The Top 40

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:56 PM | Your Say (2)

I marvel at the feeling of innovative stagnancy out here, especially considering the existence of many of the country's tech giants. Still, it feels like everyone is driving, dressing, building, writing, painting and thinking in the 60's and 70's, and I don't see any hope for it. This cradle of internet retailing, technological innovation and software development has no sense of momentum whatsoever, no feeling of being a national frontruner in any social, cultural or political category at all. -- The Dipso Chronicles: MFOB-Alpha

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

November 29, 2008

As they came out on to the street between two hotels targeted by the terrorists, they and their son Abbas, 22, were singled out by the terrorists. They ordered Abbas to stand aside and he was then forced to watch as they opened fire on his parents, killing them both.

"What angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

Under questioning, Kasab is said to have admitted to being a resident of Faridkot in Pakistan's Punjab province. 'I was trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba and asked to cause maximum casualties in Mumbai.'

According to Indian media reports, the captured militant said that a room booked in the Taj had been used to store explosives and ammunition ahead of the attacks. This might explain how the squads of gunmen were able to reload their weapons over more than 50 hours and appeared to have an inexhaustible supply of grenades.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:41 PM | Your Say (0)

Did some Mumbai locals provide support to the Pakistani terrorists? Azam Amir Kasab, the only Pakistani terrorist nabbed alive, has revealed names and addresses of at least five people from the city who helped the terror operation.... Kasab has told police that they were sent with a specific mission of targeting Israelis to avenge atrocities on Palestinians. This was why they targetted Nariman House, a complex meant for Israelis. Sources said Kasab's colleagues killed in the operation had stayed in Nariman House earlier.

Posted by Vanderleun at 3:52 PM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:16 PM | Your Say (0)

This morning over breakfast one of my favorite relatives turned to me as he smeared strawberry jam on his raisin toast, "I say, my dear, this attack in Mumbai, India worries me a lot."

The economic meltdown hasn't altered Americans' self-centered world view. (yay?) According to Buzzfeed, America's top five Google searches during the Mumbai attacks included "sears, pam dawber, mork and mindy." Two victims of the Mumbai attacks were Americans Alan Scherr and his daughter Naomi. The pair were traveling with a religious group called the "Synchronicity Foundation," which managed to be the 4th most popular search term.

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:07 PM | Your Say (0)

When your waistband feels too snug, reach for the Waistband Stretcher. You don't have to get rid of your favorite jeans, skirts or slacks thanks to this simple waist-band stretching device that lets you add from 1-5 inches (depending on size of garment) to the waist.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:38 PM | Your Say (1)

The best way to deal with these liberal tax and spend governments is as follows. When the economy is down and they are hurting for money thats the time to tighten your belt and quit spending. A broke government is a pork trimming government.

You can simply pull your money out of the bank and put it in a safe deposit box. You can buy your stuff used on Ebay.

Starve the beast, because 7% government growth is not compatible with 3% wage growth.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:52 AM | Your Say (0)

November 28, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:21 PM | Your Say (0)

November 27, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:54 AM | Your Say (0)

It seems the ‘religion of peace’ has again done what it does best, the only thing it really does at all, the thing it has been doing since Mohammed hightailed it from Mecca to Medina. The singular area of expertise evinced by Islam for 1400 years is nothing more grandiose than killing. For Islam demands blood—lots of it, oceans of it—and any blood will do. If an American or a Jew is unavailable then the blood of a Moslem will suffice. The killing is the thing.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:01 AM | Your Say (4)

SharjeelSayed: #Mumbai: All terrorists killed at Taj less than a minute ago ｷ Reply ｷ View Tweet

daltonsbriefs: Air New Zealand plane went down into Sea off France per CNN 31 minutes ago ｷ Reply ｷ View Tweet

waterforfff: Air New Zealand is one of the better ... http://www.top5online.info/savegas about 1 hour ago ｷ Reply ｷ View Tweet

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

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:11 AM | Your Say (0)

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

Without leverage, the clever folk around Barack Obama are fleas without a dog. None of them invented anything, introduced an important new product, opened a new market, or did anything that reached into the lives of ordinary people. They wore expensive cufflinks, read balance sheets, exercised regularly, sat on philanthropic boards, and assumed that their flea's ride on the Reagan dog would last forever.

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:32 AM | Your Say (0)

A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible's camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—"elbowed" Magnapinna squid.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:36 AM | Your Say (0)

Where to start, and where to end? There is not a single redeeming feature to this program - the entertainment equivalent of the innermost circle of hell, where ignorance and hot flashes meet - culminating in loony tunes conspiracy theories and crying jags. Joy Behar realized early in life that opinions require no factual basis - just stare at the camera and say, "isn't he a big jerk?" about no one else but Bush. Barbara Walters pretends to be the classy one - but really she's just a carnival barker trapped in a Mary Kay nightmare. -GUTFELD'S FIRST ANNUAL TURKEY BOWL

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:27 AM | Your Say (0)

November 26, 2008

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees' beliefs, perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party - or else package everything up for you to take home in a little foil doggy bag. Will that work? Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to the toilets, Gays are allowed to sit with each other, Lesbians do not have to sit with gay men, each will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangements for the gay men's table too. To the person asking permission to cross dress - no cross dressing allowed. We will have booster seats for short people. Low fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food we suggest those people with high blood pressure taste the food first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics; the restaurant cannot supply 'No Sugar' desserts. Sorry! Did I miss anything?!?!
Pauline.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:46 PM | Your Say (1)

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:31 AM | Your Say (0)

November 25, 2008

"Contrary to the mass conceit of the Obama campaign, it is more this chauvinism and not a post-racial, global consciousness upon which Barack Obama depends. Escaping us is the irony of this moral bludgeon being wielded by a man far more likely to be descended from Kenyan (as well as European) slave traders than black American slaves. Again, there is no environmental history of blackness for Barack to call upon, only the birthright bestowed by his transitory father; only, in the end, the color of his skin and the features of his face. Barack Obama is a white liberal living out the exquisite dream of actually being black. More relevantly, he is an ambitious politician taking advantage of it." - Deconstructing Barry @ Untethered

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:53 PM | Your Say (0)

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.

