Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Bibingka!
And usually we add whole hard boiled quail eggs to ours.
Headlines of the day
Bad News: the UN is there, UNFPA aims to ensure that relief efforts address reproductive health needs, which are often neglected in emergencies Translation: they sent birth control pills and are setting up portable abortion clinics...if it was about merely delivering babies, you wouldn't need "specialized" teams, because their work would be integrated into other emergency medical aid centers...
Good news: After the earthquake, Gloria is worried if a similar quake hit Manila, many buildings would collapse...nationwide disaster drill is planned. Hopefully this will saves lives when the next earthquake hits...
Bad news: East Timor continues to be in chaos as the UN skadaddles..but the Aussies take up the slack...
Bad news: Oh yes, riots in Paris...the police dared to arrest someone who beat up a bus driver...the rioters are unemployed "immigrant" youth...
Good News: NYTimes lets a Marine write an editorial, which includes the quote of the day:
Soldiers are sick of apologizing for a sliver of malcontents who are not at all representative of the new breed. But they are also sick of being pitied. Our warriors are the hunters, not the hunted, and we should celebrate them as we did in the past, for while our tastes have changed, warfare — and the need to cultivate national guardians — has not... today's debates are not high-spirited so much as mean-spirited. ...
Bad news: The flooding in NOLA was because the Levees failed...
New meme: it's Carter's fault
Good news: Lileks muses about the goddess and the DaVinci code...and includes an absolutely stunning photo of a naked, seaform mint green...1956 Ford country sedan...
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Math and Oragami (Hey Luke)
FOr example, this is a " Spiked Rhombic Enneacontahedron
This structure was conceived by taking a 90-sided polyhedron, whose faces are made from two types of rhombi, and placing a pyramid on each face. The construction uses 180 small squares of paper, all folded and interlocked together without glue..."
But if that seems a bit too much for you, go HERE and check out instructions for a flapping bat....
And he has other pages, with links to other origami projects
Since I haven't studied math beyond basic calculus (In Premed we concentrated on Chemistry and Physiology) I find this fascinating. I don't understand it, but I find it fascinating...
Headlines of the day
We ate and drank and danced with girls together, we trained together and we were closer than brothers....and when I saw him dead, I was filled with rage and all I wanted to do is kill them all...
RIght now there is a story being hinted at about some Marines who killed civilians in retaliation for one of their own being killed.LINK and for background, see LINK2
The story is still being investigated, but already the marines are prejudged as first degree murderers, and therefore the war is evil and we should leave Iraq...
Ah, but One of the problems with war is that it loosens the taboos against killing, and corrupts a small number to act out on their anger...It happens in ALL wars. By all sides...It happens because evil exists, and every person has the ability to do evil (Christians call this tendency "original sin"). This is why Pope Benedict preached about reconciliation at Auschwitz this week...
And my thoughts on war are posted on my screedblog so as not to bore you furthur...
But, as Dr. Sanity points out in her essay:
The cruelty and inhumanity of this or that particular person is manageable--during war and during peace. The perpetrators of Abu Ghraib have been held to account, as will all others who allow their dark side to prevail. But the real monsters who again threaten the world with their fantasies of a "pure race" or a "pure religion" or a "perfect" society are loose and once again we imperfect humans must confront the evil as best we can.
How Sweet
(headsup from theFatGuyBlog)
no money to print money...
So to pay their bills, first they "borrowed" money from private accounts in their banks, and they also just printed more money...with predictable results.
Right now inflation is 1000 %... and if that isn't bad enough, the government can't get enough money to buy paper and ink to print more money...
GOLDFISH CAM!
The experiment
Could a pair of goldfish survive in the L.A. River? A Times reporter sought to find out. Meet Little Ed and Little Antonio, who seem to be enjoying the river water in their new home in the latimes.com newsroom.
Who's who Little Antonio
Named for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Monday, May 29, 2006
Um....hello kitty.... and other holiday humor
And I was googling for THIS and I foundTHIS...
Uh Huh....sure...
Caution: Don't open at work
---------------------------------------------
And the PUN for the day comes from Grouchyoldcripple who tells the story of an Indian who went to a doctor....link
-----------------------------------------------
Since Memorial Day is the start of Hurricane season, Dave Barry, who lives in Florida, has some tips about hurricanes...
-------------------------------
And finally, via Dave Barry, the most important invention of the millenium:
ROBOROACH...
And have a nice holiday...here it is evening and I'm hitting the sack..
Insultingly stupid movie physics
(Headsup from the Goluboy chronical blog)
Knitting for Fido
Happy Memorial Day
ALWAYS REMEMBER THOSE WHO PROTECT US
AND REMEMBER TO SAY THANK YOU
LINK1 is another of her videos...headsup from PureGumSpiritsblog
Go X Men!
But with word of mouth going around, their boxoffice take plummeted...
