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December 31, 2011

Re: Resolutions

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (7)

Exclusive Photo: First Chevy Volts arrive at local dealers

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Via Doug Ross @ Director Blue

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (3)

"They thought it was all going to be better, then Al Gore lost."

"Sure they blew a gasket and pretended Gore had really secretly won, but they knew better.
They were enraged because a Republican was back in power. And in 2002 when Republicans took over all of congress, they saw their efforts to change America into their leftist utopia were going to be dialed back. They went absolutely insane. -- Word Around the Net: COWBOYS AND LEFTISTS

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

"Women have only one fleeting chance, often, at happiness, and can see it go by without even realizing it. "

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This is why vampires are so popular,
real life men disappoint them, and like the male geeks retreating into dreams of hot Vulcan or other Alien babes, women retreat into a fantasy of hunky dominant, violent guys fighting over them and for them. But the reality is sad. Above all else. --Whiskey's Place: The Sadness, American and British Versions

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:34 AM | Your Say (1)

A Vacation Costing $4 Million and He Hits Me for $3? Let's Face It -- Obama Just Can't Handle Money

This email just in:
G. -- About the deadline tonight: It matters. If you can, please give $3 or more today: https://donate.barackobama.com/Midnight . To 2012, Barack

Barack, In 2012, GFY. -- G.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (2)

Top 10 Things Nobody Cared About in 2011

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3. Joe Biden
When Biden was picked for vice president, those of us who write jokes were hoping for a wonderfully gaffe-filled administration. At first he provided great material, conjuring an alternative universe that would make Harry Turtledove proud, one in which Franklin Roosevelt appeared on television in 1929 to reassure Americans that the sack of Carthage would not affect their cellphone plan. But since then he’s taken on the sacred duty of vice presidents since time immemorial: To barely exist in the public consciousness. -- Alt Text @ Wired.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:04 AM | Your Say (1)

"One of the recurring features of American intellectual life is hand-wringing over “anti-intellectualism” by, of course, intellectuals...."

"But the uncomfortable questions won't go away.
If you're so bright, why the constant sucking up to dictators? If you're so bright, why are modern art and literature such a depressing wasteland? If you're so bright, why do so many of your grand social-engineering schemes end in corruption and tears?" -- Armed and Dangerous-- The Varieties of Anti-Intellectualism

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (1)

Are Republicans or Democrats fatter?

Much of Democrats' feelings of superiority are tied into the observation that Red States are generally fatter than Blue States.
But that's a lot like the popular Red State - Blue State IQ hoax that went around after the 2004 election: Blacks and Latinos simply aren't considered in the average white Democrat's mental picture of why Democrats are better. -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:16 AM | Your Say (1)

Countdown to Catastrophe

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"It would be especially cool if the catastrophe started at the stroke of midnight on 12/31/11, but in which of the planet's 24 time zones would that occur? Maybe the Mayan's time zone! But even they spanned two or three. Hmmm." -- BizarroBlog

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

December 30, 2011

"Congress has effectively exempted itself from insider-trading rules,"

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not that the SEC would have the guts to go after a Senator Schumer or a Speaker Pelosi for these exploits.
And that — not campaign contributions, not lobbying — is the really stinky petri dish of festering corruption at the nexus of Washington and Wall Street. You want a case for limited government? That’s it. -- Repo Men - Kevin D. Williamson - National Review Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:21 PM | Your Say (7)

"Our Internet intellectuals lack the intellectual ambition, and the basic erudition,..."

"to connect their thinking with earlier traditions of social and technological criticism.
They desperately need to believe that their every thought is unprecedented. Sometimes it seems as if intellectual life doesn’t really thrill them at all. They never stoop to the lowly task of producing expansive and expository essays, where they could develop their ideas at length, by means of argument and learning, and fully engage with their critics. Instead they blog, and tweet, and consult, and give conference talks—modes of discourse that are mostly impervious to serious critique. -- The Internet Intellectual | The New Republic

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:08 PM | Your Say (5)

I'm trying to think of a good reason not to bring back summary executions in the street but so far ....

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:43 AM | Your Say (8)

Washington was the nation's first performance artist:

virtually his entire public life was a carefully constructed act, and writers have generally been unable to find the man behind the mask. -- Washington: A Life | Foreign Affairs

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:30 AM | Your Say (0)

Send in those resumes today!

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

“Brenda, where you at?”

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She replied, “I’m holding on to the bed post!” then reiterated, “It’s going to get us, it’s going to kill us!”
Now John, too, could feel the house start to lift. “God a’mighty!” he said. He could not look away. He was in awe. Staring at the tornado so close, he remembered, was like blinking his eyes ten times, as fast as he could, and every time he opened them, seeing the pop of light and flicker of dark—that’s what the middle of it looked like. The house, which had belonged to Brenda’s mother, was more than a century old, so its wood gave a desperate groan as it broke apart. -- The Town that Blew Away - Features - Atlanta Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (3)

"If you’re making money on the Wall Street scale then you can buy basically anything....

"In a world of $600,000 cars (consult your local Maybach dealer) and $4,300-a-night whores (consult Eliot Spitzer), it’s no big deal to buy a president, which is precisely what Wall Street did in 2008 when, led by investment giant Goldman Sachs, it closed the deal on Barack Obama." -- Repo Men - Kevin D. Williamson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (1)

Then Again the Titanic Wasn't a Creature of the Air

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Engines of the Boeing 777: Bangalore Aviation points out that a single GE90-115B engine puts out over 110,000 horsepower, or more than twice the design output of all the Titanic's steam engines. -- The Atlantic

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (2)

Successful Failures of 2011

"Speaking of protest, consider the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not since the Hebrews killed themselves at Masada has there been a group that more obviously won by losing. Of course, the Jews at Masada were freedom fighters battling Roman imperialism. The Occupy Wall Streeters think they’re fighting imperialism when they throw a tantrum about having to pay their debts."

"Let us not forget the Republicans, whose feckless squad of A-Team candidates stayed on the bench for fear of joining the mosh pit of cannibalism the primary has become, setting the stage for a potential loss in 2012 that not even Charlie Sheen will be able to spin as a victory." --2011: You Can’t Win for Losing - Jonah Goldberg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (0)

Primary THIS!

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (3)

December 29, 2011

Children dead at last

99-year-old divorces wife after he discovered 1940s affair

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:14 PM | Your Say (1)

Dawn Yawns

An Election Year Dawns Without Keith Olbermann

Good news. Who says there's none?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 PM | Your Say (1)

"He promises you illumination,

"he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution that reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his." -- Blessed John Henry Newman, “The Patristical Idea of Antichrist”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:56 PM | Your Say (1)

"Deep Blue Theism"

Could God choose to exercise the meticulous, micromanaging control over every instant that classical theism says he does but that Deep Blue Theism says he does not? The obvious answer is yes, God could do that if God wanted, but an even deeper question is thereby provoked: would it be loving of God to do so? -- Sense of Events: Clairvoyant science and the Deep Blue God

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:04 PM | Your Say (1)

Ann Barnhardt: "My take on Ron Paul?"

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"If I suddenly have the urge to vote for an islam-appeaser who wants to see Israel wiped off the map, has no problem at all with a nuclear weaponized Iran, and thinks that the United States is an imperial force of evil in the world, I'll just vote for Obama, because at that point, the less-crazy metric points to the guy who DOESN'T wear eyebrow toupees." -- Barnhardt.biz - Commodity Brokerage

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:33 PM | Your Say (13)

Grapefruit Juice

Just click it, ok?
HT: NeoNeoCon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (7)

Innovation Squared

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"Walking Taco: When the weather gets hot, sometimes you just need an extra-easy, extra-portable meal. So, if my childhood trips to summer camp taught me one thing about mobile food, it’s this: there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a walking taco on a lazy day. You just throw your favorite taco ingredients into a single-serve bag of corn chips (the smallest size, or you’ll be overwhelmed by chips), grab a fork, and go! It doesn’t get much simpler than that." --Love Truth & Beauty

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (4)

"I'm a little teapot, short and stout!"

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Right to the top of my 2012 Christmas list

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

The Revolting Federal Government Never Sleeps

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Top 10 Worst Federal Rules of 2011
4. The Equine Equality Rule. As of March 15 (the Ides of March, no less), hotels, restaurants, airlines, and the like became obliged to modify “policies, practices, or procedures” to accommodate miniature horses as service animals. According to the Department of Justice, which administers the rule, miniature horses are a “viable alternative” to dogs for individuals with allergies or for observant Muslims and others whose religious beliefs preclude canine accompaniment.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (3)

And the beatdown goes on...

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North Korea calls Kim Jong Un 'supreme leader' North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un looks on, as he is flanked by President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea Kim Yong-nam (R) and Chief of General Staff of the Korea People's Army Ri Yong-ho (L).

In North Korea, when Kim Jong-Il recently kicked the bucket, a great many of his countrymen took strong exception to his young son, Kim Jong-Un, taking his place. But even they were ultimately won over by the slogan “Anyone but Obama.” --Burt Prelutsky

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (0)

"Income inequality is an inherent condition....

It seems to me that unequal income distribution
is an inevitable consequence of industrial commerce. I have known people who thought water should not run downhill. I know many people who are dissatisfied with the world and with the way society functions. Too bad." -- Pro Commerce: Really rich like a Ponderosa

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:48 AM | Your Say (3)

"To his credit, Mark Steyn has not shut up....

To his greater credit, he cannot resist explaining
to big government types and their defenders that the whole thing is, to borrow one of their favorite words, unsustainable.  Margaret Thatcher had it half right when she noticed that the trouble with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money.  The other half of the problem for the modern welfare state is that it is rapidly running out of people, meaning, as Steyn puts it, people "€œto stick it to." -- Warnings of the End | Crisis Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:24 AM | Your Say (1)

December 28, 2011

Discovered: Tower of Babel floor plan and elevation

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Unambiguously labeled as the "The house, the foundation of heaven and earth, the ziggurat in Babylon,"€ these are the only contemporary images of the tower known to exist. -- Details at The History Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 PM | Your Say (0)

Too Black to Fail

"(The mainstream media) are so vested in our first black president not being a failure
that it’s going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to to protect him. They, I believe, will spout this racist line if some of their colleagues up here aren’t doing it aggressively enough. There is going to be a real desperation." — Rep. Joe Walsh (R.-Ill.)"Rep. Joe Walsh CNSnews.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 PM | Your Say (0)

Independent Hillary! A Choice, Not a Gecko

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A president, not a resident

The Anchoress, she has been thinking: "If Hillary has any ambitions to be president, she ought to do it in ’12 and do it as an Independent. If ever the time was right for a strong candidate -- from the left, not the right -- to strike out as an Independent with a good chance of winning, it's this election year, and Hillary Clinton is precisely the candidate to do it." -- Why Robert Reich is Wrong « The Anchoress

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:20 PM | Your Say (10)

"If you are not living in America,

know that we are living in the future your leaders must promise you.
Because if they don't promise it to you, you'll just run across the border and get it here. You can do that, you know. With our doctors, and our Google, and our JP Morgan Chase and our AT&T. And you might call your cellphone provider Vodaphone or your Google Baidu, but underneath it's the same protocol. There's only a few ways to survive breast cancer and the protocols belong to the Empire. You must attend our Universities to learn it. There's no way you can do it on your own." -- The Empire of Luxury - Cobb
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:20 PM | Your Say (0)

Obama's Dream Come True (In Iraq)

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What's not to like?: "The American withdrawal may leave us with the Iraq of our nightmares:
a country in which a partisan military protects a sectarian, self-serving regime rather than the people or the Constitution; the judiciary kowtows to those in power; and the nation’s wealth is captured by a corrupt elite rather than invested in the development of the nation." -- Ayad Allawi, leader of the Iraqiya coalition -- How to Save Iraq From Civil War - NYTimes.com

Now, isn't that special?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:15 PM | Your Say (2)

The Coming "Soft Dark Ages"

Where will the new fortresses be? Either in lands that can protect themselves or are far enough away from the barbarians that they will be difficult to invade and hold.
In the former case, Texas and Utah come to mind, states whose populations are already armed and whose economic infrastructures already lay upon solid technological foundations. More remote places, like New Zealand, Alberta, Baja California, could set up defendable dark age redoubts if they were properly armed, including with nuclear weapons. -- Bookworm Room » Charles Martel

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:02 PM | Your Say (6)

"I hate this field....