"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet." - iowahawk: Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post

Posted by Vanderleun at 5:39 PM | Your Say (0)

I loved you when our love was blessed,
And I love you now there's nothing left,
But sorrow and a sense of overtime.
And I miss you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.
Looks like freedom but it feels like death.
It's something in betwen, I guess.
It's closing time
....

We're drinking and we're dancing,
But there's nothing really happening.
The place is dead as heaven on a Saturday night.
And my very close companion
Gets me fumbling, gets me laughing,
Shes a hundred but shes wearing
Something tight.

I lift my glass to the awful truth,
Which you cant reveal to the ears of youth,
Except to say it isn,t worth a dime.
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice,
And its once for the devil and its once for Christ.
But the boss don't like these dizzy heights.
We're busted in the blinding lights
Of closing time.

-- Leonard Cohen | Closing Time

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:43 AM | Your Say (2)

November 24, 2008

A distant relative of microscopic amoebas, the grape-sized Gromia sphaerica was discovered once before, lying motionless at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. But when Mikhail Matz of the University of Texas at Austin and a group of researchers stumbled across a group of G. sphaerica off the coast of the Bahamas, the creatures were leaving trails behind them up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) long in the mud.

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:57 AM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:17 AM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:41 AM | Your Say (1)

November 23, 2008

"The essence of our proposed solution is that the lights of the traffic lights should be placed square. This improvement enhances the visibility and awareness of signals, the area zasvetki within the existing dimensions becomes higher."

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:46 PM | Your Say (1)

November 22, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:07 PM | Your Say (2)

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:04 PM | Your Say (0)

Insect Good Samaritans Jeannette Brandt and Mike Parwana rescued this monarch butterfly from a roadside in rural Hadley, N.Y., and patched its broken wing with two white splints. When it regained its health, they persuaded a trucker to drive it to Florida and release it.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:28 AM | Your Say (2)

Posted by Vanderleun at 9:35 AM | Your Say (0)

November 20, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:35 AM | Your Say (1)

November 18, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 10:01 PM | Your Say (4)

Wednesday, November 19

• Big Clue. Pay attention:

  Legacy media companies can’t create a new business model for news and journalism by themselves. They have to work TOGETHER, to build a network — a giant network of much smaller pieces, loosely joined. - The market and the internet don’t care if you make money - Publishing 2.0

• Second Big Clue. Pay attention again.

  "You can decide to hassle your readers (oh, I mean your customers) and you can decide that a book on a Kindle SHOULD cost $15 because it replaces a $15 book, and if you do, we (the readers) will just walk away. Or, you could say, "if books on the Kindle were $1, perhaps we could create a vast audience of people who buy books like candy, all the time, and read more and don't pirate stuff cause it's convenient and cheap..." -- Seth Godin discusses free content and the publishing industry

• BibliOdyssey: Five Centuries of Board Games
• When you got it, flaunt it! "As I mentioned in my book -- which has now been in the Amazon top two million for 93 consecutive weeks..."
• Abandon Ship!

  Unlike cars, wooden and fiberglass boats have virtually no scrap value. So rather than pay the high cost of hauling their boats to the dump, people ditch them or sell them for as little as $1 to anyone who will take them. The boats often break up and go under, or pass into the underground economy of nighttime scuttlers_ who, for a fee, remove traceable identification numbers, strip out salvageable items and sink the vessels.

• Danger Room Debrief: Gang Threat Could Top Al Qaeda, Mr. President-Elect
• Jim Jones, American Leftist Pet Flynn Files -- Don't Drink the Kool-Aid on Jonestown

  A man who killed more African Americans than the Ku Klux Klan was awarded a local Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and won the plaudits of California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally, state assemblyman Willie Brown, radical academic Angela Davis, preacher/politician Jesse Jackson, Black Panther leader Huey Newton, and other African American activists.

• Amazon Fights 'Wrap Rage' With Easy-Open Packaging

  The Web retailer's Frustration-Free Packaging initiative aims to reduce the plastic clamshells, coated wire ties, and fasteners that drive consumers crazy.

• Varifrank: How To Stop Piracy: A Primer Numero Uno: Kill them. And the towns they rode in from.
• How old is the Internet?
• Mere Rhetoric: Obama's Top NSA And CIA Picks: Harsh On Israel, Sympathetic To Iran And Hezbollah
• D’JEver Notice?

  The democrats lose votes with their evil stupid plans to inject pointlessness into things…like making money…following the law…defending the country. Every little thing anybody can do — except oppose Republicans — they want to make a little bit tougher, a little bit less rewarding.

• Milky Way's Black Hole Sending Out Flares | Universe Today
• Freespace: Who's the anti-intellectual?

  "The left has long been the welcoming home of fashionable postmodern nonsense like deconstructivism and moral and cultural relativism.... The left is fond of violence and power, and the romanticism and iconography of thugs who are transformed into celebrities among leftist intellectuals. Liberals are this country’s leading practitioners of race and gender politics."

