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April 30, 2013
"One of the great deceptions
is that dreams and prayers are as powerful as scheme and plans.
They are not, nor will they ever be, because power is always in the hands of men, and never in the hands of chance. Not even in orbit above the planet are tons of equipment held aloft by chance. Don't imagine that your earthly fate is either, my friend. Whomever is speaking, however close or distant from the truth, they will offer dreams or schemes. They will present players or prayers. Plans are the affairs of man from which we can annex action to actor - the rest is the working of wishful thinking, fantasy and the dreams of romantic poets, the seductions of youthful lips whispering wanted whims. And this is now as it has ever been." -- Dreams, Schemes, Prayers, Players & Man's Plans - Cobb
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:14 PM | Your Say (8)
"Ours is a world of demons.
"We’ve created all sorts of devices to impose greater order on society,
to curb the chaos of human beings running around at different speeds like crazed molecules. Think of traffic lights. What are they but demons that regulate the flow of vehicles through intersections and other tight spots?" -- The mixed reality setup | ROUGH TYPE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:04 PM | Your Say (0)
Contrary to what they tell you (and tell you and tell you),
progressives don’t have principles. Rather, they have faddish opinions that are highly unstable and often contradictory. --Kathy Shaidle
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:55 PM | Your Say (2)
"If this alarming trend continues, the planet will be completely covered with Antarctic ice in 1,000 years."
Antarctic Ice: Growing So Fast That It Will One Day Cover Earth?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:12 PM | Your Say (2)
Kill Fascists First: Churchill
'Mr. Chamberlain can't seem to understand that we live in a very wicked world.
English people want to be left alone, and I daresay a great many other people want to be left alone too. But the world is like a tired old horse plodding down a long road. Every time it strays off and tries to graze peacefully in some nice green pasture, along comes a new master to flog it a bit further along.' "WINSTON CHURCHILL THE ERA AND THE MAN"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:09 AM | Your Say (2)
The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually —
and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is. Sundown in America - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:28 AM | Your Say (5)
While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns.
Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth:
that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions. -- Sundown in America - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (2)
A lot of modern life
is about rubbing people's noses in stuff that they find disgusting, repellent, sickening
- this sometimes seem like the main activity and underlying purpose of the mass media, backed by the highbrow artistic establishment. The idea is, of course, to desensitize us so that nothing can shock us because then we will accept evil. Bruce Charlton's Miscellany: Can you handle it?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:58 AM | Your Say (3)
April 27, 2013
"I'm tired of manifestos everywhere."
"You can read any innocuous news story on Yahoo and there are 3000 comments after it and 2500 of them are manifestos
and the other 500 are plain screeds. Every gathering, real or virtual, is a pretext to launch into a description of the New World Order everyone's going to install right after they're made God-Emperor by acclamation, by virtue of the excellent manifesto they left in the comments after a story on The Frisky about this year's bikini styles. [ The Sippican, he posts for me in his screed titled, We Are Not All Howard Beale Now]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:13 PM | Your Say (1)
More good news for drunken, overweight co-dependent lesbians
Feds Spending $880,000 to Study Benefits of Snail Sex
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (7)
April 26, 2013
"In the end it all began with an idea."
Once the idea had been conceived, it was worked and reworked, tweaked and retweaked until it finally succeeded.
And then an immaterial notion became actual. It became as real as hundreds of tons of aluminum and fuel hurtling at jet speeds toward skyscrapers in New York City. If anything information has become more influential since. Belmont Club サ The Power of Bad Information
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:26 PM | Your Say (1)
Smoke 'em if you got 'em
More Tasty Sweatshirts For Stoners | Incredible Things
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:21 PM | Your Say (0)
They told you gay marriage wouldn't be the end of it
Researchers Discover Amphibian Species that Peel and Eat their Mother's Skin
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:56 AM | Your Say (2)
April 25, 2013
If Jesse Jackson bleating sonorously about the time someone stole his sandwich bores you, try gay rights.
Sultan Knish: Inequality for All Put an equal sign on your Facebook profile and you're a civil rights hero.
And if old gay men stage-kissing for the front page of your soon-to-be-out-of-business local weekly bores you, try trannies. Men who pretend to be women persecuted by refusing to take their pretense seriously. It's just like Selma, if Martin Luther King had been more like J. Edgar Hoover.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:26 PM | Your Say (2)
Bed
The Bed: Reencountering the Metropolitan Museum and E. L. Konigsburg : The New Yorker This all began—like some other exciting things, I bet—with an extremely fancy bed.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:08 PM | Your Say (0)
Instead of moderation, what’s at hand is a Great Deformation,
The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy.
It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net. All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Sundown in America - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:27 AM | Your Say (0)
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, "
which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate.
That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Tocqueville: Book I Chapter 1
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (1)
April 24, 2013
"How I Evolved on Guns During the #BostonPoliceScanner Manhunt"
I realized at that moment that the police cannot protect me from the Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs of the world..... There are not enough police and they cannot come to my rescue quickly enough. They carry guns to protect themselves, not me. -- PJ Lifestyle
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:54 PM | Your Say (11)
THIS WILL BE A BIG HIT IN THE FOOD COURT
72,000 Ladybugs Released Inside Mall of America On Earth Day In Place Of Pesticides -- Dave Barry's Blog:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (2)
Too Many Holes in the Dike
Underwater: The Netherlands Falls Prey to Economic Crisis
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (7)
"I don’t want this day to end"
I see some of them spinning their wheels. I can feel it. “I'm young. This is a good moment in my career. How can I capitalize on this? How can I turn this into something else? How can I make the most of it?” And that's how I thought all the time as a kid. And I'm now 60. And I sit there in that room. And it's a 14-16 hour day, and I don't want the day to end. I don't think for one second, “How can I make more of this. How can I make this get me something.” I could care less. I don't want this day to end. I just love it. I know it will end. The one thing I know no matter how successful this is, it's just a split second on the timeline of history. -- Mandy Patinkin Via ninjasandrobots.com | Nathan Kontny
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:15 AM | Your Say (3)
"Don’t you wish, just once, an American public official would react like a man?"
A man, say, like this guy, who said this about the Chechens after they attacked a school back in 2004:
"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child killers? No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to child killers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Margaret Thatcher, whom I've met more than once said: 'A man who comes out into the street to kill other people must himself be killed'." Now, that's some real straight talk about murdering, child-killing bastards. -- Unexamined Premises » The Memory of Beslan, the Shame of Boston
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:26 AM | Your Say (10)
Surprise, surprise!
$3 Million Retirement Cap in Obama's Budget Would Not Apply to Him
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:09 AM | Your Say (3)
Chechens Coming Here to Roost: "The world’s six billion or so nonwhites are now told to be as conservative as possible."
I’m using “conservative” in the sense of being naturally ethnocentric,
of having loyalties emanating in a concentric pattern, radiating outward from self and nuclear family to extended family, clan, tribe, nation, religion, or race. Thus, in the 21st century, practically nobody thinks that there is anything wrong with blacks voting almost universally for Barack Obama because he’s black. Those blacks are merely expressing their admirable racial solidarity. Chechens Coming Here to Roost - Steve Sailer
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:40 AM | Your Say (1)
April 23, 2013
"So did we provoke Islamism? Perhaps “we” did. But who is the we?"
Fewer still notice that Islamists focus their attacks on the cultural flagships of the Left.
New York, Boston, London, women's schools in Afghanistan, gay politicians in the Netherlands, apostate black women in Europe, and even pacifists who make their pilgrimage to the Middle East to bear witness to their own invincible idealism. The Tsarnaev's were showered with a huge amount of things. And did they like it? No they hated it. Hated the whole idea of the dirty, degenerate, corrupt West. They hated the idea and took the goodies without a thought. Despite this the mainstream culture is set to respond to their attack with more things. -- Belmont Club = The Power of Bad Information
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:28 PM | Your Say (4)
And now doth we daintily juxtapose!
- "Jeffrey Goldberg: Welcome to 'the Era of the Suspicious Package' "--video title, RealClearPolitics.com, April 21
- "Anthony Weiner Creates New Twitter Account"--headline, TheWeeklyStandard.com, April 22
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:11 PM | Your Say (1)
The Solution by Bertolt Brecht
After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writer's Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
As delivered by Commenter Fat Man to Side-Lines: The Unslakable Thirst
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:58 PM | Your Say (1)
Bullets
A Lesson On Guns - A Public Service Announcement Do not think that just because you do not see sparks flying, that there are not bullets, even hundreds of bullets, flying around you.
(Caveat: If you are caught in a military conflict, you may see red and green lines streaking through the air. Avoid these. These are called "tracers." For every one of those you see, there are usually 3-4 ones in between them that you are not seeing. Again, bad ju-ju. Avoid.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:01 PM | Your Say (5)
This Just In
Obama Chastises First Lady Over Unsightly Panty Lines
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:28 PM | Your Say (1)
'Cept for Me & My Monkey
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:12 PM | Your Say (4)
The affidavit and what it reveals
They had to have known that the Boston marathon is one of the most photographed events on earth, and yet acted as though they'd never be caught (or didn't care if they were caught) neo-neocon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:40 PM | Your Say (1)
The Unslakable Thirst
— pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:42 AM | Your Say (15)
This Just In
Taylor Swift Now Dating Watertown Boat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:40 AM | Your Say (2)
Twitter as a Dangerous News Source
False rumors of an explosion at the White House causes Dow to drop 150 points. AP says its twitter account was hacked!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (5)
Why Reynolds Rules
Instapundit: YOU THINK IT'S UP NOW, JUST WAIT UNTIL THE END OF OBAMA'S SECOND TERM . . . . As Bush library opening puts his presidency back in the spotlight, his approval rating is up.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:14 AM | Your Say (0)
"We on the left (again I put my old cap on) do not 'disagree' with you."
