Victory Soap v. 2.0

Please read this about the distressed moans concering the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Sample:

They think that he should have been tried, over and over again, by an "international court" where countless lawyers could spend their careers defending him and he would die of old age before any sentence could be decided. One reason they're upset is that the Iraqi government cut short a gravy train that a lot of "human rights" lawyers were planning to ride for many years.

One more thing and then I must go to bed: all this fuss over the way he was executed -- hanging -- how it is supposedly a "barbaric" way to execute someone and how it made some people "uncomfortable." As if the electric chair or death by firing squad is a prettier way to go! Sometimes I wonder if people really think about what they are saying.

Barely-Related Addenda: here's an old article on British firm that made the ropes that hung murderers and Nazi war criminals.

There's no place to run...

I accepted this a long time ago but then I'm old enough to remember the Teheran "hostage crisis" -- i.e., the day the fanatical Muslim jihadists declared war on the non-Muslim world:

Iraq is merely a front in wider regional — and indeed, global — war. Iran declared war on the west in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini announced his intention of conquering the west for Islam. The response of the west has been to ignore the fact that war was thus declared upon it, as was demonstrated by attacks upon it ever since by Iran — along with the Sunni/Wahhabi Islamists, who were both its deadly theological rivals for regional hegemony and at the same time its allies in the war against the free world.

Incidentally, the reason so many Americans -- many of whom may know just enough about the differences between various "schools" of Muslim thought to think that they know all they need to know -- refuse to accept the last bit about Sunni/Shi'ite alliances of necessity, is because Americans on the whole tend to stop developing their personality after they graduate high school. Especially liberal types -- usually these are the "sensitive" kids whose treatment at the hands of what they describe as a crass, jock-loving, smart-kid-hating school milieu developed the persecution complexes that they have inflicted upon the rest of us ever since. So when they hear about two groups who apparently hate each other being described as "allies" they can't comprehend it -- would the jocks and the nerds get together at Anywhereville High, USA, for any reason? Shyeah, right.

(Via Instapundit. Title and first sentence from these lyrics.)

I'm still at Natalie Solent's blog -- that links to what I will call the definitive post (because I say so) about all the shocked gasps around the blogosphere at the way some Iraqis at Saddam Hussein's hanging acted. Some of us here in the West seem to forget just how luxurious our lives are, is all I am going to say.

Update: oh, and read this. (Via Libertarian Samizdata.)

A short observation: what the current conflict boils down to is the fact that Arab culture, which dominates Muslim culture, is for the most part the opposite of Western culture. Until this is both recognized and dealt with we probably aren't going to get anywhere with these people.

Via Kathy Shaidle. Also, see this interesting article: "15 Rules For Understanding the Middle East." The whole Arab culture thing is one reason why Islam holds no attraction for me. More so than other religions it is dominated by a culture whose practices I am already inclined to abhor: oppression of women, prejudice against non-Arabs, slavery is still practiced, the whole "inshallah" thing, lazy men are revered and hard-working ones looked down on, family/tribe over country, a language that sounds like hacking and coughing. The writing is pretty, though.

Blogspot gets another well-earned kick in the nads: Kathy Shaidle has moved her blog to a new platform. (Here's the final post on her old site. Ouch! I guess newer isn't always better...)

I've never watched 24 and I probably never will, but I've always liked Kiefer Sutherland.

Maybe I'll put in my Netflix queue that movie I saw years ago, the one where Kiefer plays an uptight FBI guy who has to hide out with his hippie parents on their commune, or something. That's all I remember: Kiefer wearing a suit and angsting, then he's wandering around in a dashiki or whatever, and then there's some kind of chase scene where he gets the bad guy. I used to watch a lot of movies...

(Via Treacher on Blowing Smoke.)

Kim du Toit reads the news. And now the news won't come out from under the bed. Anybody got any pepper spray?

Remember when it was the hippy yippie radical contingent that had all the cool, snarky posters, buttons, and t-shirts?

Dennis Miller on the global warming hysteria:

When did nature get so whiney? We're not allowed to do anything to nature anymore, except look at it. It's like porn with leaves. And where's this delicate balance I always hear so much about? Every time I watch "Animal Planet," I see a rabid harp seal popping penguins down his gullet like they were maitre d'Tic Tacs. To me, nature always appears more unbalanced than Gary Busey with a clogged eustachian tube.

(Bolds mine.) I love the internet because people always find stuff like this so I don't actually have to watch shows like Hannity & Colmes.

As you have probably figured out by now, I don't have much of a maternal instinct. You might as well also know that the "starving African waif" story has very little power to tug at my heartstrings (probably because they are made of well-cured rawhide). And last but not least, I am not inclined to be soft on crime.

All that being said, these are my kind of starving African waifs turned thieves:

Dozens of street children have invaded a five-star hotel food tent and feasted on meals meant for sale at the World Social Forum in Kenya's capital.

The hungry urchins were joined by other participants who complained that the food was too expensive at the annual anti-capitalist get together.

(.....)

The children, who had been begging for food, launched the raid after being told they would have to pay for the food.

(Bolds mine.) What else is there to say? Except that they certainly showed the organizers of this event what being "anti-capitalist" actually means.

(Via Digital Brownshirt, further via Ace of Spades.)

What I Learned From 9-11 Conspiracy Theories. No time to say more! Via Kathy Shaidle.

Hey, kids! Did you read the web page I linked to this morning and exclaim "That man is so deluded! How can he deny the truth!" Are you worried about Rethuglikkkan Theocrats blasting you with Jesus rays? Did you find yourself humming along to an Air Supply song on the radio the other day? Well, head on down the the grocery store and get yourself a box of Reynolds Wrap! Hurry! There's no time to lose -- I can hear the black helicopters! Oh no, there they a

(Via commenter paco on Tim Blair's site.)

Hm: poet of ancient Rome or blog commenter? It's hard to tell the difference. All I know is I'm going to use "Mrs. Fist and her five lusty daughters" the next time I have to slap a troll somewhere.

Addendum: Martial would fit in great on the Friday Fuck Off threads here too.

(Via Ghost of a Flea.)

From Tim Blair:

In a recent Guardian column Monbiot suggested a replacement pastime for all these wretched, excessive, maddeningly popular sports he'd get rid of.

It was something called ultimate frisbee, which sounds promising - kind of like ultimate fighting - but it turns out not to involve people flinging 10-inch circular saw blades at each other instead of dinky plastic discs, as you might hope. It's just like regular frisbee, except even gayer.

I don't give a rat's ass about the Superbowl or football in general but I admit that this made me laugh.

YES YES YES YES finally. Jesus. I thought I was the only one who didn't cry herself to sleep at night because she couldn't watch The Sopranos and so on because she doesn't have HBO. (Or whatever.) The existence of these things makes me want to rent old Banacek episodes on dvd from Netflix. If I'm going to be bored and irritated by a Cool, Hipster Hero who cracks wise as he saves the universe (or at least, the girl of the week), it might as well be George Peppard.

Tim Blair gazes into the future that the glowball warm-mongerers have planned for us. It's not pretty. But it is funny.

As for me, according the the Weather Channel the Central Florida area can expext sizzling globally warm temperatures tomorrow. I had planned to wear shorts and a light shirt as I ran my errands but now I guess those plans are changed.