(Chaucer hath a poem on DVC HERE)
However, the word of mouth on X Men 3 is that it rocks..
(Ian McKellan has neat photos on his webpage LINK)
The pirated DVC VCd's hit Manila last Thursday... I figure X Men will be here by next weekend.
Isn't movie piracy wonderful? I'm joking, of course, I would have no problem paying money for a movie, but until a couple months ago, we didn't have a theatre here. And when you buy a disk, you don't know if it's legal or pirated.
And when the local salary is five dollars a day, who can afford 2 dollars to go to a theatre? You can buy a used tv for 20 dollars, and a VCD player for 20 dollars, and a VCD for 60-80 cents...so that is how locals watch movies. (we don't use DVD's here...but MP4 type CD's, which are cheaper).
However, most of the films sold at the Palenke are action movies or broad comedy where you don't have to know the language, or locally made films. Nor are all the films from Hollywood. Many are made in Europe or China. So you get a Stephen Segal movie in Portuguese with English subtitles, or a Steven Segal movie in English with Indonesian subtitles...
One of the funniest movies I've seen recently is The Gods must be Crazy III...made by a Chinese director...and the characters speak their own languages in it...so the characters spoke Cantonese Chinese, Afrikaans, K!ung, Tswana, and English... with Chinese subtitles...about a hopping Chinese Vampire....who ends up in Botswana...
Isn't globalization wonderful?
The Carnival of the recipes is up
Headlines of the day
Plague kills New Mexico Woman... plague is endemic in northern New Mexico/Arizona and in the deserts of southern California...the docs of the Navajo reservation have to keep it in mind if someone has a fever and lymph nodes, in the same way we Oklahoma docs had to keep Rocky Mountain spotted fever in mind if we had a patient with high fever and flu like symptoms in the summer...
Good news: It can be treated with antibiotics and is rarely fatal if you catch it in time...
Bad News: It is one of the germs, like anthrax and a lot of other germs , that can be used as a biological weapon...
Good news: The germs used as biological weapons occur normally, but can be stopped. Indeed, unless one wants to take the risk of having your own people die (e.g. a smallpox attack in these days of jet planes would quickly travel to the whole world) they are tricky to use. Indeed, the real problem with the 2001 Anthrax scare was not that people were being sent Anthrax (the strain was a common strain, similar to that found in Oklahoma barnyards, not the drug resistant strain of weapons), but that someone had ground it to fine powder, which meant that it was not the work of a nut job, but required expertise, specialized grinding machines, and positive pressure decontamination techniques so that the person devising it would not die...
Bad News: Why worry about plague when we're all going to die of birdflu?
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Scholars predict some religions will lose tax exemption...
Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School favors gay marriage but worries that after legalization, government would threaten faiths that oppose same-sex marriage with loss of tax exemption....
Virtual Tree
I've heard of virtual pets, but this is ridiculous...
Good news: they do give you coupons.
Bad News: you have to water it (with a hose bought from Sears) and prune it (with a cutter bought from sears) and clear away the dead leaves (with a rake bought from sears)...etc...etc...
(via FARK)
Quote of the day
Jeremy Felden
(peace activist and English professor)
Saturday, May 27, 2006
True Islam
headsup Publius Pundit
heh....
The confessions come a day after President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made contrite statements at a joint news conference about their own wartime leadership.
(go to scrappleface for the entire satire)Grendel
But there is a distinctively post modern take on the old legends...
Grendel is more a contemporary voice. He is supposed to be an eater of kings ... but he is really the eternal outsider. He looks at mankind and wonders why it has singled him out as a demon as human behavior is not that exemplary."
Taymor sees Grendel as an embodiment of what Americans fear today and says that the glory of Gardner's story is that he turned it all upside down.
"The story that we fell in love with many years ago actually became more potent," she said.
"As we think about today and what is going on with words like 'the outsider' or 'the outcast,' 'the terrorist,' 'the enemy,' 'the immigrant,' 'the foreigner' -- all of these ideas. If you start to look at Grendel ... it becomes more contemporary than anything contemporary because, like Shakespeare, it transcends its time."
Ah, yes...but Grendel's family were outcasts because they were thieves and murderers. There were other choices for his family: in an empty Europe, he could have gone into the wilderness and build a prosperous farm, or even started an inn/tradingpost in the wild...Instead, Grendel and his mother prey on the weak. He does not build homes and schools but steals cattle and money from farmers. Nor does he protect the maids and serfs from wolves or brigand like the king does... nor like Robin Hood does he even bother to share his illgained wealth with the poor... He merely kills for the sake of killing, out of envy.
Yes, we have parallels with this in our modern world. In L.A. these type can be found in their bloodthirsty gangs who shoot up taverns and do driveby shootings for the fun of it...Does Grendel have a story? Of course. But those who are not naive know that there are people who chose evil for the sake of evil but always find a reason for their evil...
