« December 2011 | Main | February 2012 »

January 31, 2012

"The entire Climate Change field should be more properly reframed thus:"

In order to weaken and eventually destroy the existing industrialized nations,
we must devise an ecological "crisis" so severe that only voluntary economic suicide can solve it; and if this first crisis doesn't materialize as planned, then devise another, and another, even if they flatly contradict our previous claims. -Zombie » The Coming of the New Ice Age: End of the Global Warming Era?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:29 PM | Your Say (1)

Handy Hint

shotthem.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:23 PM | Your Say (1)

Edison's Files Reveal the Only Known Voice Recording of Someone Born in the 18th Century

Sound historians Patrick Feaster and Stephan Puille have managed to pull the sound of Otto von Bismarck,
the first chancellor of the German Empire, off of a century-old wax cylinder onto which it had been recorded on October 7, 1889. Additionally, they have also recovered audio from two cylinders holding the voice of German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke, who was nearly 90 at the time. According to Puille, "These are the only recordings of a person born in the eighteenth century which are still audible today." -- - Rebecca J. Rosen - Technology - The Atlantic

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

Best Reality TV Dialogue

From Oxygen'€™s "€œBad Girls Club -€” Las Vegas":

Bad Girl One:  "€œI can say whatever I want to her -- €” free speech, right?  It's in the Bill of Rights!"

BG Two:  "No, that the Ten Commandments."

BG Three:  "€œUh uh -- the Ten Commandments is like -- Sloth."

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

Origins: Make Love Not War

peace_button569_0.jpg

The story behind Make Love Not War "In March 1965," Rosemont says "we wanted to do a button.
The slogan we thought of first was the old Fellowship of Reconciliation [the interfaith peace movement founded in 1915] slogan 'Make Peace, Not War' but it seemed too tame for the 60s. Several of us together at Solidarity Bookshop - myself, Franklin, Bernard Marszalek and Tor Faegre - thought about this and what we came up with finally was 'Make Love, Not War'. The button was printed at a shop above Krocks & Brentano's Bookstore on Wabash Avenue.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:00 PM | Your Say (7)

The Daffy Duck Test for 2012 Voting

The Daffy Duck test, by the way, is are they smarter than Daffy Duck and are they not named Obama. --Ann, Read Your Books - Ricochet.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:53 AM | Your Say (1)

I have a dream -- now get off my lawn

The family of Martin Luther King asked national park police to get 32 Occupy Wall Street protesters to leave the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change minutes ahead of a scheduled press conference on Sunday. The protesters had marched 880 miles from New York City to Atlanta. --« Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (2)

The Canopy and the Cosmos:

What Kilmer Knew, What Sagan Never Dreamed « The Anchoress

I fell in love once again with the land—with meandering streams and farmers' €™ fields gone fallow, with mountain vistas and fog-shrouded meadows.  As one mile stretched into another, I gazed at the reflection of God in the verdant forests of pocosins and loblolly pines.  I imagined His handprint in the brick-red South Carolina mud, and in the sprawling wisteria, fragrant blooms drooping from boughs of sweetbay and willow oak.  The beauty, the mind-numbing variety, the creativity-- Well, I couldn't stop looking.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:30 AM | Your Say (1)

Latest Congressional Budget Outlook For 2012-2022 Released, Says Real Unemployment Rate Is 10%

"Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007
that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1シ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent" -- | ZeroHedge

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

Female Hysteria: The Return


"Brownell flutters her fingers, touches her hair, snorts through her nose and throat,
and shouts “Hey, hey, hey,” seemingly without control. On Christmas Eve, doctors diagnosed her with Tourette’s Syndrome. Now, however, her symptoms have another name: conversion disorder, or mass hysteria. Since Brownell first passed out last summer, 14 other upstate New York students—13 girls and a boy, most of them students at LeRoy Junior-Senior High School—have come down with similar symptoms. --Mass hysteria in upstate New York - Slate Magazine

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

First, Kill All The Burmese Pythons

"I don’t know what the right number is but for the sake of argument if we had a hunting season in which you could bring in unlimited number of Burmese pythons for $50 per pound, my hunch is Burmese pythons would be erecting memorials to the great snake genocide of 2012." - Jonah Goldberg @ The Corner

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:55 AM | Your Say (0)

Exit Row Instructions for Passengers On the Space Ark

"After that, all you have to do is disarm the lever with four counter-clockwise turns,
re-arm it with five clockwise turns, and then release the hatch by pulling the lever towards you. The slides will deploy and you should board the escape pods quickly, but calmly." -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Monologue.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:53 AM | Your Say (1)

January 30, 2012

The American liberal does not like the people very much.

No tyrant looks in a mirror and sees an oppressor.
Tyrants are always protectors of the people. And our own American Tyrants are equally certain that they are the protectors of a people who would otherwise run off cliffs, throw lawn darts at each other, tear the tags off mattresses, make racist jokes, open pill bottles too easily, have inappropriate opinions and reinforce the oppressive heteronormative patriarchy which they have thoughtfully replaced with a vast echoing bureaucratic state in which everyone is free to be different in the same way. -- Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish

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

"If you are a “conservative”, resist the urge to gloat..."

"Your kind were useful idiots just as thoroughly as Western "liberals" have been.
You were incompetent at propaganda, fixated on silly irrelevancies like who was putting tab A in sexual slot B, and addled by religious particularism. You destroyed your own credibility with Chicken-Little ranting over porn, rock music, and games. Thus, when the Gramscians did their long march through academia and the media and Hollywood, you saw the danger well enough but you failed to stop them. You conservatives had just one duty that mattered: to conserve, to be Western civilization's antibodies -- and you blew it. The wages of that failure is that the U.S. has a sitting President who spews Marxist propaganda tropes as though they were the laws of nature, and neither he nor far too many Westerners can any longer tell the difference." --Armed and Dangerous, Through a mirror, darkly

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:09 PM | Your Say (4)

Raaaaacism Forgiven Ron Paul Gets the Snoop Dog Endorsement!

snoopdogronpaul.jpg

On Facebook Snoop gives the love: Snoop Dog because i said so

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

A Day in the Life of the Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London

JohnsLastDay_115.jpg

At 10:00pm, the Ceremony of the Keys would ensure the final lockdown at the Tower. And tonight, after more than twenty years, it will signal the end of John Keohane's tenure. "The Tower is closed now and my day is over." --| Spitalfields Life

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:16 PM | Your Say (2)

What is the worst piece of design ever done?

So far the infinitely evil plastic clamshell packaging leads the long list of terrible designs over @ --Really Bad Design @ Quora

My personal favorite? The pull handle on the push door.
pushdoor.jpg

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

Picture and Caption of the Month

pb-120126-obamabrewer-combo.jpg
Wrong finger

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

With Two You Get Oreo Roll

china-oreo-cropped.jpg

Chinese consumers liked the contrast between the bitter cookie and the sugary cream,
but, "they said it was a little bit too sweet and a little bit too bitter," Davis explained. It turns out that if you didn't grow up with Oreos and develop an emotional attachment to the cookie, it can be a weird-tasting little thing. -- Rethinking The Oreo For Chinese Consumers : Planet Money : NPR

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:47 PM | Your Say (2)

Fresh Impressions: A 5-Year-Old Remarks on Famous Logos

Cincinnati, Ohio-based identity designer Adam Ladd asked his 5-year-old daughter her impressions on some popular logos. Companies spend millions on "identity" and don't get research as good as this.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:25 PM | Your Say (3)

Can't Imagine Why

Marijuana questions dominate White House online chat -- again....


obama-gettin-stoned-470x310.jpg

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

The Black Shield

One reason many liberals were overjoyed with the election of Barack Obama
was that they could use his race to shield their socialistic policies. This is why the R-word was the first one out of the lips of many critics when people formed the Tea Party. They could not wait to label critics as racist. -- Juan Williams plays dumb ォ Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:41 PM | Your Say (0)

"The Phelps family really is far more "transgressive" than any washed-up liberal artist could ever dream of becoming. "

"Merely by existing, they reveal how hollow the liberal pose of being "edgy" really is,
to say nothing of their pose of being against the death penalty, since it is painfully obvious that liberals only oppose executing their fellow travellers and believe that everyone who disagrees with them "deserves to die". --The Wingnut Musings: That's so radical, dude

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

"Being a prominent society requires a certain vitality."

Endless schemes to ration, or import, or even extinguish vitality, lead to one place. The Roman Empire is a pizza joint now. --Sippican Cottage: Engineering School

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (0)

Advanced Bowl Licking in the GOP

Judging by the behavior, the senior GOP weenies would rather run aground
on a cruise liner captained by a derelict Italian than risk sailing to victory with Tea Partiers. Why? Because GOP weenies, like any specimen of homo bureaucratus fear risk, and know that the Democrats will give them a bowl to lick if they accept defeat with minimal fuss. --Smitty: Vessels For Altering The American Political Course : The Other McCain

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (0)

January 29, 2012

The Boob Truck Patrol

pb-120129-milktruck1-cannon.jpg

Milk Truck provides haven for breastfeeding mothers
Jill Miller drives her Milk Truck, near her Pittsburgh home, Jan. 19. The truck is a vehicle she made for spreading the message that nursing mothers have the need and the right to feed their infants in public.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:35 PM | Your Say (7)

Well, at least he wouldn't be in it for the money.

Just how rich is Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you’re in Romney territory.
He would be among the richest presidents in American history if elected – probably in the top four. He couldn’t top George Washington who, with nearly 60,000 acres and more than 300 slaves, is considered the big daddy of presidential wealth. After that, it gets complicated... Romney wealth would surpass most presidents | Nation / World News - The News Tribune

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:56 PM | Your Say (5)

"America is returning to its traditional attitude in favor of private gun ownership."

And arguments that gun control leads to less crime are foundering on stubborn facts:
Though Americans own more guns than ever, crime is down. Meanwhile, in places that have engaged in gun prohibition, like Britain, crime — including gun crime — has gone way up. Shockingly, it turns out criminals are no more likely to obey gun laws than other laws. --Glenn Reynolds, Record check an ineffective nuisance

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

Headline of the Month

Cops Believe North Carolina Inmate Hid 10-Inch Revolver In His Rectum. Luckily, It Was Unloaded. | The Smoking Gun

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:32 PM | Your Say (4)

Bungee Cord Ax Massacre

or-- How to chop wood without messing around. Check it out at The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys:

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

9 million more uninsured under Obama

Minorities were hardest hit. Charts and graphs @ Don Surber

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

Just when you thought it was safe to go our without your mittens: "Forget global warming.... "

freezingthames.jpg

... it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again).
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. -- | Mail Online

Ooops... mistaeks wur maid.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (4)

"For every barrel of oil produced in the world from 2007 to 2009, 1.6 barrels of new reserves were added..."

InfinitePower22.jpg

The World Energy Council reports that global proven recoverable reserves
of natural gas liquids and crude oil amounted to 1.2 trillion barrels in 2010. That's enough to last another 38 years at current usage. Add in shale oil, and that's an additional 4.8 trillion barrels, or a century and a half's worth of supply at present usage rates. Tar sands, including some huge Canadian deposits, add perhaps 6 trillion barrels more. --Everything You Know About Peak Oil Is Wrong - BusinessWeek

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (0)

"If your governments are sabotaging..."

your society's best efforts to create an abundant future,
you need to stop electing that kind of government! If you can't learn to stop hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, you probably have bigger problems than "peak oil doom" or "carbon hysteria." Think about it. -- Al Fin Energy: A Contrarian Take on Peak Oil Doom and Peak Everything Doom

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

January 28, 2012

All the now familiar Obama furniture:

--Works and Days » What We Do Not Want to Hear Anymore

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 PM | Your Say (0)

Smitty sez: "I said I care that people vote, but not for whom they vote. "

"Liberty means the possibility that everything can go pear shaped. Creation can reject God. Men can mistake the lower end of the digestive tract for a sex organ. Free people can vote for debt slavery." --Let’s Think This Through : The Other McCain

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

Because we don't hear enough about gays, "Cynthia Nixon

cynthiachristine22012.jpg
Cyn and her choice Chris in the old "I'll wear a tie so you're not in doubt" gambit

is in the news for saying she wasn't born a lesbian, she chose to be one. This is controversial since everybody knows that the behavior of all minority groups is controlled wholly by their genes, and nobody should be allowed to doubt genetic determinism, at least not in public." -- Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog: Was Nixon gay?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 PM | Your Say (5)

You learn something new every day...

spoonairplanes.jpg

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

"Even if you doubled Mitt’s taxes,"

that would raise only $3.5 million or so. That's barely a trip to Spain for the first lady." -- Mitt overpaid his taxes ォ Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (0)

The Horror! The Horror!

I did a simple search on the internet: "blog" and "I'm majoring in" -- Captain Capitalism: God, Please Make It Stop

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (0)

January 27, 2012

Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to text me?

120127-heizer-iphone.jpg

Cool: Handgun about the size of an iPhone The Titanium Tactical Pocket Pistol • The first concealed carry .45 ACP born from aerospace technology and 100% USA made.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:10 PM | Your Say (5)

Like the other USSR in 1989,

a fracture is in the future and one state declaring secession
will start a stampede the likes of which this country has not seen for nearly a century and a half. The 320 million subjects are critical components in the tax-eater system to continue feeding the Federal beast. These cattle will not be permitted to go gently into the night. -- Zero Gov - Anti-Government, Pro-Liberty サ Blog Archive サ Village Praxis Series: T.E. Lawrence and the Next American Revolution (Part II) by Bill Buppert

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:32 PM | Your Say (0)

Who says we're not a society with way too much money?

applecocktail.jpg

A cocktail made with Apple Pie Corn Liquor, bonded Apple Jack and homemade apple bitters is infused with apple-wood smoke at The Wayland in the East Village. -- New York Photos of the Week January 21 – January 27 - Photo Journal - WSJ

"Infused" is the new "Artisan."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:43 PM | Your Say (6)

In your heart, you know Don Surber's right.

mittnewt.jpg

"Mitt has all the things people look for in a president: better hair, better body and height." -- Daily scoreboard ォ Don Surber

Yes, it is true. Deep down we're shallow. But do you want to win or do you want to WIN! ?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:37 PM | Your Say (8)

"One of the more insidiously deceptive lines of the socialist-liberal agenda is the banal phrase: "Violence doesn’t solve anything.""

Violence solves a lot
Perhaps the world isn’t the way we wish it would be. We all might wish that evil men could be persuaded from their vile behavior with bleeding heart entreaties, a kiss on the cheek, or proper toilet training. But it ain’t that way, folks, Pacifism is a sickness, an actual moral perversity, and dangerous when its effects spread to anyone else beside the pacifist. You may choose to walk to the cattle car, but damn you if you let your children be led up the ramp. You must never allow any group or government to steal your right to exercise armed lethal force in a just situation.

