Partisan Pundit

The Trouser Quandary Resolution: Little-Frigging-In-The-Wold Village School

2006-08-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Trouser Quandary Resolution: Little-Frigging-In-The-Wold Village School

New Post over at Tattered Bits..

2006-06-12T05:06:00.000-07:00

I posted my first real blarticle in a while over at Tattered Bits of Brain entitled "On the public's 'Right to Know.'"

I'm going to be pulling the plug on ol' Partisan Pundit here purty soon, and probably set up a auto-redirect page to refer any remaining visitors over there.

If you were ever kind enough to put a link on your site to my gutterwash, please be kind enough to update it to "Tattered Bits of Brain."

http://bitsofbrain.wordpress.com/

I'm also going to rebuilding my Blogroll, so if you've got a site and want it linked (I'll be keeping most of what I had before), let me know at partisanpundit(at)yahoo.com.

Peace, out.

That there is some hard-nosed mutha$#@$*& reporting, there.

2006-06-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene after an airstrike that led to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi told Associated Press Television News that he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al-Qaida leader.
The witness said he saw the man lying on the ground, badly wounded but still alive. He said U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him. His account cannot be independently verified.

So, lessee here. "Some guy" (read: an unamed source) saw "some guy with a beard" (read: coulda been Zarqawi), and said US troops beat him. And, being the concientous and dedicated professional journalists that we are, we are going to print his completely unsubstanitantiated, uncorroborated, unverified statement (read: utter bullshit) as though it were gospel truth.

Because we are the AP, and it's what we do.

Has it ever occured to these brainless twats that perhaps the reason this individual was the first guy to reach the bombing site was because he was already there?! Out watching Zarqawi's ~~girlfriend~~ goat or maybe the driver of the car that brought the "spiritual advisor" to meet him?

And why did they use the picture of Zarqawi holding the M249 all Rambo like, instead of the pasty, bloody remains of his face that everyone else is using?

I am, at times, embarrassed by my Journalism degree.

(h/t to Gut Rumbles, one of my new favorite blogs..)

Time to build an Ark

2006-06-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

It has rained for two weeks straight here in Okinawa. Not just the usual oh, a little sun, a little rain. It has poured, nearly non-stop, for two solid weeks. No sun, clouds, water everywhere.

This is why I left Seattle. Well, that and the nightmarish traffic.

I think I'm starting to mold.

DING DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!!!

2006-06-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

Zarqawi is partying with the other 10,000 or so of his buddies hanging around Meccah or wherever it is they go.

I can only hope that is was a Marine F/A-18 that dropped the bomb on his despicable head.

And the response from our boys at Al Queda News and Views?
"We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom of the mujahed sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,"

Damn straight, boys. It's joyous news indeed. Hear that? Coalition forces continue to spread joy in Iraq.

I could just sit around all day long thinking up innovative and creative ways to fill those Al Queda boys with all sort of joy and happiness. Yup, make it a full time avocation I could.

Update:

Did I mention already how DEAD Zarcheesi is?

Stolen from Six Meat Buffet

...and, sadly, it was apparently a couple of Air Farce F-16s which brough Zarqawi world suddenly crashing down around him. Oh well.

No, this time I mean it...

2006-06-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

Remember those three jobs I talked about having, and how I was going to have to pitch in the towel on the whole blogging thing? And then everyone was all wailing, gnashing of teeth and carrying on about how I just couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't DARE quit?

Well, I'm not quitting all the way.

There's plenty of other folks out there doing it as good or better than anything I can slop together in the few stolen moments between projects, i.e. - when I should probably be working on something that was due yesterday and I won't get done until tomorrow.

I invite you to wander by my only remaining blog effort, "Tattered Bits of Brain" for whatever random bit of cerebral effluvium flakes off of my cerebral cortex and drifts down to lay a fine layer of word-like dust across the screen, from time to time.

Other than that, go read Garfield Ridge or something.

The power of nature

2006-05-31T01:57:00.000-07:00

Some of these are pretty heart-wrenching.

Indonesia photobooks
Central Java earthquake

http://indahnesia.com/photobook/36/central_java_earthquake.php

For the lazy and indifferent...

2006-05-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Tthis seems kind of like non-alcoholic wine and sugar-free candy.

The Ropeless Jump-Rope

Canned Coffee Review

2006-05-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

Living in Japan, I've gotten to experience the many joys of Canned Coffee. There is even a website out there devoted to "reviews" of various canned coffees.

...And since the elitist pig wont bother to print any of the 73 emails I sent him, I decided to write one myself! HaH! That'll show 'em. And soooo....

Dydo "Black"

This is angry coffee. Bitter, angry coffee. This coffee has serious issues. Ever since Black’s father ran off with that frothy, decaf cappuccino, well, he’s never been the same. This coffee is full of pent up aggression and unresolved angst. You can always find a can of coffee like this pushing other, smaller cans down on the playground and stealing their lunch money. Oh, sure, that’s how it all starts. A little harmless “fun.” Pretty soon, though, he’s a thug enforcer for some two-bit, petty hood, shaking down old men and scared kids for the chump change he calls “protection money.”

Years later, he’s a dried up, empty shell of a can. Life has been a dark road of bad choices and worse consequences. No friends, no family, no one who give a tinker’s damn about you except the old half-blind Eurasian hooker who only hangs out with you because your own self-pity and loneliness inevitably translate into free smokes, the occasional highball glass full of cheap rotgut Folgers, and maybe a quick pop of your top in the dank confines of some corner in the storeroom of a run-down, has-been coffee bar on the backside of nowhere.

This coffee isn’t just angry, it’s mean. I toss back a slug of the viscous, black liquid, and it assaults my tongue like the back-handed “love” of an abusive spouse. A haze falls before my eyes, and I’m transported, I can see it all, like I was standing there when it happened. The charcoal taste lingers, coats, corrodes, like the time he clamped on to the old shopkeeper’s tongue with a pair of grimy, rusty vice grips. And pulled. Pulled until the tongue of the poor sap who’d come up short on a payment to Lenny the loan shark was stretched out like the red carpet for a Hollywood premier day. Black takes a long slow drag on a cheap, hand-rolled cigarette, and then slowly rubs the burning stub into a crumbled ash against the shopkeeper’s savaged taste buds.

I suddenly snap back to reality, much like the old man’s tongue snapped back into his mouth after the vice grips were removed.

This coffee leaves a bitter aftertaste, a lingering calling card that promises more violence if its demands aren’t met. I find myself laughing an empty, mirthless laugh. I take another long, slow look at this thug, this violent punk of a coffee, and with a negligent flick of my wrist, dump the half-empty can into the trash. I walk away feeling abused, violated, and somehow even…well…dirty.

Then, from somewhere behind me, I can almost swear I hear a voice filled with the deepest sarcasm and bitter resignation, tinged with just the barest hint of childish petulance call out, “Go ahead. Leave. That’s what they all do. You’re no different.”

Somehow, I can’t seem to dredge up any pity for the little bastard.

None. None at all.

Basic Physics in the 24th century.

2006-05-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm watching "Next Generation" like the trekkie geek that I am, only, I've got a real problem. Well, I mean, besides being a trekkie geek. 'Cuz like I'm watching this episode where Geordie (sp?!) and the rebellious, mouthy Bejouran (sp?!) chick get all phase-shifted whilst transporting betwixt two ships cuz some Romulan gizmo went all haywire. So anyway, they can see the Enterprise and crew, but the crew can't see them, seeinz how theyz is all phase shifted like.

So how come THEIR eyes work and can see the stuff which is technically out of phase to THEM, but the crew can't see them cuz they are out of phase...by exactly the same fa-reakin' margin?

And so in one seen, a Romulan dude who was also phase shifted is sitting in a chair. In the next scene, Roe, Row, Rho, whatever is passing her hand all through a table and a computer monitor. The fu...? So how come the dude can sit in an out-of-phase chair, but chica can walk through a table?

Then later they are in this big chase scene and running through bulkheads like they ain't there, what with them all being out of phase, but then Rho trips and falls to the floor with a grunt from the impact. A fight ensues and Romulan dude gets kicked through the side of the ship into space (silent gasp of dismay). So, if the walls don't work, and tables and computers are like air, THEN WHY DOES THE %$@#^&ING FLOOR WORK? Is there some special phasedness to their shoes that keeps them from sliding through the floor like they do the walls and tables, hmmm?

And near the end of the episode Jeordee talks about how hungry he is not having had anything to eat or drink for two days. So if you can't eat out of phase food, how does the out of phase AIR work in your contra-phased lungs?!

And when you set the Romulan phaser on overload, and then dove behind the bar for "cover," minutes after repeatedly demonstrating that the phaser's energy goes through everything in the "real" ship like it was thin air?

And, since you are out of phase with the Enterprise, you would be unaffected by its momentum or intertia, and so as soon as it changed direction, you would continue in the original direction, as bulkead after bulkhead and finally the ship's hull slid past on the new vector until you were left standing on space.

One of the most scientifically boneheaded epidsodes I think I've ever seen.

On the Davinci code

2006-05-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

I found the book to be an engaging and entertaining read. Of decidedly dubious theolgoy, but a fun book nonetheless.

I by no means took it to be theologically definitive, and thus enjoyed it immensely.

Dan Brown gets to be wrong about a great many things, and I still get to enjoy reading his books.

I guess I have to turn in my Fundie Card.

Blather...

2006-05-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

As one pauses to ponder, the whats and wheretofors of life, it is by chance that on occasion one glimpses round the edges of one’s preconceptions the merest glimmerings of insight and the faintest hints of recognition of the much vaunted "higher truth." Peeking out 'neath the covers, a cautious, often frightened gaze meets mine. It fears my own reaction to its oft unwlecome message, and so with tremulous regard for my rage, hesitates to present its discourse of epiphanic wonder.

Needless to say, the human mind is seldom a fertile breeding ground for incautious and unrestrained cogitation. Safe and sane and all that. Go with what ya know.

And leave the fractured pieces of explosive cerebral exhumation discarded by the wayside. Safer that way, idnt it? Cain't 'ave the boat bein' rocked, what with the implications of bein' forced outside the carefully manicured and pruned boundaries of my understanding, what?

Don't question. Don't criticize. Don't presume to meander through random discourses of dangerous thought, navigated by the merest glimmerings of a "hunch" or feeling which might lead one, as though towards an errant lighthouse, upon the rocks of unconventional thinking.

Accept that which is taught, mind you, lest you run afoul of yer betters. 'eaven forbid you dare to look too closely at the institutionalized methodologies and carefully managed acceptabilities.

And yet, one cannot escape the undeniable attraction of the dangerous thought. The rapscallious and unmanaged ideas which haunt the fractious minds of those intellectual gatekeepers who by means of their own stern reproof seek to keep such wild notions as bay.

Dangerous thoughts. Like some alligator lazily navigating the tepid waters of socially acceptable thought. A rapacious beast, it prowls, seeking the unwary. It hungers for that mind so unsupervised that it lays open and vulnerable to the influences of a singularly insidious disease – free thought.

The creature smells its prey, lingers, considers, and then bites. With a gasp and cry, the mind awakens as sharp insights penetrate deep, strong convictions grab and shake and seek to drag you under, deep beneath the murk, turning you over and over and dragging you down until at last you must surrender and breathe your last…your last carefully considered breath.

You’ve become a victim. A victim of that savage beast we name – though only in hushed and uncomfortable whispers – "conviction."

Observations during my travel odessey....

2006-05-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

gawwwl-DAMN this here is The Nation of the Fat People.

Holy frickin' cripes, people. As I wander through the airports on my planes, trains, and automobiles whirlwind tour of the east coast, I am shocked, nay, dare I say nonplussed at the amazing volume of FAT wrapped 'round the bones of we Americans.

Young, old, more old than young, but still. Men, women, kids. Just friggin' OBESE! I mean, I'm not talking a little pudge or a bit o' the old love handles. I'm talkin' folks lugging around 60-80 extra pounds, easy. And it's not just onesey-twosey. It's beyond even a trend. More like an epidemic. I guess coming from Japan where there just ain't that many fat people, it's like culture shock to walk around and see all the basketballs being smuggled under oversize t-shirts.

And holy effin' moses, how people DRESS?! We are not just the Nation Of Fat People, we are also the nation of I don't give a rat's ass holy damn about how I look/dress. I guess when you let one aspect of your appearance slide so far into the shitter, then the rest is bound to follow suit. Ratty t-shirts with threadbare sweatpants. Pajama bottoms as "pants". Bright pink pajama bottoms with a frayed navy blue sweatshirt. The chick with the green and yellow top and the orange running shorts. For the love of all that is noble and good in this world people! AND PUT YOUR FUCKING HAT ON STRAIGHT, YOU MORON! One would think that it would be nice to be viewed as someone who can adequately dress themselves. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE STANDING BEHIND THE COUNTER OF A BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENT. Dorks. Auugh, it makes my brain hurt.

And don't get me started about the fine folks of the TSA. One asshole tries to light his shoe and now the rest of us have to walk around in our socks at every friggin' airport. Hope the bastard burns.in.HELLLLLLL!

And of course the octegenarian who is a good 100 lbs in the red, with the white hair and a slightly bemused look gets the nod for "additional screening." Holy mother of pearl, how does that make ANY sense?! In the entire history of terrorism, hijackings, and car-bombings, when has the asshole EVER been an overweight 68 year-old white guy who has to have his grandson show him how to use a cell phone?

