state tax revenues rise. and oddly enough, they rose the most in states that raised taxes the least. could that mean tax cuts work? nah.
h/t say anything
20060228
not too shabby
20060227
brief conversation with a cleash
cleash: ikko nok grish!
me: you are a giant bug, did you know that?
cleash: nokko ono! smile ko.
me: time to melt you into bug sludge!
cleash: POKO
at which point he attacks me, and gets melted into bug sludge
i wonder if they thought about that before writing it...
the william j. clinton foundation is looking for 25 interns who are looking for some hands-on experience.
h/t michelle malkin via wizbang
20060225
again, with me not getting it
after reading this post over at wizbang, i left a comment that is basically what i'm about to ask here: why the hell do bush and congress have to come to some sort of agreement over whether or not one foreign company can buy another foreign company? i realize that the decision will affect our ports--although as more and more comes out about it, it seems like less and less of a big deal--but shouldn't that be between foreign company A and foreign company B? maybe i'm just misreading it... maybe we aren't deciding for them whether or not they can purchase the company, but saying something along the lines of, "if you buy it, we're not going to use them at our ports any more." who knows. again, let me know what you think.
will play basketball for grades
wow. i don't feel so bad about my basketball obsessed school and town any more.
20060224
life is good
playing alien logic, eating a croissant, and drinking fat tire. does it get any better than that? i submit that it does not.
what does that even mean?
i broke out laughing when i read the following passage from "the mysterious island" by jules verne. i found it quite hilarious, but also rather confusing. the book is set at the time of the American Civil War.
Characters involved:
*Neb, a former slave who loved his master so much that he stayed on as a servant
*Gideon Spilett, a reporter for the New York Herald
*Pencroft, a sailor
*Herbert, a young man
Characters not making an appearance:
*Cyrus Harding, a military engineer for the Union Army
*Top, a dog
this group has been stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere in the south pacific, and has just found and begun to open a chest they found washed up on shore.
"Oh!" cried Neb, "suppose it's jam!"
"I hope not," replied the reporter.
"If only there was--" said the sailor in a low voice.
"What?" asked Neb, who overheard him.
"Nothing!"
The covering of the zinc was torn off and thrown back over the sides of the chest, and by degrees numerous articles of very varied character were produced and strewn about on the sand. At each new object Pencroft uttered fresh hurrahs, Herbert clapped his hands, and Neb danced--like a nigger. There were books which made Herbert wild with joy, and cooking utensils which Neb covered with kisses!
i thought to myself after reading that, what the heck does that even mean? that it's just like a n****r to dance at a time like that? he's dancing in a fashion common among n****rs? i'm really not sure what the point of that little addendum is. discuss amongst yourselves. or, as is more likely, amongst myself, since i'll probably be the only one to leave a comment.
good news, and just news
1) south dakota ok's ban on most abortions
which proves, although not conclusively, that south dakotans are much smarter than people give them credit for. opponents, of course, are worried that there are no exceptions for rape and incest. as i've said before, however, rape sucks, but killing the baby isn't going to make things better.
If a rape victim becomes pregnant and bears a child, the rapist could have the same parental rights as the mother, said Krista Heeren-Graber, executive director of the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.
“The idea the rapist could be in the child’s life ... makes the woman very, very fearful. Sometimes they need to have choice,” Heeren-Graber said.
so instead, the obvious choice is to kill the child. that way, it will have no life for the rapist to be part of. although to me that seems like curing a tooth ache by lopping off someone's head... not really a bright idea.
planned parenthood has said they will sue to block the legislature (although as rob brought up, wouldn't it be nice if, instead of worrying about abortions, they provided money for vasectomies and tube tying, preventing the whole unwanted pregnancy thing in the first place? but nah, that would make too much sense), but many people are also springing to its defense:
Money for the anticipated legal fight is already pouring in. Lawmakers were told during the debate that an anonymous donor has pledged $1 million to defend the ban, and the Legislature is setting up a special account to accept donations. “We’ve had people stopping in our office trying to drop off checks to promote the defense of this legislation already,” [Governor] Rounds said.
which, in my opinion, is just great.