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

"Americans will stomach much in a ‘leader’, "

adrinkglass.jpg

stumbling, clinical malapropism, divorces, philandering; they will take a chance on Catholics,
actors, "€˜good ole boy" Rhodes Scholars, even a Nixon, a peanut farmer, and, now, an affirmative action fraud. The thing Americans will not endure is a man with a record of incompetence (see peanut farmer). --George Pal comment @ neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Thoughts on the Florida debate

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:17 PM | Your Say (0)

Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About Global Warming

akeepcalm.jpg

In spite of a multidecade international campaign
to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts. -- - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:58 PM | Your Say (1)

"No one knows what really goes on in a marriage,"

“including the two spouses.”-- neo-neocon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:09 PM | Your Say (0)

"I saw the angel in the marble..."

angelmarble2.jpg

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

"Why do elites hate the poor?"

It’s xenophobia. They don’t know any poor people—except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don’t speak English.
Modern elites live in bubbles of liberal affluence like Ann Arbor, Brookline, the Upper West Side, Palo Alto, or Chevy Chase. These places used to have impoverished neighborhoods nearby, but the poor people got chased out by young singles living in group homes, hipsters, and urban homesteading gay couples. When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place. And the elites have never been poor themselves. Although there was that time in graduate school, between research grants, when they had to go without sushi for a week. -- P J O'Rourke, They Hate Poor People @ The Weekly Standard

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (3)

January 26, 2012

"You know the problem with homosexuality?"

"It's underexposed. We need to talk about it some more. I need to be further familiarized with a subculture celebrated by about 40% of 1% of the population." -- Ace of Spades HQ

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:41 PM | Your Say (7)

Supergaydar Alarms Ring Out Hollygay's Twink Fantasy of 2012

Supermangay.jpg

This is Henry Cavill as Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel movie..... [Superman is] huge and strong and heroic and handsome and bold looking. Not like your somewhat creepy uncle in a body stocking. -- Word Around the Net: PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:01 PM | Your Say (1)

"Now, what is truth?"

Well, for one thing, it is the thing that results in bad stuff happening if we fail to appreciate it.
This applies to every level of reality, from the lowest (i.e., physics) to the highest (i.e., spirit). Ignore the law at your own peril, whether it is the law of gravity ("I can fly!") or the law of humility ("I'm a god!). --One Cʘsmos: Truth and Consequences

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (0)

Do you want ‘spirituality’, mystical experience, inner peace, or do you want God?

"Oh noche que juntaste,
Amado con amada,
Amada en el Amado transformada!"

If you want God, then you must be prepared to let go all, absolutely all, substitute satisfactions, intellectual and emotional.
You must recognize that God is so unlike whatever can be thought or pictured that, when you have got beyond the stage of self-indulgent religiosity, there will be nothing you can securely know or feel. You face a blank: and any attempt to avoid that or shy away from it is a return to playing comfortable religious games. The dark night is God’s attack on religion. --The real question, Saint John [of the Cross] suggests,... - more than 95 theses

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (3)

For my sins, God reincarnated me as a male model.

Henrik_Vibskov3b-thumb-620x929-36097.jpg

Titled "The Shrink Wrap Spectacular," the free-spirited collection
seems to focus on contrasts—the combination of skinny cuts with extra-large pieces, the range from dark solids to zebra prints, clothes that go from day to night—as Vibskov blends styles and silhouettes from a wild variety of worlds. With his cavemen models trudging through a mechanized set, the designer seems to present more of a raw archetype than yet another stereotype of modernity. --Henrik Vibskov's Shrink Wrap Spectacular

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

"Conservatism is an electable quality."

Romney is the most electable candidate not only because
it will be nearly impossible for the media to demonize this self-made Mormon square, devoted to his wife and church, but precisely because he is the most conservative candidate. Conservatism is an electable quality. Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters. --Re-Elect Obama: Vote Newt! - Ann Coulter

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

How can we know for sure that Newt is a white guy?

It's simple. He's got a space program.

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

Million dollar schoolgirl embroidery

MaryAntrim-sampler.jpg

A silk on linen needlework sampler stitched by 12-year-old Mary Antrim in 1807 sold at Sotheby's Important Americana sale in New York on Sunday for $1,070,500 (including buyer's premium). That's ten times more than its pre-sale estimate of $80,000-$120,000. The History Blog -- Blog Archive

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 AM | Your Say (4)

Gov to Prez: "Fuck you. Strong letter to follow."

seriouslystrong.jpg

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Obama have heated exchange during airport greeting Brewer has no regrets about the incident.
"She was gracious but didn’t back down from the president when he voiced her displeasure with her," Benson said. In "Scorpions for Breakfast," Brewer discusses her handling of SB 1070 and its fallout, accuses Obama of mischaracterizing the immigration law’s provisions and describes a sharp exchange during a meeting with Obama in the Oval Office.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:14 AM | Your Say (9)

January 25, 2012

Moving right along in Pakistan

Three lawyers shot dead in Karachi. "Lawyers have announced a nationwide strike in protest of the killings."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:09 PM | Your Say (6)

Question of the Moment

evolutionqueston.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:28 PM | Your Say (9)

Gone But Not Forgotten

inlovingmemory.jpg

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

January 24, 2012

"The politicization of food by the elites of the left always comes down to class."

The cultural ascendance of the left has meant that instead of conspicuous consumption,
the consumption has to be disguised with conspicuous political pieties. The food may cost twice as much, but it's locally grown on a farm run by handicapped union workers who visit Cuba to receive free health care or by the indigenous peoples of Tuba-Tuba with the proceeds going to a complete sonic library of their chants and ceremonies. The entire thing is meaningfully meaningless, but it disguises the consumption in a hairshirt, which is the entire point. --Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (5)

"Here’s a fun thing to do: "

Go to the Census Bureau and download the 2010 voter demographics.  Go ahead. I'€™ll wait.
Look at the "young skulls full of mush" demographic. Now tell me, in spite of the rigged numbers at InTrade, how Obama's Children are gonna outnumber pissed off old folks? No offense, but the Left has been systematically killing off its most valuable demographic: young, ignorant voters. --God's Waiting Room Seems To Be Waiting For. . . | Primordial Slack

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 PM | Your Say (7)

"And then she ends up with AIDS, and she’s dying, and all she wants is a goddamn ride on my motorcycle."

25destefano1-custom1.jpg

"So the next thing you know we’re on I-95, because women, it’s never enough for them.
We’re on I-95, and she unhooks the pole, and she’s holding the morphine bag over her head with her gown that’s flying up in the air so you could see her entire naked, bony body with the morphine bag whipping in the wind, and we’re passing by these guys in their Lamborghinis, and I’m looking at them like, What the hell kind of life are you living? Look at me, I’m on top of the world here. --The Lives They Lived - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (6)

Someone asked me on Twitter, “why don’t they just report the truth” and I thought, “because they have given themselves wholly over to a lie, and they fear the truth.

We have reached a remarkable era of photojournalism, as demonstrated by the once-noble Washington Post
-- one where a half million people can march, the headlines can call it "thousands" and the pictures show you none of it. .... Having built up the lie for so long that it's become their foundation, they know they cannot withstand an assault by the truth. So they have become truth-phobics, our mainstream media. They can't tell you the truth about anything, anymore -- they can only do whatever it takes to sustain the narratives they've constructed. --Pro-Lifers and the Truth-Phobic Press « The Anchoress

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:43 AM | Your Say (2)

Morten Lauridsen: "There are too many things out there that are away from goodness. We need to focus on those things that ennoble us, that enrich us.""

Mr. Lauridsen is neither an edgy avant-gardist nor a pop-culture panderer.
He hasn't appeared on reality TV and his life, so far as I know, is devoid of scandal. All he does is compose radiantly beautiful music and lead what appears to be a wholly satisfying life, and these days that's not quite enough to make you a household name. --Morten Lauridsen | The Best Composer You've Never Heard Of | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:19 AM | Your Say (4)

"That Darwinism can satisfy the cramped and barren intellect of contemporary timedwellers and ideobots is a statement about their desiccated intellect, not about Truth. "

At the very least, these spiritual ungreats have no idea
what religion has done for them, because it has all been done collectively and subliminally through a kind of cultural and historical osmosis. But to be unaware of the extraordinary spiritual sacrifices others have made in order to make your otherwise insignificant life possible is to live as a barbarian. Your whole miserable life is lived in borrowed -- no, stolen -- Light, which you cannot even acknowledge. -- One Cʘsmos: No Success Like Failure

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 AM | Your Say (0)

15 Questions The Mainstream Media Would Ask Barack Obama If He Were A Republican

5) When you took office, gas was $1.79 per gallon. Since then, you've demonized the oil industry, dramatically slowed offshore drilling, blocked ANWR, and killed the Keystone Pipeline. Now, gas is $3.34 per gallon. How much higher do you anticipate driving gas prices? -- - John Hawkins - Townhall Conservative

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:04 AM | Your Say (2)

"A Major Exercise in Political Narcissism "

Far too often, narcissistically flawed individuals are hopelessly attracted by the grandiose opportunities of the political arena
(as well as the Hollywood arena) like moths to a flame. Their sense of self is starkly invested in the desire for power over others (always, of course, "for their own good") , constant admiration and adulation and grandiose ambitions. This makes them remarkably adept at what is called the "politics of personal destruction".

For the narcissist it is always a zero-sum game he or she plays with other individuals. From the perspective of the narcissist, if someone else "wins", the narcissist "loses". It cannot be otherwise, since on some level they know that their own talent and skills are way overblown. -- Dr. Sanity: EVERY FOUR YEARS,

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 AM | Your Say (0)

January 23, 2012

"The only racial aspect of this is that the first black president has been an unalloyed disaster for black America."

They imply Southern conservatives are just racist
– and when the maligned get a chance to cheer someone who fights back for them, the media only see it as confirmation of the racism. You can’t win with these people. The only relief from this slander, it seems, is the intervening years between elections. --The red herring of racism | The Augusta Chronicle

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:44 PM | Your Say (1)

The Phony Saints of Liberal Land

Look at the Demagogue Party. Look at Obama and Hillary. They are classical mob leaders,
but I'm pretty sure they think they're saints in their own minds. Hillary suffered for Bill's sins, after all. Saints can burn heretics with real reluctance -- but if they have to destroy you as a racist, a bimbo, a woman-hater, or a gay-basher, they will do it. Because you deserve it, don't you see? They care about you. It's all for the greater good. -- American Thinker

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

Jay Carney: Obama Gay Marriage View Still Evolving

"President Obama still has not reached a conclusion on whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry, despite months – or years – of supposedly thinking about the issue.
CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian today asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether the evolution of Obama’s thinking was complete, wondering if he was “reading books” or just how he was driving himself to figure this out. Carney said there was nothing new to report." -- Talk Straight

"I wonder, if you polled liberals about what they believe the Lightworker's views are
on gay marriage, the death penalty, indefinite detention and the human right not to be assassinated without due process, what you think the majority of them would say without hesitation?" -- The Wingnut Musings: Ceci n'est pas une liste de liens

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

America is a communist country.

And has been since before you were born. And probably before your mother was born. Earl Browder was right: communism is as American as apple pie.
Russia didn't infect America. America infected Russia. After which the germ went back and forth a few times - as we'll see. It eventually died out in Russia, which is nice because that just leaves us. How simple! Alas, this beautiful, simple, horrifying reality is simply too difficult for most Americans to grasp, let alone do something about. If you tell an American of any political persuasion that his is a communist country, the poor fscker will simply laugh in your face. Cancer, that's so funny. Of course I couldn't possibly have cancer. Yes, there's this thing - it's just a growth... -- Unqualified Reservations: The kiss: "Stalin was feeling extremely gay"

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

Thank You, Small Section of This Country That I Temporarily Cared About.

"Tonight, we made history. The people of this state have spoken and you have declared me, in no uncertain terms, the winner of your presidential primary.
You know, I’ve spent the past eighteen months in this state, visiting every hamlet, every community, getting to know you—and now that you’ve completed your crucial role in the electoral process, finally, I can tell you what I really think.... This place sucks. From Dullard’s Ridge to Bunghole Marsh, this wretched, foul excuse of a state has made me forget why I even want to live in this country, let alone run for political office. I’ve spent time in your backwards towns, at your obesity-infected county fairs, and on your syringe-covered beaches. And never once did someone offer to valet my car." -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (1)

January 22, 2012

Postage Stamp Paintings

stamp-21.jpg
Postage Stamp Paintings | Molly Rausch
"Each stamp painting begins with an actual postage stamp that is glued down to the paper. Then Rausch paints around the stamp, extending the scene, with watercolor and gouache. As a result, the paintings are quite small – usually around 3 inches tall. Everything is done freehand with a brush; she does not use pens or pencils. She does not paint on the stamp itself. And she does not research the subject, so the extension is completely invented and should not be tested for accuracy."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (3)

Big Oil: An Estimated 3 - 5 Trillion Barrels of Oil Equivalent in the Continental US -- Not Counting the 3 Trillion BOE in Oil Shales

California's Monterey Shale is estimated to contain 500 billion barrels of oil equivalent in place.
Estimates for North Dakota's oil shales fall into a similar range (PDF) for oil equivalent in place. But the continental US is underlain with hydrocarbon-bearing shales at various depths and ages. Add the estimates all together, and you might just reach the trillions of barrels, in oil equivalent. -- Al Fin Energy:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 PM | Your Say (4)

Wake Up, Schmoes!

The Republican primary voters have this dream of a snarling Newt disemboweling Barack Obama in the debates this fall. Talk about myths.
How many debates is Barack going to agree to? Two maybe, tops, and both of them will be MSNBC-style — “Mr. Gingrich, when did you stop beating your first ex-wife?” Follow-up: “When you did you stop beating your second ex-wife?” To the “Jersey Shore” MTV crowd, Newt would come across as a fat, nasty, pasty old man. They’re not going to realize what a boob Barack is, because they’re boobs, too. --Howie Carr: All goes wrong for Dudley Do-Right - BostonHerald.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:31 PM | Your Say (5)

How To Read A Pudding

Every history book is more than a collection of names, dates and details. It is a philosophical and political statement about how the author thinks the world really works....
Your job as an analytical reader of history is to figure out the assumptions and the ideas behind the picture the historian is painting. In one sense, you are fighting the historian. Instead of sitting there passively drinking it in, you are challenging and questioning. But by reading the book in this way, you are engaging much more fully with the author than the passive reader. You are thinking seriously and deeply about exactly the questions that the historian thinks are most important. --| Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:47 PM | Your Say (1)

The Case for Zeeba, the Syphilitic Camel

zeebacamel-600x450.jpg

I don’t care about Obama’s college grades. I don’t care who actually wrote his books.
I don’t care if he’s had a little sumthin-sumthin on the side. I don’t care if he’s lying about quitting smoking. The man has a record in office now. He’s actually been forced to stick to a single job, and take responsibility for executive decisions, though he’s given himself plenty of vacation time. So, all I have to ask is: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? -- Mary Pat Campbell, aka Meep, @ The Conservative C.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:06 PM | Your Say (1)

Meanwhile, away from the cannibal banquet

While the Republican cannibals devour themselves, Obama took the last two months to slip through the most radical agendas
of his presidency and all to media silence: slashing the defense budget, recess appointments in a non-recessed Congress, cancellation of the Keystone pipeline, borrowing up to a new $16 trillion ceiling, and playing the race card via Michelle ("€œangry black woman"€), Holder (if you ask about Fast and Furious you are racist), and himself (the renewed "€˜they won'€™t give you a fair shot because of the way you look"€™ trope). That all got no attention, but firmed up his base among greens, minorities, and big government recipients. -- Victor Hanson, The 2012 Election Circus -- The Acts, The Players, The Hype

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:36 PM | Your Say (0)

As usual, Steve Sailer's got a point...