We despise you. The more spirited among us even hate you. Those can mostly be found among the lowest echelons of the movement, the ones who were just given their party badge and feel that they have something to prove so they can move up in the system. Higher up, it’s mostly just contempt. Which Is What His Imperial Majesty Has Been Trying to Tell Everybody For Years Now | Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (0)
Women who are now, or very soon will be, single mothers
When Jada Shapiro decided to raise her daughter from birth without diapers, for the most part, not everyone was amused. Ms. Shapiro scattered little bowls around the house to catch her daughter’s offerings... Baby’s Latest - Going Diaperless, at Home or Even in the Park - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:00 AM | Your Say (2)
April 22, 2013
Inside Sophia Loren's Roman Villa, 1964
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 PM | Your Say (7)
Every Single Person In The World On One Chart
7 Billion World - 7 billion people on 1 page: You're in here somewhere.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:19 PM | Your Say (2)
Swan feather on Hatchet Pond
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:26 PM | Your Say (0)
Nork Nukes? Ramp It Out Five Years
There are a lot of sick, angry people out there.
What will the world be like in five years when North Korea had infinitely more nuclear warheads and better rockets? It will be a horror show. What will it be like when Iran has nuclear weapons and ICBMs? Please don't tell me that whopper about how Obama is going to stop them. He never will and the mullahs know it. -- The American Spectator : No End to This Cruelty
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:23 PM | Your Say (6)
"You don't have to go to Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq to be radicalized against America. "
You can be radicalized against America right here in America.
You can be radicalized against America in American schools. You can be radicalized in America against America by watching American television and movies and websites. You can be radicalized by professors, many of them former bombers themselves, many of them with grievances against this country. You don't need to go outside this country to be radicalized against it." -- Rush Limbaugh
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:46 PM | Your Say (0)
The Wages of Sin
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:07 PM | Your Say (11)
There are two standards on being terrorized.
When a mentally ill man shoots up a school, then everyone is obligated to be terrorized all the time.
Children can be seized for chewing a pop tart the wrong way and the leading leaders tow around selected parents of victims to demand that the pesky Bill of Rights take a back seat to a special moral superiority vote from a former Democratic member of congress whose great achievement in life was getting shot in the head by another mental patient. -- Sultan Knish: Refusing to be Terrorized
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (0)
13 Worst Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970
13. "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." — Kenneth Watt | FreedomWorks
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:31 AM | Your Say (3)
USA needs refuge from refugees
Uncle Sam lets another bunch of leeching future terrorists
into the country who have absolutely no business being here, gives them “asylum,” making them immediately eligible for welfare, and this is the thanks we get? They turn into mass murderers. We bring in thousands of Muslims from a primitive society that has been battling Christians for centuries, and put them into a peaceful Christian society — what could possible go wrong? Howie Carr @ Boston Herald
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (1)
Who Says There's No Good News? "Barack Obama is a lame-duck president."
Nobody listens to what he says anymore, nobody is interested in winning his approval and nobody much cares if he thinks they have “let the country down”. This is typical for a second-term president who has lost all their leverage because they’re no longer running for office and everybody is patiently waiting for the day when he quits the White House. But Obama's difficult personality has doubled the size of the challenge. Gloating in victory, adolescent in defeat – the Prez doesn’t make it easy to work with him. Barack Obama can't pass gun control despite 90 per cent support. Truly, he is a lame-duck president [But not, alas, gone from the planet just yet.]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:53 AM | Your Say (2)
Now they tell us:
"Luckily, our science writers of the 1990s were wrong about almost everything." -- WIRED Magazine's 20th Anniversary [Under "Science"]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:45 AM | Your Say (0)
Obama Fizzles Out
The CPA spin is looney and their own spin has unraveled.
For the MSM, Obama might as well be Humpty Dumpty. All the MSM horses and the MSM men can't put the spin back together again. The MSM is locked into a position where Obama is neither demon nor savior. There is no story there. They are stuck with their Beau Brummell in the White House looking more and more like just another hackneyed leftist politician of the Carter-Mondale variety who never really had anything new to offer. -- Articles AmThinker
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:21 AM | Your Say (0)
We have to ask ourselves: What did we do wrong?
Steve Sailer : "How did American intolerance alienate the Tsarnaev Brothers? Perhaps the political climate was not welcoming enough, too conservative and xenophobic."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (4)
Headline with a Variation
Headline: "Let’s Hope the Next Bomber is a Liberal Journalist" Variation: "Let’s Hope the Next Bomber Targets a Liberal Journalist"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:59 AM | Your Say (5)
April 21, 2013
And a new online icon is born
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:47 PM | Your Say (5)
“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler.
“In [2014], you’ll be ripping and tearing at yourselves so fiercely that your nation – the only one on Earth actually fighting against resurgent caliphate Islam in this long struggle over the very future of civilization –
will become so preoccupied with criticizing yourselves and trying to gain short-term political advantage, that you’ll all forget that there’s actually a war for your survival going on. Twenty-five years from now, every man or woman in America who wishes to vote will be required to read Thucydides on this matter. And others as well. And there are tests. If you don’t know some history, you don’t vote . . . much less run for office. America’s vacation from knowing history ends very soon now . . . for you, I mean. And for those few others left alive in the world who are allowed to vote.” -- Dan Simmons
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (2)
"Shocked! Shocked!" Mass. police: Bomb suspects didn't have gun permit
Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas [aka "Mouthbreathing Moron of the Yard"] tells The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that neither Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) nor his brother Dzhokhar had permission to carry firearms.-- AP
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:27 PM | Your Say (6)
Typecast, But Who's Profiling?
A certain American (or for that matter Westernized) resident or citizen
- usually male,
- almost always young,
- born a Muslim,
- prone to guilt over temporary secularization or Westernization,
- as often (or more so) from Pakistan,
- a Russian Islamic province,
- the Balkans,
- Iran,
- the Philippines,
- or Africa
- as from the Arab Middle East,
- usually failing in American society,
- always absorbed within American popular culture
- and guilty over such absorption
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:31 PM | Your Say (1)
"The real purpose of abortion is to make it impossible, once we have acceded to it, to object to anything else."
Killing your own child -- just as acquiescing to killing the Jews was to the German public -- was a form of enlistment by complicity. It is the last and most decisive step in the extinction of freedom. Though apparently practiced upon the child the real target of abasement is the mother. And by extension it is all of us. That is the shame the conservative pundits felt. Not the shame of sexual guilt. It is the shame of having gone along. -- Belmont Club » The House on the Corner
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:11 PM | Your Say (6)
A Nation Mourns
IRS to Close for 5 Days Due to Furloughs
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (2)
Security theater
(and I’d bet that nearly 45% of MA residents disagree with the state’s anti-gun policies); the government controls the public transportation; and evidently, we’ve militarized our metropolitan police forces to the point where your best bet is to stay inside, because we have (rightly) nervous law enforcement officers patrolling in areas that might be booby-trapped, armed with “assault weapons,” ready to fire on perceived threats. -- | protein wisdom
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:12 AM | Your Say (2)
"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"
Canadians, Mexicans, and fish: The United States is the only great power in the history of the world that has had the luxury of having nonpredatory neighbors to its north and south, and fish to its east and west. The two oceans to either side of the country are what historian Thomas Bailey brilliantly described as its liquid assets. -- How Geography Explains the United States - By Aaron David Miller | Foreign Policy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:58 AM | Your Say (0)
A Moment of Silence, Please
We will now pause while the same group of people that thought that George W Bush
should be held responsible for every hang-nail, paper cut, and unsatisfying bowel movement in Central Asia now explain to us why Barack Obama should not be blamed for a lapse of judgement that helped lead to Boston being bombed, shut down, and subject to a running firefight through the streets. Moe Lane, feds warned by Russia about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (1)
I know you’re not supposed to paint with a broad brush, unless you’re a liberal,
in which case you are not only permitted, but expected to make Adam Lanza the poster boy for 100 million law-abiding legal gun owners. Howie Carr
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:22 AM | Your Say (1)
Like, You Know
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (1)
All the Answers At Last
Sense of Events: Answer to "20 Questions Liberals Can't Answer" 8) How can liberal economists like Paul Krugman be right when they claim that our economy isn't doing well because we aren't spending enough money when we're already running massive, unsustainable deficits and spending is going up every year? Deficits don't matter. Federal spending is the primary engine of the economy. These are the main tenet of liberal economic theory. Why didn't you know that?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:57 AM | Your Say (0)
April 20, 2013
The "culture" that must ALWAYS win
The individual must be reduced to something weak.
Sexually vague. A mere parasite upon the host, utterly dependent on it for its daily sustenance, providing nothing in return. Except, in the case of government, perhaps some useful information. But the culture strips the individual of independence, oftentimes for no good reason that can be discerned, save for discouraging foresight. -- House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:15 PM | Your Say (0)
Doing the Real Math
The same goes for any discussion of late-term abortions.
If you don’t see the Gosnell carnage as an irrelevant local news story, you’re against women’s rights. The general consensus seems to be that partial-birth abortions are incredibly rare and used only for emergencies. I had a Hispanic med student tell me to “Take this one in a million abortion clinic example and shove it up your ginger ass.” By my calculations, this clinic is closer to 27,000 in a million. -- Pulling Our Hearts out of Our Brains
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:20 PM | Your Say (0)
Pulling Our Hearts out of Our Brains
While everyone blames the recent shooting sprees on access to weapons, few writers noticed how many shooters were on psych meds.