• Couple Divorces After Husband Is Caught Banging Virtual Prostitute In Second Life
• Unqualified Reservations: Barack Obama, for the last time

  Seriously, folks, it's already evident from his first week in office (since presidential power is primarily persuasive, the "-elect" doesn't mean much) that President Obama is exactly what I guessed: nothing. A Gatsby, a Zelig, a warm breeze in a suit. A bright, but completely characterless and forgettable, young man, with an unusual but hardly unique talent for reading speeches on TV. In short, America's new anchorman.

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:43 AM | Your Say (0)

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:00 AM | Your Say (2)

November 17, 2008

Tuesday, November 18

• Sippican Cottage: California's Broke And I Don't Care

  The Governator has his hand out for federal money. With San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi running congress and some high-powered senators on the other end of the hillhall, he might get a taste. It's a bad idea. When a fellow you know comes up to you at the racetrack and says he's lost all his money because his can't-miss horse threw a shoe, and wants to borrow a few hundred so he can buy groceries to feed his children, you're wise to at least consider that his kids might go hungry no matter what you do.

• Women rule the world. So they say, "Balls in one hand, heart in the other, manipulating the marionette strings, making those boys dance in abnormal ways, we exercise our power with impunity." - Cleopatra's Cat @ Jaded Haven
• Victor Hanson on the Journalism, she is kaput.

  From the New York Times, NPR, PBS, or Newsweek, we will hear little whether Obama is choosing a good or bad team, or said silly things or contradicts what he promised. They simply have lost all credibility and now the republic is left largely with bloggers, talk radio, and a few newspapers as mostly partisan auditors.

• Tarot @ One Cosmos: The Devil and His Chaotic Minions "The card suggests "an eminently practical lesson as to how it happens that beings can forfeit their freedom and become slaves of a monstrous entity which makes them degenerate by rendering them similar to it."
• What do women want? Nothing and everything:

  "The woman may be hoping for a hookup, but she may also be looking for a husband, a co-parent, a sperm donor, a relationship, a threesome, or a temporary place to live. She may want one thing in November and another by Christmas."Love in the Time of Darwinism

• Still more super news about the New York Times: Play, The New York Times' Sports Magazine, Folds Buh-bye.
• He's baack! John Podesta, UFO nutter: The Daily Gut says

  if you believe in progressive ideas, you'll believe in just about anything – including kooky conspiracies concerning the suppression of alien discovery.

• Progressives’ California Dreamin': "Social liberalism has always been a white man’s gig, and the more progressive the politics, the more Caucasian the constituency."
• File under "Even with absolute power the government can't do jack."Plans Stall In Fort Trumbull

  Next month marks the third anniversary of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed the city of New London to use the power of eminent domain. But, not much progress has been made in Fort Trumbull, leaving some wondering whether the homeowners were forced out for nothing.

• 1 Brand New Airbus + Clueless Arab Flight Crew + 1 Retaining Wall = Airbus Piloted Into Wall By Arab Crew Before Takeoff

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

November 16, 2008

• Book offer to Palin gobstops Australian newspaper:US Rebublican [sic] Sarah Palin wooed for $11m book deal | Herald Sun It could have been worse. It could have been "Rebubbacan."
• Two Very Dangerous Words: "Fair" and "Fairness"
• LILEKS (James) :: the Bleat "The curse of the corporately-mandated query." Just "a means for a dying distribution network to extract a few more coins on the way into the grave. "
• 10 tips to spot a fake Rolex
• The hot new trend "Global Cooling" turns out to be catching: Universe may abound with icy planets | COSMOS magazine
• CARPE DIEM: Private or Public School for the Obamas? Public School Teachers Go Private @ Higher % Than Public Public school teachers send their own children to private schools at a rate more than twice the national average--22% of public educators' children are in private schools compared to the national average of 10%.
• America, the Manolo begs of you, please, stop!

  The campaigns are over. Put away the yard signs, and the buttons, and the flyers, and the full-sized votive statue of your favorite candidate that you have carved from sandalwood and hand-painted in realistic colors, and which is now seated in the easy chair in the family room.

• When real looks fake: 50 Beautiful Examples Of Tilt-Shift Photography | Inspiration | Smashing Magazine Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique type of photography in which the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model.

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:06 PM | Your Say (0)

Sunday, November 16

• Morgan's Rules # 1: "Just don’t marry bitches. Marry (or couple up with) sweethearts, and treat ‘em like that’s what they are. Spend your time around someone who wants you to be happy, and you will be." - House of Eratosthenes
  
• Planning ahead? Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer who quarterbacked President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense, has been chosen White House counsel by President-elect Barack Obama.
• Global Warming: A Primer for Kids by Noel @ Cold Fury

  To sum up, Remocrats invented Global Warming in order to do what they wanted to do all along; to tax people, to boss them around, to make mountains of rules for businesses and to take all your Nintendo Wiis and electronic video games and grind them into non-organic Malthusian mulch while forcing you to watch “Arthur” on PBS all day long until their regularly-scheduled power brown-outs force you to go to bed at dark just like the cavemen did. And they all lived happily–if nastily, brutishly and shortly–ever after. The End.

• "First, they should seek experience, not just numbers."Dazzled by digits: how we're wooed by product specifications
• American Thinker: Orwell's Children

  Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.

