Side-Lines

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:46 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:27 PM | Your Say (0)

"So, yes. I am cutting way back on trips to the steam table of half-finished, half-useful, half-ideas that I both make and consume. And, with respect, I encourage you to consider doing the same; especially if that all-you-can-eat buffet of snark and streaming produces (or encourages) anything short of your “A” game." - kung fu grippe - Better

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:18 PM | Your Say (0)

Tracking Changes in Who Gets Abortions and Why | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com While the teen abortion rate has declined by nearly 30 percent, the rate for women ages 20-24 is almost 10 points higher than it was in 1974. (In that group, rates hit 30.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 1974, spiking to 53.8 in 1989 and declining to 39.9 in 2004.) Women in the next age group, ages 25-29, follow a similar pattern, with a spike in the '80s and a decline in recent years. -

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:42 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:06 PM | Your Say (0)

"We do not SNUL here. SNUL is an acronym for “Sorry, No Updates Lately” and it refers to the process of chewing up enormous chunks of the interwebs to help contribute to a singular message…”sorry there haven’t been any updates lately.” After porn, MySpace pages, and grandstanding screeds about President Bush being an idiot, SNUL pages account for the greatest portion of what’s out there." - House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:31 PM | Your Say (0)

"The Obama phenomenon resembles an all-night group cocaine bender, with everyone blathering away, betraying and ignoring the same desperation evident behind the dilated pupils and in the cheaply conjured, shallow fraternity; loss in the election or failure in office will be the hard comedown of the following morning, with the sickly morning light coming through the blinds, when everyone realizes it’s over, that they’re not really going to go vacationing together next summer, all the talk now a bit embarrassing…" - Untethered: Hope and Hype

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:39 AM | Your Say (0)

September 24, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:24 PM | Your Say (0)

Bush: Congress Must Act to Save Stupid People

(2008-09-24) — The foundation of the U.S. economy could crumble, President George Bush said today, if Congress fails to approve a U.S. Treasury plan to take over foundering financial firms, a proposal which the president called “a much-needed 21st-century civil rights act for stupid people.”

“To sustain this shining city on a hill,” Mr. Bush said, “we need to rescue the ignorant, irresponsible folks — from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to Main Street — who got us to where we are today. We must guarantee that no American suffers the soft bigotry of being forced to live with the consequences of his bad decisions.”

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:39 PM | Your Say (0)

Transexual Asian Eels Invade New Jersey

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:05 PM | Your Say (1)

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:59 PM | Your Say (0)

"So if we put aside the spectacularly improbable prospect of fueling our planet with extraterrestrial hydrogen imports, the only way to get free hydrogen on Earth is to make it. The trouble is that making hydrogen requires more energy than the hydrogen so produced can provide. Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy. - The New Atlantis The Hydrogen Hoax

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

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

Yes, I find much comfort in knowing that I have complete control over one thing that affects every piece of my life – living - and that’s why I carry a vial of cyanide in my pocket everywhere I go. - Amy: With Cyanide in My Pocket, Mr. Rogers Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Me - Ship in a Bottle

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:55 AM | Your Say (0)

Now, I'm not looking for a source of child support or a baby-daddy in the sense that he should have any supportive role in the pregnancy or in raising the child, I just need some good, hearty seed. - Amy - My Biological Egg Timer is Ticking, Ticking, Ticking - Ship in a Bottle

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:54 AM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:49 AM | Your Say (1)

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:43 AM | Your Say (0)

September 23, 2008

Great Depression 2.0. The economy shrinks by 25 percent over four years, or $3.2 trillion, plus $1.1 trillion in lost opportunity growth. Economic cost: $4.3 trillion. The market falls two thirds from its peak, losing $7 trillion in value from its current level, plus $3 trillion from not getting a rebound. Stock market cost: $10 trillion. Housing falls an additional $10 trillion from current levels, plus the lost opportunity of $2.5 trillion from a rebound. Housing cost: $12.5 trillion. Total four-year financial and economic cost of doing nothing: $26.8 trillion. Now this is all a very rough guesstimate and doesn't include the costs of all sorts of other ramifications. Here is a fun one: the dissolution of China. Its economy is built for hypergrowth. A dramatically rising standard of living is both keeping the Communist Party in power and keeping the country together. Neither might survive a global economic meltdown. What is the economic impact of that? I don't know. My guesstimator just blew up." Bailout Prevents Great Depression 2.0 - Capital Commerce (usnews.com)

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:01 PM | Your Say (3)

Even some prominent figures admitted to being overcome by anti-Palin feelings.

"I am having Sarah Palin nightmares," an acclaimed playwright and writer, Eve Ensler, wrote on the Huffington Post.

Eve Ensler: divorced, ugly, 0 biological children. She'll need to call her next play "€œThe Nobody Wants My Vagina Monologues" -Sarah Palin Inspires Feminist Hate « Roissy in DC

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:50 PM | Your Say (0)

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.'" - Behind The Scenes With Joe Biden

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:20 AM | Your Say (2)

So we have huge nasty economic perturbations AND gas lines; why doesn't it feel like the 70s? Better graphics, I think. The society's look-and-feel is set on perma-shiny, and even if we do see apple vendors on every corner, they will have signs they made at Kinkos. And the apples will be organic." - LILEKS (James) the Bleat

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:18 AM | Your Say (0)

September 22, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:26 PM | Your Say (0)

"McCain's hand grenade has exploded the rot at the core of today's feminists; and by exposing the inner emptiness of feminism, she has also torn apart the center of all the victimhood/identity politics that have driven the Democratic Party for a generation." - Dr. Sanity: McCAIN'S HAND GRENADE & DEMOCRATIC MELTDOWN

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

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:43 AM | Your Say (3)

Sunday night’s telecast of the 60th Annual Emmy Awards set a new standard for awards shows. You could take every elephant Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus owns, feed them rancid chili and spoiled boiled eggs for a month, and they could not create a bigger stinker. - What's that lingering odor? Sunday night's Emmys ceremony < News | PopMatters

