Seven Machos on the Hill of the Foreskins

Sarah Palin Boobs

2010-09-24T23:16:00.001-07:00

This is just an Internet experiment. Nothing to see here.

Logistical issues concerning the burning of Qurans

2010-09-10T00:31:00.000-07:00

So, let's take a closer look at this Florida pastor guy who may or may not burn a bunch of Qurans.

As you probably know, we have here one Terry Jones, pastor of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida.

Some logistical questions present themselves here. For example, will Jones buy his Qurans in bulk?

Further, will the Qurans be in English or Arabic, or some other language? Does it matter since the books are just there to be burned? Did Jesus own his own clothes? Where did Jesus get those clothes? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

I digress.

Remember the nutty kerfuffle about the Mohammed cartoon?

Remember that? And remember how all these Islamic kooks marched about it and burned Danish flags?

You don't think that Islamic kooks in Peshawar had a bunch of Danish flags just laying around, do you? Obscure European flags aren't easy to come by in South Asia, you know. They aren't easy to come by in the United States. I have to imagine that it would take me quite some time to procure a Danish flag here in the great American city of Chicago (governed by the magnificent Mayor Richard Daley, PBUH).

Anyway, do you think Terry Jones buys his Qurans in bulk from the same store where the Islamic kooks bought their Danish flags in bulk?

Do you think this guy cares?

Surely you realize that these people...

...and that guy are the same, right? RIGHT?

What happened to Michelle Obama's strange authoritarian promises?

2010-09-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, Michelle Obama --

Yeah. You.

Let's take a look at your famous and freakishly authoritarian quote from that quaint year, 2008:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

How'd that pan out? Well, I don't have a ton of work right now. I certainly have not shed my cynicism. I don't even see you putting down your divisions. I feel more in isolation than ever. I guess I'm out of my comfort zone but that's only because I'm freaked out about this depressionary economy. It's true that I am pushing myself to be better, but to what end given your husband's mentality of taking people's work product to pay for massive government boondoggles? I am definitely engaged in the 2010 election. And that you engage, and to that end, you are correct: with Barack Obama as president, I certainly can't afford a life as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Forthcoming terrorist attacks

2010-09-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

I have seen two news stories recently concerning suspicious activity by potential terrorists. Naturally, both occurred at airports or on airplanes.

We have an election coming up, and I herewith officially voice my concern.

Operation Blacklash Chronicles Part II

2010-09-02T17:48:00.001-07:00

I coined the term blacklash long ago. It was a prediction that the left and the mainstream media would not simply report that voters were souring on Obama when he started to crater (as he has). Instead, the left and the mainstream media would tie Obama's increasingly poor poll numbers to racism on the part of white people. Here is the latest evidence...

Critchfield says he's received death threats due to the sign; people accuse him of hate speech and racism. He insists the billboard was for something more American in the name of discourse, conversation, and old-fashioned debate.

This is the best I could do regarding those 310 million tits...

2010-08-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

BACKGROUND: The New York Daily News reports that former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), co-chairman of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has "outraged feminists, Social Security recipients, and many liberal Democrats" by likening Social Security to "a milk cow with 310 million tits."

The New York Times and other so-called "newspapers" are only in business...

2010-08-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them.

Florida church to host a Burn a Quran Day on Sept. 11

2010-08-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

It says the burnings will be held on church grounds "in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!" The church sells "Islam is of the Devil" T-shirts.

Here's the church...

Here's what the church is striving to be exactly like...

Way to go, morons. Way to show how classy and superior the West is.

Old school video games

2010-08-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

The best old school arcade game was the original Mario Brothers in my humble opinion.

Bad lawyers are bad for the legal profession.

2010-08-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal calls on Patrick Fitzgerald to resign. I agree. This is a man who can't win slam dunks and railroads innocent people. Such attorneys are better suited for minor slip and falls, not serious and high-minded legal work.

Google ads on the Hill of the Foreskins

2010-08-17T22:09:00.001-07:00

The most recent advertisement Google ads had selected for me was for a resort for gay men. The current one as we speak is for UPS.

So it's fair to call my little site eclectic I think.

Idea du jour

2010-08-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here it is, people, a plausible solution to the persistent gay marriage issue. Make a federal law or, preferably, a Constitutional amendment along the lines of:

States may only recognize marriages between two adult human beings. Marriages with more than two people are not allowed. For purposes of this amendment, states may define the meaning of the word adult. States may also prohibit certain people who are related to each other by blood from marrying each other.

It's certainly not perfect but what it does should be obvious. It cuts off the slippery slope argument that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, bestiality, inter-family marriages and so on.

The fear that gay marriage is a step toward making marriage meaningless is warranted and real -- probably to a large majority of people.