I don't watch much tv so I had no idea that Conan O'Brien had done all this. Truly he is a god among men.

(Via a commenter to this post on Rantings of a Sandmonkey.)

Rock, meet water: Kim Du Toit encounters a phenomenon that was known of thousands of years ago. Or, human nature rears its fugly head again:

When the great Tao ceased to be observed, benevolence (jen) and righteousness (i) came into fashion. Then wisdom and cleverness appeared, and hypocrisy followed at their heels. When harmony no longer prevailed among kin, loyal sons first appeared; when the states fell into disorder, loyal ministers appeared.

It begins, of course, with the notion that there is something wrong with people using things like "common sense" and reliance on standards of behavior to make their way through life. It ends with a woman letting a rapist into her house because it's rude to be suspicious of a strange man knocking on her door.

Everyone needs to buy this book. Including me.

On a side note, the Amazon blurb is great: "Steve H. Graham is a retired attorney. Since childhood, he has been fighting for truth, justice, and free movie passes. For each copy sold of this book, he will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to himself." I tell you, we're twins, except for the retired attorney bit (I'm not patient enough to get through law school much less argue in court, and I've led such a slacker life that now I won't be able to retire until I've been dead for twenty years) and the free movie passes thing (you would have to pay me to see most movies, never mind letting me go for "free"). But other than that, twins.

Related link: Steve's blog.

Words to live by:

...in order to prevent evil, you have to take a risk-not of death, but of embarrassment.

Words to die by:

"But we'll look like idiots/racists/paranoid/uncool!"

For an earlier illustration of this, see the widespread scorn heaped upon the people and the city of Boston for "being scared" by a stupid ad campaign. I was reassured rather than embarrassed by the fact that there are people even in the super-blue state of Massachusetts who aren't willing to laugh off the sudden appearance of devices of unknown import and provenance about their city when we're in the middle of a war waged by the sort of people whose way of waging war often uses methods like leaving explosive devices around places they want to attack. But the "guerrilla advertisers" were cool and scared people who just wanted to live their lives are not. Thanks to the attitudes of the Cool Kids, someone who is young and impressionable might ignore the next "not right" thing because he's afraid of being mocked. Well, you can't hear anyone make fun of you when you're in the grave.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

"But censorship doesn't make people improve themselves; it makes people want to rebel." Sometimes Peggy Noonan's writing sets my teeth on edge. This is not one of those times.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

Here's the proof.

Dawn Eden says that the people who have premarital sex are doing so out of fear that stems from being affected by divorce, of their own parents or those around them.

Because a happy, committed marriage is inconceivable to them, they set themselves up to squeeze out the maximum amount of romance from a relationship in the shortest possible time — killing the opportunity to nurture real love and intimacy.

This is probably so, and it just confirms something I've believed for a long time: that most people have very little imagination, and are unable to form associations with anything beyond their own little private sphere of pleasures and pains. The idea that just because you, your little individual self, happens to be having a miserable time doesn't mean all of existence is meaningless is rejected; the idea that one can grow beyond the evils of one's own circumstances by learning and study of other times and ways does not even occur to them. Thanks to the American tradition of anti-intellectualism on the one hand and the circle-pissing of the half-baked intellectuals who have taken over the education industry on the other we have learned that no lessons can be learned from the past except the one that it was a Time of Ignorance, when everyone did everything wrong until our enlightened society finally got humanity on the right track. Strangely enough, that track seems to resemble another road we used to know well; it certainly seems to be paved with just as many good intentions.

Steve Sailer considers Obama; I consider another election of bland platitudes acting as an inadequate bandaid over seething resentment, a situation irritated more than ameliorated by the embarrassing antics of white liberals in one of their "At last! A black (or blackish) candidate we can approve of!" fests.

As for me, I am strangely cheered by the news that Al Sharpton is running for prez again. I may just vote for him. Sure, he's an idiot, and he'd ruin the country (or have a good time trying), but at least he doesn't have the Clean, Articulate Negro stamp of approval. Eight years of Clinton shows that having a sociopathic yet oddly charming liar in the highest office in the land bothers us not at all. Sure, we'd have a lot more terrorist attacks on our soil, but my fellow Americans have more than once indicated that they'd be glad to put up with a few corpses for cheap gas and go-along-to-get-along cred.

Be still, my beating heart -- I'm not alone on this earth in wishing for the return of the grown-up -- or as they used to be called "the people who ran things, while you kids stayed out of our hair, did your homework, and cleaned your room."

American culture is now almost completely infantile. The under-eighteen set is either catered to or ringed about with exaggerated fears that the slightest hint that maybe the whole world doesn't quite completely revolve around the little darlings will cause mayhem. Actually that might happen -- when you treat emotionally immature beings as if they are capricious little godlings you tend to produce demons instead.

The most obvious example of this phenomenon is television and the movies. When I was a child there was no question television and films were mostly bad for children, though not in the childish, fearmongering sense we know of today (violent scenes might give their feelings an owie, sexy scenes may make them consider the pleasures of chastity -- oops! I mean, turn them into porno-guzzling sex fiends, not that there's anything wrong with that it's a LIFESTYLE CHOICE, YOU HOMOPHOBES). No, back then (I was a child in the sixties and seventies) we knew of something called "it's for grownups," also expressed as "you're too young, and anyway it's a school night."

Back then when a movie was rated R that didn't mean an excuse for a family night out, it meant YOU, the CHILD, were not going. Just as you were not going to that play, or that party, and that when your parents went out you would have a babysitter or a relative staying with you.

Grownups did grownup things and weren't ashamed of it. The world was a place for adults which a child had to grow up to be allowed to enter. Parents did not try to be their childrens' "best buddy" because for one thing childish tastes and activities are boring to a normal adult. The reason so many parents hate Barney when people who were parents in days of yore have only affection for the kiddie tv characters of the day (Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, etc.) is in large part because it never occurred to parents to endure hours upon hours of their childrens' favorite tv shows and movies. Of course, this wasn't possible given the technology of the time, but even if it had been I have no doubt that the mindset would be the same: "turn that thing off, it's your bed time/you have to get dressed and go to school." I had a favorite (awful) program when I was about seven that came on at 7:30 PM. Guess when my bedtime was. Guess what show I didn't get to see until school closed for the summer.

I believe that the current childish level our culture has sunk to owes much to a certain spoiled generation now trying to ignore the fast-approaching grave. You know who I am talking about. It all comes down to the Boomers. I am pretty sure that no generation has run so frantically from the specter of their own natural end since the fall of Rome. If they can't stay young they'll force the whole of society back into the nursery, or at least junior high. And they don't care if they have to look like pathetic idiots, tagging along after their own children begging to be let into their fun, turning everything on tv including the news into a cartoon, avoiding adult responsibilities (except the necessary ones to keep the toy fund going). Include me out.

(Via Kim Du Toit.)

Update: one more thing -- I forgot this. I was waiting for the bus this morning at Uptown Altamonte, a new enclave of cute shops and overpriced apartments (really, who do they expect to want to live there next to I-4?) just north of Orlando. I was wandering about, idly looking at the new and still-to-be-constructed shops, and I saw this restaurant that sold hamburgers and such. Apparently one of their specialties is roasted peanuts. There was a sign on the door admonishing customers that (I am paraphrasing as I can't remember the exact wording) since "many of our customers and their children have allergies do not discard peanuts or their shells outside of this restaurant."

