This is Maurice Clemmons, sought by the police of Washington state, for possible involvement in the ambush/assassination of 4 police officers Sunday morning in Tacoma. Reading Clemmons' recent and not so recent criminal history makes any sensible person ask, "What is this animal doing out on the street?" The short answer is, "You just can't lock up crazy and dangerous people any longer." The longer answer, in fewer words, is "We don't have the guts to jail the nuts."

The weak and neuter-run Seattle Times, long a proponent of "No jail for nuts just bail," reports the facts of Clemmons' demented history in Maurice Clemmons, man wanted for questioning, has long criminal history Among Clemmons more recent "achievements" that should long ago have placed him in a concrete cage at the bottom of the sea include:

• a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child.
  
• eight felony charges in all out of Washington state.
  
• punching a sheriff's deputy in the face
  
• gathering his wife and young relatives around at 3 or 4 in the morning and having them all undress. He told them that families need to "be naked for at least 5 minutes on Sunday."

Clemmons' previous criminal distinctions include, "at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed."

Clemmons was given a 60-year sentence in Arkansas while "he was already serving 48 years on five felony convictions and facing up to 95 more years on charges of robbery, theft of property and possessing a handgun on school property. Records from Clemmons' sentencing described him as 5-foot-7 and 108 pounds. The crimes were committed when he was 17. Clemmons served 11 years before being released."

His sentence was commuted due to the "mercy" of then governor Mike Huckabee who cited his tender years at the time his crimes were committed. Should Clemmons turn out to be responsible for the killings of the four police officers, I'd say Mike Huckabee should hang up his further political aspirations in America for good. This would be Huckabee's Willie Horton moment only several orders of magnitude larger.

The Seattle Times, a paper that has fought harder for laxity in law enforcement than any other in Washington, naturally led with the Huckabee connection, not that he doesn't deserve it. But what unrolls beneath the lede in the litany of depravity that is Clemmons' life points again and again to the lack of will in America to do anything definitive about the pathological humans that walk among citizens.

We've come, through all the good intentions in the world, to a society where individuals of obvious depravity are routinely paroled, or have their sentences commuted, or are given bail because many among us have determined it is more important to be fair, to be nice, than to live.

Clemmons became free to walk about Washington state in this way: "Clemmons posted $15,000 with a Chehalis company called Jail Sucks Bail Bonds. The bondsman, in turn, put up $150,000, securing Clemmons' release on the pending child-rape charge."

You've got to love the name of that bail company: "Jail Sucks Bail Bonds." That name encapsulates in its depraved way everything that has gone amiss over the last few decades. "We think jail just sucks and if you do to come on down to Jail Sucks Bail Bonds where freedom to take your demented life back on the streets is only 10% away."

Of course, the Democrat controlled Washington State legislature and governor are continually hatching legislation that will make it more difficult for ordinary citizens to arm and protect themselves from the vermin they catch and release like diseased trout back onto the streets. You'd think having four armed police officers executed while they sat having coffee in a Tacoma restaurant would make the politicians of this state, and other states, think twice about anti-gun legislation. Forget about it. The Democrat disease's main symptom is that they don't even think once.

Illustration: Shannon Love

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz has written a superlative examination of just how bad "the most important computer programs in the world" at Hadly CRU actually are in Scientists Are Not Software Engineers. While the human element of deception, deletion, and good old fashion "dumbth" are on display in the hacked emails, Love points out

No, the real shocking revelation lies in the computer code and data that were dumped along with the emails. Arguably, these are the most important computer programs in the world. These programs generate the data that is used to create the climate models which purport to show an inevitable catastrophic warming caused by human activity. It is on the basis of these programs that we are supposed to massively reengineer the entire planetary economy and technology base.

The dumped files revealed that those critical programs are complete and utter train wrecks.

Love does not believe that these programs are bad out of malice but out of sheer and escalating incompetence when it comes to software design and a factor that creates a mindset NASA has termed "the normalization of deviancy/risk."

CRU isn't that unusual. Few scientific teams use any kind of formal software-project management. Why? Well, most people doing scientific programming are not educated as programmers. They're usually just scientists who taught themselves programming. Moreover, most custom-written scientific software, no matter how large, doesn't begin as a big, planned project. Instead the software evolves from some small, simple programs written to handle relatively trivial tasks. After a small program proves useful, the scientist finds another related processing task so instead of rewriting everything from scratch, he bolts that new task onto an existing program. Then he does it again and again and again....

Most people who use spreadsheets a lot have seen this process firsthand. You start with a simple one sheet spreadsheet with a few dozen cells. It's small, quick and useful but then you discover another calculation that requires the data in the sheet so you add that new calculation and any necessary data to the initial sheet. Then you add another and another. Over the years, you end up with a gargantuan monster. It's not uncommon for systems analysts brought in to overhaul a company's information technology to find that some critical node in the system is a gigantic, byzantine spreadsheet that only one person knows how to use and which started life as a now long-dead manager's to-do list.

Of course, along with general ineptitude catalogued by Love, there can also be the all too human factors of "keeping one's job" and "feathering one's nest."

I encountered this sort of homespun software garbage when I took over management of the Cosmodemonic PornGiant site for the House of Pent in 2000. At that time the site was generating something on the order of $25 million per year in revenue and almost all of the House of Pent's cash flow. It was the cash cow that cut the payroll checks and kept the ever-ravenous creditors from the door.

Cosmodemonic PornGiant was the single most critical element of the business and all the money flowed out of the computers and through a program in a computer locked in a small back office with special locks. The program was written and run by one very irritable "employee" who spent a lot of time locked in that room, lifting weights, and sending out emails stating what the income from the day before had actually been -- according to "his computer." Since he'd written the "payments" program himself he was as close to invulnerable an employee as there was. In addition you were never quite sure if all the funds entering the program he'd written were coming out the other side or if some were escaping via a rogue data link elsewhere. But because the flow of the funds was critical nobody every wanted to look at that too hard. The fear was that the flow could presumably be made to flow elsewhere with a keystroke and disappear until it could be found and directed to the company coffers once again.

This employee knew that he held the whip hand in the company and developed, over time, an attitude. Not a good situation for his boss who happened to be, well, me. Since I was the one in the organization chart charged with keeping the company's single oxygen line flowing I took this job seriously lest my paycheck and that of 200+ other families simply evaporate into cyberspace.

Ultimately, after a byzantine bit of internal corporate espionage involving giving him and his wife a "bonus" all-expense-paid vacation in Bermuda, I was able to gain control of this man's "Black Box" programs and soon after, following a rage-filled encounter, he left the company "to spend more time with his family."

The programs, when my outside programmers began to understand them and poke into their innards, were much like Love's programs that involved "a gigantic, byzantine spreadsheet that only one person knows how to use and which started life as a now long-dead manager's to-do list." Only these programs could dial into ours and who knows who else's bank accounts with deposits. I'm not saying that any money that belonged to the company went to any other account. I'm saying something scarier. I'm saying that the company wouldn't have known if it did.

Which is a bit like what seems to have been going on at Hadly CRU. It might be right. It might be wrong. It might be so wrong it isn't even wrong. It might be so right that the globe could ignite at dawn.

All we know is that we do not know and that now, given that all the original data for the Hadly CR has been "lost," we don't even know what we don't know.

As Eric Raymond noted this evening at Armed and Dangerous's "Facts to fit the theory? Actually, no facts at all!

It just keeps getting better and better. Now we learn that the CRU has admitted to throwing away the primary data on which their climate models were based. I quote: "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data."

This means that even the CRU itself has no idea how accidentally corrupt or fraudulently altered its data might be. And the IPCC reports used the CRU'€™s temperature reconstructions as a gold standard. So did other climatologists all over the world. And now they can'€™t be verified! Without a chain of provenance tieing them back to actual measurements, every single figure and trendline in the CRU reconstructions might as well be PDOOMA, a fine old engineering acronym expanding to ""€œPulled Directly Out Of My Ass".

It's outrageous and immoral. It's incompentant and malicious at the same time. Heads should roll but heads won't roll.

For a clusterfuck this size in this world of insane experts and electible conmen, there's only one thing that's fit to give the aging hippie fuckups of Hadly CRU: The Nobel Prize. Al Gore move over. Always room for more bozos on your bus.

The resident curmudgeon @ An Exercise in Futility -- Why do I even bother? (a man after my own dark heart) describes himself as,

"an echo-boomer who specializes in deconstructing cultural lies that were handed down to all of us by a generation whose grand ideological experiment failed and consequently ruined the world I’m slated to inherit."

I'd describe him as a star-class kvetcher with a burning-down word habit. Here's a sampler:

• How to Destroy a Liberal's Worldview"If the earth increases by an average temperature of 5 degrees, wouldn't that make more of the earth habitable because Canada and Siberia wouldn't be so cold?"(no, because the oceans would rise). "How much would the oceans have to rise to make us lose enough continental space to account for the combination of Siberia and Canada?"(No answer, because they don't know. Your goal here is just to point out how little they know about their eco religion).

Continued...

One struggles to find new realms of contempt in which to hold Charles "I'm writing as bad as I can" Johnson, but -- because he's a putz -- he always provides them. Latest realm? A sniveling bit of denial concerning the Sparkman death now revealed not to be an evil assassination but something even dumber: Census worker staged death to conceal suicide.

Johnson deftly conceals his own role in the matter by hiding his ostrich head up his own ass in a classic "Who? Me? Never!" bit of "clarification": Little Green Footballs - Update: Ky. Census Worker Committed Suicide

"Since this news came out, I’ve received several angry emails demanding that I apologize for saying Sparkman had been murdered by a right wing extremist. The problem is, I never wrote anything like that. For the record, this was my post when the story broke, and I don’t apologize for a single word:

There’s not enough information yet to say for sure what was behind this killing, so let’s not jump to conclusions. But the description of the circumstances and the timing (around the time of the Washington DC tea party) raises a strong suspicion that anti-government sentiment may have been the motivation.

[Emphasis added]

Sigh. What is one to do with this sort of copy? It wouldn't get by the newest editorial intern at Weekly World News. In effect it says, "I didn't say he was killed by those that I suggest killed him... those dastardly tea-partiers... and nobody can prove I did. All I said was 'strong suspicion'! All I said was 'I'm just raisin' issues and askin' questions."

People like Johnson fall into the category of true believers, those who are so far down the wrong path that they actually eat their own bullshit and called it "Pate." The blunt truth is that Johnson is so wrong he's "not even wrong." He's merely a piss-ant far down on the elephant of truth's ankle screaming "Take it all, bitch!"

It's a shame that Andrew Sullivan is already married. If he wasn't nuptials between Sullivan and Johnson would be the blogger society event of the season. Then again, it would never work out. In a gay marriage, both guys can't be the bottom.

HT: Brewerpatriot

Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind from Marc Bullard on Vimeo.

Via Velociworld: Heh

Eric Raymond (uber-programmer and author of a number of How-to documents and FAQs, many of which are included in the Linux Documentation Project corpus) just posted a short item called Hiding the Decline: Part 1 : The Adventure Begins

From the CRU code file osborn-tree6/briffa_sep98_d.pro , used to prepare a graph purported to be of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and reconstructions.

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

This, people, is blatant data-cooking, with no pretense otherwise. It flattens a period of warm temperatures in the 1940s -- see those negative coefficients? Then, later on, it applies a positive multiplier so you get a nice dramatic hockey stick at the end of the century.

And that's just one small snippet.

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

"I'd rather be a free man in my grave,
Than living as a puppet or a slave."

I'm moving this to the top of the list for official anthems of "The Conservative Revolutionary Front."

Who appointed over 40 ambassadors on the sole basis of campaign contributions, or has as many lobbyists in government as did any President in memory? And who releases touchy news—whether increased unemployment or trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civil courts—on Friday nights, or wants his Democratically-controlled Congress to debate unpopular legislation on Saturday nights?

You see where this is going. Prophets fall harder than normal politicians. When you claim that seas recede and planets cool before your presence, and that Latin mottos, new presidential candidate seals, neo-classical victory trophies, and faux-Greek temple sets are the appropriate backdrops for Your speeches, then you raise the bar a bit high. Obama is not necessarily any more partisan than a Nixon or Reagan or Bush, only just as partisan -- but when he claimed something quite different. --Victor Hanson, Where Has the Thrill Gone?

"... And then the harder they come the harder they'll fall,
.... one and all."

If you're still playing catch-up in the smoldering wreckage from the Holy Hand Grenade of hacking detonated in the Hadley CRU, a great place to start is Charlie Martin's succint and link-rich Global WarmingGate: What Does It Mean? Martin lays it out and sums it up with "It appears that the three scandals are:

• First, a real attempt by a small group of scientists to subvert the peer-review process and suppress dissenting voices. (For another look at this, by a respected climate scientist who was one of the targets, see these posts on Roger Pielke Sr.'s blog.) This is at best massively unethical.
  
• Second, a willingness to manipulate the data to make a political case. This is certainly misconduct and possibly scientific fraud. This, if it proves true, should make these scientists subject to strong disciplinary action, even termination of their tenured positions.
  
• Third, what gives every appearance of an actual conspiracy to prevent data from being released as required by the Freedom of Information Acts in the US and UK. If this is proven true, that is a federal crime.

"Charlie Martin is a Colorado computer scientist and freelance writer. He holds an MS in Computer Science from Duke University, where he spent six years with the National Biomedical Simulation Resource, Duke University Medical Center. Find him at http://chasrmartin.com, and on his blog at http://explorations.chasrmartin.com."

"Want a child-friendly way to introduce your little one to the traditions of the Old Cult?

Meet little Cthulhu, who lives in the magic city of R'lyeh with all his friends, as you and your child embark on a fun and educational journey through the world of the Great Old Ones, meeting all kinds of new buddies from the Necronomicon along the way, from Azathoth to Yog-Sothoth! This series has won multiple awards and has been enthusiastically approved by the department of child-developmental psychology at Miskatonic University."

HT: Ed in Texas

The Web's worst high-functioning autistic photographer, Charles Foster Johnson, has made it possible for you, yes you, you lucky sod to actually stare at his vacant snapshots for an entire year. Yes, lucky dogs, it's Little Green Footballs - The LGF 2010 Photo Calendar!!!!!

"Now available at Lulu.com in time for Christmas and the New Year — the Little Green Footballs 2010 Calendar, featuring 13 beautiful high resolution versions of photographs I’ve posted at LGF. It's $24.99, Lulu.com handles all the printing and shipping, I get 10 bucks, and they get the difference. Not a bad deal for all involved."

"Not a bad deal..." if you favor pedestrian snapshots of flat color, a personal world that is utterly bereft of any human face, or snapshots chilled in the crippled sensibility of a person who has "the brain of a bass player" and the eye of an albino cave-dwelling newt.

Taken as a whole, this masturbatory exercise in pug-ugly photography is but the latest chapter in the never-ending saga, The Eternal Banality of the Photography of Charles Foster Johnson

Here's the stunning if risibly titled "October:"

Cloud band, water band, sand band. All tonalities mushed down into one bland band of bullshit. You could get 100 of these anytime you drive by the beach at 25mph with the camera set on autodrive and pointed anywhere towards the sea. More than that the image itself, as the other images of this "calendar" have the same dull and affectless matte surface. It's "high resolution" that you wish were much, much lower. And when you try to look deeper in you find only greater shallowness.

These are the landscapes suicides see just before they pull the trigger.

Continued...

Walt Erickson
http://www.verse-afire.com/blog


IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHOSE GORE IS BEING AXED


The revelations of fraud as revealed in the emails and files will not mean a thing. Al Gore will not be dissuaded by the facts, since he is probably privy to the scam from the beginning. No, the hockey stick guys will fight tooth and nail, claiming with every exhaled carbon dioxide breath that global warming is real and that the emails are faked. They will not give up easily, for careers are at stake, and for some, like Al Gore, it isn’t a career that’s at stake, but vast sums of money. Do not expect Al Gore to do a mea culpa.


