Mohammed in a Pink Dress

Recently, Mike Adams wrote an open missive to the National Endowment for the Arts and published it with the title, The Queer Muhammed: an experiment in tolerance. Here’s the leadoff:

I write to you today, not with a request, but with a demand. I’ve been sitting back patiently while the NEA has been promoting anti-Christian “art” for a number of years. In fact, one could say that I have been supporting it, too, given that my tax dollars have been spent on this garbage. And maybe I’ve been supporting it in another way by refusing to write you to express my frustration. That is, until now.

In the spirit of the “separation of church and state,” my demand is that you commission a painting–fully funded with tax dollars–that has one intention and one intention only: To offend Muslims everywhere.

In the spirit of the experiment Dr. Adams proposes, I humbly submit the following:

[N.B. UPDATE: Ya really ought to start the sound file, now… ]


shallwedance.mp3

Mohammed_in_a_Pink_Dress_2.gif

I’ll say this for the old Butcher of Medina: he’s got gams. Such a pleasant singing voice, too. And though I prefer blondes (my Wonder Woman’s of solid Nordic stock), if he’d shave, I might even be tempted to give ‘im a twirl around the dance floor. But since I don’t swing that way, I’d never—not even in my wildest bachelor years—take it any further…

Second thought, I have to wonder if s/he uses “Essence of Goat Dung” as his/her personal fragrance… Yeh, there goes the invitation onto the dance floor, boys n girls. Not gonna dance with goat dung, no matter how good the attached legs are.

Publishing Mohammed’s dance card at Basil’s Blog, The Conservative Cat and TMH’s Bacon Bits. Ah, heck, Maybe Don Surber would like a spin on the dance floor, too.

Update: In spite of the threat to his embassy, Itsapundit linked this lil piece. All i wanna know is, when the Moose-limbs burn down his embassy, who’s bringing the marshmallows? Yeh, yeh, I know Mohammed’s bringing the hot dogs…

[Yet another update, below the fold… additions from some good folks who shall remain annonymous for the nonce…] Continue reading “Mohammed in a Pink Dress”

Apple iMac PC? *yawn*

Just checked out a PC Magazine article featuring the Apple iMac PC with the Intel dual core. “Setting the Intel chipset free!” is the silly Mac commercial airing, now.

*yawn*

Let’s see… ~$1,800 for a decently configured INTEL computer running the Mac OS X…

Or

~$1,200 for a similarly configured (or slightly better–and including a 20″ LCD screen as the Apple iMac PC does) regular ole ordinary PC running Windows XP. LESS if one wanted to use Linux.

Sorry, Apple. Macophilic Macultists will get a buzz on. Everyone who understands that the extra $600 is just money wasted on a name (and an OS that is still the most rigid, frigid, controlling lil piece of eye-candy out there) will find better uses for the extra cash. Heck, the pics at the PC Mag article show it shipping with the assinine Apple one-button mouse with two awkward “side buttons”! Only a masochist could love the thing…

But you can count on it: there are plenty of pervs out there who will go ape wasting $$ on an imitation PC.

One inexplicably stupid comment made by the PCMag writer was this paragraph:

Aside from cooler cases, another benefit of running dual-core on Mac OS X over Windows is that in a Windows environment, you must run security software (such as antivirus, antispyware, and a firewall). Though dual-core processing helps speed up general performance even with such software running in the background, you are still diverting processor cycles. With Mac OS X, such security software is not necessary, so you’re getting more processing power dedicated to apps you’re actively using.

Yeh, right. Pull the other one. “…such security software is not necessary…” At the very least every knowledgeable Mac user/guru (you know: the ones who actually know how the OS woks) I know of recommends at the very least having a decent firewall—software and/or hardware. And sales of Mac-only anti-virus software haven’t slacked off all that much despite the claims that all the virus writers are targeting Windows and simply leaving macs alone. What? Just because your neighborhood has never been hit by burglers you decide locking yuour door is unecessary? Let me know where you live. I’d be glad to hock your Mac. (Really funny thing? While checking on Mac security products, I saw a Mac Security site that had been hacked. It’s front page was “owned” by the hacker who had taken it down. *LOL* Saved a screen shot for future laughs.)

Then there’s the “diverting processor cycles” comment above. Silly ass. The price comparison I made above was between the iMac Intel PC clone in the article with a 2.0 Ghz INTEL processor and a brand-name PC using a 2.8 Ghz processor—the only brand-name Wintel computer I could find spec’ed down enough for a comparison. Computing cycles to burn, baby. (And isn’t it interesting that Apple’s starting with a processor that’s about 1.5 Ghz behind the curve for most other current Intel machines? Their code’s not all that svelte.)

