Saturday, December 17, 2005

America's Earliest Terrorists

Ideas don't gain entrance to the Cliche Club without possessing, at some level, a fundamental truth. Case in point: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Heard that one before, right? Joshua E. London at the National Review Online has a valuable lesson which illustrates this notion:

At the dawn of a new century, a newly elected United States president was forced to confront a grave threat to the nation — an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim terrorists. Worse still, these Islamic partisans operated under the protection and sponsorship of rogue Arab states ruled by ruthless and cunning dictators.

Sluggish in recognizing the full nature of the threat, America entered the war well after the enemy’s call to arms. Poorly planned and feebly executed, the American effort proceeded badly and at great expense — resulting in a hastily negotiated peace and an equally hasty declaration of victory.

As timely and familiar as these events may seem, they occurred more than two centuries ago. The president was Thomas Jefferson, and the terrorists were the Barbary pirates. Unfortunately, many of the easy lessons to be plucked from this experience have yet to be fully learned.

Read it all here.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Iranian Intentions

Here is an interesting analysis on Iran's nuclear ambitions which focuses on their underlying motivation for developing nuclear weapons:

On Nov. 16, [Iranian president] Mr. Ahmedinijad stated: "Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi." In all his public statements in Iran and abroad, Mr. Ahmedinijad's messages are on target: Iran under his leadership must rise as a global power to lead the world in the footsteps of the prophets. He clearly follows up with actions -- moving on to develop nuclear weapons.

Yet, despite the evidence, neither the international community, nor the United States seem to comprehend Mr. Ahmedinijad's serious commitment to advance the arrival of the 12th Imam. Indeed, by continuing discussions with Iran, they are playing along, giving it the time and latitude needed to achieve nuclear proliferation.

We can only hope that the US gives Israel all the support it needs to counter what would surely become an unmitigated global disaster.

Read more here.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The true character of the European Left

Glen Greenwald hits the nail on the head with a pile-driver:

Take the time to read the comments too, if possible.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Recommended Reading

Been reading Treason by Ann Coulter, and came across a passage at the end of chapter 11 that really resonated:

[Al] Gore said America will only create more enemies if "what we represent to the world is an empire." We must mollify angry fanatics who seek our destruction because otherwise they might get mad and seek our destruction. He also complained that we have "abandoned almost all of Afghanistan" - rather than making it part of our empire, evidently. He seemed to think it was our responsibility to "stabilize the nation of Afghanistan," "pacify the countryside," and send them valentines. Liberals think war is a Miss Congeniality contest.
One could mine every war-making text throughout history - Sun Tsu, Carl von Clausewitz, Alfred Thayer Mahan - without finding a single reference to being liked by your enemies as a tactic associated with winning a war. Gore said foreigners are not worried about "what the terrorist networks are going to do, but about what we're going to do." Good. They should be worried. They hate us? We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell angry fanatics. So sorry they're angry - wait until they see American anger. Japanese kamikaze pilots hated us once too. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons got their attention. Now they are gentle little lambs.
America is fighting for its survival and the Democrats are obsessing over why the barbarians hate us. Instead of wondering why foreigners hate Americans, a more fruitful inquiry for the Democrats might be to ask why Americans are beginning to hate Democrats.

This was written two years ago, and Bush's approval numbers have fallen quite a bit since then, but make no mistake. You and your children will be far less secure if the Democrats wind up running the War on Terror. Failure is the only option for them. Here are some recent remarks by soft-spoken, clear-headed Howard Dean:

Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

That's just great, Howie. You can bet that all the terrorists will be marking their calendars.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

What was happening was Nixon (Republican) inherited a fucked-up war that was started by Kennedy (Democrat), micro-managed into a quagmire by Johnson (Democrat). He then proceeded to undo the idiocy of their policies and get back on a winning track again with less than half as many troops. We would have won too if, all full of themselves after Watergate unfolded, the Democratic Congress hadn't betrayed South Vietnam and summarily withdrawn all support and basically thrown them to the wolves. But hey, all those millions who were killed by the Communists after the fall of Vietnam weren't registered Democrats so who cares, right?


Dean says the Democrat position on the war is 'coalescing,' and is likely to include several proposals.

Bush and the Republicans have had a single"position" since Day 1: win. Keep your proposals, Howie, the War on Terror isn't a political science experiment. As for "coalescing," isn't that roughly synonymous with "getting your shit together?" Definitely not synonymous with the Democrats...