And you, yes you. The space-case right in front of me. You know who you are. There is one door off this fucking plane, and the place to stop and check your tickets, scratch your ass, or fire up the $&#$*@! cell phone is NOT in the big middle of the one route between it and the BAGGAGE CLAIM! Yes, you and the three-piece mondo expano-carry-on nightmare from hell that you absently drag behind you (which of course extends your effective interference radius another good seven feet) as you shuffle along at a snails pace while bemusedly punching at the keys on your cell. HOLY FREAKIN HAYSOOS as much as old people shouldn't drive, they sure as hell shouldn't fly either.

But, on the plus side, I've got wireless highsepeed internet in my hotel room. Oh, and there's a Borders and a Red Robin within walking distance!

Being here ain't bad. Getting here? Whole different story....

Is it just me, or...

2006-05-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

...does it seem like that whole "probable cause" thingy is just pretty much out the muthafuckin' window?

Finally, from a true authority!

2006-05-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

Now you know!

(h/t to Carin for the link)

Blogging light to nonexistent....

2006-05-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

It twouldst behoove me, in this the hour of my virulent angst, to bequeath upon thy faithful eyes a treatise in the way of explanation vis-a-vis the recent lack of substantive additions to the aforementioned "blog."

In that, with respect to said postings, I am currently embarked upon a journey both perilious, and yet fulgent with the promise of grand adventure; namely, a "business" trip to "the States."

Verily, if I am to be truly and genuinely forthcoming with regards to matters of full disclosure, I am inclined, nay, honor-bound to also reveal my recent tremulous battlings against a scourge called by some with the seemingly innocuous appelative, "the common cold." I find little common about it, for my distaste and displeasure at its presence are UN-commonly vivid and enduring.

That said, and the colloquial "dirty laundry" having been aired before the assemblage of my readership, I fear that I cannot in good faith or conscience present any assurances of improved performance in this regard at any time in the near future.

Though I fear that in taking the time to "pen" such an exhaustive missive, I have, after a fashion, put to the lie my assertions of victimization at the hands of my frenetic schedule. Alas, it was indeed a costly burden, but I felt that the sacrifice needed to be bourn, as the needs of you, my dear readers, for some sort of explanative interlude far exceeded my own need for sleep or sustenance.

Now, as I quail in the throes of hunger and bleary sleeplessness, I must set aside pen and ink, as it were, to continue ever-onward in my quests to face the onerous burdens placed before me in the name of my own professional development.

Farewell, for now, good readers. I shall write again anon, the fates willing...

And then, one day...

2006-05-05T05:16:00.000-07:00

My Thoughts on Mizzowie Dodging the Bullet

2006-05-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

1) I can only imagine the fate of an American convicted of the same crime in a Taliban court.

2) I am all about helping as many Isalami's achieve martyrdom as wants to. So, you say executing Missowee would just be giving him what he wants? Great. It'd be giving me what I want, too. Everybody goes home a winner.

3) Given the growing pervasiveness of conversions to Islam in prisons, one wonders if, instead of being some outcast or hated pariah this rabid shill won't just maybe enjoy a certain celebrity in prison. He could very well be ushered right to the top of the inmate heirarchy, and rather than suffer untold violations at the hands of Bubba and friends, as some have, uh, intimated, he would be protected by his muslim brethren. So instead of silently poisoning the soil in some potter's field, mildewed and forgotten, he'll be allowed to become some expatriate Imam who continues to espouse his Dogma of Hate to an ever-growing constituency.

Nice one guys. Silent martyrs we can handle. Live terrorists with book deals penning the Islamic version of Mein Kamp are guaranteed to cause problems.

Boycott Cinco de Mayo!

2006-05-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

I've got it! If Les Immigrantes want to show their economic power by walking away from their jobs, I think WE should show OUR economic power by walking away from their jobs, too!

For Cinco de Mayo, that much cherished 5th of May, instead of getting all rowdy at the local Mexicali eatery quaffing back icy cold cervezas...don't.

Our little illegal friends wanted to show how much money businesses who hire illegals would lose if they didn't show up to work. Let's show how much money businesses will lose if customers don't show up at business that hire illegals!

Cancel your lawn care for tomorrow. Give the nanny (another) day off without pay. Stay away in droves from Mexican restaraunts. Drink domestic beer or go to the local Irish pub for a Black-n-Tan. On potentially one of the biggest money making days of the year for a whole host of bars and upscale beaneries, leave every table empty. Let the salsa curdle and the chips grow stale.

And let's see who really has the more economic muscle here, shall we?

(On the other hand, Cinco de Mayo DOES celebrate the defeat of the French, and really, who wouldn't want to crack a cold one in commemoration of THAT?!)

One cup of activism please, hold the froth.

2006-05-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

I have just realized that in no less than three of my previous posts, I have used the word "frothy." As in, "churned into a frothy whip," etc.

This disturbs me, if only because the repeated use of the same literary device shows a lack of journalistic creativity.

Why do I continue to use the same metaphor (or is it a simile?)? Because to me, it ascribes to the group being so labeled the character of a bubbly, swirling, and yet essentially insubstantial, well, froth such as you might find ladeled across the top of a half-caff latte or some fruity conconction just bludgeoned together in a high-speed blender.

I see those aerial shots of immigration protestors or not-quite-a-million mom marchers, and if I cross my eyes just right, I can almost see the effervescent foam on a freshly poured Sprite, or the mountains of pretty rainbow bubbles floating aimlessly along the top of my bathwater.

For a moment they are all-pervasive. Hissing and spitting and fizzing and popping like a greasy burger on a hot grill. And yet, with distrubing rapidity, the bubbles burst, and you're left with nothing but an overpriced, luke-warm coffee or a tub of tepid bathwater in which floats the detritus of the day.

To coin a word, ephemeral. Activists of the moment roused from their social torpor by the latest cause de rigueur of the perpetually outraged. Only to wakeup the next morning with the equivalent of a hangover from their bender of righteous indignation, facing the same reality as before, with the added addition, of course, of a boss pissed because you called in "sick" from work and then had your face plastered across the 6:00 news waving a Mexican flag. So you turn your attention once more to paying bills and living your life, things essentially unchanged, save for that little piece of happiness down somewhere inside that says, much like a bumpersticker across your conscience, "I DID something!"

Whether you did anything MEANINGFUL is completely beside the point. And whether or not you did the RIGHT thing simply does not bear examination.

As long as it made you FEEL GOOD, all full of foamy goodness and light, well then. That's what really matters.

UPDATE:
Pretty, fizzy, bubbles....

Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid! (The terrified are easier to manipulate!)

2006-05-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

I can't tell if this is just a poorly written article or a repackaging of a press release from the Sierra Club. Either way, its penchant for wild generalizations and unsupported assertions make my head hurt. For example:
Some scientists say the receding glaciers, like canaries in a coal mine, are
providing an early warning system for the Earth
Which scientists? Details please, not vague generalizations. "Some scientists" tell me nothing about their credibility to speak on the issue.

They say global warming is responsible for extreme weather and outbreaks of
diseases throughout the world

Well, if "They" say it, it must be true!

Scientists say "greenhouse gases" — especially carbon dioxide and methane —
emit from tailpipes and smokestacks. These gases trap heat and prevent it from
escaping into space, just as glass traps heat in a greenhouse.

I need to go back to college and take another chemistry class so I can figger out how gasses behave like solids. How carbon dioxide and methane obtain the same physical properties as a solid, impermeable sheet of glass.

As the gases accumulate, they say, the Earth heats up and climates
change.

Hey, news-flash: climates change about four times a year. It's called "seasons."
Contrasting present conditions with a photo from 1938 in which a man is standing on a 60-foot-high slab of ice, Fagre said: "There's no ice here at this time; it's all just liquid water."
"When we see a place like this changing," he said, "we can attribute it to climate change and to the human influence on the planet."
As long as we also have a photo of the same from 70 years before that one so we can have an accurate baseline for measuring trends.
Harvard's Paul Epstein, a physician and an expert on emerging diseases, blames global warming for recent droughts in Spain and Portugal, as well as heavy rains in other parts of Europe, and says the climate change is linked to outbreaks of malaria and cholera in Asia and Africa and an increase in asthma cases in the United States.
As well as athlete's foot, bad breath, teen pregnancy and Cynthia McKinney's hair. Anything else we want to blame on global warming?

So global warming causes both droughts AND heavy rains!! Simultaneously. In the same general geographical areas. Huh?
"By warming the surface of the ocean, greenhouse gases are providing the feedstock for more and more intense hurricanes,"
Wait. Greenhouse gases are warming the oceans? I thought the sun did that.
The cost of stemming global warming is steep. The Kyoto Protocol, which required the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent and other industrial nations to cut emissions by 5 percent by 2012, was pushed as a solution.
The problem with the Kyoto Protocol is that it leaves out some of the world's worst polluters. And is more about granting the UN more sovereignty/control over developed western nations than cleaning up the environment.

Let me just state that I honestly do think that the scale of industrialization and the deforestation of many areas cannot help but have an impact on the environment, as well as the weather/ climate. I think we are over-fishing our oceans and believe strip mining should be banned. I support preserving the rain forests and preventing urban sprawl. My beef is with the just plain bad science and spurious correlations that get swallowed whole because they happen support the prevailing social meme. And with using global warming as this terrible bugaboo to churn the useful idiots of the world in to a properly compliant froth with which you can push a social/ political agenda having little if anything to do with saving the planet.

And never trust the conclusions of a group that gets more funding by providing the "right" answer.

I gotta ask...

2006-05-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

...just how bright is this?

'A Day Without Immigrants'
Illegal immigrants and their allies took to streets across America Monday to take part in "Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes" — "A Day Without Immigrants" — in an effort to show their economic importance to the country.

Lessee here...on the day the call goes out for all illegal immigrants to stay home from work..and you don't show up...aren't you kinda showing your hand, so to speak?

"Hey Boss, in case I forgot to mention it...."

Clearly illegals do not fear any repurcussions. One wonders where else this arrogance will take them...

Drilling into your skull through the eye sockets, 24/7

2006-04-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

Even more gut-clutchingly hilarious than the actual content of this blurb dealing with the frothy outrage of some press-corps geek not being able to watch Cartoon Network on AirForce One...

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/04/not_a_good_sign.html

...are the haunted, desperate, and impassioned wailings of the oppressed Left, rising in one voice of sympathy and angst with the poor, blighted correspondent who was no doubt relegated to a seat without direct satellite feeds or heated, vibrating massage, and only domestic wines.
And maybe I should take a hint from the wingnut knuckle-draggers and get myself elsewhere, and watch from a safe distance while the American empire collapses into a morrass of ultra-right wing Christian, repug horror.
You know, every time I hear lefties scoff and guffaw at any suggestion that there is any sort of persecution or intolerance towards Christians in this country, I need only wander the comment sections of a few mainstream liberal blogs to validate my position.

And another calm, rational, well-thought out persective...

Back about the same time, I was apalled to go to a doctor's office in ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY, (still more blue country) where I was essentially FORCED to watch FOX NEWS while waiting to see the doctor.
Essentially forced, you hear me? FORCED! It was like being raped through my eyeballs! It was like Clockwork Orange, or something. Oh.The.HORROR!!

I have to admit, there are times when I find it hard to take Fox News too seriously, but come on people. They make it sound like the stuff is all piped right out of the press room of the ~~Vast Right Wing Conspiracy~~ White House.

Is it just me, or is there a very real and growing perception among the pampered neo-socialist blue-staters that any exposure to a view, opinion, or perspective outside their carefully pruned and powdered worldview amounts to some sort of psychological abuse? Like being "forced" to watch FoxNews while standing in a grocery line is felt to be somehow equivalent to waiting in line for your portion of cold gruel, in the rain, ankle-deep in mud outside a barracks in Dachau?

Wipe your collective noses, you truculent little snots. You're an embarrassment to your species.

(h/t to Protein Wisdom)

As a general rule...

2006-04-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

...one should not mix two Dos Equis, a fair amount of mediocre cabernet sauvignon, and some frothy concoction purported to contain, among other things, pink grapefruit schnapps.

...er..I mean, at least...so I've heard.

(Oh. My. LORD.)

It must be true, I read it on the Internet.

2006-04-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

As those in the know continue to blame global warming for Hurricane Katrina, calling it the "worst hurricane in 77 years," I'd just like to remind everyone that the only reason so many people died was that the levy broke.

If you've read some of the blogs from those that went through it, the actual hurricane blew over pretty quickly, very little damage, and people were like, "Oh, geez. Hurricane. Great. Where's my beer?"

It wasn't until the flooding from the breached levy hit that the problems started.

Hurricane Katrina, which tore onto the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts on August 29, was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in 77 years and the costliest ever, with property damages estimated at $75 billion.
Merely because the damages occurred subsequent to Katrina, does NOT mean that they were a direct result of Katrina.

Unless, of course, it fits your socio-political agenda to say so.
This year, the weather service's Tropical Prediction Center expects more hurricanes than usual, but not as many as last year's record 14.
B...Bu...bu..but...I thought global warming was leading inexorably towards climatalogical catastrophe!! Shouldn't the number go up every year until we get "The Day After Tomorrow?!" Otherwise we might be forced to suggest that hurricane patterns are {{gasp}} cyclical, or even {{shocked dismay}} random and relatively unpredictable...

Naaaahhh.

Disclaimer: This post is NOT about the relative merits of the views of the "bulk of the scientific community" (appropriately vague, yes?) with respect to global warming. It is about a clear effort to make a spurious correlation between coincidental data to support an agenda.