• Spam sales up "What would explain it is if people are not just poor, but poor and some combination of lazy, bad cooks, and/or bad shoppers." Add in just plain stupid and you've got it.
• Belmont Club - Que sera, sera And now... "government assisted immigration fraud driven by the fact that since there weren't enough Spanish-language teachers to instruct immigrants, schools had to import illegal immigrants to teach them."
  
• SteynOnline - DOUBLE-O BAMA

  "If the default mode of a society’s institutions is liberal, electing GOP legislators eventually accomplishes little more than letting a Republican driver take a turn steering the liberal bus. If Hollywood’s liberal, if the newspapers are liberal, if the pop stars are liberal, if the grade schools are liberal, if the very language is liberal to the point where all the nice words have been co-opted as a painless liberal sedative, a Republican legislature isn’t going to be a shining city on a hill so much as one of those atolls in the Maldives being incrementally swallowed by Al Gore’s rising sea levels."

• Poor boy no more: Sir Bob Geldof wants $100,000 for anti-povery speech | The Daily Telegraph - a speakers fee that included the cost of luxury hotel rooms and first-class airfares.
• Cabinet of Wonders: Blogs as Wunderkammern

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:26 AM | Your Say (0)

November 14, 2008

Saturday, November 15

• More poetry from mid-heaven @ Flight Level 390: Almost Full Moon "The local time is 0230 hrs. It is the deepest, coldest part of the night. Outside, the winds are on our tail at 126 mph; air temperature is sixty below. My co-pilot, thirty-two years old and father of three small children, is looking at the stars, too."
  
• Karl Rove on Joe Biden: "I think he has an odd combination of longevity and long-windedness that passes for wisdom in Washington."
  
• The Dipso Chronicles: BEER! What is it GOOD for? "Beer is supposed to be the anti-wine. It is for people who are not pretentiously spitting mouthfuls into buckets while talking about the subtle notes of the bouquet. Beer is for the men who are not willing to be turned into women by their women through the nut-snipping trend of wine-snobbery that has thoroughly taken over the world."
  
• There's really only one Vagina Monologue that counts at Huffpo, fools. Is Arianna's HuffPo Sexist? | The New York Observer
  
• 6 Lessons in Manliness from James Bond | The Art of Manliness
  
• Jules Crittenden on a rockin' roll with Why Palin Matters

  "No More Mr Nice Blog wonders why it took gaptoothedRepublican inbreeds so long to choose a backwoods ignoramus as their leader. Good point. Democrats shone the light down this path a long time ago, with the Georgia peanut farmer, the Arkansas trailer-park troller, and now with an urban twist, the Chicago community organizer."

• Dear Hillary, The circus called: they want their tent back

• Varifrank: You know youre not supposed to take those ads seriously dont you? but I just dont think that the 'before and after' picture is the same person. I just have a hunch. I can't quite put my finger on why I feel this way, I just do.
  
• The Road to Hell Is Paved with Cash You Send to Celebrity Charities "Bono’s charity is called One. As in chartering One plane for almost $300,000, and spending almost $10,000 on tickets for One U2 concert."

• 1800s Vampire Killing Kit

  Made in America roughly 200 years ago, this authentic Vampire Killing Kit came stocked ready to battle bloodsucking creatures of night with stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles and garlic. Housed in an American walnut case with crosses carved in the top, it recently sold at auction for $14,850.

  [Note: A bit too good to be true. I suspect this might be a fake.]

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:06 PM | Your Say (2)

almost at the equator
almost at the equinox
exactly at midnight
from a ship
the full

moon

in the center of the sky.

Gary Snyder
Sappa Creek near Singapore
March 1958

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:56 AM | Your Say (1)

November 13, 2008

Friday, November 14

• A prayer for Obama: "I pray each night that Barack Obama gets up healthy and stays that way -- since the idea of Joe Biden as President is as frightening as Sarah Palin is not." - Victor Hanson
  Jules Crittenden -- Valkyrie For War Czar

  "I am imploring the Obama administration to unbolt Hillary from whatever Democratic dungeon she's been strapped down in for the last three months, and inform that hard, pipe-hitting politician that her job is to get medieval on the asses of America's enemies. And give her the leather girdle, the zipper mask, the whip, the pliers and the blowtorch to do it with."

• Wallets Wide Shut -or - "In October nobody bought nothing."
  
• The Senate?

  "A stodgy enclave of self-satisfied jobbers, whose famed collegiality is the precise cause of their inertia and circular jerkism. Do you know what a Senator can do? He can vote. Big fucking deal. Oh, he/she can also chair, and preside, and strut, and preen, and actually even have their cock-swapping lobbyists craft legislation for them. But at the end of Gaia's axel the only power they truly wield is the laughingly impotent vote. One vote of 100. Hell, I can garner more clout than that in a Daytona Beach Harley bar wearing bicycle pants." - Velociworld: Requiem for a Lightweight; a Prologue

• The Futile Quest for Climate Control and the principle of "Noble Cause corruption."
  
• Succinct and to the point: "The reason no one can defend traditional marriage anymore is because in this country all marriage is gay marriage." -Wheat & Weeds: Gay Divorcees
  
• Cool Tools: The Japan Woodworker
  
• GM = Walking Death "The end of all this will be GM in the grave. But not yet. First we will witness the walking death of GM through the first Obama term, administered by industrial undertakers and union ghouls and their cheerless PACs."
  
• "The only way they'll get my sperm is when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers!"

