There, three articles in a row to tide you over while I ignore this site for a week. I’m heading to Atlanta, along with my twin daughters, to spend a long weekend at DragonCon. (You can see pictures from last years dragon con here.) I’ll be spending most of my time in the Podcasting and Skeptics track, so if you’re there stop by and say hello.
Here’s a cheesy video of one of my favorite cheesy girl bands, for your amusement. I especially like the very obvious fake water skiing, where there’s not a drop of water on any of them.
I love Cheesy Girl Bands. They have to be minimally competent on their instruments (if they’re great musicians they don’t qualify as cheesy) and extremely cute. Their songs have to be goofy and fun and inconsequential. Ever been to a Bangles concert and seen that creepy old guy in the crowd of adolescents? That was me.
Here’s another Cheesy Girl Band I recently discovered. They’re great. Wonderfully, wonderfully cheesy.
A listener responding to the Healthy Kids episode of the Quick Hitts podcast mentioned kids getting eaten by bears. This inspired me to Google “Eaten By A Bear.” Here are a few amusing links I found.
Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic lived in a nice suburban house with two black Labs. One of the reasons they chose their house was for the big back yard where the dogs could run.
They were relaxing in their home when armed thugs broke into their homes and shot their dogs. The thugs were not poorly dressed – they wore pretty blue uniforms. They were cops who had a standard warrant, not a no-knock warrant, but they weren’t about to be bothered by such a trivial concern. In Yet Another Drug raid they burst in and immediately shot and killed both dogs. One dog was running away when it was shot.
I have a mostly lab mutt. He’s very large and very friendly, and if you come to my house and I don’t have a chance to lock him away in another room he will jump on you, excited by the prospect of a new friend. You’d probably be annoyed. But I’m guessing you wouldn’t respond by blowing him away. But I’m convinced most cops would.
Judging from news reports, shooting dogs is standard procedure for most police departments. Google any variation of “cop shoot dog” and you’ll find hundreds of thousands of articles about these “peace” officers shooting dogs. A few of the stories will be about cops reacting to an attack, but most of them are about cops blasting away at the family pet just because they can. Dogs on chains, dogs fenced in a yard, dogs in cars - it doesn’t matter. Dog = Free Target Practice.
A few years ago, in my neck of the woods, the Schenectady cops during a drug raid (of course) shot a 13 year old Chihuahua that pissed itself before running to hide in the bathroom. The brave police officer followed the dog into the bathroom and shot it.
Yes, something should be done about this outrageous misuse of power. But in a country where cops are regularly acquitted for murdering citizens, what chance is there that they’ll be penalized for killing pets?
A good start would be to remove any pets they own from their home and place them in a less violent household. Let the ASPCA show up at their door, remove their pets, and explain to their crying kids that daddy is too much of a thug to be trusted with an animal. Of course, this would only work for cops who owned pets, but it would be a good start.
I’ve been playing with themes, not only with the look of them, but what I can do with them behind the scenes. So if things look different - don’t worry, you’re in the right place.
Chomsky has penned yet another analysis of the world situation, and as always, he betrays a deep ignorance of just about everything. Before continuing, please read it here.
Back so soon? Let’s review.
He’s upset that India isn’t getting the same flack as Iran over their nuclear program. Somehow, in all his study of geopolitics, he managed to miss the fact that Iran has consistently supported terrorism (for quite a while it was a line item in their national budget), while India hasn’t.
Bet you didn’t know that Israel has nukes to keep the US in line. But wait, did he really say that?
“US military analysts have recognized that, as Army Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote in 1999, one “purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their ‘use’ on the United States,” presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies — or else.”
A quick reading of the article might leave us with the impression that this he stated it as a fact, but he never really does. It’s carefully weasel worded so that if anyone calls him on it he can squirm out from under it. It’s the trademark Chomsky technique of making a claim without really making it.
