me so mean

went and butted in on comments over at lum's. lum had a point in that the study really didn't relate to much of anything, but some of the comments seemed to be from people who think that human beings all operate in some sort of informational/ideological vacuum. on the not pissing me off side, i found this while getting some links for my comment at lum's. the once and future tyrant? it's weird how much religious imagery and rhetoric is at the heart of most socialist crap.

Goe, still hates commies.

ACK!

"Islam is a main source for legislation and it is not permitted to legislate anything that conflicts with the fixed principles of its rules."

New Iraqi constitution calls for islamic law, bin Laden celebrates, Taliban to stand for election, U.S. troops to be beheaded, U.S. ambassador expecting many virgins, Bush administration happy with Iraqi's 'take charge' attitude.

Goe, not happy that our middle-east policy seems to be 'go in circles. repeat.'

Umm

Locally famous rock STOLEN by swiss seperatist group. Other swiss seperatist group denies responsibility.

Even the swiss can't get along!

Goe, didn't steal anyone's rock.

Manners

I was over at my Grandmothers this evening, doing a bit of yard work that she's not up to doing, when someone I didn't know came up and asked me if any of his friends had talked to me about something (a competition I think). I said that they hadn't and he tried to give me a brochure, I said no thanks. He asked me why I didn't want one, I told him I wasn't interested. He asked why I wasn't interested, and I told him that I didn't care about it. Then he asked me why I was being rude. Why would I have an obligation to listen to a sales pitch? Why are we as a society so enthralled with marketing that what's being marketed is of a secondary concern? And why was the bastard interrupting the work I was doing? Rude asshat.

Goe, has no bust of Pallas above his chamber door.

Cars

J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome, announced last month that he intends to string together genes to create from scratch novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ethanol.

From here. Why don't they engineer something to make gasoline? It would save everybody a lot of trouble. While hydrogen is a nice alternative, when they say hydrogen, they don't mean this, but this. Fuel cells remind me of electric cars, which I've never found terribly impressive or useful.

Goe, will be sad when cars stop going vroom.

Karma

I saw a movie once, nice little character drama called Spring Forward. One of the characters, trying to change himself through eastern philosophy, tries explaining some of it to his coworker. His explaination of karma is that everytime you put a little good fortune into the world, a little good fortune will come back to you. His co-worker smiles and says "So what goes around comes around. I could have told you that."

"Instant Karma" isn't promised by most theologies. Rewards come after death, not before, but as we continue to develop the short attention span society, it's becoming harder and harder for people to wait. This brings me to this. I have no idea what church they're talking about, but how can they not have a malaise about waiting. "Superstar Christian Leader" isn't about waiting, it's about being recognized now as a wise and learned figure. It's not enough for us to just want stuff now, we want recognition and rewards now for things we haven't done yet.

Some people think that they should get recognition and rewards regardless of what they do or intend to do. Nothing is bad unless you want it to be, nothing is good unless you want it to be, nothing is sinful unless you want it to be, and if a diety gets upset at your behavior, they have to forgive you if you want them to. This is taking self-empowerment to the point where we are each a god unto ourselves. I know it's possible to be louder in ones boasting, but could a person possibly be more arrogant than to think that there is a god and it must cater to their every whim?

Goe, being a little philosophical.

i hate spam

i wrote a filter for thunderbird to toss out all email from netblocks that spammed me too much. works ok, but it doesn't help with the flood of commentspam (which doesn't appear to be over yet) that started with my last post (the one on kelo). i can see why some people encourage it though, it's artificially inflating the visit counter thingie down at the bottom. for many people, that's the only reason to post stuff.

Goe, hates spammers.

Kelo Laws

The Puppy Drinker is proven wrong yet again. being a lawyer, he'd probably argue the meaning of wrong.

Since the supreme court ruled that property isn't really private but just sort of occupied until the government decides to have someone else occupy it, the puppy drinker has been claiming that this will result in changes to local, state, and federal laws to prevent overzealous or corrupt land seizures. while some states are working on passing such laws, as soon as they provide any real inconvenience for land-grabbing politicians, they'll be re-written or abolished.

for example, a city issuing a condemnation on land so that they can seize it for practically nothing because the city can't stand having farmland outside city limits while they're projecting a future shortage of park space inside the city. for some stupid reason, it's perfectly legal, but you'd have to be totally fucking batshit insane to think that it makes sense sans powerlust. totally fucking batshit insane or a powerhungry politician.

or course, the article has nothing but praise for the politicians involved because it takes real courage to steal other people's stuff.

