Too Much To Dream

Are friends ethernet?

Today's show features robot porn.

(Yes, that's right, I said PORN. Porn porn porn porn PORN! That's for any little commenters who want to be stupid. You know who you are.)

Carrie Nation Lives

From the Department of People Who Want to Stop Everybody's Fun Because "Somebody Might Get Hurt" comes this article on the "Neo-Prohibition Campaign." Ith over at A Gaggle of Gals (and one Guy) has three posts on it, here, here, and here, so I'll just make my standard smartass quips and suggest you move on to the site.

Like so many Helpists, the anti-boozers aren't satisfied with their actions against drunk drivers and other obvious scourges; they have now decided to attack a larger foe, which is, of course, the alcohol industry, and "drinking culture" as a whole. Of course, the idea that liquor is the Devil's brew is at least as old as the oldest brewery, and when the first hunter and gatherers were giggling around the campfire after eating fermented berries there was probably at least one sourpuss per group who refused to imbibe, preferring instead to sit on the sidelines shaking his head and mumbling disapprovingly. But it looks as if the successes of the anti-tobacco brigade, who have made the air of New York City's outside unbreathable because of their dislike of smokefilled rooms, have encouraged these new puritans to start sharpening their axes. There's no thrill for a certain type of person like the thrill of taking a pleasure away from the populace, "for their own good," of course. Quite frankly, it makes me want to have a drink or three.

Another blogger down

Dang! There is no joy in Blogville tonight. :(

Negotiating away the peace

Think the UN should be the organization to take over reconstruction of Iraq? Weren't convinced by their stellar non-performance in places like Kosovo? Try their looking-to-be-as-stellar non-performance in Afghanistan. Short summary: things aren't getting done in that country because the UN way of doing things is to sit around talking about it for years. But people still seem to think that saying "United Nations" is a real-life version of "Abracadabra!" I can only figure that they have been subjected to so much propaganda on how the UN is the be-all and end-all of human political existence that they have grown a titanium scar around those particular brain-nodes that deal with the subject. If the United Nations was a surgeon, the way to deal with a cancerous tumor would be to talk at it and form committees about it in the hopes that it would voluntarily leave the body.

(Via Dave.)

This means war

A foolish citizen of the Great White North has dared to dis Krispy Kreme. We are told that the superior establishment is something called "Tim Horton's." The challenge is thus laid forth. This must not stand! Aux armes! And may the best donut win.

Yesterday and Today

Yes, it's another bore-blogger post!

Well, yesterday I went on my walk to the park, which is situated between three small lakes and has a playground, a senior citizen center (where you can play pool! Hmmm.) and a tiny little wood with a raised wooden walkway through it (that's necessary here in the Land of Sogginess). I took my little baby digital camera with me, and took some nice shots of the lakes, and tried to get some shots of a nest of baby hawks (they were too high up, though, and I doubt I got them), a family of coots, and a group of half-grown ducklings that were all huddled up on a miniature island in one of the lakes. My memory ran out before I could get a picture of the ibises, but they flew off anyway. (I had tried to get a picture of a Great Grey Heron that was standing in a little creek that runs into the lakes, but a garbage truck happened by on the street next to the park, and it flew away.)

Not that any of this matters. While I was uploading the pics, my computer froze up so bad I had to completely power it off, by the switch in the surge protector. And I had to wipe the memory in the camera. I think I need new batteries. They probably weren't the greatest pictures anyway. I need a real digital camera soon.

I may go for another walk and take my film camera -- or I may go to Cracker Barrel for lunch instead.

Take a pill

LOL! Every once in a while Glenn Reynolds gets off a zinger. This is a good one (because it agrees with my sentiments, of course), in response to some fruity praise some writer guy is getting for his anti-genetic-engineering book being 'brave':

What really interests me is that people think that they've made a moral argument against genetic engineering when they say that the idea "sickens" them. The idea of sodomy "sickens" some people, too. So does the idea of interracial marriage.

So you feel ill. Why should I care? After all, pompous, empty-headed moralizing sickens me, and nobody's stopping that.

Tell me about it.

Stop, Speed Racer, stop

Uh oh:

Longwood is one of the growing numbers of Central Florida law-enforcement agencies cracking down on aggressive driving.

I drive up and down that part of State Road 17-92 all the time.

There are certain elements in this campaign that ring my cynicism bell:

Leon James, a University of Hawaii traffic psychology professor, said aggressive driving is a national epidemic. Drivers need to relax behind the wheel. Instead, adults are teaching children bad driving habits, he said.

Yay, citing a psychology professor is one of my favorite ploys by the powers that be to control the unruly populace. And it's a double whammy -- the learned prof also manages to squeeze a reference in to the Children™. (And it's an academic from the University of Hawaii -- I know someone who'd get a big laugh out of that.)

One academic is not enough. Further down they cite some other egghead from SUNY Albany. Loretta Malta, a "clinical psychology doctoral student," tells us earnestly:

Some aggressive drivers are competitive young drivers, and others have serious psychological problems, Malta said. Many are "regular folks" who take uncharacteristic chances on the road, she said.

No kidding. I thought they were all aliens from outer space. Then again, maybe some are -- earlier in that paragraph we are assured:

Aggressive drivers cross age, gender and socioeconomic lines, experts say.

Even crazy drivers can't escape the New Diversity.

Good afternoon

For no particular reason, here's a picture of my cat on the windowsill.

I need to go for a walk. See ya!

Islamoloon watch

Charles Johnson has been keeping tabs on Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has some interesting (not really) observances.

Chocolate-covered pissants

Bleeding Brain has a solution to the Belgians and their support (or coercion) of some Iraqis' little "putting General Franks on trial for warcrimes" game:

The carpet bombing of Brussels followed by the carpet re-bombing of Brussels and finally, a targeted bombing of Brussels to knock down any stubborn spires that remain standing.

Sounds good to me. I've already been there, and my dad went about three years later. When I was there, everything was the fuck closed because of some Saint Wipe-Arse day (it was Tuesday). When my dad went, again everything was closed because of some Saint Wipe-Arse day. And then they lost his luggage on the train from Brussels or Antwerp or wherever the hell it was, so he had to arrive in Copenhagen (or wherever, some other Euro-ville) stinky and wrinkled. Blow 'em off the map if they squeak.

(Via Acidman. There, I'm reading!)

King Babies

When Jonah Goldberg is bad he's horrid, but when he's good he's even better. Jonah on the reaction to the "crushing" of the Dixie Chicks' "dissent" :

The New York Times's Paul Krugman got his dress so high over his head about all of it, he compared some radio-show stunt in a parking lot with Dixie Chick albums to the book burnings which marked the Nazi rise to power. Ah, subtlety, thy name is Krugman.