“Shortly after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which left some 15-20,000 killed in an unprovoked effort to secure Israel’s control of the occupied territories…”
The PLO was using southern Lebanon as to build terrorist camps and launch attacks against Israel. (Sound familiar?) There was nothing unprovoked about the attack. We can only conclude that Chomsky is unaware of the facts (unlikely), is being intentionally dishonest (more likely) or is so driven by ideology it has rendered him, for all practical purposes, anencephalic (biologically implausible).
“Joining the unpeople is the large majority of Americans, according to polls. The American unpeople not only endorse Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes but also support the “Arab position” calling for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone in the entire region, a step that would sharply reduce major threats, but is also off the agenda of the powerful; unmentionable in electoral campaigns, for example.”
That is just stunning in it’s stupidity. Does anyone, besides Noam, believe that Iran is developing nukes for power? And asking everyone in the area to give up nukes (complete list: Israel) is as likely as Islam giving up terrorism.
“The government of Iran merits severe condemnation on many counts, but the Iranian threat remains a desperate construction of those who arrogate to themselves the right to rule the world, and consider any impediment to their just rule to be criminal aggression. That is the primary threat that should concern us, as it concerns saner minds in the West, and the unpeople of the rest of the world.”
Fact: Iran is developing nukes.
Fact: Iran’s President (Ima-nut-job) has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map, while displaying his smarmy, condescending smile.
Fact: There are still a few people alive today with numbers tattooed on their arms. Israel takes such threats very seriously, as they should.
Yes, we should be concerned with the misuse of American power. Under this administration it has been staggering. But that has little to do with the points he’s making: Israel is the bad guy, the US sucks and is evil (his favorite theme) and Iran only wants nukes for peaceful purposes like making candy and building shelters for puppies.
This is not garden variety stupidity. This is a very special kind of stupidity, one that can only be achieved by cultivating it for decades while being shielded from the real world by the ivory tower of academia. It needs to be fed by the left praising every one of his drooling proclamations as the holy saliva of the gods. It requires excellent writing skills to fool some of the lefties all of the time.
It takes a lot of effort to be this stupid, and Chomsky has done all the required work.
More Info: Check out this YouTube Video that exposes his ignorance and dishonesty.
In this article a fundy evangelist expresses the fear that Atheists are coming after his children. There’s no place on the site to add a comment, so I’ll do it here.
You think we want to convert your kids to atheism? Are you that afraid of us? Well, guess what, Sparky . . . you’re right. We want to convert your sons and your daughters. And your wives and your grandparents and yes, even you. (Insert evil laugh soundtrack.)
Your ilk has been using fear to spread your superstition all over the world, and you’ve been remarkably successful. We’re taking a page from your book. We’re proselytizing and making ourselves heard. There is a few big differences, though: We are not winning converts using the force of law, social pressure and the fear of a nasty skydaddy roasting people in hell. We’re not knocking on doors in a desperate search for converts. We’re simply using the mass media to spread reason and logic, and your superstitions just can’t stand up to such mighty weapons.
Some people might say to me, “But there’s no way Americans will go for atheism. Most people believe in God, even if they don’t take the Bible seriously as AiG does.” Think back to the 1950s. What if someone back then said to you, “Beware, the homosexual movement is on the march—if we don’t do something, ‘gay’ marriages will be legalized across the country.” Almost all of us at that time would have said that there’s no way Americans would ever accept this. Most people believe that marriage is one man for one woman, so, no, this will never happen in America.But as you know, it has happened—and continues to happen!
Because we’re not driven by hate or fear, we (and I’m speaking for most atheists here) think that’s a good thing. A significant portion of our population used to be hated and ridiculed and chastised and discriminated against, and now that’s being dealt with and slowing going away. Most of the push back is coming from your ilk, who demands we continue to hate gays as much as your god does. And most of us, atheists and Christians, are ignoring you, except when we take time out to heap some much deserved ridicule on your beliefs.
Interestingly, these new atheists liken their growing movement to that of the gay activists. One stated: “We’re in the same position the gay movement was in a few decades ago. There was need for people to come out. The more people who came out, the more people had the courage to come out. “That’s the case with atheists. They are more numerous than anybody realizes.