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

They were on patrol when a man holding a bag over his shoulder walked toward them.   (A suicide bombing that killed the three other soldiers from 2 Para at nearby FOB Inkerman had put them on alert.)  A British soldier said that he told the man to stop.  The man pulled the bag in front of him. "And disappeared," said the soldier.  I asked if his ears were okay, and the soldier said they were fine.  It was amazing that he didn't get fragged.  A soldier further back in the file got fragged in the hand, but luckily the injury was minor.  They told me they brought the bomber's leg back to the FOB.  Usually the dogs get what's left of the suicide bombers, and the bombs in Iraq seemed to be like a dinner bell for stray dogs. - Michael Yon - Death in the Corn: Part III of III

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:33 AM | Your Say (0)

It may appear agrestic to ask, but The Times is calling on its readers to come to the rescue of words that risk fading into caliginosity. Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:40 AM | Your Say (0)

Gene Expression: Graphs on the death of Marxism, postmodernism, and other stupid academic fads

It's easy to fossilize your picture of the world from your formative years of 15 to 24, but things change. If you turned off the radio in the mid-late '90s, you missed four years of great rock and rap music that came out from 2003 to 2006 (although now you can keep it off again). If you write off dating a 21 year-old grad student on the assumption that they're mostly angry feminist hags, you're missing out. And if you'd rather socialize with people your own age because younger people are too immature to have an intelligent discussion -- ask yourself when the last time was that you didn't have to dance around all kinds of topics with Gen-X or Baby Boomer peers because of the moronic beliefs they've been infected with since their young adult years?

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:28 AM | Your Say (0)

September 21, 2008

"Welly welly well what have we here? A naughty neighborman what has him a McCain yard sign? Looks like a job for me old woodly comrades Hope and Change," Obama added, gleefully drubbing the man with his trademark twin baseball bats to the crowd's rhythmic chants of "Yes We Can, Yes We Can. We are the Droogs we've been waiting for," Obama concluded as the P.A. system struck up Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the new official campaign song. "Lets get 'em boys!" Obama's new message of national unity through community stompings appeared to resonate with the crowd. -iowahawk: Clockwork O-Rage as Obama Urges Supporters to Stomp Home Message of Hope

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:30 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:32 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:53 PM | Your Say (0)

A person who identified himself as a witness tells 10 News that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning. Kernell lives in the Commons apartment complex at 1115 Highland Ave.... According to the witness, several agents arrived at The Commons of Knoxville around midnight. They presented their badges upon entering Kernell's apartment, where several students were having a party, and took down their names." -WBIR.com | Knoxville, TN | UPDATE: FBI serves search warrant against UT student in Palin stolen email case

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:44 PM | Your Say (0)

As a State Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama listed among his credentials, chairmanship of "The Chicago Annebery [sic] Challenge" a misspelling of uncertain intention. - Chicago Annenberg Challenge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:13 PM | Your Say (0)

September 20, 2008

"Our presence on Earth is just as consistent with the hypothesis that life is extremely rare as it is with the hypothesis that it is common, since if there was only one planet with intelligent life, we would find ourselves on it. However, we have more information than this, such as the the surprisingly short length of time it took for life to arise on Earth. Previous authors have analysed this information, concluding that it is evidence that the probability of abiogenesis is moderate ($>$ 13% with 95% probability) and cannot be extremely small. In this paper I use simple probabilistic model to show that this conclusion was based more on an unintentional assumption than on the data. While the early formation of life on Earth provides some evidence in the direction of life being common, it is far from conclusive, and in particular does not rule out the possibility that abiogenesis has only occurred once in the history of the universe." - [0807.4969] The Implications of the Early Formation of Life on Earth

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:43 PM | Your Say (0)

"Two Lehman reports from last year have been central to convincing governments, media and business of the need for a global carbon trading scheme to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In them, Lehman Brothers makes predictions about the climate in 2100, provides projections for climate change costs and suggests possible trends in the carbon market for the next 50 years. Impressive stuff, except, as has been pointed out, Lehman should have been more concerned with existing markets rather than phantom ones." -Bank's burn-up warms climate sceptics | theage.com.au

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:40 PM | Your Say (0)

"Nobody really believes that Obama is as brilliant a mind as Derrick Bell or even Clarence Thomas, he could never accomplish as much as a jurist. There'd be a big stamp across his head - UNQUALIFIED. Nobody would suggest that Obama could hold a candle to Thurgood Marshall. So what exactly was the point of him graduating from Harvard Law? He made it look easy. Obama is not about ultracompetence and fierce determination against all odds. No that was the task of another black generation. He is not about excellence, but achievement. Respectable, competent, reliable, uncontroversial, bourgeois achievement. Obama is all about black privilege." -Cobb: Edjumacation

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:27 PM | Your Say (3)

"Oprah had passed her potent wand over him, but even the afternoon regent of a thousand therapies has stays on her sorcery." - globeandmail.com: The incredible shrinking Obama

And in her corset as well.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:19 PM | Your Say (0)

Sir Bob Geldof today launched a moving appeal to Third World nations to ‘give whatever you can’ in the face of the ever worsening crisis in the western financial markets. The credit crunch, which has now come to dwarf the AIDS pandemic sweeping Africa, has, said Sir Bob, seen ‘suffering on an unprecedented scale’. Addressing an audience of peasant subsistence farmers in Ethiopia, he urged Africans to ‘Give us your money. Pick up the phone and give us your fucking money now. These people are losing their bonuses, their stock, their options… People are literally losing their liquidity right now and you have the power to stop it..’

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

"The country has conservative media (Fox News, talk radio) as well as liberal media (most of the rest). Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral. Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country." - Clive Crook - Democrats must learn some respect

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:38 AM | Your Say (2)

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

September 19, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:06 PM | Your Say (0)

"We're seeing a new kind of government these nanny states, though -- a democratic totalitarianism that makes all of the choices for its subjects after they willingly give the bureaucracy the power of life and death over them.  It's a voluntary totalitarianism, and it starts by assigning government the role of caretaker from cradle to grave, the latter point coming at their choosing." -Hot Air British ethicist: Senile should be “put down”

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

"Strange how in the '90s electing a hillbilly governor into the federal executive branch was cool but now it's not. Wouldn't be the "R" after her name, would it?"