3 states, 3 winners: Why is that so bad? --Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:33 PM | Your Say (0)

Comment of the Week So Far: "The worst are full of passionate intensity."

MalteseGutman.jpg

"The conservative base is full of passion and full of intensity. But, that is a bad way to try to win an election.
To win, you need the middle. The middle is ready to get rid of Hussein, but they are by nature scared. An angry candidate full of passionate intensity will scare them into voting for the devil they know. They need nice kitty and gentle strokes on the head. They like uplift and they like optimism. But anger scares them. Newt is angry and so am I, but my head controls my heart, and says we need a different candidate. We cannot indulge our emotions at this moment. We must remember that this will be an uphill struggle against not only Hussein and his insane clown posse, but also against the media, the unions, the educational establishment, and a lot of other left wing institutions." -- FatMan remarking on Side-Lines: "The roar is passion. The roar is intensity. The roar is pent up frustration."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:51 PM | Your Say (11)

Buy low and sell high

On Friday, you could buy a barrel of light, sweet crude oil produced in North Dakota for less than $81.
On that same day, oil refiners in Port Arthur on the coast of Texas were paying around $110 to import a similar grade of oil produced in Nigeria. That's $30 worth of incentive to you to try to figure out a way to transport oil from North Dakota to Port Arthur in order to replace a barrel of imported Nigerian oil with Williston sweet. As a nation, if we could divert some of the resources we are currently devoting to pay for oil imported from Nigeria, and use them instead to enable the Port Arthur refinery to get its oil from North Dakota, we will become richer. -- Econbrowser: Wealth creation

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (0)

"The roar is passion. The roar is intensity. The roar is pent up frustration."

It will demand that those who want our votes must not cower
in the face of the liberal template. If fact, it is a roar that demands that we do not accept any liberal templates. That's why Newt has gotten all the roars, and why he has vaulted into serious contention only days after being written off. Anyone else who wants the roar should heed the lesson. The roar comes only at the expense of liberals and liberalism. You won't get the roar attacking others on the stage. Tell your consultants to take a hike if they tell you otherwise. -- American Thinker

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:42 AM | Your Say (2)

Why Mitt? "I don't want Mitt Romney to be more like me. I don't need to see him lose his temper or climb down in the gutter with Barack Obama."

Cassandra @ Villainous Company in Out of Touch notes:
To my way of thinking, it takes considerable courage to adhere to traditional values in a world that finds such standards amusing. Do people really think Mitt Romney is too stupid to know how quaint he sometimes appears to a world that no longer understands people like him? Does anyone seriously believe a man who has amassed millions and governed a highly complex (and very liberal) state doesn't "get" the clash of cultures? That he can't see how much easier his political life would be if he would just loosen up and join the race to the bottom that is American culture; trade his unpopular God and antiquated morals for a more flexible, urban viewpoint? I am far from a perfect person. My speech is sometimes intemperate and my self discipline a continual work in progress. But I don't want Mitt Romney to be more like me. I don't need to see him lose his temper or climb down in the gutter with Barack Obama. On the contrary, I wish I had the courage, confidence, and self discipline to be more like him.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (5)

January 21, 2012

"I look at the latest Clancy on the bookshelf, hardbound with that odd paper cover, and I think "

"€œno way that thing's ever worth a shit, in that or any condition."
Looks all garish and tacky on the shelf, too. And one of the most confounding things in my universe -- aside from the odd ideas people have about loading a dishwasher --€“ is that paper cover. What's the protocol with that? Do you leave it on when you're reading? Take it off? -- The Other Two Hundred Forty-Nine « The Dipso Chronicles

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:31 PM | Your Say (7)

"As weak as this year’s Republican field has proved,"

it’s not that much weaker than a number of recent presidential vintages,
from the Democrats’ lineups in 1988 and 2004 to the Republican field in 1996. In presidential politics, the great talents (a Clinton, a Reagan) seem to be the exception; a march of Dole-Dukakis-Mondale mediocrity is closer to the rule. -- A Good Candidate Is Hard to Find - NYTimes.com

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

“There are lots of jobs,” Mrs. Lin said. “Especially in Shenzhen.”

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.” --Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:49 PM | Your Say (9)

“Who the heck were the Maya?”

The way in which this oddball civilization is accorded undue respect, especially this year,
shows that our own ruling and academic elites have chosen to distort the internal workings of their own brains as much as the Maya elite distorted the outer carapaces of theirs. The cosmic predictions of a semi-barbaric civilization that didn’t even know what a wheel was and which disappeared back into the jungles that spawned it after a period of pointless pyramid proliferation and skull bending should merit slightly less attention than the palm readings of the average faux-gypsy. --World Without End

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:55 AM | Your Say (4)

Mark Your Calendars

In 2012 both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address will occur on the same day.
This is an ironic juxtaposition of events. One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog... --Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (4)

"Environmentalism has spent three decades trying to hide this simple truth."

The main danger to the affluent is not that they will be denied from improving their estate
but that too many other people will achieve what they already have. As the Forest Service used to say, the person who built his mountain cabin last year is an environmentalist. The person who wants to build one this year is a developer. --The American Spectator : Environmentalism and the Leisure Class

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 AM | Your Say (4)

January 20, 2012

Newtastrophe

Barack Obama is a terrible president and an unpopular one. He is ripe for defeat in November, but not by Newt Gingrich.
It is painful to contemplate the extent of the GOP wipeout that would follow a Gingrich nomination. Would Newt carry a state? Wyoming, maybe? South Carolina? The Republican Party could kiss its hopes of retaking the Senate goodbye, and likely would lose control over the House, giving Obama carte blanche to devastate the country for another four years. --Delusional | Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:03 PM | Your Say (25)

Without envy, there would be no Democratic Party today.

I have to ask again with some exasperation, why aren't Republicans making a case for the essential morality of capitalism?
An entire cultural war is being fought against capitalism, and instead of making the case for why economic freedom and the free market is the best possible means to economic betterment for ALL PEOPLE, regardless of whether they are rich or poor; black or white; gay or straight; male or female or along any other divide the progressives can think of. --Dr. Sanity: THE WINGS OF ENVY AND RESENTMENT

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:52 PM | Your Say (8)

Image of the Week

obama%20party.jpg
All aboard the Obama Concordia

From "Friday Afternoon Roundup" @ Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield

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

Obama Announces His New AltEnergy Program: "Tap That gAss"

Bugs from your colon could produce the world's next great energy source

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:52 AM | Your Say (2)

Thing I Know #408. You can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails.

That other guy was in for eight years. He ran things for eight years.
The average retail gas price (USD/gallon, all brands) for those eight years, assuming I ran my calculator right, was $2.174; that is not the price of a gallon of gas today. The average unemployment rate during those eight years was 5.2625%; that is not the unemployment rate today. -- House of Eratosthenes

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

A look at state-run radio in the United States

NPR however is subtler.
To maintain the illusion of freedom, our propaganda must disguise itself as the alternative to propaganda. This means it must be permissive, but also have a sense of higher moral calling, so you sense that (a) there are no rules but (b) good people behave a certain way and we’ll tell you what it is.

To that end, NPR has developed a distinctive style. If it were music, it would be minor-key. It is a lamentation that wraps itself around “uplifting” ideas that never quite change the mood. It is an affirmation of the crushing power of normalcy while doing its best to notice all the quirky, off-beat, ironic, unique, different and non-conformist details. --The NPR style | Amerika

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:39 AM | Your Say (0)

Blade Chop a Condor, Go to Jail... Maybe

1220_condor-bird_400x400-300x300.jpg

It's a flight path that is taking the condor
perilously closer to the spinning blades of Tehachapi wind turbines that depend on those same thermal currents to generate power; biologists fear it's only a matter of time before the condor begins hitting the 500-foot-high machines. A single death could be catastrophic for the wind industry, theregional economy and, not least, the condor. -- Revival Of Iconic California Condor Threatens State's Wind Farm Boom - Forbes

Charles Manson Energy
The mere possession of an eagle feather by a non-Indian can result in fines and imprisonment, even if the feather came from a bird butchered by a wind turbine: up to $100,000, a year in prison or both for a first offense. Poisoning or otherwise killing common bats that have nested in one’s attic can cost homeowners thousands of dollars in fines. Wind turbine companies, officers and employees, however, are immune from prosecution, fines or imprisonment, regardless of how many rare, threatened, endangered or migratory birds and bats they kill.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:18 AM | Your Say (8)

Nelson Reads All Climategate 2.0 Emails So You Don't Have To

Tom Nelson, great human being, notes: My plan is to read all 5,349 of them at this link. I didn't want to start at #1, so I started at #5000, read to the end, then went back to 4,000. --Tom Nelson: Just FYI: I'm reading all of the ClimateGate 2.0 emails

Example:
Email 2151, Jan 2005, Tom Wigley suggests religious cleansing: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted"

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

Red Tails and Tall Tales

Though you couldn’t be thrown in jail
for such an impolite inquiry to the veracity of the claims around the Red Tails as in Europe, Dr. Haulman did find intense pressure from entrenched academics, and the Tuskegee Airmen themselves, for daring to expose the truth behind the myth. Haulman says they actually lost 25 bombers in 1944 and 1945 to those German planes, flown by young Luftwaffe pilots barely into puberty. -- Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (3)

Invader from Mars

Tissint-web-2.jpg

A meteorite that fell to Earth last July in Morocco has proven to be a rare chunk of Mars. Only a handful of Martian meteorites are known, and only five (counting the new find) come from meteorites that were seen falling. --Nature News Blog: Morocco fireball yields rare Mars meteorites

Entry event:
At about 2 am local time on July 18, 2011, a bright fireball was observed by several people in the region of the Oued Draa valley, east of Tata, Morocco. One eyewitness, Mr Aznid Lhou, reported that it was at first yellow in color, and then turned green illuminating all the area before it appeared to split into two parts. Two sonic booms were heard over the valley. -- Meteoritical Bulletin: Entry for Tissint

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (1)

January 19, 2012

Of course it will.

Main Street USA will be closed for the duration of the president’s time there. -- Mediaite

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:37 PM | Your Say (0)

A few long posts that weren't interesting enough to read at length...

Not that there's anything wrong with them:
White House Keystone Cops, Continued @ Power Line In which we assume the president continues to fuck over blue collar voters. Move along. Nothing new here.

Althouse on "Why Andrew Sullivan misunderstands.... With Sullivan you are dealing with someone who has forcibly degraded himself physically for decades and taken on a big load of disease. Following that he's spent decades taking on a hugh drug cocktail to dead with his big load of STDs. This makes for a mentality I simply no longer care to contemplate at any length. Good luck to Althouse if she can stand it.

Dealing with Fox News PR Woman Irena Briganti @ JIMROMENESKO.COM Looks to be a major effort by Romenesko to explain why the head of inhouse PR for FOX News doesn't love the drooling morons of MSM. No kidding? No news.

What Happened Before the Big Bang? The New Philosophy of Cosmology - Ross Andersen Valuable for the brief moment when someone says "Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man, but ... he just doesn't know what he's talking about." Thank. God. At. Last. [Besides, how do we know that it really is Hawking talking?]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:00 PM | Your Say (3)

Catching a Comet Death on Camera

amaincomet.jpg

"Comets are usually too dim to be seen in the glare of the sun's light."
But an ultra bright comet, from a group known as the Kreutz comets, overturned all preconceived notions. The comet can clearly be viewed moving in over the right side of the sun, disappearing 20 minutes later as it evaporates in the searing heat. --Seen at NASA

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:29 PM | Your Say (1)

The Lazy and Crazy Uses of Liberal Progressive Ideology

Thanks to the reassuring provisions of liberal ideology, I can go about my ordinary business
and meanwhile take sufficient account of my moral duties by affirming my loyalty to the correct egalitarian principles, voting for the correct candidates, praising the activists and contributing to their defense funds when they get into trouble, and joining promptly in the outcry against reactionaries who pop up now and then in a desperate effort to preserve power and privilege. -- Suicide Watch, Continued | Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:50 PM | Your Say (0)

Meet the 20,000 new species we discovered in a single year

species2011.jpg

Check the lineup in more detail at io9

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:48 PM | Your Say (0)

"What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on...

earth, of all the billions of species that have evolved, only one has developed intelligence to the level of producing technology. Which means that kind of intelligence is really not very useful. --- more than 95 theses

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:44 PM | Your Say (1)

How would an advanced galactic empire generate its power?

A truly advanced civilisation on the Kardashev scale would harness the power of black holes to drive starships , power their industries, and gain control over both matter and time. We may have a few years to go before reaching that level. --Al Fin Energy: Limits? What Limits?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:42 PM | Your Say (0)

Where does spiritual autism come from?

aserpantsatan.jpg

In part, from sin, which deadens the conscience and weakens man's spiritual faculties.
And in part from an intentionally disordered will: from a will to disbelieve. This will to disbelieve leads man to folly, especially when confronted with flatly incontrovertible rational arguments for, say, the instance of God: it leads him to believe that the universe is disorderly, that anything can come from nothing anywhere and at any time, that reality itself is socially constructed, that there is no necessary connection between effect and cause, that one man is not necessarily any more like another man than a starfish is to a skyscraper, and so on. It is a temptation, as old and as evil as the serpent that inspired it. --On Spiritual Autism

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:11 PM | Your Say (2)

Bain Capital Saved America

No matter what turn Mitt Romney's political career takes, Bain Capital may stand as the best of Mr. Romney's lifetime contributions to the nation's economic well-being. If only he'd tell the story. --Henninger: - WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:08 PM | Your Say (0)

Maurice Franklin, Wood Turner

maurice.jpg

When rooms at Windsor Castle burnt out a few years ago, the Queen asked Maurice
to make a new set of spindles for her staircase and invited him to tea to thank him for it too. “Did you grow up in the East End?” she enquired politely, and when Maurice nodded in modest confirmation of this, she extended her sympathy to him. “That must have been hard,” she responded with a empathetic smile, although with characteristic frankness Maurice disagreed. “I had a loving family,” he told her plainly, “That’s all you need for a happy childhood, you don’t need palaces for that.” -- Maurice Franklin, Wood Turner | Spitalfields Life HT Sippican

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:49 AM | Your Say (0)

Civilization in Reverse

The average Californian, like the average Greek, forgot that civilization is fragile.
Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility — and exempts no one from those rules. Such knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can be lost in a single generation. --- Victor Davis Hanson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (1)

January 18, 2012

Isn't Obama, umm ... rich?