The climate is changing, we’re told by Al Gore
Regardless of facts that it’s not
And even with emails, the scandal du jour
He’ll not change his mind by a jot
The icebergs are melting, the bears in decline
The seas are all rising a lot
And even if proven the bears are all fine
He’d not change his mind by a jot
The air is polluted with carbon you know
It’s hard to know just what we’ve got
But even if proven the air’s fresh as snow
He’d not change his mind by a jot
He’ll not change positions, he's clearly on hold
He says that it’s gonna get hot
And even if proven we’re gonna get cold
He’d not change his mind by a jot
For climate’s the answer to money for Al
He sees it as dough for the pot
The climate change scam is for him a cash cow
So he’ll not change his mind by a jot

It's Tar baby time here at the end of the world! Everyone who's into it will have their say about the CRU Climate Change Scandal, but if you're wise you'll just put out the lawn chairs, open a cold one, sit back and watch the passing parade.

In other words, don't be as stupid as I was and actually download and start to look through the files and emails. It's like smoking crack, or perhaps like smoking crack would be if I ever smoked crack.

Continued...

Townhall: "Where Your Opinion Counts" and Ugly is Our Most Important Product

Hey, if the "better" ideas of the right mean something and are to communicate something, the first thing that needs to be done is the carpet bombing to a wet spot on the tarmac of "Townhall.com." Check this crapulous example of graphic sludge, popovers, popunders, animations, blink tags and other web page bullshit gone wild @ Michelle Malkin : When Big Labor Bullies and Volunteers Collide - Townhall.com

Who is responsible for this dog's dinner of stinking slush? Uncle Jethro? Baby Huey? The last six art directors fired from Porn.com? Does it matter? Nope. Not at all. Trying to read something on Townhall is like getting hit in the face with oozing semi-liquid spam every second. That's it for me. I'm over that site forever. Yes, and its crappy spamacious email alerts as well.

If I want to be sick I can just read NewYorkTimes.com. At least they know how to lay out an idea so it has clarity and impact. At least the New York Times doesn't tell you it has contempt for you going in.

Many in the no-longer-so-loyal opposition to the Obama juggernaut of taking the wrecking ball to the Republic fret about how to slow or stop it. Here's the news: You can't.

There are now so many programs and initiatives in play on so many levels that just keeping up with a fraction of them will have you pointing and clicking 25 hours a day. Frantic and "tryin' to make it in due time / Before the heaven doors close" the current administration of crooks, thugs, liars, leftists, and wreckers are pushing every half-assed social theory into law and policy with no let-up in sight and no quarter given. Add to this a media in love with the easeful death this experimental movement brings, and slobbering over whatever turgid appendage our panty-waist president deigns to offer them daily, and you've got a perfect slow motion storm of legal, moral, and cultural disasters.

Take a hint from Keanu Reeves in Speed above. If you can't stop it, you've got to wreck it.... and to wreck it you've got to "make it go faster." They say their plans for the future of the United States are "better?" Okay, take them at their word. Only faster. Let's see how this stuff plays out in real life. As soon as possible. If they're right, all will be well. If they're not, let's have the disaster now and in double portions.

How to do this? Well, the Swiftian commenter "Joe California Now Joe Florida" has some suggestions. Presenting himself as a retired California civil servant in a discussion following an article called, chillingly, "California Has No Idea How Bad Soaring Oil Is Going To Hurt" , Joe has a plan. Check it out. It's a classic example of how to "Make It Go Faster."

After all, as we used to say in the socialist paradise of Berkeley in the 1960s, "If you're going to have a revolution, you've got to do revolting things." In times like these it's not enough to say "No!" You've got to say, "Go fuck yourselves. Here, let me help."

Joe California Now Joe Florida on Nov 19, 8:24 AM said:

Clearly California needs a plan. As a retired California public employee, let me give some suggestions as I sit on my patio in Florida thinking things over in the calm peaceful morning:

-- Encourage more illegal immigration. Immigrants are a great natural resource, and America became rich and powerful thanks to immigrants. Its true, you haters.

-- Increase taxes. After all, where else are you going to get the money? By cutting spending? Politically, there is nothing left which can be cut.

-- Increase all state employee salaries to six figures. Hear me out on this. First, this will result in top talent applying for these jobs. Second, by increasing salaries across the board, there will be a natural increase in the collectible income tax from these increased salaries. Its like printing money for the state! Third, a higher paid state work force will be a more productive work force. California will get twice the value for each additional dollar it pays to its public servants. I know my former state coworkers. They'll give you more than fair value for each additional buck.

-- Mandate private employer paid health care, pensions, etc. Imagine the talent pool of employees which California would create by making California the Mecca for mandated employer-provided benefits. Where would you rather work, in a state where employers do not have to provide benefits, or where employers are mandated to pay in full for a whole spectrum of employee benefits?

-- Eliminate the death penalty and life terms. These sentences only result in costly appeals. No one wins with these sentences, not the state and not the accused. Let's get the emotionalism out of this equation. The "victim" is entitled to see the accused punished, not persecuted.

-- Ban private schools. The reason why public schools are failing is because too many of the better students have flocked to private schools. As a result, the poorer performing students are deprived of the positive effects from social interaction with academic high achievers. By forcing all students into one system, the entire student body as a whole will be raised up by the inclusion of the high achievers.

-- California Has No Idea How Bad Soaring Oil Is Going To Hurt

These simple measures should pretty much put paid to California at last and not a moment too soon. So I'm with Joe in all of this. Especially since I don't live in California and could turn a pretty penny running a "Welcome to Nevada" T-Shirt stand on the border for all those heading out. For those heading back in? Well, if they're going to Sacramento I could do a land-office business in nooses, pitchforks, incendiary devices, and sharpened pikes for severed heads. Either way, I clean up.

Belmont Club ｻ The PACmen

There comes a moment in rebellion when those who resist power realize they need some power themselves; just as those who desire peace must sometimes take up the sword.

Biden's Motorcade Involved In (Another) Crash

Biden has now killed or wounded four times the number of individuals that Dick Cheney hurt in his shotgun mishap.

In related news, The Daily Show, Late Night with David Letterman, Dana Milbank, Andrew Sullivan, Drink Progress, TPM Bloatwire, 528.com and TFatt were busy writing material mocking Sarah Palin.

The Green House, Berkeley California, 2008

BACKSTAGE: A Preface to a Prologue

In response to yesterday's note about the publication of Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones, Altamont, and the End of the Sixties a friend and alphablogger whose judgement I respect writes to ask that I write more about what I saw moving through the 60s like some long-haired WASP Zelig.

To recapitulate a remark from yesterday, it's a popular thing to say that "If you remember the 60s you weren't there." My curse is that I was there and despite being a full participant with all that implies, I seem to remember everything. Worse still, the more I do remember, the more I can remember.

One of my larger projects which I hold back from this page is a fictionalized version of what I saw at the "Revolution." In general book length works don't work at all well in this medium and much of the book is only in first draft with other sections coming in in outline form only.

Still there is a prologue which has been in pretty much final form for some time and which sets out certain elements best summed up by a line from the ultimate 60s band, The Jefferson Airplane, "And, there's another side to this life I've been living."

While I have found a great deal, a very great deal, of the things begun in the 60s to have turned out for the worse and to have harmed our society and our culture and ourselves, there is seldom a bouquet of thorns that do not guard a rose.

All of which is to say there are things and moments from those years that still have something of the "Once Upon A Time" about them. This short passage alludes to and points towards some of them in a manner which is, perhaps, too lyrical for its own good, but I find that if I am to write truly, I can only write down what I am sent without fear or filters.

And so, by semi-popular demand, what follows is the prologue one of my longer projects, CEREMONIES OF THE HORSEMEN --

The cloak and dagger dangles,
madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen
even a pawn can hold a grudge.
--Bob Dylan

None of this ever really happened.