How can you not love Bill Clinton?

2010-08-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton is friends with the CEO of Newsmax.
On the one hand, that's sort of shocking. It's like -- I don't know -- George W. Bush being friends with the Daily Kos guy. On the other hand, it's not shocking because Bill Clinton is probably the most likable man alive today.

I remember when Clinton was president, I had myself convinced I didn't like him despite his likability and despite the fact that he was responsible for NAFTA, a balanced budget, welfare reform, and so much else. When he was trying to pull off the deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, I thought he was crazy. There will never be a deal, I thought. In retrospect, I not only commend his ambition but I can see that he was (and remains) almost certainly the only man on the planet who could bring such a deal together.

God bless you, President Clinton. Your will and charisma and affability are of the highest order.

What would President Bush have said about the Ground Zero mosque?

2010-08-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

He would have said something like: I disagree with it but it's the people of New York City's decision. That would be all he would have said and that would have been the end of this thing as some burning national issue that could damage him in any way.

The liberal elite would have called Bush way, way dumber than they are. Like just a slobbering moron.

Hope

2010-08-14T20:03:00.001-07:00

Mister, we've got a man just like Herbert Hoover again...

2010-08-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Herbert Hoover was a one-term president who entered office just as the United States was experiencing a terrible economic downturn. He was a technocrat who could not rally common people in any meaningful way. He did much to try to improve the economy, but none of it worked.

Barack Obama is a...

ADDED: Wow. This is so awesome. Thank you, Glenn Reynolds. I can die now.

Too Mean?

2010-07-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

Jason Furman, JournoList member

Kent "Flounder" Dorfman, Delta Tau Chi Pledge

Luddite oped piece found in the Washington Post, 400,000 B.C.E.

2010-07-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

Archaelogists recently discovered an oped in the rock shelters of Bhimbetka that is eerily similar to a Washington Post oped from July 11, 2010.

In the Ice Age, the Case Against Fire

By Og

Despite raw, obscene coldness at recent full moon, life in village mostly continue. Only two elders and five children die. However, everyone else in village not even affected. Instead, bitter cold temperatures cause villagers to light up favorite nature-destroying, ancestor-spirit-hating device: fire.

This stupid. In village that incessantly anger spirit world, fire cause greatest fury of ancestors. Village use more and more fire to heat caves and huts. Angry spirits respond by sending more cold air. Cold air make village temperature lower and village respond with more fire. Is endless cycle.

Fire bring some good things: warmth, cooked food, light in darkness. But good things not important enough for little people in village to use fire without approval from egghead cavemen. When Og’s grandfather Ug die at old age of 29, village then have only occasional fire when spirit world send lightning. This better way. Consider benefits to village of less fire.

Hunting and gathering

In village with no fire, hunting is activity only in daylight. Women no worry about safety of men after dark. Also, women less suspicious that men really not hunting but raping and pillaging in next village.

Non-furry skins out, for cavemen and cavewomen. Sitting in cave all day much of year and being malnourished make return to village.

Best of all, council of village elders very different. With no fire, council no make laws in cave at night because council members cannot see anything. Council adjourn at dusk and everyone focus on rubbing amulets and soothing angry ancestor spirits.

In cave

Cave dwellers all over village huddle together for warmth, This bring sense of community lost since control of fire. Naturally, hot stove abandoned. No fire mean no hot stove. Slab of meat eaten directly off dead animal the way ancestors eat.

Huts have very low ceilings and become smaller. Villagers no worry about smoke in eyes while in hut or cave. Getting rid of fire also efficient because take much work and very long time to build fire. With newfound free time, villagers can rub amulets and sing songs to calm angry ancestor spirits.

Around village

Getting rid of fire mean getting back in touch with other villagers. Instead of using fire to stay warm in own cave or hut, villagers get to know one another again because villagers cling desperately to each other in attempt to stay alive—particularly on wretchedly, insufferably cold nights. Caves and huts see boom in socializing.

Since more people clutching each other to generate body heat, no crime in village at night. When really cold, entire village clump together in same cave in massive jumble. Strange thing happen: deaths from cold decline (or, possibly, skyrocket).

In daytime, children play more because so freaking cold. Calls for education end. After all, children of village no need school; they merely need to get through day without freezing to death.

“Ice roofs” appear on huts because of cold. These layers of ice and more ice (on top of flimsy mammoth skin) provide warmth from blistering, hyperborean air until massive collapse.

Inside, villagers can rub amulets and dance in bear skins to appease angry ancestor spirits.

Og is the first-known Luddite and author of “Technology Bad: Really, Really Bad.”