What we should have had was Christie, Palin, Ryan, Rubio, West and Jindal. That could have been amazing. Instead we got the second stringers and it's just impossible to make a choice that doesn't feel like a disappointment. --Kristol: Anyone want to jump in now? ォ Hot Air

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (6)

When a government decides someone is of interest as a potential trouble maker...

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... that government will be able to quickly analyze every phone conversation (and a large fraction of all online text conversations) that person ever participated in.
Then threat assessment software will assess the threat posed by the citizen who is critical of the regime. A retrospective approach is not the only possibility of course. A political threat profile could be maintained that gets continually updated with the latest movements, utterances, and purchasing decisions. -- FuturePundit: Government Total Recall On Past Communications

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

"There have been few better moments in TV...

...than when 77 year old Maureen O'Sullivan explained to David Letterman that you could see the chain on Cheetah's leg in studio publicity photos of the Tarzan cast because otherwise he'd try sexually assaulting Johnny Weissmuller." -- BrothersJudd

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (0)

"America Has the Slows"

"In the last three years, we have become so numb to the Obama's monotonous invective that it is now part of the national DNA:
spread the wealth, fair share, fat cat, punish enemies, corporate jet owners, Super Bowl and Vegas junketeers, 1%, raise the bar, Grinch, millionaires and billionaires, at some point made enough money, no time for profit, and on and on." --Works and Days - America's Two-front War

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (0)

"The net result of the Savior State dominating society and the economy...

is the rise of a pathological mindset of entitlement and resentment--the two are simply two sides of the same coin. You cannot separate them." -- Charles Hugh Smith, Why Am I Hopeful | ZeroHedge

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

"Political Correctness is to hatred as pornography is to lust....

No honest man, deep down, can ever really understand the devotees of Political Correctness,
because they want to be hypocrites.The shock and surprise at their utter shamelessness never fades. They want to put on an outward show of ritualized self-righteousness, not only because it is easy, but because to those who believe as an absolute truth that there is no absolute truth, nothing other than the shallow approach to life, concern for meaningless surface features, is all that is philosophically possible for them. -- Pornolitical Correctness | John C. Wright's Journal

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

December 27, 2011

Milestones

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Cheetah, left

It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011. Cheetah, star of the Tarzan films, passed away after kidney failure during the week of December 19, 2011. -- Cheetah, 80, R.I.P. ォ Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:09 PM | Your Say (2)

The Calming Effect of Citizen's Bullets

If "youths" felt they were at serious risk of being shot when attacking innocents,
this sort of thing wouldn't happen. And, in fact, not so long ago they were, and it didn't. If these problems become widespread, the antidote will present itself. "Youths"€ in general, do what they can get away with, and don't do what they can't. -- Instapundit RIOT AT THE MALL OF AMERICA

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:57 PM | Your Say (1)

Who's the Fascist?

"The fascist is whoever is trying to shut you up, shut you down, dis-employ you, silence you, cripple you or marginalize you for the crime of daring to fall out of step with the party and the conventional wisdom. Beware of them. And don’t think they only exist on the 'other' side." -- The Anchoress

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Quote of the Year

"Law and journalism share common core values -- trust, candor, veracity, honor, respect for others... He violated every one of them." --California Bar spokesperson and lawyer Rachel Grunber [neo-neocon » Blog Archive » The California Bar tries to bar Glass]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:39 PM | Your Say (3)

An Open Letter to the Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls in the Gym Locker Room

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"You’re actually doing it. I mean, we’ve all dreamed of blow-drying our balls out in the open, but you’re actually doing it in front of me and at least sixteen other people that just finished exercising at this pricey sports club." -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

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

"Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. / Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too."

And then the music stopped. This was the silent scene where we came in at the beginning of the screening:
the churches closing at the rate of two a week; the factories closing even faster. What Lennon failed to grasp was that any society that had nothing it would sacrifice for would find nothing worth investing in. And so here we are, dragging on the end of our smokes, tipping over any bottles that still might contain some wine. Because the vineyards are barren and will stay that way. --- Belmont Club サ If Tomorrow Comes

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (0)

The Moronic Canadian Museum for Human Rights

There is something perverse about building a “human rights” monument in the same country
where one human rights commission prosecuted a publisher for reprinting the “Muhammad cartoons” and another banned a preacher for life from quoting “homophobic” Bible verses, even in private correspondence—to cite two of the most egregious cases. -- Giant House of Death on the Prairie

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (0)

The Wimp Made of Mush

7 Reasons Why Mitt Romney's Electability Is A Myth

1) People just don't like Mitt Romney .... Let's be perfectly honest; Mitt Romney excites no one except for Mormons, political consultants, and Jennifer Rubin.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (4)

"Ah Hexagon"

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"I thought they were crazy. They envisaged a satellite that was 60-foot long and 30,000 pounds and supplying film at speeds of 200 inches per second. The precision and complexity blew my mind. This was light years before Google Earth," Prusak said. "And we could clearly see the pool in my backyard." -- Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed - Yahoo! News HT: Neatorama

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:44 AM | Your Say (1)

December 26, 2011

The New News

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:40 PM | Your Say (1)

"When an organization has more of its decisions made by committees,...

that gives more influence to those who have more time available to attend committee meetings and to drag out each meeting longer. In other words, it reduces the influence of those who have work to do, and are doing it, while making those who are less productive more influential." --Thomas Sowell

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

"The scandal is not that she lost her job at Solyndra,....

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it's that she ever had a job at Solyndra. And that she, and countless others, were deprived jobs at legitimate businesses because government sucked $500 million out capital markets to endorse and underwrite the "clean-energy" hustles of its favorite check-writing eco-crooks." -- iowahawk: Journalistic Sun Stroke

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 PM | Your Say (5)

Out Look

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

Design

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:52 PM | Your Say (0)

La Lune

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:52 PM | Your Say (0)

The Whiteness of the Wafer

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

At Arles

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:49 PM | Your Say (0)

Inconceivable

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:27 PM | Your Say (6)

A word from our sponsor, Lace Makers of America

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:26 PM | Your Say (4)

It's a Thought

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:25 PM | Your Say (3)

Wooftee!

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:23 PM | Your Say (0)

Catch!

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:22 PM | Your Say (0)

Batdog at the Wheel!

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

More here than first meets the eye

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (3)

Watch Your Step

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Updating Abe

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (0)

History

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Christmas Horrorfest!

750 Old Town Families Spend Harrowing Christmas Morning Forced To Talk To Each Other. Survivors Say They Existed On Only A Little Texting Until Rescuers Restored Cable TV, Internet In The Afternoon | The Rumford Meteor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:38 AM | Your Say (0)

December 25, 2011

"It is Christmas and I come not to bury impracticability but to praise it."

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"For when reading the passages of Advent and Christmas, it seems that God is not usually bothered by the practicability of his plans." -- Sense of Events: Our impractical God

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:29 AM | Your Say (0)

December 24, 2011

In God We Trust

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This Christmas season, 78% of American adults identify with some form of Christian religion. Less than 2% are Jewish, less than 1% are Muslim, and 15% do not have a religious identity. This means that 95% of all Americans who have a religious identity are Christians. -- Gallup Polls: Christianity Remains Dominant Religion in the United States [HT: Surber]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:28 PM | Your Say (1)

"First hints of twilight..."

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Finally, the morning light ahead of us. It is a beautiful pale blue... The pale blue light of Christmas Eve 2011.
Payloads are heavy, open seats are non-existent as we haul the kids to Grandma's once again. Tonight, westbound and looking for Rudolf's nav light... -- Flight Level 390: Christmas Lift 2011

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:19 PM | Your Say (4)

"TSA confiscates cupcake:" A person could be elected President simply by promising to take the entire TSA and send it to hell for the duration

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A bomb to the brain-dead that work for the TSA

Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas took her [ red velvet cupcake] Wednesday.
According to Hains, he told her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives. -- Overhead Bin - Frightening frosting?

Nope. A license to steal from passengers.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:12 PM | Your Say (3)

Our inner ecosystem.

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We know now that there are a hundred trillion microbes in a human body.
You carry more microbes in you this moment than all the people who ever lived. Those microbes are growing all the time. So try to imagine for a moment producing an elephant's worth of microbes. I know it's difficult, but the fact is that actually in your lifetime you will produce five elephants of microbes. You are basically a microbe factory. --The Human Lake | The Loom | Discover Magazine

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

"Our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

"Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.
The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day." -- Old People Just Don't Get the 'Green' Thing

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (6)

"Christmas isn’t just the holiday that celebrates the birthday of the Founder of one of the world’s great religions....

It’s the main reason so many of the world’s other great religions
don’t like Christianity very much. Christians talk about that baby in the manger as God on earth. The monotheistic religions like Judaism and Islam find that idea blasphemous; polytheistic religions like Hinduism wonder why Christians think their own divine birth is so special and look down on those who worship other divine babies born in other places and times. Christmas, a holiday that is supposedly about peace, is one of the most divisive holidays on the world’s calendar." -- The Thirteen Blogs of Christmas: 2011 | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:34 AM | Your Say (5)

"I don't want a Christmas card....

I want the Old Testament." -- Sippican Cottage: Open Is A Time

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

December 23, 2011

Pssssst....

It's Actually Four 'Colly Birds,' Not 'Calling Birds'... 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About 'The 12 Days Of Christmas'

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 PM | Your Say (1)

Cheapest Christmas Puppy Reindeer Costume Possible

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 PM | Your Say (0)

Yes, like it's a culture

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"€œThat shoe, you know what, it was popular then back when Jordan dropped it in '95. It was a shoe that was popular then after he came back from retirement and it came back out five years later and it sold out again. So, it's been 10 years since it dropped and everybody wants that shoe like it's a culture that everybody has got to have it." --Shoppers Waiting For Shoe Release Riot, Break Into Mall « CBS Detroit

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:46 PM | Your Say (2)

"The mania to get more and more people into college is the brain child of people who think that school is fun,

and that anyone who doesn't go is being deprived of something like a trip to Disneyland packaged with a job guarantee.
Lots of people think school is rather miserable, and they wish to leave as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the "school is fun" crowd has made an education a virtual pre-requisite for a stable and well paying job in this century. If you don't like school, and aren't good at it, what do you do? Spend the rest of your life popping chicken tenders into the deep fry at Popeye's? Or deal drugs? --If I Were a Poor Black Kid - Megan McArdle

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

It's Come to This!

