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August 31, 2015
Drudge is an aggregator, not a news source, but he has an amazing sense of collage.
Andy Warhol, who came out of a working-class immigrant factory family in Pittsburgh, adored the tabloids and reproduced their front pages in big acrylic paintings. The tabloids were always the voice of the people. I admire the mix on Drudge of all types of news stories, high and low. The reason that nobody has been able to imitate Drudge is because he’s an auteur, stamping the page with his own unique sensibility and instincts. It must be exhausting, because he must constantly filter world news on a daily basis. He’s simply an aggregator, not a news source, but he has an amazing sense of collage. The page is fluid and always in motion, and Drudge is full of jokes and mischief. -- Camille Paglia Interview
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 AM | Your Say (7)
"We have come to the wrong star."
We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made one think of stars.Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low voice--"I have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star." He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way." G K Chesterton's Essay: The Ballade Of A Strange Town
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:27 AM | Your Say (2)
We don’t make stuff anymore. We make assholes.
The store is an Asshole Factory. Our world is now full of Asshole Factories. That’s what the stores, offices, industrial parks, skyscrapers, malls, low-rise blocks, gleaming headquarters, whimsically designed corporate campuses, really are. It’s the grand endeavor of today. We don’t make stuff anymore. We make assholes. The Great Enterprise of this age is the Asshole Industry. --The Asshole Factory
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (6)
A nation divided by hot sauce....
A bottle of Frank’s Red Hot is a likely sign that you’re somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, while the sombrero-wearing visage staring from a Tapatio label means you’re out by the California coast. Or if you’re in Louisiana cajun country, keep an eye out for Crystal, Tabasco, or one of the many other fiery condiments that hail from the bayou. But don’t expect to find much Texas Pete in the Lone Star state—it actually comes from the inland hills of North Carolina. 7 Hot Sauce Recipes to Keep Your Cooking Spicy
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:39 AM | Your Say (6)
A popular weekly TV series called Voetspore (literally “Foot tracks”), broadcast in Afrikaans in South Africa.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:44 AM | Your Say (6)
By day, Dad fixes stuff. He's a fitter and turner by trade.
He fixes cars, trucks, tractors, diggers, dozers, graders. Engines and everything else - huge and small. He fixes them when they're broken, burst, blocked, boiled over or blown up.He does this in the pit of his workshop or on the side of the road, in hot sun; in torrential rain. My father gets up every morning at 4.30, to start work at 6am. My father is 69 years old. I don't know a whole lot about fitting and turning and all that it entails. But I do know he is great at what he does. Brilliant, even. He's old school. He doesn't necessarily do things the easiest or the fastest way. He does things the proper way, the right way. He’s a good man, and thorough. Dad @ Pastry Box
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:22 AM | Your Say (2)
August 27, 2015
The day Al Gore was born there were 7000 polar bears on Earth.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:30 PM | Your Say (2)
“Everybody in the wood business says the longleaf pine tree was the best wood the Lord ever made,”
The largest mass of longleaf pine in the city probably sits under the two towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. Completed in 1883, the bridge was built using caissons, essentially enormous airtight timber chambers that engineers sank into the riverbed, allowing workers inside to dig deeper into the earth below and workers above water to construct stone towers on top. Salvaging a Long-Lasting Wood, and New York City’s Past
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:07 PM | Your Say (0)
He may be a dictator, butt he’s OUR dictator.
And we sense that America needs someone who will. In order to “level the playing field” again and give our kids and grandkids a shot at enjoying an American life. And currently that someone exists only in the persona of The Donald: no matter how much you may like some of the others, he’s currently the only guy on the podium who actually knows how to seize the power at his disposal and use it to do what he thinks needs to be done to make America great again: deport illegal aliens? Boom. End anchor babies? Boom. Get rid of Obamacare and start over? Boom. Nullify the agreement with Iran? Boom, and I do mean Boom! Michelle Obama's Mirror: Trump: Willing To Kill The Constitution In Order To Save It? I’m OK With That.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:41 AM | Your Say (8)
Thousands of Apps Secretly Run Ads That Users Can't See
Forensiq identified over 5,000 apps that display unseen ads on both Apple and Android devices.Advertisers are paying about $850 million for these ads each year, according to the report, and the apps with the highest rate of ad fraud can burn through 2 gigabytes of data per day on a single device. The sheer amount of activity generated by apps with fake ads was what initially exposed the scam. Forensiq noticed that some apps were calling up ads at such a high frequency that the intended audience couldn’t possibly be actual humans. The apps, says Forensiq, were hitting these numbers by showing as many as five ads in the background for every ad visible to users. Some apps continued to scroll through ads even after the app had been closed. - Bloomberg Business
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:32 AM | Your Say (0)
August 26, 2015
Charlie Daniels to Congress (in essence) 'Fuck you spineless maggots. Strong letter follows.'
politically correct, scared of their own shadow, pushover, pathetic excuses for public servants who are supposed to be representing a constituency of citizens who have to live with the circumstances of their timid folly. You don't even have the courage to face down an out of control president, even when he makes a deal with the devil. Don't you bunch of timid capons even care what kind of world you're leaving to your children and grandchildren, not to even mention the rest of us? Are you really party partisans before you're parents and grandparents or even human beings?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:12 PM | Your Say (7)
We need to pay more attention to the neglect of children.
They are not being neglected nearly enough, and the consequence is that they grow up neurotic, and asthmatic.A model mother of my recent acquaintance boasts of the success of her own neo-mediaeval parenting style. For example, she would not help her children with homework, and left them to the consequences if it was not done. She would not drive them to more than one extra-curricular activity. “I was not their best friend or their chauffeur or their social secretary.” She did teach them to read and write, since the schools don’t do that any more; and was able to inculcate clear thinking in this way. How to raise children : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:52 AM | Your Say (2)
Al Gore doesn't care about global warming. He just wants it to be 1976 again, forever.
When people complain that X sucks now, but it used to be great, you're usually listening to nursing home conversation.All that people know is what was popular when they were young. They dream of their salad days and the soundtrack to what they were doing at the time, which is intensely trivial to everyone but them. Al Gore doesn't care about global warming. He just wants it to be 1976 again, forever. Lots of people are like him. They simply choose different topics to be fuddy-duddies about. Sippican Cottage: The Cover Charge to Greatness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:38 AM | Your Say (4)
I was walking through the mall and I saw that there was a “Islamic Book Store.”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:51 AM | Your Say (0)
The market demand for gay celebrities is much smaller than the available supply.
Her high-profile “coming out” in 2014 has damaged her career prospects as an actress because, despite what anyone may imagine, the market demand for gay celebrities is much smaller than the available supply. Denounce the movie-going public as a bunch of bigoted haters, if you like, but the heterosexual majority (97.7% of Americans, according to federal research) expect their entertainment to be entertaining, and tiresome propaganda about The People’s Glorious Democratic Struggle for Gender Equality is not entertaining. Radical Feminism and the ‘Equality’ Trap : The Other McCain
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (2)
For complete confidence that your secrets remain secure, be sure to use the Hillary Super Sweeper regularly:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 AM | Your Say (0)
Sigh.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (2)
August 25, 2015
“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life.
Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain.In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades … Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet” George Orwell HappyAcres
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:17 PM | Your Say (5)
Generally speaking, you don’t bring a nothing to a gunfight and expect to win.
It can happen, but you don’t make “use your bare hands to take down a guy with an AK-47” your Plan A.