Update:
And come to think of it, how do your reconcile the , "One degree of temperature increase can cause significant changes, the thermometer is rising! Melting ice caps! Mass extinctions!! AAUUGGH....ggrrkkkkk.... aagnngnggg." {{thump}} (passes out completely...) with this whole robust evolutionary chain where species are "adapting" willy nilly to Mother Nature's changes, conforming to their environments, etc?

In fact, should we even be worried at all? According to a strict evolutionary model, those species who can't adapt or aren't suited to warmer temperatures and a higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere fit firmly into the "not of the fittest" category, and get weeded out via an inherently natural and long-standing process, right?

Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee

2006-04-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of press lately about the group of ~~concerned citizens~~ radical Lefties who trashed an anti-abortion display consisting of a makeshift cemetary of crosses representing unborn children killed by abortion.

Apparently the use of crosses to shock and offend, forcing people to confront an uncomfortable issue was just too much for these "activists," and so they felt they had to take action.

Of course, we know that it was just an isolated incident, right?
April 18, 2003

Of course, this all got me to thinking...now just who ELSE has ever used a makeshift cemetary of crosses to shock and offend, forcing people to confront an uncomfortable issue?

From "Casey's Peace Page"

From Crawford Update

A link from Michelle Malkin reminds us about the Left's outrage when their makeshift cemetary was "desecrated" by a "right-wing asshat."

Funny how what's okay for one, ain't okay for the other.

And for the Understatement Of The Year Award:

Sally Jacobsen, a professor in the literature and language department, will not return to the school, said James Votruba, the university president.
"I believe what she did was outside the scope of her employment," Votruba said Monday.

Ya think?!

Now if this don't just piss you off...

2006-04-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

SANTA CRUZ Military recruiters, confronted by crowd, leave campus job fair

David Kliger, campus provost and executive vice chancellor, said the school was most concerned Tuesday about safety issues, but also wanted to preserve access to the recruiters for students who wanted to speak with them, while still allowing protesting students their right to free speech.

Protestors whom, it would appear, aren't all that concerned about the free speech of OTHERS.

Students Against War members said they were pleased that their counter-recruiting effort forced the military personnel off campus, at least for the time being.
"We're saying it's not OK to recruit on high school campuses, it's not OK to recruit on university campuses,'' Marla Zubel, a UC Santa Cruz senior and member of Students Against War, said. "In order to stop the war, you have to make it more difficult to wage war."

This is the level of education and insight of today's college edjumucaterated. To end the war, we don't lobby Congress, we don't camp out on the steps of the Capitol building, we don't work with NGOs to help alleviate conditions contributing to such conflicts.

We harass, intimidate, and assault a couple of military recruiters just trying to do their job. At a job fair.

NEWSFLASH DUMBASSES! People recruited in high school and college don't start wars...THEY FINISH THEM!!

Politicians start wars. You want to stop wars? Boycott the Young Republicans or whatever it is the Democrats do (Socialist Workers Party?).

Iggerant as all hell.

RAND Voices of Jihad Database

2006-04-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

I had the below link sent to me today. Sounded interesting. Haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but it looks like an interesting resource to see/hear what the Jihadists think, from their own words.
http://www.rand.org/research_areas/terrorism/database/
This online database is a compilation of speeches, interviews, statements, and publications of jihadist leaders, foot soldiers, and sympathizers. Nearly all content is in English translation, and has been collected from publicly-accessible websites. Original links are provided, along with excerpts and full-text content when available.
It seems like a great idea. It makes it a lot harder to soft-pedal and downplay the rhetoric of the wack-jobs when it hasn't been filtered and edited via some media source. I'd be interested in hearing anyone's reaction who checks it out.

NOT to be confused with:
The Voice Of the Martyrs

My Interview with The Screaming Intruder

2006-04-12T04:48:00.000-07:00

I was, like most of you I'm sure, deeply intrigued by what The Screaming Intruder had to say that the Secret Service were so anxious to keep under wraps that they sicked dogs and tazers on him Abu Ghraib-style. As luck would have it, The Intruder has graciously agreed to an interview. Let's find out what makes this man tick, shall we?

Me: Good Morning, Mr. Intruder. I'm sorry, that sounds so formal. Should I call you "Scream" or maybe "The Trude...?"

TSI: I HAVE INTELLIGENCE!

Me: Yes, yes. We're all quite impressed with the kind of intelligence that it takes to throw oneself over the fence at one of the most heavily guarded public buildings in America. But moving on. What exactly IS this intelligence, and where did you get it?

TSI: THE PRESIDENT MUST KNOW! I'VE BEEN A VICTIM OF TERRORISM!

Me: Really? What kind of terrorism?

TSI: ALIEN TERRORISM! THEY ABDUCTED ME AND FORCED ME TO RECITE CHAUCER!

Me: ...

TSI: Well, okay, maybe it wasn't Chaucer. Might have been "Goodnight Moon." It's all there in my repressed memories...a few more sessions with my hypnotherapist and memory recall facilitator and I should have it all.

Me: Riiiiight. So, why tell the President? Why not just call Scully and Mulder at the FBI? {{snicker}}

TSI: I CALLED THE FBI! THEY WON'T ADMIT THAT AGENT MULDER EXISTS! THEY MUST BE IN ON IT. THE PRESIDENT MUST KNOW! THE ALIENS ARE AMONG US! ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! AND THEY ARE PLANNING TO TAKE OVER!

Me: Yeah. Soo...how did you come to know this highly sensitive information?

TSI: IT'S ALL OVER THE NEWS! THAT, AND THE ALIEN CEREBRAL TRANSCEIVER IMPLANTED IN MY BRAIN DURING THE LAST ABDUCTION! THEY'RE READY TO START THE NEXT PHASE OF THEIR PLAN! THEY WANT THE SOUTHWEST!

Me: ...

TSI: ...

Me: And I'm thinking maybe these aliens snuck into the country through, oh say, Mexico?

TSI: YOU KNOW IT TOO?! MAYBE YOU'RE ONE OF THEM! GET BACK! I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!!

Me: Uh....

TSI: ZOLTON! HE'S THEIR LEADER! {{froth}} AND THE ZARGONS ARE IN ON IT TOO! {{gurgle}} AND THE CANADIANS! {{drooolll}} AND TOM DELAY! AND..{{twitch...twitch}}

ME: ...

TSI: ....

Me: zzzzzzzTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

TSI: nnnngggggaaaaahhhh.....nnntt--t-t-ttt-gaaaaa...

Me: My, my. Tazers DO come in handy. Well, that's about all the time we have for today. Thanks for tuning in!

Immigration wrap-up

2006-04-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

I hadn't planned to cover this topic so much, but the more I see in the press, the more concerned/disturbed I become. This will probably be my last post on the subject, because if you don't know the facts by now, nothing I can say will help. I would hope that the sheer magnitude and scale of the protests taking place around this country would reveal the magnitude and scale of the problem we face.

I can't help but draw a parallel between the student protests in France, and the "immigrant" protests in America. A special interest group can't get its way, and so takes to the streets to show solidarity and outrage.

What I don't get is how brazen you have to be to stand before a syndicated news camera and state -- as your face is plastered across TV screen nationwide -- "I am an illegal alien, and damn proud of it! PTBBBBBB!"

Have the illegal aliens in our country become so arrogant and dismissive with respect to Customs and Immigration laws that they no longer fear the force of law? Are they so disdainful of any attempt to remove them that they walk the streets openly declaring their true allegiances? Are they now so confident in achieving their goals that they dare fly the Mexican flag over that of the US? How do they stand up and say, "We are here illegally, and we demand our RIGHTS!"?

If we capitulate to the DEMANDS of these protesting illegals, we are no better than the French and Spanish succumbing to whatever group burns the most public and private property. Let me remind you that appeasement has NEVER WORKED. It didn't work with Hitler in WWII, it didn't work with the Russian's during the Cold War, it doesn't work with the Palestinians, and it didn't work in Fallujah. All appeasement does is embolden your enemies and allow them more time to prepare their acts against you.

It disturbs me how readily those who oppose capitulating to the vocal throng have been labeled "anti-immigration". That fatuous toad Sen. Kennedy stands in front of a crowd and says we need to show "solidarity" with our immigrant brethren. Moves to strengthen and reform our broken Visa and immigration systems are lambasted as racist and again, "anti-immigration."

This has moved beyond so-called immigrant rights. Hey folks, to have rights, you first have to immigrate. Not sneak across the border in the middle of the night; but I digress.

This situation has become a litmus test of our ability to remain a sovereign nation. In my mind, this has become the greatest single bellwether against which Pres. Bush will be measured in the coming months. Not the war on terror, not the economy or social security, but how he handles millions of people who enter our country illegally and then have the temerity, the gall, the gold-plated frickin' cojones to DEMAND naturalization, health benefits, free education...amnesty.

When I hear “DEMAND”, my first reaction is to ask..."OR WHAT?" This is a question our good president needs to ask as well; and not quail, hem, haw, and ultimately bow before their "demands" for fear of what they might do. He did not blanch when faced with the threat of terrorism on our soil. An unchecked flood of illegals across our borders may very well pose a greater threat to our country and our way of life than Islamic extremism ever has. My devout hope is that he will not fail to face this challenge with the same moral fortitude.

Folks, understand this. If you grant so-called "amnesty" to the millions of illegals in this country, if you completely abandon any pretense of controlling or regulating immigration, then KNOW that this will serve as the green light for millions more to follow. Millions of people with an understanding that the United States no longer has the ability or desire to preventing them for doing whatever they will.

At what point will these millions feel so confident, so assured of our inaction, that they will stand at the borders of Arizona, New Mexico, and California and claim them as their own? (I left Texas out for a very good reason...good luck with THAT one, guys!)

Our service members and our leaders swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC. Why, do you suppose, the oath includes that last "and domestic" part?

Because those that penned it understood that not all threats to our Country come from outside our borders.

Unabashedly Unhyphenated has more...

Also:
What Would Mexico Do with Protesting Illegals?

Linked at Mudville Gazette

Update:
Favorite Quote So Far:
"There's a big difference between being illegal and being criminal."
- Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Uh...gonna have to help me out on this one, Padre, 'cuz I'mmmm not seein' it.

And Now, for something COMPLETELY different...

2006-04-11T01:29:00.000-07:00

The Sneeze shares with us the fruit Hellraiser eats...mutant, evil LEMONS from the portals of HELL!

It is of...THE DEVIIIILLLLLLL...!

(And what's better....IT'S FOR SALE!)

Hail Mexica!

2006-04-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Carin over at Is This Blog On? has a disturbing little limerick from the "Take America Back!" crowd down South. Scary stuff.

And then there's this article over at FoxNews.com:
More "Immigrants" Take to Streets to Protest Proposed Laws (scare quotes mine)

Mark Steyn has an awesome poke at the brokeness of our immigration system.
(h/t to Garfield Ridge)

For the last time, you only "immigrate" if you don't plan on going back. And if you don't plan on going back, you learn the language and become a citizen.

'Nuf said.

Just a thought....

2006-04-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

So, if we are supposed to turn a blind eye to the flood of illegal aliens entering our country in order to ensure that our fruit is harvested and our vegetables picked (since "no one else will do it"), am I to understand it, then, that the assumption is that if these millions of people suddenly become American citizens, they would also then begin demanding Union wages with full medical?

Isn't it, then, in our best interests NOT to grant them amnesty, since once they become naturalized citizens,working in a car wash or as a landscaper's assistant will suddenly become too "beneath" them, like all the rest of us effete, pinky-lifting, tea-swilling Americans?

If it's illegal, it isn't immigration

2006-04-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Why do we even have immigration check points? What sort of exclusionary, elitist, domineering B.S. is that?! People should just be able to come and go as they please, right? We are all part of one, big, happy global village, RIGHT??

Newsflash: There are people in this world who are, how do I put this...."not nice."

There are people in this world who didn't learn good manners. Who don't wash their hands before dinner, or say please and thank you for everything.

There are people in this world who'd stick as soon stick a knife between your ribs as look at you.

Problem is, you can’t tell who these people are just by looking at them. So, we have to put systems in place to catch them when we can. We put these kinds of people in jail to, a) remove them from society in order to protect the innocent, and b) hopefully provide a deterrent from re-offending.

For those what wants to enter our fine country, we give them a “Visa.” A hall-pass, if you will. A temporary “try-it-and-see” kind of deal that lets them both check out our country…and lets our country check out them.

If, in the course of said traveler’s visit, he or she comports themselves admirably, abides by the rules, contributes and participates, he or she is invited back.

If, on the other hand, said traveler commits a felony while betwixt our great shores, said Visa is pulled and they are booted and invited to never come back again. Thus do we help ensure that those with a predilection for criminal behavior are either kept out or kicked out.

Crying and wailing about how UNFAAAAAAAIR it is to exclude "illegal aliens" from all the great bounty of this country requires one to conduct such mental gymnastics as to completely miss the word “illegal” directly preceding “aliens.” Conducting such grammatical legerdemain as repackaging these folks as “undocumented workers” or “pre-citizens” doesn’t really cut the mustard either.

I think the guest worker program is a great idea. Unfortunately, it will likely have the same fatal flaw as the already existing “work visa” program, i.e. – you will have to abide by US law while within the United States. Yeah, one step away from fascism, eh?

Those with no desire to abide by US law are not about to sign up for a guest worker pass; they want {{need}} to remain anonymous. Controlling and managing immigration will help reduce the influence of gangs, reduce the flow of drugs into this country, and thus from two directions reduce crime.

If you want to come here legally, you’ve shown a respect for the law. If you don’t…you haven’t. Plain and simple.

