Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Situation Normal: Ass on Fire (again)



Fars caption: A group of students and people on Tuesday evening enter
Qolhak Garden, a national compound taken over by British Embassy,
in protest to London's support for Israeli crimes in Gaza.

My caption: Hamas supporter sets his ass on fire in solidarity
with his rocket launching friends in Gaza.


Why We Shouldn't Irradiate Pets





They've Rammed My Dignity


The Green Party of California released a statement Tuesday condemning
the attack on McKinney's boat, which it said held more than three tons of
medical supplies, and called for Israel, and other parties, to cease attacks
in Gaza and search for a peaceful solution.

If McKinney really wanted to get humanitarian supplies to Gaza, she could have arranged that. What she wanted was to be turned back. She wanted to play the martyr, much like she did with the Capitol Hill Police officer. Funny, she wanted to travel to the land where real martyrs were made in order to stage her little transgressed-upon play. (and no, I don't mean the "martyrs" who voluntarily strap on bombs -- that's not dying for your faith; that's dying in order to cause others to die for their faith)

one more...


Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Putting the Blame Where It Belongs



Why are the Hamas rockets launched from residential areas? Do they want civilians killed in the retaliation? I suspect so. Despicable.

Something I expected to see on the news but didn't: at least one rocket made it to Beer Sheva, much deeper into Israel than Hamas's usual, every day, rockets. This would make it look like an import. Doesn't Tehran know that the Mossad and/or CIA will be able to determine it's origin?
Correction: It seems Iran's 122mm rockets don't have the range -- these new ones came from China. OK China, your name goes in the book, again.

h/t: Gates of Vienna

Googling Around



While google-fiddling I revisited We Are Lumberjacks, which might be the inverse of this blog. Anyway, it's run by Julie, who btw, was nice enough to write and ask if I minded her using the name when she discovered that AWL already existed. She doesn't post as often but it's a good read when she does.

I'm posting her graphic just because I like it. I saw it and immediately wished I'd done it.

Always the Worst Option: Suicide


So now someone has gotten to Lumberjacks by Googling: "can you commit suicide with lawnmower fumes?" Bad enough. Also bad: AWL came up on the first page of that search. At least the post was about transgendered frogs, not suicide. I had remarked that you can accidentally, in theory, chop off a frog's wobbly-janglies with a lawnmower blade.

Also though, the archive page that came up had the three above golden boys on it. I'll tell you what, those aren't the faces to give you hope if you're thinking of ending it all. So, in case you come back, pilgrim, listen to me now and hear me later: Taking your own life is never the smart move. Talk to someone. Get help. There aren't any problems that can't be overcome, given time. And use your lawnmower for good, with or without frog interaction. I'm serious now, don't make a decision that you'll regret for the rest of, wait, that doesn't work, look, just don't do anything silly. I mean it.

Protest




Step a Little Closer




found on the internets

Monday, December 29, 2008

Payback


"I don't understand it. We send them our
best rockets and this is how they repay us."

Why Franken Stands a Chance



Can anyone look at the above ballot and say it is not a vote for Coleman? The canvassing board did. Apparently they did not pick this week to stop sniffing glue.

You can page through the disputed ballots here. It looks like Minnesota Democrats don't care how they win.

How to Do Fraud:
You can vote on the disputed ballots on the Star Tribune site. See the line above titled "All Ballot Challenge voters"? That is result of the Star Tribune readers poll. It looks like their readers have been pretty fair so far.
The canvassing board has differed with the readers 24 times in the 159 ballots from 12/16/2008. Of those: 19 differed in Franken's favor, 5 differed in Coleman's favor. Continue that kind of fraud (well look at the damn things, it's fraud) over 6,600 ballots and you can steal an election. (and really steal it, not like that silly Ohio challenge, or the hanging chad imbroglio in Florida)

in Coleman's favor: ballots # 33, 50, 122, 125, 148
in Franken's favor: ballots # 3, 10, 18, 25, 26, 28, 37, 40, 45, 55, 66, 79, 83, 100, 112, 113, 123, 131, 159


That Was 2008


Dave Barry does 2008 -- the Year in Review. The only bone I'd pick is that the year isn't over yet. Hey Dave, we've still got time to turn this thing around!
Excerpt:

. . New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer becomes embroiled in an embarrassing scandal when a criminal investigation reveals that he looks like a large suit-wearing rodent. Also he has been seeing a high-class prostitute known as ''Kristen'' in a Washington, D.C., hotel. Spitzer resigns in disgrace; ''Kristen,'' hounded by the press and no longer able to pursue her profession, receives a $23 billion bailout from the federal government.

In politics, Barack Obama addresses the issue of why, in his 20 years of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he failed to notice that the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist lunatic. In a major televised address widely hailed for its brilliance, Obama explains that . . . OK, nobody really remembers what the actual explanation was. But everybody agrees it was mesmerizing.