2) 21 more states considering "stand your ground" laws
again, good news. the "stand your ground" laws will make it so that you no longer have to try running away from an assailant before trying to defend yourself. critics are, of course, worried that caps will busted left and right, both in people's asses and elsewhere.
"You don't just broadly paint a new statewide law saying, if you're in doubt, go ahead and shoot and kill the other person," says Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington. "It's anathema to peace and calm in our communities."
which, in my opinion, is the exact opposite of what would happen. imagine you're a mugger armed with a knife. in a state without an SYG law, you're set... when the person tries to run, you run them down, stab them, and take whatever you were after. now imagine you're in a state with SYG laws and concealed weapons permits. anyone you try to mug could conceivably pull a gun on you and shoot you in the face. or, at the very least, scare you out of trying to use your knife. i would think that mugging would suddenly become much less popular. as myself and many others have said before, criminals aren't going to obey the gun laws anyways. the SYG laws are a good way to start leveling the playing field:
Indeed, those lobbying for the "Stand Your Ground" legislation say the proposed laws are ... sending a powerful message to would-be criminals. These laws "make it very clear that the good guy has the advantage, not the bad guy," says Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Va.
and best of all, my home state of washington is one of the states considering it. who knows what the folks on the west side of the mountains will think of it... but then again, who really cares what they think anyways?
h/t say anything
3) holy shi'ite, iraq is devolving into civil war!
or so the NYT would have us believe. they bring out some random guy named abu abbas (a nick-name) to make their point:
and this:The violence on Wednesday was the closest Iraq had come to civil war, and Iraqis were stunned. In Al Amin, a neighborhood in southeast Baghdad, a Shiite man said he had watched gunmen set a house on fire. It was identified as the residence of Sunni Arab militants, said the man, Abu Abbas, though no one seemed to know for sure who they were.
"We all were shocked," said Abu Abbas, a vegetable seller, standing near crates of oranges and tomatoes. "We saw it burning. We called the fire department. We didn't know how to behave. Chaos was everywhere."
Of the seven men inside, at least three were brought out dead, said Abu Abbas, 32, who said it would be dangerous to give more than his Iraqi nickname.
A Shiite newspaper, Al Bayyna al Jadidah, used unusually angry language in a front-page editorial: "It's time to declare war against anyone who tries to conspire against us, who slaughters us every day. It is time to go to the streets and fight those outlaws."
and then we have NRO; who, to be sure, have a definite bias of their own, but i consider them to be much more reliable than the NYT (about half the article is posted here; go read the rest):
The attack was most probably perpetrated by al Qaeda, which has been trying to foment civil strife in Iraq for some time, and declared open war on the Shiites last year. They have mounted numerous provocative attacks on Shia and Kurdish targets, to no noticeable effect. This strike was much more audacious; the (previously) golden-domed shrine is an ancient and revered structure, and the tombs within are holy both to Shiites and Sunnis, though more so to the former. The initial retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques must have pleased Zarqawi; if taking down this site did not start the civil war, nothing would.sounds to me like they're doing pretty good to me. yeah, violence is still a problem. but with different religious sects coming together to protest it--much like republicans and democrats did in the wake of 9/11--things are definitely looking up. now if only they--and we, for that matter--can get to the point where it doesn't take a national/religious tragedy to bring them together, they'll truly have it made.So the foreign fighters must have been stunned when Shiite and Sunni leaders rushed out statements saying they knew that the takfiri (i.e., those who accuse other Muslims of being infidels, a code word in this context for the foreign extremists) were behind the attack, and they would not let this act of brutality divide Iraq. In an announcement on his website Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani blamed “takfiris [who] meant to foment sedition among the Iraqi people, thus fulfilling their malicious goals.” He has called for seven days of mourning and peaceful demonstrations in response to the bombing. He added, “we urge everyone not to be dragged into committing acts that would only please the enemies, namely, the sectarian sedition which they have long attempted to push Iraq into its furnace.” Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr — remember him? — blamed the attack on the takfiri, Saddam loyalists, and “the occupation.” “We should not attack Sunni mosques,” he said on al Jazeera. “I ordered [his militia the] Al-Mahdi Army to protect the Shiite and Sunni shrines and to show a high sense of responsibility, something they actually did.” (Nice that they followed orders, did this surprise him?)
Sunni groups followed suit. The Association of Muslim Scholars posted a statement condemning this “suspicious criminal act that seeks to stir sedition and unrest” and the “perpetrators and masterminds of this act, who wish to harm Iraq and divide its people for the sake of their personal agendas and the interests and schemes of foreign powers in this ravaged country.” Likewise the National Dialogue Council denounced the attempt to “divide Iraq and light the flame of civil war between its sons,” and the Iraqi Islamic Party called for self restraint, even as its offices were attacked, saying that in a civil war there would be no winner.
h/t again to say anything, for pointing out the NRO article
20060223
wal-mart expands health care programs
although the ap still manages to make the story look negative, i think. oh well. by next year, wal-mart plans to make $11 dollar monthly insurance premiums available to half it's US workers, or roughly 650,000 people. their enemies--in this case, the folks at wake up wal-mart--say that it's basically just a PR stunt. but that's less than my monthly premiums, and i work for a bank. wal-mart is also reducing the amount of time before the part-time employees can access their benefits, though they're not sure how long yet. which is also fairly impressive. i'm pretty sure that the bank i work at has benefits for the part time workers (all two of them), but i know that i didn't when i was originally hired for a seasonal position.
on a sort of side note, at least one other blog that posted that internal wal-mart memo i put up a few days back actually heard from the new york times about it. apparently my 5-10 hits a day--several of which come from myself--weren't enough to warrant the NYT's attention. but i still find the situation fairly humorous.
20060222
where did i come from?
i've been wondering for awhile what's up with all the i's in apple products; itunes, ipod, etc. there is no i in apple. turns out i'm not the only one who's noticed.
20060221
bill gates: the next constantine?
bear with me here.
1) a few years back now, gates and his team at microsoft developed windows xp.
2) constantine, before fighting a battle that would make him the sole ruler of the roman empire, supposedly had a dream in which Christ told him "by this sign you will conquer." here are a few versions of that sign:
called the "chi rho," it symbolizes the beginning of the name of Christ. which, i suppose, could also mean that bill gates has a God-complex. discuss amongst yourselves.
20060220
lack of posting
i realize i was a bit light on posting over the weekend. but in my defense, i was playing alien logic (user review), a really great game from the mid-90s that was based on a tabletop RPG. i would love to see a new version of it, but i doubt that will happen. oh well. took me about 20 minutes of fiddling with a dos emulator to get it to work, and i just figured out how to get it running smoothly last night. which meant i was then up till about 2 playing it. good times. on which note, i'm off to bed... 6:30 in the morning is not my friend. although though in its defense, neither is anything else that ends with "in the morning."
20060217
temperatures rise!
sort of. it was 0 (zero) degrees when i left the house this morning at 7, and 9 degrees when i got back around 5:30. which is an increase, but it's definitely on its way back down, so i don't think there will be any net gain for the day.
all temperatures in fahrenheit.
fuzzy logic
but stick with me anyways.
the new york times hates wal-mart. [free registration required, i believe]
the people love wal-mart.
therefore, the new york times is the enemy of the people.
though that was definitely not a logical argument (both premises are true, but the conclusion isn't necessarily true), it seems fairly accurate.
i think there was a theme for this at one point, but i lost it. mainly, it's a sort of "go wal-mart!" thing.
first off, an internal Wal-Mart memo* from Lee Scott, chief executive of Wal-Mart:
Well, we had been looking for ways to promote Lee’s Garage, and it looks like the New York Times has done that for us. The reporters take issue with my tone in some cases, but as you all know, with me, what you see is what you get. I will respectfully tell it like it is. I think the story ends on an important point, quoting my advice to an up-and-coming leader: “The first thing you can do is make sure you treat your people well, and understand that your associates are what will make you a success.” I truly believe that and think you can’t go wrong in this business if you live by that. Feel free to check out Lee’s Garage on the WIRE and see what you think.)
