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October 31, 2012

Silence of the Night

The Great Redoubt stands seven miles and more, a mighty pyramid hulled in imperishable metal
lit with a million lamps, above the haunted cold waste of the Night Land; and from our balconies, by the flares from fire-pits or by the smolder of volcano-flows, we see the beings move, those that can be seen to move, or loom in the darkness, large as living hills, motionless and watching, those that cannot. -- Silence of the Night | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:52 PM | Your Say (1)

"Even momma got outta house to loot new shirt: "

Looters brag on Twitter about stealing from flood-hit stores | Mail Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:09 PM | Your Say (3)

Dumbass of New York of the Day Touré (Toure) [of MSNBC] on Twitter

First: Touré ‏@Toure sez "This is the most incredible Sandy pic I've seen yet. A scuba diver in the subway. pic.twitter.com/OqbNYZgH"
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Later: Touré ‏@Toure sez Ok, the subway scuba pic is fake. That's why it's incredible. Cuz it's not credible. Which is why MSNBC pays this mouthbreather the not-so-big-bucks.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:50 PM | Your Say (2)

Yes We Plan

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BIG HAIRY NEWS - Celebrities have cut a two-and-a-half minute video for Planned Parenthood's political arm to encourage votes for President Obama titled "Yes We Plan". --Celebrities Make Obama Planned Parenthood Video - Big Hairy News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:58 PM | Your Say (9)

Biden Speaks. Gay Democrats Shudder.

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

"The skills needed to keep a 7-Eleven viable in a rough neighborhood, I confess, dwarf those of the classics professor."

Works and Days » Why Liberals Think What They Do
In the elite liberal mind, there is instead a sort of progressive Big Rock Candy Mountain. Gasoline comes right out of the ground through the nozzle into the car. Redwood 2x4s sprout from the ground like trees. Apples fall like hail from the sky; stainless steel refrigerator doors are mined inches from the surface. Tap water comes from some enormous cistern that traps rain water.  Finished granite counter tops materialize on the show room floor. Why, then, would we need Neanderthal things like federal gas and oil leases, icky dams and canals, yucky power plants, and gross chain saws --€” and especially those who would dare make and use them?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:43 PM | Your Say (0)

Equipment for the Next Installment of Sandymonium

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Your government. Ready to help you,
you poor helpless creature.

The big chain stores are closed but the bodegas are open and Muslim and Chinese storekeepers charge up to ten dollars for a gallon of water. New York City in blackout, in short, is much like New York City as usual. -- Sultan Knish, Blackout

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:24 PM | Your Say (0)

And the question is: do we want to keep civilization?

Because we don't have to. We can try to find our way back, perhaps to the 19th century;
or the 12th, the 8th or perhaps before history itself? Let us find out how far back we have to go before we appease nature perhaps only to rediscover what our ancestors learned: that no number of virgins cast into a volcano’s glowing pit will keep it from erupting. The reason Third World societies can do with less was because they were simpler. But they are simpler no longer.  Today the organization, logistics and order required to keep New York, Tokyo, Shanghai or Hong Kong in existence is is mind-boggling. Because modern urban society is so dependent “just enough” is never enough.” ‘Just enough’ is simply a catastrophe waiting to happen. -- Belmont Club » The Design Margin

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:20 PM | Your Say (0)

@ComfortablySmug, you must appreciate, was "trusted by journalists"

The Fourth Estate has come to rely on Twitter as a cheat sheet. And why not?
With newsrooms bearing the brunt of the creative destruction in the media world it is quite expensive to send a reporter out to chase down a story. Making a few calls to follow up a Tweet, however, is cheap. This is, of course, why "Digital Editor" or "Digital Reporter" have become en vogue titles..... The Fourth Estate no longer has the resources to maintain the estate grounds and has squandered any right to the public trust fund that grants it landed title. -- The Strongest Argument for a 100% Estate Tax is Actually "The Fourth Estate" | finem respice

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:13 PM | Your Say (0)

Okay, Eat the Rich. What Then?

If someone says, “But once we eat the rich, by what means will the society accumulate and invest capital?

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” -- On the Incivility of Socialists | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:10 PM | Your Say (1)

Below, Idaho rock tickles the radar altimeter briefly and then, nothing. Yeah, I see you down there...

Flight Level 390: Where there is smoke...

I briefly considered having the co-pilot fly the approach. He has 20/15 vision, can read in the dark, and is an excellent young aviator. I am always a little nervous around granite, though, which would probably lead to micro-management.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:42 PM | Your Say (2)

October 25, 2012

Cossack Youth Camp, Crimea

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The dress code is camouflage for children 8-16, who attend a camp in the mountains of Eski-Kermen near Bakhchisaray, run by the Crimean Cossacks, who call themselves a pro-Russian nationalist group. Campers receive lessons in discipline and military training. -- | Documentary Photography Links

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:59 PM | Your Say (6)

LIBERAL AMERICA—THE SODOM THAT PRETENDS IT’S KANSAS

“In America,” Jim Kalb recently remarked, “everything is normal”—meaning that no matter how radical, extreme, and perverted things become in our society, they are and must be seen as ordinary, traditional, and unthreatening.
The result is the peculiar phenomenon that I have described as the “radical mainstream.” On one hand, liberals and their mainstream-conservative enablers boast of America’s transformational progress since the mid-twentieth century; on the other hand, they claim that we haven’t changed at all. The fact that all kinds of moral and constitutional norms have been shattered, and that nihilism, gross sexual libertinism, and statism are the new norm, is never allowed into public consciousness. The liberals suppress the ugly truth of what America has become, in order to maintain the legitimacy of liberal society; and the conservatives join in the suppression, because their goal is to keep their place at the liberal table; they know that anyone who speaks the truth about the radical transformation of America will no longer be welcome.... -- AmNation

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:39 PM | Your Say (3)

Ethnomasochism - The Musical!

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A dash of ethnomasochism often went along with a fondness for the alien Other and romantic illusions about the less-civilized.
W. S. Gilbert wrote (in a real musical) of “the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, / All centuries but this, and every country but his own.” The full-blown modern style of ethnomasochism is, like many other psychosocial pathologies, a product of Anglo-American progressivism. It was already showing up in its finished form among pre-Boomers such as Susan Sontag (b. 1933) and Ann Dunham (b. 1942). We read about Ann in her son’s autobiography (p. 47) refusing to accompany her Indonesian husband to dinner parties with visiting American businessmen. These were her own people, Ann’s husband would remind her; at which, the son tells us, “my mother’s voice would rise to almost a shout. They are not my people.” -- - Taki's Magazine

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:20 PM | Your Say (0)

Roger Kimball: What States Will Obama Win, Second in a Series

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So: I am now thinking that Obama will win two fewer states than I thought before the debate: Iowa and Michigan, I suspect, will migrate to the red team.. Right now, I predict he will get sixteen states and the enfranchised dependent sinkhole that is Washington, D.C. for a grand total of 201 electoral votes, leaving Mitt Romney with 35 states and 337 electoral votes. -- Roger's Rules サ

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:04 PM | Your Say (6)

October 23, 2012

Indiana Jones Checks His Mail And Discovers That His Bid For Tenure Has Been Denied.

Far more times than I would care to mention, the name “Indiana Jones” (the adopted title Dr. Jones insists on being called) has appeared in governmental reports
linking him to the Nazi Party, black-market antiquities dealers, underground cults, human sacrifice, Indian child slave labor, and the Chinese mafia. There are a plethora of international criminal charges against Dr. Jones, which include but are not limited to: bringing unregistered weapons into and out of the country; property damage; desecration of national and historical landmarks; impersonating officials; arson; grand theft (automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, and watercraft in just a one week span last year); excavating without a permit; countless antiquities violations; public endangerment; voluntary and involuntary manslaughter; and, allegedly, murder. Dr. Jones’s interpersonal skills and relationships are no better. -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

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

Obama's Greatest Foreign Policy Error

As Chamberlain learned of Hitler and as the Democrats learned of the Commies,
there is no finite amount of concessions, no set range of territories that can be traded in exchange for peace. The Nazis and Communists wanted the world because their goals were not confined to mere territories, but to the enslavement of billions to create an ideal world for the benefit of their chosen elites. Islam is interested in the same thing. -- Sultan Knish

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

Fix Bayonets

Sense of Events: Obama wrong about bayonets The US Army today has more than 560,000 troops and the USMC more than 200,000.
Obama is wrong. we have hundreds of thousands more bayonets now than in 1916. Sarcasm and condescension only work if the speaker's presumption of lofty superior knowledge is borne out by his command of actual facts. You can't successfully accuse your opponent of being an ignoramus when you don't know what you're talking about yourself.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:58 AM | Your Say (8)

The Eyes Have It

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She is called a beautiful freak in the west, but her countrymen often joke about the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe. But the face of the Ukrainian girl is driving Paris crazy." -- More @ Unusual Ukrainian Model | English Russia

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (17)

October 22, 2012

In order to lend credibility to a make-work project for the Queen Consort,

America is now a land in which a government bureaucrat at the Department of Agriculture sets the maximum permitted calories for school lunches across the fruited plain and all the way to Guam. ...
The first lady was on hand for the launch of the new federally mandated lunch limits. The stench of failure and risibility has not yet attached to this initiative as it has to so many other Obama-era bureaucratic excesses. But, through September, returning schoolchildren complained about their new, insufficient lunches. Teachers and parents who took up their cause did so in statist terms, beseeching the commissars to raise the mandated calorie limits. Very few did so on first-principle grounds — which is to say the argument that a system in which a centralized bureaucracy attempts to impose a uniform menu on a nation of 300 million people is nuts, and cannot survive. -- Let Them Go Hungry :: SteynOnline

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:58 PM | Your Say (4)

FOR ALL THAT DESIRE TO TRANSCEND...

...think of how little his presidency will have achieved -- extending W's War on Terror, appointing two rather moderate justices, and passing the mandate that Republican health care reforms require. -- BrothersJudd Blog

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:15 AM | Your Say (3)

“Auto Tattoo”

I wonder if there'€™s been a general trend away from the vehicle to focus on the body. 
When I think of the classic American "€œlove affair with the motorcar"€ I think of young men buying new gadgets for their car or tricking it out with different add-ons and paint schemes.  The analogue to the body would be the tattoo.  As a side note, my dad, a graphics/sign painter/design guy, has always talked about starting up a business named "Auto Tattoo"€. -- Five Year Tattoo Plan « Gucci Little Piggy

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:52 AM | Your Say (5)

Don't stoop to the stupid.

Here is a little rule of thumb I use to help me think through such questions: GOD IS SMARTER THAN I AM, SO DON'T EVER TREAT HIM LIKE HE IS STUPID.
Do you see how this ties back to the musloid pork superstitions? Islam is intrinsically stupid because its founders were stupid, and so it is not surprising that the musloid fake deity, “allah”, is also stupid. Their argument is that if a soldier fighting in jihad for “allah” should be shot with a pork-laced bullet, he goes to hell – even though he had no control whatsoever over the pork bullet or his death. Because the allegedly all-powerful “allah” is powerless against the crazy magic voodoo ju-ju of . . . pork products. See how that works? It's called stupid. Don't stoop to the stupid. -- Barnhardt.biz

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:58 AM | Your Say (4)

October 21, 2012

Some advice from Jeff Bezos

He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds.
He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today. -- by Jason Fried of 37signals

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:49 PM | Your Say (1)

Gay Pride

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Abercrombie & Fitch CEO’s rulebook for corporate jet staffers * Toilet paper must not be “exposed” and its “end square” should not be folded. “Washclothes are to be tri-folded.”
The staffers, described as actors and models, were also instructed to check for fingerprints on the Gulfstream G550 jet, arrange fresh flowers, center salt and pepper on meal trays, properly fold seat-belt buckles — and make sure the Phil Collins song “Take Me Home” is playing when passengers board.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:34 PM | Your Say (7)

Kuwaete Sukkiri Tongue Exerciser

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The Kuwaete Sukkiri Tongue Exerciser has three muscle-building techniques
that can help improve your face line and those flabby, sagging cheeks. Put the mouthpiece over your tongue and feel it work as you exercise your mouth and facial muscles. It might look a little unusual from the outside but, with its grapefruit flavor fragrance, it will be comfortable and healthy to use. -- Japan Trend Shop

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:49 PM | Your Say (3)

"Now consider Mitt Romney, the most famous chameleon of all time."

