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September 30, 2011

Mark Zandi: Schmuck or Putz? We Report. You Deride.

Zandi is capable of meeting all of a reporter's go-to-guy needs, so the trade has been careful in obscuring his liberalism. He is a registered Democrat, as he freely admits when asked. But he's seldom asked. The key to his indispensability is that he once -- once -- did some work for a Republican. -- Press Man: The Prisoner of Zandi

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:58 PM | Your Say (4)

Assassination of an American Marks Another First for Obama Administration: US Cancels Al-Awlaki's Subscription to "Inspire"

"Bang! Zoom! To the moon, Al, the moon!"
U.S-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who edited the slick Jihadi Internet magazine, were killed in an air strike on their convoy in Yemen by a joint CIA-U.S. military operation, according to counterterrorism officials. Al-Awlaki was targeted in the killing, but Khan apparently was not targeted directly. -- Yahoo! News

UPDATE: A J STRATA considers the precedent: The Strata-Sphere サ Looks Like Obama May Have Finally Assassinated An American Citizen
I will never shed a tear for al-Awlaki, but I will note that this may be (and hopefully is) the first time a US President has suspended the constitution and assassinated a US Citizen who was still presumed innocent.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:08 PM | Your Say (16)

A Doyle Man

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To this day I can more or less recall
the newsletter’s capsule summary that compelled me to buy The Hound of the Baskervilles—as if that ominous title alone weren’t enough! Beneath a small reproduction of the paperback’s cover—depicting a shadowy Something with fiery eyes crouching on a moonlit crag—blazed the thrilling words “What was it that emerged from the moor at night to spread terror and violent death?” What else, of course, but a monstrous hound from the bowels of Hell? -- Paris Review – , Michael Dirda

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

Don't mace me, bro

For the left, demonstrations and activism are simply nostalgic re-enactments of 1968, essentially no different in style or spirit from those Civil War re-enactors. -- The Fourth Checkraise:

Update from the Comments: "I'd add another first-hand observation: they lack any kind of disciplined group-solidarity, and run away from their fallen members -- something that not even the lowest Weimar-era Nazi or Communist street-fighting thug would be caught doing. "

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (1)

“What would Jackie wear?”

While I can’t answer that question definitively, I believe I can say with certainty, “not this.” Ever.
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Michelle Obama's Mirror: Just Another Day in Our Banana Republic

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (3)

Please Take A Moment to Vote in this Important Poll

If the Presidential Election were held today, I would vote for:

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:56 AM | Your Say (4)

Here come the “Christie’s too fat to be president” articles

There’s just a wee bit of trouble with that metaphor—actually, it’s Christie who’s trying to rein in the appetites of the public sector and unions in New Jersey, and to install fiscal discipline. --neonocon

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:35 AM | Your Say (1)

See, the funny thing is

Now... now Juan... let's just calm down here a minute. Just, okay.. okay... let me please explain, okay?
See, the funny thing is, it turns out, a couple years back there was, well, this stimulus program money, and then there were these brainstorming sessions, where, well, there were some ideas what to do with it. So, anyhoo, one of the ideas that happened was, 'hey, what if there were, say, 2000 machine guns that got sent to Mexican drug lords?' and so forth. --iowahawk: En el telephono

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

September 29, 2011

Too Much Suckup: Without Jokes About the Clown President They Somehow Just Aren't All That Amusing Anymore

Late Night Icons See Their Ratings Slide
Mr. Letterman lost a total 560,000 viewers from last year, a 15 percent decline; Mr. Leno lost 160,000, or 4 percent. But among the 18- to 49-year-old audience that many advertisers seek to reach, Mr. Leno was down even more, 20 percent (270,000 viewers), while Mr. Letterman was down 16 percent (200,000 viewers).

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

"Which brings me to the thylacine and the fossa."

Lupinity, Felinity, and the Limits of Method
The modern scientific method discovers the kind of reality it is specifically designed to discover; and even in cases where it finds its explanatory reserves overly taxed, it must presume that in future some sort of “mechanical” cause will be found to restore the balance, and so issue itself a promissory note to that effect. But, again, this may mean that it must also overlook realities that actually lie very near at hand, either quite open to investigation if another method could be found, or so obviously beyond investigation as to mark out the limits of scientific method with particular clarity. Which brings me to the thylacine and the fossa....

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:15 PM | Your Say (3)

"An argumentum ad populum without any people."

The materialist will say that science (or, rather SCIENCE!) has proven that non-physical things do not exist,
or, if they exist, they can be reduced to physical things. When asked for the name and date of the peer reviewed experiment or observation that affirms this theory, the materialist blinks in astonishment, or details on how to perform the experiment or observation for oneself which affirms the theory, the materials becomes surprised and belligerent (well, more belligerent) and tells you that the scientific method does not rest on repeatable experiment or observation, but instead rest on the firm foundation of some opinions he picked up in casual conversation and/or woolgathering somewhere he cannot quite recall, but perhaps it involved reading a book, or the first part of it anyway, by Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan or perhaps an article on Wikipedia. -- The Promissary Note of Physics | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:04 PM | Your Say (2)

And How Might "The Barack Obama Story" End?

Overall, there are three basic endings.
Everything turns out the same as the beginning—the sit-com ending used by all non-serial TV shows. Everything turns out worse than it started—a tragedy. Or everything turns out better than when it started—what used to be called a comedy, but now is just called a story. There is another ending, however, that many of the bestsellers use. It is the unexpected twist ending. -- Wright’s Writing Corner: On Endings: Here’s Looking At You, Kid!

Humm... interesting. What might the "unexpected twist ending" be?

Update. Sherlock suggests, "Following his crushing electoral defeat in November of 2012, Obama establishes the "Office of the Ex-President-select" and simply refuses to stop being President."

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:25 PM | Your Say (17)

California: WINNING!

Highest unemployment rates August 2011 Figures are in percentages

El Centro, Calif. 32.4

Yuma, Ariz. 29.4

Merced, Calif. 17.5

Yuba City, Calif. 17.0

Stockton, Calif. 16.1

Modesto, Calif. 16.0

Fresno, Calif. 15.8

Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 15.7

Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 15.3

Palm Coast, Fla. 14.9

8 out of 10! Go, go, go! C'mon, with Jerry Brown and the Democrat legislature you can knock off Florida and Arizona easy!--AP [HT: Word Around the Net]

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:07 PM | Your Say (3)

September 28, 2011

"Virtually" Broke

Remember that absent a physical world war, the entire process of wealth destruction described by a meltdown will be entirely virtual.
Outside the birds will be singing, the cars will still be running and the houses will all be there. Only inside the computer will there be hell; only inside the computer will they belong to someone else. But to whom? If until yesterday your home “belonged to you” through a mortgage and was formerly valued at $300,000, would you accept that 24 hours later it is now worth $75 and is under the receivership of the government? -- Belmont Club » Attila the Run

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:14 PM | Your Say (0)

Kennebunkport Coroner Sends Out For Another Bale Of Potpourri

"Two Augusta-area men were found dead inside a lodge's sewage holding tank Tuesday, police said." The Rumford Meteor | Maine news from the seat of Oxford County, Maine

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

"Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world."

I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession.
I dream of another moment like this. Why? Because people don't seem to remember but the '30s depression wasn't just about a market crash. There were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash... It's an opportunity. This is not the time for wishful thinking that the government is going to sort things out. Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world. -- BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World"

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (5)

On "Studies"

I'm fairly confident that a study of comparing 27 idiots to 24 other idiots done by, apparently, idiots,
most likely explicitly done for the mass consumption of more idiots is not a study worth repeating, but you can be sure it will be repeated many, many more times and eventually form the foundation for future research not to mention conventional wisdom for the next 25 years.  They don't really care who or why someone is a psycho, so long as you get the hate pointed in the right general direction. -- The Last Psychiatrist: Finding Existential Solace In A Pink Tied Psycho

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (1)

'Dos plus Dos = Cinco de Mayo!' Wise Latino Rochelle Gutiérrez es mucho stupido

Gutiérrez argues that a model of knowledge needed for teaching mathematics
and addressing equity involves political knowledge. An important component to developing this political knowledge is being able to recognize multiple realities (Nepantla), developing conocimiento with students, becoming comfortable with uncertainty, and seeing tension as a means to birth new knowledge. Rochelle Gutiérrez is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. -- Rethinking the Knowledge Needed to Teach Mathematics, A Talk Given by Rochelle Gutiérrez

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (6)

Al Gore: “It’s not a hoax, it’s high school physics.”

Why then, does Mr. Gore's organization go to such lengths
to fabricate the presentation of the "simple high school physics experiment"€ they say proves the issue in that venue? Perhaps they couldn't get the experiment to work properly using the materials chosen?  Maybe it might not be so easy to perform at home after all? Maybe a few controls are necessary such as the Mythbusters team used in the video below. Why else would they need to fake it in post? .... The only conclusion one can make from these four points is that the video of the “simple experiment” is a complete fabrication done in post production. -- Video analysis and scene replication suggests that Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project fabricated their Climate 101 video "Simple Experiment"

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (6)

September 27, 2011

OnStar:Another POS from GovernmentMotors

GM is Watching You...

Drive faster than The Law says you ought to – and they'll know about it, immediately, every single time you do it and exactly how much you do it. Fail to Buckle Up For Safety --even if it's just to drive down the driveway --and they'll know about it the moment you put the car in gear.  It is entirely within the realm of technical possibility that they'll even know exactly what you’ve een talking about while in your car, too -- because OnStar is very much like a Telescreen from Orwell's 1984. If you have an OnStar-equipped car, you have GM's microphones in your car. And GM can turn them on anytime it likes -- and record anything you say.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:59 PM | Your Say (3)

The Trash of Islam

To talk of a Clash of Civilizations is in some ways futile, because there are no Islamic civilizations,
only former colonies and splinters of former colonies, run by whoever was left in charge after the British or the French left, or whoever managed to clamber to power since then. And by their close relatives and friends, and by their son in laws, second cousins and good friends. They call themselves Presidents, Ministers and Colonels. They have huge bank accounts and large scale investments abroad. They have a veneer of technology and cultivated manners. But the aerial shots of skyscrapers and urban lightscapes, storefronts and maps are a facade of civilization, like a well lit movie set. Underneath it all, there are still pigs eating the garbage. -- Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:47 PM | Your Say (6)

File Under: "Wal-Mart has shotguns starting at about $180."

Chased home: Mob attacks man in his house | Philadelphia Daily News | 09/27/2011
With the two teens hiding in the house, LaVelle, 5 feet 10, 220 pounds, a well-known sports-league organizer and coach in the community, went outside to try to calm the angry mob. They were standing on his steps. One shouted, " 'Something's going to happen now!' " LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt. But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.

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

"Tea Party values are hippie values."

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"You heard me right. The Tea Party is the one social movement in contemporary America that can rightfully claim to be the ideological heir to the original hippie movement that started in the mid-60s. And because of this, all current hippies and ex-hippies should support the Tea Party, and by extension Tea Party candidates." -- Zombie » The Electric Tea Party Acid Test

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

A modern man is simply "a man who forgets what is known about man"

For our founders, democracy was rooted in the conviction that all citizens are capable of being either ruler or ruled. Therefore, people who are incapable of self-rule are specifically unfit to engage in democracy. If you cannot even master your own domain, how can you presume to be sovereign over others? -- One Cʘsmos: Hurtling Downward Faster than the Speed of Light?

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (1)

And

sentences that begin with a conjunction like "And" are not infrequently written that way because, by avoiding the "Which" alternative, they increase the power of the phrasing by emphasizing declarative directness, while still connecting to the previous sentence. -- The Volokh Conspiracy » And so forth and so on.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (0)

September 26, 2011

Facebook's business model

"The desire for privacy is strong; vanity is stronger." -- Rough Type

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:43 PM | Your Say (2)

When it comes to Chastity Bono Dancing With The Stars Ann Barnhardt has one question: "ARE YOU ENTERTAINED?"

Chastity Bono was sexually abused as a child by her lesbian pedophile nanny for years.
She has spoken and written about this openly. This sexual abuse was what caused Chastity Bono to develop serious psychosexual disorders. When lesbianism didn't "cure" her psychological problems, she sunk deeper into mental illness and began this process of self-mutilation. And this won't "cure" her either. My question to you is: ARE YOU ENTERTAINED? By watching and/or passively supporting this monstrous usury of Chastity Bono's childhood trauma and resulting mental illness ARE YOU SUFFICIENTLY ENTERTAINED? Or will you be needing more? --Barnhardt.biz - Commodity Brokerage

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:05 PM | Your Say (12)

It would seem there are more than one billion very smart people in India

"There are 1.2 billion people living in India. Less than three percent -- 33 million people -- pay income taxes and only 60 million have passports. Many, if not most, of the remainder -- a billion people -- are, for practical purposes, invisible to the state. They have no social security numbers, no birth certificates, and no driver's licenses." -- How to Count One-Sixth of the World's Population - Rebecca J. Rosen

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:07 PM | Your Say (0)

"Political language"

"-- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." --George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (2)

September 25, 2011

"Unreality is an especially disturbing symptom."

When Jimmy Hoffa threatens the non-unionists, one imagines that Detroit is building better, safer, more reliable cars at a better price and has for decades. When Barack Obama urges the Black Caucus to march for equality, and adopts the cadences and pose of a 1960 Civil Right leader, one would think the Right-wing in Florida just picked Bull Connor, not Herman Cain, as their straw poll winner. When the third-generation, hip spokesman for La Raza talks about inequality one would think she herself just crossed the border from Oaxaca, forced to flee a benevolent Mexico to work in the pits of an American Mordor. -- Works and Days サ Why Does the Good Life End?

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:50 PM | Your Say (4)

"All affluent societies believe that they are just too rich not to be able to afford another regulation"

... just one more moralizing indulgence, yet again an added entitlement.
But as we see now in postmodern America, idle 250,000 acres of farmland for a tiny fish, shut down an entire oilfield, put off a new natural gas find in worry over possible environmental alteration, add a cent to the sales tax, mandate yet another prescription drug entitlement not funded, or offer yet another in-state tuition discount to an illegal alien, and the costs finally equates to an implosion as we see in Greece or California. --Works and Days サ Why Does the Good Life End?

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:46 PM | Your Say (1)

The Ideology of Totalitarian Humanism

Nowadays, the laundry list of "poverty, racism, sexism, illness, and drugs" might be lengthened to include

and other creative efforts at dictionary expansion. Likewise, the therapeutic component of totalitarian humanism has expanded so as to include the supposed necessity of state action to save us all from fatty foods, salt, smoking, and soda vending machines in public schools. Like all totalitarian ideologies, totalitarian humanism has its contradictions, hypocrisies, and absurdities. For instance, public acts of anal intercourse are regarded as virtuous and courageous manifestations of human liberation and personal fulfillment, while smoking in bars or even in strip clubs is a grave menace to public health. --Keith Preston

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:58 AM | Your Say (0)

September 24, 2011

The Eternal Sunshine of the President's Mind

"We can't just cut our way out of this hole," the president said. Obama announces debt plan built on taxes on rich

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:07 PM | Your Say (3)

Green Bats Last

Outdoors Claims Outdoorsman | The Rumford Meteor

In case you've forgotten: Environment Claims Environmentalist | The Rumford Meteor

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:51 PM | Your Say (0)

E Warren "Perfesser"

"Just by looking at her, you know Elizabeth Warren has three cats and a collection of “world music” on her iPod. She’s got at least seven handmade shawls, each purchased from representatives of a different Native American tribe (an experience she describes as “authentic” and “transcendent”). She’s spiritual, but not religious. Her kids take lessons on instruments like the harp (the violin being “too commercial”), and they have names like Petal and Maximilian. Her husband is a lobbyist or a lawyer for a nonprofit, and of course he has a different last name. He probably has a pony tail and definitely sports a beard. They both wear sandals year round."-- Tenured Ignorance | academiczoology

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:06 AM | Your Say (7)

September 23, 2011

Without doubt you are all asking yourself, "Just what is the latest thing in handmade knitwear?"

Why that would be the Atlas Shrug of course. Everyone knows that.



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Who is John Galt? Inspired by the blockbuster book by Ayn Rand, the Atlas Shrug is more than a fashion statement. It's a statement about modern society. The construction is reminiscent of railway lines, in the color of the metal created by the brilliant industrialist. Knit your own Atlas Shrug in Caledon Hills yarn and tell the world that you value your independence.

There. Aren't you glad you asked?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:07 PM | Your Say (7)

We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” said the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar.

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

Not to put too fine a point on it Elizabeth, but....

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"...one of these days... POW!!! Right in the kisser! One of these days Liz, straight to the Moon!"

Every day I am reminded that this is another classic American tradition we have foolishly let slip away.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (6)

Obama as Sam Cooke: "Don't know much about history... Don't know much about geography..."

"We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad," Barack Obama. ( latimes.com)

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:35 AM | Your Say (8)

September 22, 2011

'You Can't Tell about the speed of light. You've got to go look at it.'

Scientists at CERN are astounded to report that they have recorded neutrinos that travel faster than the speed of light, long thought to be a constant that defined the upper limits possible for speed in the universe.... Just a reminder that the science is never settled. -- neo-neocon Neutrinos: faster than light?

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

"Take my president. Please." Who Says Obama's Not Funny? Other Than Professional Comedians, That Is?