BUT the true heroes are those who protect the weak, not those who kill the defenseless...
Our ancestors knew it, which is why we celebrate in film and song those who protect the weak: from John Wayne to Darna to the Seven Samurai...
But, of course, in our politically correct post modern morality, it is better to sing the praises of the modern Grendels who terrorize their neighborhoods in LA, or who fill 300 mass graves with civilians or who bomb Aussies at bars, dancers at nightclubs, or who bomb or behead those merely seeking to pray at mosques, churches, and temples.
For if you told the story as tradition tells it, you might see a certain cowboy as Beowulf....the outsider who kills the monsters...
Where is Ursi?
But she has a daily update
Friday, May 26, 2006
Graduation day
With globalization, we see more multinational organizations (but local restaurant chains like Jolibee are successful also)...
I am not sure I approve of such things, but the kids loved it, and most are from business owners or teachers or other middle class families (if you were rich, you wouldn't live in Gapan...what we are are the up and coming middle class).
Ronald Mc Donald
Aling Dita
Trivial observations
So we find this amusing search at LGF...
Presumably the bozo sending death threats was unaware that these things could be traced...
---------------------------------
Trivia news two: The Euston Manifesto is now up. Normblog has information...
Essentially it is a pro civil rights pro Iraq liberation liberal manifesto...sort of like Tony Blair rather than Bush, who is economically conservative.
No, it wasn't thought up over beers in a pub, but discussed by bloggers in pajamas.
I dislike socialism, but when the middle class entrepeneurs and up and coming middle class are kept down by an oligarchy, you need a FDR -- or maybe a Teddy Roosevelt-- philosophy to keep power balanced by breaking up monopolies...
--------------------------------
What happens when 44 NGO's try to get the UN to pay attention to the deaths in Dafur?
LINK....
-----------------------------------------
Texas hospital Alert
One wonders how many of these cases never reach the RightToLife folks, let alone the press...
More on my screed blog...
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Bader's Bunny is Back
Douglas Bader, who flew in The Battle of Britain despite losing both legs in 1930, is believed to have kept the rabbit as a mascot in his sports car.
He then gave it to a friend whose family have now presented it to RAF Coltishall in Norfolk.
The base is due to close this year but its historian Mick Jennings said it would then be given to a museum.
Douglas Bader joined the RAF in 1930 at the age of 20 but within 12 months he had lost both his legs, the result of a crash during an aerobatic manoeuvre.
He had artificial legs made and learned to walk again.
After years of pestering RAF chiefs, Bader was allowed to fly again and it was during the Battle of Britain that he was made Group Captain.
He shot down 22 enemy planes before his last mission on 9 August 1941 when he was rammed by an enemy fighter over northern France.
He was captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war at Colditz.
His life story was told in the film Reach for the Sky, in which actor Kenneth More famously played the lead role.
Chocolate rules (Take three)
- If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
- Clearly, chocolate is a vegetable. Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. A bean is a vegetable. Wait! There's more! Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. QED: chocolate is a vegetable.
- Chocolate-covered raisins, -cherries, -orange slices and -strawberries all count as fruit. Eat as many as you want. Fruits are an important part of the Food Pyramid.
- Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off Your appetite and you'll eat less.
- If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
- Money talks. Chocolate sings.
- Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger. Therefore, chocolate is therapeutic.
- Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.
- A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?
- If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
YUM CHOCOLATE
"Chocolate contains many substances that act as stimulants, such as theobromine, phenethylamine and caffeine," said Dr Bryan Raudenbush from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.
"These substances by themselves have previously been found to increase alertness and attention, and what we have found is that by consuming chocolate you can get the stimulating effects, which then lead to increased mental performance."
Zimbabwe: Happy Anniversary
However, given the censorship you probably won't hear much about it. Check out above link at TheBeardedManBlog, or even my humble "EvilMugabe" blog for updates.
War on reporters
A prominent Philippine journalist has become the latest in a series of reporters and rights activists to be killed in recent months.......Batul had recently criticised city officials over the contracts of Filipinos whom he said were mistreated when they were sent to Taiwan.
The real story is that corruption allows local officials and businessmen to hire hitmen to kill their rivals and get away with it...although the mayor, of course, denies that he had anything to do with it...
Alas, the murder of muckracking reporters is nothing new:
Batul is thought to be the fifth journalist to be murdered in the Philippines this year. Seven were killed in 2005.
And it's not only reporters:
Task Force Usig, created to probe the killings f journalists and leftists, has reported that since 2001 121 party-list members and 42 journalists have been slain.
Just last Monday, Fernando “Dong” Batul, a radio commentator in Puerto Princesa City, was gunned down on his way to work.
Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Carta, assistant to Police Deputy Director General Avelino Razon Jr., the Task Force Usig head, said the group had also counted 71 government officials and 13 other militant members slain in the past five years.
