Victory Soap v. 2.0

I think that this is pretty much the definitive George-Bush-plastic-turkey wrap-up.

One final note: so I am not the only person on earth who looks askance at the Thanksgiving tradition of serving up lumps of orange-dyed, sweetened library paste, a.k.a. "sweet potatoes." In the South (maybe elsewhere, I don't know) we do them even worse -- think canned "yams" with marshmallows melted all over them, waaarrgghhh! I did, however, find that sweet potato fries, sprinkled liberally with salt, are quite good, as are sweet potato chips.

Something I've never heard anyone bring up before has bothered me off and on: since the world is round, won't any direction Muslims pray at be facing Mecca?

Update: no, it's not! See the comments for explanations by people who didn't have to struggle not to fall asleep during Geometry 1.

I have just one thing to say to the revival (or continuance -- this is an old canard going back to before the Cold War) of the idea that the desire to fight the current crop of totalitarians' attempt to take over the world, which is dumped under the convenient heading "being conservative," is based on "fear": just go up to one of these "fearless" and "open-minded" liberal/progressives who are so sure that "incidents" like the World Trade Center attack are nothing to worry about and that Islamic jihadist terrorists would only be our fwiends if we could figure out the right way to hug them, and whisper this in their ear:

"global warming."

Then sit back and enjoy a few hours of that old-time "OMG we're all gonna die!" gospel.

(Title source.)

Update: I rest my case.

Second update: url to the post on Kesher Talk changed.

Third update: and changed back. What the hell? I did have it right the first time!

Okay, this is the last thing I'll add to this post I promise update: oh my God! Here it comes!

Well, in all fairness, I have no idea what the difference is between "unique visits" and "page views" either, but then again I'm not a professional pontificator trying to make a living off telling people how to blog.

This is funny: some organization condemning the use of music in "torture" (as opposed to things like thumbscrews and shredders -- I guess they leave that to some other group to worry about) is being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt:

HH: (Macarthur Park music playing) Welcome back, America. It’s Hugh Hewitt with Professor Philip Bohlman, president of the Society For Ethnomusicologists. Professor, at the University of Chicago, I think I’m with you, Professor, on Richard Harris and Macarthur Park. Is that torturous?

PB: (pause) Excuse me?

HH: What do you think of that song?

PB: (longer pause) Well, I don’t completely understand what you’re asking me.

HH: Well, we’re trying to figure out which music…is it because the music is louder, or is it the particular music that you’re objecting to being played to the jihadists?

PB: First of all, I don’t think the question is one of jihadi. I don’t…I think using that term is very misleading, and I’m afraid that it’s not a line of questioning that I find productive at all.

HH: Well, why is it misleading to use jihadi?

PB: Well, what is your definition of that term?

HH: Someone engaged in global jihad, in an effort to use violence to advance the return of the caliphate.

PB: Well, I think that this is not what we’re talking about here.

HH: Well, would you agree Zarqawi is a jihadi? Zawahiri?

PB: I don’t know how you’re using the term, and I don’t want to be baited into this sort of …

HH: I don’t want to bait you. But I’m trying to get to the key question, which is let’s say we’ve got Osama and Zawahiri in a room. Can we play music to upset them?

PB: There is no point in doing it.

HH: But if the professional psyops interrogators think there is, could we?

PB: You’ve moved the conversation away from the discussion of this particular position statement, and I think that I…that it’s only appropriate...what I think about, the conversation here is not what I think might happen if Osama is in a room. This is not…this has nothing to do with the position statement that the Society For Ethnomusicology put up on its website.

HH: Well, actually, I think it’s a concrete hypothetical example, or we could use Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Are you familiar with him?

PB: This…the hypothetical, we’re not talking about hypotheticals.

HH: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in custody. He’s actually…are you familiar with him?

PB: I am, yes.

HH: Could we use the Barney song on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

PB: No.

HH: Could we use any music on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

PB: What would be the point?

HH: I don’t know. Richard Harris could destabilize a lot of people.

It's true. Just ask Professor Snape.

And keep 'em running -- we must stop at nothing until this creep and all his little friends are drowned. Bring on the rising seas!

Naturally this discussion on Ace of Spades on a column on Townhall.com about "porn addiction" affecting our troops in Iraq is completely focused on whether porn is good for you or not. It's a pretty good demonstration of how obsession destroys the ability to make distinctions, because they've all missed the most important incongruity in the article, which is illustrated by this quote:

"I don't think I've ever been confronted as much face-to-face with men and women - in and out of the confessional - saying, 'I'm addicted to porn and I don't know how to get out of it,'" Father Reilly said.

What kind of priest would reveal what he is being told in the confessional? Either this is a bogus "military chaplain" and bullshit can safely be called, or this is a real chaplain -- in which case he should be both defrocked and thrown out of the military.