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

Q. How will mankind employ jingle bells in years to come?

A. In the future, jingle bells will be solemnly rung at the funerals of puppeteers. Doctors will prescribe them (unsuccessfully) to treat melancholy. During the next Ice Age, jingle bells will provide the accompaniment for soloists in Portuguese Frost Operas. Street urchins will use them to send signals across toxin-filled alleyways during the New Jersey Apartment Wars, and peasants will barter them for root vegetables in the early years of the Great Inter-Planetary Famine. -- Jingle Bell FAQ.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:03 AM | Your Say (0)

"As I waited at security with my fake boarding pass,"

"a T.S.A. agent had darted out and swabbed my hands with a damp, chemically impregnated cloth: a test for explosives. Schneier said, “Apparently the idea is that al-Qaeda has never heard of latex gloves and wiping down with alcohol.” -- Does Airport Security Really Make Us Safer?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 AM | Your Say (2)

To begin with, what even minimally rational government enacts payroll tax relief for just two months?

What business operates two months at a time?
The minimal time horizon for business is the quarter — three months. What genius came up with two? U.S. businesses would have to budget for two-thirds of a one-quarter tax-holiday extension. As if this government has not already heaped enough regulatory impediments and mindless uncertainties upon business. --Krauthammer, The GOP’s payroll tax debacle

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (0)

Questions the Press Never Gets Tired of Not Asking

"Has anybody asked the president yet why to millions of Americans $40 is a matter of survival?" --@TylerDurden

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (2)

December 22, 2011

Obvious Once You See It

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HT: Commenter Rich F who fed me the line.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:32 PM | Your Say (3)

"At the core of all the objects that form the mountain of crap that is palmed off as "contemporary art,""

"there is simply and plainly, nothing at all. Nothing felt, nothing sensed, nothing learned, and nothing believed in. As such it is without soul. And nothing that lacks soul can survive death, especially the death of a culture and our present state which is best described, a la D. H. Lawrence, as "post mortum effects." -- "O Magnum Mysterium:" The Persistence of Sacred Beauty @ AMERICAN DIGEST

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

"Hillary Clinton is complaining about the Egyptian military beating women,"

"yet she never uttered a fucking negative peep, when the Freedom Seekers were raping our female reporters during their previous riots. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, 'You can't reason with people who are so backward they think the Flintstones is a documentary.' " -- Midtown Miscreant

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (4)

"Those who can, do; "

"those who can't, teach, write, or make movies." --Marty Nemko: We're All Miseducated

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 PM | Your Say (3)

"Communism is no different from believing"

"that if you have to get a group of people through an obstacle course, you should tie their hands together and make them obey the random commands of a blindfolded central planner who, frustrated by your lack of progress, occasionally randomly shoots one of you for being a "saboteur". -- The Fourth Checkraise: Two of a mind

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

"Since Americans confuse leaders with movements and countries, this sounded like progress."

"Of course if, for example, you kill a leader of the “Taliban,” his second takes over within hours and all goes on as before. And if you kill the leader of a cartel, his underlings fight among themselves for the pieces, thousainds die, and law breaks down. Mexicans know this. The State Department apparently doesn't." --Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (4)

The mind parasites never sleep

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"This disturbing picture was spotted in an Australian government office by a Tim Blair reader. The slogan seems straight up poorly translated Chinese propaganda, but the art is like a Watchtower tract." -- Word Around the Net: PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:35 AM | Your Say (5)

California's Code of Silence

There is, of course, a vague code of silence about who is doing the stealing,
although occasionally the most flagrant offenders are caught either by sheriffs or on tape; or, in my typical case, run off only to return successfully at night. In the vast majority of cases, rural central California is being vandalized by gangs of young Mexican nationals or Mexican-Americans — in the latter case, a criminal subset of an otherwise largely successful and increasingly integrated and assimilated near majority of the state’s population. Everyone knows it; everyone keeps quiet about it. -- A Vandalized Valley - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (8)

December 21, 2011

Noted while passing in the breakdown lane.

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:09 PM | Your Say (6)

Comment of the Week: "If people are so eager to have their "truth", let them pay for the consequences of their own actions. "

Why do we have to keep paying to clean up the results of their life choices if their "truth" is as good as any other?
If "the means" is good, then "the ends" must be good as well... When abortion officially made people disposable, it devalued humanity. We pay for it in dollars (the welfare state) and in lost souls. Look around you. Where is there positive change in this culture? Proverbs talks about a man too lazy to lift his hand from the bowl to his mouth. We are surrounded by the like. When people don't care about their own children, they don't care about anything. Solid homes mean a solid country. That is truth. I could write a whole column on this, but won't. Most of you could write it as well, so I'll spare us all, and just reiterate: Ann Barnhardt is right." -- Military Mom on "Spare Christ this 'my truth your truth' pantheistic Oprah Winfrey slackjawed bullshit"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 PM | Your Say (3)

Amazon: “It’s all about the long term.”

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people.
But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details. -- Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think | Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:56 PM | Your Say (1)

When I was in high-school we had an impolite term for this sort of girl

Palin says not too late to consider presidential run
"It's not too late for folks to jump in," Palin said. "Who knows what will happen in the future."

Warning to Conservatives: "If erection persists for more than 4 hours consult a physician."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:30 PM | Your Say (9)

On the current rulers of North Korea

vinny vidivici posts for me at the Belmont Club:
"Yes, it's humbug and show business and so banal it's easy to snicker from afar. But I try to imagine the absolute ruthlessness and cunning it must takes to remain among the men in charge of such a place. No rules, no transparency, no mercy, where miscalculation is fatal. What a band of cut-throats must surround the head cut-throat. My God, who do we have in an increasingly flabby and insolent West clever and hard enough to deal with such people? Imagine going toe-to-toe with these guys without the military and economic inheritance we're busy squandering by the hour." -- Belmont Club サ A Comment About North Korea on YouTube

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

December 20, 2011

"Spare Christ this 'my truth your truth' pantheistic Oprah Winfrey slackjawed bullshit"

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"If a culture subscribes to the “my truth your truth” line, then what inevitably happens is that the people who have the coercive power in a society begin to impose “their truth” upon everyone else. In other words, whoever has the guns and the power to imprison becomes “god” and sets the standard of “truth” in a society. We are watching this happen right now before our very eyes." -- Ann Barnhardt, On Vomiting and Crazy Eyes (Part 2 ) [No permalinks, scroll down.]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:38 PM | Your Say (6)

Open Secret: Bike Lanes Are A Crock

The dirty little secret is that the cyclists can’t use the bike lane because it’s full of “marbles,” the detritus of recaps, gravel, and normal automotive tire wear rolling into the unused portion of the road. It’s dangerous for cyclists to ride in the lane created for them. So they skinny on the shoulder line and you still have to swerve, slow down to a crawl or otherwise avoid them. -- | Primordial Slack

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:41 PM | Your Say (2)

North Korea

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"Free health care. Income equality. Small carbon footprint. Let's send all the Occupyers there." --Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:38 PM | Your Say (2)

Best Magazine Cover of 2011

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

My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform

During the 2010 and 2011 summers, I was a cashier at Wal-Mart #1788 in Scarborough, Maine.
A man who ran a hotdog stand on the pier in Portland, Maine used to come through my line. He would always discuss his hotdog stand and encourage me to “come visit him for lunch some day.” What would he buy? Hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, etc. How would he pay for it? Food stamps. Either that man really likes hotdogs, or the state is paying for his business. Not okay. -- – The College Conservative

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:52 AM | Your Say (6)

"Forget the four freedoms,"

there's now a whole raft of Muslim entitlements at the expense of everyone else's freedom.
It's bad enough that you can't show a Muslim terrorist on television or in a movie without CAIR's thugs knocking on your door, but now you're obligated to fund Muslim television programs in the bargain. And don't we already have PBS for that? -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 AM | Your Say (2)

December 19, 2011

A Parable: "Finally seeing the rat's real agenda,"

he decided he wasn't interested in a good relationship with the enemy.
The man had finally learned, after bitter experience that once you start something like this, you have to keep going until the end or lose everything. War is war. Waver in the least and the problem gets worse. There's no accommodation with rats. And there's no room for debating once you decide that you're unable to live with them. You can't 'feel their pain', waste time arguing over the rights of the rodents or whether you have the right to eliminate or drive out any that invade your territory.Not if you want your house back vermin-free. -- Rats in the Kitchen: A ParableRTWT

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

He's Tanned. He's Rested. He's NukedUp.

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Has the O+Hill-StateDept Been Planning for Kim Jong Un? Hah!:
In Washington, a senior defense official said the U.S. doesn't have a "clear picture" of what may happen next. "A 27-year-old running a repressive regime with nuclear weapons?" the senior defense official said. "It's kind of hard to say you don't have some concerns." --Kim's Death Sets Off Tense Wait - WSJ.com

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

"Democracy confronts radical intellectuals with a threat more dangerous than any censor, secret police, or religious fatwa - irrelevance...."

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An intellectual working on behalf of a totalitarian regime can imagine himself as an agent of sweeping social change.
If he ends up in a labor camp or facing a firing squad he can at least console himself that his work was so seminal that the only way the regime could cope with it was to silence him. He made a difference. A radical intellectual in a democracy, on the other hand, finds the vast majority ignoring him. They never heard of him. His most outrageous works go unknown or are the butt of jokes. He watches in impotent rage as the masses ignore art films and go to summer blockbusters. Worse yet, things that are noticed get co-opted, watered down and trivialized. Works that are supposed to shake the System to the core are bought by fat cats to decorate corporate headquarters or stashed in bank vaults as investments. Fashions that scream defiance of everything the society holds dear end up being the next generation's Trick or Treat costumes. Protest songs end up being played on elevators twenty years later. -- Treason of the Intellectuals, Volume 3

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

Love Truth & Beauty

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Unwise gift suggestion for holiday travel. Found at ye olde constantly updatedtumblr called Love Truth & Beauty

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

Nyuck, Nyuck!

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"We got you a dreidel."

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

How the Newt is Like Winston Churchill

Like Churchill resigning as first lord of the Admiralty after the debacle of Gallipoli,
Gingrich resigned as Speaker after the humiliation of the 1998 midterms. Like Churchill spending years in the political wilderness, Gingrich spent years in the wilderness of K Street. Like Gingrich demanding that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd be sent to jail for political profiteering, Churchill favored summary execution for the Axis leaders. Like Gingrich getting $1.8 million for services as a "historian"€ to Freddie Mac, Churchill was on a seven-figure retainer from Goebbels. No, hang on . . . Like Newt on Air Force One, Winston was made to exit King George VI's Gold State Coach from the rear door. No, that's not it . . . -- The Gingrich Gestalt - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Lest we forget the eternal truth...
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (8)

“Let me introduce you to my two year old daughter and pregnant wife. We’re having a boy in January. Now, you wanted money for what?"

I Am the Evil at the Doorstep @ The Dipso Chronicles

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

"I've Said It Before, I'll Say It Again: Compared To The Military, Everything On This Page Is Just Conversation"

You'll be heading over to The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys to watch the boat video for 58 seconds. Go ahead we'll wait for you to come back with your jaw suitably dropped.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (1)

The Old Newt Magic Has Us In Its Spell! Are We Having Fun Yet?