Here are some other examples of sedition by Democrats.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Just In Time For the Holidays - the Airline Screening Playset!

This is sure to be the next "Tickle Me Elmo" must-have mega-hit for the kids this Christmas. Or not...

Get it here, if you must.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

In Denial? Not Me!

Great blog post here regarding the state of denial that exists in liberals these days. Worth a read.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Another Golden Memory

Been spending some time reading shit at ubersite.com, some of it pretty funny. Or not.
I just read the post entitled "Like being found dead with your dick in a vacuum cleaner." Very funny.

This reminded me of a friend of mine who once came running out of his room, completely naked, yelling at us, "Hey, watch this!" He then held the vacuum cleaner hose about an inch from the end of his limp dick and it suddenly stretched out and plugged the end hose. Since we were all wasted at the time, this was the 2nd funniest thing we had ever seen.

The funniest thing was when he wondered aloud, "Hmm, what would happen if I held it up to my balls?" When he did, his entire scrotum got sucked into the hose and he started screaming. The hose was firmly locked on his crotch and he was struggling to free himself, pulling the hose this way and that. The vacuum motor's whine went up about 3 octaves and made it sound like the vacuum cleaner was really pissed off. Of course, none of us could help him (we were paralyzed on the floor with laughter and, hey I ain't touching his balls. You do it.) and he finally pulled the hose off and gasped, "My balls were rattling around back and forth inside the hose!" I thought I was going to have an aneurism.

I don't know what hurt worse, his balls or our sides. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard, before or since. Of course, his new nickname was Hoover. If anyone wanted to know why we called him that, we told them to just ask him. He was proud of it!

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Tragicomedy, Anyone?

I recently found an interesting website which on which people post all kind of stuff, such as political commentary and humorous experiences. This reminded me of a personal experience of mine that I thought was pretty funny, so I am posting it here (and there, hopefully I'll get a decent rating from viewers) for your enjoyment.

I used to work in a large office building that housed various space-program-related endeavors (none of which figure in this tale, but it was pretty cool nevertheless). One evening I was wrapping up my activities for the day, preparing to go home. All my coworkers had already left, so I was alone in the office we shared. I squatted down to put something away in the bottom drawer of my desk and heard the dreaded "rip." The seat of my nice slacks had split wide open, from crotch to waist. Damn.
Since I was alone in the office, I had the option of removing my pants to inspect the damage, which I did. It was pretty bad. I knew that there was no way I could get out of the building without displaying my ass on the way, so I looked around for some way to patch the tear. Office supplies were all I had available, and so it was that I chose my handy stapler. I turned the pants inside-out,aligned the edges of the tear as best I could and started stapling. When I inspected my handiwork, I was not impressed. The new seam was distorted and puckered, like Quasimodo eating a lemon. It would, however, have to do.
As I started to don my pants again, a disturbing thought occurred to me. Staples have sharp points, seat of pants are full of staples, seat of pants cover my butt, must sit on butt to drive my car, butt must press against staples, staples have sharp points. Visions of multiple bloody puncture wounds running up my ass crack came to mind. Not good. What I needed was some way to protect myself from certain discomfort.
My eyes fell on the solution - a roll of masking tape. I could lay a strip of tape over the staples and create an anti-staple-point barrier of protection. Brilliant! Soon I was done, and put on my pants. A little snug, perhaps (and not uniformly so), but it should get me out of the building. I left my shirttail out in the back to help conceal the jagged repair, and proceeded to the door.
The elevator was empty. The ground floor was nearly deserted, and I timed my merge into the outbound traffic to put the most distance between me and the people behind my behind. A few people passed me going the other way, and I did my best to ignore them. I still couldn't help noticing them staring at my pants, which was strange because they couldn't yet see my butt. No matter, I strode quickly out the door and made my way to my car.
I sat gingerly in the seat of my car, still not entirely confident in my anti-staple-point barrier. It worked! I settled in for the commute home. As I drove to the parking garage exit, I shifted around to get more comfortable and made a terrible discovery.
It should be noted that my car had a manual transmission, and so driving it meant both feet stayed busy. In the process of working the clutch, brake, and accelerator pedals I became acquainted with the unfortunate nature of masking tape adhesive. It seems that it wasn't quite sticky enough to adher to pants material, but was more that sticky enough to grab and hold butt-crack hair.
Every time I moved either foot, I could feel a butt-crack hair rip out. I drove home at the height of rush-hour, constantly starting and stopping, constantly working the clutch and brake, twitching as each hair departed my ass. It looked like my ass had epilepsy. I couldn't believe how much hair I had started with on my ass, and when I thought that surely it must be entire devoid of follicles, a new batch would rip out.
An eternity later, reached my apartment complex. I gingerly exited the vehicle and proceeded up the sidewalk to the building in which I lived. I thought that driving was bad, but walking was worse. All of the last holdout hairs ripped out of my ass with each step, making it difficult to walk in a straight line. I passed several neighbors along the way, all of whom stared at my pants, but I didn't care. All I could focus on was getting to my apartment and shedding these trousers of pain.
I whimpered when I reached the stairs to my second-floor apartment, dreading the climb. And rightfully so, because it was the most agonizing stretch of my entire hellish journey home.