Goe, against it.

Florida ashamed.

Florida officially doesn't like us anymore. Maybe we should cut them loose and let them float away. Hawaii isn't floating away, but some are supporting an ethnic cleansing campaign by a Hawaiian senator to prepare the islands for reunification with the Chinese mainland. Some are against it, although they are suspected of being lobbied by singing children.

Goe, notes that a lot of Mexicans would gladly swap places with those unhappy people.

Found this

I found this both funny and over here. An interesting assortment of the odds and ends of being a person.

Goe, actually agreed that it was bad to be in other people's lawns when he was small.

I have something in common with terrorists.

I'm not fond of children either. They won't get off my damn lawn! I haven't tried using hundreds of explosive devices, but that'd probably scare the cat. These people are so fucking batshit insane that the only reason to meet them on 'middle ground' is so we can beat them to death.

Goe, because it's win or lose.

tired

i'm tired of women who think that having an attitude is charming or cute in some way. i'm also tired of relatives (none of whom look at all underfed) who want to spend their free time in public places whispering rude comments about passersby who are morbidly obese, and throwing temper tantrums if i don't want to go along.

Goe, has a lot of pet peeves.

Cat blogging

Not here, no good pictures of my cat, but IMAO continues to be more fun than a slap on the belly with a wet trout. Lots of people like cats, though...

Goe, not busy enough.

The Future

The future would be nothing without a little ethnic cleansing!

Or at least they should leave half of the United States to be China’s colony, because America was first discovered by the Chinese.

Goe, noting that China seems to now be claiming the entire western hemisphere.

School Shootings.

Hussein's Information Ministry has an article on school shootings. I'd like to point out that far from feeling horror over the Columbine school shootings, the only discussion I heard from people I knew about the incident was speculation by co-workers on how they could have achieved a higher body count. No sympathy, no searching for underlying causes, no oprahfied tear-fests. We only talked about the efficacy of the attacks. The consensus in the office was a school assembly (ala heathers), doors chained shut, and a flamethrower were an ideal combination. I distrust anyone I see online or on television who talks about being shocked by those types of events. Our school systems are so ineptly run that it's close to miraculous that there have been so few school shootings.

Hogwarts actually has a problem with this. Students attack each other there all the time. Discretion and counseling could help, but those options are always dismissed in favor of tantrums and publicity for drama queens and other attention whores under the guise of promoting "tolerance".

I should point out though that Hogwarts also doesn't teach any of the "3 R's", even the one that actually starts with "R", so even as education standards go, it's a pretty dismal place.

Goe, writing another story.

The Ignorance of Puppy Drinkers.

Conservatives who try to rewrite history and make fascists out to be left-wingers remind me of how Noam Chomsky tries to rewrite history and make Stalin out to be a right-winger

This person is filling in over at the site of the inventor of the Puppy Milkshake.

Trotsky claimed that fascism was a version of socialism inherently flawed because it's run by rich people slumming as "workers" who are secretly funded by large corporations desiring to overthrow themselves.

The genuine basis (for fascism) is the petty bourgeoisie. In italy, it has a very large base -- the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany, likewise, there is a large base for fascism....

It may be said, and this is true to a certain extent, that the new middle class, the functionaries of the state, the private administrators, etc., can constitute such a base.

Fascism: Rule by the middle class! The horror!

Trotsky didn't think fascism was right-wing, he thought it was a sham, a 'moderate' change to prevent the massive "permanent revolution" that he wanted. He considered Stalint to be a pseudo-fascist, not because of Stalin's position on anything, but because Stalin was too tolerant of dissent and the middle-class "petty bourgeoisie".

Hitler joined the German Workers Party, a small socialist organization, and talked them into changing their name to the National Socialist German Workers Party. Socialism was only to be for Germans, which became the big difference between national and international socialism. Home rule or subservience to Stalin via COMINTERN.

