revolution and Western decline - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

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

This just in from a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Show:

"Name a ship after Obama? I hope the Navy never names anything after Obama. But if they really have to name something after Obama, name an anchor."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (9)

St. Al of the Apocalypse

William M. Briggs, Statistician on Planet Earth Al Gore Explains "Snowmageddonn"

Ever notice how talk of climate change always devolves to the apocalyptic? Floods! Droughts! Floods and droughts simultaneously! Windstorms! Deadly hurricanes! Heat waves! Democrats voting republican! One horror after another. This despite all historical and paleoclimatic evidence that warmer times were better, at least in terms biological. Why won't global warming be responsible for a "dramatic" increase in pleasant sunny afternoons? How come we won't see an "unprecedented" number of warm, laconic evenings? Why won't there be an "inconvenient" rise in bountiful harvests?

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

February 3, 2011

"Hope is not a plan"

The liberal and enlightened forces in Egypt, real and inspiring though they are (and I’ve met many wonderful Egyptians),
are too weak and too inexperienced to have much chance of holding onto power when and if the government crumbles away. Egypt’s problems are too daunting, its militants too strong and too well organized, its civil society is too deeply divided between Islamists and liberals, and its civic and religious life has been too deeply wounded to make the emergence of moderate, forward looking and constructive governance look likely right now. There is nothing wrong with hoping that something better may come, and I do, but hope is not a plan. -- The Revolution Wanders From The Script | Via Meadia

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:51 PM | Your Say (2)

Senator Dumb and Senator Dumber say 10 Years? Budget Reality Check from Don Surber

Why wait 10 years to balance the budget? says Don Surber
From the [Sens. Corker/McCaskill] press release:"As the Congressional Budget Office reports a record $1.5 trillion U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2011, U.S. Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) are introducing legislation to force Congress to dramatically cut spending over 10 years."
10 years? You don't have 10 years. You have one month. In March, the government will reach its credit card ceiling. Better figure out what gets cut now.
It took 2 years to hit $1 trillion-a-year in deficits. Why should the people who ran up the debt now be allowed to continue spending? Why should Harry Reid get to make his successor figure out how to fix the budget he busted?
10 years means these two have admitted they are too incompetent to do their jobs. They do not have 10 years. Their terms expire in January 2013.

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

Where did multiculturalism come from?

It is a bastard child of Marxism, of course, inasmuch as it is anti-capitalist and judges left-wing or pseudo-left-wing totalitarians
far less harshly than right-wing authoritarians (e.g., Obama is more sympathetic to the crowds in Cairo than he was to those in Teheran). It is also a byproduct of Western affluence, which alone provided the margin of safety and affluence to indulge in fantasies. One reports on the noble Palestinians by staying in nice places in Israel; one is an advocate of the "other" in Harlem from the Harvard Lounge and Upper West Side; the yuppie actor praises Chavez and his forced redistributive housing schemes, but would never turn over his vacation Malibu beach house to homeless illegal aliens who cut his lawn. -- Works and Days » The Middle East and the Multicultural Nightmare

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

File under: Personal problems that have not yet reached the crisis stage

Gmail asks: Missing too many Bieber tweets? Now Popdust is here to help...

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:49 PM | Your Say (4)

Department of December 6th 1941 Naval Thinking

U.S. Navy Chief Isn’t Sweating China’s Sea Power Danger Room @ Wired.com

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

"Tom Nelson: Why does the First Green President hate my grandchildren?: He invited Jennifer Lopez to his White House Super Bowl party, AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN LIVE WITHIN EASY WALKING DISTANCE"

Obama Invites J Lo to Watch Super Bowl at White House... -- Nelson Climate Scan

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

Wait for It

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:21 PM | Your Say (3)

Times Benefactor Carlos Sims’ publicly disclosed holdings soared 37 % to $70 billion in 2010.

His biggest loser was his stake in the New York Times, down 21%.
You know, every time Carlos Slim picks up the NYT and reads an article or editorial pipelined straight from the SPLC about how only frothing-at-the-mouth racists worry about illegal immigration, I think he feels like he's getting his money's worth out of his bailout of the Times. -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog

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

February 2, 2011

What is the Muslim Brotherhood

Here is the formal "credo" or "mission statement" of the Muslim Brotherhood,
shared by Hamas and all parallel organizations, in Jordan, Yemen, and elsewhere through the Sunni Muslim world: "Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!" This is the definition of Islamism. And western statesmen are as wise to negotiate with it, as they were wise to negotiate with the author of Mein Kampf. But of course we are told that the Muslim Brotherhood only wishes to be included in a coalition. -- David Warren

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:57 PM | Your Say (0)

On the long run the Egyptian question remains the same....