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:05 PM | Your Say (0)

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

The secular mindset cannot grasp that in a morally corrupt world filled with evil, that some might be called to seek the wisdom and power of God to resist evil and defend the good, and through such prayers seek the hope and character to transform the world in some small way to a place where good overcomes evil. - Straw Men & Holy Wars | The Doctor Is In

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:44 PM | Your Say (1)

A long time ago, on the sunny beaches of Hawaii a young man woke up one day and had a brilliant idea. “I could totally get paid for fucking around here, if I can sell a script about a deserted island, full of crazy bastards. And to make everyone feel like Smarty McSmartison from Smartyville, Smartabama – I will name every character after a bunch of book covers I saw in the library. And, Lo, the phenomenon of LOST was born. And ye didst beheld a bunch of psychotic motherfuckers running around the jungle. And the craziest of them all were Locke and Rousseau. - doqz: Left to Right.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:06 PM | Your Say (0)

"Reduce your net carbon footprint to zero. Join the union. Stop defending the country so “the world” will like us more better. Elect people who will tax the snot out of the corporation that employs you. Force your heirs to pay even more taxes when you die, out of the estate you left them. Turn in your guns, and forget about ever teaching your kids to own or use one. Abort your baby." - House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (0)

"If I told you you had to move that 439 pound box down a flight of stairs, could you do it? Here's what's at your disposal: A thirteen year old boy, his mom, and whatever you have laying around. Easy. By the way; you're in a hurry, because the item is made from cast iron, and it's going to rain. And you can't drop it -- it's precision machinery." -Sippican Cottage: I'll Take The End In The Middle

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:41 AM | Your Say (0)

Al Gore's getting into the magazine business. Sources familiar with the former vice president's plans say he is set to announce the acquisition of a stake in Plenty, a four-year-old title about environmentally-conscious living. As it happens, Gore -- who already has a toe in the media business through his TV network, Current -- is on the cover of the current issue. - Portfolio.com

Here's hoping Al can bring the same sort of success to Plenty he brought to current. What's that? Nobody knows.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:31 AM | Your Say (2)

Obama - "Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I have asked my economic team to refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured[EA] until the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have had an opportunity to present their proposal." - Obama supports U.S. economic recovery efforts - Yahoo! News

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:15 AM | Your Say (2)

September 18, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:36 PM | Your Say (0)

Obama: "If we're going to ask questions about who has been promulgating negative ads that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand, I think I win that contest pretty handily." -Obama Needs to Sell Himself, Not Attack McCain - WSJ.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:25 PM | Your Say (0)

Rupert Murdoch: I Don't Want To Buy The New York Times

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:19 PM | Your Say (1)

Obama had claimed that his parents "got together" because of "what happened in Selma." Obama was born in August 1961, three years before the march occurred." -Obama’s Margin of Victory: The Media - 08/20/08 - Media Research Center

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

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

Man charged for dumping silicone girlfriend "According to investigators, the man had lived with the sophisticated doll for several years after his wife passed away, but decided to part with her after making plans to move in with one of his children. “It seems he grew attached to the doll over the years,” said the chief investigator. “He was confused about how to get rid of her. He thought it would be cruel to cut her up into pieces and throw her out with the trash, so he proceeded to dump her illegally."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:30 AM | Your Say (0)

"Here is one government program to fix the housing crisis:  buy and destroy homes.  The government did this with food during the Depression, in order to increase food prices (to help farmers).  That was tough on food consumers, just as destroying houses would increase living costs.  Despite what politicians say, that is how most government programs work — aiding one group at the expense of another group (often a much larger but less organized group)." - A vital but widely misunderstood aspect of our financial crisis « Fabius Maximus

Some Orlando, Fla., residents get a bombshell: Homes built atop World War II training range The corps says it's extremely unlikely any of the buried munitions would detonate, but that's done little to calm nerves. The value of the homes — which originally cost $200,000 to $600,000 — has dropped by at least a third.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:30 AM | Your Say (1)

We can do it, but it won't be done!

Charles Rangel is busy being corrupt -how, exactly, does anybody forget about $75,000 on taxes? I suspect he'll get away with it and continue as Ways & Means chairman. Unless, perhaps, the McCain campaign starts running ads about the Demcoratic Congress and makes Rangel the posterboy. - The Federalist Paupers

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

September 17, 2008

"In the midst of domestic and legal chaos of the most sordid and disabling kinds, Carr manages to keep working: drunk and high or sober, he's a reporting and writing machine, as shown by his Times gigs as columnist, entertainment and pop-culture writer, Oscar-season blogger, and occasional rock-weekend reveler. Carr never reported from a war zone, but he manages to make the bars he lives in and the flophouse apartments he crashes in—the bottom he knows "every inch of"—seem like one. Other reporters, however hard-charging, will find it hard to top these frequently rollicking tales of actual criminal behavior. - The Joyous Peculiarity of David Carr

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

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

"If there's one thing Hollywood knows how to do well, it's how to spend lots and lots of money on something that nobody wants. " - Exurban League

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

"I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?"

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

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:26 PM | Your Say (0)

Last August, a Russian mini-submarine carrying politicians and scientists plunged to the depths of the Arctic and claimed to plant a Russian flag to mark Moscow's stake in the territory. Footage of the alleged planting was widely broadcast on Russian television – but later turned out to be images taken from the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic." -Russia threatens to seize swathe of Arctic - Telegraph

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (1)

"A film review on Sept. 5 about “Save Me” confused some characters and actors. It is Mark, not Chad, who is sent to the Genesis House retreat for converting gay men to heterosexuality. (Mark is played by Chad Allen; there is no character named Chad). The hunky fellow resident is Scott (played by Robert Gant), not Ted (Stephen Lang). And it is Mark and Scott — not “Chad and Ted” — who partake of cigarettes and “furtive man-on-man action.” - Save Me - Movie - Review - The New York Times

Well, were glad they got that straight.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:42 AM | Your Say (3)

September 16, 2008

Due to a quirk of Brazilian law, candidates are allowed to run under the name of their choice. As a result, at least six Brazilian politicians have officially renamed themselves "Barack Obama" - The Guardian

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:54 PM | Your Say (0)

"This is how the world works in the age of 24/7 news cycles. Whether the subject is Britney Spears, Michael Jordan or Sarah Palin, we inevitably raise stars to mythic levels, out of all reasonable proportions. Then we knock them down. -The Sarah Palin Phenomenon Is Doomed

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:21 PM | Your Say (1)

