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Now with 67% more lameness!.

August 22, 2007

New Opportunities

I'm sorry, but it's patently absurd to ask that Israelis allow the whack jobs in Hamas to run willy nilly in and out of their country.

On the other hand, perhaps there might arise an opportunity to divide and conquer:

President Mahmoud Abbas set up a moderate government in the West Bank after Hamas took control of Gaza. Hamas has charged that Abbas' government, made up of pro-Western officials of the Fatah movement, does not want the crossings opened because such a move would help the Islamic group hold on to power in Gaza.

Diplomats and other officials in contact with the Abbas government privately confirm that this is the case. However, Fatah officials deny it, aware that saying so publicly could open it to charges of colluding with Israel.


Hmmm.  The truly crazy "Annihilate the Jewish state" types completely isolated from their slightly less crazy comrades.  I wonder what could be done with that situation.

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Like ... Peace, Dude

Among the more retarded things to come down the wire is this story about an 86 year old surfer who gives surf boards to Palestinians ... for peace.

Here's one of the more entertaining bits:

The Paskowitzes emerged bare chested from the meeting at the main civilian crossing point between the two territories, after also giving their shirts to the Gazan surfers.

Abu Hussaili went straight out onto the water to try his new board. He said he would love to leave Gaza to surf elsewhere if he could.

"I would not stay in Gaza because there are no organizations that have interest in things like surfing and water sports," he said.

I can't imagine why your average Palestinian won't show an interest in the scary important phenomenon that is surfing.  Perhaps it has something to do with that whole fixation on driving the Jews into the Mediterranean.



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August 21, 2007

Goal Posts Moving at Relativistic Velocities

The new metanarrative over in MSM Land (it's near Candyland, across the way from Dreamland, adjacent to LalaLand) is that the "political process in Iraq is going nowhere."  They can't rag on the military side of things anymore - we're winning that conflict slowly but surely - so they've switched tactics.  Moved the goalposts if you will.  Quickly.

The linked article's headline: "Progress in Iraq extremely disappointing: US ambassador."  Reading the article paints a different picture, but given that AFP knows that most people just glance at headlines, it's good enough.

Of course, the reply to that particular bit of stupid is that the political process here in the US is pretty bloody disappointing.  Quagmire I say!  US out of congress now! 

But seriously, when it comes to "winning hearts and minds" things work from the bottom up.  Serious government reconciliation isn't going to happen by Iraqi Parliament fiat - it's going to happen on the ground, and then be exhibited in parliament.  And frankly, anyone not trying influence how people think under the guise of reporting the facts knows this.

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Conservatives in the Mist

Every so often a member of the MSM will write a column so embarrassingly aghast at the political views of huge swathes of the country that it bears mentioning. It gives off that "Gorillas in the Mist" vibe - the feeling that the reporter is observing a strange and frightening group of savage creatures.

The tone is a dead giveaway. Here's a classic example. The article comments on an illegal immigrant who has been recently deported. Check this out:

In the end, Elvira Arellano asked for it. I'll grant you that. By making a run for Los Angeles, Arellano left federal immigration officials little choice but to grab her and deport her to Mexico -- bringing an end to her yearlong act of defiance since taking sanctuary in a Division Street church.

What puzzles me is all the people who seem to be cheering this outcome. I'm not.

If you're of the opinion that Arellano deserved to be sent back to Mexico, then it logically follows that you want all 12 million illegals to return there with her.

Do you?

Actually, yes, that's precisely what I bloody well want. Not that I think it's feasible, but it's what would happen if we were to enforce our own laws and *gasp* ask that people who want to live here obey them.  Of course, the fact that I want something to happen doesn't mean that I need for that want to become policy or even that I think it would be the best course of action. Sadly that level of nuance is probably beyond this dope.

Watch as he tries (and fails) to demonstrate that he's still cognizant of reality:
I realize that's precisely what a certain segment of the population does want, but it seems there are people who would normally be more open-minded in their attitudes who are drawing some distinction between Arellano and the rest of the illegal immigrant population.
A segment, eh? Suddenly a plurality of the country's population is a "segment" and people who oppose ya know, law breaking, aren't "open minded."
The other distinguishing aspect to Arellano's story is that when she was ordered to leave, she didn't quietly comply, nor did she slip off into the masses and relocate someplace else in the U.S. She chose to stay and fight it out publicly, making herself the human face of this bitter dispute. That took guts.
Oh please. It took "guts" in the same way that a defiant toddler screaming "NO!" in their parents' face takes guts.

The anti-immigration crowd says one down, 12 million to go.

