Name Change Time

Go here instead.

The Stamp of Approval

On the one hand, peace between Israel and Palestine would contribute to stability in the Middle East.

On the other hand, war between Israel and Palestine would contribute to stability in the Middle East.

Let the Photoshopping Begin

John "Humbert" Derbyshire will soon have a new book out, and I gotta say I like the cover:

The "doom" is apparently a running gag.

Via mikey:

I Have No Bridge and I Must Troll

Attacked!

God, I feel so good now. Got it all out. Okay, let’s hear it in the comments section now. No holding back. That includes you, Unrighteous Bubba and Cognitive Dissonant. Tell us about all the kinky things you like to do with tinfoil, Vaseline and vacuum cleaners while watching sick online German porn in your mothers’ basements

Biggus Dickus Is Angered!

Roy takes Rod Dreher to task:

The other has to do with Dreher's idea of life in general. He's alarmingly sympathetic to plural marriages between/among nymphets and middle-aged men in a religious context. But the notion of sexual fantasy nauseates him. With God, all things are possible indeed: if a grown man picks the right faith he can live like Humbert Humbert minus the guilt, but if he or anyone looks at Miss November not only is he doomed, but so is society.

So too does this gentleman:

Rod Dreher irresponsibly drags the "problem of pornography" onto his blog and then attempts to hide the mess behind a few utterly boring "essay" questions. Typical Dreher. Bring up a problem that is at the root of the soul-annihilation of an entire generation, hope people will applaud you for noticing (and being "above it all, really"), and proceed to render the gravity of the problem vulnerable to the most basic statistical and narcissistic critiques.

Why yes, thank you for guessing, smart person!

It's RIMWELL again!



LATE-BREAKING BUTTDATE!!!

A dynamic logo for a dynamic personality:

Nostalgia

Subsidized Blogriculture

Mark Steyn spies this:

The closing of a newspaper means a little piece of democracy has died.

Mark Steyn responds thus:

This kind of indestructible, fatuous narcissism is a big part of what's wrong. What other industry conflates itself with the very legitimacy of the state? If you're insisting on your indispensability even as millions dispense with you, you're the one with the problem.

That makes me want to donate money to the National Review which could not survive in the marketplace without the blah blah blah.

Bicycle Race

Antonio Ruiz, 1938.

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

How Dare They!

Billy is outraged!

Last but not least comes Madonna (who just screams “family values”). During the 2008 campaign, she used a photo montage during one of her performances to compare John McCain to Hitler.

NOBODY ON OUR TEAM WOULD BE SO CRASS.

In comments to the article (which is entitled "Hollywood's Oxymoronic Definition of 'Liberal Tolerance'"):

Here's the sitch. These fragile ego'd pretenders in Hollywood feel guilty because they know they know what they do is a joke and yet they get paid well and are fawned over. They feel bad because they play act all day and do nothing of importance yet earn much more than people of real significance. They also are aware of what dirt-bags they are (remember "casting couches" -- Think they went away?) and due to a non-belief in God are unable to ever feel forgiven for their shortfalls. To fight and appease this nagging guilt, they get involved in social causes. Further, most all of them have massive insecurities and so they cannot tolerate anyone who shines a light on their immorality. As such they surround themselves with other dirt-bags, including a dirt-bag President who will not threaten to expose their immoralities and shortcomings.

Also the site is entitled Big Hollywood, because conservatives are supposed to like entertainment just like regular folks.

The Human Shrub

The world needs heroes.

Corrupt bureaucrats cannot stand the shining green light of justice aimed at their actions:

Martin Hunt, the council committee member for parks and gardens, said the only reason containers were bereft of flowers was because the planting season had yet to begin.

"If the Human Shrub is crossing dual carriageways in order to make a political point then I think he is being very irresponsible," he told the East Anglian Daily Times.

"He could get himself injured or killed, or even worse could lead to someone else being injured or killed. At least when he was outside the town hall he was amusingly stupid. This is not funny at all."

