Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein

Monday, October 31, 2005

Number of coral reefs destroyed by me: Zero.  Number of coral reefs destroyed by Greenpeace…

GREENPEACE is to be fined after its flagship Rainbow Warrior II damaged a coral reef in the central Philippines during a climate change awareness campaign.

The ship and its crew were assessed a 640,000-peso ($15,000) fine after the 55m motor-assisted schooner ran aground at the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park yesterday, park manager Angelique Songco said.

The ship’s bow sliced through a reef formation measuring 160sq m, she said.

A Greenpeace official in the Philippines described the incident as accidental, and said it would comply with the marine park authorities’ ruling.

In response, Mobil/Exxon has sent one of its offshore oil platforms to the Philippine coast to promote an Environmentalist Lunatic awareness program.

We haven’t had a good “man fucked to death by horse” story in a while, so here’s a “man raped by dog” one to tide you over.

“A drunk who claimed he had been raped by a dog was yesterday jailed for 12 months by a judge. Martin Hoyle, 45, was arrested by police after a passing motorist and his girlfriend found a Staffordshire bull terrier, called Badger, having sex with him at the side of a road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

Prosecutor Ben Crosland said the couple had stopped to help because they thought Hoyle was being attacked by the animal. But when they got closer they saw that he had his trousers round his ankles, was down on all fours and the dog was straddling him from behind.

“The defendant mumbled something about the dog having taken a liking to him,” said Mr Crosland. “The couple were extremely offended and sickened by what they saw.” Another passing motorist contacted the police and Hoyle was arrested as he walked with the dog down the road.

Hoyle, of East view, Marsh, Huddersfield, told police “I can’t help it if the dog took a liking to me. He tried to rape me.”

He repeated the rape allegation at the police station and added “The dog pulled my trousers down.” Hoyle, who has had a long-standing alcohol problem, was jailed for 12 months after he admitted committing an act which outraged public decency.

His barrister said Hoyle had no memory of the incident because of his drunken state, but was now very remorseful and incredibly embarrassed.

Jailing him, Judge Alistair McCallum told Hoyle “Never before in my time at the bar or on the bench have I ever had to deal with somebody who voluntarily allowed himself to be buggered by a dog on the public highway. Frankly it is beyond most of our comprehension. It is an absolutely disgusting thing for members of the public to have to witness

The Swedish government immediately offered Hoyle citizenship.

After the Miers disaster, I was really hoping to see a united front between Congress and the White House.  Check out what Bill Frist just said.

Obstructing judicial nominees should be a thing of the past. If the Democrats want to obstruct a nominee and not give us our constitutional right of advice and consent, an up-or-down vote, we’ll take it to the mat. If a filibuster comes back, I’m not going to hesitate to employ the constitutional option to get an up-or-down vote.

He’s on the record now.  The Republicans are a majority party, it’s time they started acting like it.

Over at The Corner, Stanley Kurtz offers his Scalito analysis.

This is a winning political move. Alito is at least as qualified as Roberts, and his Casey opinion will not sustain a convincing filibuster. The Democrats seem trapped here. Reid has warned the president not to nominate Alito. And despite the narrow and non-substantive character of Alito’s dissent in Casey, the Dems will be forced by their groups to make abortion the issue. So if there is no filibuster, this is going to come off as a huge victory for the president.

On the other hand, a failed filibuster against this qualified a nominee will be an even bigger victory. A filibuster will inundate us with repetitive analyses of the Casey decision. But there is nothing in that decision that will carry a majority of the public against Alito. Conservatives will be infuriated by the attempted “borking,” the Democrats will look obstructionist, and the filibuster will fail. If anything, that would be even better politically for the president and the Republicans.

The third, and least likely possibility, is a successful Democratic filibuster. That could only be the result of a successful borking, with major media malfeasance, and would make conservatives even madder. The result would be a gigantic election showdown with conservatives even more activated than liberals.

So every political outcome is positive. The downside is the possibility that a filibuster will hold up the larger legislative agenda. But I don’t think even moderate Republicans are politically endangered by this. They will break a filibuster and will not be punished. Moderate Democrats will be in more danger if they do filibuster. Again, I think this traps the Democrats between their own groups and the broader public. Big win for the president.

I tend to agree with this.  I also think, too, that Bush is hoping for a fight for one simple reason: he wants to clearly define the differences between Republicans and Democrats over abortion.  With the country split roughly 50/50 on this most polarizing of issues, and the Democrats sure to make abortion the central issue of the confirmation fight, this will enable Bush to show everyone, “Hey.  If you’re opposed to abortion, the only choice is the GOP.  For all my other faults, if you’re against baby murdering, you know who to vote for in 2006.” Even among the vast majority of citizens who support abortion, most don’t support unconditional abortion on demand, which is the only term the Democrats’ big-money donors will accept.  Bush is forcing his opponents to either support his nominee in order to maintain their appeal to the broader public, or to adopt the radical pro-abortion position, which will mollify their base but turtn them off to the public.

This is a smart, smart move by Bush.  Not only do we get a superb jurist of the highest caliber on the high court, but he gets to try and regain a little political capital with it.  This is the type of hardball I like seeing from this president, something we’ve seen precious too little of lately.

Update: I made a slight correction above, to change “anti-abortion” to “pro-abortion.”

I can dig it.

President Bush, stung by the rejection of his first choice, nominated conservative judge Samuel Alito on Monday to replace moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in a bid to reshape the Supreme Court and mollify his political base.

“Judge Alito is one of the most accomplished and respected judges in America,” the president said in announcing Alito’s selection. “He’s got a mastery of the law and a deep commitment to justice.” Bush exhorted the Senate to confirm his choice by the end of the year.

How to translate Bush: “One the most accomplished and respected judges in America” means “He’s not my lawyer, he’s got a clue what he’s doing, and he actually deserves the job I just offered him.” “A deep commitment to justice” means “He’s against abortion.”

The choice was likely to spark a political brawl. Unlike the nomination of Harriet Miers, which was derailed Thursday by Bush’s conservative allies, Alito faces opposition from Democrats.

“The Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.

How to translate Reid. “Too radical” means “Will vote against abortion.” “The American people” means “the feminists and abortion supporters who make up our political base and give us large donations.”

Sunday, October 30, 2005

I’m off for a little priest-on-man action.  No, not that kind of action, the Judas Priest kind:  Priest, Anthrax, and Rob Zombie at Long Beach Arena.  Boo yah!

See you later on this evening.  Rock out with your cock out!

Okay, this pisses me off.

The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.

The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America’s “confrontational” approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam’s strengths.

The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational,” the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.

It is understood that Prince Charles did not - and does not - believe that the actions of 19 hijackers should tarnish the reputation of hundreds of millions of law-abiding Muslims around the world.

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James’s Palace. “His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture,” he said.

I’m not so much upset at Charles for his opinion, he’s the crown prince to a nation full of Muslims and as such he’s entitled to represent their opinion, no matter how much I might disagree with it.  What I’m sick of hearing is this idea, stated perfectly above by Khalid Mahmood, that Americans are somehow ignorant of Islam’s virtues, the implication being that if only we Americans weren’t so isolated and ignorant of the outside world that we wouldn’t have these problems. 

So, America doesn’t appreciate Islam or its culture?  Fine, let’s accept that as true.  Why is it always incumbent upon America (or the West) to understand and appreciate Islam?  Where is the great appreciation for Western culture and values in the Islamic world?  Every university in the United States and Europe will have an Eastern or Middle Eastern studies department.  Where, in the Islamic world’s institutions of learning (such as they are) do we find comparable Western studies?  Where are the professors explaining to their students the value of multi-ethnic, pluralistic, secular, democratic society?  Why is there not a single internationally regarded institute of higher learning anywhere in the Islamic world? 

There are Islamic mosques all over the place in America; how many Christian churches or Jewish synagogues are there in Saudi Arabia?  How many western foreigners choose voluntarily to establish permanent residency in the Islamic world, not counting oil workers?  Conversely, how many Muslims choose to move to the secular West? 