Why pretend to bash the rich when you are the rich, when your party is top-heavy with the so-called "filthy rich" like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Jon Corzine, and the denizens of Hollywood and High-Finance and oh, yes, Publishing, and New Media and the Endowed-unto-Illness Ivies? -- « The Anchoress

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 PM | Your Say (4)

Genius Fatigue

genius%20%282%29.jpg

In politics, the word genius gets used quite a bit, but I notice that the word they really mean to use is shameless.
I really don't know why they keep getting those two mixed up. The last two political geniuses I can think of are Hitler and Churchill. Thank god we got both at the same time. Other than that, for 75 years it's been all workmanlike or incompetent; take your pick. --Sippican Cottage: I'm In Danger Of Gettin' Fatigue

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:54 PM | Your Say (0)

You Say You Want a Revolution

American-revolution.jpg

Revolutions begin with an open contempt for and anger at the existing order. The left knows that.
It is why it fears talk radio and populism more than it fears the latest set of dapper gatekeepers we send to the Senate. The contempt and anger are here, the more they go public, the more the power of the left is shaken. And the next step is to expand the cultural war to a specific disrespect and hostility for the values and sacred cows of the left. Then to challenge their institutions and regulations. And then real political change can begin with candidates who are revolutionaries because they believe it, or because they are operating under a new paradigm that is outside the left's manufactured consensus. Most of the elements are already in place. --Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 PM | Your Say (6)

The Unfair is for Everyone

*Everyone* is unfairly rewarded, and punished, by the accidents of their births, and of their lives. The world is not fair. That's just the way it is. Trying to make the world less unfair can only be accomplished by making it unfair in some other way. There is conservation of fairness; it is a corollary of the conservation laws of physics. -- Kristor @ Louis-Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald, monarchist hero ォ Throne and Altar

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

The Leaf-Blower Paradox and the Fundamental Fallacy of Obamanomics

A normal person would look at this situation and say,
"What a monumental waste of effort. So much human labor for no purpose whatsoever; after all those man-hours, nothing has changed. All the leaves are back in their original positions." Obama would look at this same situation and say, “How can you claim that nothing was achieved? Forty-seven gardeners are now fully employed!" -- Zombie »

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:54 PM | Your Say (1)

"Political movements cannot promote their agendas without demonizing others..."

thereby polarizing whole societies. Time and again,
their targets have been those who have the skills and achievements that they lack. When they achieve their ultimate success, forcing such people out of the country, as in Uganda in the 1970s or Zimbabwe more recently, the whole economy can collapse. Against this international background, the current class warfare rhetoric in American politics and ethnic grievance ideology in our schools and colleges, can be seen as the dangerous things they are. Those who are pushing such things may be seeking nothing more than votes for themselves or some unearned group benefits at other people’s expense. But they are playing with dynamite. --Thomas Sowell, Inequality, Eugenics, and Envy | Crisis Magazine

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

The Deadly Learned Ignoramus

What is not so obvious, but is painfully true nonetheless,
is that colleges and universities can also turn out vast numbers of people with credentials, but with no marketable skills with which to fulfill their expectations. There is nothing magic about simply being in ivy-covered buildings for four years. In countries around the world, people with credentials but no marketable skills have been a major source of political turmoil, social polarization and ideologically driven violence, sometimes escalating into civil war. -- Thomas Sowell: Inequality, Eugenics, and Envy | Crisis Magazine

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

Whatever Happened to Curly?

240_Curly-HowardTitle1.jpg

After his second stroke, Curly was confined to a wheelchair,
but he soon recovered enough to move around himself. Interestingly, in these final days of Curly’s slightly improved health, he made a cameo appearance in a Three Stooges short (with his replacement, Shemp) called Hold That Lion. --Neatorama

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

I guess they want you to believe that he was just a godless Commie after all.

Missing From MLK Memorial: God The words “God,” “Jesus” and “Lord” — ever-present in King’s speeches and sermons — are carved nowhere in the stones of the memorial dedicated in his name.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:09 PM | Your Say (0)

What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City?

There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs. --Liberal extinction? - Cary Politics

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

Let this be The Black Square That Broke The Man’s Back.

You DIDN'T think we were going to shut the whole fucking site down today, did you? Really? You're one of them? You think your black squares and black pages will make a difference? -- STREET BONERS: "OK, FAGGOTS -- HERE'S YOUR STUPID BLACK SQUARE"
squareblack.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (2)

Laugh while you can, Internet monkey boys!

hannibal-lecter1.jpg

One or two day "strikes" aren't going to do much
as a long as the forces which are creating a gargantuan and intrusive state are at loose.  The administration may simply wait the "€˜Internet strike"€™ out and try again until they get what they want.  An activist government wielding ever-growing tools of central planning has its own dynamic. The rise of favored groups is an essential feature of a highly regulated economy. -- Belmont Club Fearful Symmetry

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:24 AM | Your Say (0)

Why the Republicans Will Die Off

Over the next few years I expect very bad things; things which require solutions, not illusions.
A Republican Party which holds all the levers of power, will shoulder all the blame. As for the Democratic Party, as long as it embraces redistributionism it will always have a natural constituency. It can never go away. In short, at the height of crisis, when Democrats offer only redistribution and Republicans have been repudiated, I expect that a third party will emerge. -- Bob Krumm 2012 Predictions

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (3)

Winston Knew

"There are 3 things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship. First, their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second, their service is superb. And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first." From The wit & wisdom of Winston Churchill: HT: R.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:55 AM | Your Say (1)

January 17, 2012

Pray, America. Pray that the zombie apocalypse comes early.

“Michelle Obama will run for the United States Senate in 2016 and she will be thereby mimicking, if that’s not the right word [then] duplicating the career of Hillary Clinton,” McLaughlin said. --New 2016 predictions will probably scare the sh*t out of you :: Naked DC

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:40 PM | Your Say (5)

The Unbearable Whiteness of Mitt

Both Republicans themselves and the slobber-mouthed media have done a good job of chewing up all of the other GOP contenders.
Rick Perry had “Niggerhead Ranch”, Gingrich is blowing his food stamp dog whistle, and Ron Paul had his newsletters. Bachmann, Cain, and Santorum have been marginalized for their own forms of bigotry. So that leaves Mitt. What to pin on Mitt?

Whiteness!
So pleasant neighborhoods, intact families, clean and tidy shirts, honesty, and optimism are all essentially white characteristics. If those are bad then what does Obama and Democrats envision as the new American ideal? -- Gucci Little Piggy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:22 PM | Your Say (3)

You've come a long way, baby

"In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats. Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape."
Why, exactly, should any man "prioritise women, expectant mothers and children"? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted?-- Vox Popoli:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:25 PM | Your Say (11)

What has happened to the Tea Party?

We don't have time to sit in a tent for weeks getting steadily more filthy while destroying a park.
We don't have the inclination to go protest over and over again. The elections last year were our voice, and we'll be heard from again, but we managed to stop the progress of the radical left and don't feel so enraged and frustrated any more. --Word Around the Net

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:18 PM | Your Say (1)

"Hegel was right..."

when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history." - George Bernard Shaw

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:09 PM | Your Say (0)

NPOV to POV

WIKIPEDIA-BLACKOUT-thumb-615x461-74871.jpg

The Discussion That Led to the Wikipedia Blackout Is Pretty Amazing
The decision to make English Wikipedia dark tomorrow -- to go from No POV to whoa, POV -- wasn't one that Wikipedians took lightly. It was, on the contrary, like almost everything that happens on Wikipedia, the result of extensive deliberation and debate. It was agonized over. Like, agonized.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (1)

Bitch Stole My Look!

Meryl_Streep_15Jan2012.jpg

And then there’s the perennial worst dressed award. It was awarded again, as it is perennially, to Meryl Streep who was stunned, as she is, perennially, that she won another Golden Globe. Meryl takes the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, wearing vintage Dale Evans. Michelle Obama's Mirror:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (4)

How Dead Is a Doornail?

doornail.jpg

We subjected a large doornail (see Figure 1) that was forged in 1986 to thorough examination, prolonged close observation, and an electroencephalogram (EEG).... -- Neatorama

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (3)

Where Poetry Matters: "Chinese dissident to stand trial for poem"

Chinese authorities have indicted veteran dissident Zhu Yufu on subversion charges for writing a poem urging people to gather to defend their freedoms,
"It's time, Chinese people!/ The square belongs to everyone/the feet are yours/it's time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice." -- World news China - msnbc.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:45 AM | Your Say (0)

January 16, 2012

"The left has found a new endangered species to be outraged about: Iranian nuclear scientists. "

spinsiranian.jpg

The left, which has all the moral sense of a squashed peanut, would like us to feel outraged
because someone somewhere has been knocking off the engineers of death in a project whose goal is genocide. Yet if you point out to them that just last week a member of the Iranian backed Hezbollah terrorist group was arrested in Thailand for plotting a terrorist attack, you can wait a week until they shrug. -- by Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:04 PM | Your Say (2)

13 Gun Rules

Doug-Giles.jpg

6. The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .357 is 1400 feet per second.

7. The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win – cheat if necessary. --The Daily Caller

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:05 PM | Your Say (4)

Newt Gingrich, natural woman

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. No one in the modern era, save maybe Lorena Bobbitt, has proved the axiom more true than our gal pal Newton Leroy Gingrich, who is now — let’s face it — a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. -- - NY Daily News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:00 PM | Your Say (0)

Menopause: "It is the fuck you of of life."

It’s hair in places hair has no business being, and itchy bits we can’t scratch in public unless we’re baseball players, and mood swings from “oooh, pretty kitten!” to “I will beat you to death with this cat if I see you put your feet on the coffee table one more fucking time, Ed, I fucking swear to gawd” in the blink of a hair-infested eye.--The Times, They Are A-Changin’. Fuck The Times.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (3)

We Are Stardust

Where did we come from? I find the explanation that we were made in stars to be deep, elegant, and beautiful. This explanation says that every atom in each of our bodies was built up out of smaller particles produced in the furnaces of long-gone stars. --The Technium

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

"The actual vocabulary of our present youth seems to me reduced to about 1,000 words or so."

"Like"€, "whatever"€, "you know"€, "cool" and other pop culture fillers now substitute for entire phrases,
a sort of modern porcine grunting. The Greeks used particles to accentuate vocabulary and guide syntax; we used them instead of vocabulary. Our syntax, both written and oral, is reverting to ‘Spot is a dog”: noun, verb, predicate—period. How did incomprehensible slang, spiced with vulgarity, become an object of emulation? --Works and Days » So Why Read Anymore?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:55 AM | Your Say (0)

"If racism didn't exist, the left would have to invent it. "

Because he has no awareness of race, he must first be made race-conscious,
and learn that people are supposedly categorizable on the basis of skin color; and that some people hate others on the basis of this distinction. But of course it makes no sense to him. To hear him explain it, we celebrate this holiday because brown kids can use the drinking fountain. -- One Cʘsmos: Of Moonbats & Moonshine: The Drunken Whinos of the Tenebriated Left

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

Jon Huntsman’s Hair Admits Defeat, Pledges Its Follicles To Romney’s Mane

Details at The Rumford Meteor

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

"Have you ever watched a series of speeches on the House floor?"

It takes a very special kind of person to watch lunacy in action and then decide to give the lunatics more control over your life. There are such special people, of course.
They are disproportionately congregated in Hollywood, on the campuses of the nation's colleges and universities and in the elite news media. What are the common characteristics all too many of them share? Arrested development (they never bothered to grow up), aversion to the rest of humanity (they really are elitists), a lack of common sense (they've never really managed anything) and a failure to master the syllogism (they approach the world emotionally, not logically). Here is something you need to understand: liberalism is not an ideology. It's a sociology. It's not a way of thinking. It's a way of responding to the world emotionally. -- Where Have All the Liberals Gone - John C. Goodman - Townhall Conservative [Emphasis added. HT: Morgan ]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:55 AM | Your Say (0)

THE UNKNOWN MARTIN LUTHER KINGS: MLK SR. & MLK III

3kings.jpg

Via STREET BONERS and TV CARNAGE サ

I imagine flying Martin Luther King, Jr. all over America today
would make him so pissed off from having to take his damn shoes and belt off for each damn flight, he'€™d finally just give up and decide to buy his own MacBook Air and some Wi-Fi so he can "relax and catch up with these times, Tyrone."€ Sadly, when we get to the Apple store, Dr. King breaks down into sobbing tears from exhaustion and frustration. What sets him off? People standing in blocks-long lines to buy iPhones as if it was food or the opportunity to vote. The last I hear from Martin Luther King is: "WE'RE SO DOOMED! WHAT DID I DO?! PUT ME BACK IN THAT DAMN FREEZER!" -- WHAT IF MLK SURVIVED?

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

Let's Review: Venture Capitalists Venture Capital

BurtPrelutsky.com: WITH CONSERVATIVES LIKE THESE…SANTORUM, GINGRICH AND PERRY, all condemned Mitt Romney’s Bain Financial for putting people out of work. If anyone should be sidelined, it’s Santorum, Gingrich and Perry.

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

January 15, 2012

The Richest 1% in the World

world-richest-one-percent.jpg

Did you make $34,000 last year? If so, congratulations! You're now part of the richest 1% in the world. -- Neatorama

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:00 PM | Your Say (4)

Trader Joe aka "Theo Albrecht of the Afrika Korps"

Theo Albrecht was also a former soldier in Hitler’s army. Albrecht spent his military service in the Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel.
Trader Joe’s will not admit that Albrecht or his family ever owned the grocery chain. It will also not concede that Joe Coulombe founded the business. The corporate Web site describes only a fantasy merchant named “Trader Joe” who opened the first store. Employees can be fired if they speak to a journalist about their job, and the corporation refuses to name the providers of the 3,000 or so Trader Joe’s-brand items on its shelves.... In another magazine Coulombe discovered that the earth’s biosphere was threatened. Overnight, he says, he became a self-professed “Green” and spliced the health food store and the gourmet store onto Trader Joe’s. -- Enchanted Aisles - Features - Los Angeles magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:41 PM | Your Say (4)

PRE$IDEBT

presidebt%204%20blog.jpg

Bosch Fawstin: Perfect typeO, someone on twitter mistyped Pre$idebt correctly.

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

"IP Streaming" -or- Zilla Saves Me the Keystrokes: "Take Your "Outrage" and SHOVE IT!"

