OK, as usual, all pedophiles please report to the Atomic Destructo-MaticTM down the hallway to the left.
For the rest of you, here's your Fiona fix for the present time. Lordy, lordy, but somehow our inter-Atlantic genes made an adorable blob of a baby, no?
At least it is for Alabama's 19th Judicial Circuit district Worthless Check Unit.
Budget cuts and the growing trend of more people using debit and checking account cards are threatening to cut deeply into the money Houston's Worthless Check Unit brings into the 19th Judicial Circuit district attorney's office. Last year, the unit accounted for more than a third of the office's budget.That's a damn shame - the fact that the market has found a better and more efficient solution to a problem is going to cause the government to lose some precious funds.
Houston is concerned the increasing use of debit cards and checking account cards will cut down on the number of bounced checks. With check cards, the transaction won't take place unless there is money in the account to cover the purchase or service.In other words, the district attorney's office thrives on rampant dishonesty and the penalties for such - yet another case of a government organization not serving the people, but only serving its own continued existence."While that is good for business, it's bad for cash-strapped district attorneys' offices," Houston said.
Houston has a worthless check coordinator in each of the three counties in the circuit. There are three other staffers who assist in the effort. Brooks has five people in her Worthless Check Unit in Montgomery County.Well, here's an idea - let go of two of them and you've probably saved the state some $90,000 in salary and benefits than can then go to pay people who actually provide a needed service. I know, such shocking ideas are anathema to government of, by, and for itself.
Now that I finally have a square yard of breathing room (I’ve been designing web pages [including a pain in the arse tutorial and quiz that freshman complain is “too hard”*), searching for candidates, serving on 11,008 committees, totin’ barges, jumping down, turning around, and picking bales of cotton, academia style) I’ll take a moment to review some books worth reading that I managed to get in at night. (Did you know Oscar Wilde could read a 500 page book in 30 minutes and retain it? Incredible but true; I myself am not a fast reader, but I make up for it with my killer smile and Quiche Lorraine [prior to my 22nd birthday I was the Virgin of Quiche Lorraine].)
Gimme gimme more more more »
As if I needed yet another reason to dislike Jacques Chirac, now I have this:
"I still like a Bud."Still? Jackie-C, it's a damn shame to have ever liked a Bud (and I admit that, once upon a poorer time, in my college days, I drank the stuff like the tap would run dry on the morrow). I got over the affliction of poverty; so should you.- Jacques Chirac, French President, who once worked at an Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, MO, on his fondness for the US, despite strains in French-American relations over the war in Iraq.
Out of all the ways to show that he really does like Americans, he chooses to insult us instead. That's it, nuke'em.
He should have said something like "By Dubya, I do indeed like good barbecue!" or perhaps "Andy, mon ami américain, let us dine at Gator's for the finest bacon cheeseburger in the known universe!" or even "Bartender, more Fat Tire!"
But, no, he said Bud. Bleh. Damn French.*
* I'm sure some of you are plenty a-ok. Really. Just don't drink Bud.
And is Jacques on the pot in that picture or what?
Hmmm, wonder if I should give Audblog a try - the first one is free. I know that some of you out there have heard my voice and now, on a daily basis, self-mutilate and scratch the furniture and walls because you need to hear it again, but - is that worth $3/month (for me, I mean)?
I'll have to think about it. Could be weird creepy fun.
Alrighty, little ones, I had high hopes for this evening - I had planned to update the NaNoWriMo blovel site o'mine, "Ephemera, First Edition," this evening, but alas the hour grows late, at least when you get up for work at 5 in the morning. So, that'll have to wait until tomorrow night.
I know, I know, wrap your arms around yourself, rock back and forth, and just mutter "Momma say it gonn' be alright."
In the meantime, I leave you with a Wil Wheaton joke - not about him, but by him. Although if you have any about him, I'm sure he'd love to see them posted here in the comments. Honest.