Mussolini viewed fascism as an activist form of socialim, which he saw as being totally ineffective and dominated by compromisers. This puts him opposite Trotsky, not on the left-right spectrum, but on the "my ideology is more militant than yours" spectrum.

Why does Mr. Totten hold this sort of ignorance? He's the one who also claimed to be 'moderate'.

Communists in the U.S. were against anybody help build up America's military power during the Second World War until Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Likewise, Mr. Totten's brand of 'moderates' are people who are willing to put aside any collectivist principles to defeat the more pressing threat, such as the enemy in this war. Supporting a few things opposed by the dominate socialist groups doesn't make one 'moderate', even if it makes you a pariah from those same socialist groups.

But are these 'moderates' pacifistic collectivists who oppose a socialist revolution because someone might get hurt but support socialist oppression as an equalizing force, or are they libertarians splitting off from an increasingly left-wing Republican Party. Mr. Totten is not a republican, so we've a notion of which one he is, and I've a pretty good idea what Mr. Trotsky would call an upper-class socialist.

But what about the rest of them? There's no way to tell.

ADDENDUM: btw, totten seems to be a little annoyed that his gross misstatements are drawing more attention than his claim that george galloway is a dumbass. saying galloway is a dumbass is like saying the sky is blue or curly was the coolest stooge. it's so obvious and commonly known that there's no point in doing so around anybody with enough knowledge to agree or disagree with you on the subject. and if you only read one cartoon a day, it might as well be worth reading.

Goe, hates commies

Media stupidity

NBC just interrupted the ER rerun I was watching to give a live bulletin to announce that the planned interruption in a couple hours for the space shuttle landing was going to be cancelled, with in-depth reporting on why the space shuttle can't land in bad weather and what heavy rain means for the future of manned spaceflight. on the upside, they managed to not mention aruba or any celebrities. Three experts to tell the NBC reporter that sometimes rain causes delays.

Goe, wonders how stupid one has to be to run a network news organization.

in case you didn't know

the penguin linked to the right is the non-visitor formerly known as 'flea'.

Goe, letting you know.

blogspam

i'm still getting emails from people asking me to promote their website on the lawyer-love-fest i was posting at. a post i wrote months and months ago about the practical differences between a democracy and a republic brought me a blogspam yesterday. apparently thinking that a democracy and a republic are not the same things means i want to nationalize utilities.

one of my email addresses gets email every few days telling me that bush's expansion of federal government into every aspect of my life is somehow more reaganesque than clinton's failed attempts to do the same thing. reagan wasn't perfect, but he did stare down the evil empire. bush's claim to fame so far is continuing clinton's ostrich approach to north korean and iranian nuclear development. i think the rnc is smoking crack.

national review also keeps going on about how great bush is, but most of their writers advocate drug legalization as a means of improving national security. stoned terrorists are more likely to give themselves away, but we don't really need more junkies robbing people so they can get their fix. religion isn't the opiate of the masses, opium is, hence it's use as the reference point. the rnc has pretty much pissed away any reagan-based loyalty i felt towards them. the first candidate in 2008 to seriously consider nuking something will get my vote, regardless of political party or target.

Goe, not doing much to pimp his own blog, not doing anything to pimp yours.

Galloway

Would he be more or less of an ass if he started spouting this crap after we invaded iraq, instead of over a decade ago?

It's sad though, that he's got the support of a noteworthy portion of britain's current ruling party, which he was kicked out of. Even their foreign secretary supports his blaming of everyone's problems on the U.S.

Once upon a time though, the British were cool, collected, and kicking ass, traits carried on by only a few.

Goe, not british, and with waning respect for them.

la di di di da

another impromptus. always good to read.

Goe, needs to eat something now.

cool

some things are cooler than others. edited Dec., 2016 to fix broken link
Goe, cool enough for his own purposes.

btw

there's a fresh impromptus up.

Goe, enjoys them.

Safety Message

Stop signs are IMPORTANT.

Goe, doesn't live there.

hmm...

IMAO, home to many weird and interesting things, posted a fact list about ants.

* Much like the potato, ants live in the ground. They only emerge to commit acts of evil... also like the potato.

hmm... too bad i'm missing "Rise of the Potato", or i'd link it... instead, i'll just use hmm and punctuation...

Goe, because you can't trust anything with more eyes than you.