Romney knows that the electorate is full of idiots and he needs to be a gigantic liar to win their votes. I totally get that. The funniest part is his budget plan that he promises to describe in detail after he gets elected.
Dumb people see this as "He has an awesome fiscal plan!" Democrats see it as "He's a liar with no plan!" I see it as "You know I'm a brilliant and experienced turnaround guy. I know how to do this sort of thing. And if I give details now it just paints a target on my back. So chill." In any event, Congress will be the ones who decide on the next budget. It will probably look similar no matter who gets elected. I don't believe, for example, that a Romney budget would overfund the military. Congress would moderate that, and Romney probably doesn't mean it anyway. Remember, his job today is to lie to get elected. His job once elected is quite different. -- Scott Adams Blog: Interesting Day 10/20/2012

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:03 PM | Your Say (13)

Thomas Sowell:

Economist Edward Lazear has cut through all of Barack Obama's claims about "creating jobs" with one plain and inescapable fact --
"there hasn't been one day during the entire Obama presidency when as many Americans were working as on the day President Bush left office." Whatever number of jobs were created during the Obama administration, more have been lost. -- Random Thoughts - - [page]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:50 PM | Your Say (2)

Why People Now Ignore Paul Krugman

An eminent writer on economics for a rival paper tells me that he and his colleagues long ago decided to ignore Krugman.
They just stopped responding to his hectoring exercises in economic fantasy, or even mentioning his name, because to respond, no matter how critically, accorded Krugman a legitimacy, a seriousness,  he didn’t deserve. There is something to that. To respond to Paul Krugman is like staring at the poor chaps who stand on street corners shouting obscenities at imaginary enemies.  It just isn’t polite, and mothers are right to shade their children’s eyes and hurry them by such pathetic scenes of mental anguish. "What'€™s wrong with that man, Mommy?" "Hush, children, it'€™s impolite to point and stare. Let'€™s get along home." -- Roger’s Rules »

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:33 AM | Your Say (2)

Rodger, the Real King of France, opines "I think the next debate moderator should be this guy."

You know he's right.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (9)

A Taste of the Divine

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The problem with art is that it can fool us into forgetting that we are mortal, flesh-and-blood creatures.
The culinary arts, on the other hand, remind us that we are creatures of bone and guts, even as they delight us with creations no other animal could ever produce. Fine food is about the aesthetic of the immanent, not the transcendent. A mouthful of Frantzen's diver scallops, truffle puree and bouillons transports you to heaven while never letting you forget it is a perishable place on Earth. Through experiences like these you come to know the potential intensity of being alive, what it means, as Thoreau recommended, to suck out all the marrow of life. -- Julian Baggini -

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

The strangest thing about appearing on Jeopardy

is just how not strange it is. There's no green screen or artificial bits to it.
The set is precisely what you see in the broadcast program, with all the lighting and game board and whatnot. It's like stepping into the television set to play. It's more surreal than real. Even the awkward banter with Alex is actually awkward. -- What it's like to be on Jeopardy - Boing Boing

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

How cork is made

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An illustrated guide to the cork production process. -- WineAnorak

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:53 AM | Your Say (1)

Ron "Cato" Paul

“Cato made a career out of purity, out of his refusal to give an inch in the face of pressure to compromise and deal.” Or:“Roman politics was well-oiled with bribes, strategic marriages, and under-the-table favors; Cato’s vote famously had no price.” And, finally, Cato was “Rome’s most credible voice on the constitution’s sanctity.” -- Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Call It A Gift or A Correction: It's Coming!

It is time for a political correction in America. Just like investors, many voters speculated that BHO would be good for this country but they now realize he has become grossly overvalued.
They initially valued his promise of hope and change as a reasonable offer for correcting all that was supposedly wrong with the U.S.A. four years ago when this unknown, young black senator from Illinois suddenly appeared on the scene. Not unlike an initial public offering for a newly minted corporate stock, there is a lot of excitement and anticipation on the front end but unless the hype meets performance its value will plummet often significantly beneath the original asking prices as demand dissipates. -- Western Journalism

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

The Seventh Seal of Disapproval

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"These 'obituaries,' ensure that although the logos may be gone, they are not forgotten." -- Imprint

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:47 AM | Your Say (0)

October 20, 2012

The Overview effect.

When a person gazes upon Earth from outer space,
they have a profound sense of perspective, a realization of fragility, that humanity and all life as we know it is completely dependent on a single planet and its thin atmosphere. It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. — Neil Armstrong
-- Small | Alex MacCaw

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

Lest We Forget Andrew Sullivan AKA "Inspector Loads"

Nine months is a lot of time. Enough time to rehab a darling vacation bungalow on Cape Cod.
Enough time for a whirlwind romance with the contractor. The birds 'n' bees boys down at the OB/GYN lab claim that's how long it takes to hatch a baby. But in my line of work you learn it's also plenty enough time to hatch a plot -- maybe the single biggest stinking political gestation coverup plot ever to hit P-town. My name is Loads. To me, everything is a mystery. -- iowahawk: Dial 'M' For Maternity

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:46 PM

Where do you go to vote out the Commissar of School Lunches?

Even if Romney wins in November, I doubt this will be anybody's big priority.
Statists well understand that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life. Sometimes your team has to take a time-out for a couple of years, but, even when they do, all the departments and agencies and bureaus are still in place, hyper-regulating away. I mean, how often does the party of small government actually abolish anything? -- Let Them Go Hungry :: SteynOnline

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:59 PM | Your Say (6)

Federally Funded Traitors

Public broadcasting fulfilled all its goals and is irrelevant today, but still gets billions in federal dollars. And that money is being used to pipe foreign propaganda and al-Jazeera news broadcasts into America.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is funding a separate corporation which helps pay for al-Jazeera broadcasts as well as official Russian television, Iranian Press TV, and Chinese government programming meant to improve the image of China in America. Just one more reason to shut down the entire CPB. -- Word Around the Net: WORD AROUND THE NET

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

Obama and the Democrats: They Just Can't Handle Money

Obama For America took out a $15 million loan from Bank of America last month, according to the campaign's October monthly FEC report. The loan was incurred on September 4 and is due November 14, eight days after the election. OFA received an interest rate of 2.5% plus the current Libor rate. -- Washington Free Beacon

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) now owes $15 million to the union-owned Amalgamated Bank of New York, campaign finance records show. -- Washington Free Beacon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (3)

"For most supporters of President Obama, I don't think there is such a thing as a "firing offense.""

So while I don't agree with Romney's positions on most topics, I'm endorsing him for president starting today.
I think we need to set a minimum standard for presidential behavior, and jailing American citizens for political gain simply has to be a firing offense no matter how awesome you might be in other ways. -- Scott Adams Blog: Firing Offense 10/17/2012

Scott Adams Blog: Interesting Day 10/20/2012 There's a big difference between protecting the country and expecting some political gain from doing so
versus jailing a small businessman in California for political gain while not even pretending it benefits the country. I expect my president to do some nasty stuff in my best interest. I don't expect him to do nasty stuff to citizens for no reason other than his own reelection interests. The latter is a firing offense.

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

Big Tex Emulates Burning Man

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Before
Fire destroys Big Tex at State Fair of Texas | Breaking News | News from Fort Worth, Dal...
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After

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (7)

"I’m not always a fan of the Libertarian Party, "

"but this poster nails it about the frivolousness of the populist, Occupy Wall Street Left." -- Regulators Gone Wild | Power Line
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:13 AM | Your Say (2)

S.A.D.: Say Anything Desperation

Obama: "I believe that the free enterprise system is the greatest engine of prosperity the world's ever known." I have no doubt that Obama believes he believes in free enterprise
-- except in the case of health care policy, the auto industry, the housing market, education, banking, job creation, manufacturing, green energy and so on and so forth. Basically, the genius of free enterprise must never be applied to anything that's too important in our lives. When it is, naturally, it must be applied "fairly." -- Obama's Policies vs. Free Enterprise | RealClearPolitics

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:18 AM | Your Say (1)

At Maggie's Farm This AM

Saturday morning all-political links - Maggie's Farm

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

Back in the EU.S.S.R

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You thought the whole 'EUSSR' thing was over the top? Have a look at this poster – Telegraph Blogs Take a close look at this promotional poster. Notice anything? Alongside the symbols of Christianity, Judaism, Jainism and so on is one of the wickedest emblems humanity has conceived: the hammer and sickle.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:00 AM | Your Say (13)

October 19, 2012

Done for "Speed." Yeah, Right.

TSA Removes X-Ray Body Scanners From Major Airports - ProPublica The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly removing its X-ray body scanners from major airports over the last few weeks and replacing them with machines that radiation experts believe are safer. The TSA says it made the decision not because of safety concerns but to speed up checkpoints at busier airports.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:55 PM | Your Say (3)

How "sinister" in the Truther conspiracy?

So sinister that the government was willing to murder 3,000 citizens, but won't lift a finger to silence people who talk about the events. -- Word Around the Net: WORD AROUND THE NET

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:23 PM | Your Say (6)

Afghan War Without End Always

Obama Lies About Ending the War in Afghanistan

Under Obama and Biden’s definition of leaving, we are going to have almost as many soldiers in Afghanistan after 2014… as there were during the war under the Bush Administration. Obama is going to have more soldiers in Afghanistan in 2015 than Bush did in 2006. Obama isn’t pulling out of Afghanistan. He’s pulling the troops from his failed surge out of Afghanistan. It’s a lie and he needs to be called on it.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:00 PM | Your Say (2)

Depend Upon It, Watson: The Sequel

Groups and organizations with the word “Freedom” in their titles are not likely to be interested in yours. -- Andy in Depend Upon It, Watson

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:29 PM | Your Say (4)

Depend Upon It, Watson

Any event with the word "Pride" in its name will be racist, sexist, classist, or a combination of all three.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:55 PM | Your Say (4)

Thomas Sowell:

"Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state, whether in Western Europe or on this side of the Atlantic."-- Random Thoughts

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

The New York Slimes Corrects the Record

Suspect in Benghazi Attack Scoffs at U.S. - NYTimes.com, October 18: Witnesses and the authorities have called Ahmed Abu Khattala one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission here....
Correction: October 19, 2012 An earlier version of this article described incorrectly a beverage that Ahmed Abu Khattala was drinking at a hotel in Benghazi, Libya. It was a strawberry frappe, not mango juice, which is what he had ordered.

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

"The cake is baked"

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"Relax. I got this."

Behind Closed Doors, Romney at Peace as Vote Nears “You know, the cake is baked,” Fehrnstrom said.
“All the policy is done, the debates are nearly over now, scheduling is just about finished, we know all the battleground states we’re going to be visiting over the next three weeks. The arguments have all been developed and deployed, so it really is a matter now of talking to as many people as possible in the states that matter until Nov. 6.”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (2)

Call It A Gift or A Correction: It's Coming!

The human characteristics of routine and rational discernment make up the moderate middle of the American electorate. Although they will readily give an underdog a chance, they also promptly recognize ineptitude and incompetence as easily as raindrops on a kitchen window in the face of sunshine. They cannot and will not ignore the obvious. Whether you call them swing voters or independents, they have too much common sense coupled with a simple understanding of how things are supposed to work to ignore the obvious. They窶决e not stupid or lazy. Fortunately for those among us who do not miss an opportunity to communicate our pointless opinions and expressions of disgust or outrage, this quiet majority is in control and will do what needs to be done just as sure as they would close an open front door on a cold and frosty night.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 AM | Your Say (0)

October 18, 2012

You are the Resistance.

How you can help Mitt Romney and make Obama's loss huge:The part you play in all of this is perfectly suited to YOUR abilities.
Inch out of your comfort zone just a little and be a little more aggressive than normal -- but go at your pace and do what you know you are good at. If everyone in the Resistance reading this would do that -- shake it up a little and try finding a way to use each of your individual talents to help Romney these next three weeks -- then I really believe anything is possible. Have you ever wanted to see Democrats lose ILLINOIS? Dream big, folks. 2012 is the year this could happen.

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

Newsweek, Like The President, Is Finished At The End Of The Year

Like the president it has --mostly-- fawned over, Newsweek no longer interests the majority of Americans.
Even those who might pick it up in the doctor's office won't buy it. It has tried all sorts of stunts, and all sorts of absurd drama, but it cannot do its basic job against rising competition. It failed. It will go away. Like the president. -- Hugh Hewitt

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:59 PM | Your Say (5)

Escape! Escape!