Barely a month ago, Cain and 9-9-9 were riding high, an embarrassment of a different kind, and Gingrich was still a single-digit asterisk.
But, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, we are all Newt-fanciers now. On the eve of Iowa it seems the Republican base’s dream candidate is a Clinton-era retread who proclaims himself a third Roosevelt, with Taft’s waistline and twice as many ex-wives as the first 44 presidents combined; a lead zeppelin with more baggage than the Hindenburg; a self-help guru crossed with a K Street lobbyist, which means he’s helped himself on a scale few of us could dream of. For this the Tea Party spent three years organizing and agitating? -- The Gingrich Gestalt - Mark Steyn

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

"President Obama tends to lecture the wealthy..."

about how they spend their money -- how they spend their money. His $4 million vacation, though, is an example of how he is spending our money. And of course, he's spending it while he nags the rich about paying "their fair share" in taxes, and while he calls for "shared sacrifice" from everyone else. -- How the One Percent Spend Your Money

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

Forecast for North Korea? More of the Same

"On my trip to northeastern China last fall, I had the chance to meet with some of that country's top North Korea experts, people who between them have visited Beijing's frustrating neighbor scores of times in recent years. Their unanimous verdict: the North Korean regime is here to stay. They are tough, they are organized, they are focused on the task of regime survival and they will do what it takes to stay in the saddle." -- Dear Leader Departs | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:34 AM | Your Say (1)

"Christopher Hitchens, by common consent the greatest man of the last century"

"and probably in the entire history of the world, has just died.
But this fact has been shamefully ignored by the Guardian. So far I have only found half the front page, a double-page news spread, a cartoon, a leader, a full-page obituary and half Simon Hoggart's column. Where are your priorities? Can I look forward to a special supplement soon?" Linda Evans, Chiswick, London -- Letters to The Guardian

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:57 AM | Your Say (4)

December 18, 2011

Who Says There's No Good News?

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Going down?

Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ Dictator, Dead at 70

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:44 PM | Your Say (4)

Twas An Occupy Christmas

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Twas an Occupy Christmas, when all through Zuccotti
Not a creature was stirring, not even the naughty.
Their demands were all sorted and stacked up with care,
In hopes that Obama Claus soon would be there.

The Progs lay smug in their makeshift beds,
While hopes of entitlements danced in their heads.
Adorned by those cool proletarian caps,
Most had to sleep near where Comrades had crapped....

Read the rest @ Maksim @ The People's Cube

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:49 PM | Your Say (2)

Glick's Got No Reason to Love Hitchens

Caroline Glick :: Why I won't miss Christopher Hitchens
"To the best of my knowledge, Hitchens never disavowed his antipathy for Israel or his rejection of our right to define ourselves as a nation or our legal, national and moral rights to the land of Israel. And so I will never disavow my objection to him and refusal to give him a pass for his anti-Semitism. He may have known how to hold his liquor, spin a yarn, turn a phrase and all the rest, but he was no hero in my eyes. He was a Jew hater."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:11 PM | Your Say (9)

Tinkerers

.


A tinkerer is a visionary of a very particular kind.
The world seems entirely full of "visionaries" nowadays; small H hitlers and amateur Gandhis and everything in between. Read the comments section of any major newspaper and feast your eyes on the ready-made, misspelled manifestos people have on hand for the most mundane of topics. But of course, the peasant's idea of how to be Napoleon is strictly between him and anyone that will listen to him. Napoleon's busy. --Sippican Cottage: Tinkerer, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:43 PM | Your Say (0)

The Wonder of Ice Caves

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Let’s start with the largest ice cave on the planet: Eisriesenwelt. Translated from the German, the name of the cave is the ‘Word of the Ice Giants’ and to be frank, it is not a piece of Germanic overstatement.
Forty kilometers south of Salzburg, Austria in the Hochkogel Mountain the cave stretches for more than forty kilometers. However, the more than two hundred thousand visitors the cave receives each year are restricted to the first kilometer only. -- ~ Kuriositas

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

Sloth Time

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:21 PM | Your Say (1)

"Not only does the universe unexpectedly correspond to mathematical theories, it is self-organizing — from biology to astrophysics — in unlikely ways. "

The physical constants of the universe seem finely tuned for the emergence of complexity and life.
Slightly modify the strength of gravity, or the chemistry of carbon, or the ratio of the mass of protons and electrons, and biological systems become impossible. The universe-ending Big Crunch comes too soon, or carbon isn’t produced, or suns explode. --The search for the God particle goes beyond mere physics - The Washington Post

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (3)

Awwwww.....

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:25 AM | Your Say (4)

Obama’s must see TeeVee shows:

Modern Family, Boardwalk Empire, Homeland and, naturally, unspecified "sports."
I have no idea how he finds time to watch that much TeeVee, I barely have time to catch Chris Matthews and Rachel Madcow. Except for the sports I don't really know what to make of Big Guy's eclectic list of faves: unconventional families, Mob activities, Manchurian mooselim double agents.  It's not as though it's a window into his soul or anything. --Michelle Obama's Mirror: This is an exhibition, not a competition: no wagering please.

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

Take a few moments and

and visit :: The Years Are Short ::. You won't be sorry.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:03 AM | Your Say (1)

December 17, 2011

Santa Claus Steady Mobbin'

You knew the man was badass, but you didn't know how badass until now. -- - Miss Cellania -

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 PM | Your Say (2)

Just your average 21st century, end of the world, animation scenario:

One day at breakfast, a man's soul bursts out of his eyeball. While the soul roams the earth eating everything in sight, two wild deer bathe and dress the man's catatonic body. [HT Miss Celania]

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

Unhappy people become Liberals.

People seek out those that are similar.  Birds of a feather flock together.
  An unhappy person looks around and sees two groups:  happy people, and unhappy people.  Rather than take a page out of the former group, enter the herd and ask for (and likely receive) help and guidance on how to become happy, the person is more likely to choose the path of least resistance — of instant acceptance. €"Come to Mumsy, darling, you're one of us." And once in the herd, it becomes very, very difficult to leave it. -- » Why Unhappy People Become Liberals - Big Government [HT: Morgan]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:04 PM | Your Say (1)

Google "let it snow"

And then just hang out with your browser for a minute or so. Hint: A clicked mouse clears things up.

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

The Oblivion Express

Maverick Philosopher: On Hitchens and Death For what he takes to be the illusion of immortality, Hitch substitutes literary immortality.
"As an adult whose hopes lay assuredly in the intellect, not in the hereafter, he concluded, 'Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and -- since there is no other metaphor -- also the soul.'" But to the clearheaded, literary immortality is little more than a joke, and itself an illusion. Only a few read Hitch now, and soon enough he will be unread, his books remaindered, put into storage, forgotten. This is a fate that awaits all scribblers but a tiny few. And even they will drink the dust of oblivion in the fullness of time.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:18 AM | Your Say (8)

Where the hell are the “new ideas”?

In his Kansas speech, Obama kept insisting that conservatives are beholden to the failed ideas of the past.
Er, okay. And that’s why you dusted off a 101-year-old speech by a failed third-party candidate? Got it. Obama talks as if raising taxes on rich people so they can pay their "fair share" is a new idea when "€œlet's take more from that guy to pay for stuff I want"€ was an old idea when proto-humans were drawing stick figures on cave walls with saber-tooth-tiger scat. And yet somehow Republican politicians never turn the tables on this incandescently stupid argument. -- From Ed Driscoll » A Century of "Progress" Comes Full Circle

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

James Delingpole discusses why he believes Climategate is the greatest threat to modern civilization.

"The thing about both the Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler’s Germany
was that the enemy was plain in view. We knew these guys were bad, they had black uniforms, they had swastikas, they had tanks – they were obviously the bad guys, they wanted to destroy us. What makes the modern environmental movement so dangerous is that it masks its intentions behind this cloak of cuddly, touchy feely, polar bear-hugging, Nobel Prize-winning righteousness. ..." -- Europe with James Delingpole @ Uncommon Knowledge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:08 AM | Your Say (3)

December 16, 2011

Deck the Halls with Hubs of Capping

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Gettin’ into the season @ Hemmings
One of our advertisers, Champion Auto Sales in Arundel, Maine, sent over these photos of a unique and innovative way of celebrating the holidays – a hubcap tree!

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:28 PM | Your Say (0)

He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, "I'm the fourth best president in American history."

As the old song goes,

"I love me. I love me.
I'm wild about myself.
I love me. I love me.
I've got my picture on my shelf."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:21 PM | Your Say (5)

Anarcho-Tyranny

What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny—the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes;
the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. -- Samuel Francis as quoted at Mangan's

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

Tattoos as Response to Nihilism

In a weird way, the move towards tattooing is an individualistic excursion towards a collective ideal. It seems like an expression of individualism, but it is actually a wandering toddler looking for its teddy bear. --ォ Gucci Little Piggy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:38 PM | Your Say (1)

"The big question in American politics is whether the red states can produce kids faster than professors from the blue states can corrupt them.

The lure of the elite universities was the promise that kids could have their cake and eat it, too, that is, save the planet and drive a Volvo." --Spengler サ Thomas Friedman and the Higher Education Bubble

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:18 PM | Your Say (1)

"That Thomas Friedman would spout stupidity and anti-Semitism...

surprises me no more than the appearance of a gumball after I put a quarter into the machine and turn the knob." -- Spengler - Thomas Friedman and the Higher Education Bubble

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:12 PM | Your Say (1)

"Before there was Mein Kampf there was the Koran....

and after Mein Kampf the Koran is still here." -- Daniel Greenfield's Weekly Wrap Up

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:10 PM | Your Say (0)

"Perhaps the secret of Hitchens' fame..."

was that he was at least satisfactory in both his roles as a journalist for hire and as a heavy-drinking celebrity.
His many, many articles were, typically, more or less worth reading, even if I can't remember at the moment much of anything he's written. What is exceptional about Hitchens is that he managed to churn them out at great pace and with a level of quality okay for the Internet age while also going to endless parties, lunches, dinners, debates, symposiums, and television appearances. In other words, Hitchens was good enough at the conflicting duties he undertook. -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog: Christopher Hitchens, RIP

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:25 PM | Your Say (0)

Wesley Morris on LeBron, Dwyane, Amar'e, and the rise of the NBA nerd

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Last April, Kevin Durant, of the Oklahoma City Thunder, held a playoff postgame press conference
in a blue long-sleeved shirt with tiny screen-window checks. It had a spread collar and was buttoned up to his neck. Durant isn't alone. In their tandem press conferences, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, of the Miami Heat, alternate impeccably tailored suits with cardigans over shirts and ties. They wear gingham and plaid and velvet, bow ties and sweater vests, suspenders, and thick black glasses they don't need. Their colors conflict. Their patterns clash. Clothes that once stood as an open invitation to bullies looking for something to hang on the back of a bathroom door are what James now wears to rap alongside Lil Wayne. Clothes that once signified whiteness, squareness, suburbanness, sissyness, in the minds of some NBA players no longer do. --Wesley Morris on LeBron, Dwyane, Amar'e, and the rise of the NBA nerd - Grantland

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:58 PM | Your Say (0)

Tango D'Amore

All these dago women sure got some melons in their sacks.
I swear they wear brassieres to hold them down, not up. They'd just as soon stab you as tell you to take out the garbage, but that's half the fun in it, ain't it? But sleeping with one eye on the door and one eye on the kitchen knives wears a man out after a while. I wish the Germans were still here so I could kill someone and not get yelled at. -- Sippican Cottage:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:33 PM | Your Say (0)

Honey, there's a bear in the basement

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Reverse Goldilocks Bear Lived In NJ Home For WEEKS

So you know how a 500-pound bear was found in the basement of a Hopatcong, NJ home on Wednesday afternoon by the cable guy? WCBS 2 reports the "officers believe the bear had been living in the basement for at least several weeks. The bear had fashioned a den of his own in the basement, bringing in twigs and leaves, in anticipation of a winter-long stay."