... Nothing has changed in that regard.
It is quite remarkable for people to be talking about the prospect for a democratic transition at this moment. A population that was convinced just two months ago that sharks in the Red Sea were implanted by the Israeli Intelligence Services is hardly at a stage of creating a liberal democracy in Egypt. But the status quo cannot be maintained. A lack of any meaningful political discourse in the country has to be addressed. Until someone actually starts addressing the real issues and stop the chatterbox of cliches on democracy, things will not get better at all. It will only get worse. -- An Egyptian student writes American Thinker: The Story of the Egyptian Revolution

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (4)

The Deal

The deal struck at Camp David in 1978 was, very roughly, that, in return for no more war, the U.S. would give Israel $3 billion per year and Egypt $2 billion per year, or $50 per Egyptian per year.
That wasn't bad money back then. But the payoff hasn't gone up since then. And the population of Egypt has doubled, so now rather than $50 per Egyptian per year in 1978 dollars, the bribe is now $25 per Egyptian per year in crummy 2011 dollars. -- Steve Sailer

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:23 AM | Your Say (0)

New Mexico: New GOP Governor Declares End to "Sanctuary State" Status For Illegal Immigrant

Democratic party hardest hit. -- iOtW

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:56 AM | Your Say (0)

Your Weekly Wildcat school lunch newsletter from President Barack Obama

TUESDAY: Hummus, falafel, tabouli, yogurt ayran
On Tuesday we say “open sesame” to the delicious healthy cuisine of our peace-loving friends in the Middle East. That exciting region has been in the news a lot recently, especially Egypt. This week we learned that ancient land is much more than just pyramids and mummies – it’s also a place where people get disappointed when they lose their internet connection. While you are enjoying lunch, talk with your friends about Egyptian current events. Who are the ‘good guys’? Who are the ‘bad guys’? What should I do? When you have an answer, write an essay and send it to me. You might win an all- expense-paid diplomacy trip with my State Department team! --iowahawk: Stay Hungry… For Learning!

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:52 AM | Your Say (1)

February 1, 2011

"Yet another dangerous shuffleboard player is off the streets; praise the DEA!"

1970s Marijuana Smuggler Arrested In Florida Senior Community
After being on the run for more than 30 years, a member of the legendary Miami-based "Black Tuna Gang," a marijuana smuggling operation, was arrested by U.S. Marshals Thursday morning in a senior community in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (8)

Balls. Of. Blue. Steel. "He couldn't contain his calmness."

A Gurkha soldier, who fought 40 train robbers, to be felicitated in the Republic Day of India/Nepali Community
While in the train, Maurya Express from Ranchi to Gorakhpur on September 2, 2010, 35 year-old Bishnu saved a girl about to be raped by train robbers, in front of her helpless parents. After looting the train, when the robbers started stripping the 18 year old girl in front of him, he couldn't contain his calmness. He took out his khukari and attacked the group of 40 robbers, alone. In the fight, he killed three of dacoits and injured eight others. Remaining looters ran for their lives.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:03 PM | Your Say (6)

Why the Left Thinks Everyone Is Far Right

rightleft.jpg

The left likes to think the center is near them, but it's not even close these days according to polling.
They actually group the real political center with the far right -- because, again, it's all quite far to the right of them. Lately, none of their ideas have been very popular and they scream and get angry at the far right -- which is most Americans who are far to the right of them. I also put Sarah Palin on my illustration. She is to the right of center, but she's still about ten times closer to the center than the editorial staff of the New York Times. The left attack Palin all the time on her intelligence and for the maps she draws, but can you even think of the last time they attacked her because of her politics? They can't because she's actually pretty close to the center -- unlike the left who are way out there with unpopular ideas. -- IMAO

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:35 AM | Your Say (0)

How to use creativity to irk the Left and beat them at their own games

mail-7.jpeg
Milk vs. MILF

One of my major peeves about conservative art is that so much of it is unsophisticated and kind of hokey.
There's nothing wrong with the Walmart crowd and their enthusiasm for the red, white, and blue. But, in a lot of urban areas that kind of art is not taken seriously. We need to beat them at their own game by bringing more sophisticated, subtle, and less "in-you-face" patriotic art to the masses. So, whatever we do art -wise should be fun and clever. If there are iconic images in your area, use them. Just twist them to suit your purposes. For many years the left has "owned" the art world, so let's turn their "art" against them. -- -- Hillbuzz

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (4)

Anti-Colonialism in Obamican Life

In Washington, Irrational Narcissism Left and Right on Egypt
Like the pro-democracy paradigm, the anti-colonialist paradigm is narcissistic. Whereas Western democracy champions believe that all people are born with the same Western liberal democratic values, post-colonialists believe that non-Westerners are nothing more than victims of the West. They are not responsible for any of their own pathologies because they are not actors. Only Westerners (and Israelis) are actors. Non-Westerners are objects. And like all objects, they cannot be held responsible for anything they do because they are wholly controlled by forces beyond their control.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:22 AM | Your Say (1)

Children Left Behind

The money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—
all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch. -- "Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister" by Gerry Garibaldi - City Journal

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (4)

The Million Man Munch with Chicks on the Side

And so it goes:
Thousands of the male protesters appear to be marching on their knees. The protesters are chanting, “Oh America and Israel … you people of evil.” -- The Gateway Pundit
Anybody else notice that these "million" things never quite live up to their billing.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (0)

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!

"Besides the fanatical frenzy,

which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome." -- Winston Churchill

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:56 AM | Your Say (2)