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Nate Beeler Cartoons | The Columbus Dispatch

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:32 PM | Your Say (1)

NeoNeoCon Zeroes In: "It appears that Obama feels that he is putting down some extremely tempting bait for Romney, hoping his opponent will bite"

It's also possible that Obama (or his surrogates) have worked this out ahead of time with Crowley. I don't know; it's certainly possible,
because her waving those papers around when asked to look at the transcript of the speech (are they actually a transcript? Or something else?) is rather odd. Whichever it is, pre-arranged or no, Obama seems especially delighted at what Crowley says, asking her to repeat it and setting up a nice round of forbidden applause (led by Michelle's are planned as well?) from the audience. Gotcha! -- neo-neocon = At the risk...

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:48 PM | Your Say (2)

Har-De-Har-Har -- Quote: 'If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.' :Unquote

It's Comedy Central Time... Obama's extraordinary response to security fiasco after Benghazi massacre

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

Breaking!

President Obama Spotted In New Hampshire; May Be Trying To Defect To Canada | The Rumford Meteor

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

3.4%: The Mini-Me Minority

Massive study finds only 3.4% of American adults identify as LGBT A massive new survey published this morning reveals that only 3.4% of American adults
publicly identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, with the highest percentage coming among the younger, less-educated non-whites. The new Gallup Poll of more than 121,000 adults, the largest of its kind on record, wass conducted during the past four months. Itfinds the percentage of self-reported LGBT Americans to be much smaller than a general impression derived from their presence in popular culture and their perceived influence in liberal American politics.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:21 AM | Your Say (17)

The Lost Vermeer

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

On Those Unemployed College Grads

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If you want a degree in Modern African Art or Gender Studies because you love that topic, fine,
but don't assume that the rest of us have an obligation to fund your life in the undoubtedly exciting worlds of Modern African Art or Gender Studies. Let your knowledge of Modern African Art or Gender Studies console and empower you as you swing that mop after hours at the Luby's, or as you lie in your parent's basement wondering how you will pay $100,000 in student loans. Don't come knocking on my door with your hand out. I've got my own kids to fund. -- The DiploMad 2.0: An Aside: On Those Unemployed College Grads

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:58 AM | Your Say (3)

MEANWHILE ON THE COVER OF A MAGAZINE YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF: NOSE JEWELRY IS A NEW “THING.”

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Via Hurricane Vanessa

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

Don Surber: "Merrily we roll along..."

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Commenting on Obama's New Firewall: Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada - By Jim Geraghty @ The Campaign Spot the astute Don Surber observes on Facebook:
"Merrily we roll along to 40 states. What this story means is Mitt's up 257-201 in the Electoral College. It also means that to win Mitt needs only Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania or some combination of 4 states (Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin) This also means Obama has to carve out 69 Electoral College votes out of 80 remaining. Good luck with THAT."

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

Dumb Bitch Kills Dumber Magazine. A Nation Mourns.

Newsweek Will Cease Print Publication at End of Year
Newsweek, the weekly magazine that for decades summarized the news for households across the United States but struggled to maintain relevance in the Internet era, announced on Thursday that it would cease print publication at the end of the year.

Door. Ass. Bang. Years late for this quisling rag run by a git Brit. Good riddance.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:32 AM | Your Say (6)

More inmates demand dental floss, suits say

October is National Dental Hygiene Month — and maybe that's why some Palm Beach County Jail inmates are suing the sheriff for not providing dental floss.
Court records show four inmates have now filed civil lawsuits against Sheriff Ric Bradshaw since Oct. 1, demanding dental floss in the jail commissary and money damages for their dental "pain and suffering." The sheriff has some advice for inmates worried about their dental hygiene: "Don't go to jail." -- - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

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

"€˜Binder Derangement Syndrome"€™: How the Democratic Party Exploits Women

"Hence constant appeals are made to the lowest common female dominator in an attempt to terrify single women and soccer moms, etc., that their "€œreproductive rights"€ are being violated or someone is about to deprive them of birth control pills or force-feed ultrasounds in their private parts."
[That’s a very interesting typo. In fact it comes close to the truth when you contemplate exactly who the Democrats are appealing to. But if we really sketched out that denominator it might seem obese and racist.] -- Roger L. Simon »

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

The Vanishing Groves

Among the truly ancient bristlecones I saw trunks ringed entirely in exposed wood but for a single holdout: a strip of bark aglow with green needles and the singular fragrance of pine. These Dali-painted trees, called single-strip survivors, can carry on for thousands of years after the death of their other sectors. .... Hiking through the wide hallways of the bristlecone forest, I noticed each tree was pedestalled on its own root-encrusted island of earth, backlit by blue sky, giving off the dignified air of solitude. Even the thickest patches had their vistas, their long horizons. Pausing for a moment to catch my breath in the thin air, I turned my back to the mountain. In the distance I could see oceans of cold sunlight roaring off the Sierra Nevada. -- Ross Andersen @ Aeon

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (0)

Obama Meets the Bitch

Dr. Sanity

I can say with full confidence after Benghazi and the death of our Ambassador and other Americans on 9/11/12, that Clinton and President Obama (her putative boss and the Commander in Chief where the buck ultimately stops) have had their 3 AM wake-up call; and they have been found unprepared and inadequate for the job. Think "deer in the headlights"....

Instead of keeping America safe in reality; they are more concerned with appearances. "Bin Laden is dead" they proclaimed and the terror threat presumably vanquished. 9/11/12 just did not fit into either of their narratives. So what's a good leftist to do? DENY, PROJECT, DISPLACE! Anything but the truth; anything but accept the consequences. Move along, nothing to see here, and it's all Mitt Romney's fault for politicizing it all.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:52 AM | Your Say (0)

October 17, 2012

He asked Romney about a job. He asked Obama about Bull.

Jeremy Epstein, First Questioner in Debate, Says He's No Longer Undecided: "I asked him if he's gonna give me that job in two years and he said 'Maybe,'" Epstein said.
"Then I was speaking with President Obama asking how his Chicago Bulls are gonna do, because they lost their MVP Derek Rose, and he said that I could not beat him in one-on-one, but I disagree with that." Epstein, who is studying exercise science....

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

Rise of the Mediacracy

The Mediacracy's insistence on being the third candidate at every debate,
its outrage that anyone would expect it to be silent and let the actual candidates speak, reflects its power and arrogance. Its elites are not interested in the conversation except as a means of controlling its outcome. They are not here to let other people talk, except as vehicles for making their own points. -- Sultan Knish:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:46 PM | Your Say (0)

1.9 Million or 21.3 Million... It's Still a Piece of Shit [Bumped]

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Eric Clapton sells Gerhard Richter painting for record 21.3 million... 11 years after buying it with two other paintings for just 1.9 million
Before the auction the painting was predicted to fetch up to 」11.8million but the huge price tag became the highest ever price paid for a work by the abstract artist.... A year ago, Richter, who is now 80, described the art market as ‘daft’, ‘absurd’ and ‘impossible to understand’.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:20 PM | Your Say (27)

"Affluent people with elitist pretensions

"often have a strong distaste for the wealthy, especially those, like Romney, who earned their riches by being successful in business. If you want to find bitterness against "the 1%," don't look at "the 99%." Instead, focus in on the 98th percentile." -- The Envious Affluent - WSJ.com

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

Comment of the Month (So far) on the EU

"The Brussels Buffoons are economic lesbians. They do not know dick." -- Taki's Magazine / Noted by Bill Jones

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

Fame Daddy celebrity sperm bank launched

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Fame Daddy chief exec Dan Richards said: "What we are selling is the sperm of people who are successful,
who have risen to the top of their field. “Our aim is to provide excellent levels of medical care in a supportive and nurturing environment. We will offer a range of top quality celebrity surrogate fathers whose contributions are exclusively available at our fertility clinic. -- | The Sun |News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:48 PM | Your Say (3)

This Just In

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Bizarro Blog! | By Dan Piraro

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

It Might Be Time to Stock Up...

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On a good used car. Because the new ones --€“ the ones coming online now and on deck for next year (and the years after that) -- are going to be budget-busters as well as ball-busters.
We are approaching the event horizon of reasonableness when it comes to car design. Because of the unreasonableness of the demands spewing forth from Washington. These demands have existed for decades, but  as in so many other areas, a kind of quickening is occurring. It’s no longer a little regulation here, a new law there. It is one epic demand after the next. -- Eric Peters Autos [HT Fat Man]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:25 PM | Your Say (6)

ADMISSIONS OFFICER: Here's What They Don't Tell You About Getting Into An Ivy League School

Hint: Don't be middle class and white. {Of course, just who is going to operate and grow the nation efficiently in the future is not considered.}

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 PM | Your Say (5)

Chanel Found A Way To Make Their Brad Pitt Ads Even Weirder

It's still Brad Pitt standing in front of the same background you sat in front of during your second grade picture day
and he's still saying the words that only make sense to Terrence Malick or community college poets who've taken way too much peyote. But this time, they added random chicks staring out of windows and walking on rivers. THE HELL is all of this? I've never EVER wanted to buy a bottle of Chanel No. 5, but I might now, because it's obvious who ever was in charge of making this wreck freebased that stankness for inspiration and I want to be that buzzed. -- | Dlisted
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:44 AM | Your Say (4)

"After the scare, the students needed to unwind. "

“There were Pygmies in this village,” Kimball recalled. “They were sitting on huge truck tires.
I remember one night, we sat around a campfire and we got them high. We took out this huge joint, and everyone smoked dope and got high with a bunch of Pygmies in the Congo.” -- Cook’s Illustrated’s Christopher Kimball

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

"Don't touch the hot stove" is easy if you're of a serious mind.

Sippican Cottage: A Kind Of Safety At its most elemental, danger is easily espied.
Hey, look; there's a giant, spinning metal wheel covered with raggedy teeth. Ahoy! There are straps running hither and yon and spoked wheels spinning and begging to take a digit. Everything from splinters to a head staved in is in play. That's if the boilers don't explode first.

Don't miss the great video at the link. Mesmerizing.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:37 AM | Your Say (1)

It's All Downhill for Candy Crowley Now So Be Kind and Rewind

Candy Crowley didn't do a terrible job as moderator - although she tilted the questions and answers in Barry's favor a bit too obviously,
gave him 10% more time for responses, and frequently cut off Romney as he was making substantive points. But because she kept Carrie Fisher (dressed as "Slave Leia") chained to her side throughout the debate, we're willing to forgive her. -- Hope n' Change Cartoons: The Buck Stops in Machu Pichu & Debate Update

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:21 AM | Your Say (5)

October 16, 2012

A Christian? "Obama is not baptized "

One of the huge selling points of Jeremiah Wright's Trinity "church" is the fact that he DOES NOT baptize muslims.
Thus, muslims who are engaging in the war tactic of KITHMAN, that is pretending to be non-muslim while infiltrating a culture for stealth jihad, flock to Wright's "church" because they can pose as Christians while avoiding the sacrament of Baptism. If you don't believe me, just call Trinity and ask them yourself. Their number is (773) 962-5650. Be polite. -- Ann Barnhardt

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:59 PM | Your Say (0)

The stupid, feminized “townhall format”

The format was idiotic, and the ridiculously long-locked, overlarge, Mao jacket-wearing moderator, “Candy” Crowley,
showed herself to be (to use an expression that is normally applied only to men, but, hey, women are equal now, right?) a horse’s ass. Instead of allowing exchanges between the candidates to develop, she kept loudly and obtrusively cutting them off so that she could move on to … move on to … what really mattered, which was having the next “real person” ask a question. -- First reactions to the second debate

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:55 PM | Your Say (3)

New York Observer Endorses Romney

File Under "If you've lost a chunk of the Upper West Side:"
This year, however, we have witnessed a rare phenomenon in American politics. A candidate has emerged from the rough and tumble of the primaries with his dignity intact. The system has produced not a demagogue but a manager, a candidate whose experience is rooted in the pragmatism of the business world rather than the ideology of partisan politics. That candidate is Mitt Romney. -- Romney for President | Observer

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 PM | Your Say (1)

"Great stupidities do not come from the people. First, they have seduced intelligent men."