Obama's opponent, Hillary Clinton, gets into a controversy of her own when she claims that, as first lady, she landed in Bosnia ''under sniper fire.'' News outlets quickly locate archive video showing that she was in fact greeted with a welcoming ceremony featuring an 8-year-old girl reading a poem. Clinton's campaign releases a statement pointing out that it was ``a pretty long poem.''

On the Republican side, John McCain wraps up the nomination and embarks on a series of strategic naps....

Amateurs




Saturday, December 27, 2008

Tipping Point



I'm afraid the results are in. Yes, the earth has cooled slightly since 2001. But that is the bad news. You see cooling may indicate that the climate is going into a consolidation phase, in which excess energy is gathered in various natural systems only to be spewed out later, with a vengeance. Swirling whirlpools of dead polar bears, for instance, can hold tremendous amounts of energy.

No, don't think cooling is good. The only thing worse than cooling would be a climate that remained unchanged for several years. Or a continuing slow rise in average global temperature, that would be bad too.

I don't want to come across as a know-it-all, but I've been looking into these computer models and I felt compelled to share my knowledge. Pretty much the only way you can know for sure what the future will bring is to gather the data yourself: Get an industrial grade thermometer and find a place for it outside of a ground level window. Check it every morning. If the thermometer is still there, we're doomed.

While You Were Sleeping


Police said the incident began when Angela Houston, 29,
allegedly cut her husband's hair while he was sleeping.
According to police, Jaycee Houston attacked his wife
after he woke up and noticed some of his hair was gone.
Both are facing a domestic violence charge.

For what it's worth, my wife has been doing the same thing to me. Except she's been smarter about it. She only takes a few hairs at a time, but she's been doing it for years. Even more diabolical: she takes hair from the top-back part of my head so that I can't see it in the mirror.

Why would a woman do this? I don't know, though I suspect it may be some kind of family ritual. I noticed that her dad had the same bare patch on the crown.

Women. Go figure, huh?



***Update: Through the wonders of photoshop, I "fixed" his haircut. Tell you what, I think she did him a favor.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas a Success


Only way it could have been better, would have been if I capped it off with an Obama photoshop. Wait a minute...


There. The perfect Christmas Eve.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

OK, Merry Christmas Everyone


And Happy Hanuka too. You secular humanists: hope you get that Panflute album you wanted.

Now I cook. Turkey, ham, pudding, and seven side dishes - none of them with an "L" in their name. One year, in memory of Mom, I'll do Lutefisk, but not this time. We do Christmas on the evening of the 24th and it's at our house this year.. so I suppose I should straighten up some too.

All the best to all of you, and God bless. May you all get Macs.

When You Just Don't Have the Time


The Laziest Man in America puts up Christmas lights:


And, of course, they complain.

Manbearpig, and a Link


First the Manbearpig part - half man, half bear, half pig:

And everyone has heard the winner, but there are other great quotes at the link:

ALEXANDRIA, VA. --- The Media Research Center today announced its Best Notable Quotables of 2008: The 21st Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews “won” the dubious honor of Quote of the Year for gushing over a Barack Obama speech back in February: “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often….And that is an objective assessment.”

Top runner-up for Quote of the Year went to Reuters for this ridiculous post-election headline: “Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race.”

MRC President Brent Bozell: “Year after year, the liberal media outdo themselves in providing conservatives the sheer joy of laughing at their own words. The year of the Obama Paparazzi was no different, as they salivated over their savior and did everything in their power to crush conservatives. And we wonder why Americans don’t trust the media.”

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Blago



" I'll repeat that in case you didn't hear - I said they’re not willing to
give me anything except appreciation. (Expletive) them."

Just let me reiterate, the O team is far too honest. (Expletive) them.

I'm Not Telling Him


You tell him.


Mind: Totally Blown


Clickabiggen

NMPBIFWIGI (Not my photo but I forget where I got it)

Just Words


Mark Steyn properly took Timothy Egan to task for this bit of pompous douchebaggery:

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?

I didn’t think so. And I don’t want you writing books.

I'm going to come down on the side of not wanting Tim anywhere near my toilet. But more important: Tim, a plumber is not a pipe fitter. They sound like the same thing but they're not. If you were a licensed writer, you'd know that.

Neun und Neunzig Luftballons


"We are the apocolyptic nightmare we have been waiting for."


Monday, December 22, 2008

Photoshop Fiddling



and one unfiddled news photo...

"Mam, I've told you before. This isn't a buffet, and no, we don't have extra Nan bread."


Sunday, December 21, 2008

Logging Pictures



A fair number of visitors get here through a search for old-time lumberjack photos. Outside of "islamic porn," it's the most searched for term. So I thought I'd post this link for those of you who just can't get enough flannel-shirted Gaia abuse.

That Was Amazing, Grace




Friday, December 19, 2008

Rahm Who?



Oh, that guy! He was just a guy who I'd sometimes pass in the hallway.


When Peeps Attack


Before the attack. Once the pecