Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Dispatch From the Religion of Peace

Via Betsy's Page comes this post by Michael Yon from Iraq. I was struck especially by this odd nugget:
Other AQI edicts included beatings for men who refused to grow beards, and corporal punishments for obscene sexual suggestiveness, defined by such “loose” behavior as carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag.
It is beyond my comprehension that so-called "Progressives" think it a good idea to turn a strategic middle-eastern country over to men of this prehistoric mentality.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Astounding Condescension

The Left again displays the amazing arrogance with which they perceive the right. Check out Peter Mehlman:
It's been the ultimate frustration to consider the people who don't see Bush's malevolence: In 2004, rural America cited national security as their number one reason for voting for Bush. But people in the major cities, where there's actually a chance of being victimized by terrorism, people voted against Bush. Frustrating.
Oh, Peter, so sorry. We red state rubes really didn't understand how much you city folk needed John Kerry to do whatever it was he was going to do for you. Next time, memo us so we can vote your interests, instead of our own,okay?
In the cities, where most people are utterly at two with nature, people cited Bush's raping of the environment as a major reason to vote against him. In rural America, where people fish and hunt and generally do things outside, they voted for Bush. Sooooo frustrating.
Oh no. Now we learn that people living in the environment are apparently too dim to protect their world without the enlightened help of Peter and his city-dwelling brethren. The condescension is breathtaking. But, incredibly, it's not over with.
On Sutton Place and in Harvard-Westlake, where kids go to college after high school, they vote against Bush. In rural America, from where the majority of tragically killed kids in Iraq soldiers come, they vote for Bush.
Holy Shit! The people who are fighting and dieing in our military support President Bush! If only these ignoramouses could be replaced with children from Sutton Place and Harvard-Westlake, we might have a real military here. Oy Vey!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Human History, the Condensed Version

For those that do not know about history, here is a condensed
version . . .

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: 1. Liberals; and 2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided. Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off.

Brilliant

John Podhoretz is brilliant, absolutely spot-on brilliant. Check out his analysis of the much demanded Palestinian "self-rule:"
Ah, the joys of self-rule.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who conceived the disengagement plan, had a brilliant insight: Why not let them have it? They want it? It's theirs.

After all, over the course of Israel's 38 years of occupation, fewer than 10,000 Jews actually sought to live in Gaza - and their settlements required tens of thousands of other Israelis to risk their lives protecting them.

The Palestinians spent decades professing their detestation of Israeli occupation and demanding self-rule . . . so Israel gave them their heart's desire.

Gaza is Judenrein - emptied of all Jews, just as Hitler dreamed Germany would be. No Jews live in Gaza. No Jews patrol Gaza. It's Jew-Free-by-the-Sea, with a charming Mediterranean coast worth billions of dollars in tourism and trade.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that the Jews weren't the problem.

The problem is that the Palestinians are the problem: They are drenched in an ideology of blood and murder and suicide.
A new nation must be brought into being, nurtured and built. But Palestinian political culture is a culture of destruction.
And a culture of destruction is, inevitably, a culture of self-destruction.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

From Boortz comes this gem:
From the June 22nd USDA report:

"Please be advised that we have finalized the process of translating the Free and Reduced Price School Meals Application package into 25 different languages . . . Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese (Mandarin), Farsi, French, Greek, Haitian, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Laotian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Samoan, Serbo-Croatian, Somali, Spanish, Sudanese, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese."
Your tax dollars at work.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Overheard on Southwest Airlines

Your seatbelt should be worn low and snug on your hips, just like our Captain wears his Speedo.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Softball Anybody?

Via Betsy Newmark comes this discussion of the tough questions the press is laying on Hillary!:

  • Can you tell us what the Latino vote means to you?
  • Is your high levels (sic) of support among women a reflection of the number of women working in major roles in your campaign?
  • You may be ready to be president of the United States, but is the United States ready for a woman president?
  • How do you balance your duties as a senator and as a presidential candidate?

    If Hillary! is so smart, how about somebody asks her a question that requires at least a three digit IQ to answer?

    Here's one I would ask: If we immediately "extricate" ourselves from Iraq as you have promised, and a heinous bloodbath ensues, would you re-deploy US troops in a humanitarian mission as your husband did in the Balkans? If not, why not? Are Arabs not as worthy of US protection as eastern Europeans?

    Or maybe this: If we leave Iraq as you have advocated and Iranian madmen immediately take control of Baghdad by marching into the vacuum created by departing US Forces, how will President Hillary! respond?
  • Monday, June 11, 2007

    My Soundtrack

    Via Jane Galt comes this little game:

    If your life had a soundtrack, what would the music be?
    Here’s how it works:
    1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
    2. put it on shuffle
    3. press play
    4. for every life event, type the song that’s playing
    5. new event – press the next button
    6. don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool
    Okay, here goes.