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The skits pretty much write themselves. Obama with pictures of himself, giving gifts of his speeches to everyone he meets, even Secret Service. Signing autographs on divots on the golf course, reading off the teleprompter to deal with Michelle's complaints (Do I look fat? Obama reads from teleprompter: "no dear, you look great, smile admiringly"). -- Word Around the Net: UNFUNNY OBAMA

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

"The modern state of physics..."

"...has always hauntingly reminded me of the elaborate theory of epicycles of Ptolemy, or the strange geocentric model of Tycho Braehe, before the breakthrough of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Modern physics cannot seem neatly to account for special relativity and quantum mechanics, and the certain philosophically absurd conclusions, such as the absence of cause and effect at a fine scale, or the impermanence of matter and energy, the objective uncertainty of mass and locaiton, are needed to bring the awkward model in line with observation." -- The First Tachyon? | John C. Wright's Journal

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

"Saving"

A lot of people in America spend an inordinate amount of time and money keeping indigenous people “down on the farm,” so to speak.  But are we really doing them a favor ensuring that they get to enjoy the same marginal subsistence life they’ve had for centuries (or more), rather than giving them a passport to the modern world?  Do they really deserve to be forced to be living archeological museum pieces to protect them from the poison of Western civilization? -- Bookworm Room » Saving indigenous people from themselves

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

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow."

What a Manly Man! Planet Healer Obama Calls It: In 2008, he declared his presidency would result in 'the rise of the oceans beginning to slow' -- And By 2011, Sea Level Drops! | Climate Depot Most surprising, despite the fact that Obama only said he would only “slow” the rise of the oceans, his presidency has presided over what some scientists are terming an “historic decline" in global sea levels. Obama appears to have underestimated his own powers to alter sea level.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:00 PM | Your Say (3)

Tom "I'm Writing As Bad As I Can" Freidman Strikes Again

"Mr. Friedman can turn a phrase into cliché faster than any Madison Avenue jingle writer. He announces that "America declared war on math and physics." Three paragraphs later, we learn that we're "waging war on math and physics." Three sentences later: "We went to war against math and physics." And onto the next page: "We need a systemic response to both our math and physics challenges, not a war on both." Three sentences later: We must "reverse the damage we have done by making war on both math and physics," because, we learn two sentences later, soon the war on terror "won't seem nearly as important as the wars we waged against physics and math." -- Book Review: That Used to Be Us - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (5)

September 21, 2011

"Let Poland Be Poland"

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Good News: Obama Lets Biden Loose on Campaign Trail
Addressing the 200 people gathered at the fundraiser, Biden appeared to be in his classic, convivial form, saying, "The president said, "Look, Joe, just go be Joe.-- So he let me loose."

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:28 PM | Your Say (4)

And now a word from my sponsor, feminism killer Gisele Bundchen

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (7)

Quote of the Week (So Far)

"It's amazing to me how ignorant your average educated person is about everything that doesn't have an apple on it." -- Sippican Cottage: Bob, Bewildered

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:21 AM | Your Say (0)

The "I did not have sex with that woman" Kid wants to eliminate denial

The Clinton Global Initiative fired up their seventh annual meeting in New York City, and Bill Clinton had a few opening remarks. "If you're an American, the best thing you can do is to make it politically unacceptable for people to engage in denial." -- Clinton: Denying Climate Change Makes U.S. 'Look Like a Joke' - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

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

It's Time to Tax the Trillionaires

Forget taxing their take home pay from their non-profits and their dues-- we know that like Buffett and half the cabinet, they just won't pay. Let's tax the taxman instead. Since the money that should have kept Social Security solvent was spent by the trillionaires, it should be taken out of their spending. Forget taxing income-- it's time to tax Federal spending.... Since the trillionaires in the government have lots of money-- let's make this an extremely progressive tax. And let's do Sweden one better by making this a 90 percent tax. Yes Barry, I know it's hard, but it's only fair-- those who spend more should also have to pay more. It's not class warfare, it's simple math. And the simple math says that the only way to fix budget failures is by taking the money out of the budget. Sure we could hang around waiting for politicians to do the right thing, or we could tax their spending. -- Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield

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

September 20, 2011

Secretary

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Posted by Vanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (4)

September 19, 2011

World's Oldest Known Progressives Discovered in Stone Age Swedish Lake Bed

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Stone Age skulls mounted on stakes found in Sweden
"Archaeologists excavating a Stone Age lake bed in Motala, Sweden, have unearthed two skull impaled on spikes. The skulls were discovered with the stakes still firmly embedded inside them, reaching from the base of the skull to the top of the cranium."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:28 PM | Your Say (6)

Pet Peeve: Trader Joe's Cheese

This guy is right on the Money:
Cheese is scary at all Trader Joe’s. They tend to mold after a week, which I've complained about for 10 years because it means that they're NOT cleaning their cutting surfaces. There's nothing like a little Stilton mold in your Cheddar or Swiss. The employees agree, but nothing's ever been done about it. -- Trader Joe's: The Good, the Bad, and the Dearly Departed | The Daily Meal

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:11 PM | Your Say (7)

Day of FAIL: Nationwide anti-capitalist revolution flops

"Are you a white man? If you're a white man, then shut the fuck up about race, because you don't know shit other than how to rape and kill."
Quite chilling, actually. If you think you can "win the argument" against protesters like these, then I recommend you watch these videos for a reality check. No one is allowed to win anything against them, because the rules already define you as the loser. Intense anger+severe mental illness + political indoctrination = a whole heap of trouble for this country. -- Zombie with the best "Day of Rage Wrapup"

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (15)

September 18, 2011

Liberal Psych 101

Liberal Psych 101 subverted the dominant paradigm until nothing made sense.
It taught that cockroaches are equivalent to butterflies. It preached that success was a sign of evil and that failure was an emblem of virtue. It saw something noble in losing rather than winning. It didn’t seem so keen about “leveling the playing field” as it was on perverting natural law until they forced the game to end in a sudden-death two-overtimes tie. It published endless treatises on deconstruction without making a peep about how to reconstruct everything after destroying it. -- The Day I Left the Left - Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:51 PM | Your Say (1)

Presented without comment as a public service

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:40 PM | Your Say (6)

"In a critical situation, there is no choice. I see no reason to be hit with the first shot. I neutralised him."

Civil discourse Russian Style:

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, owner of two leading British newspapers,
punched a man in the face during a television debate on the financial crisis to be aired on Sunday. A clip posted on the NTV television channel's website shows Lebedev, a former KGB agent who has made a fortune in banking, landed a right jab to the face of ex-real estate baron Sergei Polonsky. Just before Lebedev pounced, Polonsky told the other guests he wanted to "stick one in the mouth."

Call me 'Russian' but I've always dreamed of being the guest of Bill Mahr or Keith Olbermann just to use this effective debating tool.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:15 PM | Your Say (6)

September 17, 2011

Who Made the Summer?

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Now that’s how we’re supposed to remember summer, right?
Drinking from the hose, limbs all exposed to the sun. A big, tacky, inflatable pool wrecking the grass underneath. We do our best to give our kids the kind of summers that we hope we can keep remembering. The kind of summer in that picture down there. They try to legislate it all away, but they have no power against the family. -- The Dipso Chronicles

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:23 PM | Your Say (0)

AttackWatch: It's Working!

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

"Okay, now here's the plan...."

... Whereupon he and the vice president announce that they are resigning, effective immediately. A stunned speaker of the house is now in charge.
The GOP is thrown for a loop, since the leading presidential contenders are competing for a job already held by a Republican. The Democrats are able to run the candidate (and her husband) that they really wanted all along, and are simultaneously able to claim the mantle of bi-partisanship, sacrifice and true patriotism." -- Dinocrat No way out?

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:35 PM | Your Say (1)

Two Stalkers in One!

"The thing that I found, Savannah, that really surprised me, was that the people who know her best like her least."--Joe McGinniss, author of "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," to NBC's Savannah Guthrie, Sept.15

"I think I was as fair as I could possibly have been, given the fact that she told all the people who were closest to her not to talk to me."--McGinniss, same interview (Red Penn - WSJ.com)

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:19 AM | Your Say (2)

Clint Eastwood: ‘I don’t give a f*ck’ if gays marry

"I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21, because he promised to get us out of the Korean War," he told GQ. "And over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And libertarians had more of it. Because what I really believe is, let's spend a little more time leaving everybody alone." -- | The Raw Story

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

"You turn the page and forget what you know."

Mme Scherzo - Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows.
You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. -- Michael Crichton

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (3)

Do Your Duty!

Mayor Bloomberg: "You Have the Responsibility as an American to Make Obama Successful."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:27 AM | Your Say (1)

September 16, 2011

Daphne is not amused

More Peas, Less Fries You Fat Heifer ォ Jaded Haven
I have not been able to listen a single word spoken by our first couple in well over a year, my initial tepid antipathy has ramped into a hot scold of abject loathing and scathing disrespect. I've had enough of this arrogant couple's drive to shame, chide, whine and threaten us into better behavour, skinnier jeans and some imaginary version of prosperity Obama hasn't quite figured out how to deliver.

And the she really lets Jack Spratt and his wife have it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:00 PM | Your Say (2)

Iowahawk Would Like to Ask You for a Favor

"Anyhoo, Aryn and Benji are now in the running for a $5000 prize for Iowa community-focused businesses, and I would deeply appreciate your vote in getting it to them. [Details @ iowahawk: Quid Pro Quo]

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:40 PM | Your Say (0)

Put Debt Repudiation On the Table

I propose, then, a seemingly drastic
but actually far less destructive way of paying off the public debt at a single blow: out-right debt repudiation. Consider this question: why should the poor, battered citizens of Russia or Poland or the other ex-Communist countries be bound by the debts contracted by their former Communist masters? ... Similarly, we the living did not contract for either the past or the present debts incurred by the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington. -- Repudiating the National Debt - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:36 PM | Your Say (3)

Position Paper

The ordinary modern progressive position is that this is a bad universe, but will certainly get better. I say it is certainly a good universe, even if it gets worse. —G. K. Chesterton, As I Was Saying

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:18 PM | Your Say (0)

Grab hold of that photo of you as a kid or of your grandparents' wedding and realize just how special it is.

In the midst of the 3.5 trillion photos that have ever been taken it's easy to forget
that the shoebox or album of old photos we have at home is incredibly fragile and special. Every 2 minutes today we snap as many photos as the whole of humanity took in the 1800s. In fact, ten percent of all the photos we have were taken in the past 12 months. And yet, there are still more physical photos hidden in our shoeboxes, hanging on our walls or lost in an album than there are digital photos littering our hard drive. These precious photos of the past 200 years tell us who we are and where we come from. -- How many photos have ever been taken? | 1000memories

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

Awww... The lonely seal no-one wanted

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"Sitting all alone on a beach, this little seal is an outcast from the colony. Its crime? Having reddish-brown fur and the palest of blue eyes. The rest of its sleek black family took an instant dislike to the ginger pup, leaving it to fend for itself." -- Pup abandoned for having rare brown fur | Mail Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:41 AM | Your Say (4)

September 15, 2011

As memories of the riots fade, fresh tragedy strikes England

Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead In A Badger Den | Radar Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:32 PM | Your Say (2)

Our Fallible Authors

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Posted by Vanderleun at 8:02 PM | Your Say (1)

Facts of Life

If an identifiable Jew from Israel wanders, unguarded, into any part of the Palestinian territories, he is a dead man.
This is a fact of life, and everyone knows it. Leftist and Islamist rhetoric about Israeli "apartheid" masks a very big truth: that more than a million Muslim Arabs live, work, and move freely around Israel, with full citizenship and protection under Israel's laws (enforced by very liberal courts). Whereas, the number of Jews enjoying this status under the Palestinian Authority is zero. -- David Warren - The Republic of Anti-Israel

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

"I might take the progressive opposition of death penalty a bit more seriously,

had they not historically supported and even cheered for Che, Fidel, Mao, Stalin and other proglo tyrants who cheerfully executed more dissidents in a day than Rick Perry did during his entire gubernatorial career." -- The Fourth Checkraise: Save one man to save all of inanity

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:34 PM | Your Say (4)

When Skewers Are Outlawed Only...

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Man In Jail For Felony Shish-Kebab Trying To Keep His Chin Up | The Rumford Meteor
Shilo Hodge, 32, was arrested Sept. 6. The 40-year-old victim told police that “he got angry because there was not enough barbecue sauce on his chicken and he stabbed her with a hot barbecue skewer,” Sgt. Mike Hashey said Monday.

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

Attention U. S. Justice Department: Time for a Second Bite at the Asshole

Almost exactly two years after his arrest in Zurich at the request of the US Justice Department, Roman Polanski is due back in the Swiss city on 27 September to receive the lifetime achievement award he was unable to accept in 2009 after the intervention of the authorities... Roman Polanski to return to Switzerland to receive award | Film | guardian.co.uk

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

Who Says There's No Good News?

Nicolas Cage awoken by naked man with Fudgesicle | Reuters

The precise roll of the Fudgesicle in the awakening of Cage is left to the imagination.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (3)

September 14, 2011

Educational Equations

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"You'll notice how the current educational system tends to indoctrinate innocent young people into a series of equations that are never quite spelled out: moral goodness = niceness = conformity = mindless diversity worship = hatred of heretics." -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog: The limits of niceness

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:42 PM | Your Say (1)

Reason to Stop Random Browsing of the Internet #4,629,162

[ Link not to click -->] Eel removed from man's bladder after entering penis during beauty spa[<-- That's right. Do NOT click it.]
An erratic eel wriggled its way up a man's penis and into his bladder following an accident during an unorthodox beauty spa treatment in China.

And Chinese Beauty Spas are right out, too!

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:55 PM | Your Say (5)

New Krugman Worstseller Released

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Credit: JohnnyE. @ Ace of Spades HQ

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:39 PM | Your Say (0)

Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome

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And then there is the weird stuff, the Old Hag part, the night-mare.
People who have an experience of sleep paralysis tend to feel some horrible, evil being is near them. "I just knew this presence was there. An ominous presence ... not only could I not see it, but I couldn't defend myself, I couldn't do anything," one victim told Adler. This feeling is consistent across cultures, even if it goes by different names and presents through the culture one knows. -- The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills - Alexis Madrigal - Life - The Atlantic

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:05 PM | Your Say (7)

Make an Eight-Teeth Smile

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All month she had been practicing, standing for hours in front of the bathroom mirror in her tiny Shanghai flat,
delicately gripping a chopstick sideways between her teeth as her supervisor had instructed her, and, by dint of some nimble dental gymnastics with it, learning how to smile in precisely the way that China High-Speed Railways had officially demanded of their new stewardesses. Make an Eight-Teeth Smile: that was the phrase; that was the order. -- How Fast Can China Go? | Business | Vanity Fair

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (6)

U.E.C.-or- "Utopian Estrogen-Cockiness"

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Scanning the news page the other day, it struck me that liberalism
—even when not limp but incarnated in such priapic women as La Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, the Napolitano person, or Janet Reno—is still a road to war, mayhem, and self-destruction. Instigating idiotic wars in faraway places with billions spent—not a dime of which we have—and then “hoping” via a menopausal psychotic she-narcissist that the rebels “safeguard” 20,000 surface-to-air missiles, the black-market value of which rests in their ability to shoot Boeings out of the sky—why, that strikes me as utopian estrogen-cockiness deserving the most hateful opprobrium. -- Gelded Men and Insane Socialist Women - Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (2)

September 13, 2011

Oh we'll all go together when we go!

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Massive default is best way to fix the economy - Portfolio Insights by Brett Arends - MarketWatch
You want to fix this economic crisis? You want to put people back to work? You want to light a fire under the economy? There’s a way to do it. Fast. And relatively simple. But you’re not going to like it. You’re not going to like it at all. Default. A national Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The fastest way to fix this mess is to see tens of millions of homeowners default on their mortgages and other debts, and millions more file for bankruptcy.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:49 PM | Your Say (12)

"Obamanoia Strikes Deep. Into Your Term It Will Creep."

Sense of Events: The paranoid president"This is the third crude attempt of this president to identify his enemies...."
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Posted by Vanderleun at 7:38 PM | Your Say (14)

"A Tired Democracy"

"If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know,
it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep." -G. K. Chesterton [Word Around the Net: Quote of the Day]

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

Words We Live By

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Posted by Vanderleun at 3:59 PM | Your Say (6)

The "Granny Police"

It Can't Happen Here, Right?
"One day in March, major boulevards in Beijing suddenly were lined with older women, bundled up in overcoats and with red armbands identifying them as public-safety patrols, who sat on stools at 20-yard intervals and kept watch for disruption. They had no practical effect except as reminders that the authorities were on guard and in control." -- The 6 Weirdest Jobs in China | Cracked.com

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

Chrome-rimmed Poverty?

The problem with those who invaded my farm this summer was not poverty,
but too much -- at least in the sense of driving late-model trucks as they sought to destroy the lives and tranquility of others to get things that, by the very fact of their mode of transportation, they did not need. For the last two years, I have witnessed two constants: late-model cars in the valley shopping centers, an epidemic of obesity apparent to the naked eye, majorities on plastic food stamp debt cards, without apparent work in mid-morning, and a general unhappiness in the check-out lines that the government, state, city, etc. is not doing enough for them. All that is coupled with a media message of a cruel, heartless society that needs to do more for its oppressed -- and a popular culture that damns any so witless and heartless for pointing the contradictions out. -- Works and Days » The California Corridor: Some Lessons on Government Largesse From the New Frontier

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:19 PM | Your Say (0)

“Doo-ya’s”

The part that gets me is mom and dad.
They jump up at the first sign of their child’s movement, run to meet them at the door, pick up the kids water bottle on the way, and start in with the “Doo-ya’s.” “Doo-ya need water? Doo-ya need to go potty? Doo-ya have a boo-boo?” Hilarious. Or sad. Yeah, it’s definitely sad. -- Have the Time of Your Life Again | The Dipso Chronicles

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:03 PM | Your Say (0)

Another Bloody Century?

To be blunt about it, why might this one, uniquely in all of history, not be a bloody century? I put it to you that when we have had at least 25 bloody centuries, uninterruptedly so, in our somewhat recoverable past, it is highly implausible to suggest that this 26th century is going to be different. -- Infinity Journal | Strategy | Analysis

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (0)

There's only one reason why the 9/11 commemorations

were portrayed as a celebration of diversity and tolerance:
journalists themselves wanted it that way. The Society of Professional Journalists, an organization that dates back to 1909, handed down a ukase that decrees how any journalist with any conscience whatsoever should cover the news, namely by spinning it. Following are some excerpts from the Guidelines for Countering Racial, Ethnic and Religious Profiling. -- Mangan's: Journalistic Priority: Pro-Diversity Spin

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (0)

So, if you want an education, the odds aren’t with you:

The professors are off doing what they call their own work;
the other students, who’ve doped out the way the place runs, are busy leaving the professors alone and getting themselves in position for bright and shining futures; the student-services people are trying to keep everyone content, offering plenty of entertainment and building another state-of-the-art workout facility every few months. The development office is already scanning you for future donations. The primary function of Yale University, it’s recently been said, is to create prosperous alumni so as to enrich Yale University. -- Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here? :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:07 AM | Your Say (1)

The G8 met in Hokkaido, Japan, in July 2008 to address the global food crisis.

Over an eighteen-course meal—including truffles, caviar, conger eel, Kyoto beef, and champagne—prepared by sixty chefs, the world leaders came to a consensus: “We are deeply concerned that the steep rise in global food prices coupled with availability problems in a number of developing countries is threatening global food security.” -- Locusts, Cilantro, Elvis Presley - Lapham’s Quarterly

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:01 AM | Your Say (0)

“I’m not leaving, and by the way I’m hungry,”

President George W. Bush said on September 13, 2001, when he was told there was a credible threat to the White House. He ordered a cheeseburger. -- Locusts, Cilantro, Elvis Presley - Lapham’s Quarterly

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:58 AM | Your Say (1)

" Perception is everything in finance and the perception now is that the United States has a fool for a president."

Sadly, that perception is highly accurate.
His jobs bill proposal is so extraordinarily flaccid that Republicans are not even bothering wasting their breath to denounce it. The public reaction is, "That's nice." His rally at the White House for his bill was predictably a cross section of what support the Democratic Party and its leader have: Unions, government workers and black people. -- 80% of rich have no confidence « Don Surber

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (1)

September 12, 2011

"Te Atrocity" --Essential Reynolds: Krugman's just the canary in the coal mine

EVERYBODY'S ANGRY, to judge from my email, about Paul Krugman's typo-burdened 9/11 screed. Don't be.
You'll see more and worse from Krugman and his ilk as the left nationally undergoes the kind of crackup it's already experiencing in Wisconsin. They thought Barack Obama was going to bring back the glory days of liberal hegemony in politics, but it turned out he was their Ghost Dance, their Bear Shirt, a mystically believed-in totem that lacked the power to reverse their onrushing decline, no matter what the shamans claimed.

Read all, especially the letter from the "anonymous" academic.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:16 AM | Your Say (6)

September 11, 2011

Krugman emission joins the "Twice Around the Bowl" Club

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Tar. Check. Feathers. Check. Rail. Check.

Koward Krugman’s problem is that he’s a lazy intellectual slob who hurriedly hits the “publish” button
before the sand in his little kitchen egg timer empties. He hurls Molotov cocktails at his political enemies, while hiding behind his hallowed desk at the Fishwrap of Record. His 181-word turd demonstrates perfectly the leftist approach to combating Islamic jihad: Cut and run. Michelle Malkin A few more words about Koward Krugman

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:46 PM | Your Say (13)

Sure to Be a Hit With "Gay Housewives of San Francisco"

Anderson Cooper debuts his new syndicated talk show “Anderson” today at 4 p.m.

While his conversation with the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” addresses the recent suicide of Taylor Armstrong’s estranged husband, Russell, he vows his show won’t wallow in the seedy topics that permeate some daytime shows. “I’m not going to consciously do something that I feel is icky or that I feel is inappropriate,” he said. “It just doesn’t interest me to do that, you know? ... What interests me is real conversations, genuine conversations with people.”

We'll be keeping a look out for his appropriate expose of "teabagging."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:03 PM | Your Say (5)

"Lots of sadness, but no anger."

No one on TV is angry?
The Towers didn't fall, they were kicked in the face. How many politicians do I have to watch cry on TV? STOP CRYING. I already know it's sad. Don't tell me we are resilient, don't tell me we'll go on, are there people worried they won't go on? Show me the country has some men in it, show me that we aren't five year olds. -- The Last Psychiatrist: We Are All Skyscrapers Now

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (4)

The News of the Day

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Failed President Appears With Another President To Commemorate 9/11 | The Rumford Meteor

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:24 AM | Your Say (5)

Surprise! Today is "National Grandparents Day!"

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America,
by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 11, 2011, as National Grandparents Day. I call upon all Americans to take the time to honor their own grandparents and those in their community. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth. BARACK OBAMA -- Presidential Proclamation -- National Grandparents Day | The White House

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

September 10, 2011

"This is the broken way of war "

Ten years of war have passed, and before that a thousand years of war with lulls and pauses,
but the din of the scimitar being sharpened for war never truly stopped. Each year that passes is a chance to learn the lessons of the years that have gone by and to remedy their mistakes. The best way to pay tribute to the dead is to unlearn our mistakes so that what happened to them will not happen again. Everything else is the fragmentation of self-indulgence, the therapy of tears, the sensitivity of grief, that will ease our pain, but not our fate. -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:04 PM | Your Say (2)

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Created by Donald Sensing Music: John Williams, "Hymn to the Fallen""

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

President Obama Is Now Apparently Cold-Calling Bucksport Area Citizens, With Uneven Success

A local man reported receiving a suspicious call Sept. 2 from someone claiming to be from the federal government. The man said the caller told him he could receive grant money if he provided his bank account information. -- | The Rumford Meteor

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

September 9, 2011

First World Problem #3,427,231

"I'm in great distress. I don't have a pencil in the house.
I tried to get some pencils on Friday, when I did my grocery shopping. I searched the rack at Hannaford's. There were all kinds of them there, for back-to-school, but I'm picky, and wanted only the mechanical pencils that I prefer to use, and there were none...not any...nada...there. I didn't really have time to get to Supplies Unlimited that day, so I came home without. Then I discovered the one I had left in the house was dead. -- Back Talk From The Back House

Bring me my gun. No. The bigger one.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:19 PM | Your Say (5)

"30 billion to teach English as a Second Language and 5 billion for firefighters and cops."

File Under: The Inane Crony Spending Priorities Will Continue Until Teachers Unions Are Paid Off:
Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters: The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, requiring that funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President’s proposal, $30 billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel. "I'm going to go out on a limb here but we need firefighters and cops a lot more than we need to put more unemployed philosophy majors to the task of teaching the unteachable so they can join a union and vote Democrat." -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:45 PM | Your Say (9)

It CAN Be Done!

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Just in time for all your ignorant but remorseful friends: The Nobama Heimlich Maneuver - Maggie's Farm

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:17 PM | Your Say (4)

A.D. Comment of the Month, Year, Decade

I don't know how to count the loss and gain of the last decade at my house.
It won't fit on a spreadsheet. My mind flashes back to my carefree teenage son and his rowdy buddies invading the refrigerator and pantry a decade ago, concerned about girls, parties, summer's end, their nebulous futures. My son was the first of them to enlist, and three more were inspired by him to follow suit. We saw one of them off to Afghanistan last week, an infantry squad leader now. My son says he's going to a bad place.

This week, my son, returned from Afghanistan in August with his Special Forces team,
was sitting on the sofa in the middle of the night, reaching deep in himself to talk with his father of war, and of death, and of spending his entire adult life preparing for, going to, and coming from combat with a fanatical enemy. He spoke of the horror of walking through the carnage of the deadliest bombing in Iraq in 2007, and how one instant that day still defines it all for him: a father holding out the shredded remains of his daughter to him, the American who surely must have the magic medicine to resurrect her. He knows he has paid a dear personal price for America and for his comrades-in-arms, and that price has bought him a position shoulder-to-shoulder with heroes and warriors worthy of legend, glory, and honor. I could not be more proud of him as a father and as an American, nor can I be in less despair over the cost I see him bear. He now trains to redeploy to Afghanistan in a few months. War is hell, but only a few go through the gates. -- From AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on September 10, 2001: "Make no mistake, it's not revenge he's after. It's a reckonin'."

All Honor to and prayers for your household and family, sir.

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

EARTH TO MISS UNIVERSE: "Ah, we don't see London. We don't see France. We don't see... "

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Miss Universe officials have a message for Catalina Robayo, Colombia's entry into Monday's contest: Don't forget to wear underwear.

Robayo, one of 89 beauties from around the world competing to win the Donald Trump-owned contest, has been reprimanded for making appearance in tiny skirts - with no panties. "Colombia had to be spoken to and told she needed to wear underpants as what she was doing was totally inappropriate," a source told Fox News. "People have been pretty upset by it; there have been photos and media appearances where she has completely had her crotch out." -- Miss Universe Hopeful Told to Wear Panties | NBC Miami Discuss.

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

The University of California, Berkeley invites applications for a position as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in any of the following three areas: (1) Diversity and Identity;

The time is fast approaching (if it is not already here)
when a student can be admitted to a selective university largely on the basis of his or her racial or ethnic identity; major in his or her identity; go to graduate school (also aided by preferential admissions) and get a PhD in his or her identity; and have an entire academic career based on professing his or her identity, perhaps rewarded at some point with elevation to a vice presidency in charge of “diversity and inclusion” to oversee the management and expansion of university-wide programs based on racial and ethnic identity. -- A Department Of Diversity at Berkeley

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (3)

Real Time Reactions to the President's Jobs Speech Are Pouring In!

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (7)

September 8, 2011

America to Obama..... "Zzzzzz... Wha?,,, Huh? Uh, okay we'll get back to you..."

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Posted by Vanderleun at 6:26 PM | Your Say (0)

Shorter Obama: Collectivism is all-American, you sons-of-b*tches.

Michelle Malkin Obama's jobs speech in one easy picture

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:16 PM | Your Say (0)

Globalization Economics in One Simple Statement

"Once the barriers within a system are greater than those between systems, then activity will offshore."
--Belmont Club サ The Miseducation of the First World

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:29 PM | Your Say (0)

Meet the New Emperor. Same as the Old Emperor.

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"This is not Versailles; this is office building of 6 Pharmaceutical Factory of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group in China.
September 5, a group of luxury office building photos of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group spread in major Chinese forums, according to the post person, its lavish degree surpassed magnificent imperial palace. Photo shows the main building's decoration is Versailles style, in the corridors are wood carvings, and assembled with gold foil, each angel is vivid."These photos are found from the medicine factory's official website. -- Chinese Drug Maker's Deluxe Office Building Comparable to Imperial Palace » Design You Trust

I wonder to what lengths a regime might be willing to go to keep this kind of gravy train rolling. Did I mention the Chinese are also rolling out a number of aircraft carriers? I didn't? My bad. I was just so dazzled.
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Posted by Vanderleun at 1:16 PM | Your Say (2)

Real Estate Notes from All Over

Realtors Ready Kirstie Alley’s Maine Estate For Sale By Scraping BBQ Sauce From Walls, Removing Footprints From Paved Driveway | The Rumford Meteor

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:01 PM | Your Say (0)

Great Is Caesar

Great is Caesar: He has conquered Seven Kingdoms.
The Fourth was the Kingdom of Credit Exchange:
Last night is was Tit-for-Tat, to-night it is C.O.D.;
When we have a surplus, we need not meet someone with a deficit;
When we have a deficit, we need not meet someone with a surplus;
Instead of heavy treasures, there are paper symbols of value;
Instead of Pay at Once, there is Pay when you can;
Instead of My Neighbour, there is Our Customers;
Instead of Country Fair, there is World Market.
Great is Caesar: God must be with Him."
-- W. H. Auden, "Fugal-Chorus" (from For the Time Being)

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

"If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know,"

"... it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. -- G. K. Chesterton

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:01 PM | Your Say (0)

"Here are two completely unrelated headlines:"

1) Buffett To Co-Host Obama Fundraiser In NYC

2) Buffett to Invest $5 Billion in Shaky Bank of America

I really can't stress how unrelated the headlines are." -- Randoms ォ Foseti

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:52 AM | Your Say (0)

Snail spamming is an expensive business to be in;

the USPS loses billions of dollars each year so that advertisers can send out billions of pieces of spam at below market costs. In fairness, e-spammers should demand an equivalent subsidy; shouldn't non-prescription Viagra dealers and Nigerian con artists get the same kind of help from a benevolent government that the Publisher's Clearinghouse gets for junk mail? -- Snail Mail Spam Subsidies Stuttering Towards A Stop | Via Meadia

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (0)

Breaking News from the Meteor

This Is The Glassblower, Tattered And Torn, That Knocked Up The Maiden, All Forlorn, That Sold Some Kilos For The Child Unborn, That Hurt The Foot, That Bought The Dope, That Burned In The Pipe That Ernest Blew | The Rumford Meteor

This Is The Glassblower, Tattered And Torn, That Knocked Up The Maiden, All Forlorn, That Sold Some Kilos For The Child Unborn, That Hurt The Foot, That Bought The Dope, That Burned In The Pipe That Ernest Blew

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

"It goes without saying too that Paul won"

...the Internet polls immediately after the debate. What Internet poll has Paul not won? (Who will win the US Open? Ron Paul 88%, Novak Djokovic 12%.)
Meanwhile, it turns out good old cranky uncle Ron is actually a pretty mean-spirited guy who goes for the political jugular. He was after Perry for some obscure letter the governor wrote in mild support of the idea of Hillarycare long before any specific program even existed. He is also first out of the gate with an attack ad and, while I was watching the debate, filled my inbox with a non-stop fusillade of unwanted emails attacking Perry. (Can’t this at least wait for the Iowa caucus?) -- Roger L. Simon Notes from the Spin Room

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:11 AM | Your Say (7)

September 7, 2011

The cause of civilizational decline is dirt-simple: lack of contact with objective reality.

Every great civilization reaches a point of prosperity where it is possible to live your entire life as a pacifist without any serious consequences.
Many civilizations have come to the state of devolution represented by modern Berkeley folkways, from wife-swapping to vegetarianism. These ideas don’t come from a hardscrabble existence in contact with nature’s elemental forces; they are the inevitable consequence of being an effete urban twit removed from meaningful contact with reality. The over-civilized will try to portray their decadence as something “highly evolved” and worthy of emulation because it can only exist in the hothouse of highly civilized urban centers, much like influenza epidemics. -- Never Trust Anyone Who Hasn’t Been Punched in the Face - Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:05 PM | Your Say (1)

"Stop being angry. Stop being vengeful. Forget!"

Drown history in enough reflecting pools and it stops mattering.
Put up enough empty benches and people will remember to forget. Tell them that they're courageous for moving on and they'll admire themselves for putting it all behind them. And if they won't forget, then fill them with grief until they can't take it anymore and willingly forget. But by all means avoid outrage, keep messy emotions like anger out of the way. Anger is not part of the healing process, which begins with an empty bench and ends with a visit to a mosque to reconcile with your killers. -- Daniel Greenfield

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

The Greens Are Not Vulcans

They are angry, frightened, committed true believers on a mission from Gaia,
and many have a deep view that capitalism itself is a kind of cancer — uncontrolled growth that will sooner or later kill us all.  (Sherri Tepper’s science fiction in which life affirming, grounded, caring ecologically minded people frequently of the female persuasion overcome various male/science/capitalist/cancerous growth affirming death cults on planets around the galaxy portrays this core mindset pretty well.) This is religion, not science, romanticism not reason. -- | Via Meadia

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

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: A man with his head up his ass so deep and so long he needs a snorkel just to breathe

Yet another argument for culling the herd of the New York Times with a flamethrower:
"Imagine where we’d be today if on the morning of 9/12 Bush had announced (as some of us advocated) a “Patriot Tax” of $1 per gallon of gas to pay for education, infrastructure and government research, to help finance our wars and to slash our dependence on Middle East oil." -- The Whole Truth and Nothing But - NYTimes.com

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

It's Come to This!

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We know times are tough but....Person dressed as Gumby attempts to rob convenience store in Rancho Penasquitos, California
In this surveillance video taken Sept. 5, 2011 and released by the San Diego Police Dept. shows a suspect dressed like Gumby telling a convenience store clerk he is being robbed, fumbling inside the costume as if to pull a gun, dropping 27 cents and leaving.

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:33 PM | Your Say (3)

Thinking Too Much About America

It's easy for me to say that we are all peasants and nothing peasants say matters, although what it is we do is the basis of the entire economy. That should be, in it's own way, self-evident.
But what is not self-evident is the extent to which we are actually not getting added value from adding our voices to the democratic end of our national governance. Mind you I see this in more and more things these days. Are newspapers really improving because they have comment sections? Is there really something to be appreciably gained by reading through all that? I'm tending to think not. Rather I think we're all a bit neurotic about describing what's going wrong in America. The worst part is that all of this is a function of who we are, that is to say, Americans love America but hate the other-Americans polluting this place. -- Cobb

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:49 PM | Your Say (7)

“I was sold for 20,000 Yuan (£1,880),” said Aba.