"ATC cleared us to climb to 19,000 feet at 1,000 feet above the ground. That deletes all the altitude restrictions leaving Vegas. Go, baby, go... The co-pilot is letting her climb like a home sick angel. I am looking back across the left wing tip at the airport falling away, already 7,000 feet beneath us and that is with 150 passengers, a few pocket dogs, 12 tons of kerosene, 3 tons of bags, and 2 tons of mail/cargo." - Flight Level 390: Over the Fence

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

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:34 PM | Your Say (1)

"The orders are clear," Abbas told The Associated Press. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire." - Pakistani forces ordered to "open fire" on US forces crossing the border - The Long War Journal

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

"This is the most serious financial condition since the Great Depression.” - Obama @ Grand Junction

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:28 PM | Your Say (0)

Palin Bags a Bigfoot WASILLA, AK - Records and eyewitnesses have come to light that prior to announcing her candidacy for the Vice Presidency; Sarah Palin shot a Bigfoot from a helicopter. A government helicopter was seen flying low over the Chugach National Park with what witnesses described as "€œa sexy librarian shooting out the side." Employees at a local bait shop report seeing a similar woman only hours before carrying an infant in a camouflage Baby Bjorn.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:55 AM | Your Say (1)

"the National Organization for Women endorsed Barack Obama and Joe Biden this morning, instead of the ticket that includes … I don’t know … a woman …?" Senate Records: Obama Talks “Pay Equity” But Walks Somethin’ Else at Deceiver.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (0)

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

"It's not often that one person plays key roles in two -- count 'em, two -- trillion-dollar disasters. Welcome, my friends, to the world of well-connected Democrat Jamie Gorelick. - Jamie Gorelick, Mistress of Disaster

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:51 AM | Your Say (0)

"I keep asking black people, and will continue to do so, have you called George W. Bush a Hitler? A chimp? Stupid? Have you laughed at the outrageous slandering of Sarah Palin? Every far left liberal who has thrown out that kind of foolishness about the Governor of Alaska (the kindest thing many of them have grudgingly said is "empty suit") has telegraphed to black people exactly what they truthfully think of your grandmother, your aunt or your cousin, etc. Especially if they step off the plantation." - RattlerGator Blog: Operation "Deflate the Balloon:" Mission Accomplished

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

"Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She’s exposed the feminist con job." - Feminist Army Aims Its Canons at Palin by Jonah Goldberg on National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:47 AM | Your Say (0)

September 15, 2008

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
-- Richard Brautigan

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:18 PM | Your Say (5)

"The American military and intelligence communities are increasingly worried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, to plan a real-life attack. But the spies haven't given many details, about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out how such a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House." -Pentagon Researcher Unveils Warcraft Terror Plot | Danger Room

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:43 PM | Your Say (1)

Hollywood events could rake in $9M - Jeffrey Ressner - Politico.com

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

"Since the Delaware senator left Obama's side and ventured out on his own on Labor Day, he has hardly garnered any national media interest at all. His plane, a blue chartered 737, now crosses the country with about three-quarters of its seats empty, rows and rows with nary a warm body to be found. -Political Punch

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:45 PM | Your Say (3)

"Let's get some things straight. The entire Obama campaign has never been about issues - it's always been a cult of personality - the personality being Obama, and the cult being his slavish followers, with Chris Matthews as a far less stable version of David Koresh. It's only been since Palin entered the picture that the Democrats have started screaming about issues. Which, oddly, have been there all along." - The Daily Gut

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:00 PM | Your Say (0)

"This Wall Street Journal article [h/t Instapundit] makes it seem like Sarah Palin is a hypocrite for criticizing earmarks even though she has requested earmark after earmark for Alaska. Only one problem exists for this scenario: Governors cannot earmark. Indeed, governors may not make any formal input to federal legislationin the least." - Chicago Boyz

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:34 PM | Your Say (0)

"I have expressed a certain amount of contempt for professional politicians here because they believe that they understand all the affairs of all other men enough to run their lives. The newspapers and TV seem to think the same thing. I can't help noticing that not one of them seems suitable to perform the most menial task in the real world. A scribe that thinks they are the subject of every sentence they write is of no use to me." - Sippican Cottage: Thanks For The Inquiries

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

"Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a skirt." Palin should be laughingstock to all feministsMary Mitchell

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

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Posted by Vanderleun at 11:09 AM | Your Say (1)

I don't doubt Team Obama is gaming scenarios, desperately wishing that wishes were horses. I'm guessing they involve Biden suddenly developing a pressing need to devote himself to hisfamily, or maybe a health issue. A good sympathey-inducing health issue. Maybe a dire hairplug failure." -Jules Crittenden - Dairygate

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:53 AM | Your Say (0)

Large Hadron Collider tested; world ends; film at eleven

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:48 AM | Your Say (2)

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

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

September 14, 2008

"Went to Lifehacker: McCain can't use email. Just went to Cartoon Brew: Matt Damon on Sarah Palin. It's all starting to leak into everything." Twitter / James Lileks

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"It’s pretty plain that the op-ed page of choice for anything serious is not the NYT anymore. That shift surprised even me; part of the problem was the long term, still unabated damage caused by the Times’s ill-conceived attempt to impose the subscriber wall; Thomas Friedman’s influence will never, ever be the same. A lot of it, too, is simply that the Times op-ed page reads like the Nation, only not as plainly written: if you want Katha Pollitt, in full-throated whatever, why settle for Gail Collins? David Brooks has pretty much ruined himself there, and it’s a pity. But today it is the Washington Post or, for anything serious as to political economy, and increasingly just for anything serious, the Wall Street Journal." - Kenneth Anderson Does the NYT pay Judith Warner for her thoughts?