It’s a good analogy. One popular meme in the early days of the gay acceptance movement was “What if one day everyone gay turned purple? You’d see so many purple people that you’d have no choice but to learn to accept them.” Now atheists are coming out of the closet the same way gays have. We’re everywhere, and as more and more people realize that logic and reason provide a better life than superstition and fear, our numbers are growing. In the long run your fight against us will fail as badly as your war against homosexuals.
But no analogy is perfect, and there are big differences between the gay and atheist movements. Gays just want to be accepted. They’re not looking to convert other people to gayness. (I know that is the fear of many of your ilk, but it’s as irrational as most of your beliefs.) Many atheists, on the other hand, are looking to convince people that reality is a better lifestyle.
You have no cause for complaint. The very name “evangelical” comes from your annoying insistence on trying to convert everyone to your belief system. Why would you deny us the same privilege?
It prompts me to ask: “Why are atheists now getting so much publicity and gaining ground? What’s happened in the culture to allow this?” As we’ve been saying for years, there’s been a change in this culture—at a foundation level. Generations have been indoctrinated by the secular education system and media to build their thinking on human reason, not the Word of God. And at the base of this is the creation/evolution issue.
You are absolutely right. Without Adam and Eve there is on original sin. Without original sin there is no need for Christ’s sacrifice. And without that, Christianity falls apart. You need a 6,000 year old earth, which is nonsense, for your religion to have any chance of being remotely true. Reality is destroying your religion, and atheists are delighted to point that out and further the spread of that dangerous reality.
Let me shock you further and illustrate how some of these God-haters think.
Ah, you were doing so well, but now you’ve blown it. How can you hate something that doesn’t exist? We don’t hate Santa or Thor or Zeus, because it’s impossible. Likewise, we don’t hate your imaginary friend.
One of Dawkins’ recent “evangelistic” talks was actually given in a packed church (the First Parish church in Cambridge, Massachusetts)! What times we live in! A news report stated:“At first his [Dawkins] words are greeted with laughter, and then with resounding applause … .” The words he preached were from his book:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Friend, all I can say is that I praise the Lord that He has raised up ministries like AiG to engage the culture and the church to return to the authority of God’s Word. With these militant atheists more and more on the march, you can be assured that AiG needs your prayer support more than ever. In fact, with the opening of the Creation Museum this year, the attacks on AiG will probably escalate.
Interesting. You don’t counter a single point Dawkins made. Not one. Instead, you are delighted to serve your “petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Oh goody, another fact free creation museum to justify the superstitions of the gullible and provide amusement for rational people. Attacked? More likely, ridiculed. Your beliefs deserve to be mocked and laughed at. They are stupid.
And you close the article begging for money. Gee, what a surprise.
With the blessing of the churches racism once was the norm. Now it’s unacceptable in polite society, and ridiculed wherever it’s pops up. Women used to be considered lesser creatures than men, largely as a result of church doctrine. We don’t tolerate that any longer. (Much of the backlash against Islam is the result of the despicable way they treat women.) Gays were once hated and feared. Now the only people who hate and fear them are people like you. And now, as mankind continues to grow up, reason, logic and reality are slowly, very slowly, too slowly, elbowing their way to the front of the line.
Yes, Ken, we are coming for your children. Your only defense against us is to keep them stupid. Keep them believing that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary the earth is 6,000 years old. Send them to special schools that teach them science is evil. Tell them they must believe that all the species of the world, including a half million separate and distinct species of beetles, lived within walking distance of Noah’s house. Sometimes it will work. But if they grow a brain when they leave the nest, watch out. If they are the slightest bit susceptible to logic, reason and common sense, we’re going to “convert” them. And you’ll be powerless to stop us.
Muslims are taking time out from murdering their daughters and raping women for reading the bible to attack one of our most cherished principles: Free Speech.
In 2006 Mark Steyn published an article pointing out that while civilized people are breeding at less than the replacement rate, fundy Muslims are breeding like hamsters. His conclusion: The future belongs to Islam.