And, of course, this doesn't include people like my nephew, who was killed in the crossfire by thugs who were trying to eliminate someone's business rivals...
Sleeping pill reverses permanent vegetative state?
".....Each of the three patients studied was given the drug every morning. An improvement was seen within 20 minutes of taking the drug and wore off after four hours, when the patients restored to their permanent vegetative state.
Patient L had been in a vegetative state for three years, showing no response to touch and no reaction to his family. After he was given Zolpidem, he was able to talk to them, answering simple questions....
Dr Ralf Clauss, ... carried out the study...He told the BBC: "For every damaged area of the brain, there is a dormant area, which seems to be a sort of protective mechanism. "The damaged tissue is dead, there's nothing you can do. "But it's the dormant areas which 'wake up'."
------------
The Key Passage is this one:
Mike Barnes, professor of neurological rehabilitation at the Hunters Moor centre in Newcastle, said it was possible that the patients had not had "true" PVS.
"A diagnosis of PVS means the patient should not wake up and respond."
He said a study carried out by specialists 10 years ago had shown that up to 45% of patients diagnosed with PVS actually had a range of different conditions, from which they could wake up.
Why you should read blogs
But StrategyPage points out what is really going on was a Taliban invasion from the "wild west" tribal areas of Pakistan that was shot to Hades...
-----------------------------------
I have often said that the problem was that we have screaming "ain't it awful" headlines and fluff pieces instead of news...and need TV news that puts things into perspective.
Austin Bay has a similar take...
Attention Taliban
Guess you'll have to go back to old fashioned letters...or sending coded messages over AlJazeerah. But hey, that's how they did it in World War II...
But you know, the REAL danger is THIS
the same methods are also widely used by retailers, who assemble computerized collections of customers' purchases along with their names, addresses, income levels and other tidbits, giving businesses clues to people's buying habits on a giant scale...
.....
"They have no interest in doing anything malicious with the data, because their interest is economic," he said. "They don't want to harm you -- they want you to come back to them and shop."
Translation: Clinton and Bush couldn't find Osama Ben Laden, but Victoria Secret probably is monitoring his wives purchases and sending them sale catalogues...
Sad news of the day
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Headlines of the day
Good news: Pirated vCD's of the DaVinciCode are being sold in China...should reach the Palenke by this weekend.....
Bad news: the anger of Congress is not domestic security, but the fact that the FBI DARED to search a Congressman's office...where he was hiding bribe money in the freezer.
Since when are Congressmen above the Law?
Good news: even though Democrats use tax dollars to promote revisionist history about Iraq because of Domestic politics and anti Bush hatred , it's getting harder to get away with revisionist history when you can just look it up on the internet...
Bad news: they are now rioting over cockroaches...
Or maybe the "riot" was staged to shut down the paper: Iran's conservative judiciary has closed more than 100 newspapers, mostly pro-reform, since 2000. Tuesday's closure, however, came from the Press Supervisory Body, not the judges.
Good news: Osama Ben Laden sends a tape saying Moussaoui was innocent.
OK. That's settled. Let's let him go...
Bad news: a followup on the Columbine/Matrix imitating Saudis in Florida...they were just innocent and confused...Right...and THESE bozos were just innocent musicians who liked to spend time jerking off in airplane toilets...
Good news: it took the MSM took 18 months , but they finally noticed THIS book circulating on the internet...he was involved in the Madrid bombings, but no one had the curiosity to google his name I guess...
Bad news: THIS bozo is saying 9-11 was based on a Denzel Washington Film? Biography is on line, and he is an expert on Sharia law... and his organization is suing a Boston TV station that had an expose on the mosque they plan to build there...
Laugh line of the day can be found on their press release about the lawsuit...
“This lawsuit is about truth, fairness, and ensuring that preconceived and defamatory stereotypes and intolerance are not perpetuated,” said Kazmi. “The Islamic Society of Boston is unwilling to stand by and let deliberate falsehoods mislead and poison public sentiment against the ISB. The rights of Americans to free speech and freedom of religion are basic and powerful. It’s wrong for anyone to use the equally great power of the press to undermine them.”
Good news: Aayaan hirsi ali is safe...
But as a feminist, I am puzzled about this: She lost her Netherlands citizenship because she used a false name on her papers...and she used the false name so her husband and family could not trace her whereabouts...because alas honor killings of errant wives are not unknown in Europe...
An African feminist's take is found HERE...
"Illegal" immigrant deported for her political views...INTERVIEWFILMCLIPHERE...
Well, at least she wasn't beheaded for her film...LINK....FILMCLIPhere
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The press missed the Katrina Heroism
Headsup Instapundit ...who says:Read the whole thing. The Katrina reporting represented a massive media failure, one that they've never really admitted.
See PopMechanics link at side for similar report.
