Comments or suggestions: Gerard Van der Leun

Tinfoil Brigade

Just when you think the greenwhacks can't get nuttier and more shameless...

Fog Decline Threatens California’s Towering Redwoods from sad Wired Science @ sad Wired.com


Posted by Vanderleun at Feb 16, 2010 7:34 PM |  Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
In the Future Everything About Your Life Will Be Cheaper and Crumbier. Dumb Too.

Yet another crapulous contraption made by eunuchs. I for one decline to live the recycled life of these pious pecksniffs who infect the biosphere.


Posted by Vanderleun at Apr 29, 2009 10:35 PM |  Comments (22)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Futt the Wuck? Enviros Go Stark, Staring Nucking Futz!

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To retain my last rotting shred of faith in humanity, I'm praying, praying, this is the ultimate send up of the Nucking Envirofutz: Life vests for polar bears on melting ice

As the climate crisis mounts and Arctic icebergs slip away, polar bears are suffering starvation, population declines, and drowning as they must swim further and further to find food. Seeking to raise awareness for the endangered species' plight, ADDI Concepts has taken wildlife preservation literally by designing a life-vest for displaced polar bears struggling to stay afloat as their homes sink into the sea.
It almost certainly is.... but... if it is not, I will pay real, real folding money to underwrite a boatload of greenies to haul on up to the Arctic, and be the first to strap one of these on a polar bear. They will only be required to wear a pair of muck-lucks made out of fresh killed baby seals.

I get world video rights because this is going to be bigger than Bum Fights and Stealth Lesbians Gone Wild put together.


Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 26, 2009 11:21 PM |  Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Gradulations! Three and a half minutes in which the Congress was prevented from doing anything even more stupid than this

Democrat Representative Corinne Brown, a credit to her college, district and state, gradulates the Gators.

File under: "I try to become more cynical every day but lately I just can't keep up."

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 25, 2009 10:29 AM |  Comments (12)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Obamantion of the Day: Monday, March 23

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President Gigglepuss on 60 Minutes:

STEVE KROFT: You’re sitting here. And you’re– you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, “I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about (LAUGHTER) money–” How do you deal with– I mean, wh– explain -

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well–

STEVE KROFT: –the mood and your laughter.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:Yeah, I mean, there’s got to be–

STEVE KROFT: “Are you punch-drunk?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to (LAUGHS) get you through the day.

Dr. Johnson would not see the humor: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." - Samuel Johnson

Ah, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Or is it, in the immortal words of Dan Quayle, “What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.” Either way, it's never too soon to say:

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**

[** Bumper sticker on request by Morgan ]

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 22, 2009 8:46 PM |  Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Report from a Seething Climate-Crazed Cranium

endoftheworld2006_300x300.jpgPresented for your consideration the frothing hallucinations of one Tim Anderson, founder of Z Corporation, maker of "rapid prototyping machines," as he gets his freak on in Climate Sinners in the Jaws of an Angry Dog. True that these sorts of eructations are cheaper than cow pies in a cow pasture these days, but Anderson gets extra points for an embedded Jonathan Edwards reference and exceptionally rapid stroking of his variant of the "We're all a gonna die!" meme.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 14, 2009 5:52 PM |  Comments (12)  | QuickLink: Permalink
It seems to me... Obama "Don't know much about history."

Dear Mr. President,
Please take a couple of hours out of your tizzy schedule to read and absorb, Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned . Time to brush up, lest you beclown yourself further with such statements as:

President Roosevelt didn’t have the luxury of choosing between ending a depression and fighting a war. President Kennedy didn’t have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon. -- Obama to "the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce"
Sigh. You will note, in passing, that President Roosevelt did not lead the country into war (See 7 December 1941 at Wikipedia, or, if you are too tired to read, screen Tora! Tora! Tora! for an update on this issue.)

As for the concept of John Kennedy "choosing" between civil rights and going to the moon... please fire whatever 30 something speech writer is grinding out this pap and hire somebody who knows about the President who actually did something about civil right, The Democrats' "Forgotten Man" -- Lyndon Johnson. You know, that white cracker Texan who, while President, passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I dare say that without Johnson's actions then, you would not be possible now.

Thanks for listening. I know you can do better.