And, for more fun, visit this post at Josh Claybourn's site, where a picture of the Earth and Moon convince a few people that, yes, Virginia, Baby Jesus does exist. I have to set them straight.
G'night!
Some of the companies that provide the software for file-swapping are trying to show their dedication to upholding the law:
A group of software companies at the center of the controversy over online music and movie piracy today extended an olive branch to Congress, unveiling a code of conduct that condemns the illegal trading of copyrighted works and promises to give parents tools to limit children's use of song-swapping networks like Grokster and Morpheus.In a related development, the makers of Kazaa have hired Judge Roy Moore to advise them on how best to incorporate the Ten Commandments into their welcome splash screen.P2P United, which represents Grokster, Morpheus and several other popular peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, published the code as part of an ongoing effort to legitimize file sharing, saying it has been been unfairly demonized by the recording industry.
"Drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and, yes, even file-sharing over Satan's world wide web can be curbed if we just show people the ten most holy laws that our God gave to a bunch of backwards sheep-herders," said Judge Moore, knelt in prayer and engaged in self-flagellation for his transgressions.Hey, it could happen.
I figure that if I plan to finally sit down and write a novel, I ought to do a better job of reading them. So, that's what I'm doing, currently focused on the ever-so-happy and oh-so-joyful theme of "oh Lordy, Ma, it's the end of the world!" Not that my novel will deal with the end of the world, unless, of course, it does - but I won't know that for some weeks to come. Bated* breath and such.
With that in mind, I am nearing the end of "On The Beach," the 1957 story of the end of the planet thanks to nuclear war. More accurately, the tale of the last surviving people Down Under as the radiological cloud o'death marches their way. You simply have to know that only a rousing, happy, woo-hoo kind of story can follow this book's opener:
This is the way the world endsSo, as I approach the end of the novel, I'm faced with the same knowledge as the characters in the book. There won't be a happy ending (or if there is, I'll scream "Deus ex machina!" at the top of my lungs).
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.- T.S. Eliot
Next up are "Alas, Babylon" and "Earth Abides."
I just hope the literary depression that is hanging over my reading choices won't result in my writing a Pollyanna, happy-bunny-land story. Unless, that is, it sells millions.
* Yeah, whatever, Tom.
Just an observation, but if I was going to spend nearly half a million dollars on a new home, it wouldn't be in a neighborhood called "Ranch Reserve" or "Savory Farm."
The first sounds more like a very special bottle of salad dressing, and the second just conjures up a big tongue licking various livestock (or maybe not, but it's a silly name regardless).
Marketing, people, marketing.
Well, quite the game that was, watching the Crimson Tide take a commanding lead, only to lose it in second overtime. Congrats to Arkansas - they earned that win. However, Matt and Vicky, you owe me some serious beer for that game.
Now I'm off to drown my football sorrows.
It's a beautiful late September day here at the edge of the Rockies - the sun is out, nary a cloud about, and the temps are sitting right around 70 - and do you know what that means?
That's right, it means you wish you lived here too.
It also means it's a fine day for Alabama football and beer cheese soup with friends.
In fact, right now I am in the kitchen preparing my culinary delight (with the recipe kindly being hosted my friend Kris May so I don't have to dig through stacks of recipes). You see, I've entered the Geek Age (honestly, that's what the anthropologists of 2490 will call this time), and have my new work laptop with built in wireless capability sitting on the kitchen island. Where it has found my neighbor's wireless network. Wide open.
I'm liberated from the DSL line! Woohoo!
OK, back to cooking.
All of you that said you might be interested in National Novel Writing Month, well, the collaborative site is up. If you're still onboard, I'll send out instructions for pinging the page from your own blog whenever you update re: NaNoWriMo, your progress, or your writer's block. If you're no longer interested, well, we never expected much from you anyway - just like your momma, so just go on and push writing your masterpiece back to "one of these days." When you ping it with a trackback, an excerpt will appear on the page, enabling one and all to see how poorly the group is doing at writing - joy!
In the meantime you can check out the page here.