after which, i've decided to become lazy, and only partially dissect the article linked to above. in one moment of wal-mart bashing, the NYT brings in the following situation:
But its tone is at times biting. In his response to the store manager who asked about retiree health benefits, Mr. Scott wrote: "Quite honestly, this environment isn't for everyone. There are people who would say, 'I'm sorry, but you should take the risk and take billions of dollars out of earnings and put this in retiree health benefits and let's see what happens to the company.' If you feel that way, then you as a manager should look for a company where you can do those kinds of things."
which, when you get right down to it, is right on. never forget that wal-mart is a business; businesses exist to make money. if wal-mart is forced to spend billions of dollars on health care and retirement benefits, that's billions of dollars that can't be spent elsewhere; areas like opening new locations and creating more jobs, or rewarding its stock holders. if you don't like the fact that you don't get those benefits at wal-mart, then don't work there. that's part of the beauty of a free market... if you're not getting paid what you think you're worth, you can leave and look for something better. of course, if you're not actually worth as much as you think you are, odds are you'll fall on your face, but such is life. you've got the same opportunities as the rest of us (TR's "square deal,") so it's up to you to choose wisely.
on a totally unrelated note, i have a 3-day weekend coming up, which i am going to begin enjoying right.... now.
*from an anonymous (but reliable) source, as well! i bet i can hold out longer than judith miller when the feds come after me.
20060216
quote of the week
"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." --Robert Frost
hooray for parodies
this time, it's "star wars: the empire brokeback"
if you do a little hunting, you can also find "brokeback to the future," which is also hilarious.
20060215
national insult week, day last
we've finally reached the end. as i mentioned at the beginning, the last day is a sort of general category, without a specific target. here's a list of people/things that should feel insulted by this post:
*al gore, for being a nut case
*christmas music. it's nice the first time, but after about 2 straight months, it starts to get old.
--people not named bing crosby or nat king cole who try to sing classic christmas music
*liberals, for being complete morons
*too many republicans, for acting like liberals
*the joos; i actually kinda like them, but if they're insulting themselves, why can't i?
*black people who say "the N-word" and then get pissed when white people do the same
*illegal immigrants. once i'm president, you're all headed home.
*businesses that rely heavily on illegal immigrants for labor. if you're that dependent on something that's against the law, it's probably time to find a new line of business.
*people who bash wal-mart. if it were really that bad, they wouldn't have nearly 25,000 people applying for 325 positions at a new chicago-area store
*people who use their right to free speech to bash the military and government. and conveniently ignore the fact that the groups they seem to be so buddy-buddy with (ex: cindy sheehan and caesar chavez) would not allow them to do the same thing.
*pat robertson, also for being a moron. you're giving us normal Christians a bad name buddy.
*ann coulter. she's smart, hot, and very conservative, but i do think her "raghead" comments were going just a bit overboard. you're sinking to the level of our opponents ann... don't do that.
*PETA, again, this time for having things backwards. vegetables aren't food, they're what food eats.
*any group that has either refused to publish or condemned the "mohammed cartoons," bowing to pressure from islam. a fight is brewing, and sooner or later they'll lash out against you anyways (example: britain, who had nothing to do with the cartoons, being threatened by muslims); i say, if they want a fight, bring it on. it may take us most of the day to mop things up, but we'll have their asses kicked in time to enjoy barker's beauties prancing around on the price is right. while eating ham for a late breakfast.
*michael newdow, for being a moron. we're not forcing you to believe in God, so why do you feel the need to force our beliefs out of the public view? if we can ignore your lack of faith, why can't you just ignore the fact that we have faith?
*jimmy carter. he may be a good man (take his work with habitat for humanity, for example), but he needs some work on his "foreign policy." he failed to find a resolution to the iranian hostage crisis, and i still think he needs to be tried under the logan act for his dealings with north korea, which basically ended with us giving them a bunch of free oil.
*people who try to sue fast food chains for making them fat. news flash, dipshits: eating fast food all the time can make you fat. if you don't want to be fat, don't eat fast food all the time.
