You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life - Albert Camus

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Well, it’s been a while, but the Republicans are finally getting off their asses and doing something I agree with.

Lawmakers are trying to blunt a Supreme Court decision that says local governments can seize people’s homes to make way for shopping malls and other private development.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Thursday the high court had made “a horrible decision” and he hoped it would cause a backlash.

“The only silver lining to this decision is the possibility that this time the court has finally gone too far and that the American people are ready to reassert their constitutional authority,” said DeLay, R-Texas, a critic of recent court decisions.

In a 5-4 ruling last week, the Supreme Court said municipalities have broad power to bulldoze people’s homes and put up shopping malls or other private development to generate tax revenue. The decision drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as favoring rich corporations. DeLay agreed.

“Someone could knock on your door and tell you that the city council has voted to give your house to someone else because they have nicer plans for the property,” DeLay said.

The House on Thursday approved by a 231-189 vote a bid by conservative Scott Garrett, R-N.J., to bar federal transportation funds from being used to make improvements on lands seized via eminent domain for private development.

Legislation in the works also would ban the use of federal funds for any project getting the go-ahead using the Kelo v. City of New London (Conn.) decision.

This is a good start.  I still think that there should be a constitutional amendment specifically detailing what powers the federal government has under eminent domain, but it’s good to see the Congress doing what the Congress was designed to do.

With all the accusations of “torture” coming from Gitmo, here’s how Norway treats actual torturers.

Political debate seems certain to erupt after a controversial sentencing decision where a man convicted of brutally torturing a victim received 90 hours of community punishment.

The case began in August 2001, when a now 32-year-old man was held prisoner in an apartment in downtown Tønsberg, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Oslo.

According to police two men held him for twelve hours and beat him with a bat, cut off an earlobe and pulled out a molar using a pair of scissors.

The trial had been delayed eight times due to scheduling problems.

An Oslo man in his 20s received 120 days in prison for the crime and last week a 30-year-old man from Akershus County was sentenced to 90 hours of community service for his role in the torture session.

He beat a guy with a bat, cut off an earlobe, pulled out a tooth with scissors, and got four whole months in jail.  But at least he didn’t get any urine on a Koran, or make his victim put underpants on his head!  Only an American could be capable of that type of inhuman depravity.

If there were ever a woman who shouldn’t be allowed to raise a child it’s this one.

For $10,000, Kari Smith has gone ahead and had her forehead tattooed with the Web address of a gambling site.

Bountiful, 30, who sold her unusual advertising space on eBay, said the money will give her 11-year-old son a private education, which she believes he needs after falling behind in school.

“For the all the sacrifices everyone makes, this is a very small one,” she said. “It’s a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son,” she said.

“To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like $1 million. I only live once, and I’m doing it for my son,” she said.

Tattoo artist Don Brouse said he and his staff spent nearly seven hours Wednesday trying to talk Smith out of putting “GoldenPalace.com” above her face. When he did go through with it, he kept the inch-tall letters close to her hairline, where bangs or a hat could provide some cover.

One day, when this broad’s son is an adult, he’s going to ask her, “What the hell were you thinking?”

Update: Here she is.

What a moron. Hopefully sending her son to private school will help him get into college, where he can get a good enough education to get a good enough job making a good enough salary so that his moron mother can have major plastic surgery to remove that shit from her forehead.

There’s only one thing I love making fun of more than the smelly French and that’s the Canadian military.

Of the four used subs Canada acquired from Britain for $891 million, Halifax’s HMCS Windsor is the only one that can go to sea.

Sometimes the jokes write themselves.  (Oh, lighten up Canucks, I’m just goofing around.)

You know how there are left-wing people in America who, despite the obvious and well-documented leftward tilt to our media, still claim that there is a conservative bias to American reporting?  Meet their soulmates.

Al Qaeda’s wing in Iraq has slammed Al Jazeera television, saying the satellite channel often criticised by Washington was siding with the United States in its reporting on the violence in the Arab country.

An Al Jazeera spokesman rejected the criticism of its coverage, saying it was balanced.

“Where are you heading, Jazeera? Why this hostility toward the mujahideen (holy warriors)?” the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said, according to a statement posted on an Islamist website.

“All the American army statements are carried and accepted but no one carries the mujahideen’s side.”