And here's a sample of what he has to say about Hollyweird's concept of democracy:

Democracy means never being criticized. And, the refusal to sponsor speech you don't like amounts to having one's "right to work" repealed. This is childish. Oh, I don't mean childish as in silly, I mean literally this is childish. This is the way children talk and think, especially in our gitchy-goo self-esteem culture. Not understanding the difference between their desires and rights, they insist they are entitled to do whatever it is they are doing. No matter what they do with their crayons, children expect to be told "That's so good. Good for you." Any criticism elicits a tantrum about the unfairness of it all. Maybe it's because Hollywood types live as King Babies and are never told they're wrong about anything, or maybe their view of democracy is one in which they are the customers of expensive restaurants and the rest of the world are simply waiters. Waiters are supposed to receive criticism with intelligence and geniality but never, ever, talk back.

Posted here mostly because I just wanted to have these quotes within easy reach, to reread and savor.

Adendum: and here's what he has to say about this weekend's hacking of the site:

Speaking of free speech for me but not for thee, you may have heard that NRO was hacked over the weekend by someone who can neither spell well nor tolerate the free expression of views he disagrees with. The homepage went down for part of Sunday and was replaced with a message reading "Hacked by DarkHunter ... Freedom for palestian and Iraq ... gr33tz to #USG and #teso channels." Maybe the radio signals in this guy's fillings garbled the text.

Anyway, I thought about delivering a "we're gonna get you, sucker!" diatribe and a defiant call-to-arms like Cyrus in The Warriors: You can't stop NRO! Caaaaannn youuuuu diiiiigggg itttt!?" But you know what? That's what these date-less wonders want: some attention. I'm sure this guy or someone else with too much time on his hands could hack us again if they were determined to do it. As the old adage goes, you can't stop someone from making a jackass of himself forever. So, good for you DarkHunter, I'm sure your inflatable wife and dog are very impressed.

ROTFL. The guy who hacked Actors Against War was a lot funnier. (And you know, it is curious how these hackings and other internet site problems always seem to happen in groups: my hosting service, Cornerhost, has been having problems -- not hacking, but something else that is as of this moment still keeping SgtStryker.com from being completely up. My site was out a few hours this weekend.)

A real, live princess!

Excuse me for being unimpressed, but -- so what?

Baghdad museum looting: drawing the map

I'm late getting to this (thank Steve H. for pointing the way for me): Tobacco Road Fogey has an entry about the looting, and why, due to the other strategically important venues surrounding it, the museum wasn't exactly top priority.

No, I will not stop harping on this.

Loud music for bad people

Nothing like a little Sponge to help clear out those Monday cobwebs. (PS: is the pre-21st-century website design deliberate? Am I missing some sort of postmodern joke here?)

Free the Kiwis

What do they want? FOX News! When do they want it? Now!

One reason given:

It annoys lefties so much that they write really outraged things about it, like these people here and here and here and even satire. Outraging lefties is a good thing. Can you imagine how our local do-gooders will react when rampant American neo-conservative triumphalism is beamed into people's actual houses in the People's Republic of Aotearoa-New Zealand? They'll probably want to outlaw it! If you're anything like me, you'll be hugging yourself with excitement at the thought of how upset they'll get. (Links in the original. -- Ed.)

Can't argue with that. Go, NZPundit!

If I convert, this will be why

Monk who gave cappuccino its name beatified. "Mother Mary, full of caffeine..."

(Via Blog Of Xanadu.)

Meme bomb

As a follow up to this post of mine, I thought I'd post a link to a collation of the discussion on various sites of the whole thing. In short, some fellow named Aziz postulated on possible Israeli WMD's -- a fair enough line of speculation, but he didn't stop there, not being content to leave mention of Jews defending themselves without making his own contribution to the blood-libel canard.

Anyway, read on, and follow the links too, if you want to know what I am babbling about. I think you should: it's a textbook case of how people react to an instance of unreason in the modern world.

Bogus

Uday Hussein liked to play around with a real iron maiden. (Side note: hmm... I wonder if this revelation was why one of the area rock stations was playing "Number of the Beast" last night.)

Via Tim Blair.

Anti-anti-semitism sematics

This is fecking disappointing. Insert into the "don't complain when they attack you because it makes you look bad" file. That's all I have to say for now.

Timely verse

Dean writes a haiku
A simple little word play,
Think that they'll get it?

Not thug safe

I was just talking with someone about the fact that Saddam Hussein had some of fantasy artist Rowena's paintings hanging in one (or more) of his love nests. Well, I'd never heard of Rowena. but I have heard of scifi-fantasy artist Brom. I happened upon one of those art books of his stuff at a bookstore somewhere. It was too expensive for me to buy at the time (and still is), but at least I can still look at some of his stuff on the internet. Somehow I get the feeling that this artist's work would not have been to the tastes of Uday and Co.

Across the universe -- of your t*****s

Sure, Kevin's got Jude Law and porn, but Treacher has robot coitus interruptus. I love the internette!

My site and other assorted stuff

I finally got around to installing Winamp. Maybe I'll install that Winamp MT plugin on the blog that shows what I'm listening to one of these days -- but I've got to get some more mp3s. Michele has promised me some Goth ones. We wants them we wants them we wants them!

Sadly, I think the bottle of shiraz will be gone by tonight. Frown.

Oh yes -- I have discovered what those pink puffball plants are that are all over the apartment complex lawn. They are catclaw mimosa plants, which can grow into a shrub or small tree. They are non-native and considered invasive. Good thing the maintenance people mow regularly or we'd be in a forest of the things right now. They are kind of pretty. Maybe I'll dig one up and plant it in a pot. My sinuses are pretty well shot anyway.

Right now I am listening to some sort of trance internet radio station on the Winamp right now. Have I mentioned how much I love having 512 MB of RAM? I just felt like some trancy ambient crap at the moment.

Wanderlust

::Sob:: I wanna go back to England...

Why the Baghdad Museum looting wasn't stopped

This is the most detailed answer I've come across so far:

The Americans have a ready answer. “We were fighting the whole time,” Captain Jason Conroy said, wiping his brow as he guarded the museum gate. “For four days we were taking machinegun-fire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) from these buildings around here. They had a bunker around the back of the museum with a cache of RPGs. Guys were running out of that alley, firing Kalashnikovs at us.

When we shot them, they threw out hooks, dragged the bodies and guns back and came at us again.”

After four days of intense street battles with Saddam’s Fedayin and Special Republican Guards, Captain Conroy said, his company of Abrams tanks and armoured vehicles was ordered north on April 15 to destroy an anti-aircraft gun.

“When we got back the next day, everything was already on fire here and the press were here asking us: ‘How come you weren’t in the museum three days ago?’ I said: ‘If you guys had been here three days ago, you would know why.’”

This won't be enough for people, though, who think that the US military is possessed of supernatural powers that they refuse to use simply out of sheer meanness.

(Via The Ghost of a Flea.)

Noooooo!

Why, god why?

Child victims of the war in Iraq are to benefit from a new CD featuring 18 major artists.