I challenge anyone who wishes to attempt it to put forward an argument,
one that does not use any unspoken Christian assumptions about the innate and divine sanctity of the human life, but which instead is based on the secular humanist assumptions behind the philosophy of Communist China, to show any logical reason why women should not be enslaved to serve as brides to lonely Chinese men? Again, is there any logical reason why, once we accept the logical implication of the one-child policy, including the implication that you life as well as your sex life rightfully may be curtailed and controlled by the collective, we are not likewise forced to accept the institution of the state-arranged marriages, coercive marriages, the harem, the slavemarket? -- 20,000 Yuan for a Human Life | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:46 AM | Your Say (5)

"In fact, it's not unlike the 1960s."

Think about it: in our case, for the brief time Obama has been in office, we and our children's [fill in the blank] will be paying for the rest of our lives.
For what, exactly? For the privilege of having this insufferable cipher lead us for a few years? It's like surveying the wreckage the morning after a huge drunken party. And for what? We didn't even get drunk, since we weren't one of the party pretendees. -- One Cʘsmos: Wake Up Morons! The End is Not Near!

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (1)

September 7, 2001

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Posted by Vanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (0)

Remembering Muslim Colonialism on September 11

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Anyone who cared to dig through the graveyards of Sudan already knew that Muslims mattered more than Africans to us.
The sky full of jets that we dispatched to bomb Yugoslavia on behalf of Muslim terrorists never clouded the skies of Khartoum. But they did show up to bomb Tripoli so that Islamist thugs could begin torturing and murdering Africans. In the left's pyramid of races, some matter more than others, and Arabs are higher than Africans. So much higher that Sudan is piled with corpses, but the mere thought of Islamist rebels losing in Libya was enough to send in the air forces of bankrupt Western countries already tied up in too many places. The primacy of the Arab Muslim over the African Christian is a recent thing in the liberal landscape born in part of realpolitik and the red enthusiasm for revolutionary violence. It is a thing which almost no one discusses because it has gone unnoticed. The racial vocabulary of it is one that few are even able to read. -- by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:32 AM | Your Say (4)

From 2003: "Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance"

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror,
the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad recently "told an international conference of young Muslim leaders ... (that) ... Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies". Fecklessness and gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs accumulate. -- Belmont Club

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:16 AM | Your Say (4)

Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam

The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.-- The 3 Conjectures , 2003, Belmont Club

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:14 AM | Your Say (0)

September 6, 2011

The majority of artists are not deep or original thinkers.

They are merely people gifted with the ability to give “a local habitation and a name” to the ideas their intellectual guides and mentors find fashionable.
The Left is still ascendant in our academies and media. More than that, it is committed to strangling, through blacklists and unfounded charges of racism and bigotry, the intellectual diversity that might challenge their primacy. As a result, many of our artists’ minds have become straitjacketed by “progressive” and relativist notions that had their heyday among honest thinkers 50 years ago and have been crashing and burning in the real world ever since. -- When Hollywood Hit Rock Bottom by Andrew Klavan - City Journal

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:21 PM | Your Say (0)

Ah brave new world, that has such people in it!

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neo-neocon: Sperm donors may win biological sweepstakes
Today there are 150 children, all conceived with sperm from one donor, in this group of half siblings, and more are on the way. "It's wild when we see them all together -- they all look alike," said Ms. Daily, 48, a social worker in the Washington area who sometimes vacations with other families in her son’s group.

You think it's wild now? Just wait for the teenage slumber parties!

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:33 PM | Your Say (2)

"I'm telling you for the last time. If you don't clean up your room we're giving you to Kenny Omega"

Advanced Asian Methods of Child Discipline

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

Shingles Cost

Roofing shingles cost exactly double what they did a little more than a year ago.
They are just little slabs of petroleum emulsions with aquarium pebbles stuck on them, and since our government thinks we don't need any of that sort of gooey black stuff any more except to put into bulletproof limousines and corporate jets, we'll have to economize elsewhere. Before you go all Tea Party on the government on my behalf, I suppose I should admit that we probably would have wasted the money anyway, on food for our children or something equally dumb. -- Sippican Cottage: Roofing; My Ass

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:01 AM | Your Say (3)

"Analysts persist in making predictions. They are addicted to prophecy."

The robe of the magus fits strangely on the scientist's lab coat, but the point is clear. 
These are the people who see into the future.  Unfortunately, to keep up the pose -- to validate their expertise -- they must insist that the future resemble the past.  They freeze yesterday, and imagine it’s tomorrow.  With an election, they point to polls.  They say things like, "Since FDR, no president has been re-elected with an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent or higher."  Prediction, explicit or implied, rests on arbitrary statistics and the assumption that nothing in the future will perturb the infinite number of variables pushing and pulling at the data. Hence the high rate of failure. -- Analyzing events | the fifth wave

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (2)

Limbaugh Translation: "Obama ratings sink to new lows as hope soars"

Obama ratings sink to new lows as hope fades - The Washington Post

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:47 AM | Your Say (3)

September 5, 2011

Rumford Meteor Strikes Again!

“Maine A Mecca For Gay Couples” Trumpets Newspaper Unclear On Exactly What Happens To Gay Couples In Mecca |

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:55 PM | Your Say (0)

10 Reasons Palin's in the Race

Palin's running for President as a free market populist,
and the only questions that remain are when she is going to formally announce and if the electorate will opt for a message of free market populism above those of big government and crony capitalism. -- Sarah Palin Announces What a Future Presidential Campaign May Look Like

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:30 PM | Your Say (4)

The Graying of California

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Increasingly, California no longer beckons ambitious newcomers, except for a handful of the most affluent, best educated, and well connected.
Through the 1980s and even through the late '90s, the aspirational classes came to California. Now they head to other, more opportunity-friendly places like Austin, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, even former “dust bowl” burghs like Des Moines, Omaha, and Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, Golden California, particularly its expensive, ultragreen coast, gets older and older. Marin County, the onetime home of the Grateful Dead and countless former hippies, is now one of the grayest urban counties in the country, with a median age of 44. --The Golden State Is Crumbling | Newgeography.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:47 PM | Your Say (3)

The Demons

No, it is this man, who exists,
Who is history; who is, I'm sure,
The future; and the drama is his,
As dangerous as elegant. His
Demons, made by him, are sent
By the great gods to scourge him,
And have doubtless barely started.
As such these creatures are divine,
Like the tiger or the killer whale,
And must not be disrespected:
A slice of advice both prudent
And compliant with federal law.
-- Moldbug @ Unqualified Reservations:

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:47 AM | Your Say (4)

Tomorrow is "85 mph day" in Texas

Today, the top speed limit in the country is 80 mph.
By tomorrow, the Texas Legislature will have upped the state's maximum speed limit to 85 miles per hour, faster than any other state in the nation. -- Jalopnix

Just one more reason to move to Texas.
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Posted by Vanderleun at 2:20 AM | Your Say (16)

You Don't Say? Will Wonders Never Cease?

Fathers' presence linked to enhanced intellect, well-being among children
Fathers who actively engage in raising their children can help make their offspring smarter and better behaved, according to new research from Concordia University.

Ah the wonders of science! Who knew?

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:09 AM | Your Say (3)

September 4, 2011

The Emperor’s New Body

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Chastity Chaz Bono: The Early Years

In their fantasy world where feelings are more important than flesh,
they cheerlead Chaz Bono in her seemingly interminable quest to become more comfortable with herself, no matter how uncomfortable it makes everyone else. Rather than viewing Chaz’s “journey” as ugly, exhibitionistic narcissism, they depict her chubby feet as treading a golden pathway of life-affirming empowerment. -- Jim Goad - Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:35 PM | Your Say (0)

Messiah of Hate

Glamor is all that Obama ever had. With the greasepaint off, there's nothing there but a surly kid with greying hair. An obnoxious posturing preening brat parading down the runways of the world with his media entourage in tow.
Some actors can change from one costume to another, but he is the costume. Worse yet, he isn't even the costume. He's the lights, the stirring music, the hours of anchor commentary, the deliberate pauses, the photographic halos, the teleprompter and the building expectation. Take those things away and there isn't even an empty suit. There's nothing at all. -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:50 PM | Your Say (2)

Ann Barnhardt Takes Exception to Seals Being Described as "Fungible" [Bumped]

Ready. Fire. Aim:
Admiral McRaven dismissed assertions that the most highly trained Navy and Army commando teams should be reserved solely for the most high-profile missions;“We have to be fungible as a force,” Admiral McRaven said. “And if we are not fungible as a force, then we are not of value." Admiral Defends Use of Navy Seals Unit in Fatal Raid

Really Admiral? Really? The 15 DEVGRU SEALs that were killed on that Chinook were literally some of the most valuable tactical human military assets THAT HAVE EVER EXISTED IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. These DEVGRU men aren’t just SEALs, they are the absolute elite of the elite. Most of them are in their early to mid 30s, and have YEARS of combat experience in the other SEAL Teams before being hand-picked to join DEVGRU.

