i always knew europeans were weird...

...but this is something more than even i would have expected. apparently, there was advertising for a pole dancing class over in britain. while i personally think the sex industry is unnecessary, immoral, and downright dirty, this is something i would normally overlook. except that this class was proposing to teach pole dancing to girls as young as 11. it's bad enough when adults do it, but pre-pubescent (yes, i did just use that term) girls? they should be out having tea parties, or playing soccer or volleyball or something. or learning to be artists. or attempting to equalize the nerd population by getting into computers. luckily, britain's equivelant of CPS stepped up to the plate, and the age for the class has been bumped back up to 18+. still wrong, but better than it was before.

thanks to michelle malkin for the heads up.

finally, a clue. now let's see if they can find some more of them.

hooray for europeans with a clue. like the head of NATO, general jaap de hoop scheffer, who believes that it is up to europe, not the united states, to bridge the gap that has come between us. you go jaap. and make sure some other europeans go with you.

one question: why didn't someone do this sooner?

for the second time today, i have to say that it's about freaking time. i'm too lazy and too tired to type up a full post; so go here and read beth's writeup. if you're too lazy to do that, just follow this lovely little link, and help put the moonbats back in line.

its about freaking time

reliable sources ranging from cbs to al-jazeera have proclaimed it: yasser arafat is dead. while i'm glad that he's gone, i'm a little disappointed at his timing. kevin over at wizbang was offering $25 to whoever guessed closest to when the official announcement of his death would come. hoping for a true day of thanksgiving, i guessed he would hang onto life until november 25 at 0700 GMT. at that point, we would all have great reason to celebrate, and while jumping up and down shouting "allahu akbar!" (wait, that's their line...)--or maybe just jumping up and down--we would either a) burn off all the calories from thanksgiving dinner or b) upset our stomach and puke up all the calories from thanksgiving dinner. i think "b" would be the most fitting tribute to the life of arafat.

my eulogy: "the world is better off without you, mr. arafat. good riddance to a bad waste of oxygen. amen."

more red dominance

this time, in the field of generousity. thanks to michelle malkin.



i would recommend reading michelle's article and following the links she gives... the table will make more sense that way.

on a side note, happy birthday to the marine corps! they turned 229 today. keep up the good work guys.

fun with pictures

tonight's prime time was "the gun show"... basically an excuse to do goofy pictures. my roommate is one of the BJ RAs, so he was kind of in charge of it. i may post more pictures of it in awhile, after i get to know more of the froshmen, but for now here's a few of me and dave (roomie/RA):


me getting ready for the "gun show"... yay for small caliber guns.


me, "happy" version; that's supposed to be an american flag on my arm, but it didn't really turn out


me, "intense" version


this is dave, in a child's halloween costume from the classy rack


i wish i could say he was on drugs, but no... he's pretty much always like this


so that was fun. it's been awhile since i added pictures, hopefully you enjoy them. maybe eventually i'll actually post something about history again.

"Actually, its an accretion disk." --Colonel Jack O'Neill, of Stargate SG-1

it's worth a shot

yesterday morning in class, i made a very interesting agreement with one of my professors. he's a pacifist, and a fairly liberal democrat (most of you at whitworth should know him) who teaches political science. however, he said there was something that i could do to make vote republican: get bill gates to give a $1,000,000,000 (yes, that's one billion dollars) endowment to whitworth. as unlikely to happen as that is, i think it's worth trying, just to see this professor vote republican. i've got a meeting with him tomorrow, maybe we'll be able to hammer out a few more details on this friendly bet. bill, if you're reading this, head over here and put a billion into the whitworth fund; and make sure to stick my name (daniel bareither) into the comments section, so i can prove that my end of the bet was fulfilled.

as you may have noticed, i've switched my comments system over to haloscan. at least i think i have. i had forrest help me with it, but i'm still not sure it's 100%. maybe that's just my compy being stupid again. and unfortunately, all of the old comments on my blog were lost. so show you care, and start leaving some new ones.