The American pharmaceutical industry makes over $300 billion a year—compared to only $12 billion for America’s allegedly “powerful” and “well financed” gun industry—so there’s a real economic disadvantage to questioning the efficacy of prescription drugs. I think celebrities avoid this topic because they are so high on their own pills, the hypocrisy would give them a bad trip. -- Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:19 PM | Your Say (3)
Worst Getaway Vehicle of the Decade So Far
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (1)
The tyranny of one man or that of many?
If I have only one despot, I am quit of him by drawing myself up against a wall when I see him pass,
or by bowing low, or by striking the ground with my forehead, according to the custom of the country; but if there is a company of a hundred despots, I am exposed to repeating this ceremony a hundred times a day, which in the long run is very annoying if one's hocks are not supple. If I have a farm in the neighbourhood of one of our lords, I am crushed; if I plead against a relation of the relations of one of our lords, I am ruined. What is to be done? I fear that in this world one is reduced to being either hammer or anvil; lucky the man who escapes these alternatives! -- Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:09 PM | Your Say (1)
The April 14 World
The day before the Marathon Massacre, the New York Times had scored plaudits for running an op-ed by one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards complaining about his hard life in Guantanamo Bay. On April 14th, the paper of broken record paid 150 bucks to an Al Qaeda member for the opportunity to complain about being force fed during his hunger strike. On April 15th the bombs went off. -- Sultan Knish
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (1)
Predator Drone Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:29 PM | Your Say (0)
The ‘Co-exist’ Bombers
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 AM | Your Say (0)
Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job
Before the call that changed Sergeant Timothy Gramins’ life forever, he typically carried 47 rounds of handgun ammunition on his person while on duty . Life on the Line [HT: Morgan]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (1)
"Progressive:" The truth is incorrect
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:37 AM | Your Say (0)
Shopping for Weed in the U.S.
All located in places you'd expect to find either a tax preparer or a defunct porn store. Did they have exactly the same names? It sure seemed like it. The Little Green Pharmacy, Green Cure, Mile High Green Cross, the Green Door, Green House. And inside, high-end or low-end, they hewed to the same blueprint. The waiting room. The Plexiglas portal. The portraits of Bob Marley. The giant supercrisp-picture flat-screen TV tuned either to ESPN or to one of the channels that do crime re-creations. The bud room with one case of pipes and bongs, a cooler for drinks, a display of edibles and "concentrates," and, dominating the room, the flower bar, which usually featured canisters of buds arranged in rows from top (highest end) to bottom (best value), with your bud tenders standing nearby, manning the tweezers. Who were usually women and usually attractive. That's not an accident. -- This Bud's For You!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 AM | Your Say (2)
Saturday's Stack of Visual Scraps
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:44 AM | Your Say (1)
April 19, 2013
Coexist
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:18 PM | Your Say (10)
We need to WAKE UP!
We want to feel other people's pain. We want to demonstrate how enlightened, tolerant and progressive we are. We want to do everything except face the facts.And that's why we won't ever stop having to drone people all over the map and hunt them down house to house. Belmont Club サ The Attics of Our Mind
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:09 PM | Your Say (0)
On Not Getting It
One site explaining the Tsarnaev brother's homicidal motivations offered this helpful comparison: "al-Qaeda is a form of right-wing Islam."It's a phrase almost as good as "dark skinned white American" and together with it exemplies the danger of trying to understand the unknown in terms of familiar tropes. It is like attempting to speak a foreign language by yelling slowly in English. We think we're getting it, but weâre not. -- Belmont Club » The Attics of Our Mind
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:04 PM | Your Say (2)
I hate to admit it too, but....
"I hate to admit it, but in the case of obesity v. gun deaths, Michelle Obama’s pet cause is about ten times more germane than her husband’s." -- Pulling Our Hearts out of Our Brains - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:24 PM | Your Say (0)
No Hempfest in Boston Tomorrow? Bummer!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:08 PM | Your Say (1)
Timing is Everything
Maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the best week to discuss disarming Americans and giving amnesty to foreigners....
— J P (@RileyRebel129) April 19, 2013
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:36 PM | Your Say (2)
Boston Bomber's Tweet at 5:04PM April 15
Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people
— Jahar (@J_tsar) April 16, 2013
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:55 AM | Your Say (2)
Boston Bomber in "Will Box For Passport"
Tamerlan Tsarnaev practices boxing at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center.
Originally from Chechnya, but living in the United States since five years, Tamerlan says: "I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them." Will Box For Passport - Images | Johannes Hirn
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:01 AM | Your Say (5)
Heavy Hangs the Head That Wears the Crown
Dem: Past Four Years 'Physically And Mentally Very Difficult' For Hillary "She's worn out mentally-n-physically and with nothing to show for it but a jacked-up middle east, dead diplomats, World-wide hatred for America, and that most wonderful bit of fallout, total lack of respect."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:49 AM | Your Say (6)
A funny thing happens when you dissent from Roe v. Wade:
You come to see that there's not much else by way of intellectual content to the case for abortion on demand.
Roe predates our own political consciousness, so we have to assume there were once stronger arguments. But these days the appeal to the authority of Roe is pretty much all there is apart from sloganeering, name-calling, appeals to self-interest and an emphasis on difficult and unusual cases such as pregnancy due to rape. From Roe to Gosnell - WSJ.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (2)
Republicans: The Party of Surrender
But in the liberal bathhouse there'll always be a new towel-snapper along in a minute. Free contraceptives . . . Abandonment of religious liberty . . . Single-payer health care . . . --- :: Mark SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (2)
"SpiritHoods" More bad fashion news for men without chests
Blue Jays are curious beings that love to communicate and learn about the ways of the world. Those with this spirit possess a fearless nature and a determination that goes unrivaled. $109 -- Spirit hood SPRING 2013-MEN'S :: Blue Jay
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (4)
Shameful
238 years ago today, citizens near Boston took on the most powerful military in the world and won. Today, they cower from one man. -- State of a nation ォ Bob Owens
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:17 AM | Your Say (3)
Friday's Stack O' Snacks
- AoM Month of Sandwiches Day #13: Homemade Roast Beef Au Jus | The Art of Manliness With some love and attention (and a bit of time) you can deliver a homemade version of this manly meal that is sure to impress.
- The Hatred of Maggie: Thatcher was not in office to promote women, she snapped. She was in office to turn the country round and deal with immense problems.
- John le Carré: 'I was a secret even to myself'
- Wagner's Dark Shadow: Can We Separate the Man from His Works?
- Poet of Loss Dead at 25, Keats is forever the passionate voice.
- Canada starts the day with Holy Crap
- Ever fancied getting your EYEBALL shaved? A visit to the barber... Chinese-style
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:32 AM | Your Say (1)
April 18, 2013
Dear Obamatron Francine, Fuck You. Strong Letter to Follow
Listen up, you incompetent and defective sack of meat -- your son is dead because you are unfit to be parents.
You sat silently by while your state and our nation erected signs telling people who are criminally insane where they can find the maximum number of defenseless people to murder. You are personally, jointly and severably responsible for the consequences. -- Obama And Francine Wheeler's New Low in [Market-Ticker]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:10 PM | Your Say (3)
One of the nastiest intellectual habits of the intellectual Left
is that it prescribes set political agendas or menus which must be followed by rote or diktat, and in full.
If the first course is the emancipation and equal treatment of women, the main course must be a smorgasbord of left of centre, politically correct social attitudes. Any deviation from this norm, and from this prescribed package of values and policies provokes a “moral” outrage which requires the vilification of the “deviant” who has strayed from orthodoxy. That vilification can often be carried out with all the zeal of a medieval religious fanatic confronting a so called “heretic”, that is someone who had the temerity not to follow God’s will as revealed to the zealot. -- The Hatred of Maggie — Anna Raccoon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:41 PM | Your Say (1)
"When you wish upon a star, bombers don't turn white by far...."
On Tuesday, the Leftist Salon web site published a blog that created a stir. The blog, by David Sirota, hoped that the Boston Marathon bomber is a 'white American.'On the other hand, David Sirota is as white as an albino loaf of Wonderbread spread with lard. Maybe he can offer himself up as a martyr in the bombers' place. That, I think, would be mighty white of him.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:53 PM | Your Say (7)
'TITTOING'
"Women desperate for perfect nipples are having them TATTOOED on "Via Dave Barry's Blog Seems to be a perfect case of "tit for tat" to me, Dave.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:08 PM | Your Say (2)
"Raaaaacsim" is About Getting Laid
Anti-racism is a mating display. It says: “Look at me! I have such earning power I can live where I like! I don’t have to worry about feral underclass blacks or Salvadoran gangbangers! I can strike a pose of lofty indifference to matters of race! Drop your knickers right now!” Why Isn’t Racism Cool? - Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:18 PM | Your Say (0)
Batman Boxer Briefs With A Cape
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:50 AM | Your Say (0)
"If you were the guy who invented the Maglite,"
you started off with a dream to have a really good flashlight and then one day everybody in law enforcement wanted one.
Four years later, you're a regular old guy with time and millions to burn in Carmel. You go to all the Red Sox games. You buy the wife a new Benz. Yeah the watch costs 6 thousand, but whatever. You just buy stuff that works, not all that flash. You can find things out if you really want to know. You have time. You have money. You have patience. You're not under pressure to make a whole lot of mistakes. You appreciate a good meal. You realize you have been blessed, and you take your freedom seriously. By my reckoning, a reasonable man, once rich, will get over the hump and mellow out or wreck his life within 5 years. -- Sir - Cobb
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:26 AM | Your Say (3)
"We need even more POWER!"