Did you know that, when you try to climb stairs without moving your legs at the hips, you look pretty stupid and you don't progress very quickly? Try it sometime.

Finally, I closed the door behind me. I was free to shed the torturous slacks from hell. As I reached down to undo my pants, I discovered why everyone had stared at my pants on the way out of the building and up the sidewalk. My fly was open. And not just unzipped, but wide open, tugged agape by the crude patch job. Now I understood why my mother had always insisted that I wear clean underwear. If only I had listened.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Evolution: A 2-Edged Sword

Note: If you support the notion of "Intelligent Design" as opposed to the Theory of Evolution, please disregard this post. It will offend you on multiple levels.

Evolution. It giveth and it taketh away:


Giveth:
Large Brains
Taketh Away:
Physical strength and agility


Giveth:
Power of Reason
Taketh Away:
Copious Amounts of Bodily Hair (not necessarily a bad thing)


Giveth:
Walking Erect
Taketh Away:
This Ability



Here endeth the lesson.

Monday, October 31, 2005

Phoenix: The City Specifically Designed to Make You Get Lost

"If you'd just pull over and ask for directions, you wouldn't get lost. Typical man..."

Au contrair, italicized one. I worked out the route from my hotel to my destination with the 2 front desk ladies and Google Maps the night before, and had solid directions written on a sheet of paper in letters large enough for me to read without my glasses (then they wanted to find their houses on the GMap satellite imagery, like all GMap newbies).
I took I-17 south, exited Jefferson. No problem.
I took a right on 16th St., in the groove.

Then the groove rapidly transformed into a rut.

Cut to the chase: It was the wrong 16th St. I should have kept going on Jefferson until I reached the next 16th St. It seems that there are 2 of each numbered street in Phoenix. You start at Central, and then the numbers go up in both east and west directions. The term for this is, I believe, all fucked up.

I should have arrived 15 minutes early, instead I was 15 minutes late. They understood though.

You know, numbers can actually go pretty high, I've heard. Duplicating street names like this is probably not necessary. Except in Phoenix, that is.

Update:
Ok, my mistake. On the west side of Central they are Avenues, on the east side they are Streets.

Its still stupid though.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Astros Succeed in Making Me Insane

Are you happy now? Was it worth it? Wouldn't it have been more satisfying to win a game in the World Series instead?

Apparently not...

I may go back to the parallel universe instead. I bet they won there.

My brief adventure in a Parallel Universe

Today started like any other workday, I got up and herded the kids along through breakfast and getting ready for school, got ready for work myself, and then drove them to school. All was as it should be.

And then, as I walked out the school parking lot to get in my car and go to work, it happened!

At first I didn't notice because I was preoccupied in thought about what I was going to do today. I opened the car door, sat down in the driver's seat, and was just about to close the door when I noticed there was strange stuff on the floorboard of my car! I thought, "Hmm, who just put strange stuff on my floorboard? What were they doing in my car? Is there anything missing?

I glanced over at the passenger seat to see if my backpack was there and, in it's place, there was a child carseat strapped in.

My eyes grew wide in astonishment! My leather seats had transformed to cloth! My automatic transmission lever was now a manual transmission lever! There was weird shit hanging from the rearview mirror!

There was only one possible explanation. I had mysteriously fallen into a Parallel Universe. Yes, a parallel universe where things were similar but not the same! I suddenly realized that I no longer had my 2 kids, I now had an infant. Was it a boy or girl? What did he/she look like? Do I now have a different wife too? What does she look like? Where do I work? Where do I live? My spirit bent near to the point of breaking at the thought that all I knew, everyone that I loved, was now gone, irretrievably out of reach forever. I was a stranger in a strange land.