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:44 AM | Your Say (1)

"If I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:56 AM | Your Say (16)

September 13, 2008

Barbara Wagner was notified by letter that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover her prescription. But the letter didn't leave it at that. It also notified her that, although it wouldn't cover her prescription, it would cover assisted suicide. After Wagner's story appeared in the Eugene Register-Guard, the Oregon Health Plan acknowledged that it routinely sends similar letters to patients who have little chance of surviving more than five years, informing them that the health plan will pay for assisted suicide (euphemistically categorized as "comfort care"), but not for treatment that could help them live for months or years." - American Thinker

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:53 PM | Your Say (0)

"The Grand Inquisitor on his media throne demands to know if a vice presidential candidate is calling for a holy war; should we not ask him in response whether he judges our current battle against those who would murder us to be, at least in principle, a morally good and noble pursuit? Is it a moral good that our troops have liberated some 50 million people from two of the most oppressive regimes in history? Is it a moral good that our soldiers seek to protect innocent Iraqi citizens, at great risk to their own lives, while seeking out and destroying those who would wantonly murder them? " - Straw Men & Holy Wars | The Doctor Is In

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"I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears." - Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, Drill

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:26 AM | Your Say (4)

"The difference between the destiny-battered Republican candidate and the issue-arrayed Democratic one is like the difference between a mass-market paperback and a college syllabus." - Lee Siegel, The Triumph of Culture Over Politics

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:09 AM | Your Say (1)

"For the most impassioned and loyal supporters of Obama and his hopenchange, this election is not about policy at all. It is about being, over doing. It’s about them being superior to others. They’ll insist on being reminded of it, constantly, for they do not believe in it." - House of Eratosthenes

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:16 AM | Your Say (0)

September 12, 2008

Security question: "Is Obama qualified to be FBI agent?" Short answer: Nope. Former associates and drug use would rule him....right OUT.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:58 PM | Your Say (0)

The reason McCain doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000): "McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes." - The Corner

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:34 PM | Your Say (1)

"Terrorism does not just strike at a few, rather it is a message to the rest that if they are not killed in future attacks, they can be left poor and alone. For Seniors, that is a devastating message. One they respond to with fury. People who have worked hard all their lives do not take kindly to the idea that for the "greater good" and "America's respect in the World" they'll have to risk being left on the street with nothing. Or dead. People in walkers don't move so quick out of the way when an attack comes. Seniors don't plan to Summer in Europe, so they don't care what the rest of the world thinks of us. They only want to be safe. From foreign terrorists as much as domestic criminals." -Whiskey's Place: Senior Nation!

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:54 PM | Your Say (0)

"No really, a stick. That one's Poplar, I think. I've been using it for four years. I push all the wood through the table saw with it. It has a hook cut in it to hold the wood down as well as push it. It has common blade heights marked on it so I can raise and lower the blade without measuring over and over. On the Norm shows, they always lie and say that they've removed the blade guard temporarily so you can see the cut. Lies. All lies. All woodworkers throw them away. If you can shove a piece of wood in the saw, you can shove your hand in there, too, so the guard won't save you unless you fall on the blade." - Sippican Cottage: Ten Of The Eleven Of My Top Ten Tools

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

"that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace." - The Big White Lie by Andrew Klavan, City Journal Spring 2007

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September 11, 2008

"It's not too hard to diagnose why, as Kurtz correctly says, "the media are getting mad." They're getting mad because their candidate is losing. They've spent years building him up and covering for his mistakes and shortcomings, and he is such a stiff that he can't coast across the finish line. I'd be mad too, I guess, but I think I'd have the decency not to take it out on Sarah Palin." --Power Line: The Press: Mad As Hell, and Not Going to Take It Any More

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:23 PM | Your Say (3)

"Pamela Anderson has spoken out against Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin saying:"I can't stand her. She can suck it!" - The Daily Telegraph

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:03 PM | Your Say (1)

"You can fool some of the people all the time -- but they're already Democrats" - Dafydd @ Big Lizards “Obama and the Old Switcheroo? Not a Chance.”

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:27 PM | Your Say (0)

"I thought Barack Obama had Rookie of the Year locked up, and was even in contention for MVP. He had a great first half, so they moved him into the cleanup spot, where’s he’s less protected. Recently he’s been swinging at bad pitches, trying to hit a home run every time. Now that pitchers have learned his tendencies, they’re getting him out more easily. He went 0-4 against O’Reilly the other night, barely making contact. Maybe he’s been reading his press clippings. His fielding has dropped off as well, making a lot of mental errors."- : Rookie Of The Year

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:18 PM | Your Say (0)

"Look at that picture. Look at the protective grasp with which Gov. Sarah Palin holds her dear son, Trig. Look at her expression. Look at her eyes. That is one tough babe; that is no woman to be toyed with. That is a woman who’d as soon drop you as look at you, if who or what she loves is being threatened.- Palin: “They hate her because she is not a victim” - Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:03 PM | Your Say (2)

I don't think the hatred of Palin would rise to its present level but for one simple fact: Palin is beautiful. In a strange irony, woman who would eviscerate any male who for one moment suggested that a female dressing provocatively and walking in a dark alley late at night was "asking for it" feel free to remark on Palin as "fuckable," and to refer to her selection by the GOP as their "hardcore pornographic centerfold spread." - neo-neocon Palin unhinges feminists on the Left

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:12 PM | Your Say (0)

"The machinery would be shut down and it would become quiet. Across the site, tools would be laid down and the workers would straighten up and stand still. Then, from somewhere in the pile or the pit, a group of men would emerge carrying a stretcher covered with an American flag and holding, if they were fortunate, a body. If they were not so fortunate the flag covering over the stretcher would be lumpy, holding only portions of a body from which, across the river on the Jersey shore, a forensic lab would try to make an identification and then pass on to the victim's survivors something that they could bury.

"I'm not sure anymore about the final count, but I am pretty sure that most families, in the end, got nothing. Their loved ones had all gone into the smoke and the dust that covered the end of the island and blew, mostly, across the river into Brooklyn where I lived. What happened to most of the three thousand killed by the animals on that day? It is simple and ghastly. We breathed them until the rains came and washed clean what would never be clean again." -- Of a Fire in a Field @ AMERICAN DIGEST

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

September 10, 2008

"... it is not just the Left which is cloistered. A glance at my social networking list would show precious few voters for Obama. If Obama were to win by a landslide I wouldn't know anyone who liked him either. But while in the past the privilege of belonging to a circle was the province of the elite, today anyone can join his own ghetto. The Internet has made it easy for anyone to restrict his gaze to only what he wants to see. And from there it is but a single step to living in a self-referential world which could be shattered by exposure to contrary information.- Belmont Club Gazing on the Gorgon

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:43 PM | Your Say (0)

"I may as well say what I really think: I am not certain Sen. Obama actually wants this job, either. I keep remembering what he said when he first got elected to the senate, that he in no way had the experience to be running for President. Then he promptly ran for president. But I don’t think he thought it would go this far. I think he thought he’d make a good start on a future run, maybe even be the bottom of a Hillary ticket, whereupon he would be ready to sail into office in 8 years with veep experience." - The Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:40 PM | Your Say (0)