Where is the Arab regard for the freedom of the press?  The West provides opportunities for Muslims to make their voices heard through “civil rights” groups like CAIR.  Where are the comparable groups in the Middle East who are able to speak out whenever America or Europe are defamed in the Arab media?  When a prominent American religious leader like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson speaks ill of Islam he is rightfully excoriated by the press and the American people; in the Middle East their religious leaders are funded by the various theocratic states and encouraged to preach hate against the West.

What, exactly, is there for Americans to understand about Islam?  That what is ostensibly a major world religion has been hijacked by radicalized thugs, who use the abject ignorance of the Islamic world to further their totalitarian agenda?  That Islam provides a vehicle by which its adherents believe that strapping bombs to their bodies and detonating them in Israeli shopping centers will somehow get them a front row ticket to Paradise?  That the intentional, overt targeting of civilians by armed guerilla groups is somehow virtuous?  This a region which has no respect for women, minorities, people of other faiths, or indeed anyone who doesn’t buy into the fascist objectives of the Islamist movement.  They have no problem killing as many of their own coreligionists as necessary, provided it is done in furtherance of their despotic ends. 

Look at the London bombings.  These weren’t carried out by ignorant, back woods Muslims, born in poverty and educated in the madrassas. The evil individuals who took it upon themselves to attack decent British society were almost all born and raised in the UK.  In addition, after the London bombings 2/3 of British Muslims surveyed stated that they had some degree of sympathy for the bombers and their objectives.

To put it bluntly, exactly what the fuck is it about the Middle East or Islam that I’m just not getting?  If there is a lack of understanding by anyone, it sure as hell isn’t on the part of the United States.  Perhaps Prince Charles’ time would be better spent hobnobbing with the turban-wearing fascists, explaining to their excellencies why the great Western culture and civilization he will one day reign over deserves protection and understanding.

If the Islamic world actually offered us anything of value we might have more of a desire to respect and understand it.

The Religion of Peace™ claims its latest victims.

Three girls have been beheaded and another badly injured as they walked to a Christian school in Indonesia.

They were walking through a cocoa plantation near the city of Poso in central Sulawesi province when they were attacked.

This is an area that has a long history of religious violence between Muslims and Christians.

A government-brokered truce has only partially succeeded in reducing the number of incidents in recent years.

Police say the heads were found some distance from the bodies.

It is unclear what was behind the attack, but the girls attended a private Christian school and one of the heads was left outside a church leading to speculation that it might have had a religious motive.

I suppose it could be serial killers.  Though which is more likely, an Indonesian serial killer beheading schoolgirls, or Muslim s just acting like Muslims?  I mean, those Islamists will do anything to get ahead… or three.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Have you seen the new series of commercials for Embassy Suites hotels?  Basically it goes something like this.  A boss and an employee run into another employee in the hall or outside an elevator.  The boss says “Johnson, I’m sending Smith here to the conference instead of you.” The boss then goes on to provide a gimmicky reason, after which the commercial ends with a shot of the superior employee enjoying the amenities at Embassy Suites.

As you see these, notice something.  In one commercial the boss is a black male, the superior employee is a white female, and the doofus employee is a white male.  In another commercial the boss is a white female, the superior employee is a black male, and the doofus is a white male.  See a pattern here?

You can’t make a black the doofus because that would be racist.  You can’t make the doofus a woman because that would be sexist.  But it’s perfectly acceptable to make fun of white males all you like.

This reminds me of an observation Howard Stern made once, when the Williams Sisters were playing in the finals at Wimbledon.  He noted that the network covering the event had hired a former black tennis star to provide the color commentary, and wondered why they had chosen this woman over a player of superior caliber like Martina Navratalova.  He then answered his own question: because the network didn’t want a white person being critical of a black player.

America is supposed to be a pluralistic, multi-racial, multi-ethnic society.  What we have devolved into is a series of protected classes, with the only unprotected class being the white male.  It’s open season on us. 