Here's the list:

Paul McCartney - Calico Skies
Avril Lavigne - Knocking on Heaven's Door
David Bowie - Everyone Says Hi
Travis - The Beautiful Occupation
George Michael - The Grave
Ronan Keating - In the Ghetto
Lee Ryan - Stand Up as People
Beverley Knight - Love's In Need of Love Today
Moby - Nearer
New Order - Vietnam
Basement Jaxx/Yellowman - Love is the Answer
Spiritualized - Hold On
The Charlatans - We Got To Have Peace
Beth Orton - O-O-H Child
Tom McRae - Border Song
Billy Bragg - The Wolf Covers Its Tracks
Yusuf Islam - Peace Train

Next month's washed-up pop dollies get together with their irrelevant, talent-drained forebearers for The Children™. Expect this to show up in the 2-cds-for-$3.99 bargain bin within a week of its release.

(Via NZPundit.)

On poverty of vision

I like this post on Random Jottings, especially this passage referring to the sniping and the backbiting and so forth engaged in by the "left" or whatever the anti-change, pro-status-quo contingent is to be called these days:

I've been totally disgusted by the way lefties have pounced on any mistake or hesitation by our forces, without even a pretense of making "constructive criticism," or a pretense of feeling joy and pride for the liberation of Iraq. But really the situation is like that optical illusion where you squint and the goblet turns into two faces. I should be feeling sorry for those poor pathetic goops. Their poverty is so patent. They are like hungry dogs under a banquet table, snapping at any crumbs that fall. They have no plans, no visions, no dreams, and not the least inclination to do anything positive or creative. All they can do is watch the magician perform, and hope that he drops the ball, or fails to find a rabbit in his hat.

[INSTAPUNDIT VOICE] Indeed. [/INSTAPUNDIT VOICE]

Update: Example No. 1. Example No. 2.

Shoot 'em in the head!

Note to self: do not ever cease intake of sufficient amounts of meat-derived protein, lest I suffer the sort of paresis of the brain that makes one write letters like this one to Meryl Yourish.

Very, very unwise.

Belated PS: kudos to anyone who gets the reference in the title to this post. ;)

Bizarre audio dynamite

Okay, I'm really afraid to download and listen to any of the digital sounds contained herein, but that doesn't mean you have to be a chicken too! Have at it, kids -- and if your stay in the mental ward isn't too long, get back to me and let me know how they were. (Via that Chris Pirillo semi-celebrity guy.)

My wine

Hm.... I may just finish off this lovely bottle of Australian shiraz that I picked up in Publix... Anyway, here's a toast, to the Australians and New Zealandians-- Zealanders--- um, Kiwis for Anzac day, and a matching toast to Rosemary whose birthday it is, and also a toast to anyone else who is having a birthday today or just had a baby or got engaged or bought a new Playstation or---

(Glug, glug, glug.)

Hellastupid

Oh dear, I am so evil.

Crap

I can see that the rest of today -- and probably the entire weekend -- is going to suck.

No blood for pipe-weed!

One ring to fool them all. The Orcs were just protesting against being marginalized!

(Via alert reader Joe McNally.)

Some are born to greatness

Numenorean


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Via Dave.)

Teller plõksib

It's another Estonian blog. This one is actually in Estonian. Help, Sam!

Anyway, collecting blogs in foreign languages that I don't understand is a kind of hobby of mine. This one has some nice site design, and he even offers wallpapers. Only two -- perhaps there will be more. And I have already learned one word: "Otsi" obviously means "search" or its equivalent.

Shout out to Oz

Happy ANZAC Day to the people of Australia and New Zealand.

Zzzzzzzzz

I do believe my previous post was the boringest boreblogger post by me ever! Of course, some of you may have a different opinion on which of my posts is the most boring.

Fizzle

Guh. Well, I was going to post stuff, but work was busy as hell, from the minute I got in (there were... horrors... customers) until the minute I fled half an hour later than usual. And I have more work when I get there tomorrow night, yay.

So I was really hungry, but too tired to cook, and I didn't feel like fast food -- I have already done that Bad Thing three times this week. So I went to Albertson's intending only to buy a carton of half-and-half for my coffee. Ha ha, me in the grocery store while hungry -- there was no escaping without a whole precooked rotisserie chicken (spicy barbecue, yum), some other foodstuffs, and some spiced olive, garlic, and pepper antipasto from the self-serve deli. So I have eaten well, and now my little eyes are closing... I also woke up at 9:30am today, which is early for me considering the hours I keep.

Immaterial Girl

Madonna, whose portfolio or whatever they call it is worth a gazillion dollars, says Americans need to stop being so -- wait for it -- materialistic.

"We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values -- looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful or just being famous"

Uh. Time to write an imaginary letter:

Dear Madonna,

Signed,
Your Concerned Reader, Andrea Harris

(Via Asymmetrical Information.)

Pippin update

Here's a treat for the Billy Boyd obsessives out there: an interview with the ex-hobbit. He answers fan questions. (Via TheOneRing.net.) Check out the reference to a movie he and fellow ex-hobbit Dominic Monaghan are cooking up set in my ex-home town. Have I used "ex-" enough?

Disappearing Bleat?

Still no Lileks for me, and some other people can't get to him either. Last night I was getting a secure site when I went to his website -- now I get one of those busy pages that asks you if you want to make them your home page when you try to leave. Hacked by a spam site?

On the other hand, some other people can get to the site just fine. Weird.

Smell the Blög

Heavy Metal, man.

Postwar Wankoff

I am providing a link to this Independent article even though they have taken a Salon-like step and decided to force people -- or at least, Americans* -- to pay a pound for the dubious privilege of reading their columns in their entirety. (I'm surprised they don't charge in Euros.) I could not read the paragraphs whence Peter Briffa (warning: Blogspot busted-archive-workaround link will rot, it's the post for April 22, 2003, 10:45:03 AM) derived these tantalizing quotes:

"I thought this war justified, until this evidence that it was being conducted in an improper and uncaring way".

And,

"It would not have been hard to foresee that law and order would have been difficult to maintain in the wake of the collapse of the Iraqi regime, and it would have been quite proper for American troops to have shot looters in these circumstances. That is what war consists of, and it would have saved a culture from this catastrophe".

(Bolds mine in both cases.) The header to the article reads: "Crimes against culture are remembered for ever -- The Muslim world will ask why US forces let the looting happen and produce a simple answer: they hate Islam." On the contrary, many "crimes against culture" are either forgotten or attract scabrous debunkers (cough the Holocaust cough); and in any case the Muslims who think that will, as usual, be wrong, especially considering that the looters were fellow Muslims.

But I am intrigued by the idea that the column's author, one Philip Hensher, apparently thinks that 1) it is possible to fight a "caring" war (how? Drop sympathy cards and flowers along with bombs?) and 2) that the best way to show "caring" would have been to shoot more civilians. The ways in which the minds of anti-Americans work never cease to cause amazement.

*In the comments to one of his posts, Peter Briffa expresses surprise that a reader was confronted by the demand for cash from the Independent, so I have therefore brilliantly concluded that British readers are identified by their IP addresses and not charged.