“I’m not sure I know how it ends,” [McRaven] said. “This may be the ‘new normal,’ in terms of this threat that we will have to live with for a long time."

Let me tell you “how it ends”, Admiral Pantspisser. It ends in swift, total, complete and unconditional victory. Either get your head around that or resign. We The People are sick and tired of politicking, imbecilic, touchy-feely asses like you using the treasure of this nation as cannon fodder to justify your self-serving politically correct agenda and whose dead bodies you step on to clamber your way up the payscale/pension ladder. Admiral McRaven, you have proven yourself wholly unqualified for your position at best, and a disgrace to the United States Navy and a water-carrying oath-breaker at worst.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:58 PM | Your Say (42)

September 3, 2011

"Black unemployment rate: Highest since 1984" And Guess What? That's Raaaaacist!

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Algernon Austin's not got a lot to say about "Who" or What policies" might be causing this:
Even when you compare black and white workers, same age range, same education, you still see pretty significant gaps in unemployment rates," said Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute. "So I do think the fact of racial discrimination in the labor market continues to play a role." -- CNN Money Sep. 2, 2011

His hope has not changed.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:22 PM | Your Say (10)

Say "Shibboleth" Six Times Swiftly

"The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim. Whenever a fugitive from Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the Gileadites asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he answered, "No," they told him, "Please say Shibboleth." If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan." -- Judges 12:5-6

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:25 PM | Your Say (5)

Intellectual Head Shops

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

September 2, 2011

Tears for a Clown

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I do not know whether in the balance of existence Jerry Lewis is an evil man or a good one.
I do not know whether he has had talent in the traditional sense or for doing what almost no one else could accomplish. What I do know is that, even if he is an impolitic, impolite, annoying bastard, Jerry has literally done more with his star power than all the other personalities of modern Hollywood combined, and I want him to go out on top. He has earned as much. -- Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:18 PM | Your Say (6)

Obama Slips Away at an "Undisclosed Landing"

Unexpected Detour: Marine One Forced to Land
In a highly unusual maneuver, President Obama's 30 minute flight to the Presidential mountain retreat at Camp David this afternoon was diverted to an undisclosed landing near Frederick, Maryland and a motorcade assembled to drive him to the nearby site.

Hey, sometimes a man just needs some off-the-radar relaxation.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:58 PM | Your Say (1)

Note to Dan Akroyd: Get Off the Stage Before the Lights Dim

The first Blues Brothers movie was a lot of fun,
it was silly and crazy and had lots of great music. The second was pretty lousy, like someone making a movie based on what they vaguely remember of the first, but with less talent as a writer. Now Akroyd wants to make a TV series based on the Blues Brothers. The pitch? Route 66 meets Glee. But, hopefully, less gay and with better music. -- Word Around the Net: WORD AROUND THE NET

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

DNC Announces a New Program

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Click for details -- Maksim

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:47 PM | Your Say (2)

A Tsunami of Really Bad Ideas Adds Up to "Zero"

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Zero Jobs last month -- €”a net change of zero job growth? It was just announced that last month's unemployment is still above 9%
-- €”despite the nearly five trillion dollars in Keynesian pump priming, the near zero interest rates, the expanded unemployment and food stamp support, and the government take overs and subsidies of businesses. There is a scary sort of deer in the headlights look about Obama and Biden that is quite disturbing, as if they are thinking, "This was not supposed to happened to us. Geithner, Goolsbee, Orszag, Romer, Summers assured us that all this borrowing would turn things around -- €”but they are all gone or leaving, so now we are alone? What to do? Hmmm. More them/us class warfare rhetoric? Embrace more of the California/Illinois/New York blue-state model? More European Union emulation? A national high-speed rail jobs program? Bring back Van Jones and "millions of green jobs"€? Borrow another $5 trillion? Maybe negative interest rates? 75 million on food stamps? Four years of unemployment insurance? A new Department of Jobs? Call in Jimmy Carter for advice about 1979? $100 billion more in green subsidies to progressive caring companies? Take over Ford? Another speech from Buffett? Unleash the Black Caucus?" -- Works and Days » Zero Jobs 101—the Psychology of Alienating Employers

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:01 PM | Your Say (0)

Secular Science

The sad fact is that secularization of the scientific community
has arguably decreased the rate of the advance of science. Universities founded by or run by the Church study real knowledge and produce real science, because they believe God is Truth, and the cosmos was made by Him to be studied and understood. Institutions funded by the government study government-approved science, which, if not correct, is politically correct. They understand where their grant money comes from. -- Faith in the Fictional War between Science Fiction and Faith | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (3)

The Shingles Inside

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Sippican Cottage: Smokin' In The Boy's Room

My bedroom, which is still something of a horror, but at least it's not shingled now. The foyer was shingled. A bedroom upstairs. The kitchen was shingled, too, including the backsplash --even the backsplash behind the stove. A cedar shingle dried indoors might as well be soaked with napalm. Using it for a stove backsplash tests the lower limits of behaviors that result in continuing to abide above the lawn.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:36 AM | Your Say (1)

September 1, 2011

God Damn the Pusherman

The mechanism of addiction requires two things from the pusher. That he never sample his product and that he always find new customers. The left has had trouble with the former, because their own resource redistributions corrupts them from the start. And as to the latter, the left is constantly knocking on every global door, looking for new customers to replace the ones they have already destroyed. Like a perverse Diogenes, they go from country to country, seeking an honest economy, only so they can destroy it. -- Liberal Apocalypse by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:02 PM | Your Say (0)

The Shadow Economy

The more rules a system has, the likelier it is to have a larger government.
Since larger governments require more resources, they also depend on a larger tax base. The more governments impose taxes and regulations however, the more resource transactions move from the light side and into the Shadow Economy, making it more difficult for governments to take their cut, without themselves becoming involved in the black market. As increased taxation and regulation shrinks the revenue base, governments begin squeezing the shrinking businesses and citizens even harder. This further inflates the Shadow Economy. As those governments attempt to crack down on and control the Shadow Economy, they only make it more profitable, and those profits are used to entangle and corrupt the government officials who are supposed to regulate them. As a result, free enterprise is destroyed and replaced by the black market. The light side of the economy dies and an entire country becomes a Shadow Economy. -- Liberal Apocalypse by Daniel Greenfield

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

"Well, the road may change, but the driving rarely does."

People on 'ludes should not drive.

Our system puts people in an impossible situation.
First, it conditions them from infancy to Submit and Obey -- and most people eventually do, out of dreary necessity. They may show some early exuberance "for driving and other things" when they're young, before the toothless but firm-jawed gums of the system clamp down on them in the form of things like DMV "points" that lead to "surcharges"and -- lately -- a poorer credit score. And we all know the importance of having a good credit score, don't we?  The average American is thoroughly beaten down, living in constant dread of The Man.  This makes him nervous and twitchy. Now add an overpressured life and minimal to nonexistent actual driver training in the sense of learning how to control a car and work a car so that you are actually making real use of its capabilities vs. learning to Always Slow for a School Zone and be a "responsible machine minder" and, viola. -- Americans Don'€™t Drive | Eric Peters Autos

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (0)

"You can't build a country out of sand and a book."

Syria is burning, not because of the Arab Spring or Tyranny or Twitter, or any of the other popular explanations. The fire in Syria is the same firestorm burning in Iraq, in Turkey, in Lebanon and throughout much of the Muslim world. It has nothing to do with human rights or democracy. There is no revolution here. Only the eternal civil war. -- The Shawarma Republics are Burning by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (2)

"Brotherhood would help the soft man, the clinging man, the stupid man."

I am opposed to Socialism because, in general, it means a vain and costly attack upon the immutable natural law that the strong shall have advantage over the weak.
I do not defend that law as perfect, nor do I even maintain that it is just. If I had the world to make over I should probably try to find something to take its place, something measurably less wasteful and cruel. But the world is as it is and the law is as it is. Say what you will against it, you must at least admit that it works, that it tends to destroy the botched and useless, that it places a premium upon enterprise and courage, that it makes for health and strength, that it is the most powerful of all agents of human progress. Would brotherhood, supposing it to be achieved, do as well? I doubt it. Brotherhood would help the soft man, the clinging man, the stupid man. But would it help the alert and resourceful man? Answer for yourself. Isn't it a fact that difficulties make daring, that effort makes efficiency? Do not functions develop by use? Does the cell act or react?" -- H.L. Mencken in Why I Am Opposed to Socialism, by Edward Silvin.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (7)