Settings
About Us
Categories
Search
Archives
Links
Miscellany
This is the funniest video I’ve seen in ages. I’d pay five, maybe six dollars to hear the guy with the mustache describe what he was thinking during this whole thing.
N.B. If anyone still has their panties in a wad over “her” clothes, note that her scarf is a Burberry knockoff. I can guarantee it wasn’t bought at Neiman’s or Saks.
Apollo posted this at 3:47 PM EST on Friday, November 21st, 2008 as Humor
John Dingell is no longer the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s the end of an era. He was elected in a special election in 1955 (coincidentally, the year both of my parents were born). He became chairman in 1980 (coincidentally, the year I was born). For the next 14 years, Dingell made Energy and Commerce the most legislatively productive committee in Congress, producing 30% of the legislation at the time. The quip went that his committee had jurisdiction over “everything that moves, burns, or is sold.”
Although he introduced in each Congress a bill to socialize health care, he was hardly a down the line liberal. He was a long time member of the NRA board, and a skeptic of environmentalists. He managed to pass bills and beat the leadership of both parties on occasion. If I recall correctly, President Bush said upon meeting him that he was supposed to be the biggest pain in the a** on Capitol Hill, and Dingell replied, “Thank you, Mr. President. I worked long and hard to get that reputation, and I’d hate to lose it.” He’s lost it.
Now this powerful committee will be headed by Henry Waxman, who’ll be a puppet of Speaker Pelosi. The independent Dingell was long a thorn in Pelosi’s side, to the point where she backed a primary opponent against him in 2002; he returned the favor later by backing Steny Hoyer for majority leader over Pelosi’s choice, John Murtha. It looks very much like Pelosi is consolidating her grip on the House. Once, there were many committee chairment who’d go there own way: Dan Rostenkowski and Bill Thomas on Ways and Means, Les Aspin on Armed Services, Howard Smith on Rules. Dingell was pretty much the last Democratic committee chairman who’d oppose the party leadership. The days of powerful committee chairmen going against the Speaker seem to be ending. She’s well to the left of most of the nation, but it looks like the House is firmly under Pelosi’s control.
Hubbard posted this at 5:14 PM EST on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Politics, Denizens of DC
Hurricanes and Hitler are often cited as the most difficult challenges to the belief that God is good. A more compelling answer is He has deprived us of the chance to have a young Clint Eastwood play President Andrew Jackson.
 |
 |
| Old Hickory | Young Easty |
Tom posted this at 2:00 PM EST on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Faith, Film Rants
Some years ago, Camille Paglia rightly ripped gay activists: Read the rest of this entry »
Hubbard posted this at 11:30 AM EST on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Here, Queer, and Nauseating
Considering the history of its constituents, a reasonable person might think the gay rights community would understand the benefits of a live-and-let-live mentality. As the whole Proposition 8 business in California — from the suit that led to the court ruling to the continued protests this week after losing at the polls — and now this detestable business show, a reasonable person would be wrong.
A settlement Wednesday between eHarmony Inc. and the New Jersey attorney general requires the online heterosexual dating service to also cater to homosexuals, raising questions about whether other services that target a niche clientele could be forced to expand their business models.
The settlement stemmed from a complaint, filed with the New Jersey attorney general’s office by a gay match seeker in 2005, that eHarmony had violated his rights under the state’s discrimination law by not offering a same-sex dating service. In 2007, the attorney general found probable cause that eHarmony had violated the state’s Law Against Discrimination.
So much for private rights of association. eHarmony is a private organization that provides a service people want. For whatever reasons — be they economic, religious, or homophobic — it doesn’t want to cater to gay people. It has an effing right to do that. If there’s a niche market for a civil union/marriage-focused gay dating website, there’s nothing in the world stopping anyone from doing it. Of course, that’s far more work and not nearly as emotionally satisfying as legally forcing someone to do your bidding and making them to pay thousands and create a new product line against their will.
Tom posted this at 10:02 AM EST on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Politics
From Lifehacker:
After all, give a man an answer, and he’ll come back tomorrow asking for more. Teach a man to search Google, and you’ll have to offer tech support when he ends up downloading malware while cruising shadier purveyors of adult entertainment and file sharing software.
Dorothy posted this at 9:33 PM EST on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 as Uncategorized
Over the last week, I’ve gotten a strangely large volume of wrong number calls. At least one a day, sometimes two. On Friday, I got a misdirected text message from a number I didn’t recognize asking me to engage in some criminal activity. Note to readers: if you’re going to request drugs via text message, make sure it’s a known number in your address book.
About 2:30 this morning, the phone rang but I didn’t get to it in time. It was an Arkansas area code. On the voice mail, a guy with a thick foreign accent and little English skill, kept calling me “James” and said that I needed to come pick up my friend at some place, but I couldn’t understand the place he named. Then in the background, some drunk guy with an Arkansas accent started explaining that he was waiting on me and he was going to get arrested for public intoxication (he called it “PI,” so I think he’s familiar with the charge) if I didn’t come pick him up.
Considering the circumstances, I called back to explain that I wasn’t James and probably wouldn’t be coming to pick that drunk guy up, but the guy with the foreign accent couldn’t understand what I was saying, and the drunk guy was just muttering incoherently and didn’t seem able to use the phone properly. Eventually I got tired of shouting “Wrong number!” and just hung up. They didn’t call back, so I presume things resolved themselves. Best of luck, drunk Arkansan.
Apollo posted this at 10:21 AM EST on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 as Ourselves, Grumblin Mumblins
Somehow, it gets more embarassing.
