Monthly Archives: January 2004

And fascism.

Creeping fascism update.

This is pretty old, relatively speaking, but hilarious.

There is still hope for The Hobbit movie.

Is this legal? Can I start up my own little force?

I would have thought not flying these airlines would go without saying, but apparently not.

We’re back to yellow alert. I know I feel better.

VDH

We must continue hacking away the terrorist Hydra in the Sunni Triangle, and hope that the ongoing cultural, economic, and military fallout from Iraq begins to erode fascism and theocracy in Syria and Iran faster than such nearby pathologies can ruin us in Iraq.

To be fair to Canada, the US also has its fair share of fun police.

The number three link if you google John Ashcroft. I had no idea this sort of thing went on in government circles.

MRC willing to bet $1 million that Brokaw has a liberal bias.

What a loser burglar.

A good thing for the intruder that Gladys, 59, didn’t find her rolling pin. If she had, he might have had a few more bruises to add to those he got being shoved down the stairs and pummelled by Gladys’ husband Clifford, 66, and then struck repeatedly in the back by Gladys wielding her metal tea kettle.

Dean keeps on digging and digging.

Democratic front-runner Howard Dean said Wednesday that his decision as governor to sign the bill legalizing civil unions for gays in Vermont was influenced by his Christian views, as he waded deeper into the growing political, religious and cultural debate over homosexuality and the Bible’s view of it.

“The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component to it,” Dean said in an interview Wednesday. “From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people.”

Oddly enough, God does think homosexuality is a sin and says so quite clearly. And I, personally, am convinced God knows more about the genetic component of it than Dean does.

via Drudge Report

This dumb article brought back to my mind what I was thinking about this morning at the gym. What used to be solved with a verbal dressing down or a couple of punches now requires a law suit. Are Americans just wimpy nowadays or have I completely misunderstood the whole situation?

There are some mistakes that are no big deal, and there are some that are going to cause a lot of grief. Read carefully. I’ll get a screenshot here soon.

UPDATE: Here is a screenshot.

Here is the article

Most outages were small, effecting small neighborhoods.

Shouldn’t that be “affecting”? Or are they saying that it had a nice effect on the neighborhoods?

The FBI can’t use OnStar to snoop on you. Why? Because it’s unconstitutional? Nooo, don’t be silly.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the FBI is not legally entitled to remotely activate the system and secretly use it to snoop on passengers, because doing so would render it inoperable during an emergency.

Theodore Dalrymple. Someone else I like.

The case is a reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy according to which individual desire is the only thing that counts in deciding what is permissible in society. Brandes wanted to be killed and eaten; Meiwes wanted to kill and eat. Thanks to one of the wonders of modern technology, the Internet, they both could avoid that most debilitating of all human conditions, frustrated desire. What is wrong with that? Please answer from first principles only.

via National Review

Rumsfeld turned down the Times Man of the Year! I like that guy.

via Drudge Report

Since New Year’s is over, it’s time for Valentines Day! Hurray!

Truly, “BitterSweets(tm)” are the perfect gift for you OR for someone you love, especially if that special someone is one who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings but just doesn’t feel that way about you but still wants to be friends so they can torment you with stories about their crushes on someone who doesn’t appreciate them like you do, can’t love them like you can, and actually takes pleasure in corralling a herd of fawning “just friends” behind themselves as they indulge in one self-destructive relationship after another, with no hope of ever finding true love, despite an army of souls eager to lavish it upon them.

(You know what we’re talking about.)

This is classic.

via Fark

Yeah, I know, cheesy. But, this is waaay too much work for a prank.

via Fark

This isn’t exactly being given the Kobe-Peterson-Jackson treatment.

Since I just bought and SUV, I thought I would comment on this insufferable snobbery from the New Yorker.

Of course, the logic behind that argument is backward: the trip to Wal-Mart is a good deal more hazardous than fording a stream in the wilderness, and we ought to be buying cars optimized for the conditions we actually drive in.

Like carrying a month’s worth of groceries and the kids at the same time?

We have 6 inches of snow coming, please may I drive an SUV? Ground clearance is important when there’s a foot of snow. Or berms from the snow plows. And if SUVs weren’t ubiquitous, I wouldn’t be able to afford one. I would be driving a less safe vehicle, when I could get out on the roads. But getting great gas milage.

The S.U.V., on the other hand, is supposed to allow the buyer to pretend that he or she doesn?t have a family, that he or she is still a kind of rugged loner without suburban entrapments.

I don’t have any family, at least none near me, and no kids. I’m all alone, oh, so alone. So I drive that 17mpg beast all by myself. Oh, the humanity!