I know this because I have training, experience, and a brain. The blithering idiots at Addicting Info, however, looked at this fluke, consulted fellow blithering idiots who know nothing about lethal force, and published an article titled Proving The Best Defense Is A Good Guy WITHOUT A Gun, Unarmed U.S. Soldiers Foil French Gunman (VIDEO)
I’m pretty sure Addicting Info’s writers are literally the dumbest people on earth. I don’t know much about AI’s writers or editors. I haven’t seen their IQ test results. I’m sure they’re all educated, and probably know many things about important topics like white privilege or microaggressions. But anyone who believes you’re better off unarmed when someone tries to shoot you with an AK has to be dumber than Forrest Gump. You have to be pretty far down the intelligence scale to write drivel like this:“The least surprising thing about Friday’s events in France is the fact that the shooter was stopped by unarmed good samaritans. The idea that the best weapon against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun is pure NRA propaganda… It’s tough to imagine how things might have turned out differently if the two good samaritans were armed on that French train. Multiple guns would have just added to the chaos and potentially to the injury or body count.”What the French Train Attack Doesn’t Prove | chris hernandez
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:37 AM | Your Say (7)
Urban Life Now: More fundamentally, Christ is not welcome there.
Restaurants outnumber groceries; each is a fake, in menu and decor; the groceries flog ready-made microwave meals. The people themselves are permanently “in transit,” many throughout their lives, on a journey that is the opposite of a pilgrimage. They have allowed themselves to become almost pure economic factors, with a job and a place to sleep, plus free time for demeaning entertainments. It is an environment in which there are more dogs than children — especially those small, yappy, and spoilt, on which the females ladle their maternal instincts. (On one recent walk I counted specialized retail outlets: eight for pets, and two for children.) The roundest wheel : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:18 AM | Your Say (1)
Now review Trump’s empty sentence: "We need to take America back."
From whom? Notice the intentional lack of detail? In this case, the lack of detail is the powerful part of the sentence.
Who did this awful thing??? Is it the top one-percenters who stole all the country’s money? Is it the liberals? Is it the politically-correct people? Is it the immigrants who are taking jobs? Is it the wrong-headed people in general? Is it the minorities? The women? Is it just our reputation in the world that we lost? Was it our former greatness we lost?See how the open-ended suggestion works? Every voter is free to fill in the topic of their own greatest fear. Trump VS Bush: Persuasion Wars | Scott Adams Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:10 AM | Your Say (6)
[Bumped]
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:32 AM | Your Say (16)
August 24, 2015
My Grandfather’s Imposter
“Did I ever tell you your grandfather had an impostor? One of his friends—a guy named Les Manning—assumed his identity and used his stories to get into the Explorer’s Club.” - Roads & Kingdoms
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:04 PM | Your Say (1)
If we were to erect a monument to the spirit of our age, it wouldn’t be something sublime like the Eiffel Tower,
St. Peter’s Basilica or the Empire State Building. No grandiose frescos would decorate it. No wondrous ostentations in gold leaf and lapis lazuli would adorn it. No clean-limbed marble statuary would guard it.No, it’d be a squat, ugly thing, like a paleolithic fertility fetish or a Morlock or typical WorldCon polyamory enthusiast. It would be sexless, androgynous and gendernonconforming all at the same time, and rendered in drab wattle and daub. Its most striking feature would be a great big mealy mouth, from which would drip liquid bromides and taurine fecal matter. Hordes of hooting crypto-humanoids in their mobility scooters would gather under this toxic shower to pray for equality and more all-you-can-eat buffets. -- John C. Wright's Journal
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:24 PM | Your Say (2)
By championing the little brown guys, they think they are washing off the stink of racism.
It’s why the reality of Hispanic voting patternshave never left a mark on the thinking of modern conservatives. It’s also why they keep yapping about how they must win over these “natural conservatives,” even though all the data says otherwise. They are sure they are on the side of angels. They have the right answer to the Great Question. Facts will come around soon enough. - - The Specter of Immigration | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:41 AM | Your Say (3)
The man who posted himself to Australia
Desperate to get back to Australia in time for his daughter's birthday, he decided to post himself in a wooden crate. "I just got in the thing and went. What was there to be frightened of? I'm not frightened of the dark so I just sat there. "It's like when I travel now if I go overseas. There's the seat. Sit in it, and go." - BBC News
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:57 AM | Your Say (1)
"I just looked over at Spencer and said, 'Let's go!'"
The expensive global security establishment failed to stop 9/11, and — despite having the French-train gunman flagged as a possible jihadist— did nothing to stop this weekend's attack. And that’s a lesson.Bureaucracies have their place, but they don’t deal well with diffuse threats such as terrorism. By the time “first responders” get there, it’s usually too late. But there’s one group of “responders” who don’t have to go anywhere, and that’s the group already on the scene. In conventional analysis, and in the terrorists’ hopes, those people are called “victims.” But as the three Americans on that French train demonstrated, victimhood isn’t the only response. - - Glenn Reynolds: See something? DO something!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:26 AM | Your Say (3)
August 23, 2015
Reasons why early Israeli nuclear pre-emption is not only justified but almost mandatory.
Because Iranian engineers have perfected the world's toughest concrete, developing mixtures using geopolymers, quartz powders (called fume) and metal and ceramic fibers. The result is hardness levels reportedly up to 50,000-60,000 psi in experimental samples. This means that even shallow “cut and cover” hard targets like the Natanz centrifuge enrichment plant, an armored complex in an excavated pit that is then covered, can resist destruction by the US's most lethal hard-target bomb: the 30,000-lb “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” Only the B-2 and the B-52 can carry the MOP. Yet while the MOP can penetrate ~200 ft into 5000-psi targets, it only reaches 25 feet into 10,000-psi concrete – and Iranian cement for new or up-armored underground bunkers has likely progressed well beyond that. Articles: Thinking About the Unthinkable: An Israel-Iran Nuclear War
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:57 AM | Your Say (11)
You will never elect anyone to take the government apart.
Once you know how to work it well enough to get in charge of it, you don't want to wreck it. You want to lord over it and add to it. No one wants the bulldozed empty lot where a Post Office once stood to be named after them. Humans don't work that way. Sippican Cottage: The Cover Charge to GreatnessPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:42 AM | Your Say (4)
August 22, 2015
And, yes, those last two items were very meta.....
.... and, yes, this item only compounds that.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:28 PM | Your Say (1)
It seems there are few options for responding to Trump:
Any opposition to the investigation will be handled as complicity. Late night arrests, assets seizures, news breaks with names and addresses. Do all this so that for miles around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell themselves that we are killing the bloodthirsty "traitors" and that we will continue to do so ...Once done is done. the investigation by Government agencies, right? will drag on longer than the glove that didn't fit or Hilary's emails. -- Chasmatic in These Just In
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:27 PM | Your Say (4)
These Just In
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:56 AM | Your Say (8)
Islamic Jihadi opens fire with AK-47. Terrorism not ruled out.
It happened again: on a train filled with cheese eating surrender monkeys hurtling through the Belgian countryside towards Paris, the Americans came to the rescue: Crew on Paris-bound train barricaded themselves in their staffroom and locked the door as Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist went on the rampage – leaving PASSENGERS to take him down.And, as usual, the passengers were 3 Americans and a Brit. When an Islamic terrorist (Can I say that? The French called for caution before jumping to conclusions.) opened fire with an AK-47 (wait, you’re not allowed to have an assault rifle in France!) he was rushed and taken down by Americans Spencer Stone (U.S. Air Force) and Alek Skarlatos (Oregon National Guard) and subdued with the help of California student Anthony Sadler, and British national Chris Norman. Michelle Obama's Mirror:
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:08 AM | Your Say (4)
These Two
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (6)
August 21, 2015
“‘Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow’s a-coming!"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:27 PM | Your Say (2)
August 20, 2015
We can tell that it is a real revolution because of its use of terror.