And you can go to my Sept-Oct 2005 archives for many, many stories of heroism by ordinary people, reported in local papers but hardly mentioned on CNNI.....
International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board
EARTH-DESTRUCTION ALERT LEVEL: GREEN
A "Green" Earth-Destruction Alert Level (EDA Level) indicates that the Earth has not been destroyed. This is the default EDA Level in peacetime. In the event of the Earth being destroyed, the EDA Level will change to "Red".
And, on April 1, they posted a "red" webpage...
EARTH-DESTRUCTION ALERT LEVEL: RED
It is our duty to inform you that as of 11:06:54pm UTC on March 31, 2006, the Earth has been destroyed.
The destruction of Earth was first reported by Mr. Bostick C. Beard of Errington, Utah, United States, who spotted that his home-made seismic Earth Detector had ceased to give readings at around 11:10pm (4:10pm local time). Several other amateur geocide spotters noticed this at the same time but Mr. Beard was the first to place a telephone call to the IEDAB's Geocide Hotline (+44 115 09Ω 4127, ask for Phil) at which point IEDAB officials performed an emergency check of their own instrumentation and verified Mr. Beard's report, as well as fixing the exact time of geocide.
---------------------------
Update: If you are not sure if the earth has been destroyed or not, I've posted the advisory to the left...
Germans are efficient in parking cars
This is supposed to be a parking lot in Munich...
To me, it looks like the inside of the pod in the movie Independence day.
Submitted by Col. Updraft...
-----------------------------------------
update: I checked it out on one of the Urban legends page...it' does exist...
Comments: These photos are authentic, though mislabeled. What you actually see above is the interior of a 20-storey car tower in Volkswagen's Autostadt or "car city" in Wolfburg, Germany — basically a car dealership and theme park rolled into one.
The Autostadt, which opened in 2001 and boasts a hotel, restaurants, a museum, and other attractions, sees over 1 million visitors per year. Car buyers take delivery of their purchases via a fully automated procedure whereby the automobile is plucked robotically from a cubbyhole in one of the two "twin towers," each of which holds up to 400 vehicles, and brought to its owner on a special elevator.
JACK BAUER JACK BAUER JACK BAUER
We are only getting the start of the second season here...
And WFMUBlog has Jack Bauer instructing someone on how to cook a hotdog...
headsup from Dustbury
Increase your word power
This year's {2005} winners are:
>> 1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
>>
>> 2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
>>
>> 3 Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
>>
>> 4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
>>
>> 5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
>>
>> 6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
>>
>> 7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
>>
>> 8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
>>
>> 9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
>>
>> 10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
>>
>> 11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
>>
>> 12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.
>>
>> 13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you
>>
>> 14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
>>
>> 15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
>>
>> 16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
>>
>> 17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
>>
>> 18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
>>
(from an email from Col. Thermal Updraft)
Headlines of the day
Hmmm...sounds like Manila.
Judicial activism for Fido? "A victory in the Estacada case, if upheld on appeal, would break with the centuries-old legal tradition of defining pets as property with a standard market value and lay the groundwork for an expansion of pet owners' rights in Oregon and possibly set a national precedent..."
Mark Steyn sardonically discusses the Canadian flap where many protested that their president said "God Bless Canada"...he points out that Western societies, in denying the need for God, lose the background of morality that keep people safe and give meaning to their lives, and that when we lose these things, the state becomes god...and that has implications that few discuss....
CNN reports a long line of attacks and in the last paragraph says oh by the way, a historic government has been formed in Iraq. Yup. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along...
If I seem hardhearted about those killed, it is because I have been thru two civil wars in Africa, have family members touched by the longstanding civil war in Colombia, and live in the Philippines...so I can put things into context...although I must say that kidnappers in Iraq get higher wages than those in Colombia...
Another atrocity monger outed....link2. link3
Anyone serving in the Miltary would notice his uniform was wrong...
But when the premier newspaper of the country thinks a purple heart medal is a purple star, then I guess they figured they could get away with it...
Sort of like John Kerry, with his testimony in front of Congress...that twenty years later he admitted he never saw, but only related what some peaceniks claimes happened...
But now there is an Army of Davids...
------
UPDATE: SGT MOM tells him off and patiently explains why he can no longer get away with such fakery...a wonderful read...
-------
Hmm....Hezbollah in NYCity...what's that line from Casablanca?
Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.
Madonna's anti Christian blasphemies are so....dated, as Roger Simon notes:
But how can you push the envelope when the paper's already sopping wet?... Now if she had any real guts, Madonna would dance around on stage as Mohammed in drag.
However, Pinkisthenewblog is elated...and has photos, if you are interested.
However, Madonna's near nude photos with horses are is due out...
Sort of gives "Big Love" a whole different meaning...
And finally, the blogosphere got up in arms about a false report that non Muslims in Iran would have to wear badges.