That is why a sound immigration management program is necessary and important. Those that oppose it clearly have another agenda at work. Bear that in mind.

Linked at Mudville Gazette

Jesus was a criminal

2006-04-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

A while back one I had the unfortunate “opportunity” to hang rain gutters for a living (yeah, it sucked*). Anyway, for a while I worked with a gentleman of Hispanic descent, by the name of Jesus (hay-zoos). Great guy, nice as could be. He always showed up for work on time, worked fast and hard – in other words, a real asset to the team.

Turns out, he was also a criminal.

Jesus always seemed to have a problem cashing his paychecks at the bank. They didn’t trust him, apparently. We all backed Jesus, figured that the tellers were a bunch of racists, and did what we could to help him.

Then one day, Jesus falls off a ladder on an icy deck, and get’s put out of work for a while. He puts in a workman’s comp claim, and sits it out for a week. Then two. Then one day, he disappears altogether.

Turns out, enough people started asking enough questions, and lo-and-behold, his social security number was bogus.

Hay-zoos was in the country illegally, with a fake social security card. Sure, he was working, paying taxes and such (to someone else’s credit, of course). But he was also essentially guilty of Identity theft. Also known as Fraud.

Jesus had entered the country illegally, got fraudulent papers, and could have run up all manner of credit card debts, etc, and just walked away. Which is what he did.

Hay-zoos. Great guy. Hard worker. Criminal.

If you’re black or white in this country, and you use fake info to get jobs, open accounts, get credit cards, and then one day just fade away…you go to jail.

But these days if you are Mexican and do all that…you get amnesty. If you get arrested, you don’t get deported. You get turned loose because we “just don’t have the resources” to pursue every deportation case on the books.

It’s not about whether or not these people are great people, hard workers, or contributing members of society. It’s about an entire culture breaking US law because they can.

And you think this isn’t a problem because…?

*This also puts to the lie the idea that there are crappy jobs with low pay that American’s just won’t do. If it comes down to not feeding your family or hanging rain gutters in the middle of winter…you hang rain gutters.

The Phone Books Are Here! The Phone Books Are Here!

2006-04-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I can shelf the plans for writing the great American novel. I can cast aside my dreams of one day visiting the moon. Why, you may ask?

I've been "mentioned" in a Day-by-Day comic!!!

Fame, glory, fortune, fabulous babes...it's all mine. Okay, I'll settle for a few gazillion hits and a hot oil rub-down from Jen. I'm all a twitter that Chris used Jen in "my" strip. I'm sure he knows about the crazy thing I have for her.

Chris Muir is one of those people who makes it big, but still remains a cool, blue-jeans and sweatshirt wearin' kind of guy. I wish him the moon and stars with his strip. He's sharper than Doonesbury, funnier than Bloom County, with the heart of Calvin and Hobbes. If you haven't made him a daily read...GET ON IT!

And I guess if I'm going to be "noticed" by such august personages, I should probably keep doing this bloggy sort of thing. Ahhh....who needs sleep, right?

So a hearty welcome to Day-by-Day readers!! Keep up the good work!

A parting shot on "Anti-Immigration" legislation

2006-04-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Don't know if I'm going to be able to keep this blogging thing going with any regularity much longer. No, no hystrionics or flailing, arm-draped-across-forehead hyperbole. I've now got TWO jobs, a college-level seminar, and a type-A wife. Hard to add blogging on top of it all.

I had noble intentions of weighing in this utter ridiculousness of the whole immigration flap, complete with web links, sound files, and animated Power Point slides, but as there are many other bloggers out there already doing it for me, I will limit it to these few comments:

The current legislation is not about halting immigration. It is about halting infiltration. You would think this would be glaringly self-evident, but the truth is seldom as appealing to rampant emotionalism as a carefully fostered lie.
People seem to forget that, despite the best efforts of the progressives and globalists, we are still a sovereign nation, and as such, we have the right to say who can or cannot enter our country.
No one is saying don't immigrate. They are saying DO immigrate. As in, enter the country legally, apply for citizenship, then live, work, play, pay, and die here like a proud US citizen.
Sneaking across the border in the dead of night, making no attempt and having no desire to become a citizen, then getting all pissy because you can't have free medical care and in-state tuition is, to me, just a tad 'effin ignorant.
Contrary to the current popular activist whimsy and the prevailing social meme, the above four comments do not constitute racism, but instead...wait for it...a pragmatic and one would think intuitive approach to managing immigration.
A country which fails to limit unchecked immigration by those with no vested interest in its culture or way of life, will soon cease to be a country. Without a unifying culture and common set of principles, we become nothing more than a dumping ground for scavengers who take what they want and leave. We will be torn asunder from within by the kind of sectarian violence which weakened Rome to the point that the mighty empire fell prey to depredations of marauding bands, if only because the populace could not be roused to defend itself.
If # 6 get's you all in a fluff, I should need only mention the word "AZTLAN" to shut you up.
I must ask...if you are not a citizen, are you really an American?
When you equate devout patriotism to jingoism and emergent fascism, your sense of cultural identity and national identity has already become dangerously blurred.

Well, that's my $1.05 worth. I'll be checking in from time to time, and dropping by some of the blogs on my list as time allows, but sadly, i must put this thing on the back burner for the foreseeable future.

God bless. Unless that offends you. In which case, I guess you're on your own.

Little Bit Tired, Little Bit Worn weighs in with more...

Hitting Close to Home...?

2006-04-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors to the Great White North seem to be experiencing the joys of appeasement second only to France and Spain...

No word on the guy's ethnicity...but these days...it take's all kinds.

h/t to Small Dead Animals

Just A Thought #236

2006-03-28T18:29:00.000-08:00

What is the difference in the Taliban refusing to allow Christianity to be represented in the public arena, and the Frothing Left refusing to allow Christianity to be represent in the public arena?

The Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed sculptures and other art that didn't conform to their worldview.

The Frothing Left demands that the 10 Commandments, Nativity scenes and even now the Easter Bunny be banned from public display - because they don't conform to their worldview.

Seriously. Someone explain it to me in terms my simple mind can understand?

Corollary: Given the tenets of Biblical Christian faith, and given the trend of current social morality, Christianity should EXPECT to be at odds with what is coming to be accepted as "normal."

Either you are standing firm, or you are getting swept along.

Yeah, what HE said...

2006-03-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

Capt. Dan Sukman posting on his FoxNews.com web-diary shares this nugget:
I will never, however, accept that 30 of 75 Iraqi police recruits being unable to read or write is the fault of any soldier. Everyone should be required to see the palaces that Saddam and his cronies lived in and THEN talk with the 30 recruits who could not read or write. Forget schools in Iraq; Saddam needed another palace made completely of marble and gold. Never tell me that soldiers helping Iraqis build a school is not a strategy for victory in this country. Thirty — these guys never had a chance.

Food for thought.

Return to Zork...

2006-03-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this post from the Defective Yeti's "Favorite Posts" run down. I love the Defective Yeti like a red-headed adopted immigrant middle-child step-brother, and for those of us who remember the delightful frustrations of playing Zork, way back in the text-only days, this post really hits a funny bone.

Sadly, he had to trot out the same tired old lefty talking points to do it, but it's still pretty effin' funny.

I had to scratch my head at the "You are unable to fill Clinton's Shoes" line, but of course, we all know that Clinton was and is the friggin' shangrila, bag of chips, and all that to the Left. Teflon Bill. Greatest president evah, yada yada.

Anyway, go check it out, and of course, all the the drooling adulation in the comments with the general trend of, "Funny, but sad, because it's so true..."

Just a few thoughts...

2006-03-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

If you are offended that I believe something different than you, doesn't that make you intolerant?

Does your definition of freedom require that I worship the way you think I should?

Among the many freedoms and rights enumerated in the Constitution, nowhere do I see the right not to be made "uncomfortable" by another's viewpoints.

Does everyone understand that the white crayon is used to blend and soften other colors, not to color things white?

Isn't expecting someone to be a racist because of the color of their skin...racist?

Pop-Tarts are NOT, actually, part of this nutritious breakfast. Or ANY nutritious breakfast. Pop-Tarts are flat candy bars. Just so we're clear.

Is it wrong to walk into the Barber Shop on a US military base, and expect the barber to be able to understand enough english for me to explain how I want my hair cut?

In North Idaho, red stop lights are advisory in nature.

I'm fat, balding, and almost 40. Any suggestions on what to do for my mid-life crisis?

Talk about Zero Tolerance!!

2006-03-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

Australia bombs drug cargo ship
The ship came to a spectacular end on Thursday when two Royal Australian Air Force frontline F-111 jet bombers fired missiles into the vessel during target practice at a secret location offshore.
"It is appropriate that we publicly demonstrate our outrage at what has happened by sinking this ship," Downer said.
You GO, Aussies!

This post...

2006-03-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

had me ROTFLMAO!!!

Thanks to The Assimilated Negro

Except for you!

2006-03-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

Didjya ever notice that there seems to be some fine print at the bottom of most signs that only certain people can read? These are the special people, the elite, those who are too busy or too important to be bothered with the kinds of restrictions and restraints which apply to the rest of us.

At least five times a day I walk past a door, propped open, with a sign clearing requesting, “Keep This Door Closed.” Apparently there is also a line underneath – one which I can’t see – which adds, “Except for you!” I pull the door shut behind me, only to pass it an hour later, wide open once again.

This secret invisible ink seems to be everywhere these days. We’ve all run across those with that special x-ray vision which enables them to see their special exemption at the bottom of all those signs (these people are also known as “Oblivions”). Signs such as:

“Do Not Enter.” – except for you.

“10 Items or Less” in the express lane – except for you.

“One Per Customer” – except for you.

"No Parking" – except for you.

“No Soliciting”

“No Trespassing”

“Please Take A Number”

“Please Turn Off Your Cell Phones”

“Thou Shalt Not...”

Did I miss any?

Support your local Mayor!!

2006-03-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

The Mayor of Mitchieville is all PMS'ing, whinging on about how his blog traffic sucks, so he's going to pack it in, throw in the towel, pull the plug, dump the load, vent the main reactor, etc.

His self-aggrandizing little temper tantrum is, as always, deeply amusing, but on the other hand, somewhat disturbing because it may be sincere. Sargon the Magnificent has clearly been spiking the Mayor's hefeweizen with some serious eye of newt, and I suspect that Fenris likely superglued his butt cheeks to the only working shitter in City Hall. Again. Cheeky little phallus that one.

So, that being said, head on over there and give him a hit off the old web-traffic crack pipe. Clearly, the Mayor is deeply troubled by the lack of personal validation, so go punch his ticket. Validate that emotional parking pass, baby. Run the hit counter up faster than my power meter when I hit the grow lights in the basement.

I suspect, however, that the truth be told, if one ducked under the large "CLOSED" sign chained across the front door of the Mitchieville City Hall and Community Center, and wandered ever so cautiously down the dimly lit and rubbish-strewn hallway, one might find the aforementioned public servant seated in a leather recliner in the newly renovated conference room in front of the wall-sized plasma screen, clad in nothing more than mismatched socks and a dirty jogbra, sucking down Crown Royal, eating stale saltines, and watching the third of six DVD's in the commemorative boxed set of the popular canadian sexumentary, "The Chronicles of Vagarnia."

But that's just me guessing.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

2006-03-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

Slobodan Milosevic found dead in cell
"It is not fair that the bastard died in a dream while others died in pain," said 43-year-old Belgrade resident Duska, who asked not to give her full name.
Truly loved and admired.

Milosevic defied international sanctions and Nato bombs over nearly a decade of strife in the former Yugoslavia and was unmoved by the accusations against him
It's certainly understandable why an American president would go after someone like ~~Saddam~~ Miloslevic. That whole "regime change" thing. A real rush to war.

One down, one to go.

French police storm Sorbonne to halt protest
French riot police used tear gas to break up a three-day sit-in at Paris's Sorbonne university on Saturday, stirring up memories of May 1968, as angry students warned of a mounting challenge to government labour reforms.
One must assume that the protestors weren't Muslim. Otherwise the police would have left them alone, no matter how much damage they caused.

Abortion showdown looms after S. Dakota ban

2006-03-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

I can't help but ask...

In this quote:
State Democratic Rep. Pat Haley voted against the measure, saying that while he opposes abortion he could not vote for the bill because it contains an exception only for the life of a woman.
“Not allowing an exception for rape, incest and the health of the mother is a radical position,”
What exactly are we talking about when we describe allowing abortion for the "health of the mother," if we've just stated explicitly that an exception DOES exist to preserve the LIFE of the mother? Seriously. Can anyone shed any light on this strange distinction?

Also, can it truly be said that an exception does not exist for rape and incest if:

"It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest but such victims could get emergency contraception."
If you can get the "morning after" pill in such cases, aren't you covered?

And finallly, shouldn't it be abundantly clear that Planned Parenthood has a clear conflict of interest in this case? Abortion is their biggest money maker, perhaps arguably their primary reason for being in business. Yes, Planned Parenthood is a corporation, a business, not a government health care organization.

So, they can talk all they want about women's rights, but it's pretty clear that their opposition to this law is really about opposing the loss of their biggest their cash cow.

So apparently...

2006-03-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

The will of Allah is to run people down with your car.

That Allah is one wacky dude.

The Culture of Convenient Death

2006-03-03T17:23:00.000-08:00

This case disgusts me on multiple levels.

Ohio High Court OKs 'Wrongful Birth' Suit
The case was the first time Ohio's justices had issued a definitive ruling on a claim of "wrongful birth." A handful of states allow such claims by parents seeking compensation for the financial burden of caring for a severely disabled child or the emotional trauma of watching a baby die shortly after birth.