    Opening Credits:
    You're Only Human - Billy Joel
    Waking Up:
    I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better - Tom Petty
    First Day At School:
    Sunshine - Jonathan Edwards
    Falling in Love:
    Doctor Jimmy - The Who
    Breaking Up:
    Deaf, Dumb, and Blind - NRBQ
    Prom:
    It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It) - The Rolling Stones
    Life’s Okay:
    You Had Me From Hello - Kenny Chesney
    Mental Breakdown:
    We Shall Overcome - Bruce Springsteen
    Driving:
    Unchained Melody - LeAnn Rimes
    Flashback:
    One Particular Harbor - Jimmy Buffett
    Getting Back Together:
    Getaway - Earth, Wind, & Fire
    Wedding:
    Hungry For Your Love - Van Morrison
    Birth of a Child:
    Hangin' On To The Good Times - Little Feat
    Final Battle:
    Wacky Tobacky - NRBQ
    Death Scene:
    On A Night Like This - Buckwheat Zydeco
    Funeral Song:
    Sweet Thing - Van Morrison
    End Credits:
    The Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon

    What a bizarre exercise that was! Thanks for reading this silliness.

    Do People Believe This Stuff

    Hillary Clinton. Speedwalker, tennis star, Yankee fan, duck hunter. And now this:
    Last week, Hillary joined tennis pro Billie Jean King for a Women for Hillary event.

    "I played softball, I played pickup basketball, I played tennis,” Hillary claimed at the event.

    Hillary remembered she even had won a trophy once in an Arkansas mixed-doubles tournament.
    Oh, c'mon now. Pickup. Freaking. Basketball??

    Sunday, June 10, 2007

    Another Liberal Double Standard

    Government agencies, both state and federal, are spending $30 million to clean up an environmental mess off Ft Lauderdale, Florida. The cause of this mess was "an ill-conceived reef of rubber tires sunk into the ocean in the 1970s."

    So, who created this "ill-conceived" reef? Firestone? Goodyear? And will "big rubber" be charged with paying for this cleanup? No, of course, not. Because this mess was created by liberals:
    The tires were dumped into the ocean by a nonprofit group that thought they would lure gamefish. But it didn't work. The bands holding the tires together broke, and storms scattered them across the ocean floor. Some periodically wash ashore.
    If a private company, even one acting in good faith, had done such a thing, they would have been dragged through the ringer with hearings and fines. The beloved liberal non-profit environmentalists, however, barely draw a mention.

    Wednesday, June 06, 2007

    I must be hungry...

    I enjoyed the pictures in this photo essay titled "What the World Eats". Is it lunch time yet?

    Monday, June 04, 2007

    You. Are. Kidding.

    Remember when Bill Clinton admitted to all sorts of salacious behavior with Monica Lewinsky? Remember wondering how HILLARY! could forgive such behavior? Now we know:
    Clinton stood by her actions in the aftermath of former President Clinton's admission that he had an affair, including presumably her decision to stay in the marriage.

    "I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said during a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential candidates talked about faith and values.

    "I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," she said in response to a question about how she dealt with the infidelity.
    Suddenly, it seems, HILLARY! has found a God.

    Update From the Religion of Peace

    In this earlier post, I bemoaned the lack of critical discussion concerning Muslim misogyny. Honor killings, female circumcision, girls beaten into burning buildings. And noticing such things is really our fault:
    University of Washington anthropology and law professor Arzoo Osanloo picked up on this theme by decrying "Western, paternalistic attitudes towards Muslim women." Osanloo was concerned that "Islamic liberalism" would be "obscured by Western involvement," particularly in Iran.
    Will somebody please call bullshit on this nonsense?

    Barcelona and Valencia

    I know things were pretty slow around here for a while. I was in Spain last night on a design retreat with some fellow architects and had a terrific time.

    Here we are enjoying a cold beer and snack in Barceloneta, the old fishing village near the Mediterranean.

    This is the "City of the Arts" by modern architect Calatrava in Valencia. It was a fabulous trip, but I am happy to home.

    Dispatch From the Religion of Peace

    It is astounding to me that the left in this country continues to side with poor, oppressed Palestinians. Taking the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" to its ultimate, absurd conclusion, consider the people the left now side with:
    Islamic extremists in the Gaza Strip have threatened to behead female news broadcasters if they don't adhere to the strict Islamic dress code and cover their faces. A group calling itself the "Righteous Swords of Islam," believed to have links to al Qaeda, accused the women of acting immorally. "It's indeed disgraceful that the women working for the official Palestinian media are competing with each other to display their charms," the group wrote in a leaflet. They threatened to kill the women for allegedly spreading corruption in Palestinian society.
    I am waiting to hear protests from the women's movement. No? None? They go on:
    "If necessary, we will behead and slaughter to preserve the spirit and morals of our people," it said. The group has previously claimed responsibility for bombing various Internet cafes in the Gaza Strip. It also claims to have thrown acid in the faces of unveiled women in Gaza.
    Misogyny so deep, they are evidently proud of throwing acid at women's faces. Unbelievable. How can these people ever be expected to develop a civilized society when they are willing to devote this amount of energy to threatening, maiming, and killing half of their own population?