This is a city which is covered in a weedy specimen of oak called "laurel oak," which every year about this time throws out clouds of pollen, causing the entire state to go into rhinitic spasms. I felt like buying a bag of peanuts at the grocery store and throwing them all over the sidewalk in front of the place.

One or two more things: I didn't even touch on the alcohol. The relationship between Americans and booze wasn't always so confused as it is now. Our country was basically created while everyone was three sheets to the wind (all those Founding Fathers hashing out matters in inns over tankards of ale and grog and whatever). But the reasons why there's a confused, even schizophrenic attitude towards booze in this country are too many to go into here. I'll just say that yes, back when I was a kid grownups, if they drank, downed concoctions that tasted nasty to us kids (we knew because we'd snag an ice cube or a sip our of our parents' highball glasses when they weren't looking) -- scotch, bourbon, and so on. There was of course, beer, but we didn't like it, nor did we like the chianti in the basket bottle that was the only wine we ever saw our parents drink, and it was only imbibed with Italian food. Drinking was one of those incomprehensible grownup thing that we weren't supposed to partake in until we were old enough. We kids actually thought drinking was kind of silly, at least until we got into high school and got silly ourselves.

One more short thing on D.A.R.E. and other anti-drug school programs: of course they aren't "working." The commenters on Dr. Helen's site are right: the program is just for show, so school officials can say they are "doing something" about kids taking drugs. Naturally kids see right through all the "drugs are bad look what they do to yooouuuuu!!! And then you'll go to prison and--" etc. Kids see right through this because of course they know drugs are dangerous. They aren't stupid in that sense. They are stupid for wanting the effect of drugs, but then they've had the idea dinned into their skulls since infancy that life is all about pleasure and good feelings and having fun, and here's a little red pill or a smoke that will give you all of that and what do we expect them to do?

(Note: some spelling mistakes corrected.)

Awesome.

Things noted: a sign with the slogan "'United We Stand'-Together We Kick Ass"; an Australian flag among ours; someone points out the unfortunate yet apropos choice of the color yellow for most of the peacenuts' signs.

(Via Sondra K.)

Cathy Seipp's articles on National Review Online. No, I hadn't read all of them.

Update: oh dear. Maybe I should put that book on my to-buy list. On the other hand, that would be just another excuse to put off doing my laundry. (And yes, I am afraid I thow my Haines and Fruit of the Loom briefs in with the sheets and towels.)

I think one of the major problems afflicting American society today is that we have taken to listening to "experts" instead of using our own common sense and know-how. For example, in this article on the burst housing bubble (something I get to experience first hand both as someone looking for a new apartment in a market affected by the condo-conversion frenzy, and an employee of a home-building company feeling the pinch of lowered sales) Dean Baker states:

...the experts either looked the other way or said everything was fine. And, the politicians pushed policies that persuaded many moderate-income families to buy overvalued homes that they could not afford. And the mortgage brokers made a fortune selling bad mortgages. That is the way the US economy works these days. Those who mess up the economy do well, while their victims - in this case millions of moderate-income homebuyers who will lose their homes - pay the price for the experts' mistakes.

Once Americans approached life with skepticism, but now we are merely cynical. There is a difference. Cynicism doesn't have to actually be tied to action; it is merely a pose. Thus the spectacle of ostentatiously authority-mistrusting crowds slavishly hanging onto Al Gore's every word on global warming and running obediently to the car lot to bargain on a Prius, which will get no better mileage than a non-electric car with manual transmission (which will have less dangerous heavy metals in its makeup and also have more trunk space for those Whole Foods grocery bags).

I have a theory (based mostly on intuition and observation instead of expert-approved missals; there's a theme here) that this is part of the bad effects of post World War II liberal worship of all things European. There was always a trend to Euro-worship among American literatti, for historical reasons, but it didn't really reach the bulk of the non-literary crowd (i.e., everybody else) until around the Fifties. As progressive liberal admiration of European literature and European political ideology gained a foothold in the American mind, so did European thought processes -- like the tendency towards turning to an intellectual elite for an increasing number of important and not so important decisions.

Once the idea that we should be the "not-Europe" because after all our ancestors came here to get away from everything that was wrong with the place was a basic tenet of American action. The idea that one should buy a house or a car despite not being able to do so was anathema to the average American. Those days area long gone, and now most Americans are in debt to their grandkids' eyeballs, as much as any English lord. All that's left is to learn to pay our gambling debts and let our tailors starve, and we'll have come full circle.

(Via Mangan's Miscellany.)

Update: speaking of home ownership and its difficulties, in the comments to another post where Mangan points out that it's difficult to find employment if you are tied to a home you own (since you just can't pick up and move as easily as you could if you merely rent), a commenter actually takes issue with him:

By this lamentably weak logic, getting married, having children, getting old or anything that might conceivably negatively effect worker mobility causes unemployment. Big deal.

See what I mean about the lack of common sense in people today? I guess I really have to point out some things: your spouse and children aren't nailed to the floorboards -- unlike a house, they can move with you. And when you get old you generally aren't looking for a job, you are looking to retire. True, you could sell your house, but if your unemployment happens to coincide with a depressed housing market, good luck with that. You may have to sell at a loss, if you simply aren't foreclosed on. True, there are penalties for renters who have to move before their lease is up, but they can usually work something out with the landlord; you haven't lost a bushel of money, usually just a month's rent and your security deposit. Owning a home is a life commitment, or it should be -- too many people these days seem to treat it as a magic panacaea for all their financial problems; they believe all the promises of how becoming a homeowner will suddenly give them good credit, and wipe out their past of bad financial decisions. I toyed with the idea of buying, but five minutes consideration of my wacky finances and spendthrift ways (call me the prodigal daughter) canned that idea.

A 300 Word Review of '300'. I think this review, more than any of the other ones, must surely encapsulate what the movie is all about.

Is this guy for real? Because he rocks. I can think of a number of offices he should be in besides sheriff, starting -- or ending -- with the one in the title of this post.

On a side note, I think the reason so many softheaded liberals are up in arms (so to speak) about Gitmo is because it's run like a real prison, not a maximum security Hilton with free cable and gyms and other crap law-abiding people have to pay for or go without.

(Via Tom McMahon.)

Love and Rocket doing "Yin Yang the Flowerpot Man."

I've been meaning to say something about this upset blogger woman I read about who was (apparently) reduced to a house-bound wreck because some asshole spewed garbage about her on an internet forum. The reaction of the woman, and of her male fans, was so typical of the hothouse/protected-from-the-real-world upbringing of most liberalish under-thirties: observe how it's all about how "shocked" and "horrified" everyone is, as if no one had ever said a crude word in their presence before. Another thing that struck me is that apparently not one of her male fans -- and I presume friends -- offered to hunt down and beat the guy up for her. Such quixotic expressions of support have been bred out of too many males -- you can't exactly call them men; they are more like girls with penises. In a sense I can't really blame her for not wanting to go to a public convention filled with so many empathizing nellies, who would have been totally useless (except for maybe being able to dial 911 on their cellphones) were anything to have happened.