1. Prologue

To tell the truth about those years, you'd have to begin with the observation that truth was, like all precious commodities, in very short supply. Like LSD from Sandoz or pharmaceutical cocaine, truth was rumored to be everywhere but became scarce when you attempted to score.

Continued...

We all need someone we can bleed on,
And if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me.
We all need someone we can bleed on,
And if you want it, why dont you bleed on me
-- Stones, Let It Bleed

I'm the co-author of the new book, Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones, Altamont, and the End of the Sixties by Ethan A. Russell. The lead author and photographer is my old and dear friend, Ethan Russell. His site is Ethan Russell Photographs and if you like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, and a host of other musicians, take a look.

Continued...

So my old friend Mr. Stephen Jones and I are doing some urban spelunking deep within the "University District" of Seattle on a rainy Friday night. A couple of movie art houses are presenting bills that offer an ancient Louis Malle flick alongside the towering cinematic achievement of "Saw 2." The corner curry houses are doing a desultory business in over-spiced stews, and in the various coffee houses with free WiFi young couples who used to sit and have "intellectual" conversations over cappuccinos are sitting together staring at their laptop screens. Perhaps they're having "intellectual" instant messaging with each other.

The streets, though damp, boast roving clumps and clusters of drunken or stoned students, and the drunker and more stoned human detritus that takes shelter under the ever forgiving wing of what passes for institutions of "higher learning" in our cities. One young woman with a white marble complexion and wearing a hooded Eskimo coat is mistaken, in the mist, for a storefront mannequin. Hilarity and apologies ensue after a young fellow carelessly shakes his umbrella in her direction.

It's an aimless night on University Way and, aside from Twice-Sold Tales, a musty and chaotic used book store, very few shops are open except those that will give you caffeine, pho and facial piercings. Why no Seattle shop has broken down and offered all three of these things under one roof is beyond me. For a moment, I dream of starting a new international chain, StarPhoTats, to fill this obvious need of a nation with far too much time and money on its hands, but then my attention is distracted by a shop up the street that seems to be open.

Continued...

"Every time you put milk into your coffee and watch it mix and realize that you can't unmix that milk from your coffee, you are learning something profound about the Big Bang, about conditions in the very, very early universe. This is just a giant clue that the real universe has given to us to how the fundamental laws of physics work. We don't yet know how to put that clue to work. We don't know the answer to the who done it, who is the guilty party, why the universe is like that."

Continued...

It probably works like this. Every morning when Obama rises he takes a deep and refreshing hot coffee high-colonic. During this meditative phase of his day he thinks,

"Let's see... how can I show my contempt for America in a manner not previously thought possible? Last week I was giving the American flag my trademarked "crotch salute."** A day or so ago I was bending over for the Emperor of Japan. Humm, what's left? I know, I'll put on the biggest mass murderer of the 20th century's signature jacket for my photo-op. And some lip gloss! And pantyhose! Fuck yeah! [Fist pump]"

Don't think so? Then, as Bird Dog notes, "figure out these photos of the O in a Mao jacket from today or yesterday.

Good grief. Never thought I'd see the day that an American Pres would put on a Mao jacket. It sends a peculiar message. I would wear a tutu before I'd put on one of those - except maybe for Halloween. -- Life imitates satire - Maggie's Farm

**Signature Crotch Salute as the Flag passes:

U.S. President Barack Obama bows as he is greeted by Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko as he arrives at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009.

You know, he is getting better at this sort of thing. Practice makes perfect. This one has to go straight into the Obama Scrapbook section, "My Greatest Achievements."

While a normal, well-brought-up American knows that free men do not bow to monarchs, it is interesting to read Miss Manners on the subject of bowing to foreign monarchs, not that manners is what we expect to see in this case.

Continued...

In the AMERICAN DIGEST comments on "Afghanistan: The Failure to Plan Is "The Plan"" reader BGR asks:

"What can we do to stop him? What can I do to fight the hordes of people who agree with Obama? Whatever are we to do?

I cannot take much more jawboning. We all know the score. What good do we do by talking to one another night after night, day after day, lamenting the truth that we see?

The invaders are taking over and we are just chewing the fat?"

And... a few comments later... Askmom answers:

Continued...

Now you swear and kick and beg us
That you're not a gamblin' man.
Then you find you're back in Vegas
With a handle in your hand.
Your black cards can make you money,
So you hide them when you're able.
In the land of milk and honey
You must put them on the table.

You go back Jack do it again,
(Wheel turnin' 'round and 'round)
You go back Jack do it again....
-- Steely Dan

From where I sit I see many people underestimating President Obama because they cannot get their heads around who and what this man actually is and what he portends. Instead, historical or metaphoric analysis prevails making Obama like “Lincoln” or “Stalin,” like an "angel" or a "devil." Regardless of the comparisons evoked they all fail because Obama is none of these. He is "None of the above." He is not "That what came before." He is all of "What shall come after."

Politically and personally, Obama is a genetic sport, a Chimera; a now not-so-mythical being composed of multiple parts but functioning a a whole. Neither America nor the world has seen his like before. Attempts to analyze him that appeal to history fail because there is no historical precedent. That was, you will recall, part of his mystic allure. As a result many ascribe motives to the president that cannot be accurate; motives that run counter to the blunt evidence of the senses, to the maxim: “Watch what he does, not what he says.”

Continued...

A handy guide on divestment from the evil Jewish State, with some key tips and points you won't find anywhere else!

HT The invaluable Helene Bidwell

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-- William Butler Yeats -- "The Second Coming" Analyzed

The secular infection of the post-post-modern mind is beyond virulent and oozing pus wherever one looks. One manifestation of the spread of the epidemic is the "fashionable" compulsion to declare one has no faith by declaring one's faith in atheism. This is becoming a fad among our self-styled artiste class.

This evening I was looking at some interesting work on Flickr and wanted to learn a bit more about the artist, one Michael Paukner. His short Flickr autobiography is "graphic designer, freelancer, musician, atheist, jack of all trades." That's it. That's all. Which of those five things is not like the other four? That's right, the compulsive addition of "atheist."

I must confess I'm always a little surprised by the "passionate intensity" of these childish and malformed souls. It's as if Paukner felt forced to declare himself "graphic designer, freelancer, musician, broken, jack of all trades." If he had he'd have been a bit more honest about himself. As it stands declaring one is a loud and proud "atheist" is I imagine a kind of advertisement for one's own brokenness in order to attract and gather around oneself others who are broken in the same way. I suppose it's a kind of dating behavior of the spiritually malformed in order to wall themselves off from redemption of any sort; a kind of forehead tattoo of the Tribe of Zero.

It's a continuing mystery to me that, faced in every moment with the self-evident presence of the miracle of all that is, people in western cultures can shroud themselves in the deepest dark of "There is no miracle." Then again, I am reliably informed that the grace of free will is what makes this possible and I cannot argue with grace. It has too often been granted to me for me to test it.

Still I wonder at the Tribe of Zero's compulsion to announce it's dark faith in Nothing. In a way, the passionate intensity of atheists is mirrored by the passionate intensity of Muslims who would kill and behead unbelievers and be convinced of their own "tough-mindedness" as they pulled the trigger or chopped at the neck. The difference is, of course, that our post-post-modern atheists, with their t-shirts and tattoos, their mumbles and tacky manifestos proclaiming their "faith," are unlikely to ever kill Muslims. That's not their role in today's global religious war between the submission and slavery of Islam and the liberty and freedom of the west. No, the role of atheists is similar to the role of pacifists. They hide behind those who believe in Liberty and Freedom and carry on their broken lives.

Their only other conceivable role, should the civilization that makes their "faith" possible is, if that civilization should lose, to become the first sheep slaughtered under Sharia law. (Unless of course their "tough mindedness" failed and their rushed to conversions as most would.) Those that stuck too their intensely passionate conviction in "atheism" would quickly discover the truth of the old saying, "If you don't believe in anything, you'll die for nothing at all."