All revolutionaries deserving of the name use terror—and what they generally say is that their terror is in response to the terror of the pre-existing order they seek to overthrow, or the terror of their counterrevolutionary enemies. And by terror I mean mass murder, expropriation, exile and the taking of hostages. ClubOrlov: So you say you don't want a revolution?Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:59 PM | Your Say (1)
Include me out...
Know Before You Go: the Trans-Mongolian Railroad 19. Border-crossing is a necessary evil. Crossing from Russia to Mongolia can take over seven hours, and involves lengthy stops in isolated border villages, multiple inspections by border officials of indeterminate job function and responsibility, and the potential for an entire stifling day without breeze, food, or a bathroom.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (0)
Well, damn, there’s a big flashing sign that says “EXPECT DELAYS.”
Much sorrow comes from expecting to get what you want when you want it. Going to the doctor? Expect Delays. Having dinner guests? Expect Delays. Waiting for a delivery or a maintenance man? Expect Delays. Looking for a check in the mail? Expect Delays. Hoping for love? Expect Delays. Yearning for happiness? Expect Delays. Robert Fulghum
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (2)
Let's Review...
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:20 AM | Your Say (1)
One of the strongest forces in the world in recent decades has also been one of the least discussed: class solidarity among billionaires.
Now, you might think that having a billion dollars would free you to indulge in a Trump-like blast of a good time telling unwelcome truths. But in reality, we largely have a highly disciplined class of the extremely rich, who gather frequently in Davos and Aspen to be informed of the latest talking points about why any resistance to them is racist.-- Stumbling Upon a Worthy CausePosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:38 AM | Your Say (6)
August 19, 2015
The Reinvention of Black
It caked the flesh of miners and ironworkers; it streaked the walls and windows of industrial towns; it thickened the smoky air above. Proprietors donned black clothing to indicate their status and respectability. New black dyes and pigments created in factories and chemical laboratories entered painters’ studios, enabling a new expression for the new themes of the industrial age: factory work and revolt, technology and warfare, urbanity and pollution, and a rejection of the old status quo. A new class of citizen, later to be dubbed the “proletariat,” began to appear in illustrations under darkened smokestacks. The industrial revolution had found its color. Paint It Black by Mark Peplow
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:06 PM | Your Say (2)
This is why Mexicans are moving North. Their genetic heritages are winners.
Fortunately for intelligent and farsighted selective breeders such as myself, our laws are stringent in selecting the best of the new genetic mixes by the hurdles and problems we create. E.g. the drug laws that make their countries warzones and hellholes, one-sided trade treaties that destroy their farms and business. Thus, the best, most adventurous decide they need to immigrate, which is where the real selection happens as we run our variously various genetic mixes through obstacle tests. You know, like riding on the tops of trains up across Mexico, dodging the railway police and bribing them if they have the money. Then make them negotiate with criminals to get guidance across a desert that kills quite a number of their fellow migrants every year, a fearful risk that selects the brave, the desperate.Conserving My Neanderthal Heritage | thinkpatriot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:08 PM | Your Say (1)
Francis Changes Mind; Declares 2016 “Year Of Divine Wrath”
The announcement came as Pope Francis asked God to rain down fire and brimstone on the world for its corruption and lack of care for the poor. “It is time, oh Lord, for retributive justice!” Francis yelled into the microphone in front of all those gathered. “Let Judgment Day commence!” | EOTT LLC
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:17 PM | Your Say (10)
Putting Black Balls in the Water Supply Not Such a Hot Idea
LA 'black ball' reservoir rollout potential 'disaster' in the making, say experts: Experts differed over the best color for the tiny plastic balls, with one saying they should have been whiteand another saying a chrome color would be optimal. But all agreed that the worst color for the job is the one LA chose. "Black spheres resting in the hot sun will form a thermal blanket speeding evaporation as well as providing a huge amount of new surface area for the hot water to breed bacteria," said Matt MacLeod, founder of the California biotech firm Modern Moon Farms. "Disaster. It’s going to be a bacterial nightmare.”.... "Bacteria required a few things to grow a dark, warm and moist environment," he said. "The balls will give them the perfect environment to live in.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:12 PM | Your Say (9)
August 18, 2015
The Hunt for Narco Subs
hundreds of miles off the coast of El Salvador in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It was mostly submerged, except for an exhaust pipe and a windowed cockpit that poked a few feet above water. Painted a dull blue-green, the 40-foot semi-submersible pressed on with a silent intent that belied its load: a diesel engine, fuel tanks, navigation equipment, four crew members, and 14,000 pounds of cocaine. - - Motherboard
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:48 PM | Your Say (6)
Too Prig Not to Fail
China’s no longer ten feet tall because it’s too corrupt.
Greece can’t even competently accept a handout. Brazil’s left wing president is facing huge crowds calling for her resignation because she’s ruined everything. Venezuela’s socialists, the last rolls of toilet paper gone are finally discrediting themselves. Castro is reduced to cadging a handout from Obama to support his global revolution, proving that he can’t run a country but he can outsmart the man from Chicago. How Political Machines End | Belmont Club
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:43 PM | Your Say (5)
Amazon: Just another shitty job.
I regularly saw people bring their laptops into the bathroom, where they would sit on the toilet and write code. (I’ve never seen anyone clean their laptop after leaving the bathroom.) Engineers would talk to each other through stalls. On many occasions, I heard people take phone calls while mid-business. It was hard to tell if someone was groaning because it was difficult to code or difficult to poop. Another Amazon colleague once joked that this gave new meaning to the word “deploy.” At Amazon, Employees Treat the Bathroom as an Extension of the Office | Motherboard
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:23 PM | Your Say (13)
The Exploding Crates
My name is Hamlet Parasite, and my band, The Exploding Crates, has been called the most dangerous band on earth. That title mainly refers to the danger of being in my band, which has lost several members due to drug overdoses, time-travel mishaps or because they were eaten by our drummer, Quark. I'd fire Quark, but he's twelve feet tall, writes most of our songs, and serves as our moral compass for all decisions that don't involve eating people. - - World's Most Dangerous BandPosted by gerardvanderleun at 12:12 PM | Your Say (2)
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:51 AM | Your Say (12)
the moaning about “It is now thirty years since you last heard anyone hum a tune from a current popular song”
tells me that the person who wrote that doesn’t have young children incessantly playing the brainworm-inducing Happy and Let It Go. Never mind that up until a couple of years ago the only living painter most people could name was Thomas Kincaid, the Leonardo of QVC. “Culture is how we pass the time between hypocrisies.” | Fausta's BlogPosted by gerardvanderleun at 10:11 AM | Your Say (2)
We need Joe Biden: The First Retarded President.