"George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western "High Noon." The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to. That's Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to, because someone had to." -- Welcome to AnnCoulter.com

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

"20,000 feet and descending... Holy Moly! We are literally immersed in rainfall. The forward windshields are covered with a fast moving stream of water. The total air temperature (think outside air frame temperature) is too warm for the de-ice system... Forward shields OFF. Engine igniters are switched ON manually for flame out protection. Our radar shows a small, but intense cell over the next virtual waypoint a few miles ahead.... Flight Level 390: Hanna

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:18 PM | Your Say (0)

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate "whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion." - Jonathan Martin @ Politico.com

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September 9, 2008

"I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama 'black' in a sense that it would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican Convention – a 'community organizer.' They kept saying it, they kept laughing," he said. - wcbstv.com - McCain Campaign Fumes Over Paterson's Racism Claim

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"Don’t buck the crowd, don’t aim too high, don’t shine too bright or someone will smear you and your name like PB&J on the lunchroom wall."

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:58 PM | Your Say (0)

"For most of us, if the last eight years have taught us anything it's that the American people can not be trusted to vote in their own self-interest or that of the country." -MyDD :: No Laughing Matter

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"I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted." Heather Mallick A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:52 AM | Your Say (0)

"Most of these countries don't need to be there. The Georgians and Ukrainians don't think they need to be there, because they don't have any ***** babies. Our leaders," Carlin might have continued, "think that Georgia and Ukraine should join NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]. NATO is a military alliance, right? Military - doesn't that involve soldiers? What if we get a country in NATO that doesn't have any people who are able to be soldiers? Suppose they were all paraplegics. Would we still let them into NATO? How about a motorized wheelchair brigade? By 2050, there are only going to be 100,000 guys in Georgia below the age of 35, and if you drafted every ***** one of them who can walk, you'd still have fewer people in the Georgian army than at an NFL game. That's not enough testosterone to support a football franchise, much less an army." - Spengler, A comedy of areas

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

David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, said the majority of the Obama campaign's donors during the primary had yet to write checks for the general election. When they do, he said, it will be the equivalent of the large injection of cash the McCain campaign is receiving from the government -- about $70 million or $80 million." - Straining to reach money goal, Obama presses donors - International Herald Tribune

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"To be among those who "get it" is not only to hold a certain set of views that make one reliably progressive but also, by holding them, to be a member of the progressive club -- which, like the Starbucks club, is decidedly up-market socially. The phrase, both before and after The Washington Post got their inky hands on it, was really an exercise in political branding, in wearing the cool T-shirt or flip-flops or sun-glasses, all with the labels on the outside, and not the tacky or down-market knock-offs from Wal-Mart. Unsurprisingly, then, "getting it" involved, among many other things, hostility to Wal-Mart itself — and, less vocally, to the sort of people who continue in defiance of fashion, both political and merchandising, to patronize its numerous emporia." -JamesBowman Getting It

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

Oh.....
The ice caps are melting
Oh, ho, ho ho
All the world is drowning
Ho, ho ho, ho ho
The ice caps are melting
the tide is rushing in
All the world is drowning
to wash away the sin!
-- Tiny Tim, 1968

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"Every liberal I know at one time or another has said something that betrays an underlying sense of entitlement. They think that Democrats are the natural party of government, because Democrats are smarter, nicer, better people. Accordingly, when they lose, it can’t be because the American people have assessed their arguments and found them wanting. - Professor Bainbridge

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:19 AM | Your Say (0)

"Republican John McCain raised about $5 million in Chicago Monday night, or about $1 million for each hour he spent in Democrat Barack Obama's home town. - cbs2chicago.com

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September 8, 2008

"While speaking about the importance of habeas corpus, Obama said, “We don’t always catch the right person. We may think this is Mohammed the terrorist, it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You may think it’s Barack the bomb thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.” --It's Stand-Up Comedy Time for Obama

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:16 PM | Your Say (0)

"The surprise is not that [Palin] has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska's energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes - the result of which was a ｣13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having "no international experience" particularly absurd." -Sarah Palin is not such a small-town girl after all - Telegraph

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

Liberal Blogs Assail Anchor Changes - washingtonpost.com

In other news, non-liberal blogs say, "Door. Ass. Bang."

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:58 PM | Your Say (0)

"So, for a human, veganism is an attempt to fool Mother Nature. And as we all know: that's not nice. Vitamin B-12, for instance, is only available in meat. And according to the Andrews University Nutrition Council (themselves vegetarians who take it in pill form), "Vitamin B-12 is essential for the development of red blood cells and it plays an important role in the normal function of the nervous system. A vitamin B-12 deficiency usually leads to disorientation, depression, mood disturbances, irritability, memory loss, and dementia." -American Thinker: The Party of Genuine Tolerance and Inclusion: Republican

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:51 PM | Your Say (1)

"I can no longer bear, in even a ‘DINO’ sort of way, to be associated with the Democratic Party; whatever hopes I had that Barack Obama may actually represent something new are gone, notwithstanding what I thought was an outstanding talk last week. And for all the stupidities of the Republican Party — past, present, and probably future — the selection and nomination of Sarah Palin gives me hope for the future of the GOP." - The Incoherence of the Incoherent | And Still I Persist

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:31 PM | Your Say (1)

Huge: 20-point shift [away from Obama] towards McCain among white women since last month in new ABC poll

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:56 PM | Your Say (0)

The squid’s beak is one of the hardest organic substances in existence — such that the sharp point can slice through a fish or whale like a Ginsu knife. Yet the beak is attached to squid flesh that itself is the texture of jello. How precisely does a gelatinous animal safely wield such a razor-sharp weapon? -- The Humboldt squid beak: Diamond-sharp mystery of the briny deep

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Russia to send naval squadron, planes to Venezuela MOSCOW - Russia said Monday it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, an announcement made at a time of increasingly tense relations with the United States.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:17 PM | Your Say (1)

Treacher notes that Andrew Sullivan's home base, The Atlantic is starting an "Advice" column and wants your questions. Please to send them in at the link.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:08 PM | Your Say (0)