As a result he faced two trials for “hate speech.”
The first one, brought up with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, was thrown out on narrow technical grounds, so the complainants shopped it to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. There Steyn was put on trial for having an opinion and daring to express it.
The trial was a sham, and Steyn refused to cooperate and defend himself. The judges allowed things written by other people to be introduced into evidence. They whined that he hadn’t included opposing points of view in his article.
Surprisingly, he was acquitted.
The real result of this kind of injustice is the chilling effect it has on writers. If I were living in Canada I would think twice about publishing this blog post. With legal fees, winning such a case could be almost as disastrious as losing it.
This kind of injustince is becomeing prevelent in the Western world. In France former sex kitten Brigitte Bardot was recently fined 15,000 euros ($23,760) for stating the fact that the the resident Muslim community was “destroying our country and imposing its acts.” It was so nice of the French government to prove her point for her.
I’ve given up trying to distinguish between so-called moderate Muslims and the fundies. It is quite evident that the fundies are driving the religion, and they are not a tiny minority, as the left would have us believe. In a recent study of British Muslim students a third of them espoused violence to support Islam, and forty percent want to force all of us to live under sharia law.
The more I see of Islam in action, the more it becomes apparent that it’s incompatible with everything we consider important. It is incompatible with free speech. It is incompatible with women’s rights. It is incompatible with racial harmony. It is incompatible with democracy. It is incompatible with tolerance of different beliefs. It is incompatible with civil rights. It is incompatible with human rights. It is incompatible with civilization.
Barbarians have taken down civilizations before. They can do it from the outside, with violence and threats, and they can do it from the inside using our own laws and tolerance against us. We need to wake up fast and stop giving into them on everything, even things that may seem trivial. Every time we acquiesce we come one step closer to their goal of shira law for us all.
When Elvis was alive there were only a few professional Elvis impersonators. A few years after his death there were hundreds, then thousands. The old joke was that if the trend continued, by the turn of the century we would all be Elvis.
Old jokes never die. They often become reborn as alarmist “facts” and/or government policy. So this story comes as no surprise. The claim is that in another forty years we’ll all be overweight. Guess we’ll all be impersonating the fat Elvis.
And with every crisis comes more and more government programs to “fix” the problem.
They don’t mention one tiny little fact, though. Several years ago the CDC completely munged the BMI, reclassifying what they, in their wisdom, deemed obese. Overnight thirty million Americans became obese without gaining an ounce.
The idea of letting your kids run around the neighborhood and be kids has fallen out of fashion. Parents are expected to helicopter over their larvae every waking minute. They’re expected to have them participate in games where no one keeps score and everyone gets a trophy.
Those kids are now coming into the workplace and the results are a disaster. Managers are now having to deal with young adults who have been trained that they’re “special” and it’s unfair to expect them to actually accomplish anything. They’re unable to take initiative or criticism and expect promotions simply becuase they tried.
If you want to raise healthy kids, kids who grow into healthy adults, you’ll need to ignore what has become the conventional wisdom. The latest Quick Hitts Podcast, Healthy Kids, gives you a place to start.
The Free Range Kids blog, mentioned in the podcast, can be found here.
Ahhhhhnold has been a pretty decent govinator, but a few days ago he stepped into the nanny role when he singed a bill that makes it illegal to sell prepared food that contains trans fat.
Trans-fat is, of course, The Next Big Scary Thing That Will Kill Us All. And while warning people about it, and requiring information about it on prepared foods make sense, once again the nanny government has overstepped their bounds “for our own good.” Such nonsense has already happened in several cities, but CA is the first state to do it (surprise surprise.)
“California is a leader in promoting health and nutrition, and I am pleased to continue that tradition by being the first state in the nation to phase out trans fats,” the governor said in a statement.
I wonder when we’ll here a governor say “My state is a leader in personal liberty, and I am please to continue that tradition by refusing to pass nanny laws.”