We tried the first black guy thing, at best, with mixed results.The first woman thing with Lady Hillary is looking pretty bleak—to be honest, finding qualified oppressed types is a tough job. We could go with the first geriatric Hebraic dude running on the Socialist Platform of 1912, but Bernie Sanders is too old, too Jewish, and his hair is terrible. - - THE NOVELTY PRESIDENCY
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (5)
Trump is a Corrective to American Culture’s Pathologies
Many would probably question why, of all people, a decadent, rude, and pompous billionaire should be trusted to meddle with American culture? Ithink it comes down to a perception that America has already drowned in a post-modernist nightmare of moral relativism, from which extreme political correctness and protest culture stem. Trump, on the other hand, is all absolutes. Everything he says, accurate or not, is stated in absolute, definitive terms. His personal morality is clear: He respects people who work hard, are loyal, innovate, and “win,” and he shuns those who don’t meet the criteria. Cruel as it may sound, I think America needs to reenergize these fundamental cultural values before we can ever hope to create a better society. Why Do People Support Donald Trump? - The Atlantic
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:31 AM | Your Say (7)
"His efforts, funded by the government"
In his quest for a simpler life, one man has transformed himself into a goat. Thomas Thwaites, a 34-year-old researcher from London, has spent the past year creating prosthetics that allow him to roam around on all fours. He’s studied their behaviour, learned their way of communicating and even attempted to create an artificial goat stomach to allow him to eat grass. His efforts, funded by the government, culminated in a three day trip to the Swiss Alps, where he lived as a goat, roaming the hills with a herd.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (5)
August 17, 2015
George Orwell, in a moment of despair, predicted a future where the bad guys would permanently rule the roost.
”If you want a picture of the future,” he wrote, “imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”But history proves that Orwell’s future never happens. In actuality Hitler shoots himself in his bunker, waiting for Steiner. Stalin, after whom Orwell modeled Big Brother — not to mention his whole empire — dies surrounded by jeering enemies, who themselves kill each other shortly afterward. Even Putin’s new USSR ends with Russia sending itself into bankruptcy. How Political Machines End | Belmont Club
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:41 PM | Your Say (8)
Hy-Brasil: The Legendary Phantom Island of Ireland
On most maps, it was located roughly 321km (200 miles) off the west coast of Ireland in the North Atlantic Ocean. One of the most distinctive geographical features of Hy-Brasil on those maps is that it often appears as a circle with a channel (or river) running east to west across the diameter. Stories about the island have circulated throughout Europe for centuries with tales that it was the promised land of saints or a paradise where an advanced civilization lived. In Irish myth, it was said to be clouded in mist except for one day every seven years when it became visible but still could not be reached. | Ancient Origins
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 3:15 PM | Your Say (0)
Our culture has continued to slide giggling into the pit.
It is now thirty years since you last heard anyone hum a tune from a current popular song.Concerts of serious music rarely include anything less than half a century old. Very few of us could name a living painter or architect. Entire years pass when no American outside the academy spontaneously quotes a line of verse written by any American poet younger than Elizabeth Bishop (b. 1911), or a British poet younger than Philip Larkin (b. 1922). The middlebrow novel is slipping into extinction. Movies are an extension of the comic-book industry; only TV drama shows occasional flashes of brilliance. The churches are branch offices of Globalist Multiculturalism, Inc.: the Episcopal church in my sleepy, 360-year-old Long Island town advertises Misa en Español. A Report from the Conservative Movement's Dustbin - The Unz Review
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:57 PM | Your Say (3)
Maoist "Struggle Sessions" vs. Meetings at Amazon
A struggle session was a form of public humiliation used by the Communist Party of China in the Mao Zedong era to shape public opinionand to humiliate, persecute, or execute political rivals and class enemies. In general, the victim of a struggle session was forced to admit to various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed. Struggle session - WikipediaAt Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings,
toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.”) Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace - The New York Times
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:47 AM | Your Say (10)
For starters, Trump literally wrote the book on negotiating, called The Art of the Deal.
The sale he wants to make is “Remember that Donald Trump is a successful business person managing a vast empire mostly of his own making.” The exact amount of his wealth is irrelevant. When a car salesperson trained in persuasion asks if you prefer the red Honda Civic or the Blue one, that is a trick called making you “think past the sale” and the idea is to make you engage on the question of color as if you have already decided to buy the car. That is Persuasion 101 and I have seen no one in the media point it out when Trump does it. Clown Genius | Scott Adams Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:59 AM | Your Say (7)
August 16, 2015
How to Drive an Electric Car, 1896
It can run with great speed and climb almost any hill road so long as it is smooth... When the battery is empty it may be recharged again at electrical stations maintained for the purpose, after which the carriage is ready for its journey once more... Aside from the device for supplying power to the wheels, there are numerous others for guiding and controlling the machine when it is under way. Near the seat of the driver are a number of switches and levers, which to one just learning how they operate are rather bewildering... The driver must keep his eyes wide open and both his feet and hands busy. With his left hand he grasps the power lever which controls the speed, while with the right he manages the steering lever. He has one heel all the time on an emergency switch that cuts off the current, and at the same time must ring a gong to warn people of the approach of his pneumatic-tired conveyance. With the other foot he manages a reversing-switch that will back the carriage, while with his toes he applies a quick brake. When he wishes to turn on the lights he presses a button under the seat. So it may be seen that he is rather busy, and can never go to sleep and let the old horse carry him home." -- Henry Davenport Northrop, The Gem Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:12 PM | Your Say (5)
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
“As the audience erupts with applause, the camera pans over to Favre as he claps slowly before rubbing his hands together,” the Post reported, arguing that Favre’s failure to sufficiently gush over Jenner made the ceremony “uncomfortable for everyone.”This is eerily reminiscent of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago,
in which the director of a Moscow paper factory received a ten-year sentence for sitting down at the eleven-minute mark of a standing ovation to Joseph Stalin. For his crime of insufficient enthusiasm, he was arrested later that night on a trumped up charge and bluntly told by his interrogator, “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.” -- Articles: America's Culture War Starts Claiming Victims
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:26 PM | Your Say (2)
Beach Reading for the End of Summer: "I Don't Care if My Best Friend's Mom is a Sasquatch, She's Hot and I'm Taking a Shower With Her"
The meeting dredges up a long-forgotten mystery, and suddenly he is trapped on a roller coaster of mystery, danger and wildness—more wildness than he ever knew existed! Now he is on the run with his star-crossed lover. Will they reach a shower in time, or will the natural heat that burns within her consume them both? Will his beautiful, bestial, furry lover tear him to pieces with her giant claws in a lusty rage? Or will she tenderly lather him up, rinse and clean his naked, muscular and strong (for a human) body with scented soaps in a ritual of her people going back thousands of generations in a shower appropriately large enough to fit him and the mysterious, yet tender and svelte creature together? Find out the answers to these questions only in this seriously wild, hot and bothered new novella from writer Lacey Noonan.AmazonSmile: Lacey Noonan: Books
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:04 PM | Your Say (2)
The most important Twitter hashtag of our lifetimes: #AddLasersToPaleoArt.
.@TheWoodParable @tattoosandbones @MarkWitton @TetZoo @MikeTaylor #AddLasersToPaleoart pic.twitter.com/xeQNQ9O6ZF
— Peter Huestis (@RealSparklePony) August 10, 2015All RIGHT HERE! #AddLasersToPaleoart hashtag on Twitter
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:44 PM | Your Say (0)
August 15, 2015
If you are not enthusiastic enough in your praise for non-whites, you’re called a bigot.