If the democrats get their butts beat a hundred times in a row, we can predict they’re going to say some variation of exactly the same thing, a hundred times in a row, and that thing will be: This just goes to show that you voters have to give us more of a lock on power. House of Eratosthenes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:06 AM | Your Say (4)
Do Not Blame Caesar
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:33 AM | Your Say (2)
Weiner Up. Dong Down.
- Weiner’s poll rising: Trails only Quinn among mayoral Dems
- Dong Falls as Widening Gold Price Gap May Spur Unofficial Trade
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:24 AM | Your Say (3)
Stephen Hawking lays out case for Big Bang without God
AKA "Man with Obvious Grudge Speaks Out" At one point, he quipped, “What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (16)
Racquel Welch lays out case for Big Bang with God
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:10 AM | Your Say (8)
Thursday Packs A Stack of Slack
- "Omigod! Quick, someone call the Hate Police!" -- History's Mysteries: The Swastika @ Maggies Farm
- How to Be a Stuffed Animal - Lapham’s Quarterly
- Shady Characters: Maximal meaning in minimal space: the history of punctuation
- The Faithful Executioner He executed 394 people: men, women, and some boys and girls. Schmidt, always poised, delivered a good death, whether he beat you to kingdom come with a wagon wheel or applied the pitch and touched the flame, slipped the noose or cut off your head.
- Thug Kitchen: Alright, so you want something sweet, refreshing,... and isn’t made by coca-cola?
- Guns and Whites - Taki's Magazine
- 100 Years Later, Seeing the Influence of the Erector Set - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 AM | Your Say (1)
April 17, 2013
FBI to CNN: "Sorry but this morning's suspect wasn't white enough. Hold on while we go back to the pool for a new one."
Shortage of white terrorists to be rectified soon.
"We identified a suspect based on video evidence," clarified Special Agent Olaf Mills of the FBI's Suspect Description Division. "We arrested him and his physical features and clothing matched the video evidence closely. But because of suspect-profiling directives from the office of the attorney general, we shortly released him and he is no longer considered a suspect." Sense of Events: Bombing suspect arrested, released
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 PM | Your Say (3)
Oh really? [Bumped]
"Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American" - David Sirota @ Salon.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:21 PM | Your Say (16)
Headline of the Day
Weiner’s poll rising: Trails only Quinn among mayoral Dems -- NY Post [Of course]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:36 PM | Your Say (2)
Please Note and Obey
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:11 PM | Your Say (2)
Claire Smedley: Woman with Britain's biggest boobs says she's terrified they'll kill her relationship
Mum-of-three Claire Smedley, 30, has to be on her guard during sex in case her 40MMM boobs suffocate new boyfriend Chris. -- Mirror Online
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:37 AM | Your Say (9)
Wednesday's Stack is Off the Rack
- The Remington 1100 Turns 50
- Why PC sales are declining: Old PCs still work just fine. They're a victim of unplanned non-obsolescence.
- Holy Grail of Rare Books, Hymnal Could Fetch $30M
- Steel Cut, Rolled, Instant, Scottish?
- The Quiet City: A Portrait of Paris In Winter
- The Quest To Unlock the Mysteries of a Bizarre Manuscript Known as Voynich: The quixotic quest to read meaning in the patterns of a bizarre manuscript that has bedeviled scholars for years.
- Don't Eat That, John! -- The French Toast Reuben Nutella Elvis Sandwich - Neatorama
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:40 AM | Your Say (1)
April 16, 2013
Severe Binocular Shortage Plagues North Korean War Prep
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:20 PM | Your Say (4)
Good Career Move
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:12 AM | Your Say (7)
Yada, Yada, Yada....
Well, another obvious terror incident and I don’t dare turn on the TV lest I loose what little is left of my mind as I listen to the brain-trust giving minute by minute analysis based entirely on hearsay and surmise. Boston Bombing Boogaloo - Blur Brain
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (3)
“When I got this sword, it was completely covered in blood rust.”
it looks like blood in the water. Even 2,000 years old, it bleeds. And it smells like a steak cooking, like cooked meat. I’ve encountered this before with Japanese swords from World War II. If there’s blood on the sword and you start polishing it, the sword bleeds. It comes with the territory.” -- Blood, Sweat, and Steel: My Afternoon with the Ace of Swords
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (1)
"For many on the left, abortion remains the greatest of the secular sacraments,"
murder as a positive good. I've met many young women in our business who tell me that they don't mind my conservative politics,
but the one thing that they absolutely cannot compromise on, or even discuss, is Roe v. Wade. How the maternal instinct was extirpated in a generation or two of women is something for behavioral scientists and theologians to debate; the modern left's transformation into a suicide cult will give historians and artists grist for decades to come. Dr. Mengele, I Presume
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 AM | Your Say (2)
Tuesday's Stack's Like Skin-Popped Smack
- Swedish Shop Made Staffers Wear Bra Sizes - Court sides with woman who sued lingerie chain The Change lingerie shop in Sweden swears it had only the best of intentions in telling female staffers to wear their bra size on a badge.
- How a gang of pickpockets shut down the Louvre - The Week
- "Plum poppy-seed muffins; shaved asparagus pizza; sweet peas and shells alfredo; leek fritters with garlic and lemon; pancetta, white bean, and swiss chard pot pies; pistachio masala lamb chops with cucumber mint raita."Sometimes Perelman’s writing can verge on twee.... What to Eat in Springtime : The New Yorker
- TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"): Arguably the world's worst novelist
- 9 Percent of Americans Say They'd Bonk A Sexbot | Popular Science
- Women are 'better off without their bras' (say scientists who took FIFTEEN YEARS to inspect women's breasts) | Mail Online
- Giant steel Dragon Bridge in Vietnam breathes fire | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
- Governor imposes tax on the rain | Metro News Waiting for "Taxpayers impose tar and feathers on governor"
- Iconic Sandwiches of the World, from Banh Mi to Zapiekanka: BA Daily: Bon App騁it As with many Sandwiches of the World, the banh mi is named for its bread, the Vietnamese style of baguette, introduced under French colonial rule. You can put almost anything in there, but cilantro, pickled carrots, and pate are among the most common.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:16 AM | Your Say (3)
April 15, 2013
"Weren't They Funny?"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:16 PM | Your Say (2)
Boston Bomber a Saudi? This Just In... But Who Really Knows at This Point?
UPDATE: "CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports that a Saudi national is being questioned by authorities.
He was seen "acting suspiciously" running from the explosion and a civilian chased him down and tackled him. He was turned over to Boston Police and is being questioned by FBI. He is being cooperative and denies any involvement. "This could mean a lot, or this could mean very little," Miller said. "It's too soon to call him a suspect."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:10 PM | Your Say (14)
Monday Stack Slackdown
- Nature's architect: explore MIT's 'wearable mythologies' in pictures
- The pussification of NASCAR
- The 727 that Vanished -- and still cannot be found.
- The Ghosts of Antarctica: Abandoned Stations and Huts
- LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: "The Senate has severely scaled back the Stock Act, the law to stop members of Congress and their staff from trading on insider information, in an under-the-radar vote that has been sharply criticised by advocates of political transparency."
- david thompson: In Other Time Machine News “The Americans are trying to make this invention by spending millions of dollars on it where I have already achieved it at a fraction of the cost.”
- The ark builders In the US state of Kentucky, creationists are aiming to construct a new Noah’s ark.
- 70s Hairy Chest Sweater
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:41 AM | Your Say (4)
April 14, 2013
Gosnell: "A Colonel Jessup abortion clinic"
The package begins with sex ed, complete with the obligatory LGBT mentions, runs through national STD infestations, hookup culture, single parenthood and packs of young men and women recreating the mistakes of the parents they never had and then flushing those mistakes down the toilet before settling down with three kids, by different fathers who are never around, and a package of subsidies from the welfare state administered by social workers who have seen it all. -- Sultan Knish: Violence On Their Behalf
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:59 AM | Your Say (16)
"When will the movie be produced starring Morgan Freeman and Meryl Streep? " This should be front page news. [Bumped]
"When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News' Brian Williams intoned, "A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh," as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn't make the cut." -- Philadelphia abortion clinic horror
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:57 AM | Your Say (23)
Because
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:36 AM | Your Say (1)
"Words are forever in flux. "
Both “liberal” and “progressive” now mean almost the opposite
of what they did a century ago. Such semantic squabbling also leads to absurdities such as how the phrase “colored person” was deemed hateful and replaced with the far more sensitive “person of color.” Terms such as “racist” are almost never applied to nonwhites, and if you dare tell a militant feminist that she’s “sexist,” she may scratch out your eyeballs. Language as an Assault Weapon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:39 AM | Your Say (2)
April 13, 2013
The Exploding Toilet
He turns and looks at the toilet. But it has, for all practical purposes, disappeared.
Where it once rested he now finds what can best be described only as a vision. In place of the commode roars a fluorescent blue waterfall — a huge, heaving cascade of toilet fluid thrust waist-high into the air and splashing into all four corners of the lavatory.... More explosive mid-air details @ Ask The Pilot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:43 PM | Your Say (1)
The Oxford Cloth Button Down Shirt
There is something uniquely special about these “Golden Era” oxfords.
Their particular proportions and collar constructions seem to give them an enviable roll – something like two angel wings - when the collar points are secured. They were particularly comfortable and carefree, but still allowed the wearer to look educated, well-mannered, and professional. It’s a bit hard to tell that just from photographs of shirts hung on hangers, but it’s rather evident whenever you see a photograph of someone wearing a Brooks button down during the early- to mid-century. -- The "Golden Era" Oxfords
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:13 PM | Your Say (8)
Benjamin Franklin on Choosing A Mistress: "In all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones."