I didn't comment on it, because you can 't wear a badge with a chador...
You see, there are already repressive dress codes in Iran...and why worry about badges when persecution has resulted in large numbers of Iranian Jews moving to Israel or the USA, and the the Bahai are being persecuted...
Although, to defend the Iranians, at least Christianity is legal in that country, unlike Saudi Arabia....
Monday, May 22, 2006
Don't worry about Snakes on a plane take Seven
Don't worry about Snakes in a plane take six
and this site will show you how you will look at age 65...
(Headsup from Shrinkette)
Snakes on a plane take five
Don't worry about Snakes on a plane take three
Alexander Cockburn writes:
The late Steve Smith, brother-in-law of Teddy Kennedy, and a powerful figure in the Democratic Party for several decades, liked to tell the story of how a group of four Jewish businessmen got together $2 million in cash and gave it to Harry Truman when he was in desperate need of money during his presidential campaign in 1948. Truman went on to become president and to express his gratitude to his Zionist backers.
Gee, and I always had heard Truman became president in 1945. And the rumor is that he went against the State Department's advice and recognized Israel in May 1948 because his old business partner was Jewish..(or maybe not) .even though in those days "supporting Jews" would lose a lot of votes.....
Stephen Smith (Cockburn spelled his first name wrong) was born in 1927, and in graduated from Georgetown University in 1948,...that would make him a 21 year old college student when the "Jewish" businessmen gave all that money to Truman (and in 1948, 2 million dollars was a lot of money)...so how did Smith know about this? It is extremely unlikely he witnessed it... Or did he hear the story from from another source...maybe Joe Kennedy, a notorious anti Semite?
But Cockburn's entire column is pseudohistory...
Most of the essay is about people who DARE to criticize a book by two college professors that supposedly documents the Zionist conspiracy behing American foreign policy... the NERVE of those people, to criticize a well researched book....never mind that many of the "documents" used by the professors are similar to those paranoid screeds found on anti Semetic and conspiracy web pages.....
Umm... Mr. C. Did you ever hear the phrase "GIGO"...as in "garbage in, garbage out?
No, I guess not. Because at the end of the article, we find this quote:
"The question, therefore, is not whether the two professors are right in their findings. The question is what conclusions can be drawn from them..."The quote comes from Yuri Avnery, (whose name he also misspells) a well known leftist and founder of an Israeli peace site...(the site links to sites supporting the Infitada of course...)
Well, Mr. C, actually it DOES matter if the professors got their findings right...and it matters if they got their "data" from nutso web sites or from reality.It's not politically correct, but that's the way I am...
And, oh yes, Mr. C: The reason that most Americans back Israel is not because they have been manipulated by evil zionists but because they are hard headed Christians who would be sympathetic to many Palestinian demands, but dislike Palestinian "leaders" who encoure their followers to blow up buses and pizza parlors as political statements...
Don't worry about Snakes on a plane take two
LINK2
Link one says only fever, headache, nausea, and convusions...
Second link mentions she was vomiting and bleeding...
However, there is no Ebola in Joburg...
Only two reports, both in UK tabloids.
Ebola causes massive bleeding from all orifices...so one hopes this is not Ebola...
There are other hemorrhagic fevers...one nurse I worked with in Liberia actually survived Marburg virus.
There have been outbreaks of Marburg in Angola last year...And Dengue fever comes to mind, but doesn't kill so fast.
African Muti (medicine) can also cause hemorrage and coma, but not fever...and other illnesses can cause DIC, the blood to clot and then not clot so you bleed all over, or thrombocytopenia, where you don't clot at all....Thrombocytopenia can also be caused by poison, radiation and drug allergy (the last case I treated was an allergy to Quinine that she took for leg cramps)...
No reports in the MSM however, just the trashy tabloid...so it might have the credibility of "clinton marries alien"...
Don't worry about Snakes in a plane
Worry about Saudis on a bus....a school bus....wearing shorts and a trenchcoat... in Florida...in 90 degree weather....
(headsup Michele Malkin)
Keanu Reeves, call your office...
--------------
Update: Misha says not Columbine but Belsan...
Luckily, they were not Hamas...
And TakeReligionBlog has more on the Matrix and Columbine game now on line LINK LINK2
With all the homegrown killers, maybe the Saudis are the ones in danger...
Sunday, May 21, 2006
How to stop Iran....would this actually work?
They have oil, but no refineries. And you can't burn crude oil.
Gift idea for Luke
A remote control robotic shark....
Or, if you live in Florida, you could make a robotic alligator for your class project.
Yes, I read both sides
Quote of the day take three
Apparently the fellas at the LAT have never read the best-selling The Puzzle Palace (copyright 1983! and all about the NSA) or heard of the Echelon program, which has been running through several adminstrations. All this "Ohmygod, whatistheNSAdoing?" nonsense is so much propagandistic crap. Anyone paying the slightest attention has known for years what the NSA's brief was. What are all those satellites supposed to be for,anyway? The level of hypocrisy in all this is staggering. If you don't want an NSA, say so. But the obvious question is - where have you been for the last several decades?