Saying you don’t like black culture is fine, but most people will call you a racist, even if you are married to a black person or are actually black.Racism used to be an action. Then it became words, then thoughts and is quickly becoming a lack of enthusiasm. If you are not enthusiastic enough in your praise for non-whites, you’re called a bigot. Ramblings on Race, Racism and Race Realism | The Z Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:48 PM | Your Say (9)
“They Thirst for Cocaine: Soda Fountain Fiends Multiplying”
However, Donovan says that judging from the small quantities of cocaine in actual recipes, it’s doubtful that there were many soda-addicted fiends. Coke was developed while looking for an antidote to the common morphine addictions that followed the Civil War: Veteran and pharmacist John Stith Pemberton concocted the original Coca-Cola mixture while experimenting with opiate-free painkillers to soothe his own war wounds. The company’s first advertisement ran on the patent-medicine page of the Atlanta Journal in 1886, and made it clear that Coca-Cola was viewed as a health drink, “containing the properties of the wonderful Coca plant and the famous Cola nuts.” Of course, these were also the properties of your basic uppers: Cocaine is a coca leaf extract, and the African kola nut is known for its high caffeine content. Once the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required narcotics to be clearly labelled, the majority of Coca-Cola’s cocaine was removed, though it took until 1929 for the company to develop a method that could eliminate all traces of the drug. Medicinal Soft Drinks and Coca-Cola Fiends: The Toxic History of Soda Pop | Collectors Weekly
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:39 PM | Your Say (2)
Why women live longer than men.
Any questions?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:23 AM | Your Say (8)
Prepare for Big Weed
If one field-raised, no-till, machine-planted from seed outdoor plant produces a 250 grams of bud (conservative according to on-line and a friend’s experienced estimate), that is 4 plants per kilo * 6M kilos = 24M plants. Big sativa cannabis fit >1000 plants per acre on 6 foot centers. 250 kilos per acre and retail $250,000 per acre, wholesale 250X the minimum $500 that a farmer can get for corn raised on the same acre. For comparison, that is 1/20th the weight of the corn kernels, another measure of the different metabolic load carbohydrates vs herbivore repellents THC and the terpenes. Also, 2x the metabolic cost of cannabis vs tomatos, so this is all likely to be conservative : higher yields and so lower prices, long-run.≈ | thinkpatriot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:48 AM | Your Say (6)
August 14, 2015
Hillary is kind of like the Yoko Ono of politics.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:17 PM | Your Say (5)
Were the works of Shakespeare inspired by Cannabis? Scientists find traces of drugs on pipes
(Cannabis as a kind of tobacco) for creative writing (‘invention’),” says Thackeray. “In the same sonnet it appears that he would prefer not to be associated with ‘compounds strange’, which can be interpreted, at least potentially, to mean ’strange drugs’ (possibly cocaine).” | Ancient Origins
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:55 PM | Your Say (4)
Drunk History: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of All-American Whiskey
When you’d go to a liquor store or grocery store, you’d fill up your own jug or flask or decanter. Bars and grocery stores would purchase a barrel of whiskey, and then they would sell that by the glass, or they’d allow people to fill up their own containers. Nothing really came in a glass bottle because it was so expensive to make them at that time. That really changed in 1870, when the first bottled American whiskey came out. It was called Old Forester, and it’s still available today. Old Forester was marketed not at consumers, but at doctors, since they would prescribe whiskey for a range of maladies. Previously, doctors couldn’t be sure of how pure their whiskey was because there were all types of middlemen between the distiller and the final customer, or the patient in this case. Because Old Forester was sold in a bottle, you could guarantee that it was pure unadulterated whiskey, meaning it wouldn’t do more harm than good. | Collectors Weekly
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:44 PM | Your Say (1)
The History of Progress
is highly biased, as I may have mentioned before in these electronic pages.It omits much more than half of human nature, and overlooks every fact that doesn’t fit. We need another account that will take in the whole, re-orient our attention to the immortal, and rescue us from the corvée frame of mind. A Highland version of history, if you will; a free man’s guide to how things really are, with some hints for escape from the labyrinth of totalitarian “good intentions.”Zomia : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (1)
Think about it. Even if all the data is on thumb drives,
you’d have to mount that drive to something to print the hard copies, or to edit it.
And regarding those devices and scrubbers: are they security certified? We don’t know where it is, or if still exists but the Ancient Ones must have a pretty good idea what was on it, for they fear what it may conjure. If there’s one thing the return of the Venerables proves, it’s that there’s got to be a Democrat in the White House in 2016 if a scandal breaks loose, and the probability of that is not zero. The reason for this imperative is rather simple. If by some mischance the SS Hillary founders, it will generate a bubbling mass of flotsam and jetsam which political enemies must on no account be allowed to pick up. To prevent embarassments someone reliable has to be in the Oval Office to clean up and save the brand. Politics is a going concern. The constituencies must go on. They’ll drop a wreath for those left in the water, but they can’t stop. Going Concern | Belmont Club
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:55 PM | Your Say (2)
August 13, 2015
The Elusive Tomb of Queen Nefertiti may lie behind the walls of Tutankhamun's Burial Chamber
The location of Nefertiti's tomb has been one of Egyptology’s biggest mysteries, and archaeologist Nicholas Reeves thinks further exploration behind the walls of King Tutankhamun's tomb at the Amarna Royal Tombs in the Valley of Kings is warranted. | Ancient Origins
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:20 PM | Your Say (3)
‘Cosby: convicted by social-media showtrial‘ [Bumped]
The idea that people who stand accused of something have the right to have those allegations tested is being fundamentally undermined by this new form of public showtrial. In the past, showtrials were used by authoritarian governments to establish a "truth", which was convenient for their political purposes. Today, the showtrial is used to validate and confirm the experiences of those making accusations. The showtrial has become the most effective way of telling people that their story has been believed by society at large, even when the laws of that country prevent a formal trial from taking place. In a society in which such therapeutic validation has become so central, what value do we accord justice, fairness and objectivity? Principles which have, for centuries, been cornerstones of Western systems of justice are now being done away with. -- Luke Gittos -- Samizdata quote of the day
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:50 PM | Your Say (14)
"A molasses that had not been made since the end of the Civil War."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 6:36 PM | Your Say (4)
"THEN: single hideous carnival freak, once a year NOW: the entire American underclass, everyday"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:16 PM | Your Say (0)
“TOP SECRET//SI//TK//NOFORN”
The Spy Satellite Secrets in Hillary’s Emails:• TOP SECRET, as the name implies, is the highest official classification level in the U.S. government, defined as information whose unauthorized release “could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security or foreign relations.” • SI refers to Special Intelligence, meaning it is information derived from intercepted communications, which is the business of the National Security Agency, America’s single biggest source of intelligence. They’re the guys who eavesdrop on phone calls, map who’s calling whom, and comb through emails. SI is a subset of what the intelligence community calls Sensitive Compartmented Information, or SCI. And these materials always require special handling and protection. They are to be kept in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, which is a special hardened room that is safe from both physical and electronic intrusion. • TK refers to Talent Keyhole, which is an intelligence community caveat indicating that the classified material was obtained via satellite. • NOFORN, as the name implies, means that the materials can only be shown to Americans, not to foreigners.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:21 AM | Your Say (5)
Democrat Deja Vu
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (1)
"Who'da thought a Class 'B' landscape painter and sociopath would have such insight into Human Nature?"
and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation." -- Adolf Hitler -- Chasmatic w/ title by Condon
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:03 AM | Your Say (5)
Romney won because there was no consensus conservative opposition candidate.
It wasn't for lack of different potential candidates and their supporters yelling at each other and smearing each other.None of that yelling did anything except clear a path for Romney to the nomination. And then conservatives could self-righteously stay home while Obama grinned at another victory. We don't need another replay of 2012. If we put politicians first. We lose. If we put ideas first, then win or lose, we build a movement. Sultan Knish: Believe in Ideas, Not Politicians
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:23 AM | Your Say (4)
August 12, 2015
The Ultimate Facebook Page: "See to what she shares with friends, send her A Friend request."