Special thanks to Zuly and Dork for their help getting all the bits and pieces of the page to work.
Update:Even though NaNoWriMo doesn't officially begin for over a month, please feel free to ping the page with updates regarding your thoughts on the event, how any storyline development is going, books you're reading now that might serve as encouragement or inspiration, books you've read that suck so bad they show you how not to write, or how Italians like Ronaldo should be sent to Camp Delta so we rich and powerful and egotistical Americans can laugh upon his suffering.
Hey, is anyone else having problems with their installation of Trillian? I've now had it start crashing continually on two different PCs, all within 12 hours of each other; has me wondering if the latest update to Yahoo or MSN is also, by design or not, screwing up Trillian. Just found it odd that I am getting the same crash from the same program on different computers that aren't remotely related to one another.
Thanks much if anyone has any info on this!
Update: By doing what I should have done first, it looks like it's a problem with Yahoo:
If you cannot get into Trillian to shut off Yahoo autoconnect, you can edit your Yahoo.ini file. Here is how:Click Start -> Run, then type:
notepad c:\program files\ trillian\users\default\yahoo.ini (take the space out of the \ trillian\ part)
If the file does not load, open Windows Explorer and find your Documents and Settings directory, then your name, then the Trillian directory. There should be a Yahoo.ini file in there.
Change the line that says auto connect=1 so that it reads auto connect=0. If you are using more than one Yahoo connection, change the line for each connection.
Now save the file and reload Trillian. We are working on a fix for this problem.
a Constitutional amendment! Let's put that mother to a vote!
OK, well, somewhat unpopular with a certain Italian whose e-mail address is chichograsso@libero.it, as indicated in the comments here:
Well well, another fat layabout goodfornothing warmongering american spills his brains via his keyboard, if the good ol tolks in America spent just a little less time ramming their fcuking right to free fcuking speech down ours necks, and a little bit more time repairing and making amends for the horrific damage and destruction that they cause while they are "freeing" the good people of Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Kuwait and now Iraq, we might all have a little more time for them.For all his ranting about Americans not speaking Italian, you'd think he could at least spell the name of his own country properly in our language when dazzling us with his grasp of English. I'm sure more Americans would speak Italian if it were useful for much more than saying "Hey, this isn't Greece!" or "Who is that old guy in the funny hat?"As it is, I own a bar and hotel in Ialy and we wont even serve americans here, unless they speak italian and so far only one of them have been able to break the mystery of the language by asking for a cafe instead of a coffee, we have a US naval base here and the soldiers spend their whole time off trying to chase after the local girls who wont have anything to do with the baby murdering sons of whores,
Howjalikethemapples!
Regards
Ronaldo
PS think about this, any american will tell you, within an hour of meeting them for the first time, how many cars they have, how big their house is and how fcuking great they and their country are. Bullshit, stay in America, we dont want you in Europe murdering our babies
What a moron - at least that's what this American with two cars, and a 2200-square foot, tri-level home thinks. Now, my fellow Americans, let's just be thankful we live in the greatest country on the planet! Yay, America, yay!
Imagine fireworks here, please.
Patriotic music.
But no goddamn Lee Greenwood.
As for murdering babies in Europe, and old people for that matter, I think the Continent's socialized medicine and a heat wave did just fine.
Vaffanculo, Ronaldo!
That's right, time for a lengthy post on a fluffy topic just so it looks like I'm a passionate blogger, writing page upon page of bloggy goodness for you, when in reality I'm just cutting and pasting like a wildman. But, don't let that make you think that I don't love you, baby, 'cause I surely do. You know I wanna get freaky on that ass.
Cue lame R&B modern R&B music
Gimme gimme more more more »
Hey, you - yeah, you - you alien punks: Don't mess with The Milky Way:
Our Milky Way galaxy is gobbling up its galactic neighbor, Sagittarius, and on Wednesday, scientists offered documentary proof of this continuing cosmic cannibalism.Awwww yeah, gonna open up a black hole of intergalactic whoop ass on y'all.
