Category: Uncategorized

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Links Up!

Start surfin’

Short shrift. Just lunchtime links cos time’s pressing today.
Woody’s News and Views: Selective Outrage On Gulags From the LLMB and MMPA? Really? Who’da thunk it? 😉
Cathouse Chat comments and links to an essential Varifrank read with Why Should Gitmo Remain?
Kim duToit: Where the Law Belongs Yup.
Diane’s Stuff includes Environmental Concerns, today. A thoughtful post. Which leads right to…
A Chaos Manor discussion. Jerry Pournelle carries on a thoughtful, civil and informative email discussion with someone presenting a thoughtful, civil and informative (will wonders never cease?!?!? 🙂 position on global warming.
Cao’s Blog has a look at ACLU attempts to undermine our society and force its religion on the rest of us with ACLU demolishing the Los Angeles Seal: A Call to Action from David Horowitz
And yeh, it’s early—I’m jumping the gun on the Carnival of the Recipes by a coupla days—but Christine has posted a GREAT recipe for No-Cook Cream Cheese Candies Oh. Yum. (RCat’s Spanish Tortilla recipe is a work of culinary engineering/art, too. Gotta have some-a that!)
CLICK on over to Keep the Coffee Coming for a fix of Laura Nyro and Judy Collins.
Boudicca warns of an upcoming Blog Crawl. Be afraid. Be very afraid. One potential participant asked about blogging “nekkid” so You Have Been Warned. 🙂
ALa comments on the Torture Log…. (*UPDATED*) Oh. Dear. The tortures at gitmo are almost as horrible as listening to U.S. Senators bloviate on C-SPAN!!! Almost.
Rich’s Daily Link Zeitgeist has a couple of “my” links already, so grab some linky stuff from him.
Well, I wish I had time to link more stuff just off my RSS feeds and such, but I can scan through them faster than I can link back to ’em and I’m outa lunch time, folks! TTFN!
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Pull the other one

Blessed Son & Heir just brought me another cuppa joe and I had a brilliant insight. See comments. heh. indeed.

Found this over at Spurs’ place. Linguistic logic isn’t the author’s strong suit, but it still works… kinda. In an enormously funny way (well, to me).

Your IQ Is 140

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Genius
Yeh, well if I’m so smart why ain’t I rich? 🙂 The central flaw of this test is revealed in the score I got (see my revelation below).
Funny thing (confession’s good for the soul and bad for the rep): I posted a mini-rant about a screwy question on the test in comments over at Spurs’ place… and I’m still operating on sleep mode. (Coffee deprivation.) I ranted on about one of the questions being faulty and needing to answer it incorrectly to get it “right”—and I couldn’t even remember what the questions and answers were 5 mins after taking it.
Cuppa coffee later, I started wondering about what I’d said. Went back and looked at the lil quiz. Unless someone sneaked in and changed the thing between my rant and my first cuppa joe, I ranted on about the wrong question—had not even gotten my reasoning about the test right 5 mins after taking it!
Just goes to show ya. Smarts ain’t all they’re cracked up to be. I ace tests. It’s a given. Give me a test and I’ll ace it. Any form: multiple choice, essay, whatever. But have I learned anything from the test (or even leading up to the test)? Can I apply what I’ve “learned”? Who knows?
There’s only one constant: How much I actually learn, how much I actually reason (rather than just go on “gut”) all depends on how much coffee I’ve had.
Coffee: the original brain food.
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OK, time to declare James Lileks a National Treasure

I mean, with snark like this, who needs Dave Barry?

From today’s Screedblog:

I get lots of emails like this at work. They make me tired. From the crusading Rex Curry, Attorney at Law:

Teachers, students, school boards and schools all over the USA received this open letter. Please help spread the word. Flag Day (6-14) is a good day to remove the flag from schools.

Goes without saying. And let’s burn some forests on Arbor Day, too. And what better day to commit suicide than your birthday.

Get thee hence. Read and enjoy!