--Don Colacho's Aphorisms

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:19 PM | Your Say (7)

Why We Lost Afghanistan

Defeats have to be learned from and no one intends to learn the lessons of Afghanistan.
The people responsible for 1,500 deaths in implementing a directive to beat the Taliban without breaking a single fingernail on an Afghan civilian, even if he's a Taliban gunman hiding behind a Burqa, will not pay the price for this..... They will not be held accountable, because when they sacrificed 1,500 American soldiers they were just following orders and the orders came from generals and the generals were following orders from Valerie Jarrett and Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton and the entire diploarchy on a desperate quest to win the war and end the occupation by getting the Taliban to the negotiating table and getting Obama to the Mission Accomplished jet in time for the election. -- Sultan Knish

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

New York’s Blue Suicide

The high cost structure of building and operating transit in New York
is one of the things casting a deeper and deeper blight across the region, part of a pattern of high-cost, high regulation governance that effectively strangles the middle class. Transit unions, construction unions, crony capitalism among contractors and politicians, and crazy-quilt regulations add huge burdens to the management of an essential city service. Inexorably, taxes and fares rise for the whole region as the increasingly bulky and inefficient transit system, vampire-like, sucks more and more blood from its host. -- | Via Meadia

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:20 PM | Your Say (1)

Environmentalist Air Pollution

From Watts Up With That?: Environmentalists have promoted the theory that human civilization is the main cause of global warming. They argue that Governments worldwide must take immediate drastic action to prevent a catastrophe. The chain of proof in their human-caused climate catastrophe theory is broken in at least six places:
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:13 PM | Your Say (0)

The UnMcCain

Romney'€™s going to EXCEL in the town hall format and blow away people'€™s expectations of him.  
The guy is genuinely nice and loves talking to people.  He knows how to work a crowd.  I've seen footage of him at campaign events where he'€™s fielding questions from randoms and he comes off as a competent, professional, yet relatable man who people can trust to get the job done.  He's handsome, youthful-looking, vibrant, and dare I say dashing.  The complete opposite of mealy-mouthed, shark-eyed, creepazoid John McCain. -- DOOM ANTIDOTE: Town Hall Debate Edition — 10/16/2012

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

French Army Knife

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Via the always illuminating Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

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

"There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she must decide which celebrity’s eyebrows she wants to have surgically sculpted onto her face."

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For many young women (and perhaps old women who chose the wrong celebrity when their time came as girls) the choice is clear: Megan Fox’s eyebrows are they eyebrows they want. PUT THEM ON ALL OF OUR FACES, PLEASE, WE DON’T CARE WHAT IT COSTS! -- Congratulations To Megan Fox’s Eyebrows

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:47 AM | Your Say (5)

The Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg

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If you’re wondering what could be especially difficult about boiling an egg, you should have heard her.
The Flaw — the unappetizing probability of either a chalky yolk or a runny white — occurs because the yolk gets cooked before the white, and the desired temperature window turns out to be harrowingly small, so the ideal preparation must set the white while leaving the yolk custardy, and not do it too rapidly. -- Cook’s Illustrated’s Christopher Kimball Believes Cooking Is Ultraserious Business - NYTimes.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:34 AM | Your Say (0)

Hat of the Season

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"I once hand hopes of a Vogue cover but..."

Knit Turkey Hat - The Green Head

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Defining the Indefinable

We cannot call them “Progressives” since they oppose the progress of industry and human rights, and positively seek the regression of the fine arts to sub-barbaric levels.
We cannot call them “Liberals” because they oppose liberty in every area except sexual incontinence, and the socialist Liberals of the Twentieth Century sought the direct opposite of the goals of the classical Liberals of the Nineteenth. Where the classical Liberal sought to expand the franchise of voting to the lower classes, blacks, and women, the socialist Liberal sought to abolish the franchise except for a ritual casting of One Party Votes for the office of President-for-Life. -- Defining the Indefinable, Defending the Indefensible | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:22 AM | Your Say (1)

"Give it to me fast and furious!" Hillary Takes the Money Shot. Again.

World's Most Humiliated Wife becomes just another money shot in Obama's endless political porn film.
Hillary in 2008: "That buck stopped in the Oval Office"

Ah yes, biggest bottom in the Democrat party in more ways than one. If this goes on, I'm going to start to think she really enjoys this sort of thing.

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

Heaven Can't Wait

"I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness
and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us. But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it." -- Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon - Telegraph

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 AM | Your Say (3)

The Panspermia Paradox

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If evolved galactic panspermia is real it'll be capable of living just about everywhere.
There should be stuff on the Moon, Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus, even minor planets and cometary nuclei. Every icy nook and cranny in our solar system should be a veritable paradise for these ultra-tough lifeforms, honed by natural selection to make the most of appalling conditions. So if galactic panspermia exists why haven't we noticed it yet? -- | Life, Unbounded, Scientific American Blog Network

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:16 AM | Your Say (2)

September, 2010: “This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America -- an industry that’s going to be central to the next generation of cars,” Obama said.

October 2012: A123 Systems Inc. (AONE), a maker of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, filed for bankruptcy after failing to make a debt payment that was due yesterday. -- Bloomberg News

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

"Don't shoot!" I'm Che!" I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

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Forty five years ago this week, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot.
If the saying "What goes around comes around" ever fit, it's here. "When you saw the beaming look on Che's face as his victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner to this writer, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." As commander of the La Cabana execution yard, Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man (or boy) by firing the coup de grace himself. -- Humberto Fontova - Townhall

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

Homonoia

Imagine Greek times when there were Greeks, almost-Greeks and those who might become Greeks in a vague concept of the homonoia.
America had some of that concept in its formation before we became enthralled by diversity. Early concepts of homonoia had elements of race in them, as did early concepts of Americanism. Over time Americans came to accept various nationalities and linguistic groups as candidates for the melting pot. It took time to include Asians and Africans in that mix, but it was happening. As Bill Buckley used to say, you could study to become an American. It took work but you could do it, and we were opening that to everyone. That, of course was back before we became enthralled to diversity. -- Homonoia, China, NASA, and other matters « Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:17 AM | Your Say (1)

October 15, 2012

Who’s ‘Politicizing’ Benghazi?

In the days before the attack Joe Biden had been peddling his Obama campaign slogan that “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
The first successful terrorist attack on U.S. sovereign territory since 9/11, and on the very anniversary and by al-Qaeda-linked killers, was not helpful to the Obama team. And so the nature of the event had to be “politicized”: Look, over there — an Islamophobic movie! “Greater love hath no man than this,” quoth the president at Chris Stevens’ coffin, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Smaller love hath no man than Obama’s, than to lay down his “friend” for a couple of points in Ohio. -- - Mark Steyn

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

Michelle Obama: ‘We Are in the Midst of a Huge Recovery’ Yes, we are. It's called "the Presidential Election" and the recovery begins in earnest on November 6th.

Pablo Sato, co-host of Pablo & Free on WPGC 95.5, a Washington, D.C.-area hip-hop radio station, asked the first lady:  "€œMrs. Obama, you know what, in your words, tell us what you think the state of the union is in right now?" Mrs. Obama said, "I mean, we are seeing right now that we are in the midst of a huge recovery. Right?  Because of what this president has done." -- CNSNews.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:07 PM | Your Say (3)

Layers and Layers of Fact-Checkers Score Again

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Screen shot from MSNBC, the network for supposedly "€œreality-based" liberals -- €“faster than the speed of light, eh?  Did Baumgartner turn into pure energy, like Chris Matthews, or a black hole, like Keith Olberman? -- Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:53 PM | Your Say (6)

The Emerging Doctrine of the United States

What is happening in Syria is significant for a new foreign doctrine emerging in the United States
-- a doctrine in which the United States does not take primary responsibility for events, but which allows regional crises to play out until a new regional balance is reached. Whether a good or bad policy -- and that is partly what the U.S. presidential race is about -- it is real, and it flows from lessons learned. -- Stratfor

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

Air Sickness Bag Alert: Brad Pitt Proves Actors Will Blather Any Crap Put in Their Mouths

Translation:
"It's not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel No.5. Inevitable."

Michael K summed up the entire vibe perfectly: "I hope in honor of Brad being their new face, they come out with a bong version of the bottle." --Eau De Toilet | Dlisted

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (9)

Scapegoat Auditions Continue

"This is an administration that can ship thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels and be unaware of it.
So why can't it ship weapons to jihadists and be unaware of it? The modus operandi has been to find a fall guy for every debacle. For Fast and Furious it was some low level bureaucrats. For Benghazi it will be Hillary. For Syria the talent search is still on." -- Belmont Club サ The Illusion of Control

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

The Obama Breaking Point

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When was "€œRecovery Summer"? What were the shovel-ready jobs -- that were "€œnot as -- uh -- shovel-ready as we expected"€?
Where went the stimulus? How much are we owed by GM? What happened to the Volt? Where are the "millions of green jobs"€?  Did the green-shade Joe Biden really go through the stimulus line by line? And was he smirking and guffawing at what he saw? Do we remember the mad, obscene rantings of the "€œTruther"€ Van Jones or the Mao devotee Anita Dunn? How long have Rham Emanuel and Bill Daley been gone? For many, Obama has become one Steven Chu too many.... With well over 400 rounds of golf and 200 fundraisers under his belt, no wonder Mr. Obama had to skip the national security briefings and the debate prep — what a “drag” they were. -- Works and Days »

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

[Solved and Bumped] Here's Looking at You Mystery Eyeball of the Sea

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Giant eyeball found on beach, posing mystery for marine biologists
Marine biologists couldn't immediately identify which species of sea creature would be associated with the eye, but researchers will use genetic testing if necessary to solve the mystery, said Carli Segelson, a spokeswoman for the commission. "I shouldn't say this, but they may be able to eyeball it."

UPDATE (Because I knew you were all on tenterhooks): Giant eyeball mystery solved
'Experts on site and remotely have viewed and analyzed the eye, and based on its color, size and structure, along with the presence of bone around it, we believe the eye came from a swordfish,' said Joan Herrera, curator of collections at the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. 'Based on straight-line cuts visible around the eye, we believe it was removed by a fisherman and discarded.'

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:41 AM | Your Say (7)

Rational Family Time

The only "rational" time for a female to have children is when her high school (and if she goes to college, her college) education is complete;
she is married to the intended Father of her child; and at least one of them is gainfully employed so that they can together, support a family. That family, and if they live in a neighborhood containing other like-minded families who approached child producing in a similar way, will, amazingly, have no need for a police presence at youth sporting events.

Funny how that works. Must be a coincidence, because we know that those kind of old-fashioned "values" are obsolete and passe.

The more "enlightened" and progressive way to look at it
would be to conclude that larger welfare checks, bigger raises for the existing school teachers, free school breakfasts, free post-school day care, and free school dinners (in addition to the free lunches), bigger and even better free recreational facilities and whatever else can be subsidized such as cable tv or the Dish...and of course......a police presence at all large gatherings - is the way to go. -- Comment by southernjames in Side-Lines: Meanwhile at the "Pittsburgh Obama International Studies Academy in East Liberty"

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (1)

TO A POET A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE

by: James Elroy Flecker

I WHO am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Maimonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.

Via Poetry Corner @ John C. Wright's Journal

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

October 14, 2012

Meanwhile at the "Pittsburgh Obama International Studies Academy in East Liberty"

Hundreds of parents and children found themselves running and ducking for cover Saturday morning as gunshots rang from the metal bleachers overlooking the field
-- the third shooting at a Pittsburgh youth football game in the last five years. A statement released by Pittsburgh police said a 27-year-old man from Wilkinsburg was shot in the chest, a 64-year-old woman from Verona was shot in the stomach and shoulder and a 33-year-old woman was shot in the hand. -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Note to self: Avoid graduation celebrations at the "Pittsburgh Obama International Studies Academy."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:12 PM | Your Say (15)

Benghazi in 5 Sentences: "One of the most sophisticated military attacks ever launched at a diplomatic facility."

At 8:30 p.m., when Ambassador Stevens strolled outside the gate and bid his Turkish guest good night, the streets were calm and quiet.
At 9:40 p.m., an armed assault on the compound began, well planned and executed by men not only armed with mortars but capable of firing them to lethal purpose — a rare combination among the excitable mobs of the Middle East. There was no demonstration against an Islamophobic movie that just got a little out of hand. Indeed, there was no movie protest at all. Instead, a U.S. consulate was destroyed and four of its personnel were murdered in one of the most sophisticated military attacks ever launched at a diplomatic facility. -- Who’s ‘Politicizing’ Benghazi? - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:57 PM | Your Say (17)

Going Down?