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

Obama: Deep Down He's Shallow

Works and Days "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Barack Obama is a myth, our modern version of Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan. What we were told is true, never had much basis in fact -- a fact now increasingly clear as hype gives way to reality. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, on no evidence, once proclaimed Obama “probably the smartest guy ever to become president”. When he thus summed up liberal consensus, was he perhaps referring to academic achievement? Soaring SAT scores? Seminal publications? IQ scores known only to a small Ivy League cloister? Political wizardry? Who was this Churchillian president so much smarter than the Renaissance man Thomas Jefferson, more astute than a John Adams or James Madison, with more insight than a Lincoln, brighter still than the polymath Teddy Roosevelt, more studious than the bookish Woodrow Wilson, better read than the autodidact Harry Truman? Consider. Did Obama achieve a B+ average at Colombia? Who knows (who will ever know?)? But even today’s inflated version of yesteryear’s gentleman Cs would not normally warrant admission to Harvard Law. And once there, did the Law Review Editor publish at least one seminal article? Why not?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:05 PM | Your Say (2)

Paradise Lost: The Series

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"The end of learning," he wrote at about this time, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright." In other words, you rebuilt from the destruction wrought by the fall through study. -- John Milton, part 1

Milton's immediate biblical source material was very brief, very plain. The account of the fall in the second and third chapters of the Book of Genesis is over in an economical 46 sentences – and that's throwing in two (mutually inconsistent) accounts of the creation of humanity, not to mention a brief excursion into the nature of the mineral deposits roundabout the great Mesopotamian rivers. -- John Milton, part 2: marrying the epic with the sacred

Milton's opening invocation has the vaunting boldness common to mission statements. He uses his first lines to summarise his subject, calls on his Muse to sing it, then spends a line or two reminding people that the Muse in question isn't some pagan floozy but the voice of God. --John Milton, part 3: does Paradise Lost really attempt to justify God's ways?

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

December 15, 2011

SAY WAHT?

"NEWT SLEAKS!"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:11 PM | Your Say (2)

Purple Death -- The Fine Print

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"A Rough as Guts wine that has the distinctive bouquet of horse-shit and old tram tickets...." Sipped at Miss Cellania

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:33 PM | Your Say (5)

The Sparring Partner

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The best sparring partner is a madman who goes all out. —Bruce Lee

Mitt Romney needs a sparring partner to make him fit to compete with heavyweight champ Barack Obama. That would be Newt Gingrich. -- Henninger: - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:53 PM | Your Say (0)

Why are we here? At Steve’s house, occupying it, the den at least, and part of his driveway. Short answer: Lots of reasons.

Wake up, world! What does it say about our society when a guy like Steve, a guy who regularly wears driving gloves, gets to walk around the place like he owns it? And by “the place” I mean this really quite lovely two bedroom split-level ranch he, point of fact, actually owns, but part of which is now—say it with me (in Spanish) Ocupado! By us. -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: The Occupation.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (0)

This Just in from Iowa(hawk)

IOWA CITY -- On January 3, Iowans will trudge through snow, sleet, sludge, mud, ice, corn, beans, pig feces, flaming lakes of ethanol, gale-force blizzards
-- whatever it takes -- to join their neighbors that evening in 1,784 living rooms, barns, community halls, recreation barns, silos, wigwams, and public-school Corn God sacrifice altars in a kind of Norman Rockwell-meets-HR Geiger old timey bygone-era past-that-never-was town-hall folksy-regular-folks go-to-town-meeting at which they'll eat and debate, and then battle with corn hoes and pitchforks to choose their presidential candidates along party lines. The local tribal elders call this "Kaukkassqaatsi," the Iowa word for "run on sentences." --iowahawk: Is This Hell? No, It's Iowa

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:58 AM | Your Say (0)

December 14, 2011

Seal pup wanders into home and puts his flippers up

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A stunned Annette Swoffer thought she must have been hallucinating
when she found the young pup hanging out with her cats in her kitchen on Sunday night. The seal had made its way from the Welcome Bay waterfront, through the suburb's residential area, across busy Welcome Bay Rd, up a slip road, along Ms Swoffer's long driveway, under a gate, through the cat door and up some stairs before he was found in the kitchen about 9.30pm. -- - National - NZ Herald News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:30 AM | Your Say (8)

Obvious Innovation #6: Ég gæti borðað heilan hest -- or....

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I could eat a horse is a spaghetti measuring tool. -- Solson.is

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

The lefty intellectual resents successful businessmen and conservatives because they threaten his own sense of superiority.

Wealthy businessmen's material success is a mark of higher status than the professor or journalist's mere affluence.
Conservative politicians act as if the lefty intellectual is not morally superior. In addition, conservative intellectuals challenge his sense of cognitive superiority. Within journalism and academia conservatives are smarter than liberals on average, because the former are those who have managed to succeed despite going against the grain ideologically. --Smart and Dumber - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:59 AM | Your Say (3)

I guess we’re changing our political slogan of the month from “Pass the Bill NOW!”...

to “Veto the Bill NOW!” I’ll have to get clarification on our 180 degree turn, butt I believe it has something to do with the new payroll tax bill extension coming only in size XL.
We’ve had a ban on Holiday gifts in size XL ever since we moved in here. You see, “XL” designates everything that’s wrong with America: the belief that things can always grow, expand, get bigger. When in fact what we really need to do is learn how to get by with less. -- Michelle Obama's Mirror: Drowning in the Shallowness of it All

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (1)

December 13, 2011

North Dakota police use Predator spy plane to arrest suspects

"Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke called in the unmanned, unarmed aircraft after he was chased off of a family farm by three men with rifles, the Times explains. It circled the 3,000-acre plot, tracked down the suspects and showed they were unarmed, allowing police to converge and arrest them." --Domestic drones:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:52 PM | Your Say (9)

Hurricane predictors hang it up

Two men, acknowledged leaders in their field, admit that they cannot predict mere weather - and only a specific kind of weather at that - only a few months ahead. And yet, global warming alarmists claim they predict with flawless accuracy what the entire global climate will be many decades from now. -- Sense of Events:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:32 PM | Your Say (1)

Syria Bloodbath Mocks Hapless “Duty to Protect”

5,000 people dead, including 300 children. Hundreds, perhaps thousands missing. ....
Where is NATO, which cheerfully bombed the Great Loon’s forces in Libya? Where are the Saudi troops, which marched resolutely across the causeway to Bahrain in order to stop Iranian “meddling”? Where are the Qatari warplanes that joined the fight in Libya? Where are the Turkish soldiers, who threatened to join an international intervention in Syria? Where are the American troops that invaded Iraq to topple a mass murderer? Where, in short, is the international “duty to protect”? It has failed. -- | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:27 PM | Your Say (4)

Tebowing

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Tebowing is defined as "to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different." More examples at Tebowing.com

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

The Climate Circus is Dead But The Scam Continues

Climate Delegates Agree To Keep Getting Paid | Via Meadia By 2015 new deadlines will be found, new complex preliminary negotiations will need to be held, and countless new non-papers and draft MOUs will have to be written. In other words, no carbon bureaucrats or diplomats need worry.

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

Speak for Yourself, Sippican

I've remarked before that I appear to be the last male on earth that doesn't need a truck, and can still get an erection without a handful of pills and two bathtubs out in the landscape. I'm not in the market for diet beer, either. That means 99 percent of the commercials are lost on me. --Sippican Cottage: Fascinating, But Not Interesting

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:10 AM | Your Say (3)

"Romney, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman, even Paul, are no more than critics of a system gone moribund. "

They do not inspire us. Their ideas, even when worth investigating (flat tax, etc.), are no more than rehashes of proposals we have heard for decades.
Only Newt dances. Only Newt, on occasion, is original. Only Newt -- and here is the important part -- has the capacity to wake us up. What attracts me about the man is the very thing that Romney criticized, the part that wants to explore the moon and stars, maybe even mine them. Sure Gingrich has an idea a minute, many of which are bad, but at least he has ideas. At least he is thinking. And -- guess what -- he says what he thinks. Politicians aren't supposed to do that. -- -- Roger L. Simon » Explaining Newt

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

Clueless Gonzalez: "Ruben Gonzalez Jr. the music teacher at South Gate High School, who's trying to make sense of why five of the school's tubas were stolen."

He says he isn't certain why thieves are targeting tubas,
but he says being in the tuba business is becoming more and more lucrative. "There's a big Banda craze down here in the southern California area. Banda is a Spanish type music of Mexican influence, kind of like a polka almost. They use tubas a lot," says Gonzalez. "In fact, there was an article just not too long ago about how tuba players are making a lot of money down here in southern California." --Rash of tuba thefts surprise school

The thieves are probably lonely Norwegian bachelor farmers in search of a music fix.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:38 AM | Your Say (6)

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) -

A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of achieving, and where the members of society least likely to succeed -- or even to sustain themselves -- are abundantly rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:24 AM | Your Say (1)

Fear of a Lonely Planet

On the lonely planet of government, the neurotic left keeps crying that we must all unite or be isolated.
Countries must tear down their borders, nations must give up their identities, lawmaking must be given over to vast undemocratic global associations and anything else is primitivism. To refuse union is to linger in the tribal hut while ignoring the wider world where everyone is integrating into one great shapeless mass of brotherhood, sisterhood and transgenderhood. But outside of a few neighborhoods in some parts of Western cities, that world doesn't actually exist, and it hardly exists even there. True integration takes centuries and it forms around a new national and ethnic identity. -- Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:14 AM | Your Say (0)

December 12, 2011

Bo Is the Christmas Puppy

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It's Dog Days at the White House:
"Virtually every room has also been decorated for the holidays with some kind of a replica of the Obamas' dog, Bo, who's being made into a kind of first family Christmas canine symbol. The Bo's are made of all sorts of materials and come in all sizes. There are Bo's made of pom-poms (750 of them), Bo's made from about 2,000 pieces of licorice, Bo's made from some 35 yards of wool felt and Bo's made from nearly 7,000 feet of plastic trash bags. There's even a nine-inch Bo made from hundreds of buttons." -- Christmas at the Obama White House is a highly-decorated affair. by Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com

[Yup, all their taste is in their mouths. I hate to think of what the Christmas log is made of.]

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

How many Hispanics listen to NPR?

Mucho gente, si! " This happens to me all the time: I'll be waiting at a stoplight and a car full of Mexicans will pull up beside me, making my car vibrate with the bass tones of Scott Simon thumping out of giant speakers." -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog:

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

Sadly we were more gentle then

neo-neocon on Rescue 911

It struck me as I watched this episode and then several others that, even though it was only 20 years ago, it seems longer ago than that because the people seem quite different from now -- more innocent, more loving, more old-fashioned in some basic way. Maybe it was just these particular people, of course. But maybe there have been more changes in the culture since then than I realize.

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

"The "Palestinian" Arabs on the other hand are an invented people, and not even a self-invented people. "

Gingrich is right that the "Palestinians" are an invented people, but they're a badly invented people.
The Big Lie technique has turned their existence into an established fact, but the only basis for it is the repetition of the same lie. Orwell said that "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." Gingrich's statement was a revolutionary act and no matter how the media might pillory him for it, as long as people continue to challenge the universal deceit of the press, then the revolution can continue. --by Daniel Greenfield

How do you know it was the truth? Simple: Arab League Condemns Gingrich's Palestinian Remark - ABC News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (4)

7 Pop Culture Things liberals lie about

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4: Watching the Daily Show Why you lie about it:
Being in the aforementioned age demographic, and not liking/worshipping Jon Stewart and The Daily Show is as taboo as fornicating with power tools. Literally, you could whack your wiener with a weed whacker and people would look at you stranger if you admitted to never watching The Daily Show. -- | Pop culture references

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:17 AM | Your Say (3)

Say What?