P.S. Wikipedia has this to say about Keyes’s lesbian anarchist daughter:
She states she is an anarchist, and reportedly believes things such as access to health care, education, housing, food and jobs should be considered human rights.
Under what sort of anarchy does one have guaranteed access to health care and a job?
Apollo posted this at 1:40 AM EST on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 as Windbaggery
Seriously, it’s 2008 and we can’t stop pirates. Not “quit stealing my intellectual property” pirates - though we can’t stop them either - but “quit stealing my oil tanker, ya scurvy ridden sea mutts” pirates.
It’s bad enough that it’s 2008 and I do not have a flying car, but also the high seas are flooded with pirates. More Jetsons, less Mad Max, please.
Apollo posted this at 12:30 AM EST on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 as Global War on Terror, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past
Well, the economy’s bad, so not only are people turning to Spam, they’re also turning to pot pies. Thirty-dollar pot pies, that is. We’re not talking about the cheap 3-for-a-$1 Banquet stuff, but these:
Twin Hens(TM) has experienced a record 300% growth since 2005. Their delicious Pot Pies are available in Dean & Deluca, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, QFC, Rice’s Epicurean Fairway and over 300 independent stores across the country.
Twin Hens sells 4-serving chicken pot pies for $28 and 4-serving beef pot pies for $30.
Hard times, folks.
Dorothy posted this at 11:39 PM EST on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 as Grumblin Mumblins, It's Economics - Stupid!
…are hard to come by.
(CNN) –Sources tell CNN’s Ed Henry and John King Barack Obama has chosen Eric Holder as his nominee for Attorney General.
Holder has accepted the position but must still undergo a vetting process by the Obama transition team.
If confirmed, Holder will become the first African-American to hold the position.
We have an African American President Elect. Our current Secretary of State is black, as is her predecessor. When will these ‘ground-breaking’ appointments cease to be ground-breaking? Let me rephrase that: when will reporters not feel compelled to note that person X is the first person of race Y to be nominated to position Z, as if this is still newsworthy?
Tom posted this at 4:58 PM EST on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 as Journalism
The Atlantic’s resident expert in obstetrics has two posts up today about Sarah Palin’s last pregnancy. TWO! He just can’t seem to let anything go with this woman. Just as there is no reason I can see for people to heap such praise upon her, neither is there any reason for this dogged pursuit of nothing.
What a sad little man he has become.
Jamie posted this at 3:18 PM EST on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 as Uncategorized
In all honesty, why do Spam sales increase during economic downturns? The New York Times makes it sound like it’s the only thing poor people can afford that “resembles meat.” I’ll grant that I don’t do much grocery shopping in New York, but here in Texas Spam is $4 a pound. Flippin’ pork tenderloin is $2.88/lb at Sam’s Club, and $4/lb at a normal grocery store. Other meats that are less no more expensive than Spam: pork chops ($2/lb), ground beef (lean ground chuck should go for $3/lb; fattier varieties go for $2/lb or less), fresh fish ($1/lb for tilapia if you know where to shop, $4/lb if you don’t), sirloin steak (regularly goes on sale for $4/lb), ham (Smithfield hams are never more than $3/lb), turkey ($.49/lb this time of year; never more than $2/lb), and chicken ($3/lb should buy you boneless, skinless breasts not on sale; everything else is cheaper, and I buy my chickens whole for no more than $1/lb, normally getting a whole chicken for less than a pound of Spam costs - a whole frickin’ chicken!).
I’m not a Spam basher; I like a Spamburger every once in a while, though I don’t get adventurous in cooking with it. But it’s not the case that Spam is cheap. Ramen is cheap. That crappy ground beef in the freezer section that sells for $.79/lb, that’s cheap. Mac and cheese and instant potatoes, the other foods mentioned in the story as increasing in sales, are both cheap.
What would explain it is if people are not just poor, but poor and some combination of lazy, bad cooks, and/or bad shoppers. If you’ve got $3 and you can either salt and pepper a pork tenderloin and cook it to the correct doneness, or you can open a can of Spam, slice is, and put it in a skillet until you feel like taking it out, the latter is somewhat easier and requires no cooking skill whatsoever. Spam also has the advantage of never going bad, unlike fresh meat. Though if people are broke and jobless and moping around without hope because it’s the worst economy since the Great Depression, maybe they could make a little time to buy fresh food regularly instead of buying 100 pounds of Spam twice per annum.
And those other meats are probably healthier (Spam is loaded with calories), reducing the amount the plebs will have to gripe about being fat and not having health insurance. And they all taste better as part of a well-rounded, healthy, and inexpensive diet.
I think we need to force high school kids to take home economics. The thought that people are turning to Spam as poor food upsets me. There’s so much better and cheaper food out there, even if Spam’s not bad from time to time.
Update: I just saw a commercial for a whole, cooked chicken from Boston Market for $1.99. Can’t say I particularly like Boston Market, but that’s cheaper than a can of Spam, and it’s significantly more food. And it’s significantly healthier.
Apollo posted this at 3:01 PM EST on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 as Grumblin Mumblins, It's Economics - Stupid!
He finally nails down why I’m a Republican:
White resistance to supporting Democratic presidential candidates is troubling partly because much of that resistance is a lingering reaction to Johnson’s passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
I nail an effigy of LBJ to every cross I burn.
Apollo posted this at 7:19 PM EST on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 as Race
The Palin-Doesn’t-Know-Africa-Is-A-Continent-Meme was a complete hoax, and one that — despite some reservations — I pretty much fell for. Apologies.
Tom posted this at 10:24 AM EST on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 as Journalism
Drudge headlines this: UK Sperm Banks May Need Bailout…
Apollo posted this at 9:37 AM EST on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 as Humor