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Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Freefalls From the Edge of Space, Sets World Records Felix has landed safely from his jump from the Stratosphere. Preliminary Figures, official data TBC: Altitude: 128,097 ft Duration of freefall: 4:19 Total jump time: 9:03 Speed: 1137 kmh

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:42 PM | Your Say (5)

Sandal Socks

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"While I’m sure you can immediately think of many people who would love, and make good use of these, (Luckily,) I can’t tell you where to buy them." -- Hurricane Vanessa

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:14 PM | Your Say (3)

The thrill is gone.

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“If you don't have a record to run on…you make a big election about small things.” -- Michelle Obama's Mirror: The Revolution Will NOT Be Televised

The only people voting for Obama in this election are those who'd vote Democrat no matter who the candidate is
and those people who are nostalgic for the Hope and Change that Obama promised in 2008 that these people really believed would magically change their lives. No new people are added to Obama's fad, and many of those formerly infatuated with his fad have moved on from their lives and away from him. He does not win the election as a result. -- Illinois Redistricting -- Eeyore Breeding -- Doom Antidote

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

"Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is Alive Back on Life Support"

And the hits just keep on comin'!: General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again
Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion. Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share.

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

Rich "Sophisticated" Suckers Plucked Bare By Hippie Art Scammer

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For decades, this self-taught painter, who had once scratched out a living in Amsterdam, Morocco, and other spots along the hippie trail,
had passed off his own paintings as newly discovered masterpieces by Max Ernst, André Derain, Max Pechstein, Georges Braque, and other Expressionists and Surrealists from the early 20th century. Helene Beltracchi, along with two accomplices—including her sister—had sold the paintings for six and seven figures through auction houses in Germany and France, including Sotheby’s and Christie’s. One phony Max Ernst had hung for months in a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Steve Martin purchased a fake Heinrich Campendonk through the Paris gallery Cazeau-Béraudière for $860,000 in 2004; the French magazine-publishing mogul Daniel Filipacchi paid $7 million for a phony Max Ernst, titled The Forest (2), in 2006. For the 14 fakes that the Beltracchis were eventually charged with selling, their estimated take was around €16 million, or $22 million. Their total haul over the years must have been far more. -- The Incredible Rise and Fall of High-Flying Art Scammers Helene and Wolfgang Beltracchi

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (7)

October 13, 2012

The Science Is Settled!

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:25 PM | Your Say (2)

WHEN A TICKET IS STILL PLAYING TO ITS BASE IN THE GENERAL...:

...the election is already lost. At that point you're just trying to salvage seats downticket.
Biden aimed to throw the Obama base a lifeline. He fed the Kos Kidz desperate need to see some fight, but at the cost of his remaining (and mostly notional) dignity. If you want a gibbering, snorting, mumbling clown with a rictus-grin locked on his mug a heartbeat away from controlling America's nuclear arsenal, Joe Biden's your guy. -- BrothersJudd

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:00 PM | Your Say (5)

This Just In

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Via Michelle Obama's Mirror: Our Consistently Evolving Lack of Civility

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

Paterson’s Field Guide to the Left

In they psychological stance, they are sadists. Their rhetoric and the emotional images used to appeal to their base
are all images of retaliation, of inflicting pain, and their argument consists of nothing but ad hominem and character assassination.... In their psychopathology, they are suicidal. In any conflict, they side with whoever or whatever will inflict harm on their true enemy, which includes any father figure or authority figure placed over them. Where man conflicts with the environment, they side against man, and daydream about a world denuded of mankind. Where civilization confronts barbarism, they side with the barbarians, either Soviet or Jihadist. -- John C. Wright's Journal

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

October 12, 2012

"Biden still does not understand what he is."

He is a fellow traveler, a dupe, a scarecrow of the old white male liberal establishment
hung up over a cornfield to attract unknowing liberals while serving as a figure of fun to the left. And despite his corruption and arrogance, there is something sad and pathetic in the spectacle of a hollow man with capped teeth set in a grin making a fool of himself for the amusement of the Post-American crowd. A crowd that he thinks are laughing with him, when they are actually laughing at him. -- Sultan Knish: The Scarecrow of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:02 PM | Your Say (6)

A record I'm DAMNED proud of!

My latest email from Smoot, Obama, and the rest of the parasites reads:
Gerard -- According to our records associated with this email address -- hopefully it's yours if you're reading this! -- here's your online giving history for this organization: -- Your supporter ID number is: 1013051605 -- Your most recent online donation was: $0 -- Total amount donated online in 2012: $0 It looks like you haven't made an online donation to the campaign yet. If you were waiting for the last minute, you're pretty much there.

I think I can hold out.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:40 PM | Your Say (4)

Life Begins Where It Always Has Begun. At the Beginning

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The life of a human being begins at conception, when the union of gametes brings into being a new organism –the embryo–
that is both functionally and genetically complete and distinct. The embryo is a living member of the species Homo sapiens–a human being in the earliest stage of his or her natural development. The life of a human being begins at conception, when the union of gametes brings into being a new organism–the embryo–that is both functionally and genetically complete and distinct. The embryo is a living member of the species Homo sapiens–a human being in the earliest stage of his or her natural development. For confirmation of these biological facts, the place to look is not the Bible or the Catechism, but rather any modern work of human embryology or developmental biology. -- Robert P. George @ Well Said | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (8)

Obama and Biden were winning—until they faced actual opponents

Where was the Ayn Rand-worshiping, rape-redefining, fanatically exercising zealot
who wants to throw grandmothers off of cliffs and whose budget plan is, according to the president, “thinly veiled Social Darwinism” that is “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility”? That Paul Ryan was nowhere to be found. -- Washington Free Beacon

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

First "Global Warming." Then "Climate Change." Now “Global Climate Disruption”

Why it seems that severe weather is “getting worse” when the data shows otherwise With such global coverage, instant messaging, and Internet enabled phones with cameras now,
is it any wonder that nothing related to severe weather or disaster escapes our notice any more? Certainly, without considering the technological change in our society, it would seem as if severe weather events and disasters are becoming much more frequent. To borrow and modify a famous phrase from James Carville: It’s the technology, stupid.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:48 AM | Your Say (1)

Rock Out at "Only" $228/gram

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Largest Piece Of The Moon Ever Offered: The headliner of this stellar event is a four pound Moon rock — the largest piece of the Moon ever to be auctioned — that is expected to bring $340,000 .
“This Moon rock is worthy of the finest natural history museums in the world," said Pitt. “The 4th largest piece of the Moon that can be privately owned will sell for as little as $228/gram, which includes the buyer's commission— quite inexpensive! Only 135 pounds of the Moon is available to the public and this is a superlative example of some of what is perhaps the rarest naturally occurring substance on Earth.”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:32 AM | Your Say (2)

The Enduring Evil of Pringles

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A Pringle — or 3 — 2 farAbove, three new Halloween special-edition Pringles varieties, each more disgusting and repellent than the last.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:15 AM | Your Say (5)

Depends and Other Disposable Underlings

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:15 AM | Your Say (3)

It's Joe Laughing Matter


Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (2)

What Did the President Not Know and When Did He Not Know It?

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In effect, Biden claimed that State, CIA, etc., deceived the White House. Interesting relationship that between Secretary Clinton and President Obama, that between Director Petraeus and President Obama . . . -- The DiploMad 2.0: Biden: State & CIA Lie on Libya, but Tell Truth on Iran

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

Cancri in the Sky is Diamond

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New Exoplanet Is Twice Earth's Size -- and Made Largely of Diamond “On this planet there would basically be a thin layer below the surface which will have both graphite and diamond,”
lead author on the paper Nikku Madhusudhan told Universe Today. “But, below that there will be a thick layer (a third of the radius) with mostly diamond. For a large part the diamond will be like the diamond on Earth, except really, really pure. But at greater depths the diamond could also be in liquid form.”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (3)

Best T-Shirt in the History of the Known Universe

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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 AM | Your Say (7)

October 11, 2012

Hee Haw

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If people were actually comparing the two debaters, Ryan was an attractive, polite, stable, normal, well-informed young man.
Joe was the bloviating, obnoxious drunk at the bar who had grabbed Ryan by his lapel and wouldn't let go. You could practically see Ryan's hair melt from the noxious odors wafting out from behind Joe's peculiarly whitened dentures.-- Bookworm Room

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

On the larger issue, speaking of abortion,

pulling the lever for a Democrat candidate in the voting booth is the same as pulling the lever on the trapdoor of your own gallows. It is self-excommunication.
Saying that the living offspring of a human being is not a human being is a contradiction in terms. Species do not reproduce themselves as things not themselves. Geese do not lay acorns, but goose eggs. Oak trees do not drop goslings, but acorns. -- For the Undecided Catholic Voter | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:35 PM | Your Say (4)

When the Democrats ask in eye-popping astonishment and contempt in what way abolishing marriage harms marriage, they are not just being stupid and evil.

They are being stupid and evil, of course, but there is a thin veneer of honest surprise behind their dumb question and their theatrical mock astonishment. They actually do not get it.
They are utterly worldly, utterly crass materialists. They are so crass, in fact, that they believe themselves to be more spiritual than the grasping Republicans, and more enlightened than the benighted Christians. They do not see any spiritual or logical or rational or legal point to marriage. To them marriage is merely an emotional thing, a mechanism to sate an appetite. -- For the Undecided Catholic Voter | John C. Wright's Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:33 PM | Your Say (1)

Loomings

Spengler: The horizon collapses in the Middle East When the future irrupts into the present, nations take existential risks.
Iran will pursue nuclear ambitions that almost beg for military pre-emption; Egypt will pursue a provocative course of Islamist expansion that cuts off its sources of financial support at a moment of economic desperation; Syria's Alawites, Sunnis, Kurds and Druze will fight to bloody exhaustion; Iraq will veer towards a civil war exacerbated by outside actors; and Turkey will lash out in all directions. And in the West, idealists will be demoralized and realists will be confused, the former by the collapse of interest in deals, the latter by the refusal of all players in those countries to accept reality.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:20 PM | Your Say (1)

"The Tokyo Roses in conservative ranks (people like Erik Erikson at RedState, Peggy Noonan, George Will, and others) "

Any conservative writer who puts out articles or goes on the air to help reinforce the Obama campaign’s “inevitability” facade
is like the Tokyo Rose propagandists of the past who would try to entice American soldiers to just give up during WWII…while crafting lies that the Empire of Japan was unbeatable (and if you wanted to get on the side of the winners, you had better go A.W.O.L. and switch sides now). --Hillbuzz

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:06 AM | Your Say (6)

With any luck this won't end well

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"We have special falafel recipe for Code Pinkers."

So the Code Pink chicks apparently decided that bitching and moaning over the possibility of paying for their own 9 buck birth control, while noble and proactive just wasn't enough.
They planned to sally forth into the world and go global, fix some shit in a third world country. Someplace like Fuckedupistan or Bedrock. Naturally when a group of angry feminists and the eunuch men who love em decide to take their show on the road, they choose a place that will be receptive and welcome them with open arms. Pakistan. About three dozen code pinkies are headed toward Pakistan's militant / Taliban controlled tribal belt to protest U.S. drone strikes. -- Midtown Miscreant: Drifting down the river of denial in a douche canoe....

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (8)

Keeping It Simple

Sippican Cottage: Any Fool Can Make Something More Complex; But It Takes Real Genius To Make Something Simple Again

A human can't do the exact same thing twice like a machine can, and the wood wouldn't allow uniformity anyway; no two pieces of wood are identical. Everything you make is one-of-a-kind. I've made hundreds of tables. No two of them are remotely the same. I'll go further, and aver that each has a kind of personality, revealed in working on them. They all have opinions about the weather, and think they have a "good side," like a teenager being photographed.

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

“They are not near Benghazi...This is silly”

Admirably, Jay-Jay continued to doublespeak his way around the truth as well as he could
- given the knee deep hoopla that he found himself wading around in. “We have been clear all along that this was an ongoing investigation, that as more facts became available we would make you aware of them as appropriate, and we have done that,” Carney said. (snip) “I think there is no question that when four Americans are killed at a diplomatic facility, that something went wrong,” Carney said. -- Michelle Obama's Mirror:

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

"America has only one problem: America is a communist country."

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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! -- The kiss: "Stalin was feeling extremely gay"

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

Racial insouciance

Racial insouciance as a public ideal came up in the 1960s among the intelligentsia and the Yankee bourgeoisie.
To this day it still has not (to borrow from a famous mistranslation of one of Stalin's speeches) penetrated the backward parts of the proletariat. Racial insouciance is not a core American value; it's a boomer fad, like James Bond movies. It will be interesting to see which fad outlasts the other. -- href="http://takimag.com/article/anniversary_of_a_defenestration_part_ii_john_derbyshire/print#axzz28xoySgmP">John Derbyshire, Anniversary of a Defenestration, Part II

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:07 AM | Your Say (0)

October 10, 2012

"I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive."