This planet ain't big enough for me

I need 6.3 of them. Woohoo! I rule. Get out of my way, puny humans! (Was that the proper reaction to this quiz? Well, it feels proper to me -- and everyone knows that if it's based on feelings, then it is proper.)

(Via The World Wide Rant and Lileks.)

Bones of Contention

I open this website, and see that the owner is a member of "Web Rats -- Journals With Attitude." There's something about people who have the need to proclaim their membership in groups of like-minded people as a proof of their individuality and uncompromising stance that wakes up the Iago side of my personality. I hate the boors, especially when they gather en masse.

I have encountered this Vera woman before. Here, in fact. This conversation, and its aftermath, seems to have caused her discontent. Her April 20th entry (no permalinks) starts:

Take a seat and hold on to something around you while I rant.

I was already sitting down, so I grasped my mouse in one hand and my coffee cup in the other. (I believe in doing more than necessary when it is warranted.) She says:

It looks like the blogosphere picked up the comments I made in Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog comments area about the destruction of the Iraqi museum and ancient historical artifacts versus saving a baby's life.

In the comments for April 12, 2003 "Loss" entry, I said:

This may sound horrible, but given a choice between saving a museum and saving a baby, I would probably run and save the museum. Better yet, I would probably offer them a choice of shooting me if that means the historical artifacts remain unharmed.

Italics hers. I am not sure what particular artifact she is talking about -- she does not seem to have considered other scenarios, such as the idea that the looter might not want to "harm" the artifact but merely remove it, or that he might solve the problem of baby and adult female in the way by shooting both of them dead and then going on to do as he pleased. (How its protector's dying will protect an inanimate object from being harmed is not something I can figure out with my weak brain.)

To her apparent surprise, her views were not accepted with universal hosannas:

I was labeled as "that Vera woman is the worst" and "Vera you make me sick" and "that moral wasteland."

Well, maybe she should have used some emoticons -- or maybe she should have used some other false dichotomy to show off her Student-of-the-Month bona fides than that one. On the internet, no one can hear you scream, but they can see things about your character that you probably didn't intend to reveal:

[...]I was amazed more and more at one thing I saw over and over -- the complete disregard on many individuals' part of the value of cultural history, cultural memory, of symbols and of principles -- not objects of great monetary value but objects of great meaning.

(Bolds are mine.) So -- symbols and principles are set against... what? Individuals? That's certainly what it looks like to me. And the anger her critics direct at her is supposed to indicate that they therefore do not value "cultural history, cultural memory" and "objects of great meaning." And we are accused of thinking in simple "black and white" terms... And her examples simply do not scan; do I really have to be the one to tell her that cultural memory means nothing if there are no living brains to hold those cultural memories?

Is it not worth to give one's life for something other than another human life?

(Bolds in the original.) Well -- that depends, I should say, on the situation and the object in question. And that really wasn't the situation in Baghdad... but we have left that city and its travails far behind by this time.

She goes on and on, wandering far off into la-la land where even the elves don't go, ranting about would we sacrifice a human life for the Cure to AIDs™ or the last recording extant of Mozart's works or the complete dvd set of Fantasy Island including Hervé Villechaise's short film Shot From a Cannon... Okay, I made that last one up, but I swear on the altar of Ishtar that the rest of them are true and there are more incredibly dull entries from the Standard Cultural References handbook that I just couldn't bear to copy and paste.

But I will not get into this fake argument anymore, this unseemly brawl over the dead bones of Mesopotamians. Personally, my problem wasn't with the hysteria over whether or not human lives were more important than the alleged looting of the Treasures of the Ages. My problem was with the hysteria surrounding the alleged looting of the Treasures of the Ages. Jim Treacher speaks for me (as they say), here: STOP THE LOOTERS. DON'T KILL ANY CIVILIANS. YES, BOTH. Wow, you mean I can have a third choice?

Bribery/Treachery update

The latest creature to hatch from the primordial ooze is George Galloway, who is some sort of Scottish commie, and who was also apparently in the pay of the Ba'ath regime, hence his rabid defense of Hussein and his cronies before the war. Links to pertinent articles in these two posts by Tim Blair. I'm sure there will be updates everywhere.

Freakish outage

Well that's odd. Earthlink seems to be down, which means I can't receive mail, and my "always on" indicator says "cannot connect, check your network" or something like that -- but I am still connected. I guess that means that Time-Warner -- excuse me, "Brighthouse" (that freaked me out when I called to get my bill and they answered with that) -- is not having the problem.

Turn to face the strange

The King is dead, long live the king!

The War of Unreason?

Apparently there is a Horrible Conspiracy™ behind the war on Saddam Hussein -- to bring democracy to the entire Middle East. I'm not kidding -- a fellow named Josh Marshall thinks this way. Wunderkinder has all the links. Quite frankly I was unaware that there was any other reason to even bother with the Middle East in the fashion that we have. If we simply wanted revenge for all the terrorist attacks against us and/or to impress the world with the mightiness of our arsenal, we would have flattened the area with a few nukes. But we aren't that kind of hegemonical empire. No -- apparently we are something worse: a nation that actually means to improve the human condition outside of its borders. Fiendish!

(Via Instapundit.)

Sign of the coming Apocalypse?

Oh. My. God. MC Hammer is on Conan. I had no idea that he was hosting new "reality teevee" show The Surreal, because I don't follow such things. I didn't even know he was still alive. Hmm... maybe I should give this teevee thing a chance.

(Personal note: if my ex-boyfriend wasn't a dad now of a toddler and waking up at 6am for some sort of "real job" gig every day, I'd be calling him and telling him to turn on Conan now, because he tormented me with the CD of all the known remixes of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" when we were dating. No that isn't why we broke up.)

PS: and a week of the White Stripes, one of the few decent bands to come out recently. Gonna be watching Conan all week.

Gripe

One of these days I'm going to sort my blogroll out. And I will have two blogrolls: one called Spiffy Movable Type (or Other Blogging Software That Works Like Pmachine) Blogs, and the other called Still Stuck on Lameass Blogspot Blogs.

Don't watch tv -- watch our tv commercial!

Just for that, Adfarters, I'm gonna turn on my tv. And I don't have cable so I don't have CNN so I can't watch your AD. Ha Ha!

Inspired by this guy and this lady.

More on Iranian Webloggers

On BuzzMachine. And here is a banner you can put on your site to show support for the blogger arrested recently in Iran.

Hobbits Go A-Hunting

I was just looking around (innocent stare) and found this, from around this past New Year's. Maybe I should set up a new category: "Things to Upset Hippie Vegans."

Those who can't do, teach

A conference is holding a panel on "warblogging." However, none of the participants are warbloggers, so far. The Trent Lott reference adds to the dated, so-2002, feel. (What use are these conference things, really, beyond a chance to collect ballpoint pens with logos on them?)

(Via Richard Bennett.)