Al Sharpton Owes Millions in Taxes : Conservative Compendium "And it still owed $206,252 in loans to Sharpton’s for-profit Bo-Spanky Consulting Inc." Bo-Spanky?! Bo-effin'-Spanky!!?? More and more I think Al Sharpton should stop trying to speak for African-Americans and take up the cause of mentally-deficient Americans. The man is a walking ad for drool-cups.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:10 AM | Your Say (1)

Suddenly bullying in schools, which has been with us for as long as there have been schools, has been elevated to a "crisis."

When this happens, people who were not born yesterday look for the agenda.
And we find it written in large capital letters, in a scheme to impose "gay-straight alliances" on unwilling Catholic and private Christian schools, and otherwise extend the reach of "LGBT" propaganda into places where it is especially unwelcome.... Those who resist their power grab are demonized. This is the way every "progressive" cause is advanced. It works, because no one could want to be publicly tarred. -- David Warren

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (2)

STOP HAIR SEGREGATION AT WALGREENS!

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Walgreens deliberately segregates hair products by way of ethnicity.
Murray'€™s Pomade, Royal Crown, and (for Casual Fridays) Sportin' Waves are a FULL AISLE away from the white man's hair spray and comb-friendly, honeydew-flavored styling gel. Being that white is not an ethnicity, why must we, as black men, be ghettoed into a separate aisle? If we are greasy are we, de facto, sleazy? Does kinky of hair amount to kinky of character? This black man of fine coif says, "NO!" -- STREET BONERS and TV CARNAGE »

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (1)

"If you believe, unbelievable things can sometimes be possible."

Tim Tebow , who added: "I don't think it's Tebow time. I just think it's Broncos time." -- Quickish

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

U.S. Proposes Unmanned U.S.-Mexico Border Crossing

The access point would be built in Big Bend National Park, and it would allow people from the remote Mexican village of Boquillas del Carmen to come into the U.S. legally by scanning their documents and checking in with a customs officer who could be as far as 100 miles away. -- NewsRoomAmerica.com -

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (4)

"Our American public orthodoxies are not enforced by an Inquisition but rather a Disinquisition:"

"Thou shalt not notice certain uncomfortable things." -- Kevin Williamson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:18 AM | Your Say (0)

Threat Condition Sowell

If a mad scientist were to repair to his laboratory to design a machine that would make white liberals uncomfortable,
that machine would be Thomas Sowell, whose input is data and whose output is socioeconomic criticism in several grades, ranging from bemused observation to thorough debunking to high-test scorn.... Because he is black, his opinions about race are controversial. If he were white, they probably would be unpublishable. This is a rare case in which we are all beneficiaries of American racial hypocrisy. -- Thomas Sowell: Peerless Nerd ォ Commentary Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:12 AM | Your Say (0)

This Year Elves That "Damitol, Look Like America!"

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2011: Re-Election Looms
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2010: Any Old Elves Will Do
HT: MOTUS

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:57 AM | Your Say (1)

December 11, 2011

"If the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 per cent"

America is employing a decreasing proportion of its people.
At the start of the recession, the employment-to-population rate was 62.7 per cent. The rate is now 58.5 per cent. Last month, unemployment fell from 9 per cent to 8.6 per cent. On the surface, this looked like a welcome leap in job creation. In reality, more than half of the fall was accounted for by a decrease in the numbers “actively seeking” work. The 315,000 who dropped out of the labour market far exceeded the 120,000 new jobs. -- Can America regain most dynamic labour market mantle? - FT.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:47 PM | Your Say (0)

Awww... OWS Faw Down Go Splat

Readership of OWS Website Plummets as Movement Fizzles

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

The Rule of Each One Teach One

The rule works like this. If you are wealthy, you can move someone from the middle class into the rich class.
But it is unlikely, without threatening your own position that you can make someone rich wealthy. Similarly and pointedly at liberal politics, if you are middle class, you can make someone who is indigent poor, but you can't make someone who is poor middle class without threating your own position. Similarly if you are rich you can make someone poor middle class. -- I'm Rich, Bitch! - A Peasant Theory Overview - Cobb

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 AM | Your Say (0)

December 10, 2011

Liberal Society vs Open Society

There was once a notion that a liberal society would be an open society,
but that door has shut some time back as its activists have discovered that the only way to have an open society is to close the door on any populist dissent. Their kind of liberalism is notoriously unpopular and cannot be sustained without control of the media, regular editions of Two Minute Hate and the baton and the prison cell. The "I disagree with you but will die to defend your right to speak" society is all but dead, and it has been replaced by the "I disagree with you and will sentence you to prison" society. -- The Prisoner by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 PM | Your Say (0)

"Diversity means that you have to start locking up your bicycle"

Putnam has been engaged in a comprehensive study of the relationship
between trust within communities and their ethnic diversity. His conclusion based on over 40 cases and 30 000 people within the United States is that, other things being equal, more diversity in a community is associated with less trust both between and within ethnic groups. -- Robert D. Putnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [HT: Ilka and Belmont]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:06 PM | Your Say (1)

"In the faces of the people who love you that your 15 minutes is never up."

But for those of us who don't get that, Andy has some choice words: "Shut. Up. Take this bullet and SHUT. UP. " -- About that Cannonball. Who's Lucky Now? @ The Dipso Chronicles

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

Like. Wow. Canada. Dude.

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Regret the Error: The Guardian is confused about what the Canadian flag looks like

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:31 PM | Your Say (1)

"The exodus of bright women into biochemistry...

left the schools in the hands of dull-witted and little-read women,
often of recent blue-collar origin, who, having had no experience of either education or cultivation, fell into psychobabble and ploughed the fields of self-esteem. Teachers who had not read the classics, and in many cases had never heard of them, could have no idea why these things might matter. Masculine influence having evaporated, they turned the schools into hothouses of niceness, anti-violence, hostility to boys, and cloying political correctness. The Sixties had triumphed. -- Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:15 PM | Your Say (3)

"A social worker who sees a man beaten to a pulp

knows that whoever did such horrible thing really needs her help."The Fourth Checkraise

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 AM | Your Say (0)

"But I've had the stick back the whole time!" - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

Chilling: Two years after the Airbus 330 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447's flight-data recorders finally turned up. The revelations from the pilot transcript paint a surprising picture of chaos in the cockpit, and confusion between the pilots that led to the crash. -- Popular Mechanics

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 AM | Your Say (7)

"Our "Yes"€ to God Brings His More Perfect "Yes"€ to Us"

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Madonna and Child, by Marianne Stokes.... captures the simple youth and energy of Mary, who would have been about 14 years old: her gaze is direct and open, and so is the child's. It almost harkens to Christ's ministry, and his command, "Ephphatha, be opened!" « The Anchoress

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:16 AM | Your Say (1)

December 9, 2011

The President's Pathetic Policy: "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

It's pathetic if the mighty U.S. is really forced to beg corporations to produce here out of Warren-Buffetesque philanthropic urges.
But it'€™s especially pathetic for American liberalism, which has always been most appealing when it stood up against the condescension of "alms givers" but which now celebrates wealthy philanthropists with nauseating ease .... "Giving back" is the credo of Hollywood celebrities, not New Deal liberals.  Democrats are supposed to be the party of government -- government that establishes a foundation for the essential dignity of working people -- €“not the party that sucks up to the Google guys and the Gates Foundation. -- Obama'€™s Charity Capitalism | The Daily Caller

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:42 PM | Your Say (0)

Obamaland: "Anyone who earns under $250,000 is by definition innocent,

"and the less they earn the more innocent they are and the more clearly they segue into being not just innocent, but automatic victims of the others. Poor people in particular have no responsibility for their lot and no need to do anything about it other than to get a handout that will level the uneven playing field at least a little bit, and hopefully more than a little bit." --neo-neocon Kinsley on what Obama left out of his Kansas speech

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (0)

"Do you know what is indisputably awesome?"

The Physics of Great White Sharks Leaping Out of the Water to Catch Seals

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 PM | Your Say (0)

Naveed Afzal Haq

Down a wooded stretch of road in Walla Walla, Inmate number 337762 sleeps the long nights away at Washington State Penitentiary.
WSP offers educational programs in graphic design, bookkeeping and IT as well as a program to raise pheasants. The Eid feast took place in the dining hall and it’s likely that Inmate 337762 stopped by for a bite. If some nights when the wind blows cold, Inmate 337762 dreams it is likely that he dreams of his day of glory when he shot six women at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. --In the Face of Evil | FrontPage Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 PM | Your Say (0)

"Education in the United States and Europe at this point is a certification program....

It tests basic intelligence in some areas; in other areas, such as the liberal arts, it increasingly tests nothing but political allegiance and the ability to recite dogma in different forms (such “A Feminist Analysis of Cetacean Symbolism in Public Policy”). -- “Educated” people | Amerika

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

Constant Vigilance

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No matter how peaceful you feel, it's important to remember Islam is always lurking. -- STREET BONER 1638

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:40 PM | Your Say (3)

The .700 WTF : For Hunting Dinosaurs

File under: "If it is worth doing it is worth overdoing."
The cartridge, named the .700 WTF ("What The F...") and is made by fire forming a .50 BMG brass case, trimming it to 3" in length and then sizing it. The round is loaded with a 1132 grain paper patched .700 lead cast bullet. -- The Firearm Blog

"First time shoulder firing my monster creation. this is with .700 cal slugs that weigh 1132gr which means you only get 6 boolits out of a pound of lead."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:18 AM | Your Say (3)

It's Come to This!

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Hell’s Angel dog being being frisked at one of the Occupy Protests

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (5)

Strange Site

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Some things asked at this site: Dreams of Your Life ... might be disturbing. Mildly disturbing.

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

December 8, 2011

Christie on Occupy Wall Street

“Here’s the way I feel about it: They represent an anger in our country that Barack Obama has caused,”
he said, drawing cheers from the crowd. “He’s a typical cynical Chicago... politician who runs for office and promises everything and then comes to office and disappoints, and so their anger is rooted not in me or Mitt Romney, their anger is rooted in the fact that they believed in this hope and change garbage.” -- Christie heckles 'Occupy' protesters in Iowa | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

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

"This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen:" White House Confirms President Dumber Than a Box of Rocks

... or perhaps he's just curious how deeply he can insult American Jewry and still get the self-loathing ones among them to give him money.
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:03 PM | Your Say (9)

"Enforcement of moral norms is a universal feature of the human condition.

every society has had this, whether the "moral norms" in question are those arising from the natural law
(i.e., 99% of human societies throughout history) or irrational leftist utilitarian prejudice (i.e., modern American universities). The notion that a little bureaucratic PR campaign can stamp this out is absurd, a bit of typical, deluded modern parousiasm (to borrow another delightful formulation from Eric Voegelin). The modern left can't even abolish poverty after leveraging the entire nation up to its ears; how in the world do they believe they can affect a fundamental transformation in human nature? It's almost as absurd as the widely-held belief that ten thousand years of human civilization got everything wrong, and we brainiac moderns have it all figured out cause we're so great. -- Revisiting Bullying

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:19 PM | Your Say (1)

Early critics pointed out that the idea of equality succeeded because it was vague. What does “equal” actually mean?