My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities.
If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed, your boss, David Siegel -- CEO to Workers: You'll Likely Be Fired If Obama Is Re-elected

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:57 PM | Your Say (5)

One Obamaphone? Hell. This Parasite's Got Herself 30 Obamaphones!

That "Universal Access" charge on your monthly bill pays for phones for these parasites. Sucker. [HT: Bill Jones]

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

Somebody, Somewhere, Buy Sarah Palin a Few Bacon Cheese Mooseburgers Please!

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No. Just. Nooooooooooooooo. The crop top, the leggings worn as pants.
The platform wedge cork sandals. The Halloween skeleton-ness of it all. Something is very not okay. This is not the droid we were looking for. -- Naked DC

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (12)

Sclerosis of the Left

Hence, the progression towards totalitarian methods: the speech laws, the thought police, the prison terms, the CCTV, the limits on freedom of association, and so on.
Hence also the entrechment of an academic scholasticism, rather than the sweep of vibrant intellectual movements. What we are witnessing is the scelotisation of their revolution, the exhaustion of its possibilities. This sclerotisation has opened possibilities for another revolution, for, not only has the Left failed across the board, on every level, but the citizenry is manifestly tired of always the same faces, the same names, the same slogans, the same arguments, and things getting worse and worse, with the persistence of problems always being explained in terms there not being enough of the same. -- The West as a Tomb

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:33 PM | Your Say (2)

Sadly, Mongo No Longer Pawn In Game of Life

Alex Karras, Former NFL Lineman, Star of 'Webster,' Dies at 77: I remember him best from his tailor-made role in Mel Brooks' 1974 classic western sendup, Blazing Saddles, as Mongo, a brute strong man enlisted by the evil Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) to destroy the innocent town of Rockridge. -- Sensing @ Sense of Events

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:29 PM | Your Say (4)

Momentous!

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“A second Carter administration would have been truly momentous,” Obama said. I was actually curious why the president had, seemingly overnight, become so smitten with the generally unloved Carter, but was cut off by Rahm.
“You’re right, Mr. President,” Rahm said. “A second Carter administration would have been momentous. Momentously faggy, at least.” --Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:49 PM | Your Say (4)

"One of the things I wish conservative people would understand is that yes, pop culture does matter. Read more http://hillbuzz.org/daily-doom-antidote-how-easy-it-is-to-rattle-the-left-when-you-just-try-10102012-10102012"

because pop culture is the means by which a lot of people relate to one another…and if you close yourself off to that YOU end up placing yourself at a big disadvantage when it comes time to communicate something to people who otherwise are completely uninterested in what you might have to say. -- Hillbuzz

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:37 PM | Your Say (2)

"One of the things I wish conservative people would understand is that yes, pop culture does matter. Read more http://hillbuzz.org/daily-doom-antidote-how-easy-it-is-to-rattle-the-left-when-you-just-try-10102012-10102012"

DAILY DOOM ANTIDOTE: How easy it is to rattle the Left when you JUST TRY — 10/10/2012

because pop culture is the means by which a lot of people relate to one another…and if you close yourself off to that YOU end up placing yourself at a big disadvantage when it comes time to communicate something to people who otherwise are completely uninterested in what you might have to say.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:37 PM | Your Say (0)

Fuck you, fuck your "candidate," and fuck the big bird he flew in on.

Jen Psaki, traveling press secretary for the Obama campaign on AF One: "There's only one candidate in this race who is going to continue to fight for Big Bird and Elmo and he's riding on this plane."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:20 PM | Your Say (0)

Things to Do with Green Machines When Bored

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xkcd: Undoing

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:14 PM | Your Say (0)

The Deep Web

A Journey into the Dark Corners of the Deep Web Today, the most horrifying communities aren’t on BBS systems or Usenet.

There’s some pretty bad stuff available on the surface layer of the web, but that’s not where the worst of it is. You’ve probably heard about the deep web, a phrase that is obtuse and employed differently in various contexts. That’s because it is so hard to define: almost another Internet beyond the one you can access with a Google search, one that is many times larger than the mind-boggingly large Internet we know, and one where it is easy to hide, anonymously and mostly safe from law enforcement.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (2)

"Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic. All modern revolutions have ended with a reinforcement of the power of the state"

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"Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or by a taste for the superhuman, in one sense cripple judgment. On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence — through a curious transposition peculiar to our times — it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself. -- Albert Camus - The Rebel [HT: Wilson]

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:22 AM | Your Say (0)

DeCronyBate

President Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz,
The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review. --Barack Obama, debate moderator wedding guest | The Daily Caller

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:19 AM | Your Say (0)

Uncivil Unrights

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Civil rights stopped being civil rights decades ago and became civil entitlements,
civil privileges allotted to especially deserving groups on account of their official victim status. These civil rights, peculiarly, deprived other people of their freedom and violated the very ethos of equality that had been the basis of the whole fight. In a tragic turn of events the fight for equality became the fight for inequality. -- Sultan Knish: Sex and the Single Socialist

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (0)

October 9, 2012

L is for Loser

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“Vote Obama: He knows how small the PBS subsidy is, but he can’t get the national debt correct to the nearest six trillion – even when he’s the guy who spent it.” Give it a week or so, and, in a grand harmonic convergence of Democrat talking points, Big Bird will be dating Sandra Fluke. -- - By Mark Steyn - The Corner

Or, as put so succintly by Morgan at the House of Eratoshenes,

"Romney Could Shoot Big Bird in Broad Daylight, Set the Carcass on Fire, Urinate on it to Put the Flames Out, and Not Lose a Single Vote."

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:01 PM | Your Say (6)

This just in:

" Romney now leading Obama in the polls in all 57 states!" -- Communism Kills

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:39 AM | Your Say (3)

From Shin-Bijutsukai, a Japanese Design Magazine, 1902.

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For more see Japanese Designs (1902) | The Public Domain Review

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (6)

Why the Country Is Unhappy Under Obama

The real unemployment rate is 15 percent, measured by what is called U-6, which includes people who are working part-time on an involuntary basis.
We have 4.7 million fewer jobs than the peak reached at the end of 2007. And indeed much of the improvement in jobs has been through dubious "seasonal" adjustments, such as the July seasonal bump of 377,000 jobs—the largest such adjustment for July in the past 10 years. The labor participation rate has dropped to a 30-year low, and if not for that development, the unemployment rate would be much higher. -- Mort Zuckerman- US News and World Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (1)

"Never go full retard."

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Here's where I have trouble handicapping this thing: The Obama campaign was bitterly stung last week, and the Benadryl hasn't much reduced the swelling.
They want a quick turnaround, and I have the sickening feeling they are pressuring Biden to deliver it. To make up for Obama's failure. I believe they will force Joe to come out swinging, to go for the jugular with every turn. Biden isn't bad at that occasionally, but I think there is going to be so much pressure on him to hit a homer with every response that he will be far outside his comfort zone. We are liable to see a campaign-orchestrated effort to force Biden so far off his game he goes full-blown retard. And it won't be his fault. -- Velociworld: The Uncle Joe Show

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

“Free” Rascal Scooters

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If I wanted to be politically correct, I’d call the fat asses cruising on their “free” rascal scooters, the weight challenged disabled on their powered mobility enhancement vehicles.
You know a trend has become a massive scam, when South Park dedicates an entire show to the shame of obesity and the scooter brigade. The majority of the scooter squad jamming up the boardwalk was less than 50 years old. They weren’t disabled. They were just too obese and lazy to wobble down the boardwalk to the next junk food joint. They were certainly in the right place. The Wildwood boardwalk is home to pizza topped with cheese fries, chocolate covered bacon, fried Oreos, funnel cake topped with powdered sugar, and 64 ounce sugar laced lemonade. The place would make Nanny Bloomberg’s head explode. -- Guest Post: Decline, Decay, Denial, Delusion, And Despair | ZeroHedge

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (5)

Sealing off Mexico and bringing illegal immigration to a standstill

will not, however, solve anything beyond immediate security concerns.
The loss of those immigrants’ cheap labor would have an enormously negative effect on California’s economy, depriving countless politicians of nannies to underpay. It would also exacerbate the demographic implosion the immigrants have partially offset. But the elephant in the room—the replacement of Anglos by Hispanics—would be delayed rather than stopped. -- The Mexican Basket Case - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 AM | Your Say (0)

The Costs to African-Americans of Obama Luv

The median annual household income for blacks declined by 11.1 percent (from $36,567 to $32,498)
from June 2009 to June 2012, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by Sentier Research. The decline for whites was 5.2 percent and for Hispanics 4.1 percent. Both groups started with higher incomes than blacks. -- The shrinking black middle class - Chicago Tribune

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

Forget Romney's Defunding. Big Bird to Could Be Beggared by Obama's Wealth Tax

Big Bird has bigger problems than Mitt Romney: Carroll Spinney, who has played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since the show's inception,
earned more than $314,000 in compensation in 2011, according to the organization's 990 form. Former Sesame Workshop head Gary Knell earned $988,456, including $270,000 in bonus and incentive compensation. Knell became the head of National Public Radio last year.

Ah yes, it's starvation central over on Sesame Street.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:15 AM | Your Say (0)

October 8, 2012

White House Scientists Struggle to Contain Outbreak of Scrutonium

WASHINGTON DC - Engaged a relentless battle against time and fatigue, aselect group of message scientists assembled by the White House's Center for Narrative Control say they will take "all steps necessary" to contain a recent outbreak of scrutonium, a deadly poll-eating supervirus that attacks the immuno-hope system, leaving victims vulnerable to material facts. -- iowahawk:

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

Braving Time

Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.

-- Pound, Envoi

100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found in Amber : This is the only fossil ever discovered that shows a spider attacking prey in its web. Preserved in amber, it's about 100 million years old.
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:14 PM | Your Say (3)

Reparations? Fuck You. Strong Posting to Follow [Bumped]

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About 300,000 white guys died defeating slavery. Another 300,000 died defending their invaded territory.
Where are the reparations for their families? Do you want my opinion on reparations? FUCK YOU. Those 600,000 souls would have been far more productive inventing machines and companies and farm implements than dying on a bloody goddam battlefield for a tribe who has yet to say thank you. Who, indeed, 140 years later, still insist on sticking their lazy hand out for a freebie from massah. -- Velociworld: Transformer

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:38 PM | Your Say (40)

Ace sez: "I'm in it, chiefly, for the gloating."

I think the election is over. I think it is so over we need a new Latin tense to describe how over it is, the Past Pluperfect Noncontinuing Historical Past Tense.
So, what the hell are we going to do for a month? That's where Romney and Ryan are going to have to step the hell up. To make this entertaining, and not just a snoozer of a blowout, they're going to have to deliberately make some bad choices. They're going to have to fight to keep this close, to keep it interesting. -- Re-Post: It's Over

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

Lara Logan brings ominous news from Middle East

She made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.” Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us. -- Reporter - Chicago Sun-Times

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:42 AM | Your Say (5)

Usually I'm against terrorist suicide bombers targeting idiots in large pink vagina costumes but .... but....