Gee. Want the advantages of a more secure, robust OS (but one that’s genuinely flexible) AND really hot hardware, you could buy an off-the-shelf regular old PC (with the latest, not the next-next-next latest, as with the iMac PC clone) hardware, pop a Mandriva CD set in, boot and have a really slick Linux comp. Loads more stable and secure than either a Windows or Apple OS. And have money left to burn, as opposed to the over-priced iMac PC clone.

Yeh, but it has the really cool look, right?

Uh-huh. And NO expansion slots. Wanna add peripheral components? Fine, snake a buncha USB wiring and clutter your desktop with boxes and other junk. with the PC I spec’ced above, lotsa that kinda thing can go inside a slick-looking box, with 5 PCI slots available.

Nah. The iMac in its current reincarnation as a PC clone is the same old, same old Apple ploy: eye candy at excessive prices. Funny that to get a favorable price comparison to the iMac, the writer of the PCMag article had to compare the iMac “pony” to a Sony Vaio “dressage competitive thoroughbred” with a faster processor, full media computer capabilities, a 50% larger hard drive, all-wireless remote keyboard/mouse/remote control, etc. All among the many things the Vaio cited comes with which are lacking in the Apple PC clone.

*feh* That was a review? A puff piece written by someone who expected only subliterates to read it.

[Let me be clear: the Mac OS is fine… for Great Aunt Tilly. After all, since it is the ultimate “training wheels” OS, it does prevent people from easily messing about in its innards and doing wild things to screw it up. Which also means it is inordinately difficult to get anything done any way EXCEPT “the Mac way”. Amusing—and true—story. Was once part of a small office where each of us used our own computers at work. Right. Very small office. I had a coworker—a devoted Macrophile who had run the all-Mac computer lab in college—who was constantly coming to me and asking to borrow the use of my computer to do things he was unable to do with his Mac. Yeh, largely the result of being the only Macuser in the office and needing to manipulate PC files, a task never quite as easy as Apple claims. He also continually complained that my PC was too hard to use because it didn’t do things the way he was used to… on his Mac. Each time, I’d show him how to do things: “See? Just push this little button on the CDROM drive. You don’t have to drag the CD to the trash bin… ” “Your CDROM drive has a button?!?!? Amazing!” etc. *sigh* Inflexible, almost unteachable. Mac user. Needed his “training wheels” OS. Never “got” it that I liked doing some things at a command line (still do). Windows ain’t all that great, but at least it’s not like using a computer while wearing a straightjacket.]

Off-the-wall/0PEN P0ST

Every now and then, offbeat questions come to my mind (I know, I know–some of y’all already think that’s the only kind I ever entertain). Like, how many people can recognize their own neighborhood in aerial photos? I’d suspect a few more than can read a map accurately, but absent some academia nut somewhere weaseling some of YOUR money (and mine) from a spendthrift government, I don’t imagine we’ll have a fair ballpark guess on that any time soon.

Mystery01-b

0PEN P0ST for Monday—a few hours early. Link here and trackback. If you don’t know what to do, drop me a line or a comment and I’ll try to help you out. Note: for those of y’all still stuck on using the antiquated Internet Exploder, The World’s Crappiest Browser (hey, I understand: some folks are so conservative as to be positively reactionary in some areas. I have some of those areas, myself. :-), I understand scolling down to where IE has chopped up posts cos it can’t read the CSS specifying the cneter column size can be a pain. So, here’s the Trackback URI (right-click and copy, unless you have one of those even quainter one-button Mac mice, then it’s “Splat/options key+Click”–maybe, depending on your browser and how you hold your mout—heh). Or just copy and paste this: http://haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113677098423922307 . The URL for the post itself is: http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2006/01/off-wall0pen-p0st.html

Can’t find the blogosphere with Mapquest, but Conservative Cat (who also has a—serious—DIRE WARNING from Ferdy about an email virus) can probably give you directions to current hotspots.

Official Microsoft WMF Patch Now Available

Microsoft has now made an official patch available for the WMF vulnerability for all versions of Windows from Windows 2000 forward. See the notice at Microsoft’s site here, and select the proper patch for your system.

Official Microsoft WMF Patch Now Available

(Click the link, then look for “Security Update for the Windows Meta File Vulnerability Available”. OR just visit Windows Update. A direct download is more certain, though, with high-demand updates.)

OR

CLICK HERE

…if you want to go directly to the page with all the patches listed by Windows version.

Three ways to update, so you’ve no excuse.