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:38 PM | Your Say (7)
Tell Me Again How Smart and Well-Educated the Whole Foods Shopper Is
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:31 AM | Your Say (9)
"I buy 'em retail and sell 'em wholesale. It's more fun that way!"
The auto manufacturers converted to making tanks and the like. The sudden hiring meant people had money for cars but no new cars to buy. Muntz created a public advertising campaign that attracted attention and of more importance, attracted customers. His billboards read: "I buy 'em retail and sell 'em wholesale. It's more fun that way!" and "I wanna give 'em away but Mrs. Muntz won't let me. She's crazy!" When television came along, he donned a Napoleon hat with an M on it and red longjohns to promote the Madman Muntz persona. He once threatened to destroy a car with a sledgehammer if it didn't sell that day.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:19 AM | Your Say (1)
August 11, 2015
Number One With A Bullet: The Rise of the Billboard Hot 100
The magazine that now tells you that more people enjoyed Justin Bieber than Ed Sheeran that week started out as a circus trade rag in the 19th century, and spent the following decades undergoing more loop de loops and drops than a Skrillex song.| Atlas Obscura
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:35 PM | Your Say (3)
The History of Vending Machines
While the door was open, the holy water would fall out. Eventually, however, the coin would fall and the door would close—ensuring that people never took more than their fair share of holy water. The craziest part? Modern society didn't really embrace his invention for about 1,800 years. Heron died around 70 A.D.; it wasn't until 1883, when inventor Percival Everett created a vending machine for postcards and note paper, that Heron's idea proved to have a lasting impact.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:33 PM | Your Say (3)
Samurai Rocket Launchers – Hiya Taihou
In the mid-1500’s, Portuguese firearms inspired Japanese to build their own guns and an evolved form of fire-arrows launched from portable, gun-like firearms. Mini-cannons called hiya taihou battered enemy troops and fortifications with explosive rockets made of thick wooden shafts and metal tops (wiki). List of Japanese Weapons from the Edo Period - Tofugu
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:29 PM | Your Say (0)
How Ernö Rubik Created the Rubik's Cube
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:58 PM | Your Say (1)
This 390-year-old bonsai tree survived an atomic bomb, and no one knew until 2001
It is the blending of nature and art, he said. The care includes seeing that it is watered daily, inspected for insects, rotated for the sun twice a week and repotted on occasion. In the winter, the tree is moved to the museum’s climate-controlled Chinese Pavilion. Currently, it sits in the museum courtyard.
“One of the things that makes it so special is, if you imagine, somebody has attended to that tree every day since 1625,” Sustic said. “I always like to say bonsai is like a verb. It’s not a noun; it’s doing.” - The Washington Post
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 4:56 PM | Your Say (2)
Suppose I had the contract to take over security for a ghetto.
First thing I would do is distribute really cheap high quality cannabis, lots of it, everywhere.In the schools, on the streets, in the churches. A nice sativa, something to make people contemplate eternal verities. I believe leaders in those areas would see that it was good for their people, especially if I gave them a cut of the proceeds.
The second thing I would do is start arming everyone, training them to take care of themselves around firearms and with firearms.** A lot of training, with games and role-play and plays that teach the attitude of tolerance you need to carry a firearm, how to handle different kind of situations when armed, big emphasis on cleverly diffusing and defusing. How to be nice folks and get along with armed people without anyone pulling out a gun every day or so. How polite and restrained and tolerant armed societies need to be to work well. Retraining the social workers to do this will be fun.A Modern Approach To Security | thinkpatriot
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:10 PM | Your Say (5)
163 terms in common use in our political life that conceal, embody, sustain, or facilitate a lie or conceal, twist, or distort the truth.
"Neo-Nazis," "war on women," "global warming," "climate change," "women's health," "hate speech," "gender," "racism," "domestic terrorist," "living Constitution," "patriarchy," "neo-colonialism," "undocumented immigrant," "border security," "border control," "comprehensive immigration reform," "broken immigration system," "path to citizenship," "living in the shadows," "structural racism," "carbon emissions," "alternative energy," "wetlands," "reproductive justice," "responsibility to protect," "nation building," "vote suppression," "community organizer," "emanations," "penumbras," "gay," "civil rights," "black lives matter," "welfare rights," "anti-Semitism," "inner city," "gay marriage," "multiculturalism," "diversity," "jobs Americans won't do," "refugee," "migrant," "asylum seeker," "border patrol," "deportation procedures," "Hispanic," "under-privileged," "progressive," "Dreamer," "white privilege," "extremist," "hater," "judgmental," "anti-racist," "religion of peace," "discrimination," "quantitative easing," "bipartisan," "Federal Reserve," "states' rights," "nation of immigrants," "United Nations," "denier," "trans-sexual," "homophobia," "disparate impact," "judicial review," "public-private partnership," "tax," "public use," "affirmative action," "free trade," "government shutdown," "single payer," "carbon credits," "kinetic military action," "McCarthyism," "right-wing," "far-right," "women in combat," "body man," "termination," "anchor baby," "gun violence," "gun control," "private email," "recovery," "unemployment rate," "good schools," "safe neighborhood," "bigot," "net neutrality," "Common Core," "gay rights," "propositional nation," "Judeo-Christian," "winter holiday," "rules of engagement," "medical advisory panel," "affordable housing," "red lining," "Tea Bagger," "wreckers," "stimulus," "sexist," "equal opportunity," "interstate commerce," "incorporation doctrine," "separation of church and state," "naming names (a/k/a exposing commie traitors)," "xenophobe," "nativist," "rape culture," "offensive," "microaggression," "white heteropatriarchial supremacy," "cis-gendered," "tumor," "healing," "globalism," "food desert," "birther," "youths," "teens," "men," "wrong place at the wrong time," "random attack," "anti-immigrant," "gun culture," "stray bullet," "urban renewal (a/k/a Negro removal)," "CO2 forcing," "equal outcomes," "free gift," "white Hispanic," "accidental attack," "international law," "holy Koran," "Islamic science," "moderate Muslim," "cultural enrichment," "net positive contribution," "shrinking Arctic ice cap," "consensus," "scarce skills," "debate is over," "critical theory," "capitalism," "natural born citizen," "anti-fascist," "too big to fail," "infrastructure," "investment," "misogynist," "college athlete," "criminal justice reform," "sentencing disparity," "police brutality," "theocracy," "war on terror," "radical Islam," "treaty," and "oath of office." - - Liberty's Torch: The Age of Deceit.Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (8)
Annual Cat Grooming Symposium Expected to Last Until The Last Heavy-Set Woman’s Tongue Gets Tired
Your cats probably spend lots of time grooming themselves, but sometimes they need a little extra help.That’s where cat groomers come in. They are trained to wash, brush and care for Fluffy regardless of her temperament. -- The Rumford Meteor
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:00 AM | Your Say (1)
How peace-loving Wonder Woman became a goddess of war
but she was perhaps the first who was designed to function primarily as a social message. Her creator, psychologist William Marston, intended her to be an antidote to what he had decided was "comics' worst offense... their blood-curdling masculinity." By this, he didn’t really mean that comics were too violent or stereotypically masculinized, but rather that they lacked all the elements that Marston saw as the “tender, submissive, peace-loving” feminine ideal. -- Geek History
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (9)
August 10, 2015
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:23 PM | Your Say (4)
Stinks, Bangs and Booms: The Rise and Fall of the Chemistry Set
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:35 PM | Your Say (5)
The ICU must feel like a kind of hell on earth.
