Although stats are a concern running way toward the back of the pack, my “once-in-a-while” check of TTLB earlier this week has turned into a once-a-day thing because of the weird discrepancies displayed on its pages relating to twc. Since this is definitely not a general interest topic for readers of these pages (after all, most of y’all care deeply about google page rankings, TTLB and Technorati rankings and such… as deeply as I do, which is not much at all :-)), so if you’re at all interested… Continue reading “Blogeeky Stuff—more on “the silly stats game””
The “All You Can Eat Diet”/OTA Weekend
This is an Open Trackback Alliance post. All weekend long, link to this post in one of your own and then track back. more below the “diet”.
This guy must have been on the same wavelength as Jerry Pournelle, who tried this diet for one day a week many years ago as a grad student…
” I know a diet on which you can eat all you want as often as you want, so long as you eat only the one thing: Purina Monkey Chow.”—Jerry Pournelle
As I said, this is an open trackback post open all weekend long. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out
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Does Zarqawis Death Matter?
Absolutely. He was the self proclaimed leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He was acknowledged as such by Osama Bin Ladin and Zawahiri. If instead Al Qaeda had successfully killed our President, or even a top general in Iraq like General Casey it would be a major coup for them and a serious blow to us. So the same is true when we successfully kill their general in the theatre and one of his top lieutenants. Not to mention the 17 other safe houses coalition forces raided successfully today. Just imagine 17 separate Al Qaeda attacks in one day. 17 US soldiers captured in different parts of Iraq on one day.
Make no mistake this is a major blow.
Some are already saying others will rise to take his place. No doubt they will. Until our enemy realizes the fight is hopeless they will continue but for now they are shaken.
More than anything I know this was a major blow to Al Qaeda and a major victory for the Iraqi people, the new Iraqi government, the United States, and coalition forces because of a post my friend at Treasure of Baghdad just put up titled The Thousand-Miles Road Starts with One Step: Continue reading “Does Zarqawis Death Matter?”
Putting Haditha in Perspective
I’ve avoided writing about the Haditha situation (Marines accused–mostly by the far left–of “atrocities” in Haditha last November in an incident that was under active investigation by the military long before any Mass Media Podpeople whistles blew). I’ve done so because others are doing a fine job of handling the situation. Michael Yon, though, has outdone the best of the blogosphere and responsible traditional media with Hijacking Haditha.
You might also read Rick’s post at The Real Ugly American pointing to and commenting on an American Thinker Piece. Given the facts presented there, one might almost think Dan Rather’s behind the Haditha massacre story… I’ll not link directly to the American Thinker piece, cos I’d rather you licked up the link from Rick and read his comments as well.
Just for fun
Weeelll, playing around with Puppy Linux. Yeh, you heard me. I was over at The Florida Masochist reading a post about assault with a dead chihuahua, and I thought, “Hmmm… I’d better check that “Chihuahuas were bred for food” memory I had float to the surface. A quick Google search later, I had verification from several sources and… a link to someone talking about their experience with Puppy Linux, a Live CD distro (that can also be installed on a hard drive) that’s a mere 70 MB download (for the ISO image), and which can run in memory (apps n all) on most modern computers.
There are smaller footprint versions of Puppy Linux, but I chose the one that includes Opera 9 (beta 2) web browser. Slick. A really short config of video, mouse, ethernet–all using easy wizard-based configuration tools where i simply accepted the default all the way through, in order to see if it’d work as well for someone—the proverbial “Aunt Tilly” *heh*—who has no technical expertise as for a techie-oriented guy.
Works just fine.
I was planning on putting together a new Linux box to play around with the new “Dapper Dan” Ubuntu 6, but I may just slap a couple together and put Puppy Linux on another, as well. This is a slick, fast, capable lil OS, from what I’ve seen so far. Nice.
“Freude, schöner Götterfunken… “
Lines from Schiiler’s poem, An die Freude, which Beethoven credited as the inspiration for his Ninth Symphony, have been running through my head off n on today…
See, I had this “real world” project that’s taken me away from the computer much of the day but at the same time kept me around the house. I was gonna just put the Eroica on and let it lift me up a bit, energize me (a lot), but then I thought about those nine mp3 downloads from last summer, the nine performances of Beethoven’s symphonies by the BBC orchestra.
Wonderful! Burned off a fresh mp3 CD with all nine and popped it in the DVD player in the living room (where much of my “real world” project was going on.
What a way to lighten the work! I always forget how much I love the first symphony until I hear it again. *heh* but then, despite folks’ saying for years that all the odd-numbered ones are so much better than Bethoven’s even-numbered symphonies, they’re all simply wonderful.