Quartz Composer

I've been fiddling with Blender once in a while, which is free, but the learning curve is steep and I tend to give up after extruding a sphere or two. While I was looking up some related material I remembered Max/MSP which had a nifty kinda modular interface but costs oodles of money for honest law-abiding citizens such as myself. For some reason I looked that up on the Wikipedia and I find I have a low-budget modular video synthesizer right on my Mac. Quartz Composer is a fucking snap to use.

Share with me the fruits of my labours:



Autoplaying and looping YouTube is awfully fun.

Serendipity

Here is Michael S. Rulle Jr.:

He is manager of his very own financial firm and loves the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

I have been trying to figure out how to work the Red Hot Chile Peppers’ (RHCP)* 1999 hit, Californication, into a blog.

This is a wonderful coincidence, because prior to moseying over to Big Hollywood to nutpick I had spent upwards of twenty seconds trying to figure out how to work this picture "into a blog":



Shall we finish up the first paragraph?

I had known and liked the song for some time. Who doesn’t?** But other than simply liking the song and having a general sense of what it was about, I had never listened closely. Of course, the title itself has almost the entire meaning of the song within it. I had recently read economist Russell Robert’s Hayekian novel, “The Price of Everything.” It is a simple yet spiritual characterization of the mystery of what Hayek called the “spontaneous order” in human organization.

What follows are a couple thousand words of similar character and spontaneity in an attempt by Mr. Suit and Tie Guy to have a more dignified midlife crisis than his buddy who got the clap. After a painful verse-by-verse examination of the lyrics, we wind up here:

Lets put it all together. We know this “Californication” thing is “bad” but what is it? Californication is libertinism, crass materialism, solipsistic interactions and spiritual emptiness. It is our modern secular world, in short. Who knew RHCP shared something in common with cultural conservatives?

Like Hitler, Anthony Kiedis is fond of children and dogs.

*My gratitude to the author for clarifying what might have been a confusing acronym later in the article.
**Me.

Chernobyl

Dave Brockington has a post up at LGM about Chernobyl tourism. (I'll be damned: spell-check likes Chernobyl.)

One of our party wanted to go, but our schedule was full and some of us were opposed, myself included. I had no wish to become irradiated or have to replace everything I was wearing. The lure of of inhabited land turned feral - not just returned to nature but poisonous - remains pretty powerful though, and I still regret not going, much as I know if I was presented with the chance again I still wouldn't take it.

Below is a picture from the terrific-by-Ukrainian-standards Chernobyl museum in Kiev (photography not allowed, dumb tourists cut some slack). These men who look so pleased at their triumph over the reactor died shortly thereafter of course.

The Baitles

See Roy for more.

Uighurs

A 24-minute radio documentary about four who have ended up in Bermuda after Guantanamo. Mostly a series of interviews with their translator/angel of mercy.

Waiting for Gaddafi

From The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiraya we are presented with a PDF called The Development of Education:

The philosophy of education is based on the Jamahiryi system applied in the Great Jamahiriya from the Third World theory formulated by intellectual leader Muammar Gaddafi in the Green Book with its three chapters (political - economic - social). The Green Book defined knowledge as the "natural right of human beings" and described the systems that monopolize knowledge as systems that call for the ignorance and backwardness, and the social element to this theory identified the philosophical framework of general education, where many statements were made on the educational process, such as:

The study is not an end in itself, but the purpose is to create the new model man.

Compulsory education is in fact compulsory ignorance.

Ignorance will end when the reality of everything is revealed.

Why Bother?

Ann Coulter is a big liar of course, but here:

Whatever you think of Palin, her argument for resigning was the opposite of "rambling" and "incoherent."

How does it serve Ann Coulter to prop up Sarah Palin? Surely Coulter is bright and vicious enough to leave Palin to the tabloids and move on to some less embarrassing authoritarian monster.

Genetics

Mitochondrial Eve
Found it hard to believe
That she'd meet the Y-chromosome Adam.
She was right it turned out
For there can be no doubt
That her great × n granddaughter had him.