All the best,
Gerard Van der Leun


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 10, 2009 11:23 AM |  Comments (15)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Sunday Meditation: Our Text is Exodus 20

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Case in Point: "A body painting done on nude people that's an optical illusion that creates an image of Obama when viewed from a certain angle? Well, OK... I guess..." VIA: Flares into Darkness: Jumping Jehosephats!

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
-- Exodus 20

Of course, this is all just an extension of the Bush Worship of the Last 8 Years. Isn't it. No? But, a commenter notes, what about:

Remember all the adulation bestowed on President Bush? This is nooooo different! How about the "W" tattoos that seven out of ten right wingers still proudly wear on sensitive areas of the body? Couldn't score a chick without one! And what about all the giant Bush murals on every public building? Or the statues in butter, chocolate, or ice that you saw at every wedding, banquet, or holiday feast. Not to mention the toe-tapping, lighter flicking songs of praise that every rock band recorded if they wanted to get a record on the radio. And the Bush-as-Rambo style comic books that are still flying off the shelves- what about them, HUH? And the GWB toys, the board games, the action figures...


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 1, 2009 6:35 AM |  Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
What can a world of highly amused men say to Guy Ritchie except...

"I told you that bitch was cray-zee!"

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 11, 2008 1:41 PM |  Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Your Political Opponents: A Visual Guide for All Americans

Here's a handy chart for you to print out and keep handy for those tough calls in online forums or comment threads.

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Chart by The New York Times, 1913, for "Nearly 15,000,000 School Children Are Defective." Today, it could be used by the Times as an internal organization chart.

  • See also Cobb: Three Degrees of Stupidity an enlightened discussion of fool, idiots, stooges, the doofus, the airhead, the twit, the spaz, cretins, dolts, and retards.

Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 10, 2008 7:26 PM |  Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"Hand me the gun. No, the bigger one." -- David Thompson

In the tradition of "Leave Britney Alone!": Watching this two -minute clip will be either the funniest or most disgusting two-minutes of your day. Probably both.


Via davidthompson: When Hippies Weep


Posted by Vanderleun at Sep 5, 2008 2:48 PM |  Comments (15)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Una Noche Oscura: Tonight I Shall Be the Only Point of Light In a Vast Sea of Darkness

lightdark.jpgThey call it "Rain City" but sometimes it feels like I'm doing time in Oz, and I don't mean the Emerald City. Exhibit A:

Seattle Turns off the Lights To Fight Global Warming
Cities worldwide flip the switch at the same time on March 29

SEATTLE - Mayor Greg Nickels announced today the city of Seattle will participate in Earth Hour this Saturday, joining dozens of cities across the globe that are encouraging people to turn off the lights and consider the small steps that can reduce climate pollution. On Saturday, March 29, from 8 to 9 p.m., Seattle City Hall will go dark, along with the Seattle Municipal Tower, the Central Library and Seattle Justice Center, except for those areas that must remain illuminated for emergency and public safety reasons.

Well, my little house is going to remain illuminated for public sanity reasons. In fact, I'm going to make sure that for that one little hour tonight, every single bulb in my place is turned full on. Damn the dimmer switches, full speed ahead.

For one hour, it will be dead easy for spiritual search and rescue craft high overhead to spot my house. It'll be that single dot down there in the pool of dark, dark Kool-Aid being slurped by the privileged citizens of this city who never met a nanny-state stipulation they didn't like.

And yes, at times like this, Seattle is like doing time. Last week I talked about it with a native who had been here for 20 years. "Exercise. Brisk exercise and vitamin D3. That's the answer," he told me. Sounds like a prison regime to me, especially when the exercise yard is drenched with slush and rain most hours of most days.

Most mornings you wake up in your house that has become your cell and you look out the window with the last shreds of hope and.... nope, the damp gray canvas has been nailed to the sky again.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 29, 2008 8:13 AM |  Comments (16)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Signs of Spring in Queen Anne, Seattle

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Free Hope Zone

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Free Fire Zone


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 9, 2008 12:57 PM |  Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Ann Althouse's Reality Distortion Field

Something, according to Ann Althouse, is hidden in this commercial. I'm not going to tell you what it is. You've got to see it. Can you see it? Ann Althouse did ... but only after one of her commenters told her to look for it.... Oh, wait, she didn't really see it, but she presumed it was there and wrote a carefully parsed and quotation-marked post about it.