The slides are at Hasan on Islam - washingtonpost.com

Hasan's presentation on Muslims in the military

Fort Hood suspect warned of threats within the ranks - washingtonpost.com

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

Things seen that cannot be unseen from around the web. Currently showing, among others,

Continued...

"Maybe one of these days people will realize that hating one’s country, whether for religious reasons or otherwise, is more than adding another colour thread to society’s rich tapestry but wicked, warped, and very, very dangerous." -- Traitors, Eh? | ninme

And today, coming in as a close second, we have:

"Never before in our history has the vast majority of our political leaders so despised the people and institutions of the United States." -- Wheat & Weeds: Why Do They Hate Us? II

by Jim Treacher (JTlol) on Twitter

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Jerry Pournelle looks at the traitor who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood:

I would presume that arming oneself and shooting 43 US soldiers is (1) levying war against the United States, and (2) an overt act, and that Major Hassan should be charged with treason.

Political correctness was the cause of the Fort Hood Massacre, and we ought not forget that. The fact that someone could go through -- at government expense -- an undergraduate education with ROTC, then medical school at a US military institution, and remain a traitor to the United States is a significant warning. A very significant warning that the idea of Political Correctness has consequences we can't afford. Corruption of the Legions is one danger the Republic cannot endure.

The Legions remain faithful; but for how long when their officers are no longer faithful? Hassan had been through ROTC and a US armed forces medical school as a commissioned officer. Why was his failure of loyalty to the armed forces not detected earlier? But of course he was a Muslim, and it would not be politically correct to wash someone out of an armed forces medical school for lack of loyalty to the armed forces of these United States.

We sow the wind. We have reaped one whirlwind.

The politically correct spin is coming like a tidal wave. He is a crazy guy who happens to be a Muslim. All of that misses the point: he was disloyal to the United States, and said so openly and many times; yet he remained a commissioned officer of the United States. That is the point that is being overlooked. Whether the disloyalty is due to a psychotic episode or some other cause is not important.

... The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall."

Which is where, if history is any guide, an unknown number of Americans will die on a day as yet to be determined.

Kimberly Munley, the police officer who shot the Fort Hood gunman, with the country singer Dierks Bentley.

"Prayers and thanks flooded the apparent Twitter feed of Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer hailed as a hero for stopping the shooting rampage at Fort Hood.

"One admirer sent a “bear hug.” She “is one outstanding brave cop!” another wrote. And from a third: “thank you for stopping that mad man.”

"The Twitter feed includes what appears to be a photo of Sgt. Munley. Sgt. Munley, 34 years old, was credited by Army officials with firing the bullets that brought down Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who allegedly opened fire in the base’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Thursday afternoon.

"Survivors described the scene as chaotic: the lone gunman spraying bullets in all directions, unarmed soldiers falling, screaming, scrambling to respond. Many soldiers ripped off their uniforms to use as tourniquets; others ignored their own injuries to help those more gravely wounded.

"Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, the top commander at Fort Hood, said Friday that Sgt. Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire. Gen. Cone said Sgt. Munley shot the gunman four times despite being shot herself. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” he said.

-- Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley Hailed as Hero After Fort Hood Shooting - Dispatch - WSJ

How it went down:

Kimberly Munley, a 35-year-old police officer, happened to be nearby, waiting for her squad car to get a tune-up, when she heard the commotion. She raced to the scene, according to her boss, Chuck Medley, director of emergency services on base.

As she rounded a corner, she saw Maj. Hasan chasing a wounded soldier through an open courtyard. He looked as though he was trying to "finish off" the wounded soldier, Mr. Medley said.

"He looked extremely focused," said Francisco De La Serna, a 23-year-old medic who had fled the building and was watching the same scene unfold from a hiding spot across the street.

Ms. Munley's first shot missed Maj. Hasan. He spun to face her and began charging, Mr. Medley said.

The time was 1:27 p.m., just four minutes after the initial 911 call.

Authorities haven't said precisely how many shots were fired during the running gun battle between Maj. Hasan and Ms. Munley. But one of her shots hit Mr. Hasan in the torso, knocking him to the ground. With that, officials say, she quite likely prevented more injuries or deaths on the base.

Ms. Munley took two bullets to her legs. Both entered her left thigh, ripped through the flesh and lodged in her right thigh. She also received a minor wound to the right wrist. -- Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan Kills 13 in Shooting at Fort Hood Army Base; Suspect in Stable Condition - WSJ.com

Sane people know that unemployment has been above 10% for months,** but there comes a time when it is so bad for so long that not even "the most powerful man on Earth" can keep the number hidden. Drudge doesn't sugar coat it.

And this handy chart puts the real effect of the "Stimulus" in perspective.

All of which you can pretty much predict when most of the "jobs created" have been inside a government whose new slogan has to be:

"At General Obama Progressivism is Our Most Important Product"

** The unemployment rate has hit double digits for the first time since 1983 -- and is likely to go higher. The 10.2 percent jobless rate for October shows how weak the economy remains even though it is growing. The rising jobless rate could threaten the recovery if it saps consumers' confidence and makes them more cautious about spending as the holiday season approaches. The October unemployment rate -- reflecting nearly 16 million jobless people -- jumped from 9.8 percent in September, the Labor Department said Friday. The job losses occurred across most industries, from manufacturing and construction to retail and financial. --Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since '83 - Yahoo! Finance

iOwnTheWorld states This is Allegedly the Shooter

More, many more, to come.

UPDATE:

EDUCATION? Vitals - Doctor Nidal M Hasan, MD profile

UPDATE 2: Could be a different doctor with the same name. Developing.

Fox reporter states but does not name shooter soldier ( HASSAN MALIK) is from Virginia and a "convert" to Islam.less than a minute ago from web

Fox Smith asks if unnamed soldier (HASSAN MALIK.) spoke of being upset about going to Iraq. A major. Hutchinson confirms.3 minutes ago from web

FOX hesitating to name the name HASSAN MALIK . Hesitates until military confirm.5 minutes ago from web,

@BreakingNews BULLETIN -- REPORT: FORT HOOD SHOOTER NAMED AS HASSAN MALIK.6 minutes ago from web in reply to BreakingNews

Concur @IMAO_ FYI If you hear there's a mass shooting and your 1st reaction is a quip about Obama, you need to reassess your priorities.11 minutes ago from web
"2007 Fort Dix attack plot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" http://j.mp/3Cm0iB16 minutes ago from BigTweet

STATUS QUESTION; What is the state of alert at other US military bases in US? #forthood20 minutes ago from web

Rumor Officer Major Arabic sounding name. Fox Austin Live Stream local to Ft Hood back up http://j.mp/2wbThQ21 minutes ago from BigTweet

Agree. Well done. @markknoller @TheAnchoress he was in a somber mood in talking about a disturbing incident.26 minutes ago from web

@TheAnchoress Nope. ODS. Statement was pitched correctly and delivered well.28 minutes ago from web in reply to TheAnchoress

Soldier used two handguns at Fort Hood.30 minutes ago from web

Obama statement has perfect pitch. Said the right things in the right order. 5 stars.31 minutes ago from web

Dead still at 12. Wounded rises to 31.36 minutes ago from web

MSNBC running a five to 10 minutes lag behind FOX on reporting.38 minutes ago from web

FBI to conduct background checks on all 3 soldiers. #forthood43 minutes ago from web
One civilian police officer killed.43 minutes ago from web

All shooting contained to Processing Center.about 1 hour ago from web
Shooter Killed was a soldier. He has been killed. 2 other soldiers now in custody as "suspects"about 1 hour ago from web

12 Dead 31 Wounded Official Ft Hoodabout 1 hour ago from web

Fox Ft Hood Press Live Stream now

No wonder the left hates Walmart. The company feeds more people more for less than any socialist system you can imagine today.

"As shoppers evaluate the impact of tight budgets on holiday meal planning, beginning today Walmart will feature select 12-pound turkeys for less than $5, helping families serve a complete Thanksgiving meal for eight this year as low as $20.*

“We’re proving that we’re committed to helping moms afford the holidays in these tough economic times,” said Jack Sinclair, executive vice president, groceries, Walmart. “That’s why we’re offering incredible pricing on the turkey and all the fixings.”