  Britain is facing a sperm donor shortage after reversing confidentiality laws and limiting the number of women who can use sperm from one donor, fertility experts warned Wednesday. Britain in 2005 changed the law protecting anonymous sperm donors and allowed children to learn the identity of donor fathers - one reason, fertility experts say, there are fewer donors now. - U.K. Facing Sperm Donor Shortages

• Don't drop that drill -- Greens Pave Way for Republican Comeback

Posted by Vanderleun at 2:46 PM | Your Say (3)

November 12, 2008

Thursday, November 13

• Quarter Pounder, or, Mickey D Goes Naked: No Golden Arches, No Clowns - McDonalds Japan Goes No-Brand
  
• Jeff Jarvis to Ron Rosenbaum BuzzMachine There, there, Ron ..,and, oh yes, shove it.
  
• Dept. of Really Bad Ideas: Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her face
  
• Face Injectors? Stupid. Somali Pirates? Double Stupid.

  Royal Navy in firefight with Somali pirates Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

  
  
• Cue Scripture Passage Re: "False Prophets" Belmont Club » Self-licking ice cream cones

  €œThe only thing to fear is fear itself. € And to banish fear what is required is more faith. And this, only a prophet can provide. Unfortunately, Barack Obama may not actually be a prophet. He might be a politician from Chicago.

  
  
• CARPE DIEM: Gas Falls to $1.63 Per Gallon in KC Costco and Casey's lead the pack. [Seattle's still hovering at $2.50.]
  
• World Faw Down. Go Boom - The End of Wall Street's Boom - National Business News by Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker)

  “It was like feeding the monster,” Eisman says of the market for subprime bonds. “We fed the monster until it blew up.”

  
  
• Got a light? Secret Rocket Balls Target WMD Bunkers

  "One solution is replacing the standard explosive or incendiary with a load of kinetic fireballs, described in this proposal. Each fireball is a hollow spherical shell with a hole in it; when the inside is ignited, the hole acts as a rocket nozzle. The kinetic fireballs eject an extremely high-temperature exhaust which will heat up the surrounding volume to over 1,000 F within seconds. Their random ricocheting around ensures that they will fill any space they occupy, and they are capable of diffusing throughout a multiroom structure."

• The Pro-Actionary Principle Kevin Kelly -- The Technium "Prohibition does not work with technology. Absolute prohibition produces absolute outlaws."
  
• Doug Ross notes "Those who say we have only 3% of the world's oil are lying." Of course they are. That's what they do best.
  
• Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline - Security Fix

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:04 PM | Your Say (0)

Wednesday, November 12

• "The whole world is “in turmoil” and disaster looms on every corner." So let's do what we always do during strait times... Let’s Go Christmas Shopping! with The Anchoress!
  
• Coyote Blog: Republicans to Receive Bailout from Congress
  
• How to save 40,000 postal jobs: "Mandate that the entire federal government use the United States Postal Service, and the USPS alone, for sending all of its correspondence and goods. No more Fedex, no more UPS, and no more DHL..." Postal Woes ｫ Acre of Independence
  
• The Accidental Cure? A Doctor, a Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS - WSJ.com "The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he appears to have won his battle with AIDS. Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days."
  
• Federalist Paupers on Why We Need Better Elites Honestly, our present elites suck. They really do condescend, and their ideas are awful.
  
• The Apotheosis of George Washington

  These old-fashioned commodities are generally thrown into the back ground of the picture, and treated, as the grandees at the London and Paris routs, treat their good old aunts and grandmothers, huddling them together in the back rooms, there to wheeze and cough by themselves, and not depress the fine laudanum-raised spirits of the young sparklers.

• Curious Expeditions presents The Curious Playboy If life at its grandest is your oyster, then Willie K. Vanderbilt II was born a pearl.
• Beyond wishful thinking: "The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don't think a diet of hope is going to cover it."- Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
  
• Everything you recycle is headed for the same landfill.As world demand falls, prices for recyclables go in dumper
  
• Unqualified Reservations: President Obama, with a little perspective "In case you hadn't noticed, the current euphemism for "communist" is "progressive."
  
• How OxFam Perpetuates Poverty (and thereby itself)Painting Pictures of Poverty — Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy
  
• If you liked their wars, you'll love their economics: Coyote Blog: European-Style Political Economy Coming to America
  
• Buzzkill from Mars: Phoenix is Dead, Spirit is Failing

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:30 AM | Your Say (1)

November 11, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 7:40 PM | Your Say (1)

As for conservatives and mainstream libertarians: forget it. You've lost. You're in roughly the same position as a Southern segregationist in 1968. History may or may not vindicate your cause, but it has determined your chance of victory, which is zero. If you have a life, go live it. If not, now is probably a good time to get one.

In the era of Barack Obama, Washington is one thing. It is progressive from top to bottom, east to west, and ass to elbow. Everyone with a real role in governing America, whether in the White House or the civil service, in the press or on the Hill, at Harvard or at State, in the Wilderness Society or on the Supreme Court, is a communist. I exaggerate, of course - slightly. But if you have fantasies of reforming this thing, of making it conservative or libertarian or whatever, you're either a fool or a fraud. Now and for the foreseeable future, you are for Washington or you're against it. And if we have Barry Obama to thank for that, God bless Barry Obama....

You don't like that plan? Okay, here's another plan. Form militant evangelical Christian sects on college campuses. Disrupt classes, hold violent masked rallies, invade the dean's office, crap on the desk. Maybe you can recruit a biker or prison gang or two, like the Mongols or the Aryan Brotherhood, for muscle. Make people fear you. Don't be afraid of a punch-up or two. And make demands: a Christian studies department for every college or university, abolition of ethnic studies and affirmative action, daily prayer and hymn-singing, the sky's the limit. Create some change. Be an activist. Read Alinsky. Kick some ass.