I hope the rest of you think it through.

What a maroon.

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August 17, 2007

Cake or Death?

Apparently, given the option, some folks would choose death.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement existed long before I gave it a name. It's a simple concept, in fact, it fits on a bumper sticker: "May we live long and die out."
Something tells me merchandising this movement isn't a "growth industry."

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The Prophet of the Void

Showing just how much of a classy guy he is, Hitchens writes in a recent article:

Jerry Falwell—another man who managed to get away with murder by getting himself called "Reverend"—dies without being bodily "raptured" into the heavens. Indeed, his heavy carcass is found on the floor of his Virginia office. The cable shows start to call and I have a book to sell: maybe someone up there does love me after all.
That right there is the morality of an Atheist on display. Celebration of a dead man because it helps him sell his book. Pathetic. 

That's just a tidbit though - the majority of the article consists of Hitch celebrating his new "Best-Seller."  I can't begin to describe how much I enjoy wading through the smug rantings of this drunken toad, but he does produce some entertaining comments from time to time.

I love his argument here:

My challenge: name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever. I have since asked this question at every stop and haven't had a reply yet.
There isn't a reply for this question BECAUSE IT'S A STUPID NONSENSE QUESTION.  The pertinent questions are these:
  • On WHAT does your nonbeliever base his sense of "ethics?" 
  • Why should he have a sense of "ethics" if it does nothing to further his ability to survive and thrive?
And most importantly:
  • Why should your theoretical nonbeliever's sense of "ethics" apply to any other human being above and beyond their own set of made up "ethics?"
All you've got is practicality, as there is no objective right or wrong in an atheist's world.  Rings a little hollow, doesn't it?

Tell ya what Hitch.  I predict that when a few thousand years have passed and people are still reading the Bible, your life's work will be nothing but an asterisk on a footnote on a half-forgotten page of history.  And when that day comes, your only achievement of note will have been to demonstrate to literally millions around the globe how empty, pointless, hopeless, and sad it is to exist in the absence of the divine and just how rude, cruel, and generally horrid atheists can be.  That will push people to faith more surely than any preacher ever could. 

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August 16, 2007

Headline Reality Check #1

Armed militias obstacle to Palestinian state: Fayyad

But no.  The obstacle to the Palestinian state is the Palestinian people.  Because car swarms and suicide bombs don't lead naturally into stable self-governance.  Go figure.

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August 09, 2007

Dear Angry Feminists

Dear Angry Feminists,

Cruelty comes in many forms.  I advise that you remember that the evil patriarchy goons you're so hot to "smash" are people too.  In fact, most of them aren't even aware that they're a member of this elite group of womyn persecuting stormtroopers

People have this odd way of becoming what they hate.  That rule applies to you as well.  Oh, and if you raise a young man to loathe himself - to feel immense guilt over the crimes of his gender - the odds are good that he'll conclude that his fall to evil woman hating status is inevitable.  I guarantee that the worst monsters will be the ones you create yourselves.

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August 08, 2007

Terrorism, Borders, and Drugs

I just love it when life proves me right about something.

So now we've got proof of Jihadis using Mexican drug traffickers for financing.  This is exactly the reason I'm in favor of a border fence - to stop this sort of insanity.  It's got nothing to do with keeping out Mexicans who just want to work - by all means, let them. 

It's just that gaping holes in your border with a corrupt, drug dealer infested third world nation aren't a good idea.  The best way to solve that problem is simple: plug the holes.  This isn't rocket science people.

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August 07, 2007

Christianity in China

I've been hearing for years now about the amazing growth of Christianity in China, but I never dreamed it was quite like this.  That article gave me chills.

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Have They Tried "The Bad Touch?"

It looks as if playing music to sharks makes them RANDY BABY YEAH!

The top five songs to put sharks in a romantic mood were:
  1. Salt'n Pepa -Push It
  2. Joe Cocker - You Can Leave Your Hat On
  3. James Last - Traumschiff (German version of Love Boat)
  4. Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body
  5. Bob Marley - No Woman, No Cry
Well obviously.  And the theme from "Jaws" I'm sure.

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The Story That Wouldn't Die: STB Edition

Ok, ok, OK.  Enough about STB already!  The lying liar recanted.  He was against his stories before he was for them.  Etc.  Ad nauseum.  Ad infinitum.

Note to Ace, HotAir, Charles of LGF, and everyone else: we normal mortals are tired of this story.

You've made the political hash.  You've chewed the cud.  We've gone from from kicking a dead horse, to kicking the dessicated remains of a lump of horse-like material. 