And so Operation Blacklash begins

2010-07-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

If you have read every comment on every thread at Althouse (and who hasn't?), you'd know that long ago I coined the term blacklash. It was a prediction that the left and the mainstream media would not simply report that voters were souring on Obama when he started to crater (as he has). Instead, the left and the mainstream media would tie Obama's increasingly poor poll numbers to racism on the part of white people.So it begins...

Today, I thought about something I had previously thought about.

2010-06-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here is something I said in a comment thread at Althouse, apparently on May 13, 2010:

I said in Fall 2008 and I stand by my statement: it was a very strange time in American politics that people removed the zeitgeist will look up confoundedly.

Also, in addition to the fact that the Democrat was going to win almost no matter what because everyone was just sick and tired of Bush, McCain was the worst candidate ever. Even worse than Dole, if you ask me.

I also said that people were going to be looking back in a short enough time and thinking that Bush was pretty okay. That's already happening.

I wish I could figure out a way to profit from my prescience

Let's compare headlines.

2010-06-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Republican forced to apologize for BP apology

Monk details Blagojevich's drive for cash

William Jefferson sentenced to 13 years in prison

Who wanted to know whether Bob Etheridge fully supported the Obama agenda?

They're all Republicans, right? I mean, they did something awful, so they must be Republicans.

Obama in 2012 vs. Obama in 2008

2010-06-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Early reports are indicating that the youngest members of the country's electorate voted Tuesday in higher numbers than in the last presidential election — and they voted more Democratic. Youth turnout appears to be exceeding 2004 levels, which was itself a year with a big surge in voters ages 18 to 29.

That paragraph is from MSNBC in 2008.

We have all been told that Obama won because he was so fabulously popular with these kids today. So, what's going to happen in 2012 when the youth vote doesn't go overwhelmingly for Obama? (Youth vote is a misnomer, of course, because 14-year-olds aren't voting, but never mind.)

I say the youth vote for Obama won't even be whelming, by the way. Those giddy 21-year-olds will be 25-year-olds who -- even if the economy picks up -- will have experienced a few very lean years of uncertainty at best and spotty or non-employment at worst.

Deborah L. Rhode: Ugliness Law Trailblazer

2010-05-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

In an opinion piece in the National Law Journal, Stanford law professor Deborah L. Rhode suggests that appearance bias is problematic in the legal profession as well as other professions:

We live in the world pictured by a New Yorker cartoon in which one white male professional reassures another: "Not to worry. I'm going to put our best looking people on the job." As the Above the Law editor noted, "like it or not," many colleagues and clients prefer "eye candy." It is "true in high school" and it is true in legal practice. Get over it.

This is, of course, an argument similar to those that legal employers once used to justify discrimination against racial minorities, women, gays and lesbians. Clients and colleagues just wouldn't feel as comfortable with these groups. The current rationalization for appearance bias is problematic for much the same reason. Attractiveness is a highly imperfect proxy for the qualities that make for effective lawyering. The difficulty is not so much the bump for the beautiful as the penalties for those who fail to measure up. Adverse treatment on the basis of physical characteristics reinforces invidious stereotypes and compromises merit principles.

Here's Deborah:

A wish

2010-05-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

Here is what I wish for for Stephanie Grace and the rest of the scum who suggest that whole races of people are smarter than other races of people.

I wish for a ship to come and take you across an ocean to a place where you will be forced to do menial tasks until you die. I further wish that your children and their children will suffer the same fate. Then, their children and the children of those children for a few generations can live as third-class citizens with few rights and no opportunity for education or self-improvement.

Then, when we finally reach the next couple generations, I hope that my distant-future spawn goes up to yours and calls them fucking idiots.

Some parts of the Constitution are much greater than others.

2010-04-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the Supreme Court opinion that expanded the Constitution's authorization of seizing private property for "public use" to seizing private property for a "public purpose." And who would define what a "public purpose" is? Basically, those who were doing the seizing. As Justice Stevens put it, the government authorities' assessment of a proper "public purpose" was entitled to "great respect" by the courts.

And it's up to wise, learned leftists like John Paul Stevens to decide which ones.

Thanks, John Paul. Thanks for being better than us for so very, very long.

Oprah does too walk!

2010-04-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

"Oprah does not walk," she told him, referring to herself in the third person. "Who is this guy?" Then she started screaming at her staff, but finally agreed to cross the street and come through his front door.

Oprah does walk, at least occasionally. I saw her on a Sunday morning on my street. She used to live a couple doors down (though in a much ore prestigious address). She was wearing a sweatsuit and no makeup and she looked remarkably ordinary.

More on Wikileaks

2010-04-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Wikileaks has released a classified document (March 15, 2010) concerning the U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks.

First of all, how meta is that?