A friend who sends me lots of blog fodder frequently sends e-mails with the title “The Messiah Lord Obama.” They are full of cartoons and stories about Holy Saviour status most of the media has bestowed on upon him. Today’s was the best one yet.
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
. . .
And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.
This is one of the best commentaries I’ve seen on the Obama Phenomena. You can read it all here.
It just occurred to me that “Obama Phenomena” would sound great sung to this tune:
Update: After listening to this, I realize that “Obama Phenomena” doesn’t quite fit. But if we go with the current trend of jamming words together to create new ones, we can shorten the phrase to Obamana, which fits perfectly.
In the last election the Democrats sent out guidelines on how to void military absentee votes before even opening them. Solders in the field often get their ballots after the election is over, or so close to the election date it was impossible for them to return the ballot in time. The Pentagon is quite aware of this problem, but to all disappearance just doesn’t give a damn.
On July 8 Roy Blunt’s resolution, demanding that the Pentagon get their act together, has been pretty much ignored.
Considering the injustices we already heap on them, why should be be concerned with them being able to vote in the country they’re allegedly defending? They’re only putting their lives and limbs on the line. And when they get home from “fighting for freedom,” if they want a smoke at the VFW hall we’re going to kick them out in the cold and the rain. And deny them heath benefits whenever we can. And send them to VA hospitals that are just embarrassing. So what’s the big deal?
The big deal, of course, is they are far more likely to vote Republican. So if the Democrats can’t actually interfere with their votes, they’ll just let the current, miserable situation persist.
You can bet that if they were more likely to vote for Democrats congress would turn themselves inside out to make sure that every vote was cast, received and counted.
The EPA isn’t satisfied with applying ridiculous, expensive regulation on the sectors they already infest. Now they want to regulate pretty much everything else.
They just released a 564 page document that lays out their plan to get their claws into every sector of everything, all the time. (Note: The link loads a ridiculously large file.)
Coverage of all key vehicle, engine, and equipment sub-sectors in the entire transportation sector so that GHG emission standards are set not only for cars and light trucks, but for heavy-duty vehicles, non-road engines and equipment, including locomotive and marine engines, and aircraft as well.
If it rolls, floats or flies they want to control it. Hell, even if it’s stationary and has any kind of engine, they get to determine how it works. Because they’re such good engineers and all.
Or maybe not. This is one of many passages that highlights their ignorance:
Locomotives, as an example, have significant potential to recover energy otherwise dissipated as heat during braking. An 8,000-ton coal train descending through 5,000 feet of elevation converts 30 MW-hrs of potential energy to frictional and dynamic braking energy. Storing that energy onboard quickly enough to keep up with the energy generation rate presents a challenge, but may provide a major viable GHG emissions reduction strategy even if only partially effective.
Ahem. That’s the way diesel locomotives already work, and have for quite some time. The diesel engines don’t directly power the wheels. Instead, they’re tuned to operate at their peak efficiency and generate electricity for electric motors that run the wheels. When breaking, those motors become generators and the electricity is captured in a battery.
Any first year engineering student could have told them that. Perhaps they should hire one.
Considering how many planes we have in the air at any given moment, the controllers do a damn fine job of keeping them from crashing into each other. They appear to know what they’re doing, and how to do it. But the EPA thinks it knows better:
Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RSVM) allows air traffic controllers and pilots to reduce the standard required vertical separation from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet for aircraft flying at altitudes between 29,000 and 41,000 feet. This increases the number of flight altitudes at which aircraft maximize fuel and time efficiency. RSVM has led to about a 2 percent decrease in fuel burn. Continuous Descent Approach is a procedure that enables continuous descent of the aircraft on a constant slope toward landing, as opposed to a staggered or staged approach, thus allowing for a more efficient speed requiring less fuel and reducing GHG emissions.
So they want to move planes closer together in mid air to save a miniscule amount of fuel. Brilliant.