Quote of the Day take two
Quote of the day take one
(michael Novak.)
The quote about the Love that moves the Sun and all the stars is a Dante quote...and is the theme of Benedict XVI letter "God is Love"...
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Asparagus odor excretors
or into pop psychology "Those who adore asparagus, it turns out, tend to be "dramatic, theatrical people who like to be the centre of attention," says Hirsch. They're also "lively, enthusiastic, flirtatious, provocative and seductive," with a penchant for "flights of romantic fantasy."
Actually, I rarely could afford the stuff. But when I lived in Idaho, it grew behind our office and next to the irrigation canals, so we harvested and ate it fresh. Tasted a lot better than the canned stuff....
(headsup from DappledthingsBlog)
Soundtracknet
If you like films and music, he reviews the music and plays short samples of it...and sometimes interviews those involved in films.
Tribute to 9 11
(Headsup from Arrrrgh blog) The tribute to our soldiers is HERE.
Oh, I presume you know the third Saturday in May is Armed Forces day
...above are MD National Guard medics...
Wallpaper here
Ideal Pet?
Your Ideal Pet is a Big Dog |
You're both energetic, affectionate, and a bit goofy. And neither of you seem to mind very slobbery kisses! |
considering that we have four large dogs, that's about right.
Cartoon drawing take two (for Luke)
This is another drawing link...
how to do Mangadrawing...japanese style cartoons or anime...
headsup if from Ursi'sblog...
Here in the Philippines, we have an entire cable system with this type of heroic cartoons (we also have Cartoon network and Disney channel and children's cartoons on local channels).
A good homeschool/after school resource.
Headlines of the day
No, not Gitmo, GERMANY...
I'm old enough to remember the terrorism of the 1970's...and several Red Brigade terrorists back then also "committed suicide" in German jails....is there a trend here?
But of course, it is bigbadGitmo that the UN wants closed...and the headlines this week is about a riot...when guards tried to stop someone from committing suicide...
no report of the UN protesting human rights abuses in German prisons...of course...
I was going to point out the hypocracy of people condeming the jailing of Alquada trainees from Afghanistan while not condemning the jailing of Filippinos who carried bibles and rosaries in Saudi Arabia ...however others write a lot better than I do.
Check out VDH in his latest spiel on anti American hypocracy...and BlondSagacity points out the UN seems more worried about terrorists in Gitmo than women and children in Dafur...and LINK ex spook suggests they are acting out so they won't be transferred home to Saudi Jails...
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm ranting again....must check caffiene...must check caffiene..
Ah, but let's go to the really important news. According to Yahoo, the most popular headline of the day is:
MOST POPULAR HIGHLIGHT
Britney Spears Stumbles, Nearly Drops Baby
AP - Fri May 19, 5:17 PM ETNEW YORK - Britney Spears stumbled outside a Manhattan hotel, nearly dropping her 8-month-old son and further fueling the ever-growing media scrutiny of her parenting skills.
Toying with the English Language
Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
A backward poet writes inverse.
A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
What's the definition of a will? It's a dead giveaway.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
You will be stuck with your debt if you don't budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
Every calendar's days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted - It taint yours and it taint mine.
A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at
large.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.
(your email of the day from Col. Thermal Updraft)
Friday, May 19, 2006
Theological discussion take two
THIS:
Gift idea for the macho man in your life
So here is a suggestion:
JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
And scroll down and read the reviews...
For example, LosPepes writes:
This tank R-O-C-K-S! Literally- the 400-watt sound-system keeps me rockin like a crazy man as I'm dishing out justice commando style. Wow. I just can't say enough. And the kids love it, too- imagine the look of terror in the eyes of the enemy as I'm dropping off my kid's team to their soccer game. Shock and awe, my friends, SHOCK AND AWE!
(via Davebarryblog)
The end of the world is nigh, but there's HOPE
There's a theological discussion behind this that is more profound than talking stuffed Jesus Dolls, but I'll pass on it for now...via lileks
Headlines of the day
Bad news: Press yawns and quotes Murtha saying he was told by God in a vision that Marines killed a bunch of civilians in cold blood...
Oh sorry, that was Pat Robertson having a vision of a tsunami.
Good news: Murtha is running for reelection, and this time, he actually has someone running against him. ConfederateYankeeBLog has a discussion here....
Worried about governments snooping into your overseas calls? You know, the one where Bill Clinton's administration authorized ? Here is the REAL threat to free speech: the possibility that private companies will take over the internet...FILM...especially since much of the Chinese internet censorship was done with help from Google...and European censorship on certain issues is discussed by George Weigel HERE
Worried about Snakes on a Plane?