🙂

Oh, and if you have previously applied Ilfak Guilfanov’s patch, uninstall it through Control panel before applying Microsoft’s patch.

PSA-pinned to Ferdy’s Bulletin Board at Conservative Cat

Update: All the security/OS wonks I usually listen to kept saying AV only a very few companies had some partial protection against WMF exploits. I just checked Grisoft’s website (remember: I’m concerned about computer security and have never suffered an infection by malware, probably because I practice semi-paranoid computing, BUT I am a tightwad, too. :-). All Grisoft’s products (including the Free Version of AVG) have offered at least this much protection against the WMF exploit since December 29–pretty quick response:

Exploit.WMF

These files exploits WMF vulnerability in Windows Operating Systems that allows malware code execution while WMF format file is opening. Unfortunately security patch for this vulnerability is not available at this time. AVG detects these files as Exploit.WMF and also as Trojan horse Downloader.Agent.

Not exceptionably bad. In fact, not half bad. Even unpatched systems can have such files noted for deletion or removal to a “vault” on normal daily scans (your AV software is set for daily scans as well as scans of all downloads, automatically, right? Right? 🙂

But. What about a visit to a web page with an exploit-embedded graphic? Better patch those systems, folks, even if your AV does offer some protection.

The Crux

I know no one who has not done stupid things or behaved dishonestly at some point or another in their lives. And I specifically include myself in that assessment. Only a pathological liar could live past the age of two and say that they’ve never done something stupid or dishonest with a straight face.

That said, what’s the difference between a common, ordinary decent person and the typical Mass Media Podperson, politician *spit*, Academia Nut or Loony Left Moonbat?

It’s this: an ordinarily decent person experiences genuine guilt when they catch themselves lying or decieving others and will repent and attempt to remediate their lie. An ordinarily decent person who does something stupid will make every effort to make whole anyone harmed by their stupidity and seek for ways to do better next time.

John F. Kerry, whose name really should be pronounced “Jean Fraud sKerry”, is the early 21st century poster boy for pathological liars and wilfull stupidity. From his first entry into public life, he has lived by lying and by slandering others. It’s his fundamental personality trait. It doesn’t matter to him or to anyone who supports him that his lies are largely a matter of public record, that they have been exposed as lies time after time after time, because he 9and his supporters) care not one whit for truth in any form.

And so, his blatant stupidities get a pass as well. He can contradict himself from one day to another, from one part of a speech or interview to another, from one part of a sentence to another, and to him snd his devotees, his stupidity is a sign of intellect.

Another lie.

So, where are the records Jean Fraud sKerry has promised time and again to make public? Nowhere, mon frere. But that’s perfectly sensible when one realizes that an “echo test”* performed on Jean Fraud would return a null value.

No More sKerry BS_button

Jean Fraud: no more B.S. Where’s the beef?

Sneered forth at The Liberal Wrong Wing and at Cao’s Blog, where the Free Kerry’s 180 all started (go there and sign up, eh?)

*The “echo test” was devised by the late, great Werner von Sam Browne as a field test for the presence (or absence) of gray matter between the ears of doofs, politicians and moonbats. Simply have the subject open its mouth, rap it sharply on the noggin a few times. No sound comes out the mouth (beyond the occasional “Ouch!” or the like)? Well, you know, sound doesn’t travel in a vaccuum…

Torching straw men, hammering at feet of clay

(With apologies to T.S. Eliot)

[These] are the hollow men
[These] are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.

Alexandra asked for a “10 Worst Americans” list. In her post, she further elaborates using the term “evil” to describe characteristics of “worst” Americans. Most of my “worst Americans” (though not all) fit the mangling of T.S. Eliot’s words above.

With nearly 230 years’ worth of people who have had a negative impact on society in America, I could name ten and not even scratch the surface. But here, mostly in no great order, are ten of the worst. Note: Since there are so many “worst Americans” I’ve included a few classes of “worst Americans” that embrace some who simply cannot be drawn out from the crowd around them. “So great a host… “

An obvious pick would be Jean Fraud sKerry. Along with his more intelligent and able fellow scum, Billary Clinton (yeh, no one could doubt that unholy wedlock has made them one after the way they lied, cheated and slandered their way in and out of office over and over), Jean Fraud has defined filthy, low down dirty lying, cheating. scumbag politics for the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

There: two in one.

(Still no ranking. One could lump Harry Pelosi Kennedy in the mix with Jean Fraud and Billary and not really notice any personality change.)