Then I glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed my car parked directly behind me. Waves of sheepish relief washed over me as I hastily exited the vehicle and Groucho-walked to my own.

And I thought, "I better not tell anyone about this." So keep it under your hat, okay?

The Astros Continue Their Drive to Make Me Insane.

...and it's starting to work. blblblblblblblblblblblblbl!!!!

Monday, October 24, 2005

The Joy of OPV (Other People's Vomit)

Monday morning. Hit the snooze a couple of times, start thinking (fuzzily) about what I'm going to wear to work today (it got cold last night), what is on my plate when I get there, yada yada.

Oh, BTW, it appears that my son has puked in his bed last night and then proceeded to sleep in it. He doesn't sleep in one spot all night, so he unconciously spread it everywhere. On the bedspread, on the bed frame. The puke on the carpet is from the original hurl, judging from the splatter pattern (I saw CSI once). Good Morning!!

My second week at my new job and I have to call in for a sick day to keep said son home from school. New supervisor doesn't sound thrilled, hopefully he just hasn't consumed his entire allotment of morning coffee yet.

Sheets are okay, just a little seepage, no chunks. Wash 'em, move on to the next layer up. The blanket has a small chunk on one edge, flick it off and wash it too. Now for the top layer...

EEWWWW!!! GROSS!!!!

Q. What do you get when you cross mostly-chewed noodles, Hi-C Fruit Punch, and stomach acid?
A. EEWWWW!!! GROSS!!!!

Haul beadspread out to the back yard, just as far from the house as I can get. Take handy-dandy nylon scraping tool (normally used for scraping dishes prior to washing) and start scaping puke. The partially chewed, pink noodle chunks oblige nicely, but the fluid portions have congealed. Scrape/wipe in grass/repeat/repeat/repeat.

On a positive note, the rest of the week should be, comparatively, much better.

Unless it's contagious, that is...

Urp.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

The Astros want me to go insane.

But I'm not taking it personally.

You'd think, though, that they could at least occasionally beat a team which is named after underwear for your feet. I mean, White Sox, come on! They can't even spell socks right. Why not have a team called the Off-White Joxtraps? "The Joxtrap baserunner left quite a skidmark when he slid into second base, Bob." The Red Brassiers (Red Broz for short)? "That chest-high fastball hit the Broz batter twice, so on to second base, Sparky." Or maybe the Skin-Tone Girdlez... "No one can get past second base with the Girdlez squeeze play, Milo!"

Remember, there's no crying in baseball. Whining is okay though.

Waaah.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Trolls. Must. Die.

Ok, so blog newbies learn the hard way, just like everything else. I kept getting spam comments and finally figured out how to keep that from happening. Of course, now I probably won't get any comments at all now, but that's better than spam.

The internet was founded on the Usenet, a collection of newsgroups on any subject you can imagine (alt.rec.sex.teletubbies.tinkywinky). You could research topics from the existing archived posts, or post a question and get responses from all over the world. It was great. Then the trolls arrived, and started clogging up the newsgroups with ads for porn sites and penis enlargement pills. Many newsgroups died because of that, others migrated to groups on portals such as Yahoo or Google, where access was more easily controlled.

Trolls are now trying to infect the blogosphere with their crap. If you happen to see any trolls, please kill them. Thank you.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Oh yeah, I have a blog. Forgot.

Who can blame me? I just changed jobs and moved from Austin back to Houston in the last 4 weeks and boy, are my arms tired. We had to find a house fast so we wound up (ecchh!) renting. Not only that, we have to go back to the Austin house every weekend to finish cleaning out the crap and making it ready to sell. But paying a mortgage note and a rent payment every month is sooooo satisfying, I think we'll just keep doing that for awhile.

What a cool job I have now. I'm working at a NASA facility supporting the computer hardware that is flying on the Space Station. In the building next door is the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, which is the gigantic swimming pool where they practice spacewalks and shit. Downside: Fucking Acronym Hell (FAH). I thought the computer industry was bad. I found an acronym dictionary today, its 100 fucking pages long! And its 8 years old, so I'm sure the latest edition is 150! At least they all have multiple meanings, it helps to simplify things. Sigh.

Oh yeah, don't forget to watch out for Muslims with AK-47s. Or without...