"Reading whole books is not a bad idea." --Dr. John Yoder

--update--
the new comment system appears to be working. unless i encounter a problem, i officially give it a thumb's up.

a note to the nay-sayers

thanks to beth over at MVRWC, i've discovered another blog that's very worth reading. the mesopotamian is written by an iraqi blogger named alaa, who seems very supportive of our efforts over there, especially in regards to the situation in fallujah. keep up the good work, alaa... america needs your voice.

i realize the election is over now, and i said i'd stop making fun of kerry, but i just found this quote from letterman today, and decided it needed to be shared:
"John Kerry says the 'W' in George W. Bush stands for 'Wrong.' But he still can't explain what John Kerry stands for." —David Letterman

we're kicking @$$... again

the belmont club has a rundown on the situation in fallujah. apparently, we're kicking some serious terrorist-butt over there. we're breaking up the defenses, and systematically destroying the enemy. and so far we've only had 2 casualties, neither of which were combat related. a pair of marines were driving a bulldozer and it flipped into the euphrates river, taking them with it.

don't get me wrong... those losses are unfortunate. but this is nowhere near the "vietnam II" forrest was predicting. this is like the new york yankees (yes, i hate them too, but they are pretty darn good) playing against your highschool baseball team. the highschoolers may get a run or too, but the game is really over before it begins, and is going to end with a horribly lopsided score in favor of the yankees.

go US.

why, exactly, would we have wanted france along for the ride?

i'm still not entirely sure. first off, we have a report that the animal that is the epitome of the french fighting spirit is the chicken. go figure.

next, we find that the french have their own problems with a unilateral situation. if the french can't even handle the ivory coast--where, by the way, they've maintained a presence even after it declared its independence from france in 1960--how could we expect them to deal with the "streams of terrorists coming into iraq" that the media keeps telling us about? not to mention the fact that france has had no significant military achievements since the time of napoleon; and napoleon was corsican, not french.

alright... my day is complete. i managed to include both a bash of the french and a little bit of history in the same post. life is good.

--update--
well, sort of. i actually forgot to give credit for the story, which i found over at T.A.I.R. sorry about that guys.

an oldie but a goodie

this is really old news now. in fact, it may be old enough that it no longer even qualifies as news. but that's ok. i just wanted everybody to know that bill cosby is one of my heroes.



"Christians should remember that the just-war doctrine is not grounded in revenge, punishment, or even justice. Thomas Aquinas discussed it in Summa theologica -- not in the section on justice but in the section on charity (that is, the love of God). As Christian scholar Darrell Cole writes, 'The Christian who fails to use force to aid his neighbor when prudence dictates that force is the best way to render that aid is an uncharitable Christian. Hence Christians who willingly and knowingly refuse to engage in a just war ... fail to show love towards their neighbor as well as towards God.' Out of love of neighbor, then, Christians can and should support a preemptive strike, if ordered by the appropriate magistrate to prevent an imminent attack." --Charles Colson

i can't think of a creative name

but i thought this would be fun to post anyways, so i figured what the heck. my friend rachel is convinced, for reasons beyond my ken, that i am going to marry an asian woman. she hadn't said anything about it for awhile, but then the other day i got a letter from her. it included an ad she found in a magazine for destina japan, which contained the following:
"Japanese Woman as The Love of Your Life. Look no further. Destina is a reputable search firmwhich introduces the most eligible single Japanese women to you. If you are successful, single and selective, call us right now."

needless to say, i broke out laughing when i read it. i realize this is a serious service, but it was just so funny that rachel actually sent it to me. at this point, i'm not looking for a wife, japanese or otherwise. but who knows? maybe some day rachel will be proven right. after all, "You will have a great opportunity to meet your destiny through Destina."

now that's dedication

powerline points out the story of a woman who showed up to vote in a bush-cheney shirt, and was told--but not until right before she was going to vote--that displays of the candidates names are not permitted within 500 feet of a polling place. though this is very true, she was upset that nobody had told her sooner. at this point she had already signed the voter roll, so she was unable to go home and change. bur rather than giving up, she improvised: she took off the shirt and voted in her sports bra. now that, my friends, while being slightly odd (and potentially awkward for other voters), shows true dedication. looks like the dem's efforts at indimidation came to naught.

yay for politically incorrect humor

"President Bush claimed victory before a crowd of cheering Republicans at the Reagan Building Wednesday. They may have gone a little overboard. Dick Cheney said President Bush was given a mandate, which is now illegal in eleven more states." --Argus Hamilton
(for those of you who don't know, he's referring to the fact that voters in 11 states decided that gay marriage should be illegal.)