If every car on the road was a Mini, then the cost of an accident would be quite small: if you are in a Mini and you hit a Mini, you aren?t going to be that bad off. So, in the old days, the premium on active safety wasn?t so large. On the other hand, if every car on the road is an S.U.V., the cost of an accident grows substantially. When a Ford Explorer hits a Chevy TrailBlazer, both parties suffer enormously.

Do body shops charge less labor on smaller cars? I don’t know. It just seems odd to me.

And, if a Ford Explorer hits a Mini, the Mini driver is a dead man.

What I’m getting from that is I should have a vehicle with more metal than a tomato can to drive in.

Of course, it would be better if every car on the road was the same weight.

And you can have whatever color you want as long as it is black. So, I say 1 ton. It seems like a nice compromise.

Don’t worry, I didn’t take all the fun out of it, there’s more hilarity in the article.

Hillary Clinton makes a boo-boo.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized for joking that Mahatma Gandhi used to run a gas station in St. Louis, saying it was “a lame attempt at humor.”

Plus it has this great quote from someone important:

“Political speeches can’t be like episodes of the Simpsons,” said David Robertson, a University of Missouri-St. Louis political science professor.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

The mini iPod. In nasty pastel colors too. Handy since my poor mp3 player just gave up the ghost. And only $249! I’ll take three!

He has a good point. If you click on nothing else today, that is the link to click.

A rather gung-ho Mark Steyn.

Pictures of Red Planet are the same as the earlier ones, except they’re mostly red.

We’re from the government and we’re here to help.

“We’re not saying anybody should do any of this,” said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank.

I don’t know anything about the laws, I just thought it was a great quote.

It’s a reality show full of actors. Brilliant.

Hero or goat?

Non-record-setting, but still very large, snake.

Dictators everywhere are nervous.

Oops.

Pakistan last month conceded that its technology and expertise may have helped the nuclear programmes of “rogue” states, including Iran and North Korea and possibly Libya, but blamed this on individuals motivated by “ambition or greed”.

Because normally these things are motivated by kindness and sympathy to human plight.

US wins. Canadian goalie scored the winning point.

It’s supposed to reach a balmy 11 degrees today here in beautiful Idaho.

Dean may or may not have done anything improper, but it sure looks bad.

No, not the team. You know, the nice people that help out, for free. Because someone owes the Union workers a paycheck.

But Chief Teale argues volunteers can’t just volunteer whenever they want.

“It’s always been my dream to be a volunteer anchorman. And if you will just terminate your position, and allow me to do your job,” he told me.

But why shouldn’t he get to do that? Why shouldn’t ABC get to save the money?

“Absolutely not.” Teale said, “simply because — it’s a detriment to you, and your family.” He added, “There is no reason why you shouldn’t be entitled to your salary.”

Too bad for ABC.

I’m “entitled” to my salary? And volunteers should be stopped from volunteering?

Give me a break.

The city of Townsville has a vandal problem.

Michael Crichton

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.

…

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

It’s fairly long—for the internet—but well worth the read.

via Instapundit

I don’t know about this, but it’s interesting.

The Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems ( ROMS) is obviously not that picky in giving licenses to Online Music Services. New services seem to appear every day. Websites like Allofmp3.com, Club.mp3search.ru and 3mp3.ru are licensed to offer music by all artists for download at prices that seem to good to be true. Full albums for less than a dollar in an unprotected format. You would suspect that there is some kind of fraud involved, but these services have their paperwork in order to stay in compliance with Russian law.

It’s super-helpful if you read Russian when visiting those sites.

How come this isn’t getting nationwide coverage, unlike that storm in New York a few weeks ago.

Biff is about to arrive. Hopefully this one won’t land in a crater.

Britians want right to defend property and self. Seems reasonable. Lawmakers are unenthused. But they really like the runner-up, forced organ donation. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

What’s with all the earthquakes? Indonesia this time. Earlier there was Mexico, of course Iran and California. Everyone hang on.

UPDATE: Also Taiwan, Costa Rica/Panama, Japan, and Israel.

The moral of the article is, if you want to commit a robbery of an armored vehicle, use a Dodge Durango.

I don’t know if I trust this list, after all the Washington Post is not where I turn first to find out what’s cool, but hey, it’s the New Year, we need lists to keep track of what’s in. And I’m pretty sure saying, “what’s in” is out.

Today we took a trip to Suncrest. It’s a shame that we are in the midst of getting 6 inches of snow.

The US is pretty hardcore about planes these days. First Air France canceled flights, then they are providing complimentary fighter escorts for planes, turning back an Air Mexico (reg.req.) flight. Now questioning British Airways passengers and turning back those British Airways flights.

Why would the Al-Queda use the same method twice? And why would they use planes that are essentially empty, being at the end of their flight?

L.A. Times bloopers. It’s funny as long as it’s someone else.

via Instapundit

The Top Ten.