Jacqueline Passey actually has some good suggestions here. I'd add one more: set up comment registration on your blog and avoid web forums. The first item will keep the flood of raw sewage down to a minimum (I've had maybe three trolls in three years try to get on my site since I've set up comment registration and monitoring), and the second is because web forums tend to very quickly become infested by mouthbreathers, one-handed-keyboarders, and freaks who will do anything for yucks -- such as making disgusting comments about an innocuous female tech blogger.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

I wants it.... behold the Steampunk Keyboard Mod. I love the sound it makes.

(Via Ghost of a Flea.)

Now it can be told: it wasn't diplomacy that saved the British sailors from the Iranians, it was Christopher Walken.

Email addresses you probably don't want to use in your resume.

(Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

He. Hates. You.

Don't mess with him.

(Via Dave at Garfield Ridge.)

Yes:

Here is a class declining in power—not just because of the Great Inflation or the influx of talented newcomers to Wall Street—but because, like our heroes’ fathers, they no longer feel obliged or able to be active participants in the modern world; no longer think that their traditions or conventions—much less their values—are worth defending; no longer believe that “to whom much is given, much will be required.” But retreat is a moral act.

Relax, it's just a movie. It's all over now anyway, even the crying.

(Via Udolpho.)

Vice President Cheney has a few things to say to Senator Harry "Soy un perdidor" Reid. Reliable sources* claim that Senator Reid's reply was as follows:

"Ow! Ouch! Ow ow -- hey! Stop-- ow! Please stop-- ow! Ow-- No no -- not the nostr--Auuuggghhhh!!!"

(Via John Weidner.)

*My minions are never wrong!

In the comments to this post of Amy Welborn's on the Virginia Tech shootings, a commenter says that one of the students did try to take down the shooter but was killed. However, his classmates were able to escape. According the the commenter, this hasn't received any media attention. Most tellingly, this student is supposed to have been an ROTC candidate. (She has no direct comment links, do a find on "ROTC.") Does anyone have any links to any articles in the snooze media about this?

INTERNET, what have you done to me??? (Good Lord, that Windows Vista ad is the weirdest thing I've seen in years. And I can remember "The Wethead is dead!")

(Link to Maddox via Udolpho -- even though I have The Best Page in the Universe bookmarked, credit where credit is due!)

No, I don't really want to pack anything else tonight.

This article by Peter Hitchens (who I like to call "Christopher Hitchens' Saner Brother") on the mostly faux yet fashionable childhood "affliction" ADHD pretty much echoes my own beliefs, based both on what I have observed of the way parents tend to treat their children today, and on my own experience as one of those "dreamy, vague, in a world of her own, forgetful and disorganised" -- though, thank God not "diagnosed" as having something that needed to be cured with pills, but told by my old-fashioned parents and grandparents to sit up straight, get my nose out of that book, pay attention, and finish my chores -- girl in the Sixties and Seventies. But leaving that, and the article's subject aside, it's the final paragraph that hits home for me in more ways than one:

Some of these motives for believing in ADHD (or any other notion, idea, fad, political movement, etc. -- Ed.) are reasonable and defensible. Some of them less so. All are understandable. But what's mine for attacking this belief? What do I gain? Nothing, as it happens.It would be much easier- and less time-consuming - if I never wrote about it. Other conservative columnists don't. There's no shortage of other subjects I could write about that wouldn't attract the waves of bitter letters I receive. I just think it's wrong, that's all.

That pretty much sums up why I write the way I do. And if you're honest (my dear fellow bloggers), you'll feel the same, and not bow to pressure to avoid subjects that really rankle you just because they might alienate some of your readers -- usually expressed as "if I wrote what I really thought about this I might hurt someone's feelings." Hurt feelings make the world go 'round, don't you know?

(Article via Kathy Shaidle.)

Update: of course, and also, this. Well, at least I won't have to go on The View.

Speaking of running for pres, if I had an ounce more gumption, I'd start a campaign: "Condoleeza Rice for President! Not only is she African-American™, she's a woman, and she is also an unmarried, successful career woman, so probably a lesbian. So the question is, America, are you ready for a president who is African-American™, Female, and Probably a Lesbian? If not, then what is wrong with you? Examine your conscience and Do the Right Thing!"

It'll be a candidacy for the ages.

I missed the chance to wish Kathy Shaidle a Happy Birthday. As a fellow May birthday-ite (and as someone who has benefitted from her support both moral and otherwise), I wish I could do more, but I am currently flat broke. But those of you who aren't, help a sensible voice in the Canadian wilderness.

This picture is for Kim Du Toit. Nice... gun.

Nitey-nite.

Kathy Shaidle links to this blog post noting an article by a Muslim professor on the real reasons for Muslim decline. One of the first thing it notes is that there is high literacy in the Muslim world. But at the same time there is ignorance, bigotry, and attraction to conspiracy theories to explain everything that goes wrong. Hmm, who else does that sound like? If you said "academia and the media" you get a gold star!

The halls of academe and the various artistic and cultural groupings I have lumped under "the media" are as shot through with ignorance, bigotry, and conspiracy-mongering as roquefort cheese with mold. And we have been wracking our brains here in the rightwing nuthouse trying to figure out why. But it's not that difficult to understand -- all you have to do is let go of that mistaken, but popular, notion that the ability to read magically conveys upon a person an open mind and a superior understanding of the world.

Americans are pragmatic, and our pragmatism often leads us to mistaken conclusions about just how effective solutions to problems are. Once there was the problem of people not being able to read. So we pushed literacy and education -- and came up with the ignorant redneck who can now read Mein Kampf and the Nat (Speaking of ignorati - Ed. in the Mirror) Turner Diaries, and the whitey-hating black who can now read whatever gush and kibble leads to joining groups like Nation of Islam. Curing a symptom (in this case, illiteracy) doesn't cure the underlying disease of ignorance and bigotry. As long as we leave the stupid ideas our "intellectual betters" come up with unchallenged because we are intimidated by the degrees on their wall, we will still be assailed by ignorance, bigotry, and fear.

This is wonderful: Steve H. lays into Christopher Hitchens, and gives it to him good and hard. Bonus: as perfect a critique of "lite" religion as I have ever read. Gist:

God would have made religion like this in the first place. If He had only been as smart as we are.

Like Steve, I prefer Hitchens to stick to politics. Then again, he's a Marxist, or something -- though that's probably a pose, I'm pretty sure his real ideals are his booze, his fame, and his bank account.

A while back (too lazy to link) I mentioned a British tv series based on the Robin Hood legend that was a favorite of mine back in the 80s, and lamented the fact that apparently only a few episodes have been released on dvd. Well, you can watch a whole bunch of the episodes (about three seasons worth -- I'm not sure if this is all of them) right here. There are lots more British tv shows, and some American ones, listed on the main page.

(Via Out of Lascaux, who is alas, much afflicted with comment spam.)

Well, the chief reason is the fact that if something happens you're a jillion feet up in the air, but stuff like this doesn't help:

It’s only when I’m seated at the gate, looking out at the tower and the vast expanse of runway that I feel some hint of the old jet-age kick that airports once gave me, back when flying was a rarity for most people except executives (whatever they were), when you got dressed up to fly, when there were no metal detectors and searches but there were meals on the plane. It’s official, and it’s sad, to think that I hate to fly: there used to be such a promise about it. Flying was new, it was clean, it was modern, and most of all it partook of the shining future. It wasn’t this grim, harried business. It’s a victim of its own success; it’s like taking the bus.