A turkey dinner for eight as low as $20
According to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, last year’s average cost of a turkey was roughly $1.19 per pound. Beginning today, select Grade A turkeys are available for 40 cents per pound at Walmart.* These gobblers are part of Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving menu guaranteeing family favorites will be on the dinner table this holiday season. Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving feast includes:

* One 12-pound Grade A turkey*
* Three 11 to 15.5-ounce cans Green Giant vegetables
* Two 14-ounce cans Ocean Spray cranberry sauce
* Three 6-ounce boxes of Stove Top stuffing
* One 5-pound bag of red potatoes
* One 12-count package of Sara Lee dinner rolls
* One 22-ounce pumpkin roll cake
-- Walmartstores.com:

Like a fine wine, Julia's personality and just continues to improve with age. (The science not so much)

"Today I've turned my kitchen into a bio-chemical laboratory." Julia Child cooks up a batch of primordial soup and explains how these simple ingredients produce amino acids - the building blocks of life. (via airandspace)

"I think I know the warm place you allude to.
Just between the thighs, is it not, my lady?"
-- Frank Harris
1.
Copulations on candelabras draped in overcoats,
And illuminated by burning children,
Guide us inside for the pearl of great price.
Our questions and cards of aging identity
Have been checked with our hats at the door.

Within, in the gray steam composed of our breath,
The mongoloid's lips nibble the rose
That pulses and glows in the garden of meat.
No sound at all flows from the audience.
No sound at all but the wind over stones.

Surely some triple somersault is about to be performed.
Surely some deadly edged object is about to be swallowed,
To the death rasps and rattle of drums draped in black.
Surely some revelation is at hand, and it's promise,
A love without name, without years, is arriving at last.

We are decently clothed and seated quite primly.
We have read all the arguments and remained most informed.
We have all made it through to these seats, our reward.

Continued...

• Man denied access to heart surgeon for failing to report lack of exercise on last year’s federal health return

• Pennsylvania court faces hate-crime quandary: Muslim immigrant murdered gay-rights activist who opposed construction of mosque

• Meat Czar oversees dismantling of U.S. beef industry; barns and pens converted into rest homes for elderly cows, bulls, and the transbovined

• Rare July snowstorm disrupts track-and-field events at Chicago Olympics; police round up global-warming deniers

• Community in northern Minnesota refuses to accept Maoist history textbook; Marine battalion sent in to “restore tolerance”

• Harvard’s entire graduating class of MBAs accepts job offers in China; “it’s Bush’s fault for making America such a heartless place to live” declares provost

• Divorce rate reaches 85%; Dept. of Labor sets up work camps to handle flood of indebted ex-husbands

• Supreme Court declares First Amendment unconstitutional because “it was formulated and enacted without the participation of a single woman, African-American, Hispanic, or Muslim” and therefore “violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”

-- via AWOL Civilization where there are many, many more.

Because "It's not about me." Gibbs: Obama 'not watching returns' (via POLITICO 44)

COMING... slow... ly... to a theater near you.

"... and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN..."

Yes, 10 whole minutes. Trust me on this one.

Long ago the iconization of Obama jumped into the shark. What's coming out now is pure sharkshit: Check out What is the weather and what to wear in Seattle? and plug in your own city. Obama.... for such a real Nowhere Man he's everywhere.

Long ago when the Web was the Net and Social Media was Usenet, I spent some years at a watering hole called The Well. From my own personal collection of lists made in those years, I came across this small selection of Sixties slang in the context it was used that I think I made around 1989.

Additions and corrections gratefully accepted.

• ACED:"We aced him out!"
• AX:"He blows a bad ax."
• BAAAD:"Hey, I checked out yer old lady today.She's baaad,man."
• BARF:"You barf after the peyote milkshakes, bro, but, hey, it's beautiful."
• BALLSY:"She is one ballsy chick."
• BALLING:"So we smoked some righteous reefer and spent the afternoon balling our brains out."
• BLOW YOUR COOL:"What ever you do, don't blow your cool."
• BLEW HIM AWAY:"The pigs just blew him away with their shotguns."
• BOONDOCKS:"Let's make it to this pad I scammed out in the boondocks."
• BREAD:"Dope will get you through times without bread better than bread will get you through times without dope."
• BRING DOWN: “No, oh no!, don’t bring me down. No, no, no, no, no…”
• BUMMER:"Bummmmmmmmmer!"
• BUBBLEGUM MUSIC:"Scott McKenzie, my ass! He's the king of teenyboppers and bubblegum music."
• CATCH SOME RAYS:"You've caught enuf zzz's, let's hit the beach and catch some rays."
• CLICK:"That town's about 50 clicks back in the boondocks."
• COPE:"I've got no dope and cannot cope."
• CRASH:"I just wanna flash before I crash."
• CRASH PAD:"Flash runs a shooting parlor and crash pad for teenyboppers in the Haight."
• DINKS:"When I was in Nam we used to waste dinks just to pass the time."
• DING A LING:"He's a star-class ding-a-ling."
• DO YOUR THING:"I do my thing and you do your thing and if by chance they meet, hey, it's yabyum."

Continued...

• January 2012
  
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• December 2010
  
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• April 2010
  
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• December 2007
  
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• June 2007
  
• May 2007
  
• April 2007
  
• March 2007
  
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• December 2006
  
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What will it be about? Anything.

There are no limits to my subject material. I’ll write a poem about flowers. I’ll write a poem about dragons. I’ll write a poem about a flower that fights a dragon and you’ll be all smug and think, Well obviously the dragon would win. But don’t get too comfortable with that mindset because, like a stealth bomber ravaging your brainscape with heartfelt language, here I come out of the blue with all these poetic details explaining why the flower winning is not only plausible but necessary. -- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Monologue:

If you enter “Dostoyevsky” into the search function of Twitter, you don’t come up with much interesting these days. --Dostoyevsky — Marginal Revolution

Clint is right. It IS halftime in America. We're down by about 5 trillion. Time to switch quarterbacks. -- Clint Eastwood's Chrysler Super Bowl Ad: The Untold Obama Connection - The Hollywood Reporter

Elementary school students learn what journalists do. “

Everyday exciting things happen” to journalists, according to a third-grade textbook found by the Stuff Journalists Like blog. “A good journalist works very hard to make sure his or her stories are interesting and true.”

No matter who you support this year, you have to admit Mitt Romney went about becoming president the wrong way.

Instead of wasting his time learning how business works and building a multi-billion-dollar company that really did save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs, Mitt should have lived off his daddy's fortune like Jack Kennedy. Chasing skirts and molesting teenage virgin is a lot more fun than figuring out how to revive an old business. Instead, Mitt Romney gave his inheritance to charity. Who does that anymore? -- ｫ Don Surber

The "O" Face Splat! Geek-in-chief Obama tests marshmallow gun "The Secret Service is going to be mad at me about this,"

Obama said, before energetically pumping a compressor and shooting the marshmallow gun, invented by 14-year-old Joey Hudy. Obama watched open-mouthed as the candy shot across the room before crashing into the wall near the entrance to the Red Room, an elegant state parlor which stuffed with rare 19th century French furniture.

The man who "got" Bin Laden. Yeah, right.

I'm sure there will be a lot of takers to explain that house as mental illness, but like I said: I'm not buying.

The person went feral. Back into a state of nature. It's the hunter-gatherer Eden ruined by Western Civilization that we're told we need to go back to that's on display here. She was living off the land. When the land is covered with stripmalls, pizza and Diet Pepsi represents the nuts and berries. --Sippican Cottage: So You Want To Be A Landlord

Planned Parenthood is very far from the uncontroversial organization the Susan G. Komen Foundation aspires to be. According to its most recent annual report, for 2010, Planned Parenthood sells abortions to nine out of every 10 pregnant women who come to its clinics.