*people who try to sue gun companies for gun related deaths. again, with the news flash: guns don't kill people, people do; more specifically, dangerous minorities (according to the family guy, at least... an entertaining show, but probably not the best source of information) kill people. guns are simply a tool. if we didn't have those, we'd be using knives, or longbows, or rocks, or our bare hands. if you really want to kill someone, the lack of a gun isn't going to stop you. and in the mean time, restrictive gun control laws--which don't keep guns out of the hands of criminals, who tend to acquire them illegally anyways--are taking away a valuable tool for self defense from the rest of us.
*people who sued the tobacco companies, who are apparently responsible for killing lots of people. people who conveniently ignored the surgeon general's warning on the side of the package that says "this shit is bad for you." you chose to smoke, so it's your own damn fault you've got lung cancer.
--the lawyers who represented the people suing the tobacco companies, and probably saw most of the money from the class action lawsuits. thanks for being more concerned with lining your own pockets than with the rights of phillip-morris, et al., who quite likely had to lay quite a few people off to cover the multi-billion dollar suits. don't quote me on that one... they may have just had a few billion dollars laying around, or covered it by raising the price per pack or something.
*zell miller; what the hell were you thinking when you retired? you and joe lieberman are about the only good examples the democrats have to follow. you can, however, redeem yourself by running for president at some point in the future. maybe in 2008, because i have to say i'm not overly excited by any of the republican prospects at this point.
*bill clinton's parents, for bringing him into the world
*people who talk about "palestine" and "palestinians." there is no palestine, and the "palestinians" are just a bunch of displaced jordanians. if the rest of the arab world really cared about them, they'd take them in. as is, they're just a convenient excuse for the arabs to hate israel.
*the city of san francisco, for voting to violate the second amendment, among other things.
*the french, for building new orleans where it is, and the federal government and the state of louisiana for deciding to rebuild it. why? you're just going to have to fix it up again after the next big hurricane. and in the meantime, you're using my tax dollars to rebuild for somebody who chose to live in a potentially dangerous area. if you don't want to have to rebuild after a hurricane, LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE! this also applies to everybody else living in hurricane-prone areas, especially florida. the rest of us should not have to pay for your dumb choices.
*the french again, for losing their balls after they lost napoleon.
*the french yet again, for being cheese-eating surrender monkeys
*people who are in favor of abortion. the ONLY time it should be acceptable is if it comes down to a choice between the life of the mother or the life of the baby. "but what about things like rape or incest?" some of you will say. well sure, lets just kill a baby. that will make everything better. why didn't we think of that before? we never had to invade iraq... we could have just killed a few dozen babies and saddam would have given up his WMD and stopped torturing and killing his own people. shit happens. that doesn't make rape and incest ok... far from it. i think that anybody who commits rape or incest should be castrated (or its equivelant, for those rare cases of women raping men) and then thrown into one those famous pound-me-in-the-ass prisons to see how they like it.
*femi-nazis, also morons. though in their defense, they tend to have more balls than the french.
*the MSM, for claiming to be objective while advancing left-leaning ideals and propaganda. unless you think you can actually be completely objective--which i don't think anyone is capable of--you need to state your bias up front, so people know where you're coming from. for example, if you haven't already guessed, i am very conservative, so pretty much everything i write will have a conservative bias to it. now that you know that, you'll be better able to analyze (not that much of what i write needs much analysis) what's being said. go read a lefty version of the same events i write about, find a happy medium between them, and you'll probably be fairly close to what actually happened.
*and last, but not least, all those "undecided" voters out there. face it, you're sitting on the fence, hoping to jump on the winning side at the last minute. that's not nuanced, that's opportunistic. or lazy. either pick something to stand for and stick with it, or stay home and don't vote.