Ironically, we’re the only people in the country who don’t whine and piss and moan to our legislators when this sort of thing happens, begging for protection for our feelings.  Funny how that works.

A friend just sent this over.  Her mother went to a Ralph’s grocery store here in Los Angeles to buy, among other things, a couple bottles of Coke, which were on sale.  They were out when she got there, so she asked for a raincheck.  This is a scan of the actual raincheck, with the clerk’s name altered.

Pathetic, isn’t it?  And just in case you were curious, the name in question isn’t Hispanic, so he can’t claim that English is his second language.  This, my friends, is the end result of the California public education system.

I’ll say one thing for the Bush administration, they’re fucking consistent when it comes to feeding tubes.

A Kuwaiti detainee on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay wants a judge to order the removal of his feeding tube so he can be allowed to die, his lawyer says.

Fawzi al-Odah is ready to die “out of desperation” at his detention without charge, said his lawyer Tom Wilner.

Mr al-Odah is one of about 26 detainees being fed by tube, against their will.

Force-feeding is highly controversial. Campaigners in London on Tuesday said it was unethical and painful, but US authorities say they are saving lives.

Mr al-Odah, a 28-year-old who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, has asked his lawyers to file papers seeking a judicial order that his tube be removed, Mr Wilner told AP news agency.

“He is willing to take a stand if it will bring justice,” Mr Wilner said.

However, Mr Wilner said the papers had not yet been filed due to the opposition of his client’s family, who were “frantic” about the situation.

Despite being force-fed, Mr al-Odah “looks like a skeleton”, Mr Wilner said.

Hell, I say let the guy go on his hunger strike.  Then we should have a chef prepare delicious traditional Arabic meals, and place them right outside his cell, and have a fan blow the scents into his cage.  We’ll see just how great his will to die is then.  As far as having a feeding tube inserted being unethical and painful, horseshit.  When my dad was in the hospital he had one.  The only reason its painful is because this dickhead won’t lie still while they insert it.

“As a matter of policy our mission is to… [prevent] unnecessary loss of life of the detainees through standard medical intervention, including involuntary medical nutrition,” Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, military spokesman at Guantanamo Bay, told the BBC News website.

He said hunger strikers were “clinically stable” and were receiving compassionate care. Only doctors and qualified nurses administered the tube-feeding, he said.

“The dangerous men we are holding are held in an environment that is stable, secure and humane,” he said.

See, it’s so sad that I have to read his remarks with derision, but the policies that we’ve enacted in Gitmo regarding prisoner abuse have made statements like this laughable.  It used to just be a given that a prisoner held in US custody would be treated in this manner, but with people being beaten to death, can we still make that claim?

Rights groups and doctors have expressed concern over the health of hunger strikers, and have also highlighted ethical concerns over the practice of force-feeding.

“Fundamental to doctors’ responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that prisoners have the same right as any other patient to refuse medical treatment,” said 18 doctors in a letter to the UK’s Guardian newspaper on Tuesday.

Which gets back to my previous idea.  If these dickheads don’t want to eat, fine.  We can turn it into another form of pressure.  Let’s see how great their will to starve is when we present before them a cornucopia of delicious tastes from their homeland.

And in the rubble of Pakistan, the seed of conservatism has taken root.

With only a fraction of the required funds promised by the world so far, Pakistan seems reluctant to make any expensive commitments.

Already, it has had to revise its “compensation” for the victims downwards.

The chief secretary of Pakistan-administered Kashmir had initially promised 100,000 rupees (about $1,660) per victim.

But earlier this week, the first instalment of cash compensation was doled out on the basis of 100,000 rupees per family.

Needless to say, many families have lost a number of members and the unannounced change in the compensation formula has left most of them even more uncertain of their future.

“How can we trust anyone?” asks bus driver Hussain Kiyani.

“Whatever we need to do, we have to do it ourselves. And we will.”

As New Orleans has shown us, if you rely on government for your safety you are a fool.  The best solution is to plan on doing everything yourself, because there is no institution ever created more inept and self-serving than government.