What the..?

Grow the %#$$&% UP people. Life is hard, shit happens, and it's not always somebody's fault.
Doctors had no involvement in the actual defect, he said, and the law doesn't allow damages if the disabling condition existed from the point of conception.

At least the judge(s) saw the light of reason in this case. I must hesitantly agree that if a doctor made a "misdiagnosis" (in this case, that the child did not have the defect) then he should be held accountable.

HOWEVER, suing for pain and suffering because you were robbed of the chance to abort your child?! What if, based on a similar diagnosis, you aborted your child because a doctor said it would have a severe birth defect, but an autopsy showed the doctor was wrong?

Can you still sue? The abortion was your idea. You didn't want the burden of caring for a "defective" person, so you found a way not to. Who is more at fault for the "loss" of your child? The doctor who advised you, the doctor who conducted the abortion, or the "parent" who made the decision to abort the child?

UPDATE:

Holland to allow ‘baby euthanasia’
Anti-euthanasia campaigners have been addressing hate mail to “Dr Death”, as they call him, ever since he admitted having personally overseen four “assisted neo-natal terminations”. He then began drawing up guidelines for doctors carrying out euthanasia on babies.

And yet you get laughed at for talking about the slippery slope of moral relativism.

I read one blog where having the option for an abortion was called "reproductive health."

We are circling the drain, people.

UPDATE 2.0

Little Bit Tired has more from the Netherlands, with some great commentary. Check it out.

Off the radar for a while..

2006-02-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

Got to go to a three week planning conference. Don't know how much I'll be able to blog. I'll try and stop in every now and then to make sure the Mayor isn't asleep next to the furnace, wrapped up in a surplus army blanket, hugging a half-empty can of sterno. Again.

Or that Joe hasn't put up his vintage CCCP propoganda posters with of Stalin. Again.

Or that River Rat has hooked his RV up to the plug-in in the garage.

Again.

You people, I swear sometimes....

Actor Don Knotts Dies at Age 81

2006-02-26T03:46:00.000-08:00

Gone on to those Pearly Screens...

I always enjoyed watching Don Knotts in whatever role. He brought a roll-your-eyes nuttiness to "Three's Company." His foil to Andy Griffith's calm, southern charm was priceless as the deputy Sheriff of Mayberry county.

"Ya gotta nip it in the bud. NIP IT!"

I didn't realize that he also had 25 films to his credit.

Fair winds and following seas, Don. You will be missed.

Support Denmark, support freedom.

2006-02-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

You may notice the new banner up in the header. Found that over at Memento Moron, who'm I'm sure stole it from somebody else first, but hey, that's the blogosphere for ya.

Now, before anyone says anything, it might be suggested that it's a tad incongruous to have a "No Tolerance for Intolerance" banner on my site when it has been suggested in rather extensive, caustic, and derogatory ways that I am an angry, intolerant tosser with deep-seated issues of homophobia and repressed longings for man-buggerage.

Let me say that I don't really see myself as intolerant of gays. I don't personally know any openly gay people. Being in the military, that's not really a prevelant demographic. To my knowledge, I've never been harmed, harassed, intimidated or in any other way put off by someone of the gay persuasion. Except for that dreary little Snotty Mcshot fellow, of course.

That said, if it twists yer knobs to fix yourself a same-meat sandwich, well hey, it takes all kinds to make a world. My position is simply this: Don't ask me to protect, preserve, or favor your lifestyle choices with special rights legislation or invasive curriculums in my child's third grade class. And please don't suggest that because I've got some real problems accepting men dressing up in womens' clothes or hosting bondage sex parties as "normal" that I'm a "hater." Or a repressed homosexual who is overcompensating. Sheesh.

Nor do I think of myself as a racist. I hold no collective grudges or gripes against blacks, whites, asian, indians, whatever. I DO, however, have a problem with idiots behaving like thugs, wilding through downtown streets like crazy people, regardless of their skin color.

And I believe wholeheartedly that Joe Citizen not only has the right, but is highly encouraged to defend himself against such threats.

I do not advocate violence against those with whom I do not agree. I in no way support, condone, or encourage random vigilantism.

I do, however, advocate preserving peace by creating an environment where it is untenable for "protestors" to smash store windows, drag innocent bystanders from their cars and beat them in the head with a brick, or burn down foreign embassies just because.

There is "tolerance," and then there's maintaining order. A frenzied mob of nutjobs who have completely lost their collective friggin' minds over a few cartoons do not deserve tolerance. Nor shall they receive any here.

linked at Mudville Gazette

Headlyin’ Newz

2006-02-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

From Fox News:
California Execution Delayed Indefinitely
Most feel California unjustly accused.

Man Kills Roommate After Fight About Toilet Paper
Bush blamed.

City Hopes to Harness Power of Dog Poop
I always said San Francisco was full of sh…

Novel Program Treats Women Who Batter Men
Honors also give to those who use whipped cream, pudding, or olive oil to coat their men.

Scientists Rally in Support of Evolution
Evolution needs all the support it can get.

Pakistani Cartoon Protesters Chant Anti-American Slogans
Poorly drawn stick figures sport word balloons full of caustic rhetoric.

From CNN:
24 killed in Nigeria religious violence
Muslims=18, Christians=6

From MSNBC:
Supreme Court to weigh late-term abortions
No one sure why jurists performing such a grisly task.

Microsoft blunder leaks Vista information
And we’re just shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Medicare to pay for variety of obesity surgeries
Welfare to continue to pay for lots of empty carbs and starches.

U.S. Outsources Homeland Security to North Korea
Fox seen as best choice for guarding hen-house.

Concept shamelessly plagiarized from Basil's Blog

Perhaps one of the singularly most dubious choices for a news photo.

2006-02-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

I usually expect to have to pay money to see pictures like this. And please tell me that's not, well...."wings."

Your mainstream media, hard at work.

Happy Blogiversary!

2006-02-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

Or is it Blirthday? Blogthday?

A quick review of the archives reveals that I have been banging my head against this same brick wall for a year now! Actually, Feb. 4th of last year was my first O'ficial post.

Aside from my brief jaunt as DGSOS.

So let's review. According to my Sitemeter stats (oh yeah, I am Sitemeter's bitch, let there be no doubt) after a year of dedicated and heartfelt effort, my daily visits have skyrocketed to a whopping.....16 per day. Maybe 20. 50 if I get a good link from Mudville Gazette.

Now, subtract the 8-10 times a day I visit to check my sitemeter, and that leaves about 8 people who show up with any regularity. These I call my Blog Family. Since blogging is like having a dinner party in the dark, and you're never quite sure who exactly is at the table, I will attempt to give the Partisan Pundit Blog Family Tree:

Carin - She's like the cool older sister who doesn't treat you like the geeky kid brother you are, and lets you listen to her edgy alternative CD's; but still won't buy beer for you and your underage friends. And she just laughed and smacked you in the head the time she caught you rifling through her underwear drawer.

Joe - He's like the crazy uncle that everybody likes, right up to the point where he starts talking politics. Then a tense, uncomfortable silence descends over everyone as he goes off about the glories of socialism and wealth redistrubtion. Do NOT give this man more than two green apple martinis, or there'll be no hearing the end of his plans to get Hillary Clinton elected.

The Mayor - Mitchieville's duly-elected politician-for-hire, he's the stepbrother of your father's uncle's second cousin on your mother's side, who only comes to the family reunion for the food and to meet chicks. He's always good for some hilarious personal anecdote or sea-story from his Navy days, despite the fact that Canada doesn't have a Navy (not really), although it's sometimes hard to understand what he's saying, what between the bad teeth and the slurred words from too much cheap strawberry zinfandel.

Kontan - She's (okay, remember, it's dark in here...I'm pretty sure it's a she) is like the quiet middle child who plays with her blocks and doesn't get into much trouble. Docile, obedient, and well-groomed, she's everyone's image of the perfect daughter. No one's believes she had anything to do with the unfortunate cat shaving incident, despite the incriminating cat fur under her fingernails. Or that episode with the itching powder on the toilet paper. And really, the ExLax in the brownies? Not sweet little Kontan....

River Rat - The embarassment of the adults, he's every kid's favorite grandad. Grizzled, unshaven, chewing on the soggy stub of a cheap imitation Havana, he always seems to have an extra quarter or stick of gum squirreled away in one of the pockets of his well-worn overalls. He doesn't say a lot, but when he speaks, the world-wise depths of his eyes, and the brooding wrinkles on his brow demand attention. He makes the grown ups uncomfortable because he's been around to long to worry about how telling the Truth might make folks feel...it's just somthing that's got to be done.

Retired Geezer - Your mom's uncle, he lives up in the hills of Idaho, squirreling away canned food and stocking up on ammunition for the day when NATO and the UN try to take over. Salt of the earth kind of guy, mom just smiles, rolls her eyes and sighs whenever RG goes off on one of his rambles. Fond of launching pumpkins from cannons and other worthwhile pursuits, RG is always good for a story about the good old days before the damn democrats ruined it all. Not to mention of the occasional swig of potato mash moonshine if ya ask him real nice.

JayBird - He's the stifled intellectual. Doesn't quite wear a pocket protector, but he does wear collared shirts. A lot. Okay, all the damned time. Starched. Button down. Collared shirts. Dockers. And scuffed boat shoes that should have been deep sixed three years ago. He'll spend $200 on a new caluclator, but can't seem to get around to buying a decent pair of shoes. He speaks with a quiet certainty that annoys those who want to disagree with him...but can't. Usually fairly calm and patient, that one vein on his left temple DOES tend to throb a bit after the third time he tries to explain the basics of supply-side economics to the creme of the frappuchino and falafel set.

Kel - I know you're oooooouuuut therrrre. I can hear you breathing.

That's everybody I know about. If I missed you, I apologize. But hey, you want people to notice?! SPEAK UP! Remember the whole dinner-party-in-the-dark analogy? Or was it a simile? A metaphor? Whatever. Suffice it to say that I can't tell alot about your personality based on the the slurping sounds and faint rustle of paper napkins down at your end of the table.

And so, HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY to me! I hope to keep all eight of you entertained for the next year or so. Unless I get a real job. Then, well, all bets are off.

Okay, so let me get this straight...

2006-02-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

There are actually, no kidding, people out there suggesting that Cheney shot Wittington godfather-style to make a political point?

And they're serious?

Yeah, well, you know, after Cheney authorized the demo on the 'Nawlins levies....

And what with the alien experiments on their rectums during their abduction...

The scary thing is these people are allowed to vote and drive cars. And reproduce.

Yikes.

Thought for the Day

2006-02-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

"The Church is not a refuge to which the 'saved' retreat from a sinful world. It should be a place to which the sinful of the world can retreat to find refuge and be saved."

Discuss.

Installment #237 of "Life's Little Lessons"

2006-02-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

You wife has no sympathy for how busy you were the two days before Valentines' Day, and so "didn't have time" to get her a card. She expects you to realize that Feb. 14th occurs at the roughly same time every year, and to plan far enough head such that minor scheduling conflicts don't prevent you from buying her card. Like sometime in December maybe.
Corollary: A card today is better than a necklace three days late.
I love how "hunting with the Vice President" has become a new euphemism for flirting with death.

"Hey, did you tell that guy off for stealing your parking spot?
"Are you kidding? Do you see his biceps? I'd be better off hunting with the Vice President!"
Or better yet, "Whoa! Did you see that?! He just totally Cheney'd that guy!"

I heard on the radio that to top it all off, Cheney is facing a fine for not having a quail tag. Awesome. Maybe this will prompt him to initiate legislation to allow people to hunt on their own freakin' land without a permission slip from Big Bro.
Sometimes "wisdom" is less having the right answer than it is asking the right questions.
"I don't really care, either way" is a LIE. A DAMNED LIE!!

The Therapists knocks one outta the park (again).

2006-02-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

I had planned to be a one-post wonder today, but I just had to link to this gem from The Therapist.

A Letter To My Editor
The artist; that objective, benevolent breather of concrete life into the nostrils of abstract thought—has absolutely no responsibility for their work—until—Muslims become offended. That about right?
I’ve repeatedly seen my God put to the rack in the artistic arena. I’ve seen Him smeared with human feces for artistic effect. I’ve seen Him dropped in a vat of the artist’s urine and photographed with a backlit aura—only to receive increased federal funding from the NEA.
But let some marginally-creative hack stick a finger in Mohammed’s eye, and I’m supposed to now start drawing an exclamatory chalk line around the edges of artistic propriety? I think not. In order for me to join such a malignant cadre, I’d have to trip over the mountain of DaVinci Code books between me and the brain-dead queue ready to take up the gun and ride against a couple of Danish cartoonists. It just isn’t worth my time and effort to think that tolerant artwork begins at the house of Allah.
Read the whole thing. Way to go, Ron.

Muslim blow-ups ...all the RAGE!!

2006-02-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn makes one of most darkly humurous play on words I've heard in a while in his latest missive, "Toon-deaf Europe is taking the wrong stand." Of course, this will likely put him next in line behind Salman Rushdie for a molotav enema.
From Europe's biggest-selling newspaper, the Sun: 'Furious Muslims have blasted adult shop [i.e., sex shop] Ann Summers for selling a blowup male doll called Mustafa Shag."

