Do, or do not. There is no 'try'. - Yoda

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Just when you think that Michael Moore couldn’t stoop any lower.  What fucking scum.

I meant to post this the other day and, well, forgot.  But Digger’s Realm has reached the blog milestone of 1,000,000 pageviews.  In the blogosphere sites go up and down more than a prostitute on ecstasy, so having the staying power enough to get to a million views is a really noteworthy achievement.  Congrats, Digger!

I’ve been claiming since the whole debacle began that Casey Sheehan’s mother had absolutely no real interest in meeting with President Bush.  She was looking for a propaganda victory.  If he decided to see her again, she could go crazy and rant and scream, and she’d get a huge PR victory in the papers.  If he ignored her, then she’d have another propaganda victory.  And now that the month of August is over, she admits it.

A woman who led an anti-war protest for nearly a month near President Bush’s ranch said Tuesday that she’s glad Bush never showed up to discuss her son’s death in Iraq, saying the president’s absence “galvanized the peace movement.”

Cindy Sheehan’s comments came as war protesters packed up their campsite near the ranch and prepared to leave Tuesday for a three-week bus tour.

“I look back on it, and I am very, very, very grateful he did not meet with me, because we have sparked and galvanized the peace movement,” Sheehan told The Associated Press. “If he’d met with me, then I would have gone home, and it would have ended there.”

Bullshit, Cindy.  This was never about answers or accountability or getting a meeting with the president.  This was about assuaging the massive sense of guilt you feel at not being about to prevent your little boy from growing up and becoming a man, a man who just might have an opinion different than your own.  This was about prostituting the memory of the fine, honorable son you raised so that despicable vermin like MoveOn and Michael Moore and Al Sharpton can get their radical left-wing agenda on the front pages, and you could position yourself as some kind of untouchable, sainted martyr. 

But then again, it’s always been about you, hasn’t it?  That’s why just the other day the Los Angeles Times quoted you as saying, “I know that the Camp Casey movement is going to end the war in Iraq.  When you read about the Camp Casey movement in the history books, you can say, ‘I met Casey’s mom.’” There you go, you egomaniacal harpy.  It’s about you, it’s always been about you.  It’s about your canonization in the annals of left-wing activism, about elevating your status from grieving mother into empowering activist.  As I’ve said before, in a sadly perverse way your son’s death was the best thing that ever happened to you, because it gave meaning to your otherwise wretchedly average life. 

And your son, and the sacrifice he made?  Well, that’s not that important, is it?

I was just sitting here thinking about Cafe Dumond in New Orleans.  I can’t remember how many times I’ve sat there at 5am, drunk off my ass, drinking coffee and eating beignets, with Jackson Square on one side and the Mississippi River on the other.  It’s probably totally gone by now.  For those of you who have never been, I tried to post a link to their website, but it’s totally down.  Their server must be hosted in NOLA, too. 

This whole thing is just tragic.

If you’re planning on donating money for the relief effort, I recommend Catholic Charities.  Go give a couple of bucks.  And if you donated money to the tsunami victims, make sure that the amount you give to your countrymen is more.  Charity begins at home, and the city of New Orleans has always been good to me.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Let’s hear it for law and order in Oregon!

In a case that is the first of its kind in Oregon, a mother is going to prison for passing meth to her baby through breastfeeding.

Prosecutors are calling this a hallmark case because it directly holds meth addicted mothers accountable for the harm they cause their children.  …

The charge is called ‘Forcible Ingestion of a Controlled Substance’ and carries a maximum penalty of a year and a half in prison.

In a Marion County courtroom on Monday, Thomas admitted that she continued to smoke meth, even after her child was taken away from her last November.

The case came about after Thomas brought her 9-month-old boy to the Salem Hospital. He was not feeling well, but hospital staff also noticed that he seemed unusually agitated. Tests revealed the infant had an extremely high concentration of meth in his system.

On Monday, the judge in the case handed down the maximum sentence, telling Thomas she would have to spend the next 18 months in prison.

“If you decide that using meth is an idea you’re going to embrace, you need to do something to safeguard your children from the addiction because that’s not what Jennie Thomas did. She used meth while she was breastfeeding and she was held accountable for that behavior,” said Sarah Morris, Deputy District Attorney for Marion County.

I think this is a fantastic idea.  If the idea is to protect children, then does it really make any difference whether the drugs got into the baby’s system through the teat or through any other method?  Hopefully during her 18 month stretch this woman will take advantage of drug counseling, so that when she gets out she can get her child back and raise it in safety.

Score one more for the good guys with guns.

A fatal shooting at an Albuquerque Wal-Mart last week was the state’s first by someone with a concealed-carry gun permit, authorities said.

Police said Felix Vigil was attacking his ex-wife with a knife near the store’s deli counter where she worked when an armed customer intervened and shot him. The woman, Joyce Cordova, was treated for multiple stab wounds and later released from an Albuquerque hospital.

The armed customer, 72-year-old Due Moore, was interviewed after the shooting last Thursday and released.

Police spokeswoman Officer Trish Hoffman said it appeared the shooting was justified. However, it will be up to the district attorney to decide whether Moore, a volunteer with the police department’s cold case unit, will be prosecuted.

Moore could not be reached for comment.

New Mexico allows citizens age 21 and over to carry concealed weapons if they complete firearms training and pass national and local criminal background checks.

Moore’s fatal shot was the first fired by someone with a permit, according to state Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson. The state has issued more than 3,100 permits since the gun law went into effect Jan. 1, 2004.

So, which is better from a societal standpoint?  If this happened in the UK, for example, the woman would be dead, and her husband would have gone to jail for it, not much consolation for the family of the deceased.  Here in gun-crazy America the woman is alive, the criminal is dead, and everyone goes on with their lives.