And I like that he uses the Tolkien quote. Tolkien wasn't a Luddite, just realistic about the dark side to our shiny new technology.

I've been reading Lord of the Rings. (Side note: I know people who read a book once and never again. Me no understand these people.) Anyway, here's a scene, late in the book, where the Captains of the West are in conference, contemplating a hopeless attack against an enemy much stronger and more numerous than they are. Gandalf gets off a zinger that for some reason I never noticed before:

"[H]e has not built up his power by waiting until his enemies are secure, as we have done."

("He" meaning the Enemy, Sauron. But it could mean any enemy.) Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

From LIBERTAS:

Quirky really is nothing more than irony gone retarded.

Heh.

I admit: I am not really interested in guns. Not that I'm not thinking of getting one right now... okay, okay, I guess it would be rather beyond the bounds of misanthropy to shoot the guy who is having an Important Hispanic Cell Phone Conversation in the stair well outside my apartment windows. But anyway, this is a really cool picture, and I wants that thigh holster, yes, Preciousss... (Though they probably don't make one in my size -- which is rather more than zero. Oh well.)

(Via It Comes In Pints?)

I would like someone to build me a computer. I mean, really build me one.

(Via Ghost of a Flea.)

She wants me to choose!

Personal update: I've got some kind of fever again -- all day I felt like I've been in an oven set on, oh I don't know, the lowest temperature, but still much hotter than normal. And I spend most of my day in our freezing office, so it can't be the Florida heat -- unless as I age I am losing my ability to adjust to it. Either I've got a virus or I have been having some sort of extended hot flash. Tylenol doesn't seem to help at all. I've also been very thirsty, and drinking tons of water. My boss has been out sick for the past two days with something, so maybe I caught it.

(PS: thanks for everyone who has donated to my fundraiser. Only thirteen days to go before I am on the (job hunting) road again!)

Awesomeness.... In more ways than one. Now I have another reason to buy a tv (and a dvd player).

(Via an alert reader.)

But don't run away, kids -- it's actually interesting. You'd swear these were alive.

(Of course, your mileage may vary -- if the sight of giant, many-legged skeletal insectoid things give you the creeps you may not be enthralled.)

Via Ghost of a Flea.

Charles is blogging again! He has many posts! Read! Read!

I like the books, but this made me laugh my head off.

The totalitarian ploy disguised as "the anti-hate crime movement" has met with a defeat at the hands of Canadian bloggers. This cheers this right-wing fascist, who has been rather depressed lately, right up.

Speaking of assertive methods getting the job done while a weak, passive, "oh no we can't do that it's not nice and we'll get yelled at" attitude gets you the shaft, here's Mark Steyn, pointing out that we're getting taken advantage of by aggressive Muslims who don't care about being loved, only getting what they want -- and we're not doing a whole lot about it. Well sure, we're fighting a war -- a war that about half the people seem to feel is just too, well, warlike to be allowed to continue. Really, doesn't the spectacle of our own authorities bending over backwards for our enemies, in the hopes of pleasing the mythical "nice Muslim," worry anyone? Apparently not enough people are concerned that a cultural takeover is being done blatantly in the open here in the West. Instead, we are continuously cautioned against "using the methods of our enemies" lest we "become like them." Well, the only way to become Muslim is to convert, so I don't see how that follows. But clear thinking was never the leading characteristic of the multicultists.

Since this is my own site and no one has to take my advice, here is my solution to this little problem. Feel free to send it Britain's way if you're impressed. Here it goes:

1. All building of mosques and "Muslim cultural centers" and whatnot should be banned in every country that calls itself "Western" until the war is over. And won by their side. If we win, I say we never permit another mosque to be built on Western soil. Sounds harsh and against freedom of religion? Well, too bad -- our country, our rules. No one is stopping Muslims from worshiping, merely from building a huge, ostentatious building that will dominate the skyline (and I use the word "dominate" deliberately) to do it in. There's something in the Koran somewhere that says people can form a "mosque" anywhere, they don't need a building -- and Arabs used to be nomads anyway. Islam more than any other religion insists that its followers adhere to the customs of its first believers, so if it's a new mosque they want, let them pitch a tent in the local imam's back yard.

2. I am not sure how to monitor this, but Muslims living in any Western country should be made to know in no uncertain terms that if they so much as make one little peep about how they aren't totally against the "aims" of jihadists, they are free to leave by the nearest airport to the Muslim-majority nation of their choice. They should also be told that this is a one-way ticket -- they will not be allowed back in the country.

3. I am leaning towards banning all further Muslim immigration into Western nations, at least into mine, unless it's to allow women who are fleeing their slave masters/husbands.

4. CAIR must be banned. I'm sick of them, and they are Hezbollah supporters or something, aren't they?

That's just the beginning, but I need to eat something (the depression is starting again, but I think it's because I'm hungry) so I'll be back later. Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments.

(Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

Websense doesn't block Steve H. Graham's site. Suckers.

The mealy-mouthed white guy interviewing comedian D.L. Hughley here is as perfect an example of a sublimated Massah complex as I've seen in my life. Usually they're a lot more subtle about it, but it looks like the way to get the P.C. mask to drop and shatter on the floor is to confront a liberal with a person of color who doesn't stick to the script. D.L. Hughley is my new hero, by the way -- he had me at "You know what, I don't care what Al (Sharpton) said. I honestly could care less what he thinks." I didn't think I'd ever hear a black person say that. Does Hughley have to turn in his race card now?

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

I wonder how much our famous murder rate would go down if we managed to round up and deport all the so-called "undocumented" aliens in this country? I'm betting a significant amount.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

Sometimes it takes a Frenchman -- the dissident frogman has created a helpful instructional video for confused reporters who can't tell a fired bullet from one fresh out of its packaging. By the way -- that Iraqi woman with the "fired" bullets... isn't she the same person as this woman? I know that ugly old women in headwraps are hard to tell apart -- but this is the same woman, I swear to God.

(Via Kim Du Toit.)

Update: I'm not the only one who thinks so. (Read the comments.)

Cold Fury has a new look. Go see.

Nice.

Seriously. Africa doesn't need small-scale poverty handouts, it needs concrete -- in the form of roads, factories, bridges, etc.:

Africans are not suffering because of climate change. We’re suffering because of underdevelopment. The fact is we simply don’t have the infrastructure that has enabled the West to subdue nature. If we are at the mercy of the climate, it is because our societies remain under-industrialised.

I've read a lot of "oh, Africa is hopeless, give up on it, the people there are just fundamentally broken somewhere in their psyche." The idea is that all we do is waste money on them and it gets piddled away on booze and cars for their leaders, or Marxist adventuring, or whatever. That's as may be. But once my own country was hopeless -- its previous population depleted by disease and warfare, its new colonists consisting for the most part of Europe's dregs and castoffs (at least as judged by Europe at the time). Look at us now.

Maybe what Africa needs instead of us treating them like children -- handing out pittances of money like giving a preteen a weekly allowance, and worst of all, treating Africa like some sort of pristine nature camp -- is for us to send them a few industrialists with big pockets. But too many of our leading industrial lights, I am afraid, have bought into the whole climate-change, development-is-bad, back-to-the-soil hoax that Dr. Andrew is fulminating against.