(That post is HERE ... but no peeking. First play the Hillary's On the Phone commercial... once, twice, three times and see if you can spot it.) Answer after the jump....

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 1, 2008 7:51 AM |  Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Not Raping = Rape ... If You Are an Israeli Soldier

Paper Proves Once Again that Academics Never Outgrow Their Need for Bullshit

Prize Winning Sociology Thesis at Hebrew U.: Lack of Rape Among Israeli Soldiers Achieves Same Aims as Rape

"A Hebrew University Sociology department M.A. thesis entitled "Controlled Occupation: The Lack of Military Rape in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict" notes that the relative absence of instances of rape by Israeli soldiers is an alternate method of achieving the same kind of degradation of Palestinian Arabs that would be achieved through a directed policy of raping Arab women."

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Feb 14, 2008 1:02 PM |  Comments (16)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Sorry State of After You Say You're Sorry
Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Dec 21, 2007 12:30 PM |  Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
New CNN Debate Format

The good Dr Sanity @ Dr. Sanity: CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES - Turkey Day Edition confesses to being "easily amused" at this:

Well, so say we all. All the "message" of the current crop of Donk candidates with three times the rythum and ten times the melody. And without all the annoying planted questions from CNN's version of "ordinary people, undecided voters."


Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 19, 2007 8:34 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
George Felos, Lawyer for Michael Schiavo, and Telepath to the Comatose

IN A LIFE IN WHICH I'VE SEEN AND HEARD MANY CREEPY THINGS, IT TAKES A LOT OF MAKE THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF MY NECK STAND UP, but now I am officially creeped out. I admit I haven't given too much thought to Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos. I wrote him off as simply another cell in the vast pond scum that covers the surface of what is called "the legal profession." Then a passing comment at another site caused me to search out his book. I found it first on Amazon, but the reviews there were suspect so I decided I couldn't form an opinion from those. Then I went to the site of his "publisher," Blue Dolphin, reasoning that they would put forward Felos' book in the best possible light. Perhaps they do. Here's the top quote on the page, Litigation as Spiritual Practice (Blue Dolphin Publishing)

Such a deep, dark, silent blue. I stared as far into her eyes as I could, hoping to sense some glimmer of understanding, some hint of awareness. The deeper I dove, the darker became the blue, until the blue became the black of some bottomless lake. "Mrs. Browning, do you want to die ... do you want to die?" I nearly shouted as I continued to peer into her pools of strikingly beautiful but incognizant blue. It felt so eerie. Her eyes were wide open and crystal clear, but instead of the warmth of lucidity, they burned with the ice of expressionlessness.
Got that? Did you grok the black of the bottomless lake of shameless shyster's drooling lunacy? In my ignorance, I had supposed that you needed to demonstrate higher rational functions to be admitted to the Florida Bar. Ah, such a fool am I.

Just in case that purple gem of putrid prose didn't convince you, here's another paragraph from the excerpt Blue Dolphin proudly displays:

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 31, 2005 7:52 AM |  Comments (204)  | QuickLink: Permalink
This Just in from "The Deepening Dementia"

FILE UNDER: "You Just C a n n o t Make This Stuff Up"
"Akono, who is from Cambodia and is married to a British man, plans to go on a hunger strike from April 14 in protest against the continuing war on terror.

" 'I want to do everything I can to make sure my child has a secure future,' said the pregnant activist."

Full story Here.

[Via Chrenkoff]


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 21, 2005 10:15 AM |  Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
One Moonbat Queen to Rule Them All

JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT IS SAFE TO LISTEN TO THE DEMOCRATS, out comes an amber alert. Here are some of the "refreshing" remarks and actions of she who would be Hillary, Teresa Heinz Kerry, during a recent work-release outing in Seattle. Proving once again that nothing keeps you out of the asylum better than infinity money, her hyper-kenetic ways were on view all over the town , as reported by smiling Joel Connelly of the aptly named Seattle Post-Intellingencer . [Italics added]:

"Nobody told me what to do," she told a Saturday fund-raiser here.