Astronomers have mapped the Sagittarius galaxy to show in detail how its debris wrap around and pass through the Milky Way, which contains Earth.On its way to oblivion, the dwarf Sagittarius -- which is about 10,000 times the mass of the Milky Way -- is getting stretched, torn apart and ultimately eaten, scientists at the University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts reported.
And not the kind you ladies would want to play with, either:SYDNEY (Reuters) - A Swedish man has been charged after Australian customs officers found eight dangerous snakes, including four dead king cobras, strapped to his leg after he arrived on a flight from Thailand, officials said on Wednesday.
I think having one is enough for me without strapping eight more in there. Those fangs could hurt.
The Jews that is, as a new study explores the role that religion plays in wealth:
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new national study shows that religious affiliation plays a powerful role in how much wealth Americans accumulate, with Jews amassing the most wealth and conservative Protestants the least.Interesting observation: conservative Protestants amass the least wealth. They do, however, have a disproportionate share of double-wides.Mainline Protestants and Catholics fall in between and are about average with the rest of the population in terms of overall wealth.
Keister said she hopes the results of the study can be used to help others build more wealth.Just call me Andy O'Goldstein.
Thanks to Razib for the link to the article.
The RIAA, in its efforts to further annoy music fans everywhere, has ended up looking pretty silly:
The Recording Industry Association of America has withdrawn the first of its file-swapping lawsuits after a possible case of mistaken identity.Whoopsy.The trade association confirmed Wednesday that it had withdrawn its suit against a Boston-area senior citizen named Sarah Ward, who claimed that she could not possibly have been involved in the file-swapping incident attributed to her. Among other objections, Ward is a Macintosh computer user, and there is no Apple version of the Kazaa file-trading software she is supposed to have used, according to attorneys who have spoken to the woman.
According to attorneys who have spoken to Ward, she is a sculptor, former early childhood educator, living at home with her husband. Her children and grandchildren do not live with her, and would not have used her account to trade files on a PC, they say.Aw, c'mon now, we've all seen The Wedding Singer. Give the old lady the chair!Nor is Ward likely to have downloaded many of the files allegedly on her computer, such as songs by rapper Busta Rhymes, said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Cindy Cohn, who helped Ward with her case.
I've been accused by some people of being anti-Christian. It's a typical accusation that is slung about any time you dare to criticize someone's precious belief as being patently silly. So, while I'm on a roll, let's mock Hinduism too.
A Hindu fanatic sentenced to die for killing Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons hoped to "bury" the spread of Christianity, the judge said...It's a sad tragedy that religious fervor claimed the life of someone who was working for a greater good in India. It's even sadder that it was basically because of a hamburger.A newspaper report on Sunday quoting investigators said the extremists decided to kill Mr Staines after seeing Indians eat beef, which is forbidden by Hinduism.
The judge said Singh presented himself as a "saviour of cows".
Moo.
Yeah, that about sums it up for today.
More later.
Stay tuned.
Oh, and I know this is jumping the gun a bit, but I think I have the first line of my novel. Now I just need the other 49,993 words to make my quota.
Hey, kids - do any of you play an instrument? Do you have an interest in making music? Honestly, I don't care about your theology, your philosophy, your love of perverse anime, so long as you want to make music - and so long as you want to help out and sink some funds into the fun.
How about a true BloggerBand? No well-known names, no carry-us-on-your-byline types of events - just a bunch of regular folks bringing their influences together to make music, beautiful or otherwise. It could be painful - could be fun. Could be butt-humpin' ugly.
Anyone up for it? Consider it NaNoWriMo for the ears.
Find below some photos of my guitars and, cough, studio as it were - join the fun, folks, let's make some music. Why should blogging be but a spectator sport?
Look, if nothing else we can have fun drinking beer and having fun - at best, we write 12 seconds of beautiful music. Who could ask for more?
If you're local (Dean Esmay thinks it will help to mention I live in Denver), sign up already! Hell, if you're long distance, sign up - with the wonders of the net, you can still produce absolute crap though miles stand between you.