Taliban Threaten Code Pink Activists Protesting Drone Strikes With Suicide Bombers

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (6)

The $100 California Fill Up

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Californians have a right to the most stringent environmental regulations in the nation. They voted for them; they own them. It only seems just that they should pay for them. It’s God’s way of teaching people to take responsibility. -- Had Enough Therapy?: California, Running Out of Gas

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

The Ministry of Truth at Work

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Minitrue enjoys reporting that America is a racist country -- but they don't acknowledge that this supposedly racist nation elected a black president.
How on Earth did that happen? You'd think Minitrue would have to relinquish its insistence that America is unredeemably racist because there are black people living in the White House RIGHT NOW -- but most reporters are very lazy people and they don't want to give up the way they've always done things, which is to accuse Americans of being racist. -- Lies the Media Tell to Help Barack Obama --

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:36 AM | Your Say (2)

Civility Is Still Dead

  • "[Sarah] Palin's map is of a similar vein, though it is more personal. The markers on the map, showing the location of the congressional districts, look like the crosshairs of a rifle sight, and it was accompanied by a list of names... It's silly for her aides to claim she did not intend these to be gunsights."--"fact check," Washington Post website, Jan. 11, 2011
  • "Paul Ryan in the Crosshairs"--headline, Washington Post website, Oct.3, 2012 -- WSJ.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:56 AM | Your Say (0)

October 7, 2012

"Telling somebody who you are voting for has no upside:

There is no respect for your right as a citizen, but outright hatred from those who do not agree with you. I fear that I will lose friends, some of whom I hold inside my heart. Of course, I will also lose friends I really don’t like anyway." -- Buzz Bissinger: Why I’m Voting for Mitt Romney - The Daily Beast

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:35 PM | Your Say (0)

"By simply governing competently a ‘President Romney’"

could set the stage for new American century and in the process, save the world from catastrophe and midwife a resurgence.
The world is now in the throes of a crisis. Without a center there is a real danger that it will collapse into conflict and chaos instead of overcoming it. For you need a center in which to preserve what is precious and from that vantage to rebuild.... North America as the hinge of fate. Properly run it could provide the anchor around which the world will eventually recover. But only if it is properly run. The real danger posed by the Obama administration is that it threatened to destroy the “last best place on earth” and leave the world with no unburned core from which to regenerate. -- Belmont Club サ Circularity

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

American Tribes

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We are all Indians now, we all live on reservations waiting for our government check and depending on our corrupt tribal leaders to protect us
from the unknowable insanity of a massive government that has too much power and too little mercy. And while you may not live that way now yet, if things go on as they are, your children and grandchildren will live that way, within the bowels of a political machine that is both vast and microscopic at the same time. -- Sultan Knish: American Tribals

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:48 PM | Your Say (3)

Lowered Expectations

Over 60 million now expect little at all from their president in the debate, so Obama will benefit from dismal expectations
by just showing up as the incumbent and being addressed as "€œMr. President." The pressure on Romney to be even more impressive mounts. The realization that another rant by a liberal commentator could cement the reputation of Obama as an incompetent and add to the image of a hopelessly inept president will temper post-debate media anger. The moderator cannot afford to be laissez-faire in the fashion of Jim Lehrer, and will prove far more partisan. The media pressure to discount the importance of the debates themselves will increase. -- Works and Days » Anatomy of a Disastrous Debate Performance

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (2)

23 Percent Under the Classic Unemployment Model

John Williams at Shadowstats, who uses the U.S. government methodology from 30 years ago, tells us that the U-6 unemployment rate is around 23 percent.
The difference is in how you create the model. The feds keep changing the rules, and it should be no surprise that with each new rule the number of people officially counted as unemployed drops. -- Mort Zuckerman: Why the Country Is Unhappy Under Obama - US News and World Report

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (0)

Bullying Victim Signals She’s Ready To Begin Her Life Of Endless Praise Without Merit Now

The Rumford Meteor

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

Ragland: "Free People Vintage Levis Patched Jeans in Blue"

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Sold Out: $199 at Free People -- (denim) | Lyst

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 AM | Your Say (3)

Life Styles of the "Noble Nobel Savages"

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50 skulls, 200 jaws found at Mexico's Templo Mayor Some of the skulls have cut marks indicating abortive attempts to create skull masks.
The Aztecs made masks out of the front part of human skulls. They would adorn them with jade eyes and accessories like necklaces, rattles and obsidian knives. The skulls were not worn as masks. The eye sockets were blocked with decorative stones, so anybody attempting to wear one would not have been able to see.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:13 AM | Your Say (4)

October 6, 2012

There is no quitting. There is no moping. There is no whining. There is only THUNDERDOME.

Democrats only win when Republicans give up, like they did in 2008.  That'€™s the biggest secret in American politics that Minitrue doesn't want you to know.  
If conservatives stay positive and motivated, the Left just can'€™t win because independents are drawn to positive energy and if conservatives show they'€™ve got a plan and are going to win -- then independents jump on that bandwagon.  That's why I keep harping on people like Erikson who keep writing the "€œObama'€™s going to win! We're doomed!"€ garbage.  These (useful) idiots serve Minitrue's interests, not conservative readers' -- and listening to these people and then descending into the depths of Eeyore demoralized depression is just dumb.  -- How to stay positive and focused and not be fooled by Minitrue

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

Seven Unfortunate Truths

3. If America does not retain its position as the preeminent world power, we will be replaced.
A short list of eager replacements would include Russia, China, a nuclear Iran, or an Islamic Caliphate. (Which of these countries or groups of people would you want acting as the world policeman, referee, food bank, distributor of aid, and protector of the weak?) -- Handling the Truth

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:32 PM | Your Say (1)

Who Made That Escape Key?

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The key was born in 1960, when an I.B.M. programmer named Bob Bemer was trying to solve a Tower of Babel problem: computers from different manufacturers communicated in a variety of codes. Bemer invented the ESC key as way for programmers to switch from one kind of code to another. Later on, when computer codes were standardized (an effort in which Bemer played a leading role), ESC became a kind of “interrupt” button on the PC — a way to poke the computer and say, “Cut it out.” -- - NYTimes.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:13 PM | Your Say (0)

How to Dress for a Man

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Australian Female National Dress.Beer Dress - LIMITED | Black Milk Clothing 99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall...

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

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

Obama is the political equivalent of that 28-year-old kid you've let live in your basement and smoke choom all day. His buddies think he's awesome. His Facebook has tons of friends. The girls swoon over him. But he is a shiftless dick. Because you, Dad, Mr. Mainstream Media, never made him pay his dues, never looked in his sock drawer for weed, never made him sing for his supper. -- Velociworld

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:59 AM | Your Say (0)

Marxists

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In my experience, Marxists prefer to be judged, if judged at all, by their theories and rather fanciful abstractions, and by their pretentions of moral elevation
- all conveniently bleached of realism and messy human detail. And so, when not simply lying, their conversation turns to the potential of communism - communism in theory - never actual communism, i.e., communism in power. But the practical and psychological implications of egalitarian utopias aren’t exactly hard to fathom. Unless, that is, one takes care not to notice certain things or think in certain ways, and then goes on not noticing with growing sophistication. And I suspect that sophistication – a practiced unrealism - is driven by something very nasty indeed. -- davidthompson: Elsewhere (74)

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:49 AM | Your Say (7)

"How anyone could NOT see all of this stuff coming is completely beyond me. You can see all of these things coming miles and miles away."

Seriously, how stupid and balless do you have to be in order to honestly argue and believe that COMMUNISTS are not capable of killing anyone?
How stupid and balless do you have to be to convince yourself that COMMUNISTS, who murdered AT MINIMUM 250 million people in the 20th century alone, would be incapable of murdering a dim-witted, drug addicted homosexual puppet in order to completely overthrow and cement power over the largest economy and largest military force the world has ever seen? IF Obama is false-flag assassinated, there won't be any "chain of succession" issues. Joe Biden will never, ever be POTUS, no matter what. If Obama is false-flag assassinated the Constitution will be suspended, a "provisional government" will be announced and martial law declared. -- Ann Barnhardt

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:44 AM | Your Say (2)

"A simple anecdote made profound."

It's the hardest thing in music. A poem sung, a story chanted. A simple anecdote made profound. Van and his friend blew off school or whatever and went fishing and it rained and they hitchhiked and when the sun came out they went swimming and an old man gave them a drink of water because they were thirsty. And Huckleberry Finn is just a boatride. -- Sippican Cottage -- Just A Boatride

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:41 AM | Your Say (1)

"The Left is a negation of difference:"

they want everyone to be the same; they love uniformity and demand conformity....The Left is a negation of quality:
in their world everything is standardized; it’s an appeal to the lowest common denominator. That is why everything they produce is of low quality; that is why their art is a crucifix in a jar of urine; that is why they resent beauty and seek to destroy it, be it through their so-called art or through miscegenation. Beauty is elitist, discriminatory, non-democratic. Therefore, the Left is also a negation of beauty. -- Alex Kurtagic: The Great Erasure

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

October 5, 2012

A spirit bear, also known as the Kermode bear,

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in Canada's Great Bear Rainforest, on the British Columbia Coast between Vancouver Island and Southeast Alaska. That's precisely where Paul Nicklen took these amazing shots for National Geographic.
According to scientists, the white fur is triggered by Kermodism, a recessive mutation at the MC1R gene, the same gene associated with red hair and fair skin in humans. To be born white, a bear must inherit the mutation from both parents. The parents don't necessarily have to be white, they just need to pass on the recessive gene. It's not uncommon for white bears to be born to black parents. -- Gorgeous Black Bear with Spirited White Fur - My Modern Metropolis

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:10 PM | Your Say (4)

California Gas

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5 pm yesterday; At noon, Supreme had been 4.99 at the same station. -- Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (11)

"The backbone of the Democratic Party,

the ones buying the most lottery tickets, are the ones who can least afford it. Duh.
If these mouth-breathers promise not to vote, the GOP should buy them a lottery ticket. That would be cheaper than trying to reach them with political ads." -- TED NUGENT: Democrats prescribing perpetual poverty - Washington Times

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

The Marching Morons

Lulz: Interviewer Asks Obama Supporters If It Was Fair For the Debate Commission To Deny Obama The Use of His Teleprompter

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

ObamaPrep? Artfldgr @ neoneocon Says:

Why didn't Obama prepare? Two reasons.
One. Prepare for what? They don't believe in substance and merit, they don't think Reagan had that, nor anyone else. So why would they think that Romney had substance that would have to be prepared for? Two. Bad habit developed over years of screwing around golfing, vacationing, avoiding meetings. Their dominance of the press box, meant 4 years of pop Warner softball. His freak out angers meant, no hard anything. -- neo-neocon サ Blog Archive サ Two kinds of shock

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:53 AM | Your Say (1)

October 4, 2012

"Seeing the real O at last"

What we saw last night is a unique and unprecedented event in American political history. We have never had a president like Barack Obama, and the American public got its first peek at the man behind the curtain.
Barack Obama is a narcissist and a sociopath, with the skills of persuasion that children abandoned by their parents learn as a survival mechanism. In the adoring light of the liberal media, Obama reflected power and self-confidence — so long as he was in control, and stood in front of the teleprompter. The real Barack Obama is the one who cowered in the Oval Office protected by his Praetorian guard, who declined to hold cabinet meetings or meet with Republican leaders: McBama surrounded by the weird sisters, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice and Michelle. Obama’s greatest strength always has been his greatest weakness, potentially a catastrophic one: he manipulates so effectively because he has a compulsion to be in control. When he knows that he is not in control, Obama is paralyzed. -- Spengler » The Character Test in the 2012 Election

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:15 PM | Your Say (0)

Two kinds of shock

The left was shocked because they had really believed Obama's hype, and he fell so far below their expectations -- though perhaps it would be more accurate to say he failed so abysmally to live up to their beliefs.

The right was shocked because they really believed the negative media spin about Romney and he rose so far above their expectations -- though perhaps it would be more accurate to say he succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. -- neo-neocon

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

John Derbyshire: "The first thing to be noted is the fuss you can make by telling the plain truth."

Nonblack-on-black atrocities are so rare, the names of the victims are universally known:
 Emmett Till (1955), Medgar Evers (1963), James Byrd (1998), etc. They are so rare, news of a new one, however ambiguous the circumstances, dominates headlines for weeks. Black-on-nonblack atrocities are so common, you'd need to be a mnemonist to know the victims' names, even if the news media gave them prominence, which they don'€™t. -- Anniversary of a Defenestration - Taki's Magazine

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (2)

Stop with the straight lines already!

Michelle Obama on Gift Shopping for Barack: 'He's Hard to Shop For, I've Got Him Every Golf Thing that You Can Imagine'

Oh, really?
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:13 PM | Your Say (3)

Why do gangsters hold their guns sideways?

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You don't get exactly the right spacing between your sighting posts and you don't get that picture in exactly the right place, but you get it generally in the right place. The important thing is that you're close enough to the target and that you have enough experience to hit it without having perfect aligned and centered sights. This takes a great amount of time in training and use with the weapon before you will be any good with flash sight picture. This is a very quick way of aiming OK under time intensive periods. -- (13) Jon Davis- Quora

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (15)

Predicting Debate #2

Barack Obama will swaller three power-bars whole, chug a 64-ounce can of Rock Star, and smoke an entire pack of Marlboros simultaneously.
He'll burst out of the starting gate with eyes as wide as millstones, face as red as a replacement referee, and his hair literally on fire. Half the audience will suspect he's been toking that crystal meth again. And he'll come across as a madman, a raving lunatic ranting about signs and portents and Cassandra-like warnings of Armageddon if he's not reelected. He'll swerve back and fro on a drunkard's walk; he'll overcorrect like a Don Knotts on his first solo flight. -- Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Hope -- Change”

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (1)

Relax. No Worries.