(Via a commenter on Tim Blair's site.)

Celibacy is one of the things men nowadays claim to find incomprehensible in a woman. Not that I consider it my problem what men want, but it does rather illustrate the decrepit condition of male/female relations in this day and age. See, once "celibacy" was what priests did. What men and women did was called "behaving morally" -- in other words, you just weren't supposed to sleep with your girl until she became your wife, and conversely women weren't supposed to spread their legs for a succession of Mr. Maybes until... well until they got tired of her "shit" (like her requesting that Mr. Desperate Fuck of the Week not stay out until 4am and come back drunk, smelling of whore-sweat, and carrying one or more venereal diseases, unreasonable requests like that) and left her.

The old grandmas had it right: men will not buy milk they can get for free. And they won't even use that money they saved to buy their orgies with one-legged, HIV-positive dwarf tranny hookers, and meth; they'll put the all-night crotch party on your credit card and use the saved cash to buy a new Cadillac Escalade. My fellow females, men will never be honest again until we tell them "no" and keep on telling them. What's the worst that can happen? Men will all catch AIDS from crippled dwarf tranny hookers and die? Not all of them will. True -- the ones left will probably be Christians but I think we ladies can put up with that slight flaw.

No you're not. (Via Instapundit.)

My opinion of the Cult of Diana has already been stated in this blog, so I won't go over it again. I could have been pithier -- "She made a lot of rubbish decisions in her life that caused her own problems" Andrew Ian Dodge says sensibly. The idea that many of my fellow females have made her some sort of heroine is dismaying to me, as are so many other things about contemporary women.

It's all part of a horrifying and disgusting trend that has infected society since... well, since the dawn of time, really. Sometimes the infection goes into partial or full remission (the Republic of Rome, France during the "Age of Reason," Britain during the War), but usually it holds all of humanity in its febrile grasp. The infection I am talking about is the "cheap sentimentality" that the writer of the first article I linked mentions; the glorification of the lowest and easiest feelings (kitties are cute! awww, widdle babies! dead pretty princesses, waaah!) about trivial situations. It's a truism, maybe, to say that while we fiddle about with the soft pleasures of mourning dead celebrities (by definition, people who are famous for stirring our shallower impulses) our infrastructure is burning, but every now and then a crumbled levee or a collapsed bridge jars us out of our pink and gold dreams.

And on a related note, one of those things we're not supposed to talk about is the fact that wherever women get the vote, governments get larger and more -- well, more mother-like. As in, mumsie will take care of everything, kiss every boo-boo with federal dollars and strict regulations, will make sure nobody goes outdoors without being bundled up and protected. The fact that we aren't supposed to talk about this is evident in the way even Kim Du Toit feels compelled to state (I paraphrase) "no one is talking about taking the vote away from women." I'll just go out on a limb here and say "why not?" What are women going to do, riot? Oooh, scary, the ladies will run through the streets hitting men with their purses. I really don't see that happening. Women just don't form torch-bearing mobs -- they don't have the natural ability to organized mayhem that men have. (Women organize, but they organize differently -- instinctively towards gathering in and and sorting.)

Anyway -- if by some unlikely chance we came to our collective senses and repealed the 19th amendment, women wouldn't riot -- but the whining and screaming and crying that they would do would probably be worse than any riot. Men have nothing on us when it comes to being Outraged! and Upset! So it won't happen.

What should happen is women should pull themselves out of the pink-goo-lined pit we have been wallowing in and harden and discipline ourselves so the votes we cast won't keep pushing our society further into the nursery room. In short, we need to grow up -- but as long as we continue to make people like the Peoples' Princess into our icons we won't.

If we are going to throw away a gazillion dollars attempting to build levees on shifting mud, we might as well use it on moving it to higher ground instead. Everybody wins -- the liberals get to see lots of federal money spent, Louisiana gets lots of attention (which they seem to crave), and we get to still have a place called "New Orleans" on the map. There is a danger that a more stable location for the town would lead to it becoming a harder-working, more prosperous, less lawless and corrupt city, but I think we can handle those little deficiencies.

Oh, and I have questions for the liberals bitching at Confederate Yankee in his comments (I tried to post a comment but his weird spam filter threw up a frankly incomprehensible error, so I'm putting it here):

What's wrong with the idea of relocating New Orleans to safer, more stable ground? Why is it so important to some of you people for it to stay where it is, where it can be swept away by another flood? Are you superstitiously invested in the idea that it's location is somehow "sacred"? Or is the idea of a safer, relocated New Orleans anathema to your need to have a place always in need of government "help"?

Perhaps you are simply in love with NOLA's French Quarter. (I doubt you are thinking about its dreadful slums or ugly industrial complexes.) Well why not disassemble the French Quarter and move it upstream? If we can bring whole bridges and castles from overseas, we can surely move a few buildings in our own country upriver a few miles.

I really don't see what your problem is here. Moving the city would save it. Leaving it where it is would likely result in its untimely demise. Don't you really care about the people of New Orleans, or do you only care about having your fun "cosmopolitan" party showcase?

Update: John Hawkins and Kathy Shaidle are both annoyed by the ongoing New Orleans psychodrama. I'm not sure what conservatives Kathy is talking about -- after all this time I can barely remember who said what about Katrina. And is it really so bad to be upset at the destruction of a city where, after all, lots of normal law-abiding people lived? Here's what I said at the time: I thought the cries to just abandon the city were disgraceful, an un-American example of giving up in the face of nature and a tacit admission that we were unwilling to clean up our messes -- of which New Orleans with its many levels of neglect and corruption had been an example long before Katrina. (The admiration for the outlaw which allowed the place to hang onto its "Big Easy" reputation is, alas, a long-standing American tradition, one of the few I wish we'd abandon. Naturally we're hanging on to that while we dump traditions like expecting new arrivals in this country to become Americans, not Foreign-Americans, expecting people to get married before they have children, and so on.)

On the other hand, I didn't boo and sob along with everyone else about "poor, poor NOLA" -- I've been through hurricanes myself and don't think much of people who don't plan ahead and fob off advice to evacuate and then cry because their perfectly good car is under ten feet of water. And if it looks like there will be no way to ensure that the location of the below-sea-level portion of the city can be made safe from future storms then one must bow to reality. As it stands now, I think anyone rebuilding anywhere that is below sea level in that city is a fool, and deserves what he gets. Liberals are acting like even talking about this is racist, as if we are obligated to return everything to what it was pre-Katrina because black people lived there! and it's a Chocolate City so if you so much as voice concern that repairing the city is just throwing money down a well you're a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but I know what they really care about: it's the French Quarter and that cemetery where they filmed that orgy scene in Easy Rider. Well, those parts of town are on higher ground, that's why they lasted so long. Turn them into a theme park and move the residences and business upriver. We could leave the mayor's office where it is, though. With any luck the next hurricane will sweep it out to sea.

One more update: well, it looks like we won't have this to worry about much longer. Ghost towns don't come back. Though I still think a viable theme park can be made out of the historical district... All I can say is, two years after Andrew Miami still looked pretty battered but it was well on its way back. And look at it now. I just found out (I had no idea -- everything nice happens to a place after I leave it) that they put in some sort of trolley thing through Coral Gables, one of the nicer parts of the area and one I grew up going through (we lived outside the city, inside the City of Miami proper, because we couldn't afford to actually live in the Gables, but I went to Coral Gables High). And so on.