"Mustafa Shag." Must-have-a. Get it?! BWAHAHA!! Oh baby, bee-HAYVE!
Not literally "blasted" in the Danish Embassy sense,
Ouch.
Quite how Britain's Muslim Association found out about Mustafa Shag in order to be offended by him is not clear.
Kind like how I am deeply offended by all the scantily clad women in FHM every time I get my new issue in the mail.
It may be that there was some confusion: given that "blowup males" are one of Islam's leading exports, perhaps some believers went along expecting to find Ahmed and Walid modeling the new line of Semtex belts.
Oh! Ouch! OOOH! "blowup males" BWAHAHAHAA! I mean, of course, bwahaha in a you-sick-bastard kind of way. That shouldn't be funny.

But it is.

Of course, here's the kicker:
If I were a Muslim, I'd be "hurt" and "humiliated" that the revered prophet's name is given not to latex blowup males but to so many real blowup males: The leader of the 9/11 plotters? Mohammed Atta. The British Muslim who self-detonated in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif. The gunman who shot up the El Al counter at LAX? Heshamed Mohamed Hedayet. The former U.S. Army sergeant who masterminded the slaughter at the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. The murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh? Mohammed Bouyeri. The notorious Sydney gang rapist? Mohammed Skaf. The Washington sniper? John Allen Muhammed. If I were a Muslim, I would be deeply offended that the prophet's name is the preferred appellation of so many killers and suicide bombers on every corner of the earth.
To me, this shows more clearly than anything the cold, distant, and uncaring relationship that your average Muslim rabble rouser and/or Imam has with The Truth. In one breath they will condemn a cartoonist for portraying the prophet of Islam as a terrorist, and in the next, praise a martyred Muslim murderer for blowing himself and 30 others to smithereens in Allah/Mohammed's name. Yeah. That's rational.

And then there is The Kicker V2.0:

The European Union's Justice and Security Commissioner, Franco Frattini, said on Thursday that the EU would set up a "media code" to encourage "prudence" in the way they cover, ah, certain sensitive subjects. As Signor Frattini explained it to the Daily Telegraph, "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression. . . . We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

"Prudence"? "Self-regulate our free expression"? No, I'm afraid that's just giving the Muslim world the message: You've won, I surrender, please stop kicking me.
This kind of simpering, capitulationist drivel has the clarion ring of an abused wife who meekly defends her alcoholic husband by saying that she probably "had it coming. I made him mad, so I deserve it." Her co-dependent neediness and desire to avoid conflict lead her to suggest that "if I was just a better wife, he wouldn't have to hit me."

And so she stays with him, until one day, she "makes him mad" enough that he kills her.
The issue is not "freedom of speech" or "the responsibilities of the press" or "sensitivity to certain cultures." The issue, as it has been in all these loony tune controversies going back to the Salman Rushdie fatwa, is the point at which a free society musters the will to stand up to thugs.
When no one stands up to the playground bully, he keeps getting fat on other kids' lunch money.
I've met plenty of "moderate Muslims" in Jordan and Iraq and the Gulf states. But, as a reader wrote to me a year or two back, in Europe and North America they aren't so much "moderate Muslims" as quiescent Muslims. The few who do speak out wind up living in hiding or under 24-hour armed guard, like Dutch MP Ayaab Hirsi Ali.
Iraq is in many respects a very secularized culture. The majority of your populace are nominal Muslims with no particular affiliation or undue affection for any particluar sect or Imam. It's the fervently devout that end up as a pink mist. "Moderate Muslims" are the same as "cafeteria christians." They go along to get along, not taking a position on much of anything, willing to let other people fight over the nit-noids of theological underpinning in favor of preserving their own stability. It's when people start taking stands, and defending a certain viewpoint that temperatures start to rise.

In the moderate Christian worldview, if the pastor spins off on a theological tangent I don't like, I find a new bible study to attend, if I go at all. "Militant" Christianity most often takes the form of Fred ~~Phelch~~Phelps-esqe protests at military funerals, or waving signs and bullhorns at a gay pride parade.

In the "moderate" Muslim worldview, if the Imam spins off on a theological tangent I don't like, I find a new mosque to attend, if I go at all. In the "militant" muslim worldview, if someone spouts "blashpemy" against Islam or the The Prophet...I torch his house, murder his family, and sow his fields with salt.

I know which afternoon potluck I'd rather attend.

h/t to Jaybird's Nest for the link!

linked at Basil's Blog, Mudville Gazette, and Point Five

Cool Wave Shot --- Yes, I took it.

2006-02-12T20:20:00.000-08:00

Snicker, laugh, giggle, chortle, guffaw...

2006-02-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Ouch.

Why the "Religion of Peace" meme tends to wear a little thin

2006-02-12T15:08:00.000-08:00

British imam praises London Tube bombers
A LEADING imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good” act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter.
Now why, oh why, do you suppose anybody, ANYBODY would oppose the construction of a new mosque in their previously lilly-white, Anglo neighborhod? Haters.
A week after the attack he had told newspapers that the perpetrators ought to be punished. But in a secretly taped conversation, he said: “What they [the bombers] did was good. They have warned that we are here, we Muslims. People have taken notice that we are here. They died so that people would take notice . . . big meetings and conferences make no change at all. With this, at least people’s ears have pricked up.”
That's right. If the rallies and posters don't work, it's not because, you know, people just flat don't want to buy what you're selling, it's because you just plain haven't blown up enough shit to get their ATTENTION. Slacker.

I'm sorry, but this just happens too often to be effectively tagged as an "isolated incident."
IMHO.

Now I realize that with the likes of Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps the ol' Christian faith can't entirely throw stones, but I AM suggesting, overall, that pound for pound, per capita, the density of degenerate hate-mongering douche-bags is enough higher in Islam than Christianity that I get to waggle my finger and spout my myopic, bile-filled viewpoint with more than just a little justification. Sadly, however, I DON'T get to go wilding through middle-American suburbia torching mosques and planned parenthood clinics. And schools. And Salvation Army collection stations. And latte stands. And half empty recycle bins. And the dried up vine creepers pulling down the dilapidated fence around old lady Ferguson's failed pea patch.

Dammit.

This just in...

2006-02-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

Nor'easter Slams East From Va. to Maine

A major storm slammed the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states on Sunday with
nearly 2 feet of windblown snow, nearing record levels as it blacked out
thousands of customers and shut down air travel from Washington to Boston.

Global Warming blamed.

In case I forgot to mention it....

2006-02-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

I'M BACK!!

Gratuities and monetary adulation are appropriate and appreciated. Just as soon as I get around to setting up the Pay-Pal "Tip Jar" (also known as, Please-Pay-Me-For-Doin'-Shit-Ize-Already- Gonna - Be-Doin'-For-Free).

"Rioting for Peace"

2006-02-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

On the one hand, you have to think that all these Muslims rioting over tasteless cartoons should probably be diagnosed with some sort of emotional disorder and immediately be started on a broad spectrum of anti-psychotics, depressants and mood stabilizers...

...or just plain shot through the head...

...on the other hand, your average American sports fan is in no position to throw stones at people rioting for the flimsiest of reasons.

Of course, it's not too often that a sports riot spreads to other cities across the globe.

You have to be willfully self-deceived not to know that there are dedicated professionals out there who are planning, organizing, and instigating many (most?) of these supposedly spontaneous riots; professionals who are quite likely acting in coordination with one another.

I find myself wondering what would happen if these riots caught hold here? I have this image of a Korean shopkeeper on the roof of his store with a bulletproof vest and a .308. Next door is a black guy who owns a barber shop wielding a Mossberg in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. A pissed-off muslim rioter cocks back a molotav, and suddenly a large exit wound blossoms in the middle of his back, as the pungent smell of gunpowder residue fills the air. Three, four more fall, and suddenly, rioting in the streets loses its luster. Defending Mohammed's honor against a cartoonist's scribbles suddenly seems less important than avoiding a face full of double-ought buckshot. A rock flies through a display window, and almost like a ricochet, an angry retired fire-fighter comes flying back out swinging a Louisville Slugger like to put a smile on Babe Ruth's face.

At least I can HOPE this is how it would go down. If the average American joe still has any balls.

Linked at Mudville Gazette

Free Speech? Whatever.

2006-02-06T02:17:00.000-08:00

Muslim definition of Censorship

Hear Hear!

2006-01-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers

We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.
We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members. But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.
As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.
Signed,
N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid BearHugh Hewitt, HughHewitt.comGlenn Reynolds, Instapundit.comKevin Aylward, Wizbang!La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's CornerLorie Byrd / DJ Drummond , PolipunditBeth Cleaver, MY Vast Right Wing ConspiracyJeff Goldstein, Protein WisdomStephen Green, VodkapunditJohn Hawkins, Right Wing NewsJohn Hinderaker, Power LineJon Henke / McQ / Dale Franks, QandOJames Joyner, Outside The BeltwayMike Krempasky, Redstate.orgMichelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.comEd Morrissey, Captain's QuartersScott Ott, ScrapplefaceThe Anchoress, The AnchoressJohn Donovan / Bill Tuttle, Castle Argghhh!!!, and of course, Partisan Pundit

Off the Net for a While

2006-01-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

I am headed out tomorrow to support an Exercise on up mainland Japan. I'll be of the 'Net for three weeks. Doubt I'll be able to post anything. As such, I leave you with a list of some oldies but some goodies from the past. A few select morsels of what I feel to be some of my better posts.

How many Dems would get confirmed in Alito's place?

2006-01-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

That's an oooch.

That's a double oooch.

A Point of Clarification, If I May...

2006-01-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

If I thought for one second that an American president had intentionally falsified intelligence information (or ordered it to be done, since the President does not generate nor analyze intel products) in order to connive this country into going to war under false pretenses in order to satisfy a personal grudge or other personal or corporate agenda, I would be at the head of the line demanding not only his impeachment, but clamoring for his arrest and imprisonment for high treason.

But I don't think this for even one second. And I present to you that no actual evidence of such conduct exists. Moreover, I DEMAND that those who continue to make such libelous and damning accusations against a sitting president in time of war PRODUCE THE EVIDENCE WHICH SUPPORTS THEIR CHARGES.

Until they can, I propose that they adopt this singularly cogent and appropriate course of action:

UPDATE:

Upon reflection, don't STFU. Stifling debate is the last thing I want to support.

I merely think that if you are going to call the President of the United States a War Criminal, Traitor, and pathological liar, you had better be able to back it up with more than an uneasy feeling and an ambiguous memo.

This just in!

2006-01-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

Hajj stampede kills hundreds
Bush blamed.

A spokesman for CAIR was quoted today as saying that responsibility for
this tragedy falls firmly on the shoulders of Pres. George W. Bush.

"Mr. Bush's continued persecution of people of Muslim faith through his personal worldwide jihad has led otherwise calm, rational muslims to be increasingly fervent in their devotions to Allah, leading to such frenzied supplications that normally mild-mannered devotees are, to coin a phrase, 'completely whigging out'."

"By subjecting the people of Islam to this unremitting climate of fear, the criminal George Bush is personally causing such frantic, panicked mob-like destruction. We cannot be held responsible for our own actions when are constantly in the grip of such fear, and are so blinded by desperation that we trample our own brothers in the throes of a terror which borders on madness."

"This blood will never be washed off the hands of the murderer George Bush.
These deaths at his hands must be avenged."
The White House has, to date, made no formal reply to these allegations.

Observations on Life, Part Deux

2006-01-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

When paying your five year old daughter her allowance, she'd much rather have 10 dimes than only one dollar.
Yes, apparently, the wet towel on the duvet cover really does matter that much.
White socks in the colored pile? Yup. That too.
I should, in all fairness, probably call my mother and ask her if I was really ever that annoying as an eight year old boy, before considering any further the idea of locking the Medium-Sized Child in a footlocker.
The wife can get all slobbery over Cuba Gooding, Jr., and I'm just supposed to laugh and roll with it, but let me bat an eye twice at Keira Knightley in blue face paint and a leather bandeau, and the Imperial Wife becomes the Ice Queen. Real. Damn. Quick.
A five year old child can take up more bed space than two grown adults.
Some five year olds snore.
Notice to women: Research has shown that there IS actually a point where no more dishes will fit into the dishwasher.

Observations on Life:

2006-01-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from an actual conversation:

Imperial Wife: “Let’s have French toast for breakfast.”

Devoted Manservant: {looking in fridge} “Uhm, can’t. No eggs.”

IW: “What? You didn’t TELL me we were out of eggs!”

DM: “uhmmm..” {Points to the word “Eggs” on shopping list hanging on front of fridge}

IW: ...

DM: …

IW: “Well, I knew we were LOW on eggs, but you didn’t tell me we were OUT of eggs.”

DM: …

IW: …

DM: “Uh, yeah, well, my bad, I guess. Sorry. So, how does oatmeal sound?”

Caption Contest!!

2006-01-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

This just cries out for a caption contest. Let's see what you've got:
(courtesy of Fox News)

Linked at Basil's Blog Picnic Lunch

If I weren't happily married....

2006-01-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

Women for whom I would quite possibly risk toppling my entire empire, plunging the entire known world into the pyre of a bloody and senseless war...

Keira Knightley
Jessica Alba
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Madeleine Stowe
Hillary Duff
Maria Sharapova

A close second to:

Liz Phair
Amanda Bynes (ok, yeah, I'm a perv...)
Amy Lee (Evanescence)
Shania Twain

On the other hand: Supposedly hot and famous women who I wouldn't cross the street to shove into a mud puddle:

Britney Spears
Paris Hilton
Angelina Jolie (so sue me...)
Drew Barrymore
Cameron Diaz

Just one question...

2006-01-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

At what point does surveillance become "spying?"