And it's known throughout the country as an implacable and aggressive opponent of any meaningful restrictions on deliberate feticide.... Breast-cancer victims are only the latest hostages taken by Planned Parenthood. Unless the organization is finally held to account, they will surely not be the last. --Robert George and Carter Snead: - WSJ.com

I still like the Charles Murray argument which is, basically, that the poor are increasingly populated by the cognitively inferior and that taking away certain social controls has lifted the lid off of the crock pot.

The cognitively inferior need stringently enforced social codes in order to stay on the straight and narrow. So what has happened over the past several decades is that the cream of the crop are leaving the areas where dumb people reside, and the voice of morality has diminished. This is a double whammy on the dumb class. --Folgers ｫ Gucci Little Piggy

At 1,000 feet above the water... 40 knots too fast with the glideslope full scale deflection below us. Obviously, this is not going to work.

Me- Ok, this is not a stable approach. Let's go around and try it again. He says something that makes me laugh... Now? Me- Yes, now... Go around. -- Flight Level 390:

There is not enough money in the world to pay back America's national debt.

Total United States currency (paper and electronic entries in reserve accounts) sums to about $2 trillion. The national debt sums to over $14 trillion. If people ever really suspected that the U.S. monetary printing press was broken, there would be the mother of all bank runs. Bond holders would redeem their U.S. debt instead of rolling it over. Savers would hold tightly to any real currency. --Europe's Wile E. Coyote Moment

On the same day a report revealed the names of a number of top donors to presidential campaigns, President Barack Obama spent time with around 25 wealthy donors who paid $35,800 each to be with him behind closed doors at a Washington hotel. --President Obama Spends Afternoon With Wealthy Donors In DC ｫ CBS Washington

Voters this year look set to continue an odd pattern that's prevailed in presidential politics for a quarter century.

They will elect either a candidate with a famous father or with no father. The surviving serious contenders—Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney—all exemplify one of these two categories. For the seventh consecutive election, the winning candidate will be either a privileged prince with an adored, powerful patriarch, or an up-from-nothing scrapper with no relationship with his biological dad. -- Michael Medved: Presidential Fathers and Sons - WSJ.com

In 1993 geneticist Dean Hamer studied pairs of brothers

who were very loosely defined as “exclusively or mostly” homosexual. He claimed to find a pattern in a specific region of the X chromosome that such brothers seemed to disproportionately share. This was widely trumpeted in the media as the landmark discovery of a “gay gene.” But Hamer and others failed to subsequently replicate his results. In fact, a 1999 Canadian study contradicted them. Hamer is a gay man who has reportedly stated he hoped his research would help end intolerance toward homosexuals. He also later claimed he’d discovered the “God gene,” so take whatever he says with a grain of DNA. --Homosexuality: What’s Choice Got to Do With it? - Taki's Magazine

Hit the piste like Grizzly Adams’ gung-ho nephew with your very own Beardski. Part insulating ski mask, part fake beard; these spectacular accessories will make you look like the most experienced man on the slopes. --Beardski @ Firebox.com

Answer: you sold it for a mess of pottage.

When civilization abandoned institutional Christianity for liberalism, then abandoned Christian notions of decency and individualism for socialism, and then abandoned Christian notions of chivalry and truth for political correctness, and then abandoned Christian notions of the objectivity of truth, beauty and virtue for the roaring abyss of nihilism, civilization lost the engine and motive of its progress. When you stopped calling yourself sons of God and started calling yourself naked apes, you stopped climbing Jacob’s Ladder toward the angels, and slumped instead toward the jungle where Nature red in tooth and claw holds reign. -- Futurism and Shoepiles | John C. Wright's Journal

Where Christian virtues fail there liberty turns into license and licentiousness: pornographers admired as men of business. Wealth promotes an industry of envy, as lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians make it their daily business to loot what others produce. Medicine turns to infanticide, and the Hippocratic Oath languishes. Science goes mad, and says the universe is nothing but a carousel of atoms, and your brain a defective calculation machine that merely hallucinates self-awareness and free will. --Futurism and Shoepiles | John C. Wright's Journal

but rather of the candidates themselves. None of them are worthy -- at least at this point --€” of the presidency. A three-term congresswoman and a half-term governor are as unready as Barack Obama was in 2008. Let's not fight fire with fire. Let's use water. That usually works unless it is a grease fire. --The view from the fence « Don Surber

"The $4 million price tag is the least of it." -- The 1st of 14 screens @ Business Insider

It does not believe that most of the national debates are a tempest in a teacup

that can be settled amicably behind closed doors. It is uninterested in bipartisan great compromisers, it seeks fighters who will stand up for its agenda. It is not interested in the progressive voyage to the national future that has been taken up by both parties, what it would like is independence from their reign of policy terror. It would like to roll back the progressive policymaking of both parties. --Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield RTWT!

Unearthed in a gravel pit at Piltdown in East Sussex and revealed to the outside world exactly a century ago,

those shards of skull were part of a scientific scam that completely fooled leading palaeontologists. For decades they believed they were the remains of a million-year-old apeman, an individual who possessed a large brain but primitive jawbone and teeth. --Piltdown Man: British archaeology's greatest hoax The Observer

U S Bases

What would you report home to Tehran after reading the Washington Post day after day?

I think you'd end up saying: "We can't compete with the Krauthammers. They are better than us at putting together words. Therefore we can't guarantee that the ruling class in Washington won't work itself into another frenzy like it did in 2003 and do something stupid. So, we'd better get ourselves a few nukes as a deterrent." --Steve Sailer's iSteve Blog: The Great Game ain't so great anymore

JUST ABOUT AS BAD A GAME AS YOU'D EXPECT FROM TWO MEDIOCRE TEAMS...

There are Year-Rounders who brave the 120ｰF summer inferno, and Snowbirds who land from as far as Canada with their souped-up RVs and pensions,

soul-searching Gypsy Kids who arrive by train with little more than the ragged clothes on their back, Spaz Kids and their electro-psychedelic outdoor parties, and Scrappers who risk life and limb to collect shrapnel from the gunnery range that flanks the camp, where Navy SEAL teams train year-round (and where rumor has it they prepared for the Osama bin Laden raid). That's to say nothing of the rowdy bikers who pass through, or the meth-addled loners on the outer edges inclined to greet a trespasser with a gunshot. -- Slab City: Living Off the Grid in California's Badlands

Once an honest and intelligent person opens himself to the facts,

it becomes very difficult to support big wind power on any basis whatsoever. Unless, of course, you are a big developer or investor in government subsidised wind farms. In that case, there are $billions to be made, without the need to provide any useful power to the public, whatsoever. A neat scam, if you can live with yourself. Just ask Warren Buffett. --Al Fin Energy:

those of the uninvolved and uninformed lives, the bar-raisers, the downright mean ones,

the never deserving of respect ones, the Vegas junketeers, the Super Bowl jet setters, the tuition stealers, the faux-Christians who do not pay higher taxes, the too much income makers, the tormenters of autistic children, the polluters, the enemies deserving of punishment, the targets to bring a gun against, the faces to get in front of, the limb-loppers, the tonsil pullers, the fat cats, the corporate jet owners, the one-percenters, the stupidly acting, the not paying their fair sharers, the discriminators on the “way you look”, the alligator raisers and moat builders, the vote deniers, the clingers, the typical something persons, the hunters of kids at ice cream parlors, the stereotypers and profilers, the cowards, the lazy and soft, the non-spreaders of money, the not my people people, the Tea party racists, the not been perfect and mistake makers, the disengaged and the dictating, the not the time to profiteers, the ones who did not know when to quit making money, and on and on. My God, man, how did Barack Obama & Co. conjure up so many demons? -- Works and Days » Are You "Them"?