"The Democratic nominee, whose presidential campaign has often been dominated by his compelling life story, has now discovered a distate for personality politics. "You know, this whole résumé contest is not what the American people are looking for," [Obama] said. "I have to make it clear what is at stake in this election." [His political future?] - Barack Obama switches off personality politics but Sarah Palin continues to electrify crowds - Times Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:19 PM | Your Say (0)

"Before cooncluding today's post, I'd like to jump ahead a bit and discuss the Next Stage in cosmic evolution." -- One Cosmos: Cosmic Evolution and the Bridge to Gnowhere

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There is, said Adam Smith, a "deal of ruin in a nation." Many people, I suspect, believe that the legacy of multiculturalism and political correctness -- the legacy, in a word, of 1960s radicalism -- has inflicted grievous ruin upon this country. One party embraces that ruin as our destiny. John McCain and Sarah Palin reject it as tantamount to moral betrayal. This election really is shaping up as a clash of civilizations. No wonder its skirmishes have been so bitter. They are likely to become even more heated as more and more people awaken to the nature of the choice that confronts us." - Roger Kimball: The Clash of Civilizations comes home

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"She gets to start in a shiny brand new school that is so progressive and environmentally conscious that they have banned all garbage bins: anything you bring in the school, you must also take away." - The Fourth Checkraise: And in the science class, watch Wall-E as documentary

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:24 AM | Your Say (0)

"You think it will be your turn to be great if greatness is destroyed. Greatness doesn't work that way." -Sippican Cottage: Deus ex Machina

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:21 AM | Your Say (0)

September 7, 2008

"Joe Biden, is 65 years old, and has had TWO brain aneurysms. If Biden dies, what would a President Obama do?" -The Loft

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

Obama’s 143 Days of Senate Experience From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate. That's how many days the Senate was actually in session and working.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:07 PM | Your Say (0)

MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:55 PM | Your Say (1)

"I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven't been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife - I didn't put up for that stuff just to come in second," Obama said.

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:32 PM | Your Say (3)

"Democrat White House nominee Barack Obama on Sunday offered to go one-on-one with Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin -- but only on the basketball court. Obama, 47, who blows off steam on the campaign trail with games of pickup hoops, however joked that he wouldn't take on the Alaska governor -- and experienced hunter -- with a gun." - Obama offers Palin a game of hoops

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:06 PM | Your Say (0)

"High temperatures in July and August and less-frequent water changes because of the zoo's conservation efforts caused an algae growth in the bear pond and safety moat, Kurobe said.- Algae-dyed polar bears puzzle Japan zoo visitors

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September 6, 2008

"This abortion prohibitionist hag won't cut it among women with brains. And BTW she is a good example of reproduction run amok. 5 kids; 1 retard. I wonder if the bitch ever heard of getting spayed." -- via Mark Steyn @ The Corner on National Review Online

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:33 PM | Your Say (2)

Small-town residents boo media with McCain On the first leg of the "McCain Street USA" tour -- which will take the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to small towns across the heartland -- the 30 or so reporters and crew were walking back to their buses to join the McCain motorcade when hundreds of townspeople started yelling. "Stop lying! You are all liars! Tell the truth!" one woman yelled from the front of the pack.

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"There's a photo of Sarah Palin in a stars and stripes bikini, toting an automatic weapon. It says more than any Op-Ed or blog. Hot broad with cool weapon. Every school shooter's dream of womanhood. Alas, the photo is photoshopped, but true in spirit." - Erica Jong: The Mary Poppins Syndrome

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:13 PM | Your Say (4)

"Media Bubble, Sept. 2 -- Embattled former beauty queen Sarah Palin* continued to wilt yesterday under the pressure of numerous fair, evenhanded media questions regarding the alleged state of "Alaska." Palin has claimed to be "governor" of the legendary northern land mass, which, while heretofore undiscovered by explorers, was once rumored to contain vast expanses rich with oil, gold, and "eski-mos." -- Treacher

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September 5, 2008

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Bonto (Barak Obama – Not The One)

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (0)

NOAA says that shorter-term pollutants from Asia may raise U.S. heartland temperatures by three degrees in about 50 years." -NOAA: China to Warm U.S. Heartland Watts Up With That?

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

September 4, 2008

"In a system where everyone else must submit to checks and balances, who provides the check over your power to ruin lives and reputations, if the media are above the law? You'd better come up with a good answer. And fast." - Villainous Company: Palin vs. The Gatekeepers

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:56 PM | Your Say (0)

"If she shoots a lawyer, he's stayin' down." - Assistant Village Idiot: Hive, Not Tribe

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:37 PM | Your Say (0)

How. Great. Is. This. This is what makes those long boring weeks of bad news or lame news worth it. There's always a comedy bonanza coming at some point. And the gloating. Oh Dear Lord, the sweet sweet gloating. I'm not in this for analysis. I'm in for gloating. And I need to be winning to be gloating. You ever try gloating when you're getting your ass kicked? It doesn't play.

It's been a while since I could really, genuinely, deeply gloat. Thank you, John McCain and Sarah Palin, for once again letting me laugh again. And thank you, too, liberals. DKM (Daily Kos Media). Barack "Community Organizer" Obama. Power Glutes Andi. Keef Olbermann. You have played no small role in elevating my spirits and bringing joy into my life again.

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

I'll say it: it's over. The way Palin grabbed Urkel by the scruff of the neck and shook the fairy dust off his bony ass.... marvelous. All he had going for him was star power, and now it's been eclipsed by her greater Light. Next to her, he looks like any other third rate political hack. Palin's the star. Obama's now just in a supporting role in her cosmic drama. She is the Candidate of Destiny. He is now the second youngest candidate with the oldest ideas. Truly a relic of the past.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:32 AM | Your Say (1)

Sense of Events: TEOLAWKI still imminent

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:14 AM | Your Say (0)

A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished -- and conservative - woman apparently has enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia, as if they got collectively hit by a cruise missile aimed from Middle America.... The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become." -Victor Davis Hanson: Target Palin

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:22 AM | Your Say (0)

The world moves forward in fits and starts, pausing here and there to be overrun by Panzers and commissars, but human beings are clever and keep pushing. The only incurious people in the world work for the newspaper and the TV and the government. Everybody else is always looking around for ways to improve their lot.