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Whenever I’m feeling down, I’m just going to watch this clip of Chris Matthews. Over. And over. And over. -- A few points on this debate thing. :: Naked DC

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

Meanwhile, in the Bizarro Universe: "A Complete Disaster for Romney (now with poll!)"

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Romney spewed more lies tonight than any of us could possibly list,
but the journalists will be poring over them for the next week, and matching them up with Romney's previous statements. Obama hung back and let Mitt hang himself. Mitt abandoned his platform, his campaign, his party tonight. Obama wasn't aggressive, wasn't rude, wasn't smug. He gave his critics nothing new to put in a campaign ad. -- Daily Kos: update:
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:11 AM | Your Say (4)

Barack Obama and the Mandate Of Heaven

Our understanding is not as clear as that of the ancients. In prehistoric times, a king often served only as long as his powers demonstrably remained potent.
If hard times came to the tribe (or even he stayed around too long -- some kings reigned only a year), he was sacrificed to propitiate the gods and to make way for the new king. While the past is another country, we haven't changed as much as we'd like to think. A leader who fails can still be tossed into the gutter without a second thought by the very same people who were cheering madly only days before. -- J R Dunn / American Thinker

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:38 AM | Your Say (0)

October 3, 2012

A Debate in the Land of the Deaf

The perverse thing about the internet is that not only are people not better informed than they were in 1858,
but they actually know much less than their great-great-grandparents did. And that isn't about to change. What new media has done is helped create a stalemate, but it hasn't broken the perversion that is modern journalism, all it has done is made it uneasy and kept it from claiming all the mental territory that it has attempted to occupy. -- Sultan Knish:

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:50 PM | Your Say (5)

"Romney was channeling Reagan. Obama was channeling Biden." -- Reynolds

That wasn't a debate so much as Mitt Romney just took Obama for a cross country drive strapped to the roof of his car. -- Matt Welch

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:29 PM | Your Say (6)

Tomorrow's Debate Coverage Today

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How the Media Will Cover Wednesday's Presidential Debate: "Even conservatives were pleased with Obama's performance.
Donald Rivers, the influential right-wing columnist for the world's most important newspaper, gave Obama high marks for coming across as presidential while attacking his opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for his fealty to shopworn notions that have been widely discredited. "There were no appeals by the Republican nominee to national greatness," Rivers wrote immediately after the debate. "All he could talk about was the discredited idea of cutting taxes to liberate America's entrepreneurial spirit and giving parents a greater say in their children's future through a greater push for so-called 'school choice.'" [HT: Don Sensing]

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

Obama Debate Notes Leaked!

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- - Big Hairy News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:15 PM | Your Say (2)

Dreamboat: The HotTug

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What is a HotTug? A wood-fired hot tub in which you can sail and a tugboat in which you can enjoy warm baths. With or without water the HotTug is a wide and stable boat for up to six to eight people. In the HotTug you can always enjoy yourself ... whatever the weather is. -- Details @ HotTug

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

Three Sweet Tweets

From David Burge (iowahawkblog) on Twitter

1. Joe Biden is what happens when you comb your hair with a taser.

2. It's so adorable watching the senile media thinking they still control what people talk about.

3. The hardest part of being Obama right now is sifting through all those campaign appearance requests from Dem incumbents.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:20 AM | Your Say (0)

"Is that a pistol on your placket or are you just glad to see me?"

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Blouse With Contrast Piping at ASOS: This blouse by ASOS Collection has been crafted from lightweight fabric. The details include: a penny collar with contrast piping and a button through placket, a patch pocket to the chest, blouson style sleeves and a single button closure to the cuff. The blouse has been cut with a regular fit. [Yeah, right.]
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (6)

Eric Hobsbawm

His principal and most significant characteristic, however, was an intellectual dishonesty characteristic of the age in which he grew to maturity.
He made the choice for Soviet Communism, for perhaps understandable personal reasons, at 14, and remained true to his choice for 81 years, long after there ceased being any possible excuse for doing so. At least no one could accuse him of being a turncoat: he supported a radical form of evil from his early adolescence to his late senescence. -- Last of the Sentimental Stalinists by Theodore Dalrymple - City Journal

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:48 AM | Your Say (1)

Half the Harm

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” ― T.S. Eliot

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (1)

Hillbuzz Sees the Future: "Jump ahead ten years from now…to 2022

Michelle Obama will be a hilarious and sassy "Big Mamma" to the country and you'€™ll have to admit you find her antics
at least as hysterical as anything that Martin Lawrence or Eddie Murphy ever did in drag.  All of Obama'€™s old speeches where he'€™s ranting and raving and maligning white people have long since been released and there's very little market for him as a paid speaker anywhere but in the Middle East.... The first biracial, gay former US president lives in Hawaii on a fabulous estate, chases hunky Speedo-clad Secret Service guys around with super soaker water guns and giggles the whole time he'€™s doing it." -- Sean Hannity's Obama Race Tape -- What's on it?

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

Beware: That which is seen cannot be unseen.

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Do not click this link --> Major male celebrities as hilarious, ridiculous-looking women: This is the best of a bad lot. You have been warned.

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

That video: "So Obama Is a Lying, Race-Baiting Demagogue: Does Anyone Care? "

There are two kinds of Obama voters: those who are locked in by an ossified left-wing ideology and are long past the point of being able to admit that history has proved them wrong, and those who have skin in the game–i.e., money. When you spend $3.8 trillion a year, you can buy a lot of votes. And you don’t have to be likable. Or honest. -- Power Line

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 AM | Your Say (1)

October 2, 2012

No Warning

The evidence is now clear. The administration had no warning of the attack on the Benghazi consulate apart from more than a dozen previous attacks. The AP reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- €” Despite two explosions and dozens of other security threats, U.S. officials in Washington turned down repeated pleas from American diplomats in Libya to increase security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi where the U.S. ambassador was killed. -- Belmont Club » Belated

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:25 PM | Your Say (0)

Bonehead Thoughts

It all boils down to boneheadness, perhaps the greatest virtue we have, in contradistinction to Porous-headedness. So the bonehead thinks, “I like books, but with Kindle and Project Gutenberg and a little larceny, I can get pretty much every book ever written.
I like music, but with big drives and memory sticks costing almost nothing, and quite decent speakers going for $250, and a lot of larceny, that’s easy. I’d like a woman, but there are a million superb ones out there, especially outside the US. Housing? If you have a gal you really like, you can live perfectly happily in a small trailer or a fifth wheel, wherever you like.” -- Fred On Everything

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:00 AM | Your Say (1)

Remember when magazines were huge?

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Not just in size, but because of how much we loved them? They were lap-sized wonders
filled with giant photos tucked beneath beautifully designed covers. Their arrival was something to celebrate. Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Time, The New Yorker, Esquire, and yes, even Mad, and Playboy defined, informed and detailed our worlds in a way that may be gone forever. -- BOOM UNDERGROUND

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (0)

Planned Piracy

Planned Parenthood used over $3 million of your money to run political ads against Mitt Romney. $3 million could have bought a lot of low-income women some double-strength condoms. But they’d rather you pay for that, too. -- Naked DC

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:50 AM | Your Say (1)

My Little Commissar

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"Back in the U S S R, boy! You don't know how lucky you are, boy! Back in the US... back in the US... back in the U S S R!"
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Ulyana Sergeenko: Fall-Winter 12/13 - Thisispaper Magazine

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

Palestinians ditched; Egypt next?

Buh-Bye, Bozos: "After years of intoning that the Palestine issue was the crux of the world's security problems,
the world has left the keys in the wreck and walked away from it. And the Oslo process is ending with a whimper rather than a bang. Egypt is a different matter. The notion that the world will find $1 billion a month for Egypt - let alone $2 billion - seems whimsical. The catastrophic decline of a nation of 80 million people is something the world has not seen in some time, and policymakers would be wise to take precautionary measures. -- Spengler

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (4)

The Ice Caps Are Melting But...

Worried That Second-Hand Smoke Will Give All The Sex Offenders And Junkies Cancer, Bangor Considers Smoking Ban In Parks | The Rumford Meteor

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:20 AM | Your Say (0)

October 1, 2012

This just in...

Chris Matthews Can't Seem To Remove Obama's Penis From His Mouth (Video)

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:51 PM | Your Say (0)

At White House Request, Lockheed Martin Drops Plan to Issue Layoff Notices

File under "It ain't cheatin' if ya win:" Defense contractor Lockheed Martin heeded a request from the White House today - one with political overtones -
and announced it will not issue layoff notices to thousands of employees just days before the November presidential election. Lockheed, one of the biggest employers in the key battleground state of Virginia, previously warned it would have to issue notices to employees, required by law, due to looming defense cuts set to begin to take effect after Jan. 2. -- - ABC News

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 PM | Your Say (3)

"There is magic in writing by hand. "

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It's not just that it has been that way for 5,000 years or more,
and has engraved upon our expectations of literature the effects associated with the pen—the pauses; considerations; sometimes the racing; the scratching out; the transportation of words and phrases with arrows, lines and circles; the closeness of the eyes to the page; the very touching of the page—but that the pen, not being a machine (it does not meet the scientific definition of a machine), is a surrender to a different power than those of mere speed and efficiency. -- Mark Helprin, Word Craft - WSJ.com

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

The higher you go, the less they know.

You can awaken a man who is asleep, but you will never awaken a man who is pretending to be asleep.
That is the reason that we find our experts in the government, media, education and the pulpits to be such dhimmis. They have refused to learn a single thing about Islamic doctrine and history since 9/11. But, cheer up! When the dhimmis write about the beauty of Islam and how the Kafirs are wrong, read the comments. You will find that the common man knows far, far more about Islam than the experts. -- Political Islam

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 PM | Your Say (0)

The Silence of the Pulpits

If you are even slightly awake about the world news today, it is no surprise that Christians are being killed, raped and brutalized throughout the Islamic world.
However, there is a place where you can go and escape the dreadful and relentless details of Christian annihilation by Islam. You can just go to church. -- Political Islam // Articles //

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:30 PM | Your Say (9)

Chelsea Clinton: [Anti]Sex Machine

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I doubt George Orwell had the Chelsea Schlubvinsky look in mind when he invented the Junior Anti-Sex League in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but could there be a more effective look? -- The way people dress today, and what it means

Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:02 PM | Your Say (4)

The Deep Sea Mystery Circle - a love story

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Underwater cameras showed that the artist was a small puffer fish who, using only his flapping fin,
tirelessly worked day and night to carve the circular ridges. The unlikely artist – best known in Japan as a delicacy, albeit a potentially poisonous one – even takes small shells, cracks them, and lines the inner grooves of his sculpture as if decorating his piece. Further observation revealed that this “mysterious circle” was not just there to make the ocean floor look pretty. Attracted by the grooves and ridges, female puffer fish would find their way along the dark seabed to the male puffer fish where they would mate and lay eggs in the center of the circle. -- | Spoon & Tamago
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:55 PM | Your Say (3)

Bonnie & Clyde's guns sold

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The two Colt handguns taken from the still-warm bodies of outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer
sold, as expected, for considerably more than their pre-sale estimates. Clyde's Colt .45, retrieved by Hamer from the waistband of his pants, sold for $240,000. Bonnie's Colt .38 Detective Special, retrieved by Hamer from her inner thigh where she kept it taped with white medical tape, sold for $264,000. They were both purchased by the same person, a Texas collector who wishes to remain anonymous. -- The History Blog
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Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:30 PM | Your Say (2)

Don't Hire A 48-1/2 Year Old Burn Victim With A Fat Lip As Your Architect

The siding on my house is 111 years old. It requires painting. There will never be a house with 111-year-old vinyl siding on it.
And the siding on mine will be structurally sound for another hundred years -- or two. There are dozens of windows in my house that are 111 years old. They are made of wood, many still with the original wavy glass in the sashes. There will never be a house with 111-year-old double-glazed vacuum-sealed windows in them. My house has 111 year old birch strip flooring in it. There will never be a house with 111 year-old Pergo flooring in it. -- Sippican Cottage:

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

"The Base" [Bumped and Updated]

"We are controlled by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream
has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster." -- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:02 AM | Your Say (16)