... from this soon-to-be-boiled-dry planet, apparently: huge "sheets of ice" are falling from a skyscraper in Toronto.

(Via the Flea.)

Global Warming has finally jumped the shark. (An appropriate metaphor, as the sad-faced Magical Negro baseball player on the cover is probably meant to send a paranoid frisson up the spines of racial obsessives and evoke images of unwanted slaves being tossed over the sides of ships.)

How conservatives can avoid tying themselves in philosophical knots when news of the Next Kewl Scientific Breakthrough is announced: remember two chief tenets of true conservatism:

1) figuring out how to do something is no reason to do it, and

2) having a natural impulse is no reason to give in to it.

As I've said before, if you want to be cool, you can't be conservative. The two things are mutually exclusive.

(Prompted by this post on Transterrestrial Musings, where I left a similar comment.)

By the way, it's 57 degrees where I am right now, at 11 o'clock in the morning. In April. In Florida. The high today is supposed to be 72. Did Al Gore take the kids to Disney World or something?

(All temperatures in the REAL MAN'S temperature scale, Fahrenheit.)

See what happens when you displease me, puny mortals?

I never looked into the OMG We're Gonna Die Isn't Leo Cute? edition of Vanity Fair -- in fact, I never look in Vanity Fair, as I have better ways to rot my brain -- but that's what the internet's for, other people doing what you won't do (at least, until we turn this over to illegal aliens too). Anyway, it looks like Global Warming and the coming Flood won't be so bad after all -- there will be plenty of opportunity to lie around on the new beaches, sunning our new, sexy selves. (Scroll down to the last pictures.) Bring on the waves, I say!

Does anybody but me get the feeling like our new, fun "business partners" in China are trying to find new, stealthier ways to kill us? Here's a review: first it was pet food, then it was chicken, and now it's toothpaste. You know, the word "business partner" is often another way of saying "enemy." As another song about backstabbers (besides the one I got the title from) says, "your enemy/won't do you no harm/'cause you'll know where he's coming from." But a smiling face often "don't tell the truth." Our frantic desire to be the world's Bestest Friend coupled with our need to make more and more money is going to kill us all.

(Via KiSP.)

Added: I found this list. Wonderful. At least some members of Congress seem to have found part of their spines -- probably because they eat out so much, and who knows where restaurants in DC get their foods.

According to this personality test thingie, I'm a

Whatever... at least I appear to be most of my favorite colors.

Read:
all about me, wonderful me. The Internet: telling us about ourselves so we don't have to think about it anymore!

(Via various other blogs.)

Right now the deer situation in this country seems to be I'M IN UR CITYS, TRAMPLEENG YUR PLANTZ, SMASHING THRU UR CARZ, GIVING YU GROSS DISEASES. A nice big cull would not only bring the accident rate down, it would help prevent the spread of Lyme disease -- which is nasty, read the link -- and piss off the sort of "activist" whose incontinent outburst is documented at the above link (and we all want to make obnoxious people even more unhappy than they already are, don't we? Well I do), it would put some nice venison on our tables. Deer are pretty; they are also delicious. I'm too lazy to hunt, I'd rather be able to go to the local Publix and pick up some venision steak.

(Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

"The Shadow of that Hyddeous Strength
Sax Myle and More It Is of Length!"

(A continuation of thoughts engendered by this -- the original article is no longer available at the Australian.)

Are you shocked? I'm not. It's the reason I'm still struggling to pay my rent and bills at the age of 44. Some years ago it occurred to me that money and opportunities don't just drop out of they sky, but it's hard to shake off bad habits, especially if you're a lazy, weak female. And let me tell you, those "assertive" women? They tend to present their desires in the form of complaints, as in "Why won't they give me a raise?" and "My boyfriend/husband/whatever is so inconsiderate, he never--" insert something he doesn't do because he's not fricking psychic.

And don't blame Mom and Dad for raising girls to be "nice" and "not ask rude questions or make demands." No one does that anymore -- raises their female children to be ladies, that is. Girls today are the rudest, meanest, shrillest little harridans-in-training you've ever seen, but they still whine and complain when they don't get their way because they had no idea (it's not in the female chipset) that you could simply ask. What's the worst that could happen? You get told "no." Of course a woman hears "no" and her uterus falls out and her tits sag to the ground, but that's another story.

(Via somewhere in the wilds of Ace of Spades.)

Okay, maybe I don't want to move to Texas after all...

(Via Dave in Texas blogging on Ace of Spades HQ.)

It needs laser cannons. And a few other adjustments. Then it will be ready for Florida traffic.

(Via Ghost of a Flea.)

Well, except focus. This is my favorite sequence out of the list:

Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes

I think I've found my excuse for everything that goes wrong with my life. It seems to work for everyone else; why shouldn't I hop on the bandwagon?