The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement. -- The Craziest Advice From Famous People – Flavorwire
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:04 AM | Your Say (3)
Why nobody's hunting PETA yet is beyond me. But I'm patient.
PETA eyes drones to watch hunters, farmers - CNN.com -- and gun owners are setting their sights in anticipation.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:02 AM | Your Say (6)
Saturday's Fracked Stack
- The 'find of a lifetime': Bizarre striped 'Panda bat' found in South Sudan
- The first reports of cannibalism came from the island just three days after the deportees landed, yet Soviet authorities continued to drop more people off on the island even knowing the level of disease and starvation. -- Nazino Island
- Dr Steven Laureys: Bright lights, travelling through a tunnel and the sensation of leaving your own body: Recollections of near-death experiences are 'more vivid than any other memory'
- Whistle While You Work: Aristotle answers that there are four kinds of answer to the question “why.”
Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile. The rocket would land by deploying an internal parachute upon arrival. It has been attempted by various organizations in many different countries, with varying levels of success.- Spanx launch control pants for MEN - promising a '3D effect' at the front and a bum lift at the back
- Yummmm! Let's have a big slice of .... Fish Head Pie!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:45 AM | Your Say (1)
April 12, 2013
Today’s blue meritocracy,
the degenerate descendant of the upper middle class Progressives of the early 20th century, has a problem:
it is formally committed to ideas like equality, social justice and an open society, but what it really wants to do is to protect its own power and privilege. The Ivy League system of elite colleges is a key element in the system of exclusion and privilege that helps perpetuate both the power of the American elite and its comforting delusion that because elite status is based on âmeritâ it is therefore legitimate. Elites Close Ranks Around Ivy League Intermarriage | Via Meadia
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:10 PM | Your Say (1)
Move Along. Nothing to See Here.
Gay couple accused of molesting two of their 9 adopted children withdraw guilty plea and decide to go on trial to fight allegations Married fathers Harasz and Wirth, who say they consider caring for hard-to-place children a personal challenge, adopted three sets of siblings, all boys, since 2000.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (2)
Position Open Near Rome Maine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (1)
FrackWhacks Sad There's No Shake, Rattle and Roll
Fracking causes as much seismic activity as 'jumping off a ladder', study concludes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:17 AM | Your Say (0)
Oh horseshit!
Enzymes from horse feces could hold secrets to streamlining biofuel production
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 AM | Your Say (1)
Dennis M. Hope Has Owned the Moon Since 1980 Because He Says So
"We’ve sold 611 million acres of land on the moon, 325 million acres on Mars, and a combined 125 million acres on Venus, Io, and Mercury." -- VICE United States
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:45 AM | Your Say (1)
Terrapin
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:35 AM | Your Say (0)
When someone uses the term “authentic community” without explication
you know you’re reading an issue of Bubble! The Magazine for Groupthinkers. An "authentic community" is an organization whose precepts the scholars approve; an "inauthentic community" - and there must be such a thing, right? - is one whose binding ideas the scholars find problematic, which is itself a mask over their inability to understand it. -- LILEKS (James) The Bleat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:34 AM | Your Say (0)
This Is The First Bear To Get Brain Surgery
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:30 AM | Your Say (2)
The Maniac (Mathematical Analyzer, Numerator, Integrator, and Computer)
About 6 by 2 by 8 feet and weighing a trim half-ton, the computer was much smaller than the room-size Eniac. But it inherited some of its predecessor’s reliability issues. Dyson quotes engineers’ exasperated entries from the Princeton machine’s logbook. May 7, 1953: “What’s the use? good night.” June 14, 1953: “Damnit — I can be just as stubborn as this thing.” June 17, 1956: “the hell with it.” -- ‘Turing’s Cathedral,’ by George Dyson
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:07 AM | Your Say (0)
Friday Sez, "Just the Stacks, Mam. Just the Stacks."
- Drink up! Japanese Vodka Made from Fermented Giant Hornets
- Terrifying condom slingshot hoping to win $100,000 from Bill Gates (but would YOU try it?)
- Why $100 bills have become one of America's top exports
- A Beginner’s Guide to Spaghetti Westerns
- Vagina 'Murder Plot': Brazilian Man Accuses Wife Of Poisoning Her Private Parts To Kill Him
- Combating the asteroid threat: Despite whatever NASA may think, we can't pray away an asteroid.
- Of Eggs, Bacon, Coffee, and Cultural Exchange
- Letters of Note: The Robert Heinlein Maneuver
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:13 AM | Your Say (0)
April 11, 2013
[Not] Talking About Terrorism
The new low-intensity conflict is big on things we don't talk about.
We don't talk about the drones and we don't talk about the terrorists we are fighting. Instead we talk about how great Islam is. Talking about how great Islam is and not talking about terrorism is an old hobby for America. We've been at it since September 11 and no matter how many interfaith meetings have been held and how often we talk about how much we have in common, the bombs still keeping showing up. -- Sultan Knish
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:54 PM | Your Say (0)
Not an if but a when
Update: Hillary Advised Huma to Hold onto Weiner - The Rush Limbaugh Show
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:34 PM | Your Say (5)
Beyond Mere George Costanza Genius: A man who outsourced his own job
After getting permission to study Bob's computer habits, Verizon investigators found that he had
hired a software consultancy in Shenyang to do his programming work for him, and had FedExed them his two-factor authentication token so they could log into his account. He was paying them a fifth of his six-figure salary to do the work and spent the rest of his time on other activities. TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee")
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:30 PM | Your Say (1)
Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee: A Pair of Bald Eagles Share a Meal
High Rez Photo by Don Holland HERE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:23 PM | Your Say (0)
In 2012, tribal politics became national politics.
The country was divided and conquered. A campaign run on convincing a dozen separate groups to be afraid of each other and of the majority made all the difference, not in some urban slum, but from sea to shining sea. The country had at last become the city. And considering the state of the city... the state of the union does not look good. -- Sultan Knish: The Chicagoization of America
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:57 PM | Your Say (1)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:16 PM | Your Say (1)
Whatever Happened to Tom Lehrer?
While he encourages rumors that he’s dead, Lehrer is in fact readily available, listed in the Santa Cruz, California, phone directory. When people call he is usually polite and obliging. He lives half a year in Santa Cruz and half a year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, symbolic of his bipolar career in music and mathematics. Lehrer has lived a quiet, happy life on hold. He falls into a tiny category of celebrities who packed it in at the peak of their careers. As he points out, “There’s me, Garbo, Salinger, and Deanna Durbin.” -- The American Spectator
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (2)
The world had a choice of two security models.
In the first only the cops could carry the guns; the "Scotland Yard Model". In the second, the cops refuse to come out of the precinct house.
With the Scotland Yard model dead everyone is forced to carry. This can be called the "Tombstone Territory" model where your "future's just as good as your draw." Perhaps the Obama administration meant well by declaring a World Without Nuclear Weapons and starting by melting down it's shootin' irons. But instead of Scotland Yard, we are now on the way to Tombstone Territory. Belmont Club » Bootleggers and Fleets-in-Being
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:31 AM | Your Say (1)
Stack O'Thursday
- Giant penis shuts down world famous Nurburgring
- Climatologists Are No Einsteins, Says His Successor
- Of Eggs, Bacon, Coffee, and Cultural Exchange
- Genghis Khan Rides Again: Huge Statue of Emperor Dominates the Mongolian Steppe ~ Kuriositas
- Sole Desire Shoes are physical, and thus psychological – and ideological – facilitators.
- U.S. Passes Saudis In Oil Output, No Thanks To White House
- How DC insiders launder insider market information for the rich - Boing Boing
- 28 Newspaper And Magazine Layout Disasters
- Manly Art: 18 Virile Artists from the Past to the Present | The Art of Manliness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:03 AM | Your Say (0)
April 10, 2013
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:23 PM | Your Say (4)
"They have already convinced us that to kill the lives inside women is A-Okay because these lives are inside and not outside.
Well, sometimes outside. As long as nobody’s looking. Anyway, the tenured asked, “Why not use this killing more systematically, more scientifically?” Instead of just killing to free up a woman’s time for more shopping, we could kill those lives inside women who were judged suboptimal. Brilliant!" -- The Return Of Eugenics | William M. Briggs
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:43 PM | Your Say (0)
"If the news media hadn’t told you how brilliant Barack Obama was every day for the last six years, you might have your doubts. [Bumped]
"Ours is a government of thieving hedonists. And the leader of that government is invoking shame over the fact that only 41 laws prohibited Adam Lanza from shooting up an elementary school?
Whether Republican leaders realize it or not, Barack Obama just pulled his goalie. He opened a door to Republican victory and a conservative resurgence that could define the next 10 election cycles. By invoking shame, Obama started a conversation that he never intended to start. Obama the Shameless | The Daily Caller
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:42 PM | Your Say (17)
"A headline you'll never see in the American press: "
" 'Fetuses and blood all over the place': Medic's graphic account of 'be-heading live babies' at abortion 'House of Horrors' in Philadelphia" Via Pundit & Pundette
"[Stephen Massof] also claimed he saw about 100 babies born alive and then 'snipped' with surgical scissors in the back of the neck, to ensure their 'demise'." -- Kermit Gosnell trial Mail Online
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:02 PM | Your Say (2)
Yet another chicken shit prog idea.
The Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley (D), has endorsed a plan to burn chicken feces to produce electricity.... -- Batshit Crazy News
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:09 AM | Your Say (3)
There's bad news and then there's worse news....
- From bad: Der Steppenworm? Two new species differ from the elusive 'Mongolian Death Worm' which is said to inhabit the southern Gobi Desert where it terrorizes travelers with its deadly abilities to project acid that, upon contact, turns anything it touches yellow and corroded.
- To worse: Talk about the accident man who put the eel in the anus becomes critical condition occurs in China "Why was playing man have put into the anal eel mystery? it seems that the voice of the fellow was playing with the liquor, however. I shall not put eel in anal absolutely because there is a possibility to cause a serious accident."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:36 AM | Your Say (0)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:23 AM | Your Say (2)
"Once there was a man who could not stand it."
First he lost the power to read and then the headlines did not bother him any longer.
Then he lost the power to understand speech and then the radio could not bother him. He became quite happy and the wrinkles smoothed out of his face and he quit being tense and he painted and modelled in clay and danced and listened to music and enjoyed life. Then a clever psychiatrist penetrated his fugue and made him sane again.... Letters of Note: The Robert Heinlein Maneuver
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:59 AM | Your Say (1)
Wednesday's Slick Stack Hack
- Jay Z and Beyonce Fly Useful Idiot Airlines via iMaksim.com
- 'I’m an ultimate survivalist,' says 'Naked and Afraid' star, Kellie Nightlinger, 38, who was starving after two weeks in the wild when she cooked up a scheme to use her ladyparts as bait to catch fish between her legs.
- The end of everything - The book title that won't go away.
- The Bodega Breakfast Roll is the Best Sandwich in NYC
- Video: NASA's Best Views of Earth From Space in 2012
- Breaking the sound barrier, ejecting at low level and pushing new aircraft to the limits - it's all in a day's work for the military's elite test pilots
- This Is Not a Rally... It's a Credit Bubble of Epic Proportions
- サ Unemployment Rate for Millennials Skyrockets to a staggering 16.2%.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:17 AM | Your Say (0)
April 9, 2013
Are you better off than you were twenty years ago or forty years ago?
The old order must die, says the left, for a better world to be born.
Sooner or later we must all mount the altar of change and let our blood drip beneath the shaman's knife, so that the green world may renew itself. Some must be euthanized, others aborted, we must pay more and give more, we must volunteer and donate our times, our lives and our minds to the new order. Our beliefs, our nations and our children, these too we must offer up to the fire. Sultan Knish: Better or Worse?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:04 PM | Your Say (1)
"Le vin est tiré: il faut le boire."
the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits. He who does otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to keep the knife in his hand; neither can he rely on his subjects, nor can they attach themselves to him, owing to their continued and repeated wrongs. For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer." -- Machiavelli, The Prince"Le vin est tiré: il faut le boire." ["When the wine is drawn, we must drink. "]
Once you embark on a plan for the transformation of a society you must carry it through no matter at what cost: to fumble, to retreat, to be overcome by scruples is to betray your chosen cause. To be a physician is to be a professional, ready to burn, to cauterize, to amputate; if that is what the disease requires, then to stop halfway because of personal qualms, or some rule unrelated to your art and its technique, is a sign of muddle and weakness, and will always give you the worst of both worlds. And there are at least two worlds: each of them has much, indeed everything, to be said for it; but they are two and not one. One must learn to choose between them and, having chosen, not look back." -- Isiah Berlin: The Question of Machiavelli - The New York Review of Books
Posted by Vanderleun at 2:33 PM | TrackBack
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:23 AM | Your Say (4)
Her $14 Million Lie Book: Just What Were Mrs.Clinton's Foreign Policy Successes?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:19 AM | Your Say (8)
Tar, Feather, Ignite and Pitchfork These Geezers. Seriously.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:49 AM | Your Say (0)
How Thatcher The Chemist Helped Make Thatcher The Politician
"It was precisely because Thatcher knew what scientific research was like
that made her impervious to claims that science was a special case, with special features and incapable of being understood by outsiders, and therefore that science policy should be left in the hands of scientists. Such a strategy of persuasion and protection might have considerable purchase on a science minister with no direct experience of the working life of a scientist, but not Thatcher." -- Popular Science
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:34 AM | Your Say (1)
Tuesday's Mail Stack
Dry Goods: Velour tracksuit empire Juicy Couture up for sale after years of declining revenues | Mail Online
Lost in Space-Out: How did teen hikers get so lost in the wilderness while still being able to see Los Angeles skyline? | Mail Online
'I don't hate people, I just don't like living with them':Utah's 'Mountain Man' tells the REAL story of how he spent six years on the run from police in the wilderness | Mail Online
Polly want a hooker?: Raised by monkeys: How I was rescued from my jungle home but then sold to a brothel for a parrot | Mail Online
Stairway to Heaven: Secret walkways and attic rooms open in roof of Siena Cathedral for the first time in 900 years Mail Online
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:12 AM | Your Say (3)
April 8, 2013
And the "human, all too human" site of the day is....
HT: Moe Lane / This is not funny.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:56 PM | Your Say (6)
"If the working and laboring classes
were more verbally articulate we’d be hearing a lot more about them. As it is they wither and suffer in silence, unless a journalist takes an interest in them and speaks up for them." -- Pursuing the life of the mind : Gene Expression
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:58 PM | Your Say (1)
"Constitutions have to be written
on hearts, not just paper." -- Margaret Thatcher
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:45 PM | Your Say (0)
Futuristic Aircraft Update
(proposed by French designer Jean-Marie Massaud), containing a restaurant, fitness facility, library and sun deck. Cruising at 80 mph with a top speed of 105 mph, the Manned Cloud could take 40 guests and 15 staff around the world in three days. -- Dark Roasted Blend:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (7)
Yes. Yes. YES!
Should Michael Mann be given the electric chair for having concocted arguably the most risibly inept, misleading, cherry-picking, worthless and mendacious graph – the Hockey Stick – in the history of junk science? An English class for trolls, professional offence-takers and climate activists – Telegraph Blogs
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:55 AM | Your Say (4)
Adieu, Annette
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:13 AM | Your Say (3)
"The great achievement of Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope lay in remembering that Communism was an evil thing."
Thatcher ends her long life, the last of the three, at a moment when everyone is out of credit, or rather living on it.
She passes in an uncertain hour, the story of her life and times a pointed reminder of how far we have fallen from those days. Yet if we understand her life aright the principal lesson is that the ordinary is extraordinary. The world is not made by the Great and the Good. Rather it is made by ordinary folk striving to be better. Therefore the greatest aspiration of a statesman was to represent what we were â and still could be. -- Belmont Club » Margaret Thatcher
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:26 AM | Your Say (1)
Russia is a gangster state.
So now the average person can fight with his fists in the street over slights with another average person, and a kind of rumble of vibrancy is demonstrated.
It's not a fair fight top to bottom, of course, but the crooks that run the place are more discerning gangsters than before, and don't trifle themselves with the affairs of little people so much. And the little people make everything go, if you will but let them. That's why the lights are on, and the cars buzz here and there, and the boats full of people that don't look like beaten dogs when the newspaper boy makes his delivery go to and fro. -- Sippican Cottage: Marvelous Mockba
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (1)
Thatcher
True, they are not at rest yet,
but now that they are indeed
apart, winnowed from failures,
they withdraw to an orbit
and turn with disinterested
hard energy, like the stars.
-- My Sad Captains by Thom Gunn
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:58 AM | Your Say (3)
"Well, it seems like killing the economy went hand in hand with CO2 reductions, imagine that."
USA meets Kyoto protocol goal – without ever embracing it | Watts Up With That?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:38 AM | Your Say (1)
Just Another Manic Monday Stack
- Thrill-Seeking Kayakers Paddle Across an Active Volcano
- White House Repeats Jobs Mantra: ‘More Work Remains to Be Done’ Nine Months in a Row
- 500 Climb Over Each Other to Form Giant Human Towers
- The Best Beer I've Ever Had
- Classic: Anti-Gun Pennsylvania Mayor Drunkenly Seeks Oral Sex — at Gunpoint
- Blame the Women Have all the labiaplasty you want. Just don’t blame us when normal-looking women feel like freaks. You gals set the standards, not us.
- Scientology: The Story Scientology is a neat reflection of the worst aspects of American culture with its repulsive veneration of celebrity; its weird attitudes towards women, sex, healthcare and contraception; its promise of equality among its followers but actual crushing inequality….
- Catching Up with Kai, the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker
- THE STUPIDEST HANDBAG IN THE HISTORY OF HANDBAGS MAKES ITS COVER DEBUT ON HARPER’S BAZAAR SINGAPORE.
- Surprise, surprise: Family Breakdown Is At The Root Of Black America's Ills
- Belmont Club: Hard and Seoul One on one, Seoul always wins. So the object of North Korean strategy is to ensure that whatever happens it is never one on one.
- Spengler: The Global Failure of Keynesianism
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:57 AM | Your Say (2)
April 7, 2013
Let's review....
IF YOU HAVE A CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT, CARRY DAMMIT! When it comes to carrying, you have to look at it this way.
There may be only one time in your entire life when you will need your gun. It may be 37 years from today….you never know. But when that day comes, you don’t want it to be on your nightstand because you were wearing shorts....
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:08 PM | Your Say (2)
What do you do when you disappear?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:59 PM | Your Say (8)
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? No!
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is this approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It can not come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide." -- Abraham Lincoln
Illo HT via Rodger R. King
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:12 PM | Your Say (7)
The Three-Point Plan
Abusive laws continue to stream out of state and federal capitals that serve one and only one purpose: to subjugate the most responsible amongst us to the stupid, lazy, irresponsible and lawless on one end, and to our rulers on the other. -- Angry White Dude
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (3)
"Liar Choopan, where is our promised 5 tons ice cream?"