Via Pharyngula, Brian Kilmeade understands the perils of straying from the bloodline:

Absence of Evidence is Not Evidence of Provenance

News from Israel:

This was supposed to be the happiest day in the life of Sharon Schechter and Roman Buksafon, but on Monday, a day before their wedding, the Chief Rabbinate informed he couple they were not allowed to marry.

"You are adopted and therefore your Jewishness cannot be verified," a rabbi at the Chief Rabbinate told Roman, who denies being adopted and says he has produced all the documents required by the Rabbinate to receive a wedding permit.

The rest of the article details what seems to be a requirement that one prove one is not adopted before a marriage will be performed.

What if the guy was really found among the reeds on a riverbank?

Victoria Jackson's Day

What's Victoria Jackson up to?

I was browsing in a Burbank gift shop yesterday and I asked the store owner how business was doing. She smiled, “Well, you know, hit and miss. I’m sure it will be better soon.” The store was empty.

I apologized for not buying anything. “I’m sorry, but my husband now cringes when I order a Hazelnut Iced Coffee at McDonald’s, so I can’t really buy anything.”

Her smile hardened.

“You know, I’ve been speaking at Tea Parties lately. No one seems to know or care that our country just turned Socialist.”

She stared at me like a deer caught in head lights.

I continued, “I don’t like politics, but we have to do something. I’m writing to my Congressmen and Senators now.”

Her teenage assistants with no customers had frozen smiles and frozen bodies.

“Did you know Obama uses our tax payer dollars to pay for abortions?”

She shook her head no.

“He even supports killing 9 month old babies, in the womb.”

She became a ceramic knick knack.

I continued, “It’s called ‘late-term abortion’. Now he’s going to kill sick people and old people. Did you know that Cap & Trade will allow the government to regulate how long we take a shower? And that the “New Health Plan”, happy, happy, will allow the government to decide who lives and who dies?”

Crickets. Dead crickets.

As I opened the door to leave, she shook herself into reality and said, “Thank you and come again.”

The bell jingled as the door shut.

The future looks good for Victoria as she'll probably be able to afford a custom shopping cart and many many cats.

In any case, she'll be happy:

I got into my fuel efficient economy car, with the leopard seat covers, and the bumper that used to have the “I RESIST SOCIALISM” bumper sticker, until it got smashed, and I drove away thinking, “Ignorance is Bliss.”

This makes me laugh in a surprisingly untroubled way:



I just can't see it as anything but silliness.

Frist!

Fire, Pro and Con

Once there was a little church
Scorched one night while stars did turn
It's left the parish in the lurch:
No place to wish a witch would burn.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Hero

Andy McCarthy is objectively pro-communist.

The Wall Street Journal (as flagged in the NRO web briefing) reports on rioting in China by Uighur "students" that has left scores dead and hundreds wounded.

Well, what lover of freedom wouldn't rebel against the heathen Chinese, my good fellow?

The "students," described elsewhere in the story as from a "predominantly Muslim ethnic group

Oh dear. The wrong people are rebelling.

Birds of a Feather

Y'know, I love screenshots.

This Means America Is Not Conservative Enough

The Challenge

VD Hanson:

She's not looking at 2012; but in eight years by 2016 she will be far more savvy, still young, and far more experienced. It matters not all that the Left writes her off as daffy, since they were going to do that whatever she did; the key is whether she convinces conservatives in eight year of travel and reflection that she's a charismatic Margaret Thatcher type heavyweight.

As we know, conservatives are notoriously skeptical so Ms. Palin will have to work hard.

Why You Hate Sarah Palin

Jim Geraghty tells you:

A short while back, Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum suggested, only half-jokingly, that actress Angelina Jolie's "entire Oscar-winning, serial-adopting, Brad Pitt-snagging, plane-piloting, unattainably hot-looking existence makes women around the world feel hopelessly inadequate and therefore unhappy." Perhaps Sarah Palin is the Angelina Jolie of the political world.

In her opponents' minds, Palin's made all the wrong choices, and cannot, they insist, be very bright. Yet she's happy and successful. She is an anomaly that invalidates their worldview, and for that, they attempt to immiserate her — regardless of whether she wishes to run for national office again.