What you should really worry about is Parrots on a plane...(via FARK)
Good News: They might actually find Jimmy Hoffa.
Bad News: BBC couldn't find Guy Kewney...they accidentally interviewed a cab driver by that name instead of the renowned technology expert...guess the bimbo they chose as a newsreader couldn't tell the difference...
Need a gift idea? How about a Talking Jesus plush doll? Diogenes at CWNBlog proposes changing the phrases to more politically correct "AmChurch" (AKA CHURCH OF OPRAH) phrases, such as
And then go to Manolo, who is covering the Pop Apocolypse called the Eurovision contest...
Thursday, May 18, 2006
The MoHamster Dance
NOT work friendly, although PG 13
The original Hamsterdance is HERE
censoring the internet, email, press
Well, here is a country that can't afford to feed it's own people, yet they bought internet filtering software from China, and now they are passing a bill to make it legal.
And this is a country that forbids most western reporters from traveling in rural areas, and has closed down most of their independent papers.
LINK
Reporters without borders reports:
The study also claims that China, which is seen to be the most repressive regime when it comes to net censorship, is now passing on its cyber-spying skills to other authoritarian states including Zimbabwe, Cuba, and most recently Belarus.
Reporters Without Frontiers said that technology firms are also actively assisting administrations attempts to curtail freedom of speech. Among the tech companies criticised in the report are Secure Computing, which sold software to censor access to the internet to the Tunisian government, and Cisco Systems for building China's internet infrastructure and selling the country special equipment for the police to use to monitor net use.
Europe and the US don't escape condemnation either. The US is criticised for sending an "ambiguous message" to the international community by making it easier to legally intercept online traffic and by filtering the internet in public libraries.
Note the moral equivalence? The internet filters in US public libraries are to prevent school kids from finding pornography...not political sites. And they were placed there, not by the Federal Government, but under pressure from local parents. But if you didn't know that, you would assume it is the same as Zimbabwe reading (and perhaps punishing) Sister Winfrieda's emails about her convent and chapel being torn down during operation cleanup....
Rotten?
Here in the Philippines, the bishops disagreed with a lot of stricter Christian groups and said it was okay for adults to see...that if a movie threatens your faith, then you need a stronger faith.
That said, the best cynical take on the kerfluffle is by St.Peggy:
After its first screening in Cannes, critics and observers called it tedious, painfully long, bloated, grim, so-so, a jumble, lifeless and talky. There is a God. Or, as a sophisticated Christian pointed out yesterday, there is an Evil One, and this may be proof he was an uncredited co-producer. The devil loves the common, the stale. He can't use beauty; it undermines him. "Banality is his calling card."
-----------------
Other movie news: WTC trailer is out.
One hopes that Stone doesn't continue his anti American tirades and ruin the movie...
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
No Gulf War syndrome?
Yet, despite news reports of post traumatic stress syndrome in GW2 veterans, they have not seen the myalgia/neurological changes that were associated with Gulf War syndrome...
"As we don't really know what the cause of Gulf War Syndrome was, we can't be absolutely certain why we have this different result," Wessely explained.
The use of depleted uranium and pesticides and stress were common to both conflicts so are more unlikely to be the cause of the ill health experienced by the Gulf veterans, according to Wessely who reported the findings in The Lancet medical journal. But he said the combination of vaccines given to soldiers going to Iraq was different and there was more of a time lag between immunizations...."
Or it could be from low dose exposure to nerve gas, which was common (many anecdotal reports of chemical alarms going off) in Gulf war I.... some suspect that it was this, or maybe a combination of low dose nerve gas interacting with the vaccines...
Hmmm. Maybe Sadam DID send all his WMD to Syria....and maybe the bigshots who said that the soldiers were just neurotic are wrong....
American Idol? Philippine Idol? No, the real story is...
The Eurovision has returned...
Manolo says : The end of civilization as we know it...
.......
FYI: Philippine Idol information HERE.
.
.
.
The blind will see?
Good news:Using growth factor will help the optic nerve to regenerate...
Bad News: the nerve will regrow, but not work:
"Despite the success, the team was unable to restore vision in the rats, and the strategy still has a ways to go before it can be applied to humans. First, says Benowitz, researchers must overcome the enormous hurdle of getting the axons from the retina to connect to the appropriate places in the brain."
Is that what's worrying you, Boinkie?
Well, the real danger is Models on a plane...
Worried about the NSA snoops overhearing you talk about bombing Denver?
Well, what you really have to worry about is telling Jewish Jokes in Boulder...
Worried that your tinfoil hat might not work?
Well, move to England, which is a UFO free zone...
Guess they saw THIS....
Worried about dental plaque?
Well, if you don't have dental floss, a screwdriver or scissors will do...
Worries about insomnia keeping you up at night?
Well, help is on the way...mp3linkhere