Yeh, the mp3s lack a little in sound reproduction as against decent DDD Cd performance reproductions, and I retired my venerable RCA three-ways with their wonderfully smoothe frequency responses, and my ears are older and sometimes rather full of the “tintinabulation of the bells, the bells, the bells…” but musical memory fills in the holes and gaps with years of remembered performances heqard (and a few participated in), so the play of the recordings was mostly an evocation of that musical memory base.
Another pleasant thing.
“Freude, schöner Götterfunken,” indeed!
Food for the soul. Thanks, Ludwig!
[Clown–exit, stage left]
Well, I’m a little slow outa the gate this morning… Committees of Correspondence and Stop the ACLU were first in my inbox this a.m. with the news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is R.I.H.—roasting in hell (although only CofC actually implied those appropriate words).
Seems like a time for a reprise—and an update—of Sympathy for the Devil, written from the heart as a “get well” card in doggerel for the clown after he’d been rumored to have been wounded:
To: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
(I’ve addressed this to you in Malawi,
Cos I hear you’re running
From folks who’re gunning
For you, for a lark on safari.)Your wounds may be sorely pressing,
And even, perhaps, quite distressing,
But I take hope in this,
You insufferable piss-
They’ve poisoned your surgical dressing.So, as your wounds fill with puss,
We’ll charter a big Grehound bus
To haul in the tourists
(We need no jurists)
To jeer as you whine, moan and fuss.Your passing will leave us distressed,
For really, in case you’ve not guessed,
We all think it fitter
You suffer long, bitter
Agonies; yes, that is best.
Nah, on second thought, no real update. I’ll not rejoice that he’s suffering the agonies of hell, now, but I am glad he’s removed from a leadership position in al-Qaeda. Permanently.
Would someone like to pen new words to “Pore Judd is Daid” (Although somehow I think a hip-hop version of “Ding Dong, Zarqawi’s Dead” might be a lil better)? All I wanna know is where’s the funeral. I wanna send a baked ham for the wake.
Begging for new lyrics and Zarqawi funeral food recipes at TMH’s Bacon Bits (bacon bits! Let’s send a case of those!), Basil’s, Conservative Cat and Blue Star Chronicles.
Stop the ACLU
[Note: due to my personal distaste at the pejoration of a once perfectly good word, I have edited Gribbit’s post very slightly. Where you see the construction “gay homosexual” you may be assured that the strikeout and substitution is my edit.—mnmus]
A central theme of the 2004 elections coinciding with the Presidential election was state amendments to their individual Constitutions defining marriage or banning same sex marriages. The ACLU has been successful in overturning these laws passed by the popular vote of the people in 2 states. Now, the ACLU is challenging another such law this time in the Volunteer State and the case is now coming before the state Supreme Court.
Several state representatives held a news conference to urge the Tennessee Supreme Court to reject an ACLU challenge on the constitutionality of the marriage amendment and let it go before a voter referendum.
They cited a survey by RealMarriage.org, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based group trying to get the amendment passed, that indicates most Tennesseans want to be able to vote on defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
“It’ll be a sad day when queers and lesbians are allowed to get married … and kiss in front of the courthouse,†Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland, said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate rejected a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The 49-48 procedural vote was 18 short of the 67 needed for the Senate to amend the constitution. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., criticized this week for bringing the matter to the floor in an election year, said those who favor the amendment will not give up.
“We must continue fighting to ensure the Constitution is amended by the will of the people rather than by judicial activism,†he said. SOURCE
So what are we to do? States are passing these measures by popular vote and those pushing the depravity of same sex marriage cannot prevent it from happening using the ballot so they resort to the judicial system. They bank on the activism of jurists to side with the minority. I’m sorry, but the way I was taught, majority rules is the democratic way.
The people in Tennessee want this law. But the ACLU and the gay lobby is doing all that they can to keep us from having our will and force us to accept unnatural coupling as healthy and normal. Where does it end?
End taxpayer funding of the ACLU. Sign our online petition and call, write, and email your Senators and Congressman. Let’s put this to an end.
If I may add a small piece, a more central issue than “majority rules” is that the ACLU and others have managed to with the Battle of the Fourteenth Amendment and intrude the federal government into all manner of local and state issues that it has no business in and that the Fourteenth Amendment was not, as far as I can determine, designed to address. “Equal protection” etc., does not apply to newly-discovered “rights” far from any either ennumerated in the Constitution or adherring to citizens under natural law at the time of the amendment’s passing… such as the supposed “right” of homosexuals to marry. —mnmus
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Short Roundup/Wednesday OTA
If it’s Wednesday, it must be Open Trackback Alliance Day at third world county. Link to this post and track back. More info below the roundup of posts/pages of interest.
A roadmap to sex ed 101 from downunder. *heh*
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
More Twain on Congresscritters here.