How many millions of votes the free-wheeling Teresa Heinz Kerry cost her husband is unknown but as her own step-children have noted, you don't cross the "Step-Money," especially if she owns the plane. Speaking of which...

Heinz Kerry flew into town on her own Gulfstream jet (the Flying Squirrel, named for a Sun Valley ski run) direct from a conference on global philanthropy at Stanford.

She talked energy-efficient building design with Seattle Art Museum boss (and old friend) Mimi Gates. She dined at Wild Ginger and flew back east with takeout food from the Third Avenue restaurant.

After her energy-efficiency meet-up, we assume she sold The Flying Squirrel and took Southwest back home thus improving the ozone and fighting global warming one private jet trip at a time. Right? Right.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 8, 2005 5:37 PM |  Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Everybody's Working for the Weekend, Everybody's Going Off the Deep End

HOT MOVEON.ORG HOUSE PARTY

Conscientious Objection- resisting the draft (8 registered participants)
95 Horatio Street #224
New York, NY
This gathering will provide information about Conscientious Objection: what it is, how to prepare a CO file, and how people of all ages can participate in resisting the draft. If there is time at the end we can discuss other MoveOn agenda issues, but the focus will be on the main topic.
West Village, just south of meatpacking district.
Thursday, March 10, 07:00 PM
Just south of meatpacking and a couple of decades late, but who's counting?


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 8, 2005 8:45 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
"Not My Will, But Thine, O Lord"

I REMEMBER VISITING THE EDITORIAL FLOORS OF NEWSWEEK IN NEW YORK every so often. High up. Carpeted. A relaxed humm of 'damn it we're important' permeating the place. But that was then and this is a now in which Newsweek and its ilk grow smaller and more out-of-it every passing week. This week's case in point is a vile and smarmy little scribble about the Pope, He Has Willpower—But No 'Living Will' . In it, the obviously secular and utterly clueless Christopher Dickey has the temerity to write:

Yet this same pontiff who continues to assert his will in the daily life of the church has given his doctors no instructions about how to sustain his life, or not, should he slip into a persistent coma. Could anyone -- would anyone -- pull the plug? And under what circumstances?
You will have to read through many, many copies of the Weekly World News to come across a dumber insight or hook for a story than that one. Christopher Dickey obviously enjoys some special protected status at Newsweek to be able to file such tripe and still draw a paycheck.

Most people would know, without a lot of reflection, that the Pope by definition is not going to be into the artificial shortening of life either before birth or on the edge of death. It has to do with something called surrendering to God's will and abnegating one's own will; the "Thy Will Be Done" syndrome. This is pretty much stock intellectual and spiritual equipment when it comes to Popes of the Roman Catholic Church. You'd think someone assigned, however briefly, to the Vatican Beat by Newsweek would understand that. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Someone should bring Christopher Dickey home before he starts writing articles on which organs the Pope should donate and why.


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 1, 2005 3:14 PM |  Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a CNN News Bimbo

SHARON COLLINS, ONE OF CABLE NEWS' VAST SELECTION OF BLONDE NEWS BIMBOS, is clearly not ready for day time much less prime time.

About 10 minutes ago on CNN Headline News, Ms. Collins took a report from a CNN reporter in Florida who was summing up the last few hours' moves by Terri Schiavo's parents to save their child through the court "system." After the reporter wrapped up, Ms. Collins looked into the camera with an expression of exasperated sympathy and said, "For a lot of us covering this, it's beginning to feel a lot like Groundhog Day."

You remember Groundhog day as should Sharon Collins. Especially this little moment:

Phil: There is a major network interested in me.
Larry: That would be the Home Shopping Network.

Susan, buff your resume, eat salads, and keep going to the gym.


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 1, 2005 12:24 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
No Dolls for Oil! -- The Moron Brigade of Mainstream Media Marches On
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This image of what appears to be a captured US soldier was posted on an Iraqi militant website, Tuesday Feb. 1, 2005. According to the website, the militants threatened to behead the hostage in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The claim could not be verified.(AP Photo) --My Way News Photo - IRAQ SOLDIER
It "could not be verified" because the stringers, reporters, editors, and other extinct lifeforms that work for the Associated Press, didn't take the time to trot on down to TOYS R' US, or run a search under Dragon action figure Cody .