"Iran's Parliament passed a bill Sunday approving a uranium enrichment program that defies the West. It greatly increases Iran's leverage. The measure makes their uranium so rich that President Bush just offered it a tax cut and John Kerry proposed marriage." --Argus Hamilton

"Yasser Arafat was reported on Monday to be recovering miraculously in a Paris hospital from the grave condition in which he arrived. He's so competitive. His goal is to tie Israel's all-time record for most number of resurrections in one country." --Argus Hamilton

"The Grand Old Party captured the popular vote on Election Day thanks to a huge turnout of Republican voters. There is one consoling fact for the Democrats. The ozone layer is fading so fast that by the next election everybody will be black." --Argus Hamilton

"Yasser Arafat collapsed into unconsciousness Wednesday, causing his doctors to describe the PLO leader as gravely ill. His death could cause a major disruption. The Israelis thought they were done with the Jewish holidays this year." --Argus Hamilton

ok, so really it was just an argus hamilton day. but he's a funny guy, bashes both sides... you should check him out. just not in that way.

darn that economy of ours

it just keeps on growing. whatever shall we do?

for your viewing pleasure

the link in my last post goes to a county-by-county breakdown of who won the 2004 election. to make things easier, and make sure people actually see it, i decided to post a copy straight-up:



for those of you who might have forgotten, the red ones were won by bush. i would still recommend following the link, cause there's some other cool stuff on the site.

now that the election is over, and kerry gave up peacefully (which is more than i can say for some people... *cough* forrest *cough*), i don't feel the same urge to harsh on or preach against the liberal left (a.k.a. most democrats), so the quantity and tone of the quotes i post will probably change. since i'm reading through "dune" again, here's a fun quote... it may be a bit off, since i'm doing it from memory:

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." --Bene Gesserit litany against fear

courtesy the VRWC

or at least one of them. my vast right wing conspiracy had an interesting find today: the bbc wants to know why we elected bush. follow the link and view some of the reasons. then take a look at this map and see how vast the "conspiracy" (read "intelligent, informed section of america) really is.

"The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves." --William Channing

way to be

i was originally going to post a really nasty open letter to kerry and his supporters, but it looks like that won't be necessary. contrary to my predictions, this one is not going to court; kerry is taking it like a man. for the good of the country and our electoral system, he is conceding the race. while i still don't like the man, and probably never will, i respect him for making the right choice. way to be, mr. kerry.

here's to four more years of a good man at the helm. president bush: welcome back.

who would osama vote for? and even forrest wouldn't go this far.

well, osama definitely isn't pulling for bush. you can read the transcript of his entire tirade over here. he's all for retaliation in kind... unless, of course, he's not the one doing the retaliating. sounds like the democrats version of free speech: apparently, it only applies to them.

and while to the best of my knowledge forrest disagrees with the reasons for the war and the war itself, and really doesn't like bush, even he wouldn't go this far. here's a brief summary of the article, thanks to wizbang:

Jimmy Walters, the man behind the campaign that has placed commercials showing the collapsing buildings at the World Trade Center and a computer-generated image of the plane that hit the Pentagon on television in New York, and full-page print ads in newspapers across the country, said he has a definite political aim.

"If George W. Bush is re-elected, I don't think we'll get anything done," he said...

"We were terrorized and it wasn't 19 screw-ups with box cutters from Saudi Arabia," he said. "It had to be somebody bigger, better organized."

His conspiracy theory involves secret U.S. government operatives boarding the four hijacked planes, which he said were then secretly landed and replaced in the skies by remote-controlled drones that were then crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, all to create a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

if that's not way out there, i don't know what is. liberals are crazy people.

why does stuff like this not get shown on major news networks?

get your salt shakers out, ladies and gentlemen. i don't think you'll need to use the whole thing, but i would recommend taking at least a few grains before watching a preview of a report over here. apparently, we've discovered somewhere in the area of 30 kg (about 65 or 66 pounds) of weapons grade anthrax in iraq.

"Kind of an embarrassing moment at this year's traditional Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn. Of all the people invited, Hans Blix was the only one who couldn't find a single egg." --Jay Leno