They also included a blurb about contrails, which should give the tin-foil-hat crowd more to blather about:
Petitioners contend that aircraft emissions contribute to climate change also by modifying cloud cover patterns. Aircraft engines emit water vapor, which petitioners identify as a GHG that can form condensation trails, or “contrails,” when released at high altitude. Contrails are visible line shaped clouds composed of ice crystals that form in cold, humid atmospheres. Persistent contrails often evolve and spread into extensive cirrus cloud cover that is indistinguishable from naturally occurring cirrus clouds. The petitioners state that over the long term this contributes to climate change.
No proof, of course, they simply “contend” this contributes to climate change.
Two stroke engines are an inexpensive and simple way to provide power for lawnmowers, snow blowers, chain saws and the like. Four stoke engines burn cleaner and more efficent, but they are heavier, more complex and more expensive. Guess what the EPA is recommending. Yep.
I have a big lawn, and my lawnmower has a standard two stroke engine. It’s loud and manly sounding and tells everyone within a block and a half “Hey, I’m Mowing My Lawn.” In the entire course of a summer I go through about a gallon of gasoline. When it finally conks out, will I be forced to spend a couple of hundred dollars extra to replace it with a four stroke? Even if it lasts ten years it’s not a cost effective way to reduce the emissions of ten gallons of gas. But that won’t matter to the EPA. It’s not coming out of their pockets.
They also discuss requiring automatic transmissions for off road equipment.
They provide this example of just how far reaching their tendrils will be:
For example, consider a hypothetical 500 MW electric utility boiler firing a bituminous coal that is well-controlled for traditional pollutants. Such a boiler, operating more than 7000 hours per year (out of a possible 8760), can emit approximately 4 million tons of CO2 per year, or more than 580 tons per hour. Assuming a 100 tpy significance level (rather than the current zero level for GHGs), any change resulting in just 10 additional minutes of utilization over the course of a year at such a source would be enough to result in an increase of 100 tons and potentially subject the change to PSD. By contrast, to be considered a modification for NOx, the same change would require approximately 36 additional hours of operation assuming that the hypothetical source had a low-NOx burner, and 90 additional hours of operation assuming that the source also employed a selective catalytic reduction add-on control device.
They want to control a boiler down to the minute. Amazing.
There are 70 categories and subcategories they want to regulate.
EPA has already promulgated NSPS for more than 70 source categories and subcategories and we could add GHG emission standards, as appropriate, to the standards for existing source
categories.
And just in case they feel like it, they can change what is and isn’t considered a global warming gas on a whim:
EPA can add or delete pollutants from the list consistent with certain criteria described
below.
They want to regulate anything that emits a total of 10 tons of global warming gasses per year. A single Taco Bell generates that much methane just from burrito farts. Expect them to add burrito farts to their list.
It’s interesting to note they’ve nearly abandoned the phrase “global warming” and replaced it with “climate change.” They use “global warming” a mere 27 times in 564 pages. “Climate Change” appears 212 times.
This is yet another example of a government agency run amok. If they get their way expect everything to be more expensive, more complicated, and more of a pain in the ass.
For more examples of EPA incompetence, psudo-science, and downright fraud, check these past articles on The Hittman Chronicle and The Facts:
Keith John Sampson, a communication-studies senior at Purdue who supplements his income by working there as a janitor, was reading a history book (which is also in the school’s library) during a break. “Notre Dame vs. the Klan” details the story of how Notre Dame students physically attacked the KKK and literally ran them out of town on a rainy night in 1927.
Two cowardly race-baters made an anonymous complaint about his despicable behavior of, um, reading a book and the $106,00 a year affirmative action officer declared him guilty of racial harassment and told him he should be fired.
For reading an anti-Klan book.
They eventually dropped that charge, and are now charging him with, well, something. No one will say what his offense is, as this reporter discovered.
But political corrections and rampant far-left stupidity doesn’t exist in higher education, we’re told. Uh uh. That’s a baseless complaint, and anyone who makes must watch Fox News and listen to Rush. Oh, and they’re racist, too. Definitely racist. That’s the ticket.