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Tearing down the walls…

…the walls that protect us, that is

WARNING: Curmudgeon Mode: ON
Mass Media Podpeople and the wackadoos in the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade just can’t get over the horror of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Gee, you’d think that if they were serious they’d offer the poor, misunderstood sixth-century misogynist Muslims a place in their own homes, wouldn’t you?
Scratch that. Some of them would.
“Where you going Abdul?”
“Oh, just over to Ward Churchill’s place for another training session on how to kill all of you infidels.”
“Oh, OK. Better take an umbrella. Looks like rain.”
Bah. Torture by mistreatment of their “holy” book. Riiiiight. (Like, who supplied it to them? And who, pray tell, has been doing almost all of the “desecration” of this piece of toxic waste paper? Yeh, right: the “detainees” themselves.)
How about equal press for victims of genuine religious persecution in Muslim countries, all you Mass Media Podpeople, huh? (h/t Mark Steyn for the following from The Universe.)
Seven Christians released in Saudi Arabia on condition they renounce private religious practice – Jun 10, 2005
Seven Christians, arrested for their faith, were released on condition that they renounce religious practice, which they carried out privately in their homes.
That’s right: underground Christians in Saudi Arabia face arrest and imprisonment. NOT for conspiring or attempting or succeeding in blowing up people who don’t share their faith. Nope. That’s a Muslim practice. They were arrested for praying. Just not to the pagan moon god of Mohamed.
…According to AsiaNews sources close to Indian citizen Vijay Kumar, 45, of Tamil Nadu, one of the freed prisoners, their release took place after having signed a document in which they renounced the prayer sessions and religious practices they had been carrying in their homes.
In Saudi Arabia, only Islam is allowed public expression.
And apparently private expression of anything but Muslim beliefs is out, too.
Up to a few years ago, “a Christian was not even allowed to pray in private,” said Father Bernardo Cervellera, director of AsiaNews.
He added that now, because of international pressure, the Saudi royal family is allowing non-Muslims to practice their religion in the privacy of their home.
They say. but guess what?
“Unfortunately, however,” the priest explained, “the police and a considerable part of Saudi society do not accept this liberalization, so Christians are arrested.”
Yep. You got it. Our friends the Saudis do nothing to protect the religious freedom of others except to say nice words. Phonies. They’re perfectly happy to let their thugs keep persecuting Christians. After all, didn’t an interrogator at Gitmo accidentally nudge a Koran with his foot after a “detainee” had put it on the floor? ‘Nuff said. “Arrest those Chrstians!”
I still say Mecca and Medina would look nice, seen from space, as radioactive glass. Well, it’s a thought, anyway…
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Finally, a reason to stop panning Branson

Well, maybe not stop, but at least tone it down a tad…

Around here, Branson—with all its kitschy glitz—is “the” entertainment place to be. Blech. Mostly, it’s manufactured pap and country crap jazzed up with lotsa gimmicks and sizzle.
Not a lot to appeal to me, in other words.
But at last I have reason to reconsider getting the dry heaves or just hurling outright whenever someone mentions the “Wholesome Vegas of the Ozarks.”
“Welcome Home“—a weeklong tribute to Vietnam Vets. OK, even if the whole thing’s just a marketing ploy for more plastic pap, someone’s got a heart, somewhere, to have thought this was a good idea to begin with.
So, I’m going to lay off Branson for a while. I promise: no more projectile vomit when someone mentions the place. Honest. The “Welcome Home” week earns the place that much respect.
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Twist and shout!

Go here to climb inside a tornado

It’s just about as close as you can get to safely getting inside of a tornado. Storm chasers got a multi-camera unit right in a tornado’s path. Cool!
I’ve driven (unwillingly, well, unwittingly, until it was overhead—you had to be there to understand why I was so stupid) under a funnel system that had touched down earlier and touched down again a mile or so later, and also driven as quickly as possible away from the path of one a few miles distant in rural Oklahoma one time, but seeing inside one—safely—is just cool.
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E&P Says: “Questions Remain About Kerry’s Military Records”

Well, duh.

Questions Remain About Kerry’s Military Records

But will the press answer them? The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times published in-depth accounts this week but, according to Lipscomb, the form that produced the documents may have asked for “anything and everything” or “nothing much at all.” –E&P

Thomas Lipscomb, in an article in Editor and Publisher dated Saturday, June 11, 2005, noted that

In response to my story in the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday, the Managing Editor of the Boston Globe, Mary Jane Wilkinson, has now told Sun-Times editors that the Globe does indeed have a copy of Kerry’s Standard Form 180 used in delivering the documents to the Globe. That is reassuring, but it remains to be seen whether the Globe will release copies of the SF-180 in their possession, and that is important.

So just what’s so stinking iportant at this late date about Jean Fraud sKerry’s SF-180 and his military records?

Well, the guy remains an United States Senator; he’s a continual critic of the Bush administration and he remains an influence (though thankfully diminished one) in American politics in general—primarily through kid gloves treatment by Mass Media Podpeople.

Given that, at the very least it’d be nice to know just how damnably big a liar he is, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be instructive to know what the heck happened to those five or six years between the time he discharged his contractual obligation to the Navy (in terms of time of enlistment) and the time the record he has released shows he recieved an “Honorable Discharge”? I mean, what was he in the interim, chopped liver?

Is there anything in his complete record (which is still not released to the public) that would support his fantasy (“seared, seard into my memory” as he put it) of Christmas in Cambodia?

How the heck did he get that first Purple Heart?