Riot in Tehran after dairy firm fails to distribute ice cream from giant tub
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (0)
Sunday's Stack's SWAK
- A Better Way to Screw. The real reason behind the invention of this screw:
It was designed to come out as if was driven in by screwdrivers so the screw head would not be ruined or broken off. When tightening a Phillips screw with a Phillips screw driver you will notice that when the torque gets to be too strong, the screw driver winds itself out of the screw–a feature built into the design of the system.
- 'Syrians' Lives Are Worthless,' Obama Tells Daughters Before Kissing Them Goodnight
- Gay Talese on Tailoring and Journalism "A man isn't fully dressed if he doesn't have a hat on"
- The ONLY Hotel Room In Cinderella’s Castle
- Doug Ross @ Journal: Epic fail by analytics company Sitemeter: forgets to renew domain name
- Cathedraltown If you've ever gone up the 404 you've no doubt seen the Cathedral of the Transfiguration on Woodbine, north of Major Mac. Built in the 1980s by a Slovakian developer, its interior has been a neverending construction job.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 AM | Your Say (3)
April 6, 2013
The Tama Electric EV made by Nissan's 1947
was developed by the predecessor of the car taking the same car Prince, airplanes Tachikawa, 22mph top speed record on a single charge. But the body is a simple wooden structure, covered with a steel plate on top of that, there was the foresight of the era, such as the world's first practical hood "alligator (Alligator) Type" seen in only now take for granted. Traveling can be the full restoration in accordance with the announcement of the reef in 2010, once in a while, in 2011, seems to have done even test drive. Immediately, please see the video of the freshly arrived then.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:29 PM | Your Say (1)
"Regrets? I've had a few. But, then again, too few to mention...."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:45 AM | Your Say (3)
Chin cheek muscle slack band
with this BB Sports Bodymaker Face Control. This band is worn around your jaw line, helping mold tighter cheek and chin muscles while you go about your everyday chores. A simple way to help train and tighten up your face.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (8)
"I'm surprised Mainers haven't discovered how to set the bricks on fire."
Yet. Everything burns to the ground in Maine, and burns again while the ashes are still warm, too.
People here seem to be capable of setting anything afire, except firewood. They can't figure out how trees are operated, I think. Everyone buys a Bean coat and a woodstove and attempts to light it with gasoline or kerosene or lighter fluid or oily rags or dead cats soaked in acetone or whatever they have handy. Sippican Cottage: It's Portlandish
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:08 AM | Your Say (2)
At last we have proof of what they've been smoking
Scientists: Marijuana causes global warming
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:37 AM | Your Say (1)
"We need to create jobs."
There aren't any to create. Robots and chinamen, that's the future of unskilled labor.
Sorry, I meant chinawomen. College won't help either, you went to Barnard and you can't find a job, what hope is there for the majority on SSI? Zero, not the way we're doing it. TV tells them how to want, no one else is around to tell them otherwise. Here's the advice you need to give your kid: either you find a knowledge based productive skill, from plumber to quantum programmer, or you will be living off the state, regardless of what company you think you're working for. The Last Psychiatrist: The Terrible, Awful Truth About SSDI
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:17 AM | Your Say (5)
Saturday's Stack Cracks Back for a Living
- How Jay Leno Has Bettered Our Society
- Duck Genitalia Researcher Defends Her Work
- Q&A: Discoverer of Dead Gay Duck Sex
- Justin Bieber Has a Month to Pick Up His Monkey
- Dinner’s Revenge: mealworms that survive in the stomach, then eat their way out of predators
- The Ecuadorian dwarf community 'immune to cancer and diabetes' that could hold cure to diseases
- Monsignor Meth Kevin Wallin: The Kinky Priest Who Sold Meth
- On geoengineering Geoengineers are would-be deities who dream of mastering the heavens. But are humans the ones who are out of control?
- The Modern Female Eunuch
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:03 AM | Your Say (1)
April 5, 2013
Roger Ebert Hails Human Existence As 'A Triumph'
“At times brutally sad, yet surprisingly funny, and always completely honest, I wholeheartedly recommend existence. If you haven’t experienced it yet, then what are you waiting for? It is not to be missed.” -- O.N.S>
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:47 PM | Your Say (5)
John Kerry Lost Somewhere In Gobi Desert
“Hello! Hello, is there anybody out there who can hear me?” the exhausted five-term senator reportedly said while stumbling across the vast desert expanse.
“My name is John Forbes Kerry! I am the United States Secretary of State, and I am lost! Oh, God, almost out of water. Gotta make it back somehow...gotta make it back.” ONN NEWS NETWORK
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:43 PM | Your Say (5)
The Great DHS Ammunition Stockpile Myth
MYTH: The government is purchasing 1.6 billion rounds to cause shortages on the civilian market.
FACT: Actually, the total number of rounds purchased from late 2011 to 2013 is less than 800 million rounds over five years. Conspiracy theorists have overestimated the round counts by at least 800 million rounds. -- BREITBART
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:37 PM | Your Say (3)
The Washington Post has a two part mission statement:
1. get you a higher SAT score or your money back; 2. make sure nothing is Obama's fault. I'm not saying anything is Obama's fault, I'm saying that in 2008 they switched from "It's Bush's Fault" offense to "It's Not Obama's Fault" defense in hopes of keeping their last ten readers. -- The Last Psychiatrist: The Terrible, Awful Truth About SSDI
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:16 PM | Your Say (3)
Kim Jong Un, Dennis Rodman & Barack Hussein Obama
What better distraction than a nuke threat from a tele-tubbie with an awful haircut? -- Blur Brain
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:18 PM | Your Say (1)
Meet Ali, the World's Most Dapper 83-Year-Old
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:50 PM | Your Say (1)
Waxwings
By the false azure in the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky,
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate...
Via 12 Beautiful Photos of Waxwing Birds @ TwistedSifter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (2)
Doing the Math
Ninety million Americans are no longer in the workforce. Ninety million. People not in the labor force grew by 663,000, and now 90 million. -- Limbaugh Show
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:15 PM | Your Say (0)
‘Notes on the War’
It was terribly filthy, and worst of all, there were lice everywhere. An old man in my compartment was infested with at least a million fat, shiny parasites, but it didn’t matter how much we begged him to move away into the corner, he only grunted and did nothing at all. Polina Aronson – A Russian Jew in Germany
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:57 AM | Your Say (2)
Lileks' Good Dog Jasper Is Getting Old
But here’s the final thing. He’s old. He’s very old. Life has pleasures but life hurts, too.
You can’t say that without flipping it around in your head right away - life hurts, but it has pleasures. You have no idea what the balance is for him, how much he simply accepts as the daily ration, the ever-now normal. You just wait for the moment, the expression, the admission. The request. And I’m telling you this: I look for it every day. I’m not seeing it. -- LILEKS (James) The Bleat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:46 AM | Your Say (3)
The Last Friday Stack
- Kapka Kassabova-Tango ‘There are two types of people in tango. Therapists and those in need of healing.’
- Would You Pay $91,500 for a Crocodile Skin T-Shirt?
- 5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns
- Global warming has INCREASED ice around Antarctica
- AoM Month of Sandwiches Day #1: The Breakfast Reuben
- I Tattooed Porn Websites on My Face So My Kids Wouldn't Starve
- Ivy Style From Peasantry To Palm Beach: The Story Of The Bass Weejun
- A Crash Course in Lon Chaney, “The Man of a Thousand Faces” –
- Inside North Korea's Environmental Collapse “The landscape is just basically dead.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:25 AM | Your Say (9)
April 4, 2013
"I'm from your government and I'm here to fuck you."
Stimulus Fail: $423,500 To Study How To Use A Condom - Blur Brain The recipient of the award was designated to be in zip code 47405-1101. Here's a picture of zip code 47405-1101:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:35 PM | Your Say (7)
Counting the Human Cost
In the 104 years between 1864 and 1968, an estimated 4,946 blacks were lynched in the United States.
Meanwhile, in the 38 years since Roe vs Wade was ruled on in 1973 and 2011, an estimated 17,653,000 black babies were aborted. That's a ratio of 3,569:1. The lynchings were horrible, but this mass slaughter of babies is inconceivable. -- An important look back at the chilling numbers @ Word Around the Net: THE HUMAN COST
Sheriff John Brown always hated me
For what I don't know
Ev'ry time I plant a seed
He said, "Kill it before it grows."
He said, "Kill them before they grow."
-- I Shot The Sheriff, Bob Marley
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:48 PM | Your Say (2)
This is What Barbie Looks Like Without Makeup
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:14 PM | Your Say (1)
President Obama Signs Executive Order Outlawing The Taliban
“It’s a simple and straightforward approach that’ll solve the insurgency problem overnight,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “Frankly, it’s so profoundly obvious that we’re surprised the previous administration didn’t think of it.” -- The Duffel Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:24 AM | Your Say (0)
Inverted Nipple Suction Dream Charm Adjuster
For obvious reasons, inverted nipples is a condition which makes sufferers worry or feel inadequate. (And it can happen to men too!) Well, here is one way to help "correct" your body. -- Japan Trend Shop
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (4)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:45 AM | Your Say (1)
TIME FOR STRICT FEDERAL CONTROLS
Fight involving machete, frying pan land Flagler mom and son in jail. Dave Barry's Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:44 AM | Your Say (0)
Thursday's Stack is Texting Back
- After the collapse of the Soviet Union, eccentric headstones with realistic, fanciful images began to appear in Russian cemeteries.
- In the past few years, I've bought eighty-one leather jackets. Dozens of boots and leather gloves. I've purchased pants that cost $5,000. I own a $22,000 coat.