John Hawkins, of Right Wing News, just completed a survey of right-leaning bloggers to find out their favorite political websites. I was asked to participate, but life got in the way and I didn't even get a chance to start on thinking about it until after the deadline for submissions. Ah well, maybe next time.
You can find the results here.
Just an early reminder that National Novel Writing Month is fast approaching:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.While I'm inclined to lean more toward the talent/craft side of the aisle (since some kind souls tell me I write rather well; let's see if it carries over to the novel format), I think it's good that someone is out there simply encouraging people to write. Practice can do naught but improve one's writing, and that's a primary reason I've kept up with blogging - you know, aside from it being fun to be right all the time and share my universal "rightness" with all of you.Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
So, who's in?
I know that Kafka is taking the plunge - and I'm encouraging Jolene to give it a go. And I have vague mental images of Matt Moore saying he would try, but those might be fake beer memories.
What's the worst that can happen? You write 50,000 words of pure crap and lose a month of your life that you were only going to spend watching the idiot box anyway. No big loss. Come along.
So, how about it Jon Darby? You've got roughly 396 unfinished tales in your head - polish one up and put it on display.
Michele has posted some of her short story work; bring it on, oh ye of the often-slapped ass!
Zuly? You're an avid reader - give writing a try! Make it part of the Zuly's Reading Room adventure!
Anyone else? Why the hell not? You people disappoint me, ya know that? Heh.
Update: Zombyboy is in, planning to write a tale of love between himself and the various members of The Screaming Trees, and the unfortunate involvement of one tub of Crisco and a shaved llama.
MmmoxieTM is interested, but is too lazy to read up on it. That's a shame, because she has some good fodder for a story. And she could include pictures. Lots of'em. Ayup.
Update, The Second: Kafkaesquí decides to help out MmmoxieTM with this inspiring description of NaNoWriMo:
It's a month* of sore wrists. A month of sore back. A month of sore body parts you won't find in any biology text. It's a month of sleep deprivation. A month of neglected family. A month of ignored friends. A month of shirked responsibilities. It's a month of confusion. A month of self-doubt. A month of absolute despair. It's a month, 30 seemingly unending days, when your conscious faculties, your sanity and your spare time goes right out the window in an attempt to produce 50,000 words of pure and utter dreck.Quite the motivational speaker, that guy.Simply, NaNoWriMo is a month of self-imposed torture. Sound like fun? You bet it does!
* Or less.
Update, The Third or More: Lordy lordy, this thing keeps on growing. No, ladies, back down, I'm not talking about that. I'm talkin' about the people foolish enough to join me in NaNoWriMo. Who's up? Let's see!
Tony, the Kiwi athiest, has joined the team. He'll be writing about sheep. Lots of sheep. And canola oil and gags.
Tiffany has also signed up for literary pain.
Fools. I mean, uh, smart folks willing to endure pain for a greater good. I love you people!
It's been a while since there's been a good theological free-for-all here, so I'm linking to this ongoing discussion regarding the futility of intercessionary prayer. My contribution follows, quoting from a response to the Raving Atheist given by Catholic blogger Michelle Enjoy.
I would need about four long posts to fully respond to every point RA made. That would qualify me for a Godidiot of the Month award from RA, so let's keep it short and pick out only a few points to remark on:And here I thought that to be persecuted for your belief, even on a blog, is admirable in the eyes of the Christian god. Tsk tsk. Sure, it's not quite up there with getting nailed to a cross, but it's bound to count for something, right?
An "infinite number [of] years" is an oxymoron, RA. Eternity isn't an unending chain of years; it's entirely outside time. Because we are material beings with spiritual souls, we exist within time because material changes, evolves. But such change or evolution is a limitation and there can be no limitations on a perfect Being. So time doesn't exist in eternity; eternity is like an ever-present Now with no past or future. Therefore God isn't pondering our fate for billions and billions of years; he knows it Now.Sadly, according to Merriam-Webster, eternity is "infinite time" - and since a year is a unit of measure for time, Raving Atheist is quite right to say that it's an "infinite number [of] years." Making up your own definition to explain away the flaws in your theology isn't terribly honest or, for that matter, convincing.