“Slow traffic keep right” is such a simple rule to understand,

but evidently they’re issuing drivers licenses to people too stupid to understand that rule, who are probably also too stupid to figure out that passing a semi-truck might require use of the accelerator pedal. (Trust me, idiot: It’s down there on the floorboard of your car, probably somewhere on the right side.) If there were any justice in the world, state troopers wouldn’t be laying radar traps for guys doing 82 mph in a 65 mph zone, but would instead be issuing tickets to slow-moving idiots who take more than a few seconds to pass a semi-truck. -- Hate Hoax Busted by Cop’s Dash-Cam (Also: You Idiots, Get Out of My Way!) : The Other McCain

How exactly do we know, from the photo, that she is on the political left rather than right?  Seriously.  Here is her blog and profile.  Here is her Twitter feed.  How do we know?  And that we know — should it make you less confident in your own political beliefs?  WWRHS? -- Assorted links -- €” Marginal Revolution

The status quo must be thought of as a direction, not merely a state,

considering how predictable change has become. (Does anyone dispute at this point that, for example, gay marriage will soon be legalized, most likely by the courts?) Political action must address this change, must figure out where it stands relative to that change and act accordingly; if it limits itself to addressing the present, it may end up misdirecting its energy, addressing issues that will soon resolve themselves by pure inertia and ignoring issues for which the direction that inertia will eventually drive them in has not yet been decided. --Anonymous admits its irrelevance

If you had to write one big check for the whole twelve years of public education of the 88 percent or so of the entire population of the United States that doesn't go to private schools, at 2011 rates of $10,441 per person per year, it would be a check for thirty-three trillion, eight hundred forty-eight billion, eight hundred eighty-six million dollars. --Sippican Cottage: Bin Laden; Joe Biden; Whatever

Tru' dat, but every few days it seems that this whining "candidate" redefines "sore loser:"

"They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?" Gingrich said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "You know, I think that doesn't deserve congratulations. I think that's reprehensible, I think it's dishonest, and I think it's shameful." --Gingrich: Romney didn’t deserve congrats – CNN Political Ticker

Sigh. The person who doesn't deserve congrats for the regularly scheduled destruction of Newt Gingrich is.... Newt Gingrich!

Hoping for another visitation from ye olde Proverbs 5:3

Valentine's Day gift ideas for the nerd in your life.

Over 700 abandoned settlements bear the collective name The Dead Cities of Syria....

Between the cities of Aleppo and Hama there is a limestone massif and it is here these ancient settlements were built by their once prosperous peoples. The area is about thirty kilometers in width yet is several times longer – extending to almost 140 kilometers in length.... An extensive and fascinating photo essay @ Kuriositas

Kenneth Boehr, Clara Lazen's science teacher, handed out the usual ball-and-stick models used

to visualize simple molecules to his fifth-grade class. But Clara put the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms together in a particular complex way and asked Boehr if she'd made a real molecule. Boehr, to his surprise, wasn't sure. So he photographed the model and sent it over to a chemist friend at Humboldt State University who identified it as a wholly new but also wholly viable chemical. -- | Popular Science

No fool like an old.... etc. A Day With Warren Buffett Offers Wealth of Photo Opportunities

The ritual ends with a photo shoot. Each student gets to take two pictures with Mr. Buffett. The first one is a serious shot, the second is a funny pose of their choosing.

Would the ritual ended with sepaku for the hilariously named "Sage of Omaha."

Obama: 'I have fallen on my knees with great regularity' - Investors.com

No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month!

So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. -- | ZeroHedge

To all Roman Catholics who voted for Mr Barack Obama: SUUUCKERS! -- | John C. Wright's Journal

Re: The Planned Parenthood Paroxysm --

It is a fresh reminder that the left fully absorbed and adapted the Brezhnev Doctrine: once they capture an institution, they aren'€™t giving it up.  How dare a private foundation stop coughing up the dough.  It explains why "diversity" means conformity to liberal views in newsrooms, college faculties, and Hollywood studios.  It's why the left reacts with howls of outrage every time you propose reducing taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS, even as the left disingenuously argues that NPR and PBS receive only a "tiny"€ amount of tax subsidy.  It should also remind us how the left will fight every battle to shrink government like it was Verdun.  Which suggests one obvious conclusion if you're an incoming Romney Administration: go big.  Go after everything at once.  -- | Power Line

An hour's worth of C-SPAN Q&A: Diana West, Syndicated Columnist, Universal Uclick - YouTube

Diana West, discusses her weekly online column syndicated in over 100 newspapers nationwide. She writes about cultural and political issues from a self-described conservative viewpoint. She talks about some themes in her columns, including the spread of Islamic law throughout formerly non-Islamic areas of the western world and her opposition to the war in Afghanistan.

a scared mother of four on food stamps, or her selfless Community Activist advocate.

No one champions the simple strivers, those who take care of themselves and in the process alleviate society of one more charity case, and along the way create wealth via 'gains from trade' implicit in market transactions. A simple prosperous mensch who does not hypocritically claim he primarily works for others is off the radar, implicitly insulting to any intellectual making considerably less than him. The kind of change Murray is talking about will not happen until productive, successful people again feel pride in their distinguishing learned characteristics, including the willingness to shame people who do not have them. -- Falkenblog: Charles Murray Reiterates Willpower

As for Romney and his disregard, real or putative, for the poor,

I would suspect he has actually done more for the poor than anyone else in the presidential sweepstakes, by virtue of the tithes he has paid to his church and the whopping taxes he has actually paid. While we might carp and squeal about his tax rates, the actual amount of cabbage he has forked over in his career to the federal government must cover a sizable acreage indeed, and we assume that even given the spectacular ineptitude of that same government in distributing assistance to the needy without leakages of Mississippi dimensions into various private spillways and sluice gates, a fair amount of Mitt's earnings must have found its way into the pockets of the deserving. -- | The Daily Cannibal

Obama's After Lunch Schedule as given by a commenter on: Just What Does Barack Obama Do All Day @ The Daily Caller

2:00 PM: Golf with Plouffe
5:00 PM: Dinner with the wookie
6:00 PM: Sneak a cigarette
6:15 PM: Watch Oprah on Tivo
8:00 PM: Smoke a joint and have sex with a male campaign staffer
8:05 PM: Done with sex
8:10 PM: Watch the wookie scarf down everything in the White House refrigerator
9:00 PM: Hold the wookie's head as she "purges" her snack
9:30 PM: Watch Ray Maddow fantasize about sex with him
10:00 PM: Pass out

I rarely encounter men I feel immediately threatened by.

The ones I do are 1) really big-ass black guys with hardcore street cred, 320 pounds and a lot off tattoo chatter on their arm, 2) Mexican psycho dudes with tattoos on their face. See the commonality? Once you etch shit in your face you are telling the world that you have ceased belonging. This is a clear signal of danger. Animals use subtle aromatic spear to ward off predators. Man now uses skin ink. Heavy skin ink. -- Men in East L.A. that scare me ｫ An Unmarried Man

The formal statement of Anathema goes like this:

Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive Barack Hussain Obama himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.

That would pretty much work for me. What about the Catholics among us?

☛ Thinking Right Archives ☚

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• "No Guts to Jail the Nuts": Man Wanted in Connection to Killings of 4 Police Officers Sunday in Tacoma Washington
• ClimateGate Software. Garbage In, Garbage Out, and a Garbage Disposal in the Middle
• My Newest & Most Favoritist Blog is An Exercise in Futility
• Charles Johnson: World's First Anal Ostrich
• Something Wonderful: The Climategate Mocking Begins
• Something Wonderful: Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind
• Hadley CRU Code Analysis Begins: "This isn’t just a smoking gun, it’s a siege cannon with the barrel still hot."
• Something Wonderful: Accuracy is the Least Significant Part of Drawing
• The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall. One and All.
• Charles Martin's ClimateGate Primer
• Something Wonderful: The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu
• 5 Copies of 2010's Worst Photo Calendar Slosh Out the LGF Door
• The Poetry of Gore
• Climate Crack: Don't Put This In Your Pipe and Smoke It
• Goodbye Forever Townhall.com You Ugly Piece of Shit Web Page
• Make it Go Faster 2
• Ceremonies of the Horsemen
• Life Notes: Let It Bleed
• Ceci N'est Pas Une Bong