Update: hah, their lame trackback thing doesn't work, I get a 500 internal server error. :P

Update the second: I thought I had included the link to the site. Bleh.

Fun with Instant Messenger

Heh heh. I was just complaining to Dave Tepper that I couldn't find the Lord of the Rings AIM Buddy Icons. Then I remembered that they are on the movie site. Now I'll show up as Frodo. I'm so pathetic.

Update: I've just made an icon of myself, so I may or may not change to that. I look pretty good, I think.

Update the second: I have now made the AIM name linkable -- you can click on it to send me an instant message. (Thanks to Andy at World Wide Rant.)

Outrageous, Inc.

I rarely bother talking about Florida politics, for a variety of reasons. But I have to say something about this article on our own Bob Graham's decision to run for president in 2004. I won't say he's pulling a Kerry, but he approaches that senator's technique with his statements about how he saw the country as "headed in the wrong direction" after September 11th. What direction is that, you ask? Why, towards war, of course -- what else?

It motivated him to drop his usual bipartisan approach and take on the president over what he saw as a misguided war against Iraq.

And:

The Iraq war, he argued, would distract the country from the more important battle against terrorism and could invite reprisals from terrorists in the United States.

I can see him thinking this before the war, but after a successful campaign? Are Democratic senators in some sort of different space-time continuum from the rest of us?

And the article tantalizes us with Graham's hints that the administration covered up "groups" and governments that might have aided terrorists, but doesn't name names -- I guess he is saving his bombshells for the campaign trail. What do you want to bet he's going to say "Saudi Arabia Syria Pakistan"? He claims it is because the administration didn't want to "offend" these countries -- sure, and I'm the Queen of England. Either he is too naive to be in a position of power, or what is more likely, he thinks that the American people are dumb enough to think that fear of giving offense is behind any of the machinations of this current administration's actions. Whether you disagree or not with Bush and his advisors, you must admit that they don't seem particularly concerned with anyone's feelings.

Exciting discovery

I've found Puce's guru! Now that we know his faith, maybe we can decipher his strange communiqués. Or maybe not.

(Via Dave Barry, somewhere on his Blogspot blog. What Mr. Dave "Celebrity" Barry needs is a Movable Type blog. Then again, I like having something nicer than a celebrity has. Forget I said anything.)

Happy fingers

So far I'm loving the new keyboard. It's even got a scroll wheel so I can give the old mouse hand a rest. Though I have noticed that ever since I got rid of the wheel-mouse and went back to an old-fashioned plain, two-button mouse, my mouse hand has not been as sore.

Baghdad looting update

Jim Miller has a reasoned post on the necessity of waiting until all the facts are known on the Baghdad museum looting and library burning before we start pointing fingers:

What we do know is this: Iraqi officials, from Saddams regime, have charged that there was extensive looting of the institutions they were obliged to protect. Credulous reporters, many from anti-American British newspapers, have spread this story over the entire world without much effort to check on the facts. I don't think it is intellectually responsible to go farther in our conclusions than those two points, until more facts are available.

But as he says earlier in the post, to some people this story is so good a stick to beat the US with that they prefer it be true, whether or not the facts of the case bear it out.

(Via Moira Breen.)

Stepping out

Okay, folks -- I've finally got AIM installed (I tried Trillian, but that program is just whacked for me for some reason). You'll see my AIM ID over on the sidebar. So if you want to chat, and you aren't a freak, I'll add you to my buddy list. (Freak = I decide who is a freak. You'll know if I decide you are a freak, believe me.)

10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more

Peter Jackson plays with aeroplanes:

Film maker Peter Jackson turned to directing of a different sort yesterday as he helped choreograph a World War I battle scene in the Marlborough skies.

(Via TheOneRing.net.)

Give Peace Some Pants

Okay, now Jim Treacher and Kevin Parrott are both my heroes. Post the letter, Kevin!

Update: he did!

More than a feeling

In the I Had No Idea (Probably Because I Didn't Care) department, file the news that Seventies-era rock-group Boston is apparently still together and releasing albums, though their latest one sucks, according to Kim Du Toit.

The Rules of Fisking

This is actually a pretty useful guide on copyright and libel laws as concerns the practice of "fisking" -- which I think has pretty much become a standard blogging term whether some people like it or not. (Note: this is a straight target link to the post, because as usual Blogspot's archives are screwed up. As such, the link will rot once the post scrolls off the main page. It's the post for April 21, 2003, at 5:48 AM.)

Via Instapundit.

It's the stupidity, stupid

Deb explains freedom of speech to Tim Robbins and Co.

Scratch an actor...

"...and you'll find an actress." -- Dorothy Parker.

It seems that someone thinks Elijah Wood is Very Very Gay. Now why would someone think that? (Actually, it is my theory that all actors are gay, and all actresses are straight, which is why they -- the actresses -- are so bitchy. Why do you think La Sarandon really has that look on her face all the time like she just bit into an underripe lime?)

Update: oops! I forgot to say -- via Dave Tepper, who's been a very naughty boy. Probably.

Unigolyn

Check out Unigolyn, "an individual from Estonia." Especially this post, about looting and anarchy after a totalitarian regime falls. And I am glad I was right about the site description -- it is in Welsh. I just have one question: why Welsh and not Estonian?

Punk Rock girl

Way cool: a website dedicated to my favorite Quincy episode, the one where the punk rock kid gets killed. Like this writer and her friends, my friends and I also mocked this episode relentlessly. At the time, of course, it was stilted and silly, even though many of the things featured in the episode were actually true (a lot of punkers really did slash their skin, most of punk was relentlessly negative, at least that segment of the punk scene that made the mistake of taking itself too seriously -- but even the sarcasm inherent in the Sex Pistols' shtick was a dark, nihilisitic sarcasm). What we didn't realize was how prescient it was -- but then, we couldn't have realized it, because some things you come to understand only through the passage of time. Now I am more likely to listen to the sort of music that ends the show than loud punk or goth stuff (though I still crank up the loudness on occasion), and I am not as sanguine about idiot kid movements as I was, even though ny "involvement" with the punk scene went no farther than listening to the music and going to concerts. (No self-mutilation for this girl, thank you very much.) So I would probably not be so inclined to laugh at the "naive" reactions of Quincy and the other squares in the show the way I used to.

I will say, though, I have never seen the CHIPs punk rock episode. There were just some things I refused to do, and watching CHIPs was one of those things.

(Via Fraterslibertas.)

Domestication?

More evidence that I'm really a man. Here's what I left in the comments:

Hmmm.

Carpet has cat hair dustballs stacked an inch high in the corner. Check.

Kitchen floor looks like the remains of an archaeological trench after a rainstorm. Check.

Dirty laundry piled on bedroom floor. Check.

Wall of: computer and peripherals, laser printer, tv, dvd player. Check.

Books lying all over the place. Check.

Bed unmade. Check.

Unused yet working computer taking up space in bedroom. Check.