Ya know what I think?

2006-01-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

I think that:

...we should be spending more money on free birth control and less on subsidized abortions.
...repeat sex-offenders don't every really "get better." No matter how much well-intentioned counseling they receive.
...If it's so important for people not to drink and drive, outlaw parking lots at bars. Put in bike racks instead.
...OIF/OEF are slowly draining our military dry.
....the Mexico wall is a helluvan idea. And Vincente Fox can just blow me.
...I don't see a whole lot of difference between Mexican smugglers shooting at border patrol agends and Palestinian smugglers shooting at Israeli soldiers.
...in light of the clear threat and obvious economic impact of unchecked immigration across our souther border, and the fact that NOTHING substantive is being done about it, that there's something else going on here.
...there's NO guarantee of privacy in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nil.
...North Idaho is just this side of heaven. But don't move there.
...if I was rich, I'd probably be dead by now. Although, being poor at times hasn't helped me out a lot, either.
...women were put on this earth to keep us men humble. And they're doing a damn fine job of it. Just ask my wife.
...life's too short to drink cheap beer, or bad wine.
...there are far more heroes in our military than on our sports team. If the military were smart, it would put out it's own trading cards. But most of the guys I know who might qualify, are too genuinely humble to think they rate. Which in my mind, makes them even more deserving.
...I miss 80's hair and angora sweaters. And ankle boots. And cotton mini-skirts. And glam rock.
...padded bras should be banned. I'm a firm believer in WYSIWYG when it comes to a woman's figure.

Is Anything ELSE Bush's Fault?!

2006-01-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

Apparently the unfortunate success of our Support and Stability Operations (SASO) in Iraq have taken the winds out of the Bush Lied, People Died meme.

So now, it's Bush Lied, People Spied.

Whatever.

Last Creationism Post for A While

2006-01-10T15:48:00.000-08:00

I think I've pretty much done the creationism/evolutionism topic to death. As a parting shot, though, just let me repost this reply to Joe from the comments section:

I don't expect religious studies or beliefs to provide the detailed explanations of "how." That IS up to science.

But as we delve more and more into the "how," the sense of an underlying system and a strangely synergistic fortuitousness about it all, it begins to suggest ever more strongly (at least to me) that there IS in fact a "why" lurking there underneath it all.

Religion/faith provides the "why," because that is a question which science alone will NEVER be able to answer. And it is a question (in my mind) that it is every bit as important to answer as the how.

Additionally, if you divorce science too completely from religion, and thus morality, you end up not just with ammoral science, but ultimately immoral science. Gene splicing to create designer babies, cloning, and others. Science can be and has been a great boon to mankind, but left unchecked by the restraining hand of a strong moral foundation, it can become the catalyst for great evil.

Richard Dawkins, man about town.

2006-01-10T01:25:00.000-08:00

Apparently, if a scientist tries to support religion from a scientific point of view, he's being intellectually dishonest to downright fraudulent to willfully self-deluded.

But let a scientist criticize or condemn religon from a scientific viewpoint, then he's lauded as speaking the truth to power, pulling the dustcover off the religious agenda, etc.

Nope. No bias there. None at all.

The link is to a technorati search. Scroll down and read some of the fawning adulation for his comments, which I mention here, and which I found to be hateful, bile-spewing anti-religion and anti-Christian rhetoric.

And some people just refuse to see the flaming hypocrisy of it all.

UPDATE:

RFBurn (?) over at "Little Bit Tired" adds a lot more detail and a good analysis, something I was frankly too disgusted to do anywhere near as dispassionately as he. Good job, RF.
Snippet:
Humanism is without a doubt the largest religion in the world, it always has been, it always will be.
I do not understand the fear these people have, the world is theirs, they control it.
Maybe it isn’t fear, maybe it is sheer hatred for what is good and right.
Sheer hatred of a God they want to wish away but that some part of them knows does in fact exist.

Creationism Redux

2006-01-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

Creationists say fossil discoveries back their theories

The vast majority of scientists consider the movement badly misguided, or worse, intellectually dishonest. Creationists, scientists say, aren't doing real science.

All creationists, everywhere, regardless of their qualifications, baseline assumptions, or methodology. Check.

"The evidence is overwhelming," said Skip Pierce, the chairman of the biology department at the University of South Florida. "These theories are essentially established fact."

Well, at least someone had the scrote to come right out and say it.

Organisms survived based on how well-suited they were to their environment. Beneficial traits passed on from parents - genetic variations in speed, size or eyesight - gave some offspring an advantage over competitors. Those offspring - with their unique inherited traits - stood a better chance of surviving and reproducing.

Isn't this variation within a species? Survival of the fittest is not at odds with Creationism/ID. Actually, it helps eliminate weaker defects and mutations, helping to keep the gene strain pure against harmful variations.

Darwin suggested that over millions of years those incremental changes reach a point of no return. At some stage, the organism changes so much, it can no longer breed within the species.

Sooooo, then who/what does this new critter breed with? Are these variations/mutations occuring simultaneously, and so pervasively across the genus that the critter who pops out unable to breed with the same species as its parents, has enough other guys or gals like him in close enough proximity that he's able to continue breeding? If not, this "new species" is self-limited to one generation.

If its inherited differences are adaptive, it can evolve into a new species.

Adaptive? By what mechanism? How do you use inherited and adaptive interchangeably in the same sentence? This seems like a pretty big "If."

On the other hand, comments like this don't do the creationist movement any favors:

There is no chance that any scientific find will sway their views, they say, because the Bible's account of history is complete and unerring. They even reject as "lightweight Christianity" the newer notion of intelligent design, which holds that some higher power created Earth and the universe but does not necessarily give credit to the Christian God.

"We know who the creator is," said Pete DeRosa, brushing dust off the massive skull. "It's the God of the Bible. It's Jesus Christ. It's our Lord.

"We won't find anything contrary to that."

Folks, there's a whole lot of breathing room within creationism. Closing your mind to anything but one narrow interpretation is every bit as unscientific as the detractors suggest.

That line of thinking doesn't really bother biologist Skip Pierce. He just doesn't think faith should pass for science.

Agreed. But neither does faith have to be totally divorced from science (or vise versa). IMHO.

And you wonder why we don't want Iran to have The Bomb

2006-01-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

HIV BOMBERS
Al-Qaeda's plot to infect troops with AIDS virus
Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.

Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.

That whole religion of peace thing is getting harder and harder to swallow.

When they come for your children, don't say you weren't warned.

2006-01-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Somehow, this guy sounds vaguely familiar.....

Dawkins: Religion equals 'child abuse'
Scientist compares Moses to Hitler, calls New Testament 'sado-masochistic doctrine'
Entitled "Root of All Evil?," the series features the atheist Dawkins visiting Lourdes, France, Colorado Springs, Colo., the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and a British religious school, using each of the venues to argue religion subverts reason.
Because heaven knows you can't be intelligent, rational, and informed in still believe in God. Might as well believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. But the Big Bang? Sure, no problem.
Dawkins, using his visit to Colorado Springs' New Life Church, criticizes conservative U.S. evangelicals and warns his audience of the influence of "Christian fascism" and "an American Taliban."
No room left in that rainbow of diversity for Christians, eh?
In part two, "The Virus of Faith," Dawkins attacks the teaching of religion to children, calling it child abuse.
Damn hetronormative fundamentalist moralizers. Much better to encourage our children to explore their sexuality at an early age, and teach them that there are no "right" answers, only individual interpretations of good and bad, all equally valid.

He really is going beyond his abilities as a scientist when he starts to venture into the field of philosophy and theology.
Ya think? Scientists should stick to science, right? I thought one of the requirements to speak on a topic was to be informed about it? If he's a true scientist, then he can't be bothered with crazy voodoo mysticism, because religion is not science!

He is the guy with demonstrable problems."
Understatement Of The Year.
Madeline Bunting, a columnist for the Guardian, who reviewed the series, wrote: "There's an aggrieved frustration that [atheist humanists] have been short-changed by history – we were supposed to be all atheist rationalists by now. Secularization was supposed to be an inextricable part of progress. Even more grating, what secularization there has been is accompanied by the growth of weird irrationalities from crystals to ley lines. As G.K. Chesterton pointed out, the problem when people don't believe in God is not that they believe nothing, it is that they believe anything."
There's an old country song which states, "You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything."

Truer words were never spoken. But alas, that sounds too much like philosphy, and since it isn't quantifiable, reproducible, or falisifiable, then I guess it must be discarded as irrelevant.

That this guy can spout such hateful, bigoted bile and still be referred to as a "scientist" is as reprehensible as his comments.

You can't have it both ways

2006-01-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Let’s look at it this way:

I think that Clinton knowingly gave false testimony before a Grand Jury, and interfered with the conduct an official investigation.
It was just about sex in the Oval Office.

Pres. Bush knowingly and premeditatively either falsified or deliberately misrepresented intelligence date in order to mislead Congress and the American people into supporting a war conducted in support of some secret Illuminati or Oil Baron agenda.
Pres. Bush took the actions he felt were warranted and justified based on an honest evaluation of intelligence data from a variety of sources, vetted through numerous levels of review, in order to do what the National Command Authority felt was genuinely in the best interests of the United States and to protect its national interests and sovereignty.

I think you get to heaven by blowing yourself and a busload of women and children into little, tiny pieces.
I think you get to heaven by putting your faith in the redeeming power of a Savior’s sacrifice on your behalf, and committing your life to helping and ministering to those in need.

The best way to ensure the survival of your country is to present a strong, united front, with a robust and powerful military. Support your allies and make it untenable for your enemies to attack you or your national interests.
The best way to ensure the survival of your country is to unilaterally disarm and show both your friends and your enemies that you mean them no harm. Open your borders and close your jails. Peace, love, and joy.

In all of the above examples, they can both be wrong, but they can’t both be right. You cannot have two diametrically opposed and fundamentally incompatible positions, and at the same time hold the view that believing one might be right or wrong is somehow intolerant, close-minded, yada yada yada.

It can be one or the other, or neither. But not both.

Your Amazingly Deep and Insightful Thought for the Day

2006-01-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

The only way to be truly objective, is if you really don't give a shit either way.

My problem is, I give a shit.

All I can say is....

2006-01-06T03:09:00.000-08:00

Where's Bernie Goetz when you need him?!

And on a related note, I think it's time to give the border patrol LAVs:
Shots fired at Border Patrol

From the "I Can't Help It, I WANT One" Files

2006-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

FN's Five-seveN® Pistol

Mini-Cooper

Know Your Enemy

2006-01-05T14:55:00.000-08:00

People who see this as an effective tool for accomplishing change.
130 Iraqis, 7 U.S. soldiers killed in bombings

If ever there were a better definition of evil.
---------------------------

Your Friend, Microsoft

Microsoft blocks Chinese dissident's blog
Microsoft admits it removed the weblog of a dissident Chinese journalist, citing the company's policy of abiding by local laws.
Unless it's in Europe, which doesn't actually produce products for Microsoft like China does.
Most countries, the Microsoft rep continued, "have laws and practices that require companies providing online services to make the Internet safe for local users. Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements."
You know, like free speech and all that other subersive crap we are bleeding out our best and brightest to provide for people in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

---------------------------

Random Blog Effluvium

2006-01-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

My five-year old daughter was atop the throne, doing her business, when I hear through the half-open door of the bathroom one of those drawn out, high-pitched, train-whistle kind of farts (or "toots" as we call them) emenate from her general vicinity.

There is a pause, a delighted giggle, and then she calls out, "DAD!"

"What?"

"I scream tooted!"

It took me a while before my ribs stopped hurting.

<><><><><><><>

I like the New Years Resolutions over at Six-Meat Buffet. No, really.

<><><><><><><>

Medium-sized child (8 yrs old) comes up to me the other day and lays out quite the deft little guilt trip. He's trying to finnagle a trip to the park for a little catch. So he hits me with this:

"You know what they say about playing catch with your child, don't you, Dad?"

"No, what's that?"

"It's a great way to create a stronger bond between father and son."

8 years old. Wholely fabricated heartfelt sincerity, complete with Nermal-esque eyes. Needless to say, after I quit laughing, we went and played catch. How can you argue with such ironclad logic?

<><><><><><><>

It has taken 10 years of marriage for me to realize that my wife (though she will vehemently deny it) hates Christmas. She talks a good game, puts up all the requisite ornamentation, but deep down really harbors a secret resentment towards the holiday which, for 33 years, has eclipsed her birthday which fall just 9 days earlier. It has also taken me almost exactly as long to realize that she PMS's flat smack dab in the big middle of the whole shebang. I mean, come on, how many cry at Christmas? Cry?! Not just once, but repeatedly! Over stooopid shit?!

Many things from years past all of a sudden make much more sense.

<><><><><><><>

Despite being in the Marines, I'm not normally that prone to using shitty language. I also tend to view those who delve into it to excessively as borderline neanderthal.

And yet, there are those who, through judicious selection or just plain hilarious over-indulgence, can make even a nearly unending stream of invective fit nicely into a pleasing narrative. One such is Greg Beck, apparent proprietor and bar keep over at "Death's Door." He's got an awesome wit and no-nonsense approach to the idiocy of other people. His frequent use of the word muthaf*cker (usually in the context of "stupid muthaf*cker") -- a word I would normally shy away from in polite discourse -- somehow comes across not so much as offensive, but as culturally apropo. I think he pulls it off because you soon realize, beneath all the ebonics and jive, he's smart as hell. If you don't mind a liberal sprinkling of the ol' F-bomb in a creative context, swing by. Astute, scathing, and funny as a muthaf*cker.