You know the only problem with my Christian-biker plan, dear conservatives? It can't possibly succeed, because your enemies aren't as stupid as you.

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:08 PM | Your Say (0)

November 10, 2008

Tuesday, November 11

• Rules? In a KNIFE fight?:

  "Are you going to have to play by the McCain Rules because the GOP will disown you if you go to the mat against the Democrats and do what it takes to win, the way George H.W. Bush did in 1988? Will the Republicans have your back if you play to win? Or are you going to be expected to be good loser like John McCain in 2008—and still get smeared as a racist by the media in the bargain?" - Sailer @ VDARE

• AP sez... Obama to use executive orders for immediate impact
• LILEKS, James asks: "Will executive unilateralism remain a bad thing, a threat to our rights, or suddenly gain favor with old critics? Hmmmm. Cue the Jeopardy! theme. That's a stumper."
  
• 'Digital dark age' may doom some data (Much as too much alliteration dooms headlines.)
  
• "I don’t want loyalty. I want loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smell like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket." Lyndon Baines Johnson
  
• The Genetic Roots of the War on Terrorism (SWJ Blog)
  
• Fatacular "We Americans have eaten our way to the top. It's been a decade since we claimed the title of the fattest people in the industrialized world."
  
• Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image: Are our Ideologies our Idols? @ The Anchoress

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:54 PM | Your Say (1)

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:43 PM | Your Say (0)

November 9, 2008

Monday, November 10

• King of the World "It's important that President-elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one." -Valerie Jarrett, the newly appointed co-chair of the president-elect’s transition team. [HT Moonbattery]
  
• Post-election celebrations continue in Iraq: Baghdad double bombing kills 25
  
• ThreatsWatch.Org: 'Unproven Missile Defense Systems' Are 'Proven' To Russians
  
• Well worth looking at: Jules Crittenden's (Hot) Reporter Investigated For Looting
  
• Pause.... and Begin Again: A Flag, on a Hill by Bill Whittle
  
• Tom Lord on ritual, knowledge and the web

  As we more and more intrusively let the Net redefine "friendship," "reputation," "freedom," "collaboration," and "knowledge," we are turning our attention away from the real social order and we're turning our backs on the Enlightenment entirely.

• The Name Game #169 "Amanda g. & albert M. bring a girl forth and tag her with Aysia Kamora. So now there's a little girl running around who's named after a continent and a fish with a suction cup on its head."
  
• Al Gore Invents Joins Twitter
  
• Stuff White People Like: #115 Promising to Learn a New Language
  
• Open the Future: 80 Hours in the Air-Conditioned Nation Singapore. Briefly.
  
• A nod is as good as a wink:

  "The US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law." -PETER HITCHENS: The night we waved goodbye to America...our last best hope on Earth

• Prometheus - Lies Posing as History"What is it about the climate change debate that causes previously excellent scholars to go absolutely insane and disregard all standards of research integrity?"
  
• Gay LA Cop Says LGBT in California is nuts: ex-Liberal in Hollywood: Gay Activist Opposes Church Protests "As a gay man, who spent years protecting my community as a gay police officer, I am deeply ashamed of my community. I am disgusted with what I have seen, read, and heard."
  
• Unquote: Missing the Mark - WSJ.com "Quotation marks have fallen out of favor, and that's bad for books"

Posted by Vanderleun at 4:49 PM | Your Say (0)

Sunday, November 9

• Erratic Phenomena: Joao Ruas' Haunted World "(I feel it's worth mentioning that João seems to be a bit obsessed with girls in parkas.)"
  
• O-Day! Planning under way for Obama holiday"The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama's honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809." Previous requirements of actually doing something and being dead are off the table.
  
• "Ambling through the grocery store today, looking at all the faces, black, white, and otherwise, I felt a weird sort of elation. Like a weight being lifted, but something more: Soon they'll know. I don't have to keep trying to tell them. They will look back on these days of calm and plenty, and they'll realize what they've done. And so will I. - Breda via Treacher
  
• NatGeo: Unknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe via Doug Ross.
  
• Belmont Club » Acceptance

  When the words "€œnothing can be done" are spoken for individuals they sometimes mean precisely that. For nations the meaning is different. They don'€™t mean everyone will cease exist. But it means they will change into something they never dreamed possible. When Winston Churchill struggled against Hitler, he did not imagine he was fighting to save the individual lives of the populace. They would be needed, even as slaves. He was fighting for the survival of nation in the sense of its conciousness. It'€™s culture. He knew this, but it has been forgotten. And forgetfulness is perhaps the real dementia of civilizations.

  
  
• Walk a mile or two in Honda's robotic legs @ Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
  
• First Images of Asteroid 2008 TC3 Impact Aftermath @ Universe Today The smoky feature is the remnant of the fireball as the 3 meter-wide asteroid blasted through the upper atmosphere, eventually exploding.
  

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:23 AM | Your Say (1)

November 8, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:58 PM | Your Say (4)

November 7, 2008

Saturday, November 8

• American artist Boris Artzybasheff (1899 - 1965) Fought with anti-communist White Russians before immigrating to US (he spoke no English and arrived with 14 cents).
  
• No problem. We've done this thousands of times. World's Largest Truck Goes Robotic Two million pounds of metal, fuel and stone powered by a 3,550-horsepower, 24-valve engine moving at up to 42 miles per hour, with software and a robot at the wheel.
  
• Dave Barry explains it all to you: "What I'm saying is: we, as a nation, need to drink more martinis."
  
• Repairing our reputation? Excuse me but...