It said Al Jazeera had reported US statements that its forces had killed 50 insurgents in an operation underway in western Iraq, but did not broadcast the group’s statement that it had shot down eight US helicopters.

“Where is the claimed balance?” the statement said.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the Web statement, signed by the group’s spokesman.

Let us not forget, gentle reader, that it was not too long ago that the Tehran Times was calling al-Jazeera a Zionist plot.  Let’s hope that al Qaeda targets the al-Jazeera offices next, that should give them some balance in their reporting.

I’m heading out to see War of the Worlds.  I’ll post my thoughts upon my return.

Update: Okay, here’s the review.  MAJOR spoilers.  If you’re planning on seeing this movie don’t read this (or any other) review beforehand.  Those of you who have seen it, or have no plans to see it, read on.  But I’m going to blow the whole movie, so refrain if you plan on seeing it. 

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Continuing the move away from a blog and closer to being a legitimate news service, the always-brilliant John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has scored another coup by interviewing the always-brilliant Mark Steyn.  Don’t miss this one.

Last night I was on iTunes and I noticed that the band Disturbed has a new single out.  They’re not one of my favorite groups but I’ve seen them live a couple of times and they’re pretty good for jamming to in the car, so I picked the single up.  I was curious to see if the lyrics were online yet, and a Google search took me to this page, where I found an interesting text snippet.

Disturbed’s 3rd album “Ten Thousand Fists” is scheduled to be out September 20th. Singer Dave Draiman talked with Billboard.com about the overt political themed songs and the state of today’s rock scene. Here’s an excerpt:

Current events shape much of the lyrical content of the new album. From the George W. Bush sample that opens “Deify” to the chorus of “Sacred Lie” ("Don’t you know the war is far from over now, what a stumbling block we’ve fallen over now, as our brothers die defending no one, the war is far from over"), “Ten Thousand Fists” is, according to Draiman, “the most blatantly politically charged record of the three.”

“There’s also a song called ‘Forgiven’ about the victim of a soldier who’s already forgiven the soldier for killing him because he knows his killer is next in line to die,” Draiman continues. “‘Overburdened’ is about a soldier standing in line waiting to pass through the gates of hell, and he’s in line with all these other soldiers that died in the course of battle, and they’re all wondering why they got there.” Even a cover of Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” echoes the political undertone of the 1987 original.

The album’s lead radio single is “Stricken” and it should arrive in late July. [Emphasis added]

What kind of a warped piece of shit do you have to be to write songs like this about American soldiers?  Let’s look at these individually.

“Forgiven,” a song about the “victim” of a soldier.  What, could that be the guy who was shooting at him from the minaret of a mosque?  Or the guy who just detonated the IED that killed four Marines in the humvee driving point in the convoy?  Or the suicide bomber that was about to kill a bunch of innocent Iraqi civilians signing up to vote or become policeman.  But everyone who gets killed by a soldier is a “victim,” right?  And this “victim” forgives his “killer” because, luckily, the “killer” is next to die.  Well, as long as the America soldier dies, everything is right with the world, huh?

Then there’s “Overburdened,” about American soldiers who are waiting to go into hell, and don’t know why they’re there.  Well, of course, it’s because they’re “killers” who run around looking for “victims,” isn’t it?  You know, victims who get satisfaction knowing that the evil American soldier is going to go to hell for his actions.

What fucking vermin this band is.  The thing that really bugs me about this is that there’s probably a lot of guys over in Iraq and Afghanistan who are going to send email home to their families asking for some new CDs and they’re going to get this in the mail.  Simply disgusting.  How “Disturbed” do you have to be to actually think this way?

Here’s the latest bullshit environmental scare which will most likely turn out to be absolutely nothing.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s own scientific advisory panel has identified perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical compound used to make Teflon, as a “likely carcinogen” in a report it plans to submit to the agency next month.

The draft report, which EPA posted on its Web site yesterday, is significant because it could prompt agency officials to regulate the processing agent—known as PFOA or C-8—for the first time. Until now, the EPA has classified PFOA as a “suggested” carcinogen, which requires fewer health precautions.