Cardboard boxes from move a year and a half ago, contents still inside, stacked against walls, serving as "temporary" furniture for spare tv. Check.

Refrigerator contains: new carton of coffee cream, three-quarters of a stick of butter, some oranges, half a loaf of bread, and a row of "Peeps" Easter candy from last year. Check.

Verdict: I'm really a man.

Well. I did by a new scent thing for the plug-in air freshener. But really, all the men I have known have not only not been slobs, they have been almost fanatically neat. Picking up fresh crumbs off the carpet with their fingers neat. Stacking things in anal little piles everywhere neat. It's probably a good thing though. If I met a man like me our house would probably end up on the news as one of those homes that the health department people had to clean out with a backhoe.

Two Towers dvd news

Here's some release info for the 2-disc set. I wonder if this time I will be able to hold out for the extended release...

Florida nature

I've been playing with my toy digital camera. Here is a picture of the current scourge of my sinuses (click for larger). I don't know what these things are called, and they are pretty, but they are killing my nasal passages:

And here is a picture of a view of some swampland out near Osteen:

I had to pull over and park at the beginning of a bridge to get the picture, and cars and trucks and such were whizzing past me at great speed, because no one here drives under 50 miles per hour if they don't have to.

Iranian blogger/journalist arrested

The Iranian government continues to dig themselves into a hole; now they have gone and arrested a journalist and blogger who was well-known and popular in that country. The excuse the authorities gave for the arrest sounds like the usual compendium of totalitarian weasel words: "threatening the national security by giving interviews to Persian language radios outside Iran, wrtiting articles both in newspapers and his weblog." Yeah, words threaten governments who are losing their hold on power. Sounds like they are taking the Castro route of reaction to the success of the US and its allies in Iraq. But unlike Castro, the Iranian government doesn't have a contingent of leftist celebrity twits to defend their every move.

I think I know where Puce gets his material

Experiment: take this Mark Morford column, and run a phrase or two from it -- pick one at random, it doesn't matter -- through Google's translator. Try English-to-German then back to English.

I picked this:

Who's your daddy, beeyatch? Thump thump thump on the manly chest of great liberator America! Liberals suck! Go, war! It's Miller Time.

First to German:

Wer ist Ihr Vati, beeyatch? Thump Thumpthump auf dem manly Kasten des großen Befreiers Amerika! Liberale saugen! Gehen Sie, war! Es Ist MillercZeit.

And got this:

Who is your dad, beeyatch? Thump Thumpthump on manly the box of the large Befreiers America! Liberals suck! If you go, was! It is Miller time.

See how it now makes more sense? Puce just lifts Morford's sentences right from his column verbatim. For shame!

"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out"

Well, well, well:

Germany's intelligence services attempted to build closer links to Saddam's secret service during the build-up to war last year, documents from the bombed Iraqi intelligence HQ in Baghdad obtained by The Telegraph reveal.

They show that an agent named as Johannes William Hoffner, described as a "new German representative in Iraq" who had entered the country under diplomatic cover, attended a meeting with Lt Gen Taher Jalil Haboosh, the director of Iraq's intelligence service.

As I said, all sorts of things are going to come to light. (Via Steven Den Beste.)

Woof!

Oh no, Mr. Glenn Reynolds hasn't been kidnapped... he's been throwing puppies in the blender! Hey, it's from Frank J., so you know it's reliable news. Right?

And look -- another scandal! Compromising the lives of puppies for the sake of the family dog and the Children™, suuure... We believe you.

The ultimate keyboard quest, cont.

We'll see if this does the trick. At least it has a bigger backspace key. (Click for a larger pic.)

Pucism of the day

Rumpseld small Lord Ring caracter, talk US killbaby soldier, lies lies. Wepon find? OOOOP!!! CLICK

Golden.

Shoot the imams

As usual, where there is trouble in a Muslim country you can usually find an imam at the center of it. Why don't we take these guys out? As in -- take them out to the desert and leave them there. So they want us gone, do they? They should be careful what they ask for. We could just up and leave, citing these "requests," and let them pick up all the mess themselves.

As for the complaints in Baghdad about their city being without running water and electricity for two whole weeks -- what a bunch of wimps. After Hurricane Andrew passed by my neighborhood my block was without electricity for three weeks, in the middle of August, when temps went up to the high nineties and even the low hundreds. (As for water, 1992 was a drought year -- Andrew was one of the driest hurricanes ever, with hardly any rain; it was mostly wind and storm surge. And we were occupied by the US Army too, and we also had plenty of looters.)

(Via Tim Blair.)

Alternative Weekly Blues

Well here in Disney World we have one of those ubiquitous weeklies that purport to show the "alternative" side of life in whatever communities they infest. The Orlando Weekly is like all the other (Insert City) Weeklies: ads for liposuction, breast implants, and tattooes, lists of local garage band appearances, reviews of foreign and independent films, a general air of earnest superiority. I think a chain puts them out.

These things were useful back in the days when I still used to go to concerts and clubs and was still interested in the music scene, but now they just seem like another sort of boring filler. I happened to pick one up at the Thai restaurant I went to tonight, because I had forgotten my book and I can't sit there and eat without something to read. I ended up only being able to make it through a review of a local 24-hour Mexican place (not far from me, I think I'll check it out some 3am). The feature story was this woman's tale of woe thinly disguised as yet-another-tired-complaint that you can't find a good abortionist when you need one. It actually digs up the now-ancient fight in this state over the "Choose Life" car tag movement. Now, I don't know anyone who didn't know that this tag and the people behind it were against abortion and thus trying to promote alternatives -- and whether the writer likes it or not, things like not getting an abortion are alternatives to getting an abortion -- but she professes to be shocked, yes shocked, that

The Choose Life Inc. website even promotes the tag as a way to "speak up for the unborn."

The entire article reads like it was written several years ago. And the writer's own story of her travails as an abused woman only makes me want to write an entire side essay on how the feminist movement has abandoned women in favor of power and pleasure. (Stay tuned for that one.)

So then I turned to this little essay: "Get What You Give." The on-site synopsis is: "the touchy business of supporting our troops without being driven by guilt." Sounds more like "the touchy business of supporting our troops without having to give up one's feelings of moral superiorty. The writer does not seem to have many sources of news. For instance, she writes:

But is anyone else wondering how the women and children are faring in a country where men and money do the talking? There's been a suspicious absence of everyday women in the war coverage; the same for the word "rape." There is so much more unthinkable suffering yet to be uncovered.

I am not sure what she is trying to say here, because like too many writers found in periodicals of all sorts these days she is irritatingly vague in the way she expresses things. For example, in the paragraph where she describes a neighbor who is trying to put the charitable squeeze on her it is not clear who is being referred to in this sentence, the writer or the neighbor: "I served as a military wife and have firefighters in the family." This vagueness resulting in incoherence is yet another effect of the Politically Correct school of writing, where you can't refer to anything definitely because that might insult somebody, somewhere, someday.