  "who have we let down, really? Eurabia? Those wonderful secular humanists, the Chinese? Those delightful chaps raping goats in the mountains of Pakistan?.... Bottom line, the only country that thinks America is a troubling force in the world is America – inside which exists a subset consisting of Associated Press editors, Arianna Huffington and assorted outspoken baristas. It`s a world that`s wrinkly, smelly and has all the substance of an opium hallucination, but with plenty of gray ponytails."

  
  
• Begin at the Beginning, People: Why Media Bias/Progressive Bias Is a Spiritual Problem "Changing the media, except in isolated and individual places, requires a change in the progressive culture which enables it." (Details follow.)
  
• You might think this lead is about Obama -- He sweeps into the press conference like a rock star, dressed in black designer jeans and a black leather jacket.... --but it's not.
  
• The Good Son:Dr. Ronald L. Mallett Space cowboy

  For more than 50 years, he’s been obsessed with finding a way to return to the past. Specifically, to the Bronx, in 1955. That’s the year his father, Boyd Mallet, died. Mallett’s lifelong mission? To traverse spatiotemporal continuum and warn his dad to take better care of himself.

  
  
• Weirdos Ask Google News: Is Obama the Antichrist?
  

Posted by Vanderleun at 1:45 PM | Your Say (0)

Friday, November 7

• Sippican Cottage: What The Discerning Woodworker Listens To

  The fluorescent lights buzz like crazy. On top of that, I've got tinnitus from too many music jobs, too many pneumatic nailgun blasts, and the fever of 104 I had from a tick bite. You think I'm a woodworker, but in my mind, I'm a beekeeper.

  
  
• Lileks - SuddenlyEnlightenedLand " Well, shuck my corn and call me Orville: the red part of the country has been reduced to something that looks like a mild case of contact dermatitis."
  
• CB-1 Obesity Drugs: Farewell to the Whole Lot. "If you think that drug development is a sure road to riches - if anyone still thinks that - then come survey this wreckage and think again."
  
• Telstar Logistics: Video: Disney's 1956 Voyage Around the Moon This was always my idea of a moon rocket. And, at 2:00, my idea of a space station, the Big Wheel.
  
• This Just In: Kobe Bryant Scores 25 In Holy Shit We Elected A Black President
  
• The Toxic Trio of Media Whores Wants to Talk: Palin lays low as interview requests pile up. Gov. Sarah Palin hadn't been back home in Alaska for a full day and her staff had begun fielding requests Thursday for postelection interviews, including from Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, Larry King and others.
  
• That's it. Show's over. Move along. Nothing to see here: Belmont Club "How can BHO can prosecute a war against al-Qaeda when many of his supporters are Leftist or pacifist is a non-trivial challenge."
  
• First dog takes a bite out of slime: Barney snapped, and Rachel Lucas doesn't blame him
  
• War over Pakistan drones on: This is at least the 20th drone strike on Pakistani soil since the start of August and....
  
• Ads on the DC subway -bioephemera : Please pass the nitrogen Wherein "a rosy-cheeked child sucks down pasta, while the ad proudly tells us the main ingredient is fertilizer."
  
• This just in from Al Qaeda:"The Warriors of Jihad Hope that, in the Distant Future, They Will Dwell Under the Roofs of the White House."
  
• Schulz and Peanuts: A biography by David Michaelis "Not only was Snoopy an idol for the Flower Power movement, fighter jocks and grunts in Vietnam went into battle with Snoopy emblazoned on their fuselages or helmets. The dress rehearsal for the moon landing, the Apollo 10 mission, was carried out in a command module called Charlie Brown and a lunar module, Snoopy."
  
• neo-neocon on Post-racial America: show, don't tell"... a post-election TV interview with a group of young black men in an inner city, who each said something like this, "Well, now we have no excuse if we don'€™t make something better of our lives."

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:37 AM | Your Say (2)

November 6, 2008

Thursday, November 6

• Okay, coffee break's over. Everybody back on their heads! Obama win does not end racism, activists say
  
• Ann Coulter : The Reign of Lame Falls Mainly on McCain

  We're all winners because we will never again have to hear McCain say, "my friends."... How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that "moderate," "independent," "maverick" Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?

  
  
• neo-neocon "There’s something so distorting about these political obsessions. Our private loves and our work are so much more important. Of course, that’s the thing: what we fear is that the political will intrude into those private spaces. But I’ve been so hypervigilant that I’ve forgotten to live the life I want to see protected."
  
• Exurban League: Get them while the gettin's good, Part Deux What kind of gun to buy if you're buying only four.
  
• Metaphors don't kill people: First the Bankers Shoot them now. We will turn to the Republican Party pols, collaborators and deserters by name next: who is to be shot, who goes to the Gulag, who just disappears.
  
• iowahawk: Election Analysis: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.
  
• You can't make this shit up, but evidently scientists can: Dried Mushrooms Slow Climate Warming In Northern Forests
  
• Not returning to power soon, if ever:

  As for conservatives and mainstream libertarians: forget it. You've lost. You're in roughly the same position as a Southern segregationist in 1968. History may or may not vindicate your cause, but it has determined your chance of victory, which is zero. If you have a life, go live it. If not, now is probably a good time to get one.

  
  
• Potential Obama Appointments: The burning question now is whether or not blogger Andrew Sullivan will be named "First Lewinski."
  
• Dr. Bob is taking some of his time back:

  Time, too, to shut out much of the noise which has become the norm. No reason to read newspapers or watch TV news — the information they provide is neither valuable nor truthful, and is best ignored, serving only to confuse and propagandize. Far too much time is wasted on the web; popular political blogs — even those with whom I agree — serve mainly to keep one’s outrage at fever pitch.