Somebody really needs to PayPal the AP ten bucks to pay for "Searching, Internet."

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Feb 1, 2005 2:59 PM |  Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Science Made Stupid Online

Long ago, when I was an editor of books, one of my best moments was finding and publishing Science Made Stupid by Tom Weller. The book was profoundly insane and insanely funny and rightfully won a Hugo when it was published all the way back in 1986.

Tom Weller was, and I presume is, one of my oldest friends. We go all the way back to Encina High School in 1960. Later we would be roomates for a brief period at the University of California at Berkeley. My first, but not my last, experience with LSD took place with Tom and a couple of other friends and had something to do with a yellow Porsche. I'm not sure exactly what, but it was very important, man.

Later, Tom would become, with David Goines, a graphic designer in Berkeley for a number of groups such as Country Joe and the Fish. Always a strange duck, Tom was both of that era at Berkeley and outside it. He remains there and in much the same state today.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Jan 27, 2005 7:08 PM |  Comments (20)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Frankly, My Dear Bluepers, We Don't Give A Damn

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Berns Rothchild displays several of her "Count Me Blue," political bracelets, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005, in Miami. Rothchild is selling the bracelets on the Web in packages of 10 for $20, and plans to give part of her profits to UNICEF.
[Translation: Don't buy them to give me money, buy them for the children!]

Proving again, if more proof be needed, that their little blue choo-choos have gone round the bend, the blue bracelet crazlet continues to underwhelm an America indifferent to their manias:

Anti-Bush bracelets say, 'Count me blue'

Thousands of miles away, two women in Idaho had the same idea. So did a woman in Kansas. The result? At least three separate bracelet ventures targeting left-leaning citizens who want to wear their political affiliation on their wrists - and at least one competitor bearing the opposite message.

Rothchild, 35, is selling blue bracelets that say "COUNT ME BLUE," while Laura Adams, of Fairway, Kan., offers blue bracelets that say "HOPE." The McKnight family, of Moscow, Idaho, is even more direct; their black bracelets proclaim: "I DID NOT VOTE 4 BUSH."

"It's kind of like saying, 'This is my tribe,'" said Adams, 43, a Kerry supporter, who was inspired by her 14-year-old stepson's yellow Lance Armstrong band.

Yes, it says "Hi, I'm so incoherent that I need to wear something that looks like I've just escaped from a locked ward."


Posted by Vanderleun at Jan 15, 2005 7:03 PM |  Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Numa Numa Original Discovered and Decoded

[FEBRUARY 15: Greetings Numa Numa searchers. You complete, up-to-date Numa Numa links are now at Numa Numa Virus Breakout @ AMERICAN DIGEST ]

picasso.jpg

UPDATE: The origin of the dreaded and dreadful, yet profoundly hypnotic, NUMANUMA has been located. And it is avaiable at this link Now with SUBTITLES! (If you want them.)

We don't think that the addition of the translation improves the item, but then again improvement is not what this item seeks, is it?

SECURITY ALERT: The Numa Numa seems to be spreading and is now infecting the youth of America.

ANDREW SULLIVAN ALERT!: Numa Numa has now reached THE HISPANIC VILLAGE PEOPLE. "Marica Quien? Marica Tu!"

At the same time, the straight world was not slow in coming back with somewhat less colorful Numa Numa as an Office Olympics event.

Then, in a universe far, far away, a bizarre life form in the throes of gender confusion makes a solid case for why webcams need to be outlawed. [NSFS: Not safe for sanity.]

Developing....

[Extra reporting and legwork from Desperately Wandering who is, as they say, "all over this."]