Someone find a Jihadist robot humping a fire hydrant while a beautiful girl in a bikini hacks it with a samurai sword.  That oughta distract them.

Pre-post completion update:  Ace seems to have gotten the memo... before I actually sent said memo.  MINDPATTERN-THIEF SONOFA@#$*& STOLE MY SOULTHOUGHTS! 

Seriously.  I went looking for the above links to the newer STB updates and there was his post, complete with his own dead-horse metaphor as comedic schtick.  Go Ace!  Get us something new!

Post-Post completion update OF DOOM:  For the love of God, someone send Ace some boobie videos or something.  He's STILL on STB.  This guy has become the Anna Nicole Smith of the right-wing blogosphere.

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August 04, 2007

Warning: WoW Geekgasm

Many folks have heard that the new WoW Expansion has been announced.

That's all fine and dandy - but THIS is ten kinds of awesome.


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August 03, 2007

The Dreaded Abortion Thread

So Allah did an abortion thread.  God help us all.

The abortion debate is tough, because it's not really about abortion; it's about the definition of "life," the definition of "human," and who and what deserves protection under the law.

The following is a comment from pro-choice poster "Nonfactor."

When is something alive? To answer that question you first need to look at examples outside of humankind (to clarify when I say alive I mean a member of the species seeing as how even the smallest cells are alive). Is a seed a tree? When does a seed become a tree? Is an egg a chicken? When does it become a chicken? To answer all of these questions you have to define what a tree is or what a chicken is or what a human is. So before I tell you when human life occurs I’ll define what a human is.

Websters dictionary defines “human” as “of, relating to, or characteristic of humans.” We can agree a fetus has certain characteristics of humans, but so do dolls. If we created a robot with blood pumping through it’s body via a mechanical heart, and grafted muscle and skin tissue onto it’s skeleton, and made it aware of pain, and programed it to feel emotions, would it be a human? According to Websters it would. But practically I don’t think any other human would say “Yes, that’s a human being;” why not? What is it missing that we don’t have? What is it missing that a baby doesn’t have (or, for sake of argument, a fetus)? What is life? It isn’t an abstract question, it’s been going on ever sine the first computers beat people in chess. Religious people will tell you it’s the “soul,” but even they can’t quantify it, and it boils down to another incoherent answer aimed at easily answering a hard question (note: an easy way for religious people to get out of answering the question of “Why?” is to simply give two responses: 1) Because God did it (why?) 2) Because he has a plan that we can’t know about).

But this still hasn’t answered the question. What is a human life? A human life is a species, a very complex organism, that is self-sustaining in Earth’s environment [emphasis mine - J] (I mention Earth’s environment because if there were beings in outer space that looked exactly like us but breathed CO2 and exhaled O they wouldn’t be quantified as a human being). A robot isn’t a species, it’s complex, but not an organism (although the one we’ve created is made up of many complex organisms), and we could, however, create it to be self-sustaining, but due to the mere fact that it isn’t a species determines that it isn’t a “human life” (the debate about whether it is alive is something else entirely). A fetus (or blastyocyst, or sperm cell, or egg) is definitely not a species; it has the possibility to become a species (in this case the human species), but in it’s form it isn’t. A fetus (or sperm etc.) is very a very complex organism, but that’s only one of the three prerequisites. The fetus is also not self-sustaining (although this is the most arguable point–when I say self-sustaining I don’t mean that they can get food for themselves etc. I mean that the organisms can remain alive without the help of a machine), but due to the fact that it misses out on one of the requirements it isn’t a human.

Now when does that fetus become a human? We know fetus’ become self-sustaining inside at sometime in the third trimester. Joseph So when does a fetus become a homo-sapien? It seems like the only acceptable answer is when all their human traits have shown (not developed, but simply shown themselves). So to answer your question (finally, I didn’t think I’d be typing this much) a fetus becomes a human being at sometime in the third trimester, [and again] the exact date I couldn’t give you, but the moment the fetus is self-sustaining and the human features have shown it is a human life.

If you have traits of a human you think I’ve left out or you think I’ve added that aren’t true I’d be happy to hear them and your explanation as to why they constitute forming a “human life.” --Nonfactor


His definition is flawed. 

1. Babies cannot sustain themselves.  Hell, some teenagers can't sustain themselves.  Elderly people can't sustain themselves often enough. We do not question their humanity.  If, by self-sustaining, he means the ability to survive in an environment, assuming adequate care, then perhaps.  But he doesn't - he claims that living off of a machine doesn't count.  Apparently he means only human assistance?  Why does being able to survive with only human assistance act as a distinguishing factor? 