20060214
national insult week, day 6
lame and short, but as i've said before, this is harder than it looks.
target: whoever began the commercialization of valentine's day
for starters, we don't really even know anything about the guy (or guys) it's named after. he was apparently a martyr, but other than that he doesn't appear very special... there's really nothing to set him apart from all the other martyrs out there. it looks like it was originally another attempt by the catholics to meld the christian christian with the pagan, to help bring the pagans into the church. i think that a former fellow-student of mine named andrew said it best when he called this process "pagianity." got a great ring to it, don't you think?
apparently this changed into a "love" centered holiday sometime in the late middle ages, with the idea of "courtly love." which was nice in theory, but not always in practice. much like holy wars, which have much more to do with war than with anything holy*, courtly love was mostly "courtly" in the sense that it involved people from "court." actually, i could just be making that up... it's been awhile since i've done any study of courtly love. but you get the point.
(*take, for example, the situation between france and "germany" during, i believe, the 30 years war. the holy roman emperor, who is catholic, is trying to unify the area that will become germany under his direct control. france, who is also catholic, likes the fact that the emperor is also catholic. but france doesn't want "germany" unified, because that would present a threat to their power. so they basically hire sweden, a protestant country, to attack "germany" and keep it from becoming unified.)
so valentine's day is, essentially, an artificial holiday. in my opinion, the current form of the holiday was created by either a man who was after more sex, a woman who was after more diamonds/chocolate, or some combination thereof.
20060213
but what about the medals that really count?
so, does anybody else find it a bit odd that we're currently listed as third in the olympic medal standings, even though we have 25% of the total gold medals awarded so far?
national insult week, day 5
well, this comic came in really handy, since i had no idea who to insult tonight. this is more "poking fun at" than actual insulting, but it puts them down and makes me laugh. which, in this case, is a good thing.
target: CNN (and, by extension, the left-leaning MSM in general)
ok, thatisall. two days left.
20060212
national insult week, day 4
yeah, this is going to be another lame one. this is harder than it looks... i probably should have put some actual planning into this idea before i started it. oh well.
target: treehuggers/greenies
first off, one of my favorite expressions:
"Earth first: we'll log the other planets later!"
even better, someone seems to have turned it into a (fairly lame) song, complete with tabs.
yes, that's from an actual shirt. good times.
then, we have this variation on the saying:
"Earth first! We'll pave the other planets later."
This site actually has a whole section devoted to it, only it's labeled "sarcasm." if you visit it, you'll see why. these people are some pretty liberal nuts.
then there's the easiest target, ralph nader. who, some liberals would argue, cost gore the election in 2000. except that would be like comparing him to ross perot, who quite possibly cost george h.w. bush the 1992 election, claiming nearly 19% of the popular vote. nader, on the other hand, topped out at under 3%, and over the course of his three runs is averaging about 1.25%. not really that great. [for that last paragraph, all of those statistics i pulled out can be found here. unfortunately, the site does not allow direct links to specific election years. otherwise, it's great.]
poor ralph. unfortunately, the button seems to be right.
in one more fun ralph moment (which rachel should remember, along with a few other friends), back in 2000 we saw a vote for ralph nader poster--that was nailed to a tree. which i hope was intentional on the part of the person who put it up, because if not, they're a moron.
ok, done for tonight. that was not quite as lame as i had anticipated, but still not great. oh well. only 3 days left. if i remember to do one of these next year, i'll be sure to plan it out ahead of time.
20060211
you can't spell "hypocrisy" without "liberal" or "muslim"
story stolen shamelessly from michelle malkin, although i'm adding my own commentary.
An activist of the radical Kashmiri Islamic group, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or daughters of the community, burns a Valentine card outside a card store in central Srinagar, India, Friday, Feb. 10, 2006. Nearly two dozen black-veiled Muslim women burned Valentine's Day cards and posters showing couples together in the main city of India's Kashmir protesting the day that they say imposes Western values on Muslim youth. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
which, on it's own, doesn't sound so bad. a bit stupid, since they had to buy the card before they could burn it, but still a legitimate protest. but then we get to this quote:
"We will not let anyone sell these cards or celebrate Valentine's Day," said Asiya Andrabi, the group's leader, as she held a burning poster in her hand. "These Western gimmicks are corrupting our kids and taking them away from their roots."so let me get this straight... we're imposing our values on you by selling these cards. but you "not let[ting]" us sell these cards... that's totally different, right? you're not imposing islamic values on the rest of us.She said that the raids were carried out "not to harm anyone but to make them realize that this is against Islam's teachings." (AP)
national insult week, day 3
i'm feeling lazy, so this won't be as big as the other days. in fact, it won't be much of anything.