• At the front of a long line: Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages (Just wait until they look at their witholding in a year or so.)
• Assistant Village Idiot on Refusing To Win Wars We don’t have the stomach for it.
• recessionista (noun): a woman who updates her wardrobe in a frugal manner New word @ The Open Dictionary
  
• Victor Hanson notes that Obamacons will be orphaned since there are too many more liberal in line ahead of them to enjoy Obama's graces...
  
• Sippican Cottage: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Crapi Now A list of only a dozen or so words allowed for naming tract-house neighborhoods.
  
• One Cosmos: Hanging Around the Center of the Cosmos Does anyone imagine that a mere election could ever shift Maher's psychic poles, so that he is not a hardened homunculus of hatred?
  
• Donald Sensing on that war we "won:" Al Qaeda in Iraq will be revived and the country will be embroiled in insurgency civil war.
  
• Hey, let’s have our side give away ice cream too! - Compassionate conservatism, RIP
  
• Craiglist Robber, Caught Back in late September, you'll recall, an enterprising heist-man held up an armored car, deployed decoys hired in a Craigslist ad to distract witnesses, and then escaped by floating down a nearby creek in an inner tube.
  
• Langauge Lessons In case you hadn't noticed, the current euphemism for "communist" is "progressive." ... (But I tire of the C-word - let's go back to calling them "progressives.")

Posted by Vanderleun at 8:54 AM | Your Say (0)

November 4, 2008

Wednesday, November 5

• Enough politics: "The beach ball is nicely balanced upon the barking seal's nose, and we shall see which way it ultimately topples. I, for one, intend to drink heavily regardless."-Velociworld: Dancing with the Devil
  
• "People will flock, like moths to flame, to a way of showcasing some inner decency that is costless."- House of Eratosthenes
  
• Jeremiah 8 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Posted by Vanderleun at 11:23 PM | Your Say (0)

Tuesday. November 4, 2008

Posted by Vanderleun at 12:29 AM | Your Say (3)

November 1, 2008

Sunday, November 2

• Duck! Largest Ever Piece of Space Station Junk to Hit Earth Tomorrow "The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) weighs 1400 lb (635 kg), is the size of two refrigerators and it's going to drop through the atmosphere some time tomorrow (Sunday, Nov. 2nd)."
  
• "Why is Iraq not part of the Pres campaign? Because McCain was spectacularly right. And you can't have that." Maggie's Farm
  
• Mark Steyn: What could be more American than an Undocumented First Family?

  I was away for much of the summer and, when I returned, the entire campaign felt like an absurd satire I wasn't quite up to speed on. But truly, in a world in which the many illegal foreign contributions to the leading candidate's unprecedented fundraising include his own deportation-ordered aunt, satire is dead.

  
  
• The Dipso Chronicles: Rising, But Not Likely To Shine: The Big Seattle Lie - "It never rains this much; you just moved here on a bad year."
  
• “Another Caution: Ignore Projections Based Upon Exit Polling” "You cannot project the winner of a state from the exit polling, because by its very nature, the respondent pool is not representative of the voters themselves."
  
• Book Patrol: Costco the Bookseller An inventory limited to 200 books = "one of the top five booksellers in the country."
  
• "40 percent of women report sexual problems, but only 12 percent are distressed about it." -Now that you know this, you will be killed
  
• The only enduring tragic thing about an Obama win is that we won't get to see Erica Jong and Jane Fonda pour gasoline over each other and strike a match.
  

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

Saturday, November 1

• Gurney Journey: Picasso and Masterpieces of Clown Art
  
• "Woe to that nation governed by a child."
  
• Peggy Noonan notes "God is in charge of history" Whoever is elected Tuesday, his freedom in office will be limited. Mr. Obama is out of money and Mr. McCain is out of army.
  
• Who says there's no good news? Washington Post Co. Earnings Plummet in Third Quarter
  
• Who says there's no good news #2 Al-Qaeda propaganda chief killed in Pakistan strike
  
• Agents of chaos @ House of Eratosthenes Our minds are WAY too open. And yes, there is such a thing. We debate WAY too many things that aren’t really open to question.
  
• A Hillary staffer comes clean: What you were never intended to know in this election
  
• One-Way Mission to Mars: Top 5 Items to Pack
  
• Confederate Yankee: Paint This One Purple
  
• BrothersJudd Blog: WHAT SCARES THE LEFT AND DARWINIST RIGHT about Sarah Palin isn't just her resemblance to W religiously and politically, but that he beat them twice and she's on deck.
  
• Why Can't We Build an Affordable House?
  
• Iraq: The Letter Iraqis now concentrate on more mundane things, like a serious drought, and the difficulties in attracting doctors, and other professionals, back to Iraq.
  
• "My Obama Yard Sign Is Proof of Citizenship."
  
• And so say we all - How Ben Smith at the Politico blogs: "€œIt'€™s really pathological,"€ he conceded.
  
• An excellent and money saving idea: Japanese man petitions to marry comic book wife
  
• Did you remember? - Maggie's Farm Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody?
  
• Saudi Arabia Holds First Beauty Pageant . . . for Sheep
  
• Saturday Sinema: Its “depression era” screwball comedy time @ The Anchoress.
  
• A great man passes: S Studs Terkel dead
  
• What are the biggest things in the Universe all the way down to the smallest? Illustrated.

Posted by Vanderleun at 6:41 AM | Your Say (1)