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever side with genocidal, islamic supremacist, terrorist, primitive, ignorant, backward, evil savages
(who want to kill us, have killed us, and are plotting to kill us again at every opportunity), and their anti-American, limp-wristed, hand-wringing, gutless, yellow-bellied, lily-livered, spineless, sycophant enablers over our brave and heroic troops who risk and even sacrifice their lives every damned day for this country. Woe to those who are bitching and moaning because a couple of dead jihadi TERRORISTS got a little tinkle on their carcasses. Piss be upon them all. I pee on their "outrage". -- Zilla of the Resistance: Victory Tinkle Edition

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (9)

"The liberals and Democrats understand the long game;..."

they have been chipping away for decades. They don't see change in 4 year presidential term increments,
they look 40 years out. They realize that American politics are rarely an exercise in paradigm shifts, a rapid lurch to one side or the other. Political evolution, slow and steady, is the process by which long term change is implemented and cemented. Most conservatives want a tectonic shift in 2012 -- ain't gonna happen, folks. 2012 is just the next battle. -- What He Said « The Rio Norte Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (5)

Leonardo's Bag

aleonardoshandbag.jpg

As a tribute to the city of Florence, a city that has long been famous for its exquisite leather work, fashion house Gherardini has brought Leonardo's handbag to life. Designer Carla Braccialini designed the "Pretiosa" (meaning "precious" and yes, I am saying it like Gollum) bag based on Leonardo's drawing, and artisans made it by hand using luxury materials like embroidered calf leather and an embossed brass handle. -- Leonardo da Vinci, handbag designer

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 AM | Your Say (5)

Isn't a Bainful Turnaround What America Needs?

Outlays for all purposes came in at $874 billion, but income was only $554 billion. So the shortfall was $320 billion. No hope of a self-imposed turnaround here.
Indeed, both the senior management and the board of directors show no signs of making major changes to their business strategy. Hope for future profits? That's out of the question. The firms only chance of survival is a takeover. Worldwide employment for U.S. Government Inc. is estimated to be over 2 million, a completely unmanageable number for a venture like this. Total compensation for this company is roughly twice the level of its private-sector counterparts. And its retirement and health-insurance benefits are so large in relation to contributions paid that its benefit plans are careening toward insolvency. -- Larry Kudlow

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 AM | Your Say (3)

January 14, 2012

Note to Self

afootprintsonmoon.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:20 PM | Your Say (0)

"When I see Republicans or establishment conservatives uttering some vapid and dangerous idiocy...."

... such as Condoleezza Rice still blandly insisting, as the answer to every criticism of her policy,
that "everyone wants freedom," I no longer think, "This cannot last, this must be repudiated." Now I think, "She and others like her will continue saying such things until our society crashes." -- Small moves away from liberalism are not going to turn around the society as a whole

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:20 PM | Your Say (6)

I learn something new every day

Today? There are no muscles in the fingers.
"We work our fingers by remote control. Of course, in one sense, we work all of our moving body parts by remote control - the control center is our brain. However, the fingers are special, because there are no muscles inside the fingers. The muscles which bend the finger joints are located in the palm and up in the mid forearm, and are connected to the finger bones by tendons, which pull on and move the fingers like the strings of a marionette." "--Interesting facts about hands

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:45 PM | Your Say (4)

OOPS! Plan Ahead

"My little brother and I were counting my cash one day so I decided to let him have a little fun. I told him that he can keep whatever money he catches... He caught $57 of MY hard earned cash. Shoulda thought this one through more." -- Miss Cellania

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

The First Thing We Do is Beggar the Billionaires

These 400-odd people are worth over 10 trillion dollars. The way I figure it, all we need to do is confiscate all their money and we are nearly 70% of the way to eliminating the national deficit.
Frankly, I’m a wee bit surprised that with all the advisors and czars who make up this administration, it took an outsider to come up with this brainstorm. Of course it’s just possible that Valerie Jarrett or Van Jones suggested it, but once Obama saw so many of his friends and supporters on the list, he had no option but to nip it in the bud. -- BurtPrelutsky.com: SOLVING THE DEFICIT

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:31 PM | Your Say (2)

Pissing on the Pentagon

Not unreasonably, serving soldiers are weary of unwon wars — of going to war with everything except war aims and strategic clarity.
I would hazard that the recent video of U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses is a coarser comment on the same psychosis, and the folly of fighting a determined and murderous enemy by distributing to your officers bulk orders of that charlatan’s bestseller Three Cups of Tea. There is a logical progression from three cups of sweet tea to those acts of micturition that the Pentagon would do well to ponder. -- Mark Steyn - National Review Online


Or, as Doug Ross puts it: "Just so I get this straight: defecating on a police car is patriotic; peeing on terrorist murderers un-American."

120114-ows-defecating-on-police-car-vs-marines-pissing-on-taliban3.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:29 PM | Your Say (5)

Winner!

the_real_99_percent.jpg

The Looking Spoon: A Conservative Humor, Satire and Commentary Blog is in the semi-finals at IOTW

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Comment of the Week: "If that person is Ron Paul I'm going to a bar and beat someone up...."

In November I will vote, and I will vote for the person on the ballot, for the office of POTUS, who is NOT Obama.
If that person is Ron Paul I'm going to a bar and beat someone up, I won't want to, I will have to. I live in Massachusetts, I've voted for Romney in the past, and for the exact same reasons, it did very little good. Curse me if you want since I voted for the man who gave us Obamacare-Lite, I deserve it. If you wish to know my political beliefs it is this: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. On the road to tyranny, we've gone so far that polite political action is about as useless as a miniskirt in a convent." - Claire Wolfe, 101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution John the River in "Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S." (And, of Late, the Dumbest) @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:54 AM | Your Say (2)

The Achievements of Barack Obama

Lunch with Victor Davis Hanson Just had lunch with Victor. One bon mot among many:

When you think about it, Obama has kept the detention camp at Guantanamo. He's going ahead with military tribunals. And where Bush only waterboarded three terrorists, Obama has used drones to execute about 2,600. Obama's sort of growing on me.

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

Life on the Line continues... 2012. Unreal...

level390.jpg

Flight Level 390: Jumping Wake Turbulence
Yikes! We are blowing through 80 knots. I am supposed to call that out... Eighty, uh... ninety, hundred knots. Wow-ee! Thisbaby is getting with it! Not an approved call out, but... The gap between 80 knots and V1 is covered in two, maybe three heart beats; she is ready to fly. I call out vee one rotate five knots before V1. When the last syllable is out of my mouth, we are 20 knots past V2. The Electric Jet leaves a rolling vortex of runway dust as she leaps into the cool night sky.

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

January 13, 2012

"WHAT DOES IT LIMIT AGAIN?"

Obama to ask for 1.2 trillion increase in debt limit. -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:22 PM | Your Say (2)

Not-So-Gay About Marriage

Ironically, a young generation that considers the struggle for same-sex marriage the civil rights struggle of its day is choosing to avoid the marital estate.
Young people fiercely desire that the marital institution become more inclusive. They insist that this will strengthen the institution. At the same time, more and more of them are scrupulously avoiding it. -- Had Enough Therapy?: Home Alone, For Better or For Worse

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (1)

Delighting in Rockwell

aarockwelltobeach.jpg

I must confess to an intellectual sin. I delight in the paintings of Norman Rockwell. ....

What do I find here, that is so lacking in the pagan world, whether old or new? The delight in being, first of all. It’s as if the boy and the old man could cry out to the ordinary natural world of ponds and fields and leaves, “How good it is that you exist!” They would therefore agree with the philosopher Joseph Pieper, except that no doubt they don’t read philosophy, having better things to do on a hot summer afternoon. -- What Makes Norman Rockwell Possible? | Crisis Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:44 AM | Your Say (7)

Scientific Gibberish Watch

The Maverick Philosopher is on the job pointing out well-educated idiots with Why Do Some Physicists Talk Nonsense about Nothing?
Sample gibber: "The old idea that nothing might involve empty space, devoid of mass or energy, or anything material, for example, has now been replaced by a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles, popping in and out of existence in a time so short that we cannot detect them directly." -- Physicist and Drool-Cup Wearer Lawrence M. Krauss

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (4)

January 12, 2012

Roger Simon Recants: "I fell for Rick Perry, a man less qualified, it turns out, to be president than my dead grandmother."

I hoped there would be a new Newt and indeed it looked as if there might be until Romney's Super PAC started to say some nasty things.
Then the old Newt returned -- in spades. An angry warthog emerged, snorting across the public stage, unable to control his emotions. Who would want such a person in the White House? -- Roger L. Simon » Never Trust a Pundit, Especially Me

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 PM | Your Say (7)

Newt Gingrich thinks a lot about elephants

I earnestly believe Newt could be a more fun nominee
than the Mitt Romneybot 9000. Sure, he may not be able to win, doesn’t have the potential to rake in the millions in Wall Street cash he’ll need to steal from the Democrats and hasn’t really had much of a life since 1996, but he’d waste you on elephant facts in a debate, that’s for sure. -- Naked DC

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

Double Jeopardy

This simple poster -- €“one of those "picture says a thousand words" images €“is making the rounds on the interwebs right now.  -- Power Line
333x600xDouble-Jeopardy-copy.jpg.pagespeed.ic.EnaD3N8crS.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:21 PM | Your Say (10)

The Demented Progs of Austin

The main activists leading the anti-bag revolution appear to be an impoverished crew of devoted Hackensack's who've garnered the financial support of those who love their expensive luxuries.
The hip money backing this current wave of insanity reside in high six figure, inner city homes, revel in the weird, their lack of children (no breeders here!) and brag over the two hemp bag's worth of organic groceries they fill once a week at Whole Foods or the Barton Creek Farmer's Market. It's all about aesthetics, popular lifestyle and the latest cause de jour for these progressive, environmental vanguards. -- Progressive Ignorance ォ Jaded Haven

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 PM | Your Say (1)

Oh great. Another generation of bastards.

Obama, according to the White House transcript, talked about “The first bill I signed — a bill that said that we’re going to have equal pay for equal work because I want my daughters treated the same way as my sons.” -- Sense of Events: Does Obama have other children? Well, none to speak of

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:12 PM | Your Say (1)

That Old Barack Magic: "Nearly 1 Million Workers Vanished Under Obama"

According to the BLS, the "labor force participation rate" — the ratio of the number of people either working or looking for work compared with the entire working-age population —
is now 64%, down from 65.7% when the recession ended in June 2009. That's the lowest level since women began entering the workforce in far greater numbers several decades ago. If you adjust for this drop, the unemployment rate would be close to 11%, instead of the official 8.5%. -- Investors.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:04 PM | Your Say (1)

Earth to Perry / Newt: STFU!

Republicans attacking Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital got a stern rebuke Thursday from the Chamber of Commerce.
Chamber president Tom Donohue said the attacks on the Republican frontrunner are "foolish" during the group's "State of American Business 2012" event in Washington. ..."I was very disappointed with the intramural carrying on within the Republican party," said Donohue, who wields substantial power in Washington's corridors of power. -- Chamber of Commerce's Donohue condemns GOP attacks on Romney - Jan. 12, 2012

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:11 PM | Your Say (1)

The Green Parasites

megarhyssa_fem_008_small.jpg

Meanwhile other organisms unburdened by parasites grow apace. Sooner or later things reach the point where the parasite-ridden host
loses its apex role in the ecosystem.  And then surprise, surprise: they no longer make way from the former king of the hill. President Obama probably never believed that Canada could take its business elsewhere. But it happens. Like California, like Detroit -- like all the places to which the leeches have attached themselves --€” a glorious past is no guarantee of an assured future.  Sooner or later things get bled dry and even the leeches move elsewhere. --Belmont Club » The Ichneumon Wasp

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:56 PM | Your Say (0)

It is fashionable these days to decry "food miles."

Two economists recently concluded, after studying the issue,
that the entire concept of food miles is a "profoundly flawed sustainability indicator." Getting food from the farmer to the shop causes just 4% of all its lifetime emissions…A New Zealand lamb, shipped to England, requires one-quarter as much carbon to get on to a London plate as a Welsh lamb; a Dutch rose, grown in a heated greenhouse and sold in London, has six times the carbon footprint of a Kenyan rose grown under the sun using water recycled through a fish farm, using geothermal electricity and providing employment to Kenyan women. -- Eat Global, Not Local | Ben Casnocha

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

The "I-Don't-Give-A-Damn" Question of the Month

Who's killing Iranian nuclear scientists? - CNN.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (3)

Setting the Treadmill to 3.5 MPH from Here On

How Fast Does the Grim Reaper Walk ?
The Grim Reaper’s preferred walking speed is 0.82 m/s (2 miles (about 3 km) per hour) under working conditions. As none of the men in the study with walking speeds of 1.36 m/s (3 miles (about 5 km) per hour) or greater had contact with Death, this seems to be the Grim Reaper’s most likely maximum speed; for those wishing to avoid their allotted fate, this would be the advised walking speed.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:01 PM | Your Say (4)

The 3 major points as stated by Bolton

“I think Gov. Romney is the person who can [1] best lead the party, [2] best articulate our conservative principles and is [3] most likely to beat Barack Obama,” Bolton told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. -- John Bolton endorses Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run - Emily Schultheis - POLITICO.com [Emphasis added]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:58 AM | Your Say (3)

"The scientific method is also a tool."

It is a tool for finding closer and closer approximations to the way parts of our universe work.
It can also be used to justify decisions about coercing others, from warfare to domestic regulation, and decisions about how to follow regulations. It can justify demands for money inside a hierarchy like government, and demands that funding for projects be refused by the government. It can justify political campaigns for taxation, and subsidy. The problem is, after you’ve done all those things with it, it rapidly becomes a poorer and poorer tool to find those approximations for how parts of our universe work. -- It’s the coverup, not the crime | Behind The Black

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:38 AM | Your Say (0)

Head Start A 50 Year Flop

Defenders of Head Start say less about what it does for kids (essentially nothing)
but about the jobs it creates in poor neighborhoods. This is blue liberal thinking at its most self-parodic: we can't develop social programs that will accomplish something worthwhile, but we can at least use the illusion that such programs work to create jobs for people who will then vote for the politicians who give them make work jobs. -- Say It Ain't So, Joe | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (3)

A Hypothetical

Suppose a Supreme Court justice died suddenly. Could Obama simply make a recess appointment to the Supreme Court over a weekend, declaring the Senate to be out of session, say, right before the Obamacare case is heard? -- Law & Order, Obama Style | Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (2)

"Do Not Confuse Me With Them"

"I've studied the disease, I've lived in the swamp.
It is my informed conclusion that we are suffering, as an ex-great nation, from top-down corporate rot. And that's not just the judgement of an ailing old fart. A lot of people in my Service make a profession of not seeing things in black and white. Do not confuse me with them. I'm a late-onset, red-toothed radical with balls. Still with me?" -- John le Carré , Our Kind of Traitor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (3)

Fashion Fakeout: Yes, I know. I too thought it was a parody when I saw it but noooooo....

runwaytowin1400x212_thumb.jpg

Butt our BFFs in fashion have banded together (legally, this time, I think) to create an entire new line of fashion-forward apparel to be offered exclusively on our Victory 2012 reelection site.
We proudly announce another historic first! "In the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out Obama-inspired designs by everyone from Tracy Reese to Jason Wu to Tory Burch ..." --Michelle Obama's Mirror: Run-a-way Win: It's all Legal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (2)

Obama/Gingrich 2012

Obama/Gingrich — the sound of such a political union has a rich ring, in spite of what one knows already about Barack Obama;
namely, he understands the futility of joining forces with a fellow know-it-all. Newton Leroy Gingrich is anything but the easiest man in America to live with — as two ex-wives might some day be induced to explain. --Newt, the Democratic Mole | Crisis Magazine

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

January 11, 2012

Michelle Obama is pissed off she's labeled as "angry"

First lady Michelle Obama is challenging assertions she's forcefully imposed her will on White House aides and says people have inaccurately tried to portray her as "some kind of angry black woman." -- - CBS News
sourmichells.jpg

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:25 PM | Your Say (13)

"Life" in 3 Words

Trifanov analyzed the linguistic structure of 150 definitions of life,
grouping similar words into categories. He found that he could sum up what they all have in common in three words. Life, Trifonov declares, is simply self-reproduction with variations. -- Can A Scientist Define "Life"? By Carl Zimmer | Txchnologist

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:51 PM | Your Say (2)

"The problem with all the the tree huggers and ethnic preservationists is that they haven’t spent enough time in the woods and in the villages."