I'm guessing the difference is the people. One word: Cubans. Cubans have taken over the city (it's majority Hispanic) and that's a good thing. Cubans aren't like some of the other Hispanic ethnic groups -- they work hard but they have ambition to better themselves, not just make enough money to send back to the old country (though they do that too); also, they believed in America and becoming Americans. They're human just like everyone else but the Tony Montana-type criminal is rarely Cuban, despite what that movie claimed (the famous "Drug Lords" were mostly Colombian, I believe), and despite accusations of cronyism and nepotism they tend to stay on the lawful side of things in their political dealings. The second wave of Cuban refugees that came in on the Mariel boatlift were more problematic, but these were people who had been under twenty years of Communist rule, and most of them have assimilated as well.

The only thing is Cubans are considered rather bourgeois, therefore they don't get good write-ups unless they belong to a salsa band. Oh -- and they are mostly Republicans, so our professional news media doesn't much care what they do or what happens to them. CNN et al would rather coddle the losers in NOLA, who continually shoot themselves in the foot by voting again for Ray Nagin, and sitting around waiting for someone to "care" about them, and so on. Cubans know that they aren't universally beloved, so they don't take things like that into consideration. I think we need to stop talking about how much we "care" about New Orleans because 1) all the care in the world won't stop the inevitable, and 2) I think that the residents of NOLA need that reality check. It will take a while to sink in -- hopefully this will happen before the city sinks.

Note to multiculturalists everywhere: this is how Christians are supposed to treat non-believers. How do Muslims treat them?

One of these things isn't always like the other...

Is it wrong to laugh at Emo Hitler?

Come on, you know you want to.

The shock of the secular elite over the idea that Christian saints -- and any other members of that faith -- can ever feel doubt or pain is based, I am sure, on the common misconception that religious faith is kind of a cure-all for life's problems. Most of us -- whether we are Catholic, Protestant, or neither -- have bought into the idea that if you proclaim yourself to be a Christian then that means you should always be a grinning maniac of good cheer, or you're a hypocrite. Even atheists believe this -- witness Christopher Hitchens' gleeful "I told you so." A lot of Christians seem to believe this as well, unfortunately -- their clownlike turned-up-to-eleven happiness has certainly turned me off going to their giant video churches.

The idea that believing in God won't make everything "all right" in our personal lives strikes right to the heart of our belief in our own ability to conquer nature. Too many people approach God as if believing in Him will make Him our buddy -- "Me 'n' God, Best Friends Forever!" Then the light bill comes, or the car breaks down, and you're wondering why life still sucks. "But I prayed and everything!" It doesn't work that way -- God, if He exists, surely isn't a being on the level of a teenage crush or a sugar daddy.

(Via The Anchoress.)

At the very least... It comes from Mark Steyn, who speaks here of "...the dismal curdled relativism" of the Flight 93 "monument" (nauseatingly called "the crescent of embrace" -- I feel my coffee and toast wanting to come back up just reading that), as well as the whole lawyer-strangled approach to "fighting" the people and ideology that brought down the World Trade Center. That "dismal curdled relativism" in fact explains most of contemporary Western life, choking as it is on cloying political correctness and the inability to name anything for what it really is. This is no way to confront our enemies, and our enemies know it.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

Kathy Shaidle has a new site. It promises to be awesome.

As for me, I've decamped to the house of a friend, who needs my help this week. I have my computer with me though, so I can continue watching the internet like some kind of omniscient vulture goddess.

In England at least, not any more. Personally, I always thought the metric system was for people too dumb to divide by 12.

By now everyone has heard about the antics of UF professional moron Andrew Meyer and his starring role in Dances With Tasers. Must be something up there in the water in Gainesville... Anyway, here's my favorite take on this latest crushing of free speech, courtesy of Dennis Miller.

(Via a commenter on Ace of Spades.)

Update: not a whole lot of sympathy for the Tased And Confused One here. So far my favorite comment is this one: "Alpha males and Beta males have monopolized Naomi Wolf's attention for far too long. I'm glad she's finally considering the plight of the Delta Minus male."

More: Steve H. has added captions for the hearing-impaired. Also he has a radio show tonight -- I might listen, because this virus has weakened my will.

Article, blog post, whatever -- this is hilarious. Anyone who has worked in a cubicle farm with a terminally perky boss and/or has had a surfeit of September 11th media cry-fests should be able to relate.

What did I tell you? I'm not the only one who sees the Hillary campaign for prez as what it is: a shameless bid to the large component of the American public that swoons over the idea of having "their" president (that is, the male half of the Billary) back in the White House.

Or as I have said elsewhere:

I know plenty of people who would vote for her just to get him back. These people are convinced that Bill Clinton was a great president. See, instead of being some sort of Big Daddy authority figure, he was just like them—sexually loose, obsessed with being liked, eager to win over the MTV generation, and rock stars and actors just lurved him (and we all know that celebrities are today’s saints and heroes).

They may not like Hilary all that much or even believe in anything she espouses. But they are so desperate to get eight more years of the Big He that they’ll vote for her. And you want another cold finger of doom up your spine? Chelsea Clinton is 27 years old. She’s old enough to run for office, and in less than ten years she’ll be old enough to run for president. You think daddy won’t be there to offer his “help and advice”? The best thing we can hope for is all those Big Macs catch up with the bastard.

It's a bad thing to awaken my contempt for my fellow citizens. Now I'll be in a bad mood for the rest of the weekend.

(Previous link also via Kathy Shaidle.)

Steve H. continues to agonize over the inability of conservatives to be funny, whereas liberal comedians are raining down upon the earth like one or more Biblical plagues. I don't agonize, though, because I think I have it figure out: liberals are British and conservatives are French. Stay with me. The French, despite their outwardly loose moral style, are at base conservative and serious, which is another way of saying humorless -- by which I mean they don't really "get" things like irony and absurdism. In fact the French tend to judge people by whether they are "serieux" or not (which word in French has more important connotations such as integrity and reliability than the word has come to have in English). On the other hand, where would the British be without their talents for irony and an appreciation of the absurdities of life? That's the only way they've been able to get along stuck on that island with each other for so many centuries. And liberals are, if nothing else, anxious to get along with everyone else. But the French could care less about such jejune concerns.

It has to be true: look at French pop culture -- it's absolutely dreadful, most of it borderline retarded. The famous love of the French for Jerry Lewis is one well-known example -- but just look up "French pop culture" and you'll realize that they've come up with plenty of their own dreck. On the other hand, when it comes to real art, the French can't be beat -- at least in the visual arts, music has lagged somewhat though there is Delibes, etc. On the other hand, the British have gotten pop culture down pat, they practically invented it. Their serious "real" culture on the other hand has never risen to what it was in Shakespeare's day, bright spots here and there notwithstanding. But what do we think about when the words "British music" are uttered -- Holst, or the Beatles?

(Note: part of this post is part of a comment I left on Steve H.'s post -- he moderates, so it hasn't shown up yet, and I wanted to share my wisdom with all of you, my loyal readers.)

Rules that the Al Gore Global Warming fearfest "An Inconvenient Truth" contains at least eleven material falsehoods and the film will not be allowed to be shown in schools unless this fact is explained to the viewers.