Its adherents insist that it means equality of opportunity.
In reality, that translates into dumbing down of the entry test to any activity, so that the less equal can keep up with the more equal. Even worse, it means a coarsening of standards so that all can participate. Instead of being able to pick from among smart and complete people, we’re picking whichever of the random citizens can complete tests and file paperwork. -- Undoing modernity | Amerika: New Right, Conservationist, Traditionalist, Deep Ecology and Conservative Thought

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:08 PM | Your Say (2)

President Theres Notherethere

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Pres. B.H. Obama

"How odd that Obama has tried on every mask except one that naturally fits him, that of Jimmy Carter." -- Works and Days サ The President Who Never Was

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:59 AM | Your Say (1)

Lax Americana

First came the tech bubble. Then came the housing bubble. Now the bubble of U.S. power is about to burst. A half-century-long Pax Americana is coming undone because our elected officials would rather tell each other—and the public—soothing fictions about the Middle East rather than face reality. --The U.S. Could Stop an Iranian Bomb, But We Won't – Tablet Magazine

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

The Glory That Is the San Francisco Bay Area

"At the risk of sounding as if I, a Californian, were bragging,
there is no place in America where the population is as goofy and the politicians half as loony as they are in the area surrounding San Francisco. Besides being home base to the likes of Jerry Brown, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsome, and being a sanctuary city; the area includes Berkeley, where a city council regularly announces its foreign policy decisions; and Oakland, where Mayor Jean Quan, who is probably the only Asian in America with an IQ lower than her body temperature, recently gave a thumbs-up to the local Occupy Wall Street thugs the day after they put several Oakland cops in the hospital." -- BurtPrelutsky

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (0)

Eviscerating the New York Times

It's a beautiful gutting.
"The postmodern Times is a cavalcade of inaccuracy, omission, myopia, flagrant political bias, outrageously lousy writing, latent snobbery, and superficial urban sophistication. All the shallowness of the modern elite university has come home to roost at the Times. The worst offenders are surely the editorial sections (prose sinkhole) and the culture sections (lapdog of everything transgressive), but I reserve special ire for fellow Yalie Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer-winning book reviewer who's done much to instantiate a self-important middle-browism as the default mode of the literary culture." -- Page One, The New York Times & Modern Media Bias サ LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (0)

December 7, 2011

Epstein's new book reveals something everyone whose brain has not been zapped by too much junk TV knows:

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Barbara Walters is America’s dumbest woman, which makes Babs the dumbest woman on Earth.
He also gives us Tina Brown—perennially climbing the ladder of success and never quite making it while always precariously balancing her act on somebody else’s dime. Tina is living dangerously on Barry Diller’s stockholders’ dime to the tune of more than $10 million per annum. That’s what her website loses, yet Diller calls it a success. I’d do the same if I had suckers paying for it. Brown has probably lost more money over the 25 years she’s been an American editor than anyone ever, yet she manages to keep finding people to invest in her. What was that about a sucker being born every minute? Over 25 years she’s probably set the record for financial losses in publishing. Good for you, Tina. -- The Great Eurozone Bestiality Party - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:27 PM | Your Say (1)

The most viewed story at FBI.gov for 2011...

with more than 1.4 million page views was their posting about the murder of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick
whose dead body was dumped in a field in St. Louis. Police found two encrypted notes stuffed into the victim's pockets, but have been unable to break the code, which remains a mystery to this day. -- Most Popular Online News Stories for 2011 - The Morning Delivery

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:07 PM | Your Say (2)

Dear members of the moderate left,

America is suffering from rampant, run-away corporatism and crony capitalism.
We are increasingly a plutocracy in which government serves the interests of elite financiers and CEOs at the expense of everyone else. You know this and you complain loudly about it. But the problem is your fault. You caused this state of affairs. Stop it. -- Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Strong letter follows.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 PM | Your Say (2)

Obvious Innovation #5

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Tasty gift suggestion for those with pancake passions:
In his quest to create the perfect plate for devouring pancakes, designer Jon Wye broke down the elements of what makes a pillowy stack so comforting. After a lifelong love affair with breakfast, Wye pin-pointed the crux of satisfaction: syrup. Designed with a raised edge that gently slopes the plate toward the diner and an ingenious reservoir for pooling loose syrup, this plate was made for slicing, dipping and delighting in each bite of pancake goodness. -- PANCAKE PLATES - SET OF 2

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

Oops... Mistaeks Were Made

Mythbusters' Stunt Goes Awry, Sends Cannonball Rocketing Through Homes
"€œThis cannonball was supposed to go through several barrels of water and through a cinder block, and then ultimately into the side of the hill,"said J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. Instead the cannonball flew over the foothills surrounding Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, before spiraling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile. It flew straight through the front door of a home on Cassata Place, and bounced around like a pinball, flying up to the second floor before blasting through a back bedroom wall. The wayward cannonball then blasted across a busy road and through a second home some 50 yards away, demolishing roof tiles....

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:45 PM | Your Say (3)

And tomorrow's weather in France is..... clear thighs with a chance of boots.

HT: M. Morgan, Encore.

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

Not to worry. Obama care will pick up the slack-ers.

With the USPS now considering massive cuts, it will likely abdicate its role as a pathway out of urban poverty for Blacks....
The Black middle class has a bigger vested interest in government and quasi-governmental jobs (quasi-governmental jobs like medical services where government payments support the demand for services provided by private sector employers) than other groups; the political struggle over the levels and conditions of government employment can’t be separated from the politics of race. -- Post Office Problems for Blacks | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:10 PM | Your Say (3)

Off to their proper place in history...

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

"Scientists even run prizes for science journalists!"

Journalists should portray where the weight of evidence lies, but that is the least they should do,
and they should not look to scientists for guidance anymore than an artist asks a bowl of cherries for advice about how to draw them! They should criticise, highlight errors, make a counterbalancing case if it will stand up, but don't censor, even by elimination, don't be complacent and say the science is settled in areas that are still contentious. The history of science and of journalism is full of those reduced to footnotes because they followed that doctrine. -- David Whitehouse: The Pathetic State Of Science Journalism

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (2)

Fracking Shale Pummels Peak Oil Against the Ropes w/ Punishing Body Blows

Lately, rapid developments in petroleum production technology has knocked peak oil from the speaking circuit to the circular jerkular echo choir set.
Of all developments most concerning to peak oil devotees, is the possibility that China (and India) may be able to supply most of their own energy and fuel from domestic sources. Discoveries of large shale petroleum resources, plus the discovery of "another Saudi Arabia" off China's shores, suggest that China's petroleum future may be secure for a few decades. If you add China's rapid build-up of nuclear power plants, China may not need to buy so much oil from OPEC after all. -- Al Fin Energy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (2)

"Scorsese’s new movie fearlessly tackles society’s most tragic problem:

celebrities who become unpopular and have to get real jobs. Deep down, aren’t you discomfited, even horrified at the thought that anybody who was once somebody might have to take non-celebrity employment someday?" -- Hugo: A Toy Story for Grownups


Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (0)

"Crankery, in short, became respectable."

In 1972, Sir John Maddox, editor of the British journal Nature, noted that though it had once been usual to see maniacs wearing sandwich boards that proclaimed the imminent end of the Earth,
they had been replaced by a growing number of frenzied activists and politicized scientists making precisely the same claim. In the years since then, liberalism has seen recurring waves of such end-of-days hysteria. These waves have shared not only a common pattern but often the same cast of characters. Strangely, the promised despoliations are most likely to be presented as imminent when Republicans are in the White House. In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen. -- Progressives Against Progress by Fred Siegel, City Journal Summer 2010

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:00 AM | Your Say (0)

December 6, 2011

President Nobody Atall

How many presidential incarnations has this guy been through in four years?
When he first started campaigning, he was pushing Lincoln comparisons and citing Reagan as the model of a paradigm-shifting leader. Then Ted and Caroline Kennedy endorsed him and suddenly he was the new JFK. Then he was sworn in as the new FDR whose can-do ideas about government intervention and stimulus would dig us out of the recessionary hole. A year later he got ObamaCare passed, making him the heir to LBJ's Great Society legacy. As the economy floundered, his team pointed to Reagan's 1983 turnaround as their electoral model; Recovery Summer came and went and the economy kept floundering, so they turned to Truman for inspiration on how to scapegoat a "do-nothing Congress."€ As of today he's a Teddy Roosevelt progressive, ready to slay the dragons of plutocracy with the sword of government. And on top of all of this, of course, the Carter comparisons are evergreen. I'm honestly curious to see how he draws the inevitable Gerald Ford analogy before his term's up.-- Hot Air

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 PM | Your Say (0)

STOP THE INSANITY! Why Newt Should Never Be Allowed to So Much As Run for Mayor of Munchkinland. A Gentle Reminder:

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Posted by Vanderleun at 10:44 AM | Your Say (34)

OCCUPY is so last month

Buh-Bye: "Our most recent social media analysis shows that online conversations peaked to an all-time high of 5 million posts on November 15 with protesters being evicted from Zucotti Park in New York." -- MyNorthwest.com

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

Something bigger than the national debt

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Scientists find monster black holes, biggest yet
One of the newly detected black holes weighs 9.7 billion times the mass of the sun. The second, slightly farther from Earth, is as big or even bigger. Even larger black holes may be lurking out there. Ma said that's the million-dollar question: How big can a black hole grow?
Oh, quit with the straight lines already. [HT: Neo]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 AM | Your Say (2)

December 5, 2011

Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Obama's stupidity is their problem.

America and Europe are still the pillars of the world economy
and between the EU leadership and Obama, it's no wonder that the tin pot oligarchies elsewhere are collapsing. The force tearing them down isn't really democracy or a desire for freedom, it's the criminal stupidity and venality of the people at the top.... Bread and circuses, subsidized goods and political entertainment, can only go so far. Americans have stopped buying magazine covers with Obama's smug face leering back at them and Russians are far less interested in Putin matroshka dolls. When there are no jobs then it's time for the clowns to get back in the limo before the rocks start flying. -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:06 PM | Your Say (2)

And as winter closes in it is still plenty hot south of the border down Mexico way

HT: Morgan the Connoisseur of World Weather

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:09 PM | Your Say (15)

The Secret of Life from Steve Jobs in 46 Seconds

"When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is
and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” -- | Brain Pickings

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

If

If government spending in America had just held pace with population growth and inflation since 1954, government spending today would total $1.3 trillion. Instead, spending this year will top $5.4 trillion. -- The Roots of Voter Anger Go Back to 1954 - Taki's Magazine

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

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society.
It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not. -- Waldo Jaquith - On the impracticality of a cheeseburger.

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

Local Churches March To Show Support Of Occupy Movement’s Message Of Peace, Justice, And Sledgehammer Attacks

The Rumford Meteor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:02 PM | Your Say (0)

The Day Booze Came BACK!

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December 5, 1933. • Ice Cream Motor. Now, if we could just repeal about 15 million other laws and attitudes....

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

Newt Picks Up Where Barney Frank Leaves Off

Not a teaspoon of testosterone in the tank: "We love her Meryl Streep's work," Callista Gingrich said. "We love ‘Mamma Mia.’ We’ve seen it several times. Newt’s ringtone is ‘Dancing Queen.’ -- The Hill's Ballot Box

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

The Wirst Lady

As for Michelle, on those rare occasions when she hasn’t been enjoying the high life on our dime, she’s used her own bully pulpit -- with the emphasis on bully -- to lecture us about what we feed our kids. With the black community in utter shambles, this Imelda Marcos-wannabe is fussing about calories.... -- BurtPrelutsky.com: VARIOUS CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

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

Operation Fast and Furious has resulted in more than 300 dead Mexicans and 1 dead border patrol officer due to the direct activities of the US Justice Department headed by Attorney General Holder.