Posted by Vanderleun at Jan 14, 2005 12:06 PM |  Comments (43)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Dems, Print Out And Carry In Wallet and/or Purse

Mark Steyn's little election tutorial for demented Democrats: Election protest shows why Dems don't count

What happens on Election Day is that the Democrats lose and then decide it was because of ''unusually long lines'' in ''minority neighborhoods.'' What ''minority neighborhoods'' means is electoral districts run by Democrats. In Ohio in 2004 as in Florida in 2000, the ''problems'' all occur in counties where the Dems run the system. Sometimes, as in King County in Washington, they get lucky and find sufficient votes from the ''disenfranchised'' accidentally filed in the icebox at Democratic headquarters. But in Ohio, Bush managed to win not just beyond the margin of error but beyond the margin of lawyer. If there'd been anything to sue and resue and re-resue over, you can bet those 5,000 shysters the Kerry campaign flew in would be doing it. Instead, Boxer and Conyers & Co. are using a kind of parliamentary privilege to taint Bush's victory without even the flimsiest pretext.
Please read often and memorize. It becomes tedious to go over this every two years.
HT As the Top of the World Turns


Posted by Vanderleun at Jan 9, 2005 11:49 AM |  Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"For the Discriminating Lunatic"

Everybody talks about tinfoil hats, now...

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Sure, your hat allows you to subvert your oppressors, but let's face it; it makes you look ridiculous. Chances are it's the same origami hat/ship that kids make. What is the alternative, you ask? Designer tin foil hats. Where to find them? Look no further.
-- tfh - tin foil hats
Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 11, 2004 5:21 PM |  Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"Things" You Didn't Know Were "Evil" About America

One of my favorite "interesting links" pages is the elegant things magazine , an offshoot of an annual magazine out of Britain. I recommend it highly. Still, like everything else in the world, it too is infected by a political virus that explodes even things' collective head from time to time. Case in point, this amazing bit of drive-by nonsense:

.... things grow better with Coke: Indian farmers discover the pest-controlling qualities of the world's favourite thirst-quencher. Ironic, given Coke's alleged habit of extracting too much ground-water in the country.

Up until that moment I'd never fully realized that the groundwater crisis in India was due to Coca Cola. I always thought it had something to do with being unable to get basic environmental controls in place and the thermonuclear population bomb. Silly me. It was Coca-Cola all the time.


Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 9, 2004 9:54 AM |  Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Ken Layne Unleashes His Inner Marjoe Gortner

Sigh. You'd hope that the weekend would have given people a chance to just ! chill out ! You would hope that but You'd be wrong! We've seen one person shoot himself at Ground Zero, which (although he was inconsiderate enough not to leave a note) is taken as a "protest" (noted); we've seen the New York Times on one page declare that it is an US that is apart from USA and run a feature calling for "An act of God" to do away with George Bush in the same manner that an Act of God did away with Abraham Lincoln.

With the Democrats' psychotic break approaching the size of the Grand Canyon, its going to be a long four years unless some of George Soros' left over pocket change can be put to work flying in grief counselors from... well, from wherever the grief counselors are stored.

I well understand the dangers of Blogger Head Explosions, having suffered several attacks myself in the last month. (Feeling better now, thank you.) Still the public splattering and spew of KEN LAYNE should give pause to us all. It seems that someone showed him that highly bigoted Jesus Land map that's been making the rounds and it was... well it was just to much for Ken:

I will fight long and hard to prevent this country from becoming a Complete Theocracy -- if you can call the intellectually vapid mishmash of evangelical Christianity a true Theology. Or, maybe you people just take Jesusland. You won't need the economic power of the coasts, because you don't care if you're employed. Your entire economic output will be shoddy Jesus booklets, Christian rock and bad food.
Whew! (And that's only a random sampling of the stuff on the walls over at Ken's.)

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 8, 2004 12:32 PM |  Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"KENNETH, WHAT IS THE BLOGGING CHANNEL?"

Television news' odd couple, Dan Rather and Ed Bradley are still, it seems having trouble coming to grips with the technology that is taking them apart molecule by molecule. Witness this telling exchange courtesy of Roger L. Simon's "Blogging Machine" here

DAN RATHER: One would expect that the blogging machine which the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign has used for any number of purposes over their four years will start now, if it hasn't started already, to say, listen, Kerry-Edwards, for the good of the country, need to concede.

ED BRADLEY: I'm sure it's started already. If we could tune into the Internet we'd see that people are already saying that now. That's certainly the drum the White House is beating.
[Emphasis added]

Now I don't want to go off on a rant here....

Well, okay. Short form.

It seems to me that with all the CBS producers, interns, and assistants backing up these two overpaid and over-hyped professional blatherers, someone, somewhere could give them a reach-around and explain that the "Internet Channel" is Channel #15,648 on the dial and that "Your arms too short to box with Internet." [Bradley will get the reference. Not sure about Rather.]