Further, how does a spiritual soul exist in a material world? How does it interact with and drive the bag of skin we call our body? This is the primary problem with the entire concept of the supernatural - once it affects the natural world, it's obviously part of it.
Which leads to the problem of your made-up definition of "eternity" - you've just described something you can't possibly understand using nonsensical phrases like "it's entirely outside of time" combined with the directly contraditory "ever-present Now" (note that in your description of something that is outside of time, you used words that are about, well, time - sorry, doesn't fly). Perhaps, though, that's the only way you have to describe this concept, which means even you don't understand it - so why are you so sure of it?
Ah, because your theology won't make sense without it. Clever.
The interaction between free will and omniscience is indeed a difficult theological conundrum, but the two are not mutually exclusive. If omniscience is indeed All-Knowing, it could certainly Know how to budget for its own gift of free will to its creatures.In other words, you don't have any clue how to reconcile them, but you're sure that your god does, and that's good enough for you. So much for intellectual rigor and the application of reason to the world around us!
I see little point in going into her (cough) analysis (cough) of how free will is like that movie where Kate Winslet gets naked on a boat. Quite simply, the question is: Can you do something that God does not know you will do before you do it? If the answer is no, then free will is but an illusion. If the answer is yes, then your god is not omniscient.
Update: Couple of things for you good people:
For those of you who have been keeping up with the development of future world tyrant, and adorable baby, Fiona, I proudly present her latest vocal accomplishment in MP3 format. Just click that cute little face.
Why do people bother commenting or e-mailing to tell me that my writing contains hostility, or that it's cynical, or that - goshdarnitalltoheckandback - I'm just so insulting to those with whom I disagree? I think I know that already. Next they'll be telling me I could stand to drop a couple of pounds, and lay off the beer already.
Can't they read the name of the site? It's not the World Wide Hug-A-Puppy.
That's all that can explain why Mark Morford is suddenly talking sense:
Here's the gimmick: Take a weird, modern conservative revisionist New Testament and wrap it in faux-hip fashion-mag duds and hawk it to unsuspecting young maidens who otherwise wouldn't get within ten low-rise jean lengths of the gray-bearded dust-choked finger-wagging dogma of King James and all his hoary misogynistic machismo. Clever indeed.As the strange planetary alignment that allows him to talk with some intelligence rolls on through the cold void of space, he utters magical words like:It's called "Revolve: The Complete New Testament" and it's apparently racing up the Amazon.com sales charts -- whatever that means -- as it sucks up all the accoutrements of a teen fashion rag and rams them through the cute Christian grinder of humorlessness and sexual rigidity and homophobia, and regurgitates them as kicky dumbed-down slightly numb virginal tidbits of advice and admonition and, yes, Biblical storytelling.
"Revolve" takes a decidedly conservative view of the Bible, condemns homosexuality, encourages virginity until marriage, and informs girls that excessive makeup and jewelry and revealing clothes are to be avoided and chastity is to be rewarded because, well, Jesus really loves baggy sweaters and granny underwear.The only purpose granny underwear serves is to tell us men when we're not getting any because the monthly visitor is in the house.
And yet, weird little makeup tips abound in the book, outright groaners for all but the most painfully gullible Bible-belted girls. "You need a good, balanced foundation for the rest of your makeup," says one "tip." "Kinda like how Jesus is the strong foundation in our lives."It might feel like finding God, ladies, but - trust me - that ain't Jesus.Yes that's right. Jesus is the Chapstick for the dry lips of your sinning self. Jesus is the holy Clearasil for your Satanic shin zits. Jesus is that amazing clenched feeling you get when you lie back and aim the shower massager just right and... oh, never mind.