That is all. Please return to your homes, citizens.

The Search for the God Particle

2006-01-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

The God Particle : If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?

The "God particle" of the title is Lederman's term for what other physicists call a Higgs boson--a hypothetical particle that might hold a key to the subatomic world of quarks and leptons.

Even allowing for Lederman's open bias toward big physics, his book is a delight to read and absorb, far more accessible than most books about contemporary physics, because it is rooted in the experimental; the "God particle" of the title is the missing link of experimental physics, just as this book is the missing link between a complex world and the general reader.
Racing to the 'God Particle'

Because it plays a key role in the standard model of physics (the theory on which physicists base their whole understanding of matter), proving the existence or absence of the Higgs boson could rock the entire foundation of physics, indicating the existence of particles and forces not yet imagined and paving the way for an entirely new set of laws.

"What would shake the foundation of physics much more than finding the Higgs would be a definitive 'ruling it out.' That would upset all of our conceptions about how the universe works.
'God particle' may have been seen

Dr Renton cites indirect evidence taken from observations of the behaviour of other particles in colliders that agrees with the figure of 115 gigaelectronvolts for the mass of the Higgs boson.

"It's controversial. The data is possibly indicative, but it needs confirmation," said Bryan Webber, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge.

But the sums do not quite add up for the Standard Model to be true if these particles are considered alone. If only 16 particles existed, they would have no mass - contradicting what we know to be true in nature.

Their theory was that all particles acquire their mass through interactions with an all-pervading field, called the Higgs field, which is carried by the Higgs boson.

The Higgs' importance to the Standard Model has led some to dub it the "God particle".

Top quark measurements give 'God particle' new lease on life

"...which is far more accurate than previous methods and has the potential to change the dynamics of the Standard Model of particle physics.

"No matter how hard we try to break the Standard Model, it always seems to flex and still work," says Ferbel. "It's puzzling because we know in the long run the model isn't quite right, but it won't be beaten down. Every time we put stress on it, it shows it's still alive and breathing."
(all emphasis mine)

These scientists all seem to be suggesting the possibility that further research may reveal a model of the universe which will stand all conventional and accepted notions completely on their collective ear.

What happens if it does? Where do you go from there? Continue to consider only those options which are "scientific," or open youselves up to the possibility of other than strictly mechanistic causalites?

Linked at Outside the Beltway, Basil's Blog & Point Five

Evolutionism vs Creationism Kerfuffles Onward

2006-01-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

There are many blogs dedicated, at least in part, to addressing issues related to the ongoing debate with respect to presenting Intelligent Design alongside evolution theory in our classrooms. Opinions can often become as heated as any discussion on abortion, slavery, or women's rights.

The root of the problem, and certainly much of the discussion on evolutionism vs. creationism, lays in the perception that science and religion must, by definition, be mutually exclusive.

I find it deeply disturbing (dare I say, offensive?) to suggest that my religion is a bunch of hooey, unsupportable by science, and therefore little more than a ephemeral philosophical construct, mere mysticism and sophistry with no basis in cold, hard reality.

On the contrary. In my view, if your faith is NOT supportable by the findings of science, history, and empirical observation, then you best keep shopping. Therein lies a fundamental misunderstanding about the root and nature of spiritual faith, at least from the Christian perspective (the only faith about which I am qualified to speak). For a religion or philosophical viewpoint to have no basis in our four dimensional reality is simply (in my mind) unsupportable. True, some sects may seem that way, thus supporting the rampant accusations of “blind faith” and hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo. My experience with Christianity, however, has not been anything like that.

I find so many ways in which scientific research both validates and deepens my understanding of my religious faith. Intelligent, learned, scientific minds have plumbed the depths of the Bible, and dared to examine it most stringently against the world of science. And rather than disproving Biblical beliefs, evidence continues to come to the fore which confirms the historical record in much of the Scriptures, actually enhancing the serious student’s understanding of previously head-scratching passages.

Credible, dedicated scientists and researchers like Chuck Missler, Mark Eastman, Lambert Dolphin, Kent Hovind, and a host of others strive daily to show that science and religion not only CAN coexist, but in many cases, MUST.

In my 39 years, I have been witness time and again as scientific principles and theories which had long been presented as definitive, nearly unassailable, were turned completely inside out by the findings resulting from some new technology or research method, some new discovery or hypothesis which came from outside of established norms…and yet withstood the demands of the scientific method.

Therefore I view with a certain wry amusement the vehement assertions, the fervor, if you will, of this or that scholar, academic, researcher or scientist who maintains that they have the Final Answer, that this or that is “The Way It Is.” For now, maybe.

I DO understand the need for an objective baseline in scientific evaluations, one uncluttered by spiritualistic whimsy or arbitrary mysticism. “Because God Said SO” is by no means a scientific approach. However, contrary to what the scornful naysayers might suggest, few (if any) mainstream adherents of intelligent design are content with such an “explanation.” Characterizing these scientists and intellectuals as such is at best dismissing them out of hand, at worst open hostility to a viewpoint that doesn’t properly adhere to the officially sanctioned secular dogma.

A commenter on this site (yes, YOU Joe) has stated that ID and Creationism (yes, I do distinguish the two) cannot be considered science because, “…it lacks consistency, violates the principle of parsimony, is not falsifiable, is not empirically testable, and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.”

The theory of intelligent design is not being presented as some finished product, a package deal which brooks no dissent. It can be and is as dynamic and malleable as any other theory; one subject to change, modification, or radical revision based on evaluation of empirical evidence and the results of experimentation.

I am not suggesting the ID be taught instead of evolution. And I am certainly not proposing that ID be taught with the same dogmatic certainty as evolution. I merely propose that it be available as an option. That it be presented as one of the prevailing schools of thought on the question of origins. Present evolution as the primary and prevailing THEORY, but don’t be so fundamentalist about it. Don’t present it as a natural law against which, when measured, all others are childish quackeries.

There are worse things in life than to suggest to children that they should approach the world around them with a mind open to the possibilities of many things…rather than conditioning them from an early age to evaluate all evidence only within the context of strict evolutionism. Is it really such a danger to suggest that their existence on this Earth is the result of more than merely a random bit of cosmic flatulence? Or to present to them the possibility that science might even support such a notion if given half a chance?

I don’t really expect to win any converts from the devout followers of evolutionism. It just seems to me to be the worst kind of intellectual gatekeeping to summarily dismiss a potential area of study merely because it doesn’t conform to the strictest demands of atheistic, naturalistic absolutism.

Linked at Outside the Beltway & Basil's Blog

UPDATE:

Joe-6-pack preaches my sermon.
An even better one here : "Intelligent Design is not Creationism"

Ouch!

2006-01-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

A great one from Scrappleface:

"Circuit Court Upholds NY Times Right To Squelch News"
In its unanimous Mercer County ruling (PDF), the three-judge panel wrote, “The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state … Our Nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion.”

The professional journalists argued that although a reasonable person might consider the Mercer County ruling newsworthy, “We don’t have to report on events which conflict with, or contradict, our beliefs or predominant worldview.”

The spokesman said the Times would consider publishing information about the ACLU v. Mercer County case “only if it came from an unnamed source and contained highly-classified information, or if the Supreme Court overturns it on appeal.”

Yeeeouch!

More Headlyin' Newz

2006-01-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

From CNN:
Dad helped Florida teen get Iraq visa
Was already denied MasterCard due to poor credit rating.

Mexico: Walls won't stop migrants
US: Sniper rifles still viable alternative.

Russia to restore Europe's gas
Renewed popularity of borscht at eateries partly to blame.

Israel: Palestinian terrorist target hit in Gaza
Apparently, terrorists moved in as Israelis withdrew. Whodathunkit?

From MSNBC:
3 Katrina evacuees in Texas die in shooting
Bush Blamed.

Idaho, Montana to allow hunting gray wolves
GLSEN briefly up in arms after unfortunate typo in initial draft of agreement.

Investment bank takes global warming stand
Other displays at Enviro-Fair left untouched. No charges filed.

Europe slip-sliding around in sub-zero freeze
Global warming to blame.

Pack of angry Chihuahuas attacks police officer
Officer's taunting about Taco Bell ads reportedly led to vicious reprisals.

U.S. hospital in Germany site of sacrifice, care
Controversial Druid rituals condemned as "not helpful, at ALL."

Converts take on larger roles in militant Islam
Said to be preferable to being beheaded.

And while we're on the subject...

2005-12-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

How come it's supposedly an unConstitutional invasion of privacy to scan for radiation outside Mosques, but not to dust my luggage for explosive residue at the airport?

Hmmm?

How come this is Science...

2005-12-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

SETI goes BOINC!

SETI@home was launched in May 1999 to look for regular or strong signals from outer space. But the project, says director David Anderson, has run out of steam and needs to take a new direction.

"The science that SETI@home does is currently a dead end; it was meant to run for two years, it has now run for six. We are just rescanning the sky repeatedly and it's unlikely that we will find anything we haven't found before."

SETI@home may be switching off today, but it is not going away: it is simply joining forces with similar distributed-computing projects on topics from climate models to cures for diseases. The move should boost the number of users,
upping the computing power available to search for messages from alien life - BOINC"

...And Intelligent Design isn't? Spending six years scanning the skies for a peep for alien civilizations...and coming up with nothing...is considered a scientific endeavor, but attempting to determine if life on earth occurred through intelligent intervention is sheer pseudo-science quackery?

Got it.

UPDATE:

Some feller named XYBA has a great post on the subject. Which of course, neatly mirrors my own viewpoint, so naturally I linked him.

More Deaths in Iraqi Prisons....except...

2005-12-28T16:23:00.000-08:00

Inmate Kills Eight in Iraq Prison

An inmate in a Baghdad prison grabbed an assault rifle from a guard and opened fire, killing eight people, police said.

Now just what do you suppose are the odds that these eight deaths will somehow make it into the liberal lefties stats on the number of Iraqi's killed in captivity during the US occupation of Iraq?

Is Saddam really so bad?

2005-12-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

So, I mean, it's not like the guy was some sort of Slobodan Miloslavic. Ya know, except for the MASS GRAVES!

Counterinsurgency - Helping People Help Themselves

2005-12-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Noble, idealistic souls often lament the wanton waste of money on capitalistic hubris as we spend ourselves into glorious excess during holiday shopping frenzies; money that could be spent feeding the poor in impoverished nations. If we have money to spend on flat-screen TVs we don't really need, then we clearly have money to buy shoes for children in the Congo! Herein lies a fundamental philosophical disconnect between so-called Progressives, and traditionalists/fiscal conservatives.

The liberal mindset sees succor in providing beneficence, social programs to feed, clothe and house those less fortunate. This isn’t even liberalism, per se, but just good, conscionable providence between the haves and the have-nots. The traditionalists, on the other hand, often take a slightly different approach. A conservative believes that the best way to ensure that a society is able to feed, clothe, and house itself it to provide its citizenship with the means to provide such things for themselves. Government largess is meant only as a stop-gap measure to assist in those times of unavoidable want or need, not as a means of continuing sustenance for the economic fringe.

In the view of the fiscal conservative, or western traditionalist, the best way to help a third-world country to rise out of poverty is to provide it with an environment conducive to economic, technological, and social innovation and excellence. Thus the motivation behind interventions in places like Somalia, where it was felt that if we could just provide a period of stability and security from the ravages of tribal feudalism, the local economy would be freed to flourish, and social reform could begin. Alas, in this situation, feudal warlords were too interested in maintaining their tenuous grips on localized power to allow such seeds to take root.

The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan can be viewed through much the same lens. Insurgencies and revolutionary mindsets are born out of destitution and poverty. When a people feel like they have nothing left to lose, they become more open to trying anything. Counter-insurgency, therefore, focuses not only on the elimination of direct military threats, but more importantly, on changing the social environment which feeds and supports revolutionaries. It is a supportable position to say that the only way that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan would ever have self-determinate freedoms was for the ruling dictatorships to be removed. As the people themselves did not have the means to do so, an outside entity was required. This outside entity (the US) was motivated to do so by a desire to remove the sources of a revolutionary insurgency that had come to threaten its social and economic foundations. Mere economic sanctions and political pressure where shown to be ineffective. Other means were required. A definition of war is a furtherance of the political ends by other means. Here the “ends” were the draining of the pool of terrorists by removing their bases of support. Providing the Iraq and Afghani people the means, the hope, and the security to be self-determinant takes the wind out of the Jihadists’ sails. It gets harder and harder to paint the US as the Great Satan when we are directly responsible for enabling the people of these countries to live life free from fear and oppression.

The same shrill voices which condemn US “interference” in the economic and political affairs of third-world countries, are also the quickest to blame the US for not doing enough to combat poverty and deprivation in these same sorts of countries. Of course, by “doing enough” they really mean transferring some of our hard-earned GNP to band-aid the symptoms, not treat the cause. Providing food and medicine for war-torn refugees is noble and noteworthy – and is only a temporary aid which does not address the fundamental problem of what ultimately CAUSED the suffering in the first place.

It goes back to the old maxim, “Feed me a fish, I eat for a day. Teach me to fish, I eat for a lifetime.” Yes, provide me fish in the interim until I get the hang of the whole fishing thing. Thereupon, it only makes sense to stop giving me fish and make me fish for myself. Otherwise, why should I crank it out at the crack of dawn and brave the mosquitoes to catch fish, if I know that all I have to do is wait around for the next shipment of fish from the UN? One is sustenance, the other is self-sufficiency.

Linked at Basil's Blog & Mudville Gazette