In any case, what does the passage quoted above, about "everyday" women and children, have to do with the problems in supporting the troops? Not a thing, it was just dropped in there like a lug nut into a bowl of jello. As for there not being any, or many, stories or interviews of women and children, I supposed it has not occurred to her that the old-fashioned Muslims which populate most of rural Iraq probably keep the women in the background and let the men do all the public speaking, especially to strange Western invaders. But to say so might get the writer accused of ethnic prejudice, so instead she leaves the passage seeming to infer that the coalition troops are raping the native women.

I'll end here, because I am just bored with this paper and its website. I can only read so much of this stuff before getting a headache. But one more complaint: she quotes someone as saying that "economic time are 'uncertain.'" Sometimes I think that some people never got over having to move out of their parents' homes and no longer being able to depend on their weekly allowance. The economy is always uncertain, life is uncertain. Whether or not I will get any sleep tonight is uncertain. What isn't uncertain, though, is that this essay sucks.

I love me, I hate you

Photon Courier has a post on a study showing that -- surprise! -- focusing on a child's "self-esteem" turns kids into lazy little pricks if they are lucky, and borderline-psychotic delinquents if they (and we) aren't.

What surprises me is why this "just keep telling Johnny how great he is!" shtick lasted so long. Actually -- no it doesn't. After all, this self-esteem nonsense has been going on since I was in school -- that's a good thirty-plus years ago. I was fortunate in that I was smart enough to escape more than the edges of this nonsense, because in the early days the Self-Esteemers ignored the smart kids, figuring if anything that smart kids had too much self-esteem. Then the first generation of below-average-to-average kids who had been bathed full-on in SE-rays grew up, and entered the education system on the other side of the desk podium lectern beanbag chair on the floor of the rec room, because that was all they were fit for, to be clones of their indoctr-- I mean, instructors. Now Self-Esteem Building™ has become a lucrative profession. Just visit any bookstore and scan the titles on the shelves in the Self-Help section.

But I digress from my original subject: why the SE crap only makes kids worse, not better. I think it has everything to do with the openly empty-calorie nature of the movement's methods. Since they come from the low end of the dummy side of the bell curve, the SE-ists are not the most perceptive people in the world. They see smiling, obedient children and think: "Our videos and posters are working!" No, a child's desire to please is working. Children, at least up to puberty, are incredibly easy to manipulate emotionally. Of course they are going to smile at a video that is nothing but some cartoon character telling them how wonderful they are. (And half of them are drugged on Ritalin or other kiddy calmers.) But deep down inside they know that they are being lied to, and it causes them to develop another wonderful emotion that has added so much to our society: contempt, mainly for the people in charge, such as the adults who are feeding them this load of garbage. It's no surprise to me that children are turning out twisted. Their caretakers were spoiled rotten for the most part too.

Decisions, decisions...

Coffee or sleep?
Coffee or sleep?
Coffee... sleep?

Eh. I can sleep when I'm dead. Excuse me a minute.

Update: check it out!

A present from DavidMSC.

Baghdad museum looting developments

Jeff Jarvis has 'em. Read the comments too.

Update: here's an article on the WSJ's Opinionjournal on the real looter of Iraq's historical treasures and history: Saddam Hussein. (Via Tim Blair.)

Biological weapon of mass destruction

While people are still crying over the missing artifacts, a much more important ancient artifact was really destroyed by Saddam Hussein: the Tigris-Euphrates wetlands, which may have been the inspiration for the story of the Garden of Eden. Why did he do it? To get back at the Marsh Arabs for opposing his regime. He didn't even bother using the excuse that he wanted to build a new Walmart. Anyway, it looks as if now that he is out of there, the marshes can be at least partially restored. Read the whole story. (And I agree with Glenn Reynolds: Bush will still be considered an anti-environmentalist president, mostly because he declined to ratify a useless piece of paper (the Kyoto thing).

Lifting Iraq

Steven Den Beste has a long comentary on the CNN Brouhaha: the revelations of CNN's acquiescence in the Saddam Hussein regime's suppression of unfavorable news stories. At the very end he has this to say, to a reader's speculation that Eason released his report to stave off unfavorable "spin" caused by revelations of what would be found in Iraq:

That seems like a completely reasonable explanation to me. I wonder who else out there is becoming nervous about captured Iraq records?

I will say that when I first heard this story the first thing I thought of was this line from the tv series I, Claudius, where Claudius keeps saying: "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out." I think I know why so many groups were dead-set against this invasion, and it had nothing to do with the ickiness of war or concern over precious ruins and artifacts. I wonder what sort of slimy creatures will slither out into the light of day in the coming weeks and months.

Iranian blogs update

Hossein Derakhshan is now off Blogger and using Movable Type. Check out the pics! Mmm... Sangak bread looks like nan bread...

We have quite a large Iranian (call them Persian!) community in Florida, especially around Orlando. I haven't seen any Persian restaurants, though. But there was one in Miami in my old neighborhood that I ate at a couple of times, good food -- I recall the flat bread like that pictured here, and a yoghurty dip for it, and some sort of ground meat on a skewer over rice the name of which I forget. Before I moved up to O-town, the place had become a pizza take-out joint.

1,001 Things to Do With a Live Terrorist

I love Dipnut's idea. Which is actually here. Bob Lang also has a nice idea. Dipnut is right though: I was too kind. I was kind of thinking, though, that maybe they could be sort of well-fed sharks, not really all that hungry right then, maybe just looking for a little snack, something to fill up those little extra inner spaces. They could just sort of chew on Abu for a while, and then he could be pitched overboard.

Hm. I haven't read The Hobbit in while. I'm not sure why I just thought of that.

The New FAQ

Comments will now be closed after fifteen days.

I do not tolerate emotional abuse. Abusers will be banned. Behavior I would not tolerate in a real-life relationship will not be tolerated here. That goes for people who use the "you said mean things to me in the past" bullshit argument on me. Trust me, I do not remember all the people I have insulted in the course of my life much less in the years I have been on the internet. If I said something to you two years ago on someone's blog comments, I have forgotten it, because I did not and do not care. Don't bring it up unless you want to be freshly insulted. (Read the comments here for an example of what I mean.)

Banning policy: unpredictable, and totally arbitrary. There is no one else to appeal to: I am the sole proprietor and absolute ruler of this website. What I say here goes. Don't like it? That's just Too. Fucking. Bad.

Whining about being insulted by me is liable to produce one or more of the following responses: further insults and mockery, cursing and ranting directed at the whiner, banning the whiner's IP. What it will not result in: craven contrition, promises to be sweeter and more understanding, an offer to buy the whiner dinner and send flowers and candy to make up. If you are a thin-skinned, fragile-egoed sort, I suggest you make this visit to my blog your last, because sooner or later I will rub you the wrong way and like as not ruin your week.

I am female. I am not: nurturing, your mother, kind and loving, patient, ready to listen to your troubles, your psychiatrist, your priest, your grandma, your girlfriend, your muse. If this disappoints you, get an electron microscope and look through it -- you may be able to see the tiny violin I am playing for you.