Next, who can doubt Dan Blather, his ilk and apologists (Mass Media Podpeople and Loony Left Moonbats one and all) occupy slot number three? I say all these “people” together comprise one of the worst Americans because they “think” with a group mind. Dittoheads are anarchistic individualists next to the “commie fag junkie” (to steal a great meme from George Carlin) hive.

Michael Moore. Planet-sized ego encased in lard. Liar, and proud of it. Embodies all the worst memes of the Loony Left Moonbat brigade and Mass Media Podpeople’s Army in one big fat slob.

Hollyweird. A sub-class of the Mass Media Podpeople/Loony Left Moonbat hive mind, differentiated only by its even greater ego and divorce from reality. Orbiting Pluto, it thinks itself the Center of the Universe. Discrete elements of the Hollyweird Hive Mind are not discernable. It is all one “person”. Any cells that begin to differentiate themselves from the Hollyweird Hive Mind are attacked as a cancer on the Body Beautiful. Those such as Mel Gibson who have enough stength to survive outside the Hollyweird Hive Mind (strength=character+financial resources+an ability to, uhm, think) may find success i n their ostracization.

There, that’s five, all fitting very nicely the definition of “evil” proposed by M. Scott Peck in “People of the Lie”.

Five more? OK, some classes and individuals.

Two classes of “worst Americans”-Public school administrators and educrats. Together, these two classes may be doing more to destroy America all other persons combined. Educrats-those self- and governmentally-appointed arbiters of What Shall Be Taught, and How-rule public education from afar with massive stupidity. While some may be truly evil, most are simply stupidly arrogant and arrogantly stupid. Consider all the dictates issuing from Washington D.C. (influenced by idiots running college “teacher education” programs) that govern what can and cannot be taught (and how) in your local school district. What activities are allowed and what are prohibited. Classroom disclipline, class makeup, curriculum, and more. Coming from a Congress and bureaucratic swamp that’s responsible for supervising the WORST public schools in the nation. That makes sense.

And public school administrators? Arguably the stupidest people in education. Seriously. I’d put my GRE scores, for example, up against ANY pubschool principal or superintendant. With extremely rare exceptions, they are all skating on the left end of the bell curve. And it shows in the effect pubschool administrators generally have on classroom teaching. Instead of doing things that enhance teaching and learning, most pubschool administrators-with noted RARE exceptions, as I have said-are massive stumbling blocks to education.

America would be far better off to put all the educrats and pubschool administrators in work camps breaking rocks.

Some more specific Americans to round out my list:

Lyndon Johnson. What a lying snake. A venal poltroon. Lied America into Vietnam, screwed America with “The Great Society”. Skated off the public stage when he should have been run off the planet on a rail.

Jimmie Carter. It is to my eternal shame that I actually voted for this picayune creep. Once. He is a lying, slanderous, traitorous piece of filth. An ego-driven fantasist who apparently believes the world revolves around him. He does charitable works? Yeh. And the reason is obvious in his dung beetle grin*.

Pat Robertson. He simply cannot keep his mouth shut, and what comes out is slander to the God he says he worships. Another ego-driven publicity slut.

And what shall I say of Roger Baldwin, Eugene V. Debs, and John Dewey? All influential in the formation of the American Communist Lawyers Union-and Dewey has to his “worst American” credit the distinction of having been the single greatest destructive force in creating (or perhaps Dewey would prefer “manufacturing”) stupid Americans, compliant sheeple.

Now, let me get historical on this list: Abraham Lincoln. Yeh, yeh: I know the Lincoln hagiography, and what I’m about to say will earn me the disapprobation (to say the very least) of 90% of the folks who read this. One can argue day and night that Lincoln’s so-called “freeing of the slaves” was a great thing and that he “preserved the Union”, but the plain fact of the matter is that for all intents and purposes, the republic handed us by the Framers died at Appomattox, and what we have today in runaway federal anarcho-tyranny is a direct result of Lincoln’s War. Each and every abuse of federal power, each and every twisting and outright violation of the Constitution we now know as just normal federal government behavior was either prefigured or practiced in even more flagrant and brutal fashion by Lincoln. More than 620,000 killed in Lincoln’s War. Not to free slaves, but to increase the power of Northern industrialists, destroy the economic power of the South and, not incidentally, bring about Lincoln’s view of a federal government that not only could but did (and still does) overrule Constitutionally-guaranteed State authority and individual rights.

Whatever good the man did is far, far overshadowed by the legacy of federally-practiced anarcho-tyranny we have from his hand today.

And I close with this:

A General Summary
Rudyard Kipling

We are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India’s prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-day.

“Dowb,” the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died-and took the finest grave.