Cardiac monitors sound alarms as patient heart rates dip too low, rise above a normal level, or register abnormal rhythms. Some patients moan and scream, losing all sense of time and of themselves. Or, perhaps they curse and threaten nurses while withdrawing from alcohol. Others vomit and pass gas. Some patients demand the impossible: âget me out of here!â or âleave me alone!â Sometimes patients need to be strapped down to the bed because they pull out their IVs as they wail and moan and thrash about. During the day, minimal light shines into the unit and it is tainted by the sickness and suffering which pollute the air and tint the windows.A Tour of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) - Practicing MedicinePosted by gerardvanderleun at 1:41 PM | Your Say (5)
The media-satiated masses have accepted that the abnormal – the diametrically abnormal – is normal.
The policemen of the reprogrammed mind keep whispering: “Nothing to see here – keep moving” and indeed, the reprogrammed mind acts as though there is nothing to see here –while the imperative of conformism dictates to keep moving, always moving, under the theory that all motion, including that of a catastrophic collapse, is equivalent to progress. The meaningless shibboleths echo everywhere – democracy, diversity, sustainability, equality – while once-great cities such as Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia descend into a chaos of lawlessness and hopelessness amidst a desert of abandoned buildings, falling to ruin, punctuated here and there by liquor-stores, check-cashing businesses, and Plexiglas-enclosed bodegas where a package of beef jerky costs seven dollars. Murder is a way of life – and ninety-nine times out of ten no one cares. Nothing Is Normal « The Thinking Housewife
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:36 AM | Your Say (3)
"I must take an internet break, for a week at least. no kiddin’ it’s wearing me down;"
Full story from the Freak Show: Kiran Gandhi, M.I.A. Drummer, Runs London Marathon Without Tampon : People.com
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:32 AM | Your Say (5)
August 9, 2015
Hillaryâs Path to Greatness
And you, Hillary, you will have risen above politics and ambitionto display conscience and deep loyalty to constitutional government, and the future of the American people. You will free your country from tyranny that will arise when the Constitution is in ashes. Your countrymen will regret that you won’t be there to lead them. Your stature will rise by the year. Your deeds will outshine anything your husband accomplished.In Israel you will be hailed as a great heroine.
You will go down the ages as a woman who sacrificed her great personal ambitions to save our homeland. You will be first among righteous Christian heroines of the age. We have spoken with your people, and I can assure you that your Church will forgive you for leaving its teachings behind. They will hail a returning prodigal daughter. â a guest essay by Lisa Schiffren | Spengler
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:29 PM | Your Say (2)
New York Times, December 8, 1985:
"For the most part, the portable computer is a dream machine for the few… On the whole, people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper. Somehow, the microcomputer industry has assumed that everyone would love to have a keyboard grafted on as an extension of their fingers. It just is not so." davidthompson: Not So
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:36 PM | Your Say (3)
The point here is simple: our ruling class has succeeded in ruling not by reason or persuasion,
never mind integrity, but by occupying society’s commanding heights, by imposing itself and its ever-changing appetites on the rest of us.It has coopted or intimidated potential opponents by denying the legitimacy of opposition. Donald Trump, haplessness and clownishness notwithstanding, has shown how easily this regime may be threatened just by refusing to be intimidated. Does Trump Trump? Angelo Codevilla
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:33 PM | Your Say (3)
Good news and bad news about The Fall.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:27 PM | Your Say (1)
Transformers: The Early Years
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:17 PM | Your Say (0)
Summer safety tips Stay out of the 'shark's house'
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:10 AM | Your Say (1)
August 8, 2015
The notoriety of ISIS executioners like Jihadi John pale in comparison
Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night; and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber—which had been painted red and was known as the “Leninist room”—for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher’s apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol. He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The Eighth Offensive | Belmont Club
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:04 PM | Your Say (4)
On Board the World's Most Powerful Tugboat
"Half ahead," replies Groover, now at the Edward's con, as he pivots the joysticks inward, rotating the screws so they're facing away from each other, a maneuver that acts as a brake and is known as a transverse arrest. The Edward shudders violently--it feels as though we're bumping over a washboard dirt road. The meter registering the load on the Edward's line shows 54 tons. The Edward slows to 8 knots, as the Bulldog swings round to the Princess's bow. At 7 knots, Groover shifts to starboard. When the Edward, straining and digging, slowly pulls the Methane Princess's stern around, 94 tons register on the line. - - Popular Mechanics
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:00 AM | Your Say (2)
August 7, 2015
Today, we are cancelling the beepocalypse!
from 2.4 million to 2.7 million in 2014, according to data tracked by the USDA. The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years. - - The Washington PostBut.... but..... the science was SETTLED!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 5:18 PM | Your Say (4)
Country tired of the current turd in the White House. Wants some new shit.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:00 PM | Your Say (8)
Biblical Moments in Modern Times: "California Department of Public Health Investigates Human Plague Case"
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:42 AM | Your Say (2)
They have all, always, been Enemies of the State, up there in the mountains —
hence, too, our sneaking rightwing attraction.In the 1950s, thanks to curmudgeonly sociologists, even the highlanders of Appalachia were enjoying some good press. This spread to the liberal anthropologists when they began to realize that these Hillbillies had preserved folk customs and attitudes from the earlier and freer society of the rebellious Thirteen Colonies; and that there might be some point to their counter-cultural rejection of the later mass-market America. (In other words, the mass market for Whole Earth hippiedom was being conceived.) -- David Warren: Zomia
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (2)
There is nothing that corrupts conservatives quite as much as the need to be nice.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:09 AM | Your Say (3)
Best non-closing one-liner: Marco Rubio
“God has blessed the Republican party with many fine candidates. The Democrats can’t find even one.” - - Michelle Obama's MirrorPosted by gerardvanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (2)
August 6, 2015
Philip Larkin: Homage to a Government
HOMAGE TO A GOVERNMENT
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.
It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.
Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.
via neo-neocon - A poet of the right
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:52 PM | Your Say (1)
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:07 AM | Your Say (2)
Senator Harry Reid and taxpayer-funded baby-parts mogul Cecile Richards.
Tweeted the above picture of himself with baby-parts zillionaire Cecile Richards, and a gloating message: Today we fought to protect women's access to critical health services—and we won. #StandwithPP What this evil toad "fought to protect" was Cecile Richards' access to critical women and their "products of conception". This is a uniquely American depravity - a billion-dollar abortion-industrial complex, unknown to the abortion regimes of France, Sweden, the Netherlands. Presumably all those Continental social democrats with their restrictions on "women's access to critical health services" are also part of the "war on women". The very fact that the Democrats' leader in the Senate is willing to advertise his facilitation of barbarism is a sign of his confidence in the people's indifference. Bakin' Baby Syndrome :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:51 AM | Your Say (7)
August 5, 2015
The cigarette burns down, ash falls on his flight suit.
“If you’ve ever tried to drive a ’34 V-8…” he trails off. And this goes on for an hour and a half. By the end we’ve exhausted the history of Bonnie and Clyde—what they ate, where they went, who was looking for them. The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde - Roads & Kingdoms
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:54 PM | Your Say (1)
Do American liberals listen to what they're saying: What percentage of a business model does selling baby parts have to be for it to disturb you?