If you don't like my new rules, we can meet on the corner of Tough and Shit and work it out. Not.

More on those old pots

This will not change the minds of those who believe it was America's and America's fault only that the Baghdad Museum got looted, but here it is anyway: Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Antiquity Vaults:

Paris (AP) - Some of the looters who ravaged Iraqi antiquities had keys to museum vaults and were able to take pieces from safes, experts said Thursday at an international meeting.

The U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, gathered some 30 art experts and cultural historians in Paris on Thursday to assess the damage to Iraqi museums and libraries looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.

Although much of the looting was haphazard, experts said some of the thieves clearly knew what they were looking for and where to find it, suggesting they were prepared professionals.

"It looks as if part of the looting was a deliberate planned action," said McGuire Gibson, a University of Chicago professor and president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad. "They were able to take keys for vaults and were able to take out important Mesopotamian materials put in safes."

Cultural experts, curators and law enforcement officials are scrambling to track down the missing antiquities and prevent further looting of the valuables.

The pillaging has ravaged the irreplaceable Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections that chronicled ancient civilization in Mesopotamia, and the losses have triggered an impassioned outcry in cultural circles.

Many fear the stolen artifacts have been absorbed into highly organized trafficking rings that ferry the goods through a series of middlemen to collectors in Europe, the United States and Japan.

Officials at the UNESCO meeting at its headquarters in Paris said the information was still too sketchy to determine exactly what was missing and how many items were unaccounted for.

But they were united in calling for quick action to track down the pilfered items.

"I have a suspicion it was organized outside the country, in fact I'm pretty sure it was," said Gibson. He added that if a good police team was put together, "I think it could be cracked in no time."

Critics of the failure of the coalition to stop the looting have been acting as if those things were so safe in the museum when the country was under Saddam's rule. They have been using this event as an occasion for moral grandstanding and as yet another opportunity to call the president a moron and his administration a pack of grunting Neanderthals. Even though I am sure that these outraged guardians of human culture don't actually believe that old pots (and pretty gold things) are more important than freeing a country of its thuggish dictator, they certainly came off that way.

Now I am going to tell you all a secret about myself: in general, I prefer interesting artifacts from ancient civilizations to people. Heck, I prefer old moldy bread crusts to some people. But you know what -- I realize, at least, that this is a fault within myself, however jokingly I may speak of my misanthropy, and I have trained myself to not give into this feeling when there is no good reason to, and to not brag about this tendency of mine as if it was some kind of virtue. I mean, after all, my most favoritest novel has as its plot line the necessity of destroying an ancient, powerful, unique, and most precious gold object.

(Via A Small Victory.)

Above and beyond

This will break many hearts: U.S. troops cringe as they crush classic cars in Iraq:

Dozens of classic cars owned by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and other Baath Party leaders were among the choicest selections for looters in Baghdad. But U.S. concerns that the cars could be used in suicide bombings or roadblocks has resulted in orders to have them destroyed.

..................

The decision to destroy the cars was a painful one for many soldiers.

"I love cars. It was hard to see a Bel Air destroyed," said Pfc. Raul Carbajal, a 20-year-old from Chicago.

I am waiting for the first article or comment from someone comparing this destruction and the emotional response of the soldiers to it to the American (but not that of British or Australian or any other coalition members) "callousness" towards the Iraqi's destruction of their own museums and libraries. Feel free to post a link if you come upon one.

(Via Colby Cosh.)

Just like prison

So Robert Fisk is feeling the Iraqi's oppression and pain again -- at the hands of the coalition forces, what else? It seems that "the Americans" (the heck with the other member nations of the coalition, they're just dupes and fools, I guess) have issued a request to people in Baghdad to not leave their homes at night since fighting is still going on and, you know, someone might get hurt. At least, that's how it reads to me, but Fisk Knows Better:

So now – with neither electricity nor running water – the millions of Iraqis here are ordered to stay in their homes from dusk to dawn. Lockdown. It's a form of imprisonment. In their own country. Written by the command of the 1st US Marine Division, it's a curfew in all but name.

Gasp! Curfew. The most dreaded word in the English language to someone like Fisk. I left this in Steven Chapman's comments, but I figured I might share my wisdom with you all:

[...]here we have an example of what really frightens those that are pleased to call themselves the "progressive left" -- the idea that anyone's personal movements should be subject to any restriction whatsoever, no matter how temporary and how much for one's own good, and no matter if it is in effect nothing more than a request and a caution. I still remember my friends and I back in our own "progressive" days getting shriekingly indignant over a city-imposed curfew on Miami's teens, even though we were already in our twenties at the time and so the law didn't even apply to us, and even though it was in an effort (only semi-successful) to cut down on teen crime and gang warfare inside city limits.

I know it's a cliché now to refer to P.J. O'Rourke, but something he said about the essentially toddler-like philosophy of modern-day "liberals" still stands: freedom to them means the right to "put anything in their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums." (From Give War a Chance.)

I have a new hero

His or her name is Puce.

Pucisms:

Make as fat US, kill in sands with plane tank and wepon

Hallo fat America! Chew and smiling for flappy stomich fill with more Irak childs, phoney towerevenge. Statue fallens from Sadam, put Chucky Cheeze rastorant with cola in locate!

BOY GROW AS SOLDIER FOR SPILL BLOOD TO IRAK SAND!!

Swoon!

This Old Pot

The sequel to This Old House: a modern-day Iraqi family coping with invading coalition forces, water and food shortages, looting, the wacky efforts of Zany Younger Son Hassan and his get-rich schemes involving some gold artifacts he "found somewhere," and importunate yet clueless British journalists, will be shown on a split screen with their counterpart Sumerian family from five thousand years in the past (and five-hundred feet under the present-day house), and their zany, wacky adventures coping with invading Hittites, half-witted Younger Son Um-Pal and his crazy get-rich schemes involving gold-leaf-encrusted court seals he "found somewhere," as well as corrupt priests of Ishtar, plagues, and famine. All playing on this channel. Tim Robbins narrates.

Seeds of Our Demise, Pt. 568

Rodney King is the world's luckiest congenital fuck-up. That's all I can say.

(Via Acidman.)

Tapestry of lies

A while back I got into a fight on someone's comments over the issue of whether or not Colin Powell made the U.N. cover a tapestry rendition of Picasso's "Guernica" out of "discomfort with its antiwar message." I finally had enough and wrote this post. Anyway, here is an article with more proof that the "Guernica" fuss was manufactured out of -- excuse the pun -- whole cloth. Of course, proof isn't enough for some people -- heck, actually being there and witnessing the event themselves wouldn't be enough for some people, but I just wanted to point this out.

(Via Tim Blair. See the post for April 17, 4:22pm. Also: comments for that old post of mine are turned off so don't try to comment there.)

Blogger gets sucked into TV screen

Details this coming Monday: Michele's gonna be on CNN