- The least expensive full-size Brigg umbrella, made from a bamboo handle with a nylon canopy, is $420, or the equivalent of 14 years of cheap umbrellas, assuming a pace of three cheap ones a year.
- The Romaine Lettuce "heart" can be placed in a pan of water and with a little time, will eventually sprout a whole new head of lettuce, ready to harvest, eat, and repeat the process.
- Do airports have personalities? If so, JFK International Airport must possess a dark and complex intelligence.
- Was this the world's first mobile phone? 1938 film shows woman talking on a wireless device but it is not 'time travel' family say to the disappointment of conspiracy theorists
- The federal sharpshooters in Rock Creek Park are on the lookout for deer drawn to the corncob bait.
- The ‘Axis of Evil’, which the ‘reality-based’ community confidently supposed did not exist, is now aiming their missiles at the West Coast. That Axis of Evil – or whatever you want to call it — has been in gestation for a long time, in the form of shared WMD component development between North Korea, Iran and Pakistan.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:16 AM | Your Say (1)
April 3, 2013
Depleted Uranium Shotgun Shells
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:35 PM | Your Say (9)
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (0)
Islam Be Gay
Imam Says Muslims Must Grow Beards to Avoid Gay Feelings Khalid Yassin’s fabulous beard is the only thing standing between him and raging homosexuality.
Elsewhere: Canadian Imam Arrested On Child Sex Charges - Blur Brain Just another beady eye’d disciple of the prophet with a scruffy beard and a taste for young-uns. Apparently he was an equal opportunity molester who preyed on both boys and girls.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:43 AM | Your Say (9)
1913—The Final Days of the Old Regime in the United States
The United States in 1913 had no federal income tax, no central bank, no social security taxes, no general sales taxes,
no Securities and Exchange Commission, no Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, no Department of Health and Human Services, no National Labor Relations Board, no federal this, that, and the other as far as the eye can see. -- The Beacon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (5)
"We are now state-wrecked."
David Stockman on "Sundown in America" @ NYTimes.com: With only brief interruptions, we’ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism
intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy. As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (“clean” energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:21 AM | Your Say (1)
The Sublime Genius of Dr. Paul R. Krugman
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:16 AM | Your Say (2)
Wednesday's Stack is White on Black
- You're Eye-to-Eye With a Whale in the Ocean. What Does It See?
- 100 Life Hacks That Make Life Easier
- Photographs of Dried Whisky Residue on the Bottom of Scotch Glasses
- Use Dental Floss to Cut Frustrating Cheeses
- 'World's Smallest Cellphone Charger' Provides Emergency Backup
- A Brief Guide to Pop Culture in 1968
- World’s top supercomputer from ‘09 is now obsolete, will be dismantled
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:18 AM | Your Say (4)
April 2, 2013
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
for a range of science disciplines for the remainder of the fiscal year. On page 64, H. R. 933, says: “$75,000,000 shall be for pre-formulation and/or formulation activities for a mission that meets the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa mission in the most recent planetary science decadal survey.” -- Discovery News
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:40 PM | Your Say (2)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:09 PM | Your Say (0)
"This Week in Epic Beta Male Faggotry "
Buzz Bissinger’s gut-curdling confession in GQ that he blew over a half-million of his Friday Night Lights money on clothes.
And by “clothes” he means, among many other items, a pair of $5,600 leather pants and some thigh-high boots with six-inch stiletto heels. --- Taki's Magazine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:07 PM | Your Say (0)
Vermont's $3,800 single person tax
If you're a single Vermonter who voted for Obama AND decided that you were healthy enough not to need insurance AND you make 40 grand, congratulations! Your vote will cost you between $2,200 and $11,412 over the next three years. And at the lower end? You STILL won't have any insurance! -- Moe Lane サ .
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:04 PM | Your Say (2)
Obscure Objects of Desire: The Munro Streamliner
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:01 PM | Your Say (1)
A partial list of evocative book titles
The Persistence of the Old Regime. Autumn of the Middle Ages. The Beauty & the Sorrow. Impressions of Africa. In Praise of Shadows. Dark Spring. The Geography of the Imagination. The Melancholy of Resistance. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Black Sun. Landscape and Memory. The Rings of Saturn. A Short History of Decay. The Obscene Bird of Night. The Terrors of Ice and Darkness. The Midnight. Solitudes. The Ice Museum. Genoa: A Telling of Wonders. A History of Clouds. The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans. On the Natural History of Destruction. The Idea of North. The Fountains of Neptune. Arriere-pays. Journey to the End of the Night. Autobiography of Red. Bruges-la-Morte. The Time of the Assassins. Against Our Vanishing. Luminous Debris. At the Mountains of Madness. The Brittle Age. Eccentric Spaces. The Abyss. Because I Was Flesh. Inland. The Stones of Aran. Dreams in Antiquity. A Topology of Everyday Constellations. Invention of Solitude. The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light. Passing Strange and Wonderful. -- from Invisible StoriesPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:05 AM | Your Say (1)
Tuesday's Stack is S.W.A.K.
Common Reasons For Returned Purchases At The Dynamite Store
L Ron Hubbard Writes Descriptions for American Apparel The varied hues of her Stripe Tricot Scoop Back Tank Dress dress reminded Truk Mestro of the nutrient farms of Iskav.
Big Boards and the Rise of Massive Office Screens
THE WORLD'S GEOGRAPHY: 15 Spectacular Hidden Beaches
Surreal Photos of Seniors Communing with Nature
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:45 AM | Your Say (3)
April 1, 2013
“Make me a poster, of an old rodeo” – John Prine
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:42 PM | Your Say (0)
Women. Can't Live With 'Em. Can't Get 'Em to Put On a Skimpy Little Nazi Costume.
Man seeks to divorce wife for refusing to make love to a snake.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:14 PM | Your Say (0)
White Men Can't Jump
WATCH: President Obama bricks a lay-up - The Week The leader of the free world could not buy a bucket.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:43 PM | Your Say (9)
Bernanke Breaks Down: "This Whole Thing Is A Kleptocracy"
Asked a question about the wealth effect, Bernanke paused and said,
"The wealth effect. Ah, right." He then smiled faintly and shook his head. "You want to know about the wealth effect? Well, I'll be candid with you.This whole thing is a kleptocracy--the financial system, the political system, it's one big kleptocracy. That's the real wealth effect." -- Guest Post:| Zero Hedge
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:34 PM | Your Say (0)
Why Internet? Why You Did This?
Were my daymares not daymarish enough? - Blur Brain
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:30 PM | Your Say (1)
A People’s History of April Fools' Day
Benjamin Franklin attempted to popularize April 1 as Nay to Breeches Daye, on which “men and woman-folk of Gentle Breeding and Kind Manners shall go-about the towne and countrye verily clothed in Shoes and Coats only, exposing their Nether Regions to Passers-Bye in Celebration of the COMINGE OF SPRING.” -- | VICE United States
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:46 AM | Your Say (4)
A modest solution but not without merit
Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, will be alive and voting for years to come,
and and paying into the system without draining medical resources to the same extent (most die quickly from drive-by shootings or Hepatitis C). In addition, the man-caused climate farce holds the biggest prize of all for people like Democrats -- nullification of the Fifth Amendment takings clause, and with it absolute freedom to take whatever the state wants, when they want it. The Road to Serfdom's terminus. I know what your asking, "But Rodge, what can we do?" Kill everyone. Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (1)
When You're the New York Times Every Day is Pretty Much a Joke
Correction: April 1, 2013 An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven. -- Pope Francis Calls for ‘Peace in All the World,’ in First Easter Message - NYTimes.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (2)
Empathy is always held up as a great virtue,
but it’s remarkable how so few people have empathy with the total sum of the American experience beyond their own self-definition.
It’s possible that somewhere in their heart of hearts they think “I am a milky-pallor wisp-chested neutral with thick-framed glasses well aware that my grandfather was being shot at in Italy when he was my age, and I am writing posts about the 23 Sloth Babies That Will Make Your Day.” That can sting. LILEKS (James) The Bleat
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:13 AM | Your Say (2)
Obama Proclaims April the Month to Teach Young People ‘How to Budget Responsibly’
"Together, we can prepare young people to tackle financial challenges -- from learning how to budget responsibly to saving for college, starting a business, or opening a retirement account....
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2013 as National Financial Capability Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices." -- Presidential Proclamation -- National Financial Capability Month, 2013 | The White House
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (11)
"I've looked at life(and choice) from both sides now..."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:42 AM | Your Say (0)
"Mischievous Teens"
Teen Mob Action Takes Over Chicago's Gold Coast The warmest day of the year so far brings hundreds of mischievous teens to Michigan Avenue. "You had a group of teens, close to maybe 500. They assaulted a Chicago police officer that was on a mounted on a horse and all of a sudden they assaulted a citizen walking the streets, just a normal citizen shopping and enjoying the weather," said Holmes.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:49 AM | Your Say (4)
The Formula at Last!
Wonderbra unveils formula for the perfect cleavage:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:26 AM | Your Say (0)
Monday's Stack is Springing Back
- “Do you have a solve for this problem?” “Let’s all focus on the build.” “That’s the take-away from today’s seminar.” Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns
- No snow needed for sidewall skiing in Saudi Arabia - PhotoBlog
- A Bacon [Yes, bacon] Condom
- 10 Best New York Auto Show Cars - Gear Patrol
- Stanley PowerLock: An Icon Turns 50 - Gear Patrol
- The Parliament of Beasts and Birds | John C. Wright's Journal
- "WE HEART GUNS" - THESE AMERICANS
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:26 AM | Your Say (3)