BONUS NITPICK:

Geraghty, July 2nd 2009:

There's no clear sense of her future plans; the near-daily denunciation seems to be just in case she decides to run for national office, a far-from-certain event that would occur, at the earliest, three and a half years from now.

July 3rd 2009:

Sarah Palin will not seek re-election next year, fueling speculation that she will make a 2012 presidential bid.

And Jonah is all about timing.

HOT!

I AM AWARE OF ALL NEWSPAPER READING TRADITIONS.

PELICAN A AIR AM AROUND BADGER BRICK CAT CLAM CUZ DED DOOD DRAG DRINKED DUST EATED FORGOT FUNNY GET GOO HA I IF IT ITS JOKE KIN SHREDS MAH MAKE MUSTASH NO NOO NOW ON OOPS POO POOP POOPS POST SMART TEH TELL U WONT WURDZ RATE FOR
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The National Review on Revolution

Michael Ledeen gets hard over some reader mail:

Long before the modern rationalizations for the "benign" nanny state, Confucius had given his own vision of the perfectly ordered pyramid with the emperor at the top, talking to God, and most of the rest of us at the bottom, lucky for the privilege to talk to their dog.

The bulk of human experience is tyranny, whereas liberty is the ultimate unprobability, a.k.a., America. Government of the people, for the people, by the people cannot survive unless the people has enough intestinal fortitude to make it work.

Which is so true. Remember it. And fight.

Ledeen's taste in rhetoric aside, I suppose the above explains why the son of a president should not be president and why we are justly suspicious of those who would preserve a moneyed and powerful elite.

Adversity

On the website of a Catholic university in Palestine:

Despite being closed twelve times by Israeli military imposed orders, the longest of which was for three years from October 1987 until October 1990, classes have continually been held on- and off-campus. The curfews, travel restrictions, military checkpoint harassment, and the negative impact of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, are factors faced by the University’s enrollment of 2,936 students, most of whom are full time, and 10,816 graduates, most of whom are serving the Palestinian society in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in various professions and leadership positions. The University’s story is one of people committed to pursuing their higher education – perseverance and courage in the face of adversity and injustice – working together in hope with an ever widening international circle of colleagues to build a better future.

Disturbing If True

Someone got booted off a reality show and made an assertion:

Everyone is a little bit different on TV. No one is going to go on TV and start farting.

I am reconsidering my plan to pay for more channels.

Mind you this show seems to have done well:



Important update:

Peak Goldberg

You owe it to yourself to check out Thers.

The Cheshirecrat?

Myrna Sokoloff at Big Hollywood is trying to give Obama a nickname. What nickname could suffice for such a monster? Cokesucker? Broke Osama? Commode-in-Chief? Let us misrepresent the order of Myrna's thoughts as she blows the punchline instantly. Also the Nazi party approves of BIG LIES so:

President Obama should have a nickname from our side. Words mean something we are reminded all the time.

I am intrigued. Go on.

If you watch him at “town meetings” when he’s pressing his agenda and making statements that go unchallenged from the adoring crowds, he comes across as calm, reassuring and easy going while he’s attempting to dismantle American capitalism.

The Stealth Obama?

Americans by wide margins do not want to close Guantanamo, are against affirmative action, and against late term abortion. The majority want him to cancel the stimulus and hate the bailouts!

Mr. Funpopular? No, that's not quite right... What does the press think of this blood-soaked infidel?

If they were acting like real journalists they would ask tough questions and do investigative reporting on his proposals and statements. Instead, at so-called press conferences, they ask mushy questions that allow him to pontificate. No one challenges him like they did President Bush.

The E-Vader?

A brave journalist will have to stop acting like a star-struck teenager and ask the hard questions and the hard follow-up questions. Only then, like the fable, will everyone realize that the Emperor has no clothes!

The Empoorinator maybe?

Okay okay, we have a socialist coddler of terrorists and abortionists. WHAT, MYRA, CAN YOU OFFER US?

So I am going to name him “The Smile.”