When they scratched the reindeer-bone,
Some one made the sketch his own,
Filched it from the artist-then,
Even in those early days,
Won a simple Viceroy’s praise
Through the toil of other men.
Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage
Favouritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age.

Who shall doubt “the secret hid
Under Cheops’ pyramid”
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions?
Or that Joseph’s sudden rise
To Comptroller of Supplies
Was a fraud of monstrous size
On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?

Thus, the artless songs I sing
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!

Shamelessly flogged at TMH’s Bacon Bits (He’s baaaaaack!)

Confessions of a Practicing Tightwad/OP

Most of my metaphorical fires and alligators taken care of now. Now all I have to do the rest of the week is drain the metaphorical swamp… (it’s overflowing primarily with references to metaphors, I think. 🙂

Yeh, yeh. Open post. You know awhat to do… or not. 😉 If not, drop me a note and I’ll put you on the right track. Just link to this post and trackback. Now that I may have a normal schedule today and tomorrow, I’ll try to at least round up some of the more interesting links from this week. Also have to finish up an assignment from Alezandra *s*. And maybe a year’s roundup of TWC tomorrow, if I can fit it in.

This post will be open all weekend, so tb-away!

Now, the tightwaddery confession of the week.

I just love NOT spending money for something I really do HAVE to have. Like my new router/firewall. (Recap: my last router/firewall died; no replacements on hand. Essentially killed the rest of my lil network, and while one or two of my computers can survive with my backup dialup, having just my own net cruiser connected to broadband while family home for a while was… not fun.) Yeh, ate up more of the time I didn’t have this week just researching which setup I wanted to build and then configuring it the way I wanted.

Upside? After rummaging around in my junk parts, printing out and studying a buncha manuals on different router/firewall builds, yadayada, for the cost of my own spare time (what I could spare, that is :-), I’ve got a much more robust router/firewall setup than I would let myself buy off the shelf.

And I have a much better understanding of what my firewall is doing and MUCH more detailed control over my traffic.

Oh, and the last router/firewall that died? Still under warranty. A replacement is on the way, so I’ll have that for my wireless access.

Total cost to emulate a ~$300 router/firewall?

About $15 for

  • Cat5e cable and RJ-45 plugs (new cables-why not?)
  • A few CDRs
  • shipping the old router back under warranty (yeh, not rightly a cost for this router/firewall, but will re-enable my wireless capabilities).

Maybe I’ll post some pictures after I finish changing my network closet a bit.

Confessed at TMH’s Bacon Bits (where it looks like TMH had better be using the industrial-strength sunscreen or he’ll be emulating some bacon…), Liberal Common Sense (where Lisa trots out the “last of…” saw a coupla days early) and maybe some other places if I decide my reputation can take the hit of confessing my tightwaddery too widely.

Note

Very light posting today, and perhaps this week. Several “real world” things stacked up on me, for one thing, and then… tired of routers going south on me. *sigh* Going to be on/offline intermittantly this week as I assemble components and test different firewall/router setups using an old P-II as a testbed.possible appliance instead of just going out and buying yet another replacement quirky router-firewall that only does some of what I want…

But that’s just a lil lagniappe from life. It’ll be fun, but eat up some more of that time thing…

Oh. Well. Should have done this years ago.

“For unto us a Child is born… “

[N.B. When I wrote the following rather hurriedly several years ago for a Christmas program, I always intended to go back and “fix” verse 2. Still haven’t, so it’s been ommited as well as some transitional material. I notice I didn’t edit out all the material in the midi file, but it’s getting late, so… 🙂 ]

A Child is Born

For unto us a Child is born,
To us a Son is giv’n,
And of His peace and righteous reign
Shall be no end, shall be no end…

…So as once knelt at manger-side
The shepherds with their praise,
Do we who gladly gather here
Our anthem raise, our anthem raise

For unto us a Child is born,
To us a Son is giv’n,
And of His peace and righteous reign
Shall be no end, shall be no end.

A Child is Born

“For unto us a Child is born… “

[N.B. When I wrote the following rather hurriedly several years ago for a Christmas program, I always intended to go back and “fix” verse 2. Still haven’t, so it’s been ommited as well as some transitional material. I notice I didn’t edit out all the material in the midi file, but it’s getting late, so… 🙂 ]

A Child is Born

For unto us a Child is born,
To us a Son is giv’n,
And of His peace and righteous reign
Shall be no end, shall be no end…

…So as once knelt at manger-side
The shepherds with their praise,
Do we who gladly gather here
Our anthem raise, our anthem raise

For unto us a Child is born,
To us a Son is giv’n,
And of His peace and righteous reign
Shall be no end, shall be no end.

A Child is Born