Much of this tinkering with the quotidian details of daily life goes unremarked. The average person adopts it, the ivory tower crowd ignores it or execrates it. But whatever it is, it's a fact. It's real. Academics, entertainers, politicians and writers do not live in the world of reality, and show a studied disdain for the trappings of the average person's life.- Sippican Cottage: Something Something Else Happens

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:19 AM | Your Say (0)

"From BDS to PDS, no, Sarah is a girl. She can’t give them PDS. She gives them PMS: Palin Madness Syndrome. In fact, that is what I think we should start calling the press: The PMS Media!" - Palin a news Powerhouse @ The Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:49 AM | Your Say (0)

"What then explains the professoriate's desire to teach against their own heritage? Too many things to enumerate here. Ingratitude, envy, vanity, and sloth come to mind. But there are immediate and practical political benefits. One benefit of teaching non-western material that you don't really know -- because you can't read the original language, and the work has had no influence upon your art or culture -- is that you can impress its writers and thinkers into service as political coolies. After all, a lot of track needs to be laid between here and Utopia." - (Originals)

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:43 AM | Your Say (0)

September 3, 2008

"I hereby propose that future female candidates for high office on the Right must be pre-selected early in life and required to take a vow of celibacy, forsaking family and other obligations and entering into a special society somewhat akin to that of the Vestal Virgins of Rome." -neo-neocon Rules for the female campaign road: let's hear it for the Vestal Virgin

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:10 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:40 AM | Your Say (0)

Palin's friends should be less immediately worried about what the Obama campaign will do to her than what the McCain campaign will do. This is a woman who's tough enough to work her way up and through, and to say yes to a historic opportunity, but she will know little of, or rather have little experience in, the mischief inherent in national Republican politics. She will be mobbed up in the McCain campaign by people who care first about McCain and second about themselves. (Or, let's be honest, often themselves first and then McCain.) Palin will never be higher than number three in their daily considerations. They won't have enough interest in protecting her, advancing her, helping her play to her strengths, helping her kick away from danger. And – there is no nice way to say this, even though at this point I shouldn't worry about nice – some of them are that worst sort of aide, dim and insensitive past or present lobbyists with high self-confidence. She'll be a thing to them; they'll see the smile and the chignon and the glasses and think she's Truvi from Steel Magnolias. They'll run right over her, not because they're strong but because they're stupid.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:02 AM | Your Say (1)

What do the SAT, the Kellogg Company, Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler all have in common? They are all connected by the practice of eugenics in the first half of the 20th century.

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:29 AM | Your Say (0)

Oil prices have slid so far and so fast that the retreat has led analysts to predict further puncturing of what they call a speculative bubble. Many analysts don't see a floor at $100, but rather at levels as low as $70 or $80. "This is start of a fall to $80 crude by the end of the year, maybe as early as September," says Joel Fingerman, principal of FundamentalAnalytics.com, a Chicago-based energy consulting firm.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:28 AM | Your Say (0)

September 2, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:02 PM | Your Say (0)

"If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!" -Fatimah Ali: Philadelphia Daily News

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:49 PM | Your Say (5)

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:18 PM | Your Say (0)

"Combine a child's response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country's politics depends more openly on friendships than America's, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman." -Spengler - How Obama lost the election.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:51 AM | Your Say (0)

Chicken-fried bacon is favorite fried fare at Texas state fair contest "Everything in Texas is chicken-fried, and bacon makes everything better so we thought we'd put the two together."

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:34 AM | Your Say (1)

"There are a number of industries that survive solely upon white guilt: Penguin Classics, the SPCA, free range chicken farms, and the entire rubber bracelet market. Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance."

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

"My understanding is that Gov. Palin's town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year -- we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." -CNN Political Ticker

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008

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

September 1, 2008

"Still, the weekend offered Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden one of their first opportunities to spend an extended period of time settling into their new marriage. At every stop, the two men greeted their audiences together. As Mr. Biden offered the opening remarks, Mr. Obama stood at his side and looked out into the audience, applauding and smiling. - JEFF ZELENY Reporter’s Notebook - On the Trail, Adjusting to Life as a Couple - NYTimes.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:51 PM | Your Say (2)

"Keith Olbermann was pulled from St. Paul to anchor MSNBC's storm coverage from New York, with his seat beside Chris Matthews filled by David Gregory. Capus said political considerations had nothing to do with that move." - The Associated Press:

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

"People in Wasilla are Alaskan tough, so not only does a thing like teen pregnancy not seem like anyone's damn business, but it's also not seen as the calamity so many people in the lower 48 might think it is. This is dangerous country — it's not just the roughneck jobs on cable reality shows. It's real life here." - In Wasilla, Pregnancy Was No Secret - TIME

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

At a press avail in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama on Palin: "Back off these kinds of stories." "I have said before, and I will repeat again: People's families are off-limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

On charges that his campaign has stoked the story via liberal blogs: "I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired." -- Obama says no place for Palin daughter story - Politico.com

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:28 PM | Your Say (2)

"For the next 15 or 20 minutes, he talked with us about our son, Iraq , his family, faith, convictions, and shared his feelings about nearing the end of his presidency. He asked each of our teenaged sons what they wanted to do in life and counseled them to set goals, stick to their convictions, and not worry about being the "cool" guy. He said that he'd taken a lot of heat during his tenure and was under a lot of pressure to do what's politically expedient, but was proud to say that he never sold his soul. Sometimes he laughed, and at others he teared up. He said that what he'll miss most after leaving office will be his role as Commander in Chief." -BLACKFIVE: The Reason To Delay Air Force One...

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:01 PM | Your Say (0)

"Get in your news anchor chair or at the wheels of your bootlicker leftie blogs or fire up the presses for your dead-tree dying newspapers and tell us all about it. Todd's not a real Eskimo. Sarah's not a real woman. Trig isn't really her son and all her kids have stupid names anyway. Alaska isn't a real state and being mayor and governor there isn't real executive experience, like milking grant programs with Bill Ayers is. Taxes and the Jihad and good schools aren't "women's issues", lesbian rights and taking away people's guns are what women really want. Women care more about the North Slope staying undeveloped than they do about the price of gas for the mini-van." - That Precious Minority Status

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

Instant Agitprop -- New Campaign garb now on sale: JesusFish Eats the "Mark of the Obamessiah" @ CafePress

HT: Tim Blair

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:32 AM | Your Say (0)