target: congress
especially the republican part of congress, which seems to have lost its balls. you've got the majority in congress... start acting like it. because right now, it looks to me like you're more concerned about getting reelected than you are about doing what's right and good for the country. you're following opinion polls like you were democrats. and you can only say "the democrats are nutcases, so compared to them we're still doing good" for so long. after awhile, being relatively good isn't any good any more, and ultimately you start to suck.
congress: how hard could it be to pass a balanced budget? go back to the constitution. if there are any programs not mentioned there, get rid of them. we don't want to be a welfare state. this country was founded by a spirit of "rugged individualism," by people who were not afraid to take care of themselves. life would have been much easier had the founding fathers said "screw it, we'll stay with britain." but easier is not better. if things are easy, you've got no motivation to excell; if being good enough (or even being a drain on society) gets you as much or more attention and assistance (welfare, etc.) as going above and beyond, going the extra mile, then why go to any extra effort?
ok, i think that's about it for now. i'd love to rant some more, but without the research that i really don't feel like doing right now, this post will remain just that--ranting.
20060210
national insult week, day 2
20060209
a cry for help
so i just got ahold of a copy of a sweet old game by the name alien logic. unfortunately, it was produced way before windows xp, and doesn't seem to like compatibility mode for windows 95. i've been trying to use a dos emulater (dos box right now), but still can't make it work. anybody know something that could help?
national insult week, day 1 (updated) (updated again)
target: easily offended muslims
source for above cartoons
and a humorous response:
if you don't hear from me tomorrow, it's probably safe to assume that either my house was burned down or i was beheaded.
--update--
this site also has some interesting pics on the subject...
--another update--
good times
20060208
national insult week
is something that i think i just made up. i could be wrong. but google thinks i'm right.
so, here's the plan. maybe it's a stupid plan, but work with me. starting tomorrow, every day for one week i'm going to post a picture, quote, paragraph, etc., that is designed to piss someone off. starting with the famous mohammed cartoons. because let's face it: the muslim "community" is going way overboard in their reaction to the pictures: the fanatics by threatening death and destruction, and the "mainstream muslims" by not working to keep the fanatics in check. i'll admit, Christians have some whackos of our own, but last i checked pat robertson isn't threatening to lop off heads or crash airplanes into buildings that belong to people he disagrees with.
also see here and here, and if you're still interested, everybody's favorite, non-censoring search engine will have more for you.
please note that the insult week will not be aimed solely at muslims; in fact, after the first day, i plan to target a different group every day. if you have anything that you would like added to insult week, send me an email and let me know. as long as it's not tastless (ex: pr0n), i'll put it up. i figure the last day will be a "general" category, so if you submit something and don't see it right away, wait for next wednesday. it'll be there.
20060207
recommendations?
so it looks like i should be getting a pretty decent tax return this year, and i'm looking at buying a new monitor with it. flat panel, at least 19". any recommendations? and what sort of specs should i be looking for (contrast ratio, etc.)?
20060205
huh (updated)
so, what did everybody think of the new black and yellow uniforms the refs were wearing at the superbowl? i personally prefer the black and white ones, but that implies, you know, objective refs. did the seahawks play a great game? no, they didn't. but if the fans are the twelfth man for seattle, the refs were the twelfth man for pittsburgh.
a fitting cheer:
"Nuts and bolts,
Nuts and bolts,
We got screwed!"
--update--
i do have some good news though. i just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switcing to geico!
20060204
crush of the week, post #4 (updated)
name: lacey chabert
occupation: actress
i thought i had some more pictures, but i guess not. stay tuned next time for an attractive female who is not laura alito.
--update--
whoops, forgot to give credit for these. i believe i found all of them using google image search... if not, then i'm sorry to whoever i got them from.
20060202
that's quite a mouthful
literally. this is an actual last name i spotted at work yesterday: Xochiquiquixque
20060201
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