Any murderer could make the same defense:Murderers actually spend very little time murdering. For 99.99 per cent of the time Major Hasan was providing psychiatric services to US military personnel, and standing on the table, opening fire and yelling "Allahu Akbar!" was only 0.01 per cent of his business model. So what? Bakin' Baby Syndrome :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:38 PM | Your Say (0)
Catastrophes
An area in Siberia the size of continental United States was flooded with molten basalt, up to several thousand feet thick, exuding sulfur dioxide, which turns into sulfuric acid. Species died over the course of a hundred thousand years. And you are worried about a warming of a couple of degrees centigrade in a century, after a mini-ice age?- - Barrel Strength
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 7:10 PM | Your Say (7)
You don't want to click this link. Trust me.
Gfycat - jiffier gifsPosted by gerardvanderleun at 6:02 PM | Your Say (2)
Zimbabweans Do Not Miss “Cecil”
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 10:07 AM | Your Say (4)
This Ancient Aircraft is Actually 100% New -- And It Can Be Yours in 2016
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:46 AM | Your Say (3)
When did professional athletes stop being jocks and start acting like a bunch of fucking pussies?
and when they were done, they’d put on their mink coats, slam brews, and pound pussy. People loved it. Those days are gone now, though and the testosterone fueled maniacs people loved have been replaced by goat-nursing sallies and perfect little advertising whores like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. - - STREET CARNAGE
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:12 AM | Your Say (3)
Up in the Air
On the misty evening of 03 July 1979, Strelzyk and Doris and their two sons, Frank and Andreas, spread their second home-made patchwork balloon upon the ground in a clearing. They began inflating the balloon, then climbed into the basket. So far so good. The basket gently rose from the ground and into the air across East German soil. - • Damn Interesting
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:50 AM | Your Say (0)
Cecil The Lion And The Goodwhite-Badwhite Cold Civil War
The killing happened, furthermore, in Zimbabwe, a country not best known for firm adherence to rule of law, property rights, and governmental integrity.The place is, in fact, a miserable black African slum ruled by an aged despot who has murdered his political opponents, banned dissent, and allowed his family and friends to loot the economy, what’s left of it. .... And people—Americans—are worked up about animal rights in this hell-hole? - - John Derbyshire
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:11 AM | Your Say (3)
August 4, 2015
Pretty good. #WhitePrivilege pic.twitter.com/s6AJbswDXb
— Franci (@LadySandersfarm) August 5, 2015Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:33 PM | Your Say (1)
Hard Liquor
in the latest food-safety scare in China. The Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration said that it found the Guikun Alcohol Plant and the Deshun Alcohol Plant in Guangxi's Liuzhou city were putting Sildenafil, more commonly known as Viagra, into three of their baijiu products. Baijiu is a fiery grain liquor that commands high prices in China. Law enforcement officers have confiscated 5,357 bottles of the suspect products, 1,124 kg of raw alcohol and a batch of white powder labeled Sildenafil, in a case worth more than 700,000 yuan ($112,726)
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:22 PM | Your Say (5)
Once, there was "If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Kill This Dog"
This was in the days before Photoshop, and the cover shoot wasn't going well. The dog was a professional model. Like Kate Moss, it sat perfectly still with a blank expression. Finally Lampoon's art director Michael Gross had the idea of standing off-camera behind the dog's trainer (who was holding the gun) and shouting the dog's name. Hence the perfect pathos of the dog's sidelong glance. Now, it's a totally different world. It's "If You Don't Buy a Ticket to This Crappy Movie, We'll Go Watch Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation in the Theater Next Door." P.J. O’Rourke: How I Killed 'National Lampoon'
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:16 AM | Your Say (0)
August 3, 2015
Woman tries to eat crack cocaine in front of drug agents
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 2:51 PM | Your Say (8)
Zomia: Think of it as Appalachia, but on a hundred times the scale, and of twenty times the historical depth.
It is all contiguous, all elevated, all rather wild — this vast territory enheaved, where three continental plates collided. (Supposing one buys into the hypothesis of “continental drift,” which I’m beginning to find “too plausible.”) About a decade ago it received a name from the Dutch historian, Willem van Schendel. He called it, Zomia, from a root that means “highlander” in many Tibeto-Burman languages. Think of it as Appalachia, but on a hundred times the scale, and of twenty times the historical depth. Zomia : Essays in Idleness
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:16 PM | Your Say (2)
The Curious Sport of Ferret Legging
Note that the ferrets must have a full set of claws and teeth, and neither can be filed or blunted in any way. Between these, they can wreak a fair amount of havoc on delicate human flesh, particularly once their instincts to bite and dig kick in. Plus, as with other carnivores, once the victim (or rather, contestant) begins bleeding, the ferret’s blood lust can trigger attempts to feed..... Undoubtedly, the greatest ferret legger of all time is Reg Mellor, a retired Yorkshire miner, who set the record at five hours and 26 minutes on July 5, 1981. -- TIFO
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:02 PM | Your Say (2)
"Cultrivorous"
adj. devouring knivesJohn Cummings was a game drunk. In June 1799, having watched a French mountebank pretend to swallow clasped knives, the 23-year-old American sailor boasted that he could do the same, and “after drinking freely” he proceeded to swallow his own pocketknife and three others offered by his friends.... when he died finally in March 1809, his stomach was opened and “a great many portions of blades, knife-springs, and handles were found in it, and were carefully collected for the museum at Guy’s Hospital, in which they are now preserved. In a Word - Futility ClosetFutility Closet
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 12:33 PM | Your Say (0)
August 2, 2015
Republicans and others who oppose abortion should start calling aborted babies, "Unborn Democrats."
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, some 30% of all abortions in the United States are performed on black women, and another 25% are performed on Hispanic women. Rev. John J. Raphael of Howard University has calculated that approximately 13 million black children have been killed before birth since Roe v. Wade, representing a population decrease in the black community of nearly one quarter. Almost 40% of all black pregnancies currently end in abortion.So: "Did you know that altogether 55 million unborn Democrats have been killed before birth since Roe v. Wade?" Sense of Events: Unborn Democrats
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 11:31 AM | Your Say (6)
August 1, 2015
Just about everybody wants to live with the White Christian Dudes.
We see this drive to live with the White Christian Dudes every day along our southern border;
Australians see it on their coasts and in the make up of their cities; the UK in the unceasing wave of migrants besieging their island. Canada's beautiful Vancouver in even more beautiful British Colombia has become a largely Asian city. Everywhere it seems, the civilization built by White Christian Dudes is the magnet. Non-WCDs don't leave; my family certainly didn't. The DiploMad 2.0: In Defense of White Dudes
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 9:01 AM | Your Say (2)
Roddy Piper (1954-2015): Always Out of Bubblegum. Always Kicking Ass
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 8:49 AM | Your Say (1)
I am a stranger here, yet it fits like an old sock.
People leave their doors unlocked when they leave their houses. The kids are respectful. By the roadside, one sees unattended fruitstands. You take the fruit and drop the money in a box. Small children wander off unsupervised. I am a stranger here, yet it fits like an old sock. Even wealthy whites in Silicon Valley live in a place that is frightening, dangerous, hostile, hateful, and alien. A place that hates them for the intolerable sins of sexism racism colonialism homophobia islamophobia and imperialism, and sooner or later will punish them as they deserve for those unforgivable and ineradicable sins. They are frightened and weak. And they cannot afford to have children. Going home ｫ Jim's Blog
Posted by gerardvanderleun at 1:42 AM | Your Say (7)