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It's becoming abundantly obvious that this is exactly what President Obama meant
when he told gun control activists that he had something going on behind the scenes and to be patient. And that's probably the most horrendous thing any president has ever done, period. There's been a lot of scandals and awful things that presidents have done in the past, fomr Teapot Dome to revoking Habeus Corpus to Watergate, but none of them have resulted in a bodycount like this. -- Word Around the Net: THE FURY

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (0)

The Internet as the Universal Solvent: Cruel but Fair

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AKA The Alkahest

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 AM | Your Say (1)

Vietnam Now

Something Else Happens. That's generally what happens.
That video [see link below] is a long way from black and white footage of napalm and helo extractions and Dean Rusk and Ho Chi Minh and Abbie Hoffman. There have been legions of men and women lecturing --hectoring-- me for a generation about what it was and why it was and what it meant and who was to blame and they're still rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic of their opinions and hoping no one looks at what they said last week about it. But there it is. Something Else. -- Sippican Cottage

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

December 4, 2011

Leon Panetta: Schmuck or Putz?

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When Panetta, the man who looks like everyone's least favorite accountant or funeral director, showed up at the Saban Forum, he butched up
by shouting that Israel needs to "get to the damn table" and negotiate with the Palestinian Arab terrorists. What table? Which terrorists? Those questions didn't bother Panetta, who after years of being wedgied by Biden and having his pants pulled down by James L. Jones had finally discovered the thrill of being a bully. -- by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 PM | Your Say (6)

Tim Tebow....

...has driven his detractors over the cliff of sanity, or rather they have chosen to run off that cliff like lemmings rather than admit that he was victorious.
The same group that cheered Sammy Sosa who may a sign to God after every homer in his steroid-enhanced home-run battle with Mark McGwire is now angered by Tim Tebow for thanking God for his health and well-being.... Tim Tebow’s detractors remind me of the people who hate Sarah Palin because that was the in thing to do in 2008. I like how he answers the critics: on the football field. No need to say anything. Just win, baby. -- Don Surber
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:05 PM | Your Say (8)

Banana Control

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To provide this variety every single day, a banana ripening facility has to have a minimum of five or six rooms (Banana Distributors of New York has twenty-two).
Each room holds between 1,000 and 2,000 boxes, which means that a banana distributor has to move at least 5,000 boxes each week to make the business worthwhile. This, Rosenblatt explains, has squeezed out the two dozen smaller, three- or four-room operators that used to be sprinkled around New York City in the 1970s. -- Edible Geography, Spaces of Banana Control

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:57 PM | Your Say (0)

And the weather in Hungary is hot and wet with a 60% chance of nipple

HT: Morgan

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:31 PM | Your Say (5)

Present Beauty

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Say what you like about the "1%", when we are all dead and recycled, they will dig up Tiffany's with awe. There actually is something extraordinary about the best clothes and furnishings money can buy. We human beings still know how to make beautiful things, and they are still all around us. -- Living In The Fourth Era - Cobb

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:07 AM | Your Say (0)

The Dark Future of Solar Electricity

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The dream of economically powering the grid with solar in the near future is just that—an unattainable dream. The idea that we are just helping solar get on its feet is not true. The claim that in the future solar electricity will be economical without subsidies is a chimera. -- Watts Up With That?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (1)

The Utter Futility of Big Solar Power

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"As for Willis' argument against big solar power, it is likely that the genuinely disastrous aspects of investing in big solar will be discovered along the way.
We do not have as much experience with the utter futility of big solar power as we do with big wind. But we will. Oh yes, thanks to the carbon hysterics and dieoff.orgy lefty-Luddites, we most certainly will. -- Al Fin Energy: The Problem with Levelised Cost Comparisons of Energy Generation

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (0)

On the Liberals' Lust for China's "System"

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Is there something about [China's] “system” that these people don’t understand?
You can’t pick and choose among the features of a system; the system works as a whole. Would they prefer to live in a country that started from a very low base, has millions of people who are desperately poor, is still largely a command economy, controls the number of children you can have, and lacks nearly all freedoms we consider basic? -- The Glittering Eye, Chinese Menu

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:42 AM | Your Say (0)

December 3, 2011

RETHINKING MCCAIN

"Well, at least he wouldn't have bowed to anyone." -- Word Around the Net:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 PM | Your Say (1)

The Black Swan of Cairo

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When policymakers try to suppress economic or political volatility, they only increase the risk of blowups.
Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to "Black Swans" -- that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers. -- Foreign Affairs

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

"A generation of sissies."

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Some Occupy L.A. arrestees feel traumatized, might seek therapy - latimes.comOthers complained that they were forced to urinate in bags on the bus as they were transported to jails.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:42 PM | Your Say (1)

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs?

Never an administration more craven and malicious: "Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia." -- Informationweek

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (5)

“I mean, a guy buys me three drinks at $15 a pop and that right there made up for my Match fee.”

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File Under: Men are Morons:
A New York woman has confessed to signing up for the online dating service Match.com because she was going into debt and wanted free food the dates would provide her. Going on five dates a week she “made” up to $1200 a month.... Her plan involved eating out five nights a week using a rotation of different men from Match and made it a rule not to go out on more than five dates with the same man. She quickly had men buying her not just food but alcohol, even a $200 bottle of champagne on one date. -- The Mary Sue

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (13)

"The inevitable culmination of the Occupy movement has finally arrived:"

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The protesters at Occupy San Francisco just announced that they are becoming bankers, by filing papers to form a credit union (for real --€” not satire) -- The PJ Tatler

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:47 AM | Your Say (1)

Math 55

Brett A. Harrison ’10 asks the first question:
“Is the subspace closed under this topology? If so, we can conclude the lemma.” Harrison’s the trendiest of the group, wearing a cream Hollister sweatshirt and fashionably faded denim. On his feet are Velcro Pumas, a constant reminder that although he’s memorized pi out to a few dozen digits, he cannot tie his own shoes. -- Burden of Proof | FM | The Harvard Crimson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:31 AM | Your Say (0)

The Most Important Phrase of the 20th Century

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“The triumph of the will.”
Like its counterpart in the East it set about trying to remake humanity, with its codes of political correctness, revisionist history, and the economics of deficit financing. "Why of course I can!"  Have sex with an 8 year old, award myself a right to a decent living, declare all culture identical and all morals valueless.  All one had to do was want -- and it was society's responsibility to make it so. But the current economic crisis reminds Europe has reminded us that reality, or God if you prefer, kicks back. -- Belmont Club

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:25 AM | Your Say (0)

December 2, 2011

The Hardest Working Man in Show Business

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DRUDGE: OBAMA OFF TO HAWAII FOR 17-DAY VACAY On Saturday, December 17th, 2011, the President will travel to Honolulu, Hawaii. He will return to Washington, DC on Monday, January 2nd, 2012. ......no public events are scheduled during the trip. ...

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:49 PM | Your Say (9)

It's Not Just You

Jonah Goldberg asks,Is It Me? Or does it feel like Occupy Wall Street is starting the long slide into “whatever happened to Occupy Wall Street?”


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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:09 PM | Your Say (0)

Circling the Drain: The Death of the Democratic Party (1828-2012)

Today the Party of the working man has become the Party of the non-working class. The Democrats have devolved to become the Party of moochers, leeches, and victims. And this Party of hope and change has morphed into a Frankenstein that would turn FDR in his grave. The Democratic Party is an abomination that is slowly strangling the greatest country in the world: The United States of America. -- - Roger Gitlin

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (3)

“Her preschool calendar says ‘Christmas cookie decorating.’”

I had no idea we enrolled our child in a Jesu-fascist, idol-worshiping grist mill for future anti-choice barkers.
HOW DARE THEY UTTER THE WORD. If it's Christmas in preschool, then you just know that they'll eventually feel a mocking disdain for that Occupy movement they hear about in the "Laughable History" section in the updated catechism of whatever seminary/nunnery they are going to. -- Christmas, Sans Nabisco « The Dipso Chronicles

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (0)

Seven Eight Warning Signs of Junk Science

Rhetoric that mixes science with the tropes of eschatological panic.
When the argument for theory X slides from "theory X is supported by evidence" to "€œa terrible catastrophe looms over us if theory X is true, therefore we cannot risk disbelieving it", you can be pretty sure that X is junk science. Consciously or unconsciously, advocates who say these sorts of things are trying to panic the herd into stampeding rather than focusing on the quality of the evidence for theory X.

Rhetoric that mixes science with the tropes of moral panic.
When the argument for theory X slides from “theory X is supported by evidence” to “only bad/sinful/uncaring people disbelieve theory X”, you can be even more sure that theory X is junk science. Consciously or unconsciously, advocates who say these sorts of things are trying to induce a state of preference falsification in which people are peer-pressured to publicly affirm a belief in theory X in spite of private doubts. -- -- Armed and Dangerous

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (0)

"My guess is that a lot of the young people who are fueling the OWS movement across the nation are the products of single mothers. "

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What were we expecting the scourge of single motherhood and debased family structures to look like?
How were we expecting it to play out? As some big flash of self-admitted children of single mothers and broken families railing against The System? As if they'd wear t-shirts letting us know. The products of that social and cultural change were folded into the rest of society; their problems blended with everyone else and presented to observers as a catalogue of grievances. A good analogy would be the very same financial crisis that OWSers were agitated by: the sub-prime has poisoned the prime. -- Single Moms and Cultural Decline

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (4)

December 1, 2011

"Liberal fantasies notwithstanding,"

1963 America was not awash in right wing thinking. Republicanism was still represented by fatherly Dwight Eisenhower, the man who, just to refresh your memory, had been instrumental in bringing down Joe McCarthy. Surely, there were staunch anti-communists afoot, but the nation was not consumed with right wing vitriol. -- Had Enough Therapy?: Lee Harvey Oswald's True Motives

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:46 PM | Your Say (0)

New Sweater, Old Issues

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@ Love Truth & Beauty

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:09 PM | Your Say (0)

We. Cannot. Wait. Bring. It. On!

"If Occupiers can run tent camps, organize food kitchens and clean-up brigades, run general assemblies, and use social media, they can take over and run a significant part of the Democratic Party."--George Lakoff, Puffington Host, Nov.30 -- 'They Don't Need Our Votes' - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (4)

When we encounter collective beliefs and practices that appear insane and self-defeating, we are probably dealing with mind parasites.

One Cʘsmos: OWS and the Right of Return to Infantile Dependence

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:03 AM | Your Say (0)

I Got 15 Kids & 3 Babydaddys-SOMEONE'S GONNA PAY FOR ME & MY KIDS!!!

The YouTube, yes, The YouTube,

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

2011 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

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[25 photos - eventually] Bookmark

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (7)

Lobstering

Imagine the hardest construction work you ever did. Now do it during an earthquake that never stops with a hose pointed at your face in a walk-in cooler.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:40 AM | Your Say (0)

Hamlet, Magna Carta, Mozart's Notes, Etc.

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The World at Our Fingertips: 23 Beautiful Old Texts, Available Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:32 AM | Your Say (1)

"Lately, they have been catching the eye of the literary elite"

“They’re the precursor of this kind of synthesis of extrainstitutional intellectualism, native to the Internet, native to the city dweller,” said the novelist Jonathan Lethem, an early champion. “They’re not trapped within an old paradigm. They’re just making it their own.” -- New York’s Literary Cubs - NYTimes.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:06 AM | Your Say (3)