More sophisticated users might point them towards IRC, but since it is obvious neither has mastered touch-typing (Key Internet Skill # 1, 2, 3, 4....) I'm not looking for them to show up there any time soon.

The question is whether or not these media fossils' company Viacom will buy them a clue or simply buy out their contracts.

Better still, both Radley and Blather need to heed those few simply words spoken by their arch-nemisis Dick Cheney at the Republican Convention of 2000: "But, my friends, that last hour is coming. That last day is near. The wheel has turned, and . . . it is time for them to go."


Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 3, 2004 11:59 AM |  Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"The Note" -- for Dummies

For the chatty, ironic and oh-so-inside-baseball daily screed The Note to be without a chatty, ironic and inside item on ABC News' now infamous "Halperin Memo" is a serious disappointment. Especially since the foremost writer credited at ABC News: The Note: "Myopic Misread of the American Electorate" is Mr. Halperin himself.

Surely an organization that has "the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying" (to quote from the memo) can use those same resources to explain and illuminate what sort of ideological bullet was scrambling Mr. Halperin's brain when he created the memo.

Since the Drudge revelation of last Friday many in the blogsphere (as well as the remnant of sensible souls in the mainstream media) have been united in their call for Mr. Halperin's gaping head at the tip of a spike. We dissent.

We do not feel Mr. Halperin should be sacked for fawning and tugging the forelock before the Kerry-Heinz fountain of future funding for books yet unwritten. To sack Mr. Halperin for that would mean that the terrorists of media tedium have won. Without these clueless examples of bias arising dependably from the media swamps of Manhattan, much of the blogsphere would sink back into the state of Live Journal from which it arose.

Under no circumstances should this unfortunate lad be fed to the Drudge-besotted hordes of the blogsphere for mere run-of-the-mill media bias.

No, he should be dismembered in the public square for being unable to write a coherent sentence.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Oct 11, 2004 3:22 PM |  Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Sitting in the Same Room, Inhabiting Different Universes

FOR MANY YEARS I LABORED under the impression that being a columnist for the New York Times meant, at the very least, you were somewhere north of blood simple. But I was young and blood simple myself.

Blood simple is, it would seem, part of the job description for many Times columnists. It may have something to do with the dyslexia of the Publisher or it may simply be post-mortem effects as the Times, having lost large chunks of circulation thanks to bias and bogus reporting that is woven deep into its corporate culture, strives to hang on to the true believers that are left it.

In any case, one simply cannot take on all the blood simple pap that these scribblers spew. Life is too short and lunch is too long.

Still, every so often, there's a real poser that creeps through the shields and lands on the retina with a resounding d'oh -- a hit, a palpable hit. Exhibit A from today is Bob Herbert's The Real Enemy Staring Us in the Face in which he is not referencing the mirror.

In rolling towards the end of his allotted turn upon the page, Herbert delivers himself of the oft-repeated plaint that if things are so dangerous here at home we need to get serious about Afghanistan. He posits an attack on the US timed

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Jul 12, 2004 10:49 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
Alien in 30 seconds with bunnies.

No bunnies were harmed in the making of this re-enactment.

Why? Because.


Posted by Vanderleun at Jul 10, 2004 9:27 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
First Our Objects Were Unidentified, Then Our Crops Were Circled, Then Our Cattle Were Bored, and Now We're Being "Chemtrailed!"

FILE UNDER: "Mixed Nuts of America"

"A week or so ago I saw 12 different trails making an * rather than an X. One jet went straight and then turned exactly on one of the lines and paralleled it. If these were commercial flights, I would be really nervous to have so many planes converging on one central axis. I was driving at the time and til I got back they had blended into one grey scummy cloud. I was really sorry I missed that shot.

I'm not convinced they are deliberately trying to spread disease or affect our health, could be a by-product or not happening at all...then again.....
-- BELLACIAO - Conversations on Chemtrails- The truth about what is happening in America - Collective Bellaciao

Then again, perhaps alien octopi are walking along your ceiling hoping for a ghost squid sandwich. Dilute! Ciao!

[HT: THE STEEL DEAL, who really gets around. Check him out.]


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 25, 2004 8:35 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
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