2. If a doctor can't provide us with an exact moment for attaining humanity for each and every child, then every abortion risks killing a full-blown human being.  That is an unacceptable risk.

What we need is something rational and measurable.  For that, I propose the beginning of sentience - brain activity.  The minute brain activity is detected, a fetus should be called a child and given every possible protection under the law.  Why?  Because it is the unique state of self-aware consciousness that distinguishes human beings from animals.  Since we're not exactly sure where this begins, we cannot risk killing people.

Yet I would go farther.  The pro-life crowd (myself included) should stop the semantic debate over what is and what is not a human being.  We should instead campaign for "fetus rights."  We are free to believe as we wish, but through such a campaign we might be able to tangibly decrease the number of abortions (or at least cruel abortion procedures).  That's a worthwhile goal.

From a secular, legal perspective we could say that a fetus is not a human being as dictated by court precedent.  Very well.  Then why does it follow that a fetus should not be protected at all?  Certainly we're not willing to claim that a fetus shouldn't be afforded the same protections as, say, an animal?  You cannot claim that it is a part of a woman's body.  It is connected via tissue, but its DNA is distinct.

Therefore, a fetus should be entitled to certain legal protections - not the least of which is the preservation of its life and its opportunity to enter into the human race (from a legal perspective).


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Keith Richards: Zombie, Cannibal, or Vampire?

I think if I dig far enough through Monster Manual 3 I could find out precisely what he's supposed to be, but I thought I'd simplify the choices for the uninformed.

via HotAir:

WHEN Keith Richards retracted claims that he had snorted his father’s ashes with a generous sprinkling of cocaine, he put the kibosh on one of the greatest Rolling Stones anecdotes.

But now the 63-year-old rocker has admitted he did inhale his father Bert’s remains – just not with class-A narcotics…

“The cocaine bit was rubbish,” says “Keef”, who is penning his autobiog­raphy.

“I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I’d opened his box up and said, ‘Jesus, I’ve got to do something with dad, y’know, plant the oak tree.’

“I pulled the lid off and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I’m going, ‘I can’t use the brush and dustpan for this’. So you just gotta like, put it together.

“What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of… y’know, he went down a treat.”



So could this be considered like ... instant person?  Ghoulish Ovaltine? 

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August 01, 2007

Here We Go Again

Take a good long look at this article, because I'll bet you're going to see it again.

Except, when you do, you're going to see it in an e-mail and the subject line will read "THE MARK OF THE BEAST!!11!1" and it'll be from your concerned parent/grandparent/coworker/friend.

Allah at Hot Air thinks it's a victory for the tin hat crowd; personally, I think the godless heathen is totally missing the "Left Behind" angle. 

Also: the rapture is probably the best new argument for wearing clean underwear.


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Banner Art

So, I recently made a banner for doubleplusundead (excellent new blog - already been linked by Protein Wisdom and Hot Air).  For reasons unknown, it's actually in use now, and I'm rather proud of that. 

Because it sounds interesting and fun, if there are any other mee.nu folks out there (or others) who could use some art to spice up your blog, let me know.  Give me a description of what you'd like.  If it intrigues me, I'll try to make something for you.  Default templates make me sad.  Custom art makes me happy.

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The "News" Right Now Sucks

I guess I could snark at bow-champy.  But then, who hasn't?

I could talk about CAIR's latest retard maneuver.  But I for one, struggle to find them not doing something stupid and/or irritating.  Dog bites man you see.

But there isn't anything that quite catches my interest ... meh.  Perhaps I'm just feeling lazy (yes, I know, but moreso that usual). 

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July 28, 2007

Quite Possibly One of the Weirdest Things I've Ever Seen...

First let me throw up the content and NSFW warnings.  There, you've been warned. 

Suffice to say, I've got an article with a few apparent Christians with a very nuanced view on sex.  More below the fold.
more...

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July 27, 2007

The Earth Devouring ... Hybrid

Remember that story about the eco-vandals who trashed their neighbor's new Hummer?

Turns out that if they're really more concerned about the overall environmental impact of a vehicle than maintaining the appearance of Absolute Moral Authorityâ„¢, they ought to have trashed their own Prius.

Driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles, according to CNW Marketing Research Inc.

....

For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version, CNW claims.

And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted sport-utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced.

For example, while the industry average of all vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2005 was $2.28 cents per mile, the Hummer H3 (among most SUVs) was only $1.949 cents per mile. That figure is also lower than all currently offered hybrids and Honda Civics at $2.42 per mile.

Bwahaha!

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