He could lay all these questions and more eternally to rest by simply releasing his full record; something he has yet to do.

Why?

Reasonable people can infer from his reluctance to release his full record that jean Fraud sKerry has skeletons in his closet relating specifically to his military service.

What I reasonably infer is that this pompous gasbag was initially dishonorably discharged as a result of his unlawful consorting with the enemy in time of war while still in the Navy; that at least one of his Purple Hearts (or other awards) will not stand up to scrutiny if his record is revealed in full; that he is and has been for years lying through his teeth about his Christmas vacation in Cambodia.

IOW, that he’s not fit to be a Senator and that he’s not worth a pimple on the neck of any one of those men he slandered before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

That’s what I think a reasonable person might infer from Jean Fraud sKerry’s reluctance to clear the record once and for all.

What do you think?

Free the Kerry 180

See Cao’s Blog for more

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Hail, Liberty! Hail! — Kipling Tuesday

Look it up if you want, but the verses below stand well even without their historical context.

The Greek National Anthem
1918

We knew thee of old,
Oh divinely restored,
By the light of thine eyes
And the light of thy Sword.

From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again —
Hail, Liberty! Hail!

Long time didst thou dwell
Mid the peoples that mourn,
Awaiting some voice
That should bid thee return.

Ah, slow broke that day
And no man dared call,
For the shadow of tyranny
Lay over all:

And we saw thee sad-eyed,
The tears on thy cheeks
While thy raiment was dyed
In the blood of the Greeks.

Yet, behold now thy sons
With impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
Seeking Freedom or Death.

From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again —
Hail, Liberty! Hail!

NOTE: Richard’s comment spurs me to note that this is Kipling’s translation, versification and expansion of Dionysios Solomos’ 1824 Greek text. It takes a poet to translate poetry, just as translation of any literary text takes some artistry and understanding of the originating “heart” (as I discovered in attempting to do so in Koine Greek classes). Imagine that last verse rendered—accurately, though tastelessly—as

From the resting place of our murdered
Your bravery will last
As we meet you again
Helloooooo freedom!

Blech. Sounds like something that would come out of modern academia, a sort of Ward Churchill plagiarism of real art.

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So? What’s Congress going to do about the primary funders of terrorism?

Anything?

Will Congress continue to stick its collective head in the sand or will it finally take note of the obvious?

“Senator Arlen Specter Has Finally Been Whacked with a Cluebat!”

Well, that’s what the headline ought to read. Via Stephen Schwartz, writing in The Weekly Standard:

The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005

ON TUESDAY, June 7, Sen. Arlen Specter took an action that may substantially improve the difficult–some might say despicable–state of U.S.-Saudi relations. Specter dropped the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 into the hopper; the text was designated Senate bill 1171. Its cosponsors, so far, are Sens. Evan Bayh, Susan Collins, Tim Johnson, Patty Murray, Russ Feingold, and Ron Wyden.

The legislation is concise. The bill’s text stands as an indictment of Saudi Arabia, since it is mainly an inventory of evidence against the kingdom and the role of its rulers in enabling terrorism. S. 1171 summons the rulers of the Saudi kingdom to comply with United Nations resolution 1373, calling on states to refrain from supporting terrorism, to combat terrorism, and to deny safe haven to financiers and planners of terrorism. As the home of Wahhabism, the state cult and Islamist ideology underpinning al Qaeda and its allies, Saudi territory is a rich field of targets for serious counter-terrorism.

Well, about stinking time, folks. Of course, if the bill had any teeth and Congress any, uhm, intestinal fortitude, it’d also call for the Saudis to pay reparations to all the victims of Islamofascism terrorist acts funded by Saudi monies.

But the real (very deserved) kick in the teeth to the Saudis and their ilk would be for the U.S. to immediately invest heavily in such technologies as (proven ultra safe) pebble bed reactors, orbiting satellite solar power stations, petroleum manufacturing plants (such as this one in Carthage, Missouri ).

And then spread the technology as far and wide as quickly as possible in order to cut into the Saudis’ (and others’) oil revenues.

Oh, and while we’re at it, offer to sell them water. At $55 a barrel. (Water shortages are dire and growing in the primarily Muslim Middle East.)

  • Reparations
  • Cut their revenue
  • Sell them all the water they want or need… at slightly above what they charge for oil.

Sounds like a plan.

Oh, and as long as we’re on a roll, since better than 80% of the Muslim world is illiterate, why not offer to print and distribute all the “Korans” they want-and give ’em all copies of Nancy Drew Mystery books disguised as Korans?

It’d work for me. I’d buy tickets to watch a buncha misogynist Muslim mullahs rioting over the “desecration” of Nancy Drew—Curse of Blackmoor Manor.