“Death By A Thousand Cuts,” at Median Sib: “This is a letter written by Anthony Ippoliti, a Marine Infantryman currently serving in Fallujah, published in a local Connecticut newspaper, The Ridgefield Press…”
Read it.
“America in Decline?” at The Real Ugly American. Rick argues against the case.
Answering the age-old question, “[W]hat is the best gun to carry to guard against a bear?” *heh* (I, too, would like to know the type of bullet used, but make and caliber of weapon is good info.) Lots better than curling up in a foetal ball and hoping for the best…
More good listening at Keep the Coffee Coming. Put on a tune, sit down with a cuppa joe and enjoy! And no, I’m not linking to individual songs. Too many good ones. Just scroll on down the page and enjoy Kat’s taste in music.
Lady Diane belabors the obvious. 🙂
“Stop selling ice or we’ll kill you. It’s unislamic.” Believe it or don’t, from The English Guy. *sheesh* I think a few of Mohammed’s own lil monkey men need to chill.
Check out the Mexican Tourism Ad Angel links to. *heh*
Bowling for Micheael Moore, at Basil’s. How about bowling with Michael Moore? Or at least parts of him. Frozen, like turkey bowling?
At All Things Beautiful, Alexandra posts the thought-provoking, Belief vs. Unbelief.
As I said above, this is an open trackback post. Feature one of your own posts here by linking to this post and then tracking back.
Wanna host a linkfest, see
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Fair Tax—”It’s (Still) Alive!”
It’s Still Alive! by Ms.Underestimated
Folks, I told you about the good news Congressman John Linder gave us about an impending face-to-face with President Bush about the Fair Tax, and now the word is out! The Gwinnett Daily Post catches us up on this great news:
FairTax still kicking
06/04/2006By: Dave Williams
Many political observers were ready to bury U.S. Rep. John Linder’s FairTax bill last fall when President Bush’s tax reform commission gave the back of its hand to the proposed national sales tax.
The panel chose to recommend tweaking the current income tax system rather than such a dramatic overhaul of the way the federal government collects the revenue it needs to operate.
But the FairTax won’t go away. During a raucous public rally in Gwinnett County last month in support of the legislation, Linder, R-Duluth, announced that he is being offered an opportunity to present the bill to the president and House Republican leaders.
He will meet this week with the House GOP leadership, then head to the White House on a date yet to be set — accompanied by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. — to outline his bill to Bush.
So much for the demise of the FairTax.
“The national sales tax is very much like Freddy,’’ said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, referring to the main character in countless installments of the “Nightmare on Elm Street†horror movie series. “It just refuses to die.’’
See? I TOLD you so! It’s POSSIBLE! And that’s not all – the Gwinnett Rally was just the beginning:
A capacity crowd of 4,500 jammed the Gwinnett Convention Center for last month’s rally, which featured Linder, Atlanta-based syndicated radio talk show host Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity of the Fox Television Network.
“We think there were 3,000 people turned away,’’ Linder said. “I was amazed.’’
The event was so successful that Linder and Boortz are talking about following it up with a series of rallies. Linder said they’re looking at Orlando, Fla., as the next stop.
Okay you guys, here’s your next chance. We gotta stick together and make this happen. If you live in the southeast (or anywhere else, for that matter), I urge you to call your local radio talk shows and implore them to get Neal Boortz, John Linder, Sean Hannity, and whoever else is on board with the Fair Tax, to come hold a rally in YOUR area! If we keep up this momentum, this could truly be a present-day Boston Tea Party that we have on our hands. It’s time to get the government out of our lives, and as John Linder said that night “it’s none of the government’s business how much money I make.†YES!
We’ve got to be vigilant, though, as well all know there are those detractors out there who want to stop us:
The FairTax also faces competition from other proposals aimed at overhauling the current system, including the flat tax on incomes once championed on the presidential campaign trail by Republican Steve Forbes.
“The vast majority agree the tax code needs drastic revision,’’ Sabato said. “The problem is nobody agrees on what the revision should be. … There just isn’t a national consensus for it or anything close to it.’’
But Sabato gives Linder high marks for persistence.
“He is trying to plant the seed,’’ Sabato said. “Who knows whether the seed may sprout and even flower? On the other hand, the seed may die in the ground.’’
My friends, we can’t let that seed die in the ground. We must keep nourishing it with our voices. If we can get 1, 2, 4 or 50 more rallies like this going, we will send a loud and clear message to Washington: “I WANT MY FAIR TAX!â€
Also, send these radio stations copies of the Fair Tax book. I know it has been previously called for us to send copies to our representatives, but I’m sure they’ve gotten their copies already. It’s the people of this country we need to change – the Congress is hopeless. If your local talk show hosts can believe in this, then this movement will carry forward. You can buy them here. The government cannot ignore an informed country. The time is now!
The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry or Jonathan. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.