Where you sleep on a mat with the dusk because there's no lighting, watch your child die because
there's no medicine; where you're trapped trapped for days in your hut while the monsoon rain turns the trails into rivers of water so strong they can carry you off or kill you from hypothermia in the tropics. Because if they had to and could never leave, then they too might think of asking the next visitor to fantasy island and say, "€œwhy don't you treat me like a white fella". Or better yet, "€œplease treat me like a Chinaman"€. --Belmont Club » The Human Zoo

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:51 PM | Your Say (4)

And then you see the need to execute all in the EPA by yesterday....

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law. But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:45 PM | Your Say (1)

WHO WOULDN'T ENJOY FIRING THESE PEOPLE?

Mitt Romney got into trouble for saying, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." To comprehend why the political class reacted as if Romney had just praised Hitler, you must understand that his critics live in a world in which no one can ever be fired -- a world known as "the government." -- Ann Coulter - January 11, 2012 -

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

The Filthy Greens

The "green" agenda of running back technology and industry would result in more, not less pollution.
As it turns out, it would result in more disease, more poverty, and more war as well, as our ability to survive requires more space and resources, and we start clashing with neighbors over wood and other more basic fuel sources. -- Word Around the Net: AMONG THE NATION'S WORST AIR QUALITY

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

Computers Vs Humans: State of Play

staeofplaycomputerhuman.jpg

Comic panel by the ever popular XKCD!

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:47 PM | Your Say (5)

Some Greens Have Money for $200 "Recyled Denim" Denims

Nudie-x-Barneys-tags.jpg

The "Post Recycle Dry" jean is made up of old Nudie Jeans denim,
which is then cut, milled down to a pulp and blended with virgin organic cotton. Due to the recycling process and the material's subsequent natural irregularities, the denim takes on a distinctive slubby look up close, but from afar maintains a clean, vibrant blue hue. By dropping the signature bright stitching they've become known for over the past decade, Nudie keeps all attention on the denim itself. --Nudie Jeans and Barneys New York

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:09 PM | Your Say (1)

On the insidious leveling effects that we simply do not tally up in our discussion of rich and poor

Works and Days » Mr. Obama's 99% -- Are We Poor or Just Unequal or Both or Neither? For all John Edwards'€™ talk of "two nations," of Barack Obama's lifelong effort to demonize "corporate jet owners"
and "millionaires and billionaires"€ (the latter 1000 times wealthier than the former), for all the sociologists and economists who get tenure by writing obscure, clever little essays that few read on insidious class differences, the classes have never been closer. Globalization, rapidly advancing technology, the Chinese exporters, and a huge redistributive government, printing money to service $16 trillion in debt, have all accomplished what bureaucrats and politicos could not: the simulacra of equality.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (2)

January 10, 2012

CNN’s Political Team Has It Covered

new-nicki-minaj-photos-2.jpg

WOLF BLITZER: Welcome to back to the CNN Election Center, right now, and our continuing coverage of the 2012 Republican presidential primary. I’m Wolf Blitzer, and I’m here in the CNN World Headquarters, which houses, but is not the same as, the CNN Election Center, with CNN’s political team, starting with Roland Martin, David Gergen, and Dana Loesch, right now, and James Carville live via satellite from Washington, James Carville. We’ll also be checking in with Alex Castellanos and Erick Erickson in New Hampshire, Erin Burnett, Gloria Berger and John King over in the CNN Studios in Atlanta, and in the Situation Room, we’ve got Anderson Cooper, Ali Velshi, and Piers Morgan, who will be breaking off at the top of the hour to form his own rogue panel with Ari Fleischer, Dana Bash, Amy Holmes, Isha Sesay, Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, actress January Jones, and pop star Nikki Minaj, all as part of CNN’s America’s Choice 2012 coverage from the CNN Election Center, right now, Nikki Minaj. -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: .

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:07 PM | Your Say (2)

Haircuts of the Losers!

Newt Gingrich looks like he’s wearing a bowl of boxed mashed potatoes on top of his fat watermelon face. Rick Perry parts his greasy mop in the middle, like a mental patient. Rick Santorum probably walks into his barber shop and says, “Give me the Bob Saget.” I could go on and on. Those hapless losers might as well be completely bald, like Donald fucking Trump. --McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue: Mitt Romney’s Haircut Will Not Be Denied.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:03 PM | Your Say (1)

"I am Mitt Romney’s haircut. This is my year, and I will not be denied."

"Barack Obama may be the incumbent, but it’s only fair to point out that he’s at a severe disadvantage.
It was a cheap victory, him taking old man John McCain and his pathetic Giuliani comb-over to the woodshed. In 2012 he’s up against the greatest ivy league/pompadour hybrid ever seen in American politics. And for this epic battle, the president has equipped himself with a buzz cut? I understand, his options are limited. But let’s at least make it interesting. Hit me with a fade, a high-and-tight, a flat-top." -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:01 PM | Your Say (3)

The Future Diet of the United States

aacows.jpg

"Our beef comes from 100 percent free range cows that are allowed to enjoy their local environment and only feed on local produce." --VICE DOs & DON'Ts

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:26 PM | Your Say (3)

Tebow Riots Begin

One playoff win and the simmering rage and pent-up violence kicks off. The mosque burnings, gay bashing and banishing of immigrants will commence in accordance with each Broncos win. -- | Jammie Wearing Fools

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

Our Sponsor: The Schticky -- "Got a problem with that shedding pussy?"

"Three years after being arrested for beating a hooker, Vince Offer is back with this first infomercial since the ShamWow and Slap Chop."
vince-offer-schticky.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (7)

The "Screw with Children's Childhood" Project Continues with the Most PC Comic Book in the Known Universe

aarchiecover.jpg

When it comes to shameless pandering, this Archie's got it all! Wounded vet! Therapist! African American! Gay! Nuptials!
"Kevin Keller is shown to have followed in his Army father's footsteps – in images released to CNN, readers learn that he served in the military and was injured while serving in Iraq. He meets Dr. Clay Walker while in a hospital’s rehabilitation unit. Clay helps Kevin regain his ability to walk, and the two become friends. But it's not until a chance meeting in an airport that they start dating." -- Wedding bells for Archie Comics' gay character – GeekOut

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

Meghan McCain: Keeping Her Brainless Blonde Myth Alive with an "Emoticon of Privacy" [Bumped]

I'm not going to cut her even a modicum of slack about this.

Or as Morgan says: "Current operating theory: Everyone who’s ever suggested Sarah Palin is a blithering idiot, is a blithering idiot. Waiting for it to be proven wrong. Hasn’t happened yet."

Updated by Jewel who says, "Give the girl her malaprops. You all misunderestimate her."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (14)

Pertinent Questions

To begin, I will ask the following questions of the candidates, and for that matter of Mr. Obama, and of the Secretary of Defense, a generic bureaucrat.
Can you explain: Convergence zones, base bleed, Kursk, range-gate pull-off, artillery at Dien Bien Phu, IR cross-over, Tet and queen sacrifice, Brahmos 2, CIWIS, supercruise, side-lobe penetration, seven-eighty-twice gear, super-cavitating torpedoes, phased arrays, pulse Doppler, the width of Hormuz versus the range of Iranian cruise missiles, DU, discarding sabot, frequency agility, Chobham armor, and pseudo-random PRF? These, gentlemen, are the small talk of serious students of the military.... If you are unfamiliar with them, and with the things listed above, you are unfamiliar with the military. Yet you campaign for possession of the trigger. -- Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (5)

Debates: "Let’s put an end to the interlocutors."

RepublicanCandidatesPoliticalRace2012.jpg

We don't need media filters -- left, right or center.
I am not interested in Jane Pauley. I am not interested in Chris Wallace. I get to see plenty of them. I am not interested either in supposedly random questions chosen (by whom?) from Facebook or Twitter. I am interested in the candidates and what they have to say to each other -- mano-a-mano -- in the style of Lincoln and Douglas. -- Roger L. Simon » Contraceptives, Stephanopoulos, and What To Do About the Debates

Then, ten days later (or, in this case, the following morning) there they all are again
acquiescing in some condescending media bigfoot’s wish to spend 20 minutes discussing whether the Supreme Court has a right to ban diaphragms for transgendered adoptees or whatever hallucinogenic George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer were chugging down in the green room last night. --Debate Night in the Titanic Ballroom - By Mark Steyn

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

January 9, 2012

The Fear, The FEAR!

Poll: Americans, 2-1, Fear Obama's Reelection In our New Year's poll, when asked what news event they fear most about 2012, Americans by a margin of two-to-one said Obama's reelection. Only 16 percent said they fear the Democrat won't win a second term, while 33 percent said they fear four more years.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:16 PM | Your Say (5)

Conservatism: It Too Thirsts for Death

The supine acquiescence and collaboration in centralizing government over the last 3 decades has led to the point where a candidacy like Obama's was not only possible but inevitable.
His election is a symptom, not the primary cause of it of what ails the body politic. The man himself can't be blamed for taking his ambitions and ideology as far as they will go. It is those who let him pass that shows how low the rot within what passes for conservatism has fallen. -- Belmont Club - The Fault in Our Stars

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:01 PM | Your Say (5)

"ONE LESS VOTE FOR RON PAUL:"

Wisconsin Man, Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, Arrested on Drug Charges
beezow-doo-doo-zopittybop-bop-bop.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:58 PM | Your Say (3)

Early Military Training

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:28 PM | Your Say (2)

We need dark matter.

For starters, it is a form of cosmic glue
that binds our galaxy together and provides the necessary gravitational force for galaxies to cluster around one another. If dark matter does not exist, it means that our understanding of gravity on the largest scales is wrong. -- Dark matter mysteries: a true game of shadows - 09 January 2012 - New Scientist

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 AM | Your Say (5)

The eternal temptation to ban things that give people pleasure

Modern-Day Prohibition and why bans on substances are doomed from the start.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:02 AM | Your Say (0)

Who Says There's No Good News?

Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age' In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:37 AM | Your Say (0)

Is there not one ethical, courageous Democrat?

All signs point to "Nope." | RedState

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (4)

All historical periods have their share of stupidities, man being what he is.

The danger in ours -- because it is spiritually fatal -- is to regard the world as nothing more than a reflection of our lowest way of knowing it. -- One Cʘsmos: Where there's Holy Smoke there's Celestial Fire

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:39 AM | Your Say (0)

"No one predicted this. Star Trek didn't see it coming. "

But the future arrives in leaps and half-steps; one day you realize it's not remarkable to call someone on the other side of the country from your pocket communicator as you leave the plane, and a year later you're cursing the wifi at the airport because your two-way video feed is stuttering. --LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:06 AM | Your Say (1)

“Ron Paul: We have you surrounded. We are the media,”

boothead.jpg

sounded the voice from a megaphone as Paul staffers ushered him into a waiting SUV, just minutes after he arrived at the restaurant.
Holding the megaphone was a man dressed roughly as a wizard, with shaggy hair and tousled beard, wearing a massive black boot upside down on his head. [ ....who challenged him and President Obama to a "panty-wrestling match to decide it all." The man, who goes by the name "Vermin Supreme" got 41 votes in the 2008 New Hampshire Primary.] -- Media mob chases Ron Paul from campaign stop in New Hampshire - The Hill's Ballot Box

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (2)

Islamic terrorism is the most democratic and representative form of war there is.

There is no draft. No government mandate. And no compulsion but that of the Koran.
Of course in territories under their control, becoming a Jihadist sometimes is compulsory. But that certainly isn't the case in the West. While Western diplomats chatter about democracy, the Muslim votes with his bomb vest. And his vote is the decisive one.... we face a war of extermination waged against us with every available weapon from demographics to atomics. -- Daniel Greenfield

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (1)

January 8, 2012

Needful Things

letmein2.jpg

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

Endless Fun for Nerds of Simple Minds Like Me

The Restart Page Make it full screen if you can.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:05 PM | Your Say (3)

"The narrative is stale."

There are no more riveting ups and downs of the economy; just downs.
There is no longer the parade of diplomatic cliffhangers; they've all gone over the cliff. Where once newspapers could titillate audiences with stories of derring-do on the moon, reportage is now reduced to describing NASA questioning whether the surviving astronauts have the legal right to sell memorabilia. -- Belmont Club You've Lost That Loving Feeling

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:55 PM | Your Say (0)

How could I have missed this dream candidate?

I must have been sleeping when Glenn Reynolds but this one forward: Instapundit -- INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY: Even With His Baggage, Gingrich Is Better Than Obama. So true. Of course, so is Zeeba The Syphilitic Camel.
zeebacamel.jpg

Looking more appealing with every passing day. And you can be sure that Zeeba would bury folks like George Stephanopoulos in a mound of dung. Now that's a vote getter!

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:00 PM | Your Say (0)

Sexton: "Everyone Will Crawl"

I climbed up on the mountain
And I snuck up on the man
With my notebook of stone
Wide open and my chisel in my hand.

I said how come things are so tough
Down here? How come we all must fall?
He said, "How you gonna learn to walk,
How you gonna learn to run,
How you gonna learn to fly,
Until you learn to crawl?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:18 PM | Your Say (0)

Women are betting it ALL on a continued long run of prosperity, safety, security, and comfort.

Marriage does not work for women now, because they assume the stability and power of the West is eternal.
Never threatened, always "boring." This is a poor bet, and likely to work out disastrously in fairly short order. Food, oil, and other resources are tight globally, and an external shock (and there is ALWAYS an external shock) in the global system will push everything over. -- Whiskey's Place: The Modern View of Marriage

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

"It is the horrible genius of American culture,

"broadcast to the farthest reaches of the world, to wrap up decadence in seeming normality."-- The Thinking Housewife › All Schools Will be Required to Promote Homosexuality

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:45 AM | Your Say (0)

January 7, 2012

You don't see Korean or Vietnamese immigrants risking their lives to make it to America,

only to complain after they get here that all the slack is gone. Why? Because they appreciate slack and know how to use it. Indeed, if not for state sponsored racial discrimination, most of the students in the UC system would be Asian. -- One Cʘsmos: Restless Brain Syndrome and the Quest for the Perfect Word

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

Have you ever wondered how likely – or unlikely – it is that you exist?