I was initially tempted to write, “And in the rubble of Pakistan, a Republican has just been born.” Unfortunately, after five years of Bush, we can’t really say that any more, can we?  Trusting the nanny state to provide for you is the hallmark of Bush’s view of government.

This is priceless.  I was looking through the BBC News forums, where readers can leave their comments on various news issues.  I find this an invaluable resource in gauging just how completely wrong most of the UK is in their opinion of life in America.  (Getting your idea of America from the BBC and Michael Moore movies will do that to you.) Since the Beeb is a left-wing news site, most of the Americans who leave comments there are barking moonbat lefties, one of whom posted the following.

Thanks, congratulations and even a toast—yes, a toast—to all those who have been doing the hard work with the grand jury, as well as to all those of us everywhere who are united as never before in the cause of Justice. May the Truth, at long last, prevail! Not a moment left to waste, my friends, and make every moment (and every word!) count! Victory is at hand, and it will be sweet if we each do exactly as our duty commands us to—remembering fearless, invincible Nelson, among other good soldiers who came before, and have fought since, and fight today. And to all those who write, who shape through language the events of our times: Godspeed to all those who serve the right cause!

Maria Ashot, Berkeley, United States

Fascinating, isn’t it, that some raving Berkeley dunce would actually use Admiral Lord Nelson, victor of the Battle of Trafalgar, as an example to be emulated.  If Nelson were doing his thing today people like Maria Asshat from Berkeley would be holding massive protests, with giant papier mache heads and hippie drum circles, comprised of hirsute women in sandals and ethnic skirts holding homemade “Nelson = Hitler” signs.

Friday, October 28, 2005

After masturbating furiously for two years, in the end the liberals got nothing more than a tingle.

Well, that was much ado about nothing. I don’t really think the indictment of the man who served as the Vice President’s Chief of Staff--and whose role in the administration was in fact much larger than that--is no big deal. It is. But the way Democrats were talking about this case leading up to the indictment, this has to come as a letdown. After all, liberals believed that Patrick Fitzgerald was going to cripple the Bush administration and reveal the lies and deceptions behind the Iraq war. There was speculation that Fitzgerald would shine a bright, unflattering light onto the inner workings of the White House Iraq Group. There was talk that he was going to name a “Constitutional officer"--namely Cheney--as an unindicted co-conspirator. And there were rumors that he was seeking to empanel a second grand jury to investigate who ginned up the fake “Niger documents.”

Maybe Fitzgerald just has a very impressive poker face, but it sure seemed from his press conference that none of those things is now going to happen. Even the talk, earlier in the day, that Rove was now in an excruciating legal limbo seems like it was overblown. The five indictments against Libby appear to be the only indictments Fitzgerald is going to bring. It seems there’s a good chance Rove is off the hook and an even better chance that everyone else is, as well. And since Fitzgerald’s such a stickler for rules, it’s doubtful we’re ever going to get much of an accounting of what else, besides the charges he’s laid out against Libby, he learned about the Bush administration’s shenanigans in the course of this investigation. In other words, the whole notion that the Fitzgerald investigation was going to reveal how the Bush administration led us into Iraq now seems to have been completely wrong. Democrats wanted their own Ken Starr--a prosecutor who let his investigation metastasize and whose operation leaked like a sieve. Instead, they got Elliot Ness.

It’s true.  It’s interesting that the lefties were referring to today as Fitzmas, meaning that Fitz was going to give them the political equivalent of Christmas Day.  But Christmas is an illusion, presented to willing children all-too happy to buy into the myth of a mystical man who comes into their lives and gives them rewards for being good little boys and girls.  This is exactly the state of the American left: overemotional, fantasy-driven, mythology-believing children who were just convinced that today their rank hatred of Bush was going to be rewarded.  But instead of the latest version of Bonestorm they woke up to find a copy of Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge.  (If you don’t get that joke see here and search the page for 3F07.)

Finally!  A presidential candidate I can respect!