Look, I’m going to spell this out as simply as I can.  EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD WILL KILL YOU.  Everything is a trade-off.  I like living in the modern world.  I like the conveniences that science has given us, things that make our lives easier.  So, we now have a scare about teflon, because a chemical in it (and Gore-Tex jackets, and pizza boxes, and God-knows how many products) it gives us cancer.  Okay, let’s assume that it does have an increase in cancer for some people.  Taken in totality, are the benefits to society from the products made with this chemical (which are significant) worth less than the chance that there is an increase of cancer?  How about cell phones?  There are claims that cell phones cause cancer.  So we ban cell phones.  Would the world be better off without the obvious benefit that mobile phones have provided?  Taken in totality, a few people having an increased chance for cancer is a small price to pay for the progress that society gains.

A great example of this is DDT.  Science has never given us a chemical as good at killing mosquitoes as DDT.  Then there were claims that in large enough doses it is a carcinogen, and that it had environmental impact in that it made bird egg shells soft.  So it was banned.  As a consequence, tens of millions of people in the third world have died from malaria and other diseases because of mosquitoes.  It’s all a trade-off.  Let’s use some round numbers for an example.  Say DDT could save 1,000,000 lives a year from malaria, but 5,000 people would get cancer from it.  Isn’t that a good trade-off?  How about if DDT would kill 250,000 people a year?  You’re still saving 750,000 people. 

There is ALWAYS a trade-off in everything.  Pointing out the increased cancer risks in everything around us (cell phones, power lines, teflon, etc.) does nothing but add to a climate of general environmental hysteria.

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine have a new CD out, the wonderfully titled Aperitif for Destruction.  You can see the track list here, and here an mp3 preview montage of the tracks here.

Maybe I’m a total dweeb, but I think this stuff is great.

Remember that scene in Schindler’s List, where the little girl is hiding in the outhouse tank, up to her shoulders in human feces?  That was supposed to show the depths of depravity that human beings are willing to inflict on one other, to where this little girl had to choose to hide in filth rather than get sent to a Nazi camp.  Well, wouldn’t you know that somewhere there would be a guy who got his jollies from that idea.

A man is facing charges after police said they pulled him from a tank under a women’s toilet that was filled with human waste.

Police said that Gary Moody, 45, was under a log cabin outhouse off the Kancamagas Highway in Albany.

“You can draw your own conclusions as to the conditions we encountered,” said Capt. John Hebert, of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department.

Police said that they got a call from the parents of a teenage girl who said that when she went to use the facilities, she saw Moody’s face staring back at her from the hole.

Seriously, after reading this, I just wish that aliens would blow up the planet.

I’m going to finally comment on this because I’ve had about 46 people email it to me since yesterday.  A group wants to use the government’s newly-created power to steal private land for “public” use by private developers to steal Justice Souter’s house.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”

I’d love to see it happen, but I’m not going to count on it.  Though I can’t think of anything more appropriate, except to have his land stolen so that a Wal-Mart Supercenter could be built in its place.

A few months ago there was a film broadcast on BBC2 called The Power of Nightmares, which attempted to draw some kind of moral equivalency between the actions of the Bush administration and those of al Qaeda.  The European (and American) left is, naturally, using the fact that it hasn’t been broadcast here (except at a few film festivals and the like) as evidence of the right-wing media’s complicity in the eeeeeevil Bush junta’s fascist campaign to enslave the world and steal its oil. 

Interestingly, one of the world’s leading experts on al Qaeda, Peter Bergen, has published a review of the film in that notorious right-wing Bush-loving rag The Nation, where he says that while the film has its merits in some areas, in its central theses it is more polemic than documentary.  Clive Davis has a great overview of the review, but I recommend you read it in its entirety.

Let me put it this way.  I first heard of Sayyid Qutb at least five or six years ago.  I had never heard of Leo Strauss until the world’s lefties began claiming that everyone conservative in America was deeply influenced by his teachings.

Here’s a couple of things I bet you didn’t know.  The universe was created by a flying spaghetti monster, and pirates cause global warming.  It’s true, I tell you.  I’m convinced.

A thought… when a female blows herself up as a martyr, does she qualify for the 72 virgins like the men do?  I mean, I’m sure the image these men have of the virgins that await them are like Sheherazade, dancing seductively just for them.  But what does the woman get?  Probably guys like this.

I can her it now.  “Allah be praised!  We’ve been waiting in Paradise for years for a female Martyr to come along, and now?  Awwwwww Yeahhhh!! Break out the Axe body wash, my Islamic brother, because Paradise is getting a new Martyr and she’s lookin’ to score!!”

Islamic ladies: Is this worth dying for?