Our way is better.

I’ve been reading up on the latest Hurricane Katrina news, and I found a local New Orleans news website which is running an up to the minute blog of developments.  Man, that city is screwed.  The levees are breaking.

11:01 A.M. - Break in 17th Street Canal Levee is now 200 feet wide and slowly flooding the City of New Orleans. Huge sand bags are being airlifted to try to stem the rush of water in that area.

One other thing I noticed, though, were these two posts.

9:35 A.M. Marshal Law in effect in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish. 60 percent of homes in Plaquemines Parish under water.

11:13 A.M. - Plaquemines Parish...if you are found on the street...will be arrested. Marshall law in effect. 60 percent of homes flooded. 50 people rescued.

It’s not “marshall” or “marshal” law, it’s martial, as in “of or pertaining to the military.” You’d think someone working for a news website would know this.

A couple of days ago I wrote a post showing a basic example of how, even in situations where relatively little is known about a subject, many testable hypotheses can be confirmed or refuted.  Here’s a real-world example of that same dynamic.

There is a hot spot on one of Saturn’s moons which should not be there and has yet to be explained, scientists said on Tuesday.

It is located at the south pole of Enceladus, a moon with a diameter of just 500 km (310 miles) which orbits Saturn at a distance of around 238,000 km.

The hot spot is unusual because it occurs at the pole, scientists said. Usually, the hottest part of any planet or moon is around the equator, as is the case with the earth.

This suggests that the heat at Enceladus’ southern pole is generated from within, said scientists from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons.

But they acknowledged they had no idea how.

“It shouldn’t be that warm,” said John Spencer, one of the scientists working on the project.

“It’s like flying past Antarctica and finding that it’s warmer than the earth’s equatorial regions. It’s that strange.”

The conventional wisdom holds that equatorial areas are hotter than other areas because there is a greater distribution of solar energy on areas at a more oblique angle to the energy source.  We see this on our own planet, for example.  However, now we have data which show a hot spot in an area where one should not be.  In other words, we’re dealing with an unknown quantity.

What is the best way to explain this unknown quantity?  It’s to formulate a hypothesis based upon what we know already.  In this case, where there’s heat there has to be some kind of source.  What is the source?  They admit they don’t know.  It could be some kind of geothermal event, or it could be a city full of aliens who all worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Or it could be evidence of Intelligent Design, in the sense that the hot spot is there for no other reason than God wants it to be there.

Which is more likely?  Which hypothesis seems most likely to you, the one based on what we have seen in the past, or one that someone just makes up out of the thin air?

So, where does America’s has-been racial arsonist go when the young Turk racial arsonist is in Crawford, TX?  Why, he goes to Venezuela.

he Rev. Jesse Jackson met with President Hugo Chavez in hopes of reducing tensions between the United States and Venezuela after a religious broadcaster called for the leftist president’s assassination.

The U.S. civil rights leader on Monday urged both sides to tone down their ``hostile rhetoric,’’ and said President Bush should strongly condemn recent remarks by conservative religious broadcaster Pat Robertson calling for Chavez’s assassination.

Jackson said good relations are in both countries’ interests since Venezuela is a top supplier of U.S. oil.

``I hope that we’ve done something to facilitate a detente on threatening rhetoric,’’ Jackson said. ``We’re not going to have an oil war.’’

Chavez offered the United States cheap heating oil for poor communities and said he was willing to cooperate with the United States in anti-drug efforts, a program he recently suspended saying U.S. drug agents were involved in spying.

``In spite of the differences and the tense relations that exist, we’re always willing to continue working together with Mr. Bush’s government in the fight against drugs,’’ Chavez said, adding that it ``cannot be a mask to carry out spying or violate a country’s sovereignty.’’

Je$$e Jack$on always manages to find a way to interject himself into any issue, thus giving the appearance that he actually does something constructive and beneficial for the world.  In reality he’s consolidating his power base among America’s black community as someone who has the power to (gasp!) meet with foreign leaders, while that ol’ chump Sharpton is just sweating down in Texas with some ol’ Cracker.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Courtesy LGF:  Here we see Mother Sheehan, grief-stricken and anguished, pausing for a quiet moment with the Rev. Al Sharpton, while another woman gently touches her face in sympathy.

Touching, isn’t it?  How could anyone help but feel sorry for this poor woman and her obviously devastating loss?

I just booked a round-trip business class ticket to Australia, and all it cost me was about $45 and 90,000 air miles which I didn’t even know I had.  I rock!

Just received this one.

From: joeyblong@frontiernet.net
To: lee

WHAT KIND OF PATHETIC PUSSY DOESN’T ALLOW PEOPLE TO FREELY LEAVE COMMENTS?  LOL

I started making people register to post specifically because the trolling was so bad it was making any kind of regular discussion all but impossible. You know, trolling by people like this asshole, spewing insults written in all caps.

Okay, it’s 3am, and I’ve done a day’s worth of blogging already.  I’m going to sleep.  See you in the morning afternoon.

There are many areas where the British are vastly superior to Americans, and one of them is in their comedy.  American comedy is, for the most part, complete shit.  I’ve been watching the show Little Britain on BBC America for quite some time now, and it’s honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  And they just released the first season on DVD.  Check it out here.

If you’ve never seen the show, trust me, buy this DVD.  You will literally piss yourself laughing.  Everyone I have ever turned on to this show agrees.  You guys know me and you know my sense of humor.  Trust me, buy this.  I promise you, you won’t regret it.

This is the standard that all TV comedy should be judged by, and American TV falls far, far short.  It’s brilliant.