Where, pray where, can a young teen turn for true unadulterated perspective and inspiration? For insight and anxiety relief and a big heaping dose of the gloriously convoluted, slithery, well-accessoried mess that is modern life? Hmm. Maybe that's why God invented books.Which is a nice segue to my reminding you that it's Banned Books Week! Oddly enough, I doubt the Bible will ever be banned (but if only we could move it to the fiction section at least).
(found at tbogg)
Once again demonstrating the complete inability of prayer to do anything remotely useful, aside from lulling people into the sense that they somehow have the ear of some supreme being so they don't feel helpless against the world, Pat Robertson makes the news:
Headline: Pat Robertson prays for Isabel to go out to seaAnd, well, it eventually will, but not before bringing about its fair share of death and destruction.
Pat should take a hint, don't you think? He prays to be President, no luck; he prays for a hurricane to hit Orlando to teach those damned dirty homosexuals visiting the Magic Kingdom a lesson, and instead his mass medium of lies homestead in Virginia Beach gets whacked; he stares in the mirror lamenting the fact that he looks like a horribly deformed cross between a dwarf and a hobgoblin, praying for a JesusTM-powered extreme makeover, and nada. Give it up, preacher-man!
Thanks to Josh for reminding me of this story.
Yes, folks, once again it is the start of that annual celebration of the idiots among us trying to control what we can read and how we think - Banned Books Week. Since 1982, those who believe in intellectual freedom have been giving the big middle finger to the thought Nazis.
Here's a list of the most challenged books of 2002. Why not pick one up and read it?
Oh yeah, and give one of those anti-freedom zealots the finger while you're at it.
What is it with Palestinians and suicide?
Speaking in his partly demolished West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, Arafat pointed to his machinegun lying on the floor and said he would use it to kill himself if Israel tried to deport or assassinate him.Uh, yeah, probably one or two intelligent people don't share that idiotic dream, Yassir."I am a Palestinian soldier ... I will use my gun to defend not only myself but also defend every Palestinian child, woman and man and to defend the Palestinian existence," the 74-year-old former guerrilla leader said.
"Is there anyone in Palestine who does not dream of martyrdom?"
I wonder if the US will condemn his offer to kill himself as not helpful to the peace plan; after all, we whine whenever Israel suggests they'd take care of the problem. Looks like now the problem might take care of itself - I vote for a feint on his compound, and let's see if he, for once in his terrorist's life, will be a man of his word.
I doubt it.
Especially people like this:
David Gallegos, 34, plead guilty to two counts of felony child abuse. He broke his son Ethan's leg and fractured his ribcage in 17 places. Some of those fractures had begun to heal by the time the abuse was discovered in March. Ethan was nine weeks old at the time, and had to wear a body cast for nearly six weeks.The gene pool reject of a father has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, after which he'll be free to breed again, lather, rinse, repeat.
"I'm going to man up and say what I did was wrong," Gallegos said tearfully during the sentencing hearing. In a telephone interview on Wednesday, he told 9News that he squeezed the baby too hard when he slipped down the stairs, injuring his ribs.Nah, a man - nay,a father - would not have injured his son so seriously in the first place. Saying you're sorry doesn't make you a man - it makes you someone scared shitless of going to prison. Furthermore, why would you apologize and say it was wrong to slip down the stairs? Accidents happen. Somehow, I have the feeling it was no accident.
"I am not a monster. I never meant to hurt my baby...I'm a drunk. I have a problem. When I lifted his leg to change his diaper, I never dreamed it would break."How damn hard do you have to lift a baby's leg to break it? Answer: too hard for this piece of human refuse to be telling the truth.But Ethan's family said Gallegos had not been drinking the night the leg was broken.
Jennifer Gallegos has divorced her husband, and hasn't spoken to him since he was arrested...With the simplest explanation of all: a lot of people just suck. Fact of life. Let's find out who they are, deal with them, and move on to people worth being around."I will tell him what happened," Jennifer Gallegos said. "But I don't know how I'll find the words to explain how someone who was supposed to love him unconditionally hurt him so badly."