Hm. They've come out with the best Doctor Who since Tom Baker, as well as an intriguing X-File-ish spin-off series, and now this. Maybe there is hope for Blighty after all.

(Via LauraW at Ace of Spades HQ.)

A lot of people think of Mark Steyn as being a sycophantic toady of the current American Way of Life. Those people should, but probably won't, read his rundown of what he sees as the various distortions that have compromised the American justice system. It's a pretty damning list, and rings true to me. I will admit I don't know a great deal about the runnings of my own country's justice arm (it's all just too complex for my poor feeble mind, which I might add is a major problem of the system as well -- it shouldn't have become this complicated for an ordinary layperson to even think of thinking about). But I've seen and heard enough. I especially know about the many shenanigans which the RICO act has made possible -- when you grow up in a major hub of the Drug Wars, in this case Miami, you can't avoid learning a little. And I heard too many anecdotes about families getting their vehicles and homes and whatnot confiscated by the feds because unbeknownst to them a relative had been involved in the drug trade. The lesson that "innocent until proven guilty" has become optional couldn't have been made clearer. Since I am a timid person by nature I am law-abiding, but I can see how someone with less of an desire not to draw attention to themselves could become embittered and cynical and, eventually, a lawbreaker themselves just for the sheer hell of it, because of this sort of thing. And everyone in Miami at least had friends, or friends of friends, who were involved in illegal drugs in some fashion -- the place was, and still is, awash in all sorts of stuff. I am rather rare in that I've never touched anything stronger than bourbon.

I'm ambivalent about the current laws regarding drugs. On the one hand, prohibition has given rise to opportunistic criminality, and ruined large swaths of several countries that are the source of the drugs so many Americans are willing to pay lots of money for. And junkies and cokeheads and so on are tiresome to be around, and are a parasitic drain on society. On the other hand, legalization may cut down somewhat on the criminal activity, but criminals are nothing if not inventive, and they'll find ways to circumvent the law in order to maximize their profits. Because legal drugs will be taxed, you can count on that. And as well, the repeal of the prohibition against liquor may have cut down on the bootlegging business, but that business still exists, and a large part of it has to do with the desire to not pay taxes. Also, legalizing drugs, far from solving the problem of drug abuse, will only exacerbate it. The only difference will be that the druggie will no longer be a criminal for his drug use. But addiction to anything, legal or not, diminishes the moral faculties of the addicted. Drugs will still cost money, and there will still be hardcore users who spend all their money on drugs and end up living in the streets and making havoc. Legalizing drugs would just shift the problem to a different area.

Actually, I'm not as skeptical as Kathy is about Michael Totten's claim that he hasn't met more than two natives of the Middle East who were "ruder and more openly intolerant than Ann Coulter." Several factors are probably at play here. One is the fact that countries where your life literally depends on not pissing off the people around you tend to place a higher premium on politeness than more freewheeling Western countries. Especially when it comes to women, for whom the list of what is considered "rude" behavior is eons long. Women in Western nations can't seem to grasp what a privileged and special position they hold in the worldwide scheme of things -- there are no Ann Coulters among the female population of the Middle East (except, possibly, in Israel, which is a Western nation in everything but geography) because it simply isn't allowed.

Of course I realize Totten wasn't referring to the women in the Middle East -- I doubt he's been able to speak to all that many women anyway. But men there also practice an almost obsequious politeness that usually leaves Westerners bowled over, and they often come away with the mistaken impression that that means that Middle Eastern culture is more civilized than their own. On the contrary, excessive politeness simply means it's too dangerous to speak your mind, especially to strangers, because there's a very good chance that saying the wrong thing will end up in blood being shed. Coulter critics trembling in shock at her caustic frankness would do well to remember that no matter how many mean things she says about them, at least she isn't going to kill them. Or perhaps the soft-muscled males who seem to be at the forefront of those who are constantly shocked, yes shocked, at the shocking things that shocking young woman is always saying really do think she's one hair-trigger away from going postal. Hey, it could happen. (Oh man up, nancies, I was just kidding. I think.)

Today I caught a brief glimpse of something on the History Channel called "Hippies." I say brief glimpse, because I had to turn it off -- they managed to make the whole Sixties hippie thing horrifying from the get-go. Stay with me here -- grant you, the hippie lifestyle was horrifying*, but it didn't get so popular by being totally unattractive from the start. The funny thing is, I don't think the History Channel meant for the show to have this effect; I think they're just inept. It didn't help that they apparently couldn't get the rights to any of the original versions of the Sixties songs they used (at least the ones I heard), so my ears were treated to bad ersatz covers of "San Francisco" and so on.

Anyway, I hate hippies, but I love lots of their music, especially what we used to call "acid rock," which is stuff groups like Jefferson Airplane used to put out. Here's a treat from the Ed Sullivan Show:

(PS: I'm looking for a link to that article on old diseases like scabies and so on that experienced a resurgence during the dirty, dirty hippie days. I was going to use it to make a point but I can't seem to find it. *Update - got it, thanks to Kathy.)

Kim made me cry just a little bit here (scroll down past the title and the criticism of neo-pub food to the description of Bath and the Pump Room).

One thing I have decided to re-embrace in my life is my former Anglophilia. I had somewhat soured on the place due to overexposure in the form of a (now ex-) friend who was frantically nuts about the place, so much so that I became sick of hearing about how we needed to go to England together and get husbands. (By the way, that latter madness will not be revived.) And there were other reasons... but British tv is getting better again (the actor playing the new Doctor Who is hawt, and Scottish, drool), and I'm also breaking out of the self-imposed exile from life that four years of not driving and working as an office mouse -- which I have begun to realize was not good for me -- caused. And the place isn't the blasted hive of heroin users, punks, and redundant miners it used to be back in the 80s. True, there is a lot of PC nonsense, but we have that here too -- it's the disease of the age. So anyway, I have decided to plan to go to Blighty again (Scotland and Wales included, the former because I want to go back, the latter because I never got to go there). I might also take in Ireland. I have no idea how long it will take me to scrape up the requisite funds to make the trip, but I plan to go there before I am too much older and decrepit. I don't know if and when I'll have a fundraiser, but the Paypal and Amazon accounts are always open.

Update: NOOOOOOOOOO--! England without sticky, creamy, cholesterol-laden desserts isn't England, it's -- Epcot. Wait -- they have sticky, creamy, cholesterol-laden desserts at Epcot. Don't they? (Via.)

Emergency update: oh my -- looks like I waited too long.

...oh what the hell -- tha winnah and champeen.

For an article headlined "whale found deep in Amazon jungle":

It was chewing on a toucan.

The Floridian big city bus stop experience has its counterpart in the Great White North:

So Monday morning I'm waiting for the 19 bus when a central casting ghetto dude shuffles up to the stop. Doo rag, baggy pants and blaring portable radio blasting bitch bitch nigga nigga full blast. I'm sure he thought he looked like 50 Cent but frankly he reminded me a lot more of Gene Wilder in Silver Streak.

Oh yeah. These losers think they're so fucking hard, but they are cliché city. I am so glad I have a car now and don't have to share questionable delights of public transportation with these bores.

I can't find anything to argue against, myself.

Still sinus-y -- I do believe I've caught a virus -- here's a musical interlude: Tones On Tail's "Real Life" (plus something from Tricky).