Secondly, the classified document says that leakers inside U.S. government organizations are leaking classified information to Wikileaks. The author of this classified document asserts that the Wikileaks problem should be fought by identifying and criminally prosecuting leakers who leak to Wikileaks. Wikileaks makes light of this assertion, though it's really a pretty good plan since leaking classified information is clearly, obviously illegal.

Leaving the wisdom of that plan aside, wouldn't a better plan be to concoct some elaborate fake document and let it fall into the hands of Wikileaks? Wikileaks would publish it. Then, the vast apparatus of the State could work to embarrass Wikileaks. Such a plan would have the merit of fighting the problem Wikileaks presents in a cheap way and on the turf of Wikileaks. More or less, Wikileaks would be hoisted on its own petard.

But this hasn't happened. And yet it's so obviously the correct solution. The proper inference to be drawn here, I suggest, is that Wikileaks isn't even a small fraction of the problem that Wikileaks believes Wikileaks is for the clandestine information providers within the United States government.

But, hey, whatever keeps that free money rolling in.

Wikileaks and its alleged CIA stalkers

2010-04-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Whistleblowers on US ‘massacre’ fear CIA stalkers

So, the basic story here is that the people who run
a site called wikileaks that anonymously reveals secret documents say that they are being harassed by intelligence agencies. If true, not surprising. That's sort of a risk you run when you publish the work product produced by those agencies without their permission.

The last paragraph of the article particularly riveted my attention:

There has been speculation that Wikileaks might be part of a sophisticated “psy-ops” campaign by the CIA. If that is the case, says Assange, “I only wish they would step forward with a cheque.”

First, it's in the passive voice. Who has speculated exactly? Second, my immediate assumption would be that this speculation falls into the nutty conspiracy category. See, some people try to make sense of the world by persisting in the belief that totally-out-of-control things are secretly under government control by way of some vast, elite cabal. September 11. The Kennedy assassination. The crack epidemic. AIDS. The way your house is constantly a mess. For a certain juvenile and not thoughtful mind, it can apply to everything.

So, your crack Seven Machos did some quick research. Here's a very representative website: WTC Demolition. This website purports that "Asian intelligence sources, particularly China and Thailand" -- Thailand?? -- believe that Wikileaks "is linked to U.S. cyber-warfare and computer espionage operations, as well as to Mossad's own cyber-warfare activities." So, it's the CIA and, of course, the Jews.

Every other website I could find in my admittedly not-very-exhaustive search led back to identical information, or at least a similar conclusion.

So, among the many questions I have is this one: is a major British newspaper really suggesting to the world that people who believe that the CIA and that super-sneaky Mossad secretly control everything should be taken seriously?

Really?

Adios, John Paul.

2010-04-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

Justice Stevens finally hangs 'em up.

I will fondly remember Justice John Paul Stevens for:

1. Voting nine out of 10 times with the left-liberal political bloc of the Supreme Court to expand the federal government or -- most important to him and his ilk -- to limit the rights of states and communities to govern themselves.

2. Every tenth time, writing a wacky, tangential, completely discursive dissent or concurrence that had nothing to do with the issue actually being litigated. The concurrences were usually comedy gold -- yet they won't be long remembered.

Global warming and Thomas Malthus

2010-04-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

The climate change panic (as opposed to the climate change concern) is a classic Malthusian panic. The facts of the case are somewhat complicated because the data is difficult to assemble and the climate system is fiendishly complicated, but overall the methodology is classically Malthusian. Do the math! Check the science!! We are all going to die!!!

Walter Russell Mead has written a fascinating disquisition on the eerie resemblance between climate alarmism and the Malthusian tendency of so many super-smart leftists. Ever talk to one of those super-smart leftists? You should, perhaps while riding in their Mercedes (or perhaps it's now a Subaru), on the way to get coffee imported from Guatemala, or perhaps Ethiopia. What you'll find, if you scratch below the surface, is that, of course, it's not us that's the problem. It's them. The poor, both in this country and in underdeveloped countries around the world.

Anti-Israel or just anti-spying?

2010-04-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

An Israeli media outlet is reporting that the United States has rejected requests for visas from workers at the Dimona reactor who want to attend U.S. seminars in physics, chemistry, nuclear engineering.

Having worked in the visa industry, my immediate assumption is that someone in the United States government has reason to believe that these scientists are spies. Israel, like France and China, is very proficient at technology theft.

Is this situation different? Why would the Obama administration create a fracas so unnecessarily?

Now that I am fully monetized...

2010-04-09T01:18:00.000-07:00

I see that Amazon has placed an ad for a book (I think) either by or about Randy Macho Man Savage, the professional wrestler. Awesome.

Seven Machos on the Hill of the Foreskins

2010-04-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

...finally takes off!