David Gallegos told 9News he had found God and God would turn his life around. He said he hoped one day to have a relationship with his son, and to teach him to swing a baseball bat or play golf.Oh great, a child abuser who has found God, giver of the laws that say back-talking children should be killed - oh yeah, this is good news.
Maybe we could teach the kid to take the bat to his father's head in a few years. Let us pray.
Not that I'll make a habit of recommending software or anything, but this time I will make an exception and recommend YahooPops! It's an affordable (read: free) solution for those of us who want to be able to check Yahoo mail from a standard mail client (like the way Outlook is able to check Hotmail accounts), and it works pretty well at that once you follow the configuration instructions. If you're like me and try to run it without reading two paragraphs, then you might get frustrated.
It may be just me, but it seems that the shrill, pukey-liberal, Bush-hatin' set is gaining an upper hand on the results of the war in Iraq (as if you can really even say anything about those results six months after the fact.) People are steadily letting the lib mantra of "Where are the WMD's?!" (as if that were the only reason to go to war with Iraq) penetrate. Why, the other day, I even read someone repeating the old "faked Jessica Lynch rescue" saw on a message board without being shredded from head to foot.
But then Lileks waded back into the battle, sarcasm flashing in the air and biting turns-of-phrase hacking off chunks of dumb-shittery. Witness:
Every day I read a piece like the Strib edit. They all have an inescapable conclusion: Saddam should have been left in power. No, they don’t say that. Yes, the writers would surely insist that Saddam was a wretched tyrant, and the world is better off without him in power, BUT, Baghdad’s electricity service is now undependable. No, but. Yes, but. Perhaps, however. Perfection has not been achieved; the depredations of a three-decade nightmare have not been banished in six months, and that really is the issue, isn’t it. Sorry, what was your question again?and:
I went back to the editorial archives today, to see what was said around the time of the Dec 1998 “Desert Fox” campaign...[.] ..."Lift the sanctions" was a popular item. And why? Because it would show Saddam the world was serious about giving him one last chance. Okay, here’s your gun back. But if you shoot us we’re going to take it away. The naivety nearly makes you weep. These people didn’t want Saddam’s body bobbing ass-up in the Tigris. They wanted a world in which the fascist clique that ruled Iraq curtseyed and bowed in the lovely gavotte of international diplomacy. However many people died in Saddam’s gulags was irrelevant; what mattered was that the UN was Concerned, and that the Iraqi Ambassador - clad in a nice Western suit, skilled in many tongues, daubed with a Macy’s cologne - agreed to facilitate the process of calibrating the precise nature of the consquences of failing to live up to the spirit of the letter of the penumbra of the -And this was 1998. What has changed since then? Why, nothing! Nothing at all. Why do you even ask?Ah, it’s noon; shalll we have lunch sent in, or have our drivers take us to the Village? I understand there is an excellent Tibetan restaurant that’s just opened.
And the most scintillating piece of insight yet:
I’ve read enough editorials from various papers from this period to reinforce something I’ve long suspected: the reason many editorialists hate this war is because they don’t feel it’s theirs.Precisely.If Clinton had risen to the occasion, wiped out al-Qaeda, sent Marines to kick down the statues and put bullets in those filthy sons’ brainpans, this would be the most noble effort of our time. We would hear clear echoes of JFK’s call to bear any burden. FDR, Truman, Marshall Plan, forbearance, patience - the editorial pages of the land would absolutely brim with encouragement and optimism every damn day, because the good fight was being waged, and the right people were waging it.
Hmmm, either evolutionary biology is right or God gave the monkeys their own set of Commandments:
Knowing when you have been ripped off is not solely a human skill, biologists have discovered. Monkeys can spot a raw deal when they see one, and if they are not treated fairly they throw a tantrum.Yay, science!The finding confirms the idea that cooperative behaviour, which relies on the participants' having a sense of fair play, appeared early in our evolutionary history.