Binazir calculates just how improbable it was that the right sperm from your father hooked up with the right egg produced by your mother
-- by his estimate, it's about one chance in 400 quadrillion (that number seems only slightly more tame in scientific notation: 4 x 10^17).  And that’s hardly the whole battle:  To even get to that stage, all of your ancestors, going all the way back to the beginning of life on Earth, had to survive to reproductive age.  Multiplying the string of probabilities together, he concludes that the odds of your existence are an astronomical one in 10^2,685.000. -- Life, the Universe, and Everything: What are the Odds? | MIT SciWrite

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:06 PM | Your Say (4)

First, Kill All the Comedians

Comedy is the perfect profession for modern liberal materialists and atheists
who make an ideology and a movement out of taking nothing seriously. Unsurprisingly, nearly all stand-up comics nowadays are either hardcore liberals or entirely apolitical*, and are almost universally venomous, hateful, ignorant dicks. -- First, Kill All the Comedians

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

Atheism is like AIDS:

it robs you of the ability to repel invading viruses, philosophical or mental, by crippling the spiritual version of your immune system. -- Fresh from Radio Derb | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:54 PM | Your Say (2)

Worst of all, a growing proportion of the people who run the institutions of our country have never known any other culture.

Tocqueville, when explaining why the American system ensured that a despot could never successfully divide Americans against each other, wrote that
“local freedom . . . perpetually brings men together, and forces them to help one another, in spite of the propensities which sever them. In the United States, the more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the people. On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: they listen to them, they speak to them every day.” That’s not true any more. Our propensities do sever us, and the new upper class shows no inclination to reach out across the widening divide. -- Belmont & Fishtown by Charles Murray - The New Criterion

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:50 PM | Your Say (0)

Any recovery at all will be done through Craigslist. Selling expertise, one bit a time, and pocketing the cash money.

Whiskey's Place: Where the Jobs Aren't: the Growth of the Craigslist/Moonshine Economy
A few seasonal jobs in December does not a recovery make. Consumers don't have suddenly a lot of money in their pocket. There is no big hiring spree. No massive ship building program as in Reagan's early defense budget. No cheap oil promoting economic activity. No gas price and electricity price drops putting more money in consumer's pockets. Indeed the EPA's rules on coal plants promise to raise electricity rates dramatically over the next few months.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:44 PM | Your Say (0)

How to Clone Mineral Water

After acquiring your terroir by mail order,
you then simply weigh and measure your ingredients, dissolve them in your tap water, and play around with your Sodastream in order to match the level of carbonation (and thus acidity). After just twenty minutes aging in bottle, your guests will be enjoying the citrusy top notes characteristic of Badoit, the pleasant mineral tang of Perrier, or the slight saltiness of Vichy.. -- Edible Geography

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (0)

"In 2008, the Left gleefully mocked Sarah Palin’s live baby. It was only a matter of time before they moved on to a dead one."

Santorum’s respect for all life, including even the smallest bleakest meanest two-hour life, speaks well for him,
especially in comparison with his fellow Pennsylvanian, the accused mass murderer Kermit Gosnell, an industrial-scale abortionist at a Philadelphia charnel house who plunged scissors into the spinal cords of healthy delivered babies. Few of Gosnell’s employees seemed to find anything “weird” about that: Indeed, they helped him out by tossing their remains in jars and bags piled up in freezers and cupboards. Much less crazy than taking ’em home and holding a funeral, right? -- The Left’s So-Called Empathy - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

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

There's something about this year's crop of Repug candidates that make some people want to relax with a small shooting spree.

Rick Perry Unwinds Before New Hampshire Debate At Texas Firing Range



ht_rick_perry_shooting_range_ll_120106_wblog.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (3)

If she'd just been into three-ways Rahm Emanuel would still be president.

'The Obamas': Book Reveals Friction Between Rahm Emanuel, Michelle Obama

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (3)

January 6, 2012

Another example of the unparalleled genius of capitalism

[Papa B] reports: "A bowling alley in Florida is doing record business despite a bad economy. The alley reports a record number of 300 games." Its secret?
120106-obama-bowling-alley.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:09 PM | Your Say (4)

9 Paradoxes of Illegal Immigration

The Paradox of the Reconquista. Some Hispanics claim that the Southwest and California were 'stolen' from Mexico by the gringos.
Well, suppose that this vast chunk of real estate had not been 'stolen' and now belonged to Mexico. Then it would be as screwed up as the rest of Mexico: as economically indigent, as politically corrupt, as crime-ridden, as drug-infested. Illegal immigrants from southern Mexico would then, in that counterfactual scenario, have farther to travel to get to the U.S., and there would be less of the U.S. for their use and enjoyment. -- Maverick Philosopher:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:56 PM | Your Say (2)

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

Emo kid after his father's murder on 9/11 in the Twin Towers goes on an emo quest to find some key.
Not avenge his father, not even express anger at those who murdered him. Because above all we can't have a White boy expressing anger or even worse, hatred for those who murdered his father and ruined his life. Instead we get a boy who will grow up Extremely Emo and Incredibly Effeminate. This is by design. -- Whiskey's Place: Incredibly Emo and Extremely Effeminate

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:13 PM | Your Say (0)

NBC Considering New Series: Suicidal Unfrozen Caveman Topless Coffee Shop Arson Witness In Hospital Scrubs On Bath Salts Robber

AUGUSTA, Maine — A key witness in the trial that convicted a Winthrop man of torching a topless coffee shop in Vassalboro attempted suicide Thursday at the Kennebec County Jail. Read alll about it at The Rumford Meteor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Innovation Meets Google Translation

Birdhouse-for-bats.jpg

The Birdhouse for Bats:
Created for and inspired by a small animal like a bat, which have the dichotomy of serving effectively as insectivorous as symbolic, much to his regret, the demons hidden from man. Today in unequal struggle against the imbalance we have caused in their habitat and their existence statement. Mus is a decorative object that represents a facet of the design criteria, debtors often forgotten values ​​symbology as the survival of endangered animals.

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

Help Wanted: Adult monitors for recess

16-obama-chavez%20copy_thumb%5B1%5D%5B7%5D.jpg

First, of course, was last week’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act that has some people’s head in a tizzy just because it gives Big Guy the power to suspend habeas corpus and detain U.S. citizens pretty much at will. Butt we don’t need to worry about that because Big Guy has assured us he won’t use those powers (unless he has to). -- Michelle Obama's Mirror:
0Mad1.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Comment of the Week: Callmelennnie in "The Boomers’ Buffet"

"I never bought into the boomer speil about Vietnam and how awful our fathers, who had to contend with a war ten times as lethal as Vietnam, were. Of course, that is where it all started.
Boomers, who were the first generation in history to be spared the terrors of seeing brothers and sisters and friends dying in large numbers due to childhood diseases were finally subjected to a true trial of life, and half the generation panicked. And when they carried on about it in front of their own parents they were met with a stone wall of indifference and even hostility -- and were told to STFU and go do their duty for God and country or be labeled a coward. And so to resolve this horrible Hobbesian dilemma, a lot of these boomers simply trashed God and country and Mom And Dad and heroism and manliness and every other value that would compel them to either go to war or feel bad about themselves. -- The Boomers’ Buffet: Diet for a Smaller Nation @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:14 PM | Your Say (6)

"Arthur 'Pinch' Sulzberger, Jr.,"

"who has presided over the Times' decline like a demented ship's captain
who rams a shoal of rocks and then turns around and does it all over again. As he made clear in his SUNY-New Paltz commencement speech (here), he imagines himself a crusading journalist-hero. He's actually another self-absorbed Baby Boomer who cannot imagine the validity of anything not remade in his own image and pandering to his own values. I will be amazed if the New York Times survives another five years in its present form. Surely it will be sold, revamped, or otherwise rescued. In the afterlife, Sulzberger will have to answer to his annoyed nineteenth-century ancestors, who may well ask what the hell went wrong with the family seed." --LFM Review: Page One, The New York Times & Modern Media Bias » LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:00 PM | Your Say (2)

I don't know about you but I think this whole bacon obsession kick has just about been done to death

BACONFLAG.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:46 PM | Your Say (2)

The Directions

directions.jpg

achineseleft.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:15 PM | Your Say (0)

January 5, 2012

The 14-year-old grabbed the family shotgun. Moments later he called 911: In the call, the teen says: ‘I just shot the man. He came around the corner. I shot him.'

aashtgun.jpg

The other three intruders fled; two have been caught.
That’s the thing about a shotgun: there is almost always another barrel. No one waits around for the second blast. Valuable as handguns may be, when it comes to self-defense, there is much to be said for a shotgun. -- A Week’s Worth of Self-Defense | Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:40 PM | Your Say (6)

Want to Put Iran Out of Business? Here's How

It has been estimated that the Iranian theocracy cannot fund its bloated bureaucracies, military and its welfare state if oil falls below around $40-$45/barrel. Drop oil to $25/barrel and keep it there, and the Iranian regime will implode, along with the Chavez regime in Venezuela. -- ZeroHedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:33 PM | Your Say (4)

Of course Iran wants War.

They crave it, as the only thing that can push oil prices high enough to pay for food,
and at the same time allow them unfettered ability to kill all domestic political opponents. It does not matter if they take terrible losses, they've had them before. A swarming attack, against a carrier battle group, preceded by days of false moves and provocations to wear down attention and attentiveness, can easily sink a carrier. Many in Iran think that doing so will cause the US to simply turn tail and run. Under Barack Obama, they may be right. -- Whiskey's Place: Obama's Military Cuts: Stupid or Hate America?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Obama: "The tide of war is receding."

The phrase "the tide of war is receding" is guaranteed to go down in history as one of the top ten stupidest things ever uttered by a Western leader, along with "Peace in Our Time!" and "We can do business with Mr. Hitler." -- Whiskey's Place: Obama's Military Cuts: Stupid or Hate America?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Where are all these American Nazis the news keeps warning us about?

When Nancy Pelosi’s daughter was starting out as a reporter for NBC, she told me they had her go undercover and join the KKK.
I managed to convince her to show me some of the footage she had secretly recorded, and I almost died of boredom. All she did was sit around, listen to lonely people bitch about their lives, and then go back to her bunk and worry. NBC ended up feeling just as bored and after putting her life in jeopardy for several weeks, they decided to throw the story in the garbage (though I love the idea that the Speaker of the House’s daughter is technically still a KKK member). -- Calling All American Nazis (Is This Mic On?) - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:19 PM | Your Say (1)

Meanwhile, Fratricide

obama_being_there_1-6-11_big.jpg

While the Republicans were tearing each other up in Iowa, to the delight of the liberal media, Barack Obama said not much at all from Hawaii.
He did not have to, given that no Republican was offering a simple anti-Obama plan to drill for gas and oil as never before, repeal Obamacare, balance the budget, reform the tax code, and redo Social Security and Medicare. Instead his would-be opponents argued over who voted for what fifteen years ago. -- Works and Days | Being There -- the Obama Sequel

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (2)

Joan of Argghh!'s Insanely Great Brain Spasm: Crescent Roll Waffles

crescentwaffles.jpg
Whump open the crescent rolls. Arrange one or two as best you can manage on a hot, non-stick waffle iron.
Square. Round. Who cares? You don't have time to be fancy, but I suppose you could try. Just get them on there, shut the lid. Wait for the first burst of steam to settle a bit and open it up. It takes about 90 secs to 2 minutes maybe. I didn't time it, neither should you because you can't hurt them by opening up the waffle maker and taking a gander at it. You should see a golden brown, light-as-a-feather, CRISPY waffle. -- Full technique @ Primordial Slack

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:16 PM | Your Say (4)

"The White House is simply bypassing the Constitution when hinders the transformation effort."

WHAT IF OBAMA WINS?

After all, the ends justify the means. This would become more prevalent and swifter in a second Obama term. He's been shown that there's basically nothing anyone can do if he chooses to violate the constitution. Conservatives shout and scream, but that doesn't matter, they don't like him to begin with. Congress mutters and gripes, but they'll never impeach another president in our lifetime. Courts hold him in contempt, but that doesn't matter.

cummingsplatotoldhim.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:31 PM | Your Say (5)

The Immortal Policies of Barack Hussain Obama

WHAT IF OBAMA LOSES?
To begin with, history teaches us that once a policy or agency, law, or major decision is made in Washington DC, it stays. It doesn't even matter how awful the decision is, it just lingers on and on and on like a horrible slow growing cancer in the heart of America. We still are paying taxes on telegraph lines to pay for the Spanish American war which ended in the 19th century.

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

"Spend of this nature is not unusual:" The $105,000 Bar Tab

Cavallicropped.jpg

The bill — confirmed by the club — is being seen as a sign that extravagance has returned to Dubai, which you might recall had some cash flow problems in 2009. According to the Cavalli Club’s operations manager, tabs of $105,000 or more are now commonplace. “Spend of this nature is not unusual at Cavalli Club,” he told the The National. -- - The Wealth Report - WSJ

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

And the third thing about God's call is...

God's call almost never corresponds, even remotely, with what you want to do.
Hence, any specific desire that exists, however slightly, in your heart that a subsequent divine call seems so wonderfully to endorse is almost absolutely not the voice of God but of the Deceiver. God's will is rarely appealing, at first. --Sense of Events: God's plan just fell apart, I guess

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (0)

Americans Fed Up with OWS

580x386xShit-is-fucked-up-and-bullshit-600x400.jpg.pagespeed.ic.jpg
Powerline's Occupy Poster Twink

Occupy Wall St. Hits Rock Bottom
Scott Rasmussen’s latest survey on OWS. Fifty-one percent of likely voters now see OWS as a “public nuisance,” while only 39% see them as “a valid protest movement representing the frustrations of most Americans.” There is still room for those numbers to get worse, which they will as long as the OWS crime spree continues.

No bottom to bullshit in America. Ever.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (0)

"Beware of the pat on the back / It just might hold you back"

Welfare -- social spending -- rose from 26% of the federal budget to 62% in the last 50 years.
This has taken away the incentive for moving on up. Hard work means less. Why study hard for a scholarship when you can take out a student loan and par–tay for 6 years (and then 3 more in grad school)? Why look for work when you get 2 years of unemployment? Why plant a garden when food stamps are free? --They killed upward mobility « Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:24 AM | Your Say (0)

"Midget Porn, Clown Porn, Girl-Fight Gang-Bang Porn"

hello-kitty-touchscreen-phone.jpg

When a 13-year-old girl can sit in math class, hide her Hello Kitty smart phone behind her textbook,
and pull up such an extreme video in less time than it would take her to text a vote for her favorite American Idol contestant, we’ve certainly reached some kind of new societal landmark. It’s important, however, to distinguish between what has changed and what hasn’t. -- Hard Core @ The Atlantic

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

"The weaker the hold of virtue on a people, the stronger the state needs to be."

Yet at the same time the state becomes stronger, it loses control of itself.
When the moral tone of a people declines, bureaucrats and the police are not exempt from the decay of morals. They steal; they abuse their authority; they manipulate the processes of the state to serve themselves and their favored clients. The courts become corrupt; the security services link up with the crime syndicates. Night falls. -- Yule Blog 2011-2012: Dwelling in Darkness, Seeing A Light | Via Meadia

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

The White House Youth Employment Agency: "Many of the positions would be unpaid training opportunities."

The White House is here for you. Gonna get you a job that doesn’t pay anything. And then you’ll say hooray, that President Obama got me a job that doesn’t pay anything! -- House of Eratosthenes

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:51 AM | Your Say (1)

January 4, 2012

Books That Are Never Done Being Written

RV-AF515_EBOOKS_G_20111230001946.jpg

The ability to alter the contents of a book will be easy to abuse. School boards may come to exert even greater influence over what students read. They'll be able to edit textbooks that don't fit with local biases. Authoritarian governments will be able to tweak books to suit their political interests. -- Nicholas Carr on E-Books - WSJ.com [Bumped]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:53 PM | Your Say (16)

Time for the Conservative Establishment to Spend a Week Effing Itself with an Atom Bomb

There are many furious headlines being written castigating Santorum
for somehow having sneaked under the radar without paying his dues by being lambasted by the conservative establishment for a week. The consensus is that he only almost won because all the other candidates crashed and burned. That might be true, but who tanked the other candidates? Aside from Cain, the liberal media hardly had to lift a finger. It was the gatekeepers of the establishment who did all the heavy lifting. .... The gossip website ethos of sensationalism and a predatory appetite for human failings trumping all else. -- The One True Anti-Romney by Daniel Greenfield

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

Best thing to come out of Mexico so far this year

Mexican Grand Warlock predicts Obama loss in 2012

If he's wrong he's going to have to take his hedge trimmer and go home.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:24 PM | Your Say (1)

Food and the Poor

"The peculiar evil is this: that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food …
When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit “tasty.” There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have a three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a two-penny ice cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea … Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be palliated. -- George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier,Cultivating Failure - Magazine - The Atlantic"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:17 PM | Your Say (0)

Stereotyping

stereotyping_pocketpuns.jpg

Via - Miss Cellania -

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:32 PM | Your Say (0)

THERE ARE NO DARWINISTS ANY MORE:

Hybrid Sharks Appear: No one who paid any attention would be surprised that there's no such thing as species. -- BrothersJudd Blog:

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

Excerpts From My 2012 Day-By-Day Mayan Calendar.

August 16th:
Today, head back the grocer’s and stock up on canned tunafish. You’ll need that protein to nourish your ever-weakening arms when all the fish of the world are on fire. -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:28 PM | Your Say (0)

What Governments Fear from the Internet

The Last Psychiatrist: Ocean Marketing Supports Obama
The government's claim is that we need increased security on the net to protect us from criminals, hackers, and terrorists, but that is the lie we all agree to believe. The real threat to the system, the one that will eventually result in the abolition of anonymity is the deepest fear of all Americans, it is so deep that it shaped the Constitution: tyranny of the majority.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:06 PM | Your Say (0)

Where American Christmas tree lights go to die. And be recycled.

Shijiao, a small town in Guangdong Province that, by estimation, qualifies as the Christmas Tree Light Recycling Capitol of the World. On an annual basis the town's recyclers import, and recycle, at last 20 million pounds of the lights. -- Shanghai Scrap China:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:50 PM | Your Say (0)

A Stationery Field Guide

Pens
So many pens. More than you will ever use. Biros, fountain pens, felt tips pens, highlighters. And, of course, rollerballs – the only item of stationery to be made into a film starring James Caan on roller skates. FACT. SO & SO Issue 5 – A short-form journal for the wandering interneteer

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:45 PM | Your Say (0)

Constant Vigilance!

censotship.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:38 AM | Your Say (0)

Crankery, in short, became respectable.

Neither the failure of the environmental apocalypse to arrive
nor the steady improvement in environmental conditions over the last 40 years has dampened the ardor of those eager to make hair shirts for others to wear. The call for political coercion as a path back to Ruskin’s and Mishan’s small-is-beautiful world is still with us.... True to its late-1960s origins, political environmentalism in America gravitates toward both bureaucrats and hippies: toward a global, big-brother government that will keep the middle classes in line and toward a back-to-the-earth, peasantlike localism, imposed on others but presenting no threat to the elites’ comfortable lives. -- Progressives Against Progress by Fred Siegel, City Journal Summer 2010

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

How does the world look in an age of U.S. decline? Dangerously unstable.

After America - by Zbigniew Brzezinski | Foreign Policy
If America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor -- not even China. International uncertainty, increased tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be far more likely outcomes. ... Rather than a world where dreams of democracy flourish, a Hobbesian world of enhanced national security based on varying fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion could ensue.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (2)

January 3, 2012

The Man for Whom the Dingelberry Was Named: Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)

Say what? Rep. Dingell claims Chevy Volt is "selling like hotcakes"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:05 PM | Your Say (6)

Pen Pals: Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz

okeefe.jpg
"I handled pieces of Jade—They told me it was Jade —I would not have thought what it might be —I only knew that the surfaces were fine and smooth and cold…"

The art historian Sarah Greenough, who has assumed the daunting task of editing O’Keeffe’s correspondence, notes that between their first contact around 1915—when precisely they first met remains uncertain—and Stieglitz’s death in 1946, they exchanged more than 25,000 pages of letters. == The Far-Apart Artists by Christopher Benfey | The New York Review of Books

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:47 PM | Your Say (0)

"The worst book of the year, a shallow and supercilious thing called"

"The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions, by Alex Rosenberg, a philosopher of science at Duke University. The book is a catechism for people who believe they have emancipated themselves from catechisms. The faith that it dogmatically expounds is scientism. It is a fine example of how the religion of science can turn an intelligent man into a fool." -- Leon Wieseltier: The Answers | The New Republic

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:10 PM | Your Say (2)

Playas an' Winnahs!

aaCongratulations.jpg

Via iOwnTheWorld

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:54 PM | Your Say (1)

Andrea Mitchell On Iowa: 'Too Rural, Too Evangelical And Too White!'

Andrea Mitchell On Detroit: (cricket sound) | Sad Hill News



andrea-mitchell-iowa-too-white-fair-balanced-detroit-urban-muslim-too-black-iotw-sad-hill-news.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:43 PM | Your Say (5)

Beyond the Uncanny Valley

movies1tintin.jpg

You SEE EVERYTHING. When TinTin's motorcycle is chasing the bad guy and begins to fall apart, nothing is obscured.
Every realistic mechanical part is illuminated realistically. This technique gives a heightened sense of reality because every corner of the entire scene is heightened realistically, which cannot happen in real life, yet you only see real-looking things. This trick lends the movie a hyperreality. Its artificial world looks realer than real. -- The Technium:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:57 PM | Your Say (2)

The Spam Who Loved Me

Spamguy.jpg

Spam around here is becoming more and more worshipful in tone. I'm almost convinced to let it through! Yesterday this sidebar got hit with over 350 spam attacks. Here's a small selection:

For what its worth, the layout is definitely wonderful. You know how you can balance writ... Temporary Car Insurance

Thank you for this weblog. Thats all I can say. You most definitely have produced this blo... driving lessons

Hello,I love reading through your weblog, I wanted to leave a bit comment to support you a... home insurance quote

This is among the most incredible blogs Ive read in a really lengthy time. The amount of ... protection plan

How did you get to be this very good? Its wonderful to see someone put so a lot passion i... travel insurance

Im impressed, I must say. Extremely rarely do I come across a blog thats both informative... Cheap Contents Insurance

I just cant quit reading this. Its so cool, so full of information that I just didnt know.... childcare nvq

I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I certainly enjoying every small bit of it... Asda Travel Insurance

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (3)

The Ministries of Truth

As a general rule, when you watch a story on CBS, listen to NPR, or read the New York Times, assume that the news is prepped in such a way as to suggest the opposite of what really happened. --Works and Days サ The No News Stories of 2011

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:15 AM | Your Say (0)

Recommended: Richard Fernandez's New Pamphlet, The Three Conjectures

3conjecturescovervs.jpg

This will be brilliant and a bargain at three times the price:
"I have a new pamphlet out on Amazon KIndle entitled the Three Conjectures for $1.99. It's a look at whether societies can face the threat of nuclear terrorism without resorting to the same ruthlessness as their enemies. While it uses some of the material written in the original Belmont Club from 2003 to 2006, nearly half the content is entirely new. I've excerpted part of the new stuff after the Read More." -- Go to the Belmont Club to purchase the New Pamphlet: The Three Conjectures

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 AM | Your Say (0)

January 2, 2012

Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back

2. Stars Must Stop Insulting the Customers
Class. That's what the customers are looking for in their stars, class. George Clooney could be a star and was on his way, but then he started insulting the 60-plus percent of customers who dared disagree with his obnoxious politics. Julia Roberts was the biggest star in the world until she did the same. Harrison Ford blew his image in too many ways to count, Russell Crowe can't stop being a jerk, and Mel Gibson couldn't control his ugly demons. Tom Hanks was universally beloved as a well-known Democrat by all of us. Not so much, though, after he called WWII a war of terror and racism. -- Big Hollywood

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:45 PM | Your Say (10)

Instapundit: Things are looking up

At the tail end of 1979, things looked worse. But shortly thereafter America was rebounding, and the rest of the world was doing better, too.
People credit Ronald Reagan for this change, but I think that Reagan was as much a symptom as a cause. People were sick of stagnation and bad government, and they demanded more -- from their governments, and from themselves. I think we'll see that again in 2012, and that's why, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I think it will turn out to be a better year than seems likely today. --Sunday Reflection: When muddling through is the best you can hope for | Glenn Harlan Reynolds | Columnists | Washington Examiner

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:13 PM | Your Say (12)

Menange a Triowa?

Iowa three-way? ォ Don Surber

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (0)

Our Unredeemable Apocalyptic Urban Landscapes

Cue the sociologists to misunderstand everything about this warped little society,
to urge “a multitude of intellectual discourses” in their blind efforts aimed at “empowering marginalized, at-risk individuals” by employing a “comprehensive prevention and wellness approach” that in practice usually amounts to little more than handing out free needles and plastic sippy cups of liquid methadone. -- Blight of the Living Dead - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (6)

January 1, 2012

The Good vs. Evil Score for 2011

Final score: GOOD 3,665 -- €” EVIL 2,553. Annual scoreboard « Don SurberGOOD Wins!

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:19 PM | Your Say (2)

"Hate Globally, Like Locally"

This year I’m going to set aside some space
on my personal blog and on my social networking profiles to support local businesses, artists, writers, craftsmen, and so forth. I’m going to promote the doers around me who are doing something right, and save my criticism for people who are making the world worse on a national or global scale. -- Jack Donovan | Counter-Currents

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:41 PM | Your Say (0)

"America has suffered not a failure of the elites, but a failure of the people."

Do we measure up to the founders of this country?
The fact that Americans fought a revolution against Britain in the first place continues to astonish me. When in all of history have prosperous men with property -- farms and businesses -- risked their lives and fortunes to establish a better political order? Only a spiritual grandeur of a depth we barely can imagine today can explain it. When in all of history has a country gone to war and sacrificed a 5% of its total population to suppress slavery? The evangelical zeal that sent the North to war, singing of the grapes of wrath in the apocalyptic vision of Isaiah 63, surpasses our understanding today. -- Spengler サ Has the conservative elite really failed?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:57 PM | Your Say (7)

OWS=DOA

"Watching the media try to turn OWS into a genuinely significant movement of left populism that would counter the Tea Party was one of the funniest spectacles in some time: so much earnestness lavished on such an unpromising corpse." -- The “News” That Isn’t News | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:49 PM | Your Say (0)

The Longest Straight Staircase in the World Has 699 Steps

jamestown-500x572.jpg

Jacob’s Ladder, a staircase in the UK Overseas Territory of Saint Helena. Settlers built it as an inclined plane in 1829 to help bring agricultural products into Jamestown, the capital of the island. The staircase is now accessible to tourists, but the slope is really steep and not every portion has a railing, so do not look down. -- Neatorama

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:48 AM | Your Say (6)

The Death Of Pretty

Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John
was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness. Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth. -- The Death Of Pretty by Pat Archbold

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (2)

Those were the days!

doom5.jpg

When I was young I had to type things on an ancient manual typwriter,
and use carbon paper to save a copy for myself. I remember distinctly the first time I saw a Xerox machine. A Polaroid camera. A teletype machine. A fax. A cell phone. MS Office. I remember I was somewhat drunk at a party at my home, and some guests and I managed to get me on the Internet on dial-up on a lark. I remember loading Doom on a floppy and running it in DOS [!]. -- Sippican Cottage: I So Very Much Want One Of These

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

Okay, break's OVER! Back to work!

Surber is such a hard task master:
"Drink your Bloody Mary and Alka Seltzer and wake up. Time to get down to the business at hand: Kicking the liberals out of the White House, taking over the Senate and adding two dozen Tea Party conservatives in the House. I don't care if they replace Democrats or Republicans, although it would be nice to see a Tea Party conservative elected from the newly combined Dennis Kucinich-Mary Kaptur district in Ohio. Knock out two birdbrains with one stone." -- Happy 310 days to go! ォ Don Surber

Sir! Yes, sir!

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

"Is there such a thing as national character or habit?"

For all the angry op-eds about the unraveling of the EU,
no one quite walked us through exactly what Germans do each day that makes them different from other Europeans—although most who have visited Athens and Munich, or walked through Rome and Copenhagen, or sat in a café in Madrid and Frankfurt might be able to offer journalists some help. Of course, throughout 2011, I did read clever essays advising readers about how not to walk into this trap of believing in archaic and stereotyped notions. -- Works and Days » The No News Stories of 2011

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

Raquel Welch. Age: 71

RaquelWelch.jpg
"Is this even legal in America? Where we’re all supposed to be equal?" -- Michelle Obama's Mirror: 2012: Facing Our Future & Ending the Occupation

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (6)

Just Now My Tumblr is Looking and Sounding Pretty Good

punkchhick.jpg

It's located at Love Truth & Beauty: Soundtrack - "The Icelandic Midnight Sun"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:45 AM | Your Say (0)

Ring out the new, ring in the old.

pic_giant_123111_BBB.jpg

2011 began with a tea-powered Republican caucus taking control of the House of Representatives and pledging to rein in spendaholic government.
It ended with President Obama making a pro forma request for a mere $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. This will raise government debt to $16.4 trillion — a new world record! If only until he demands the next debt-ceiling increase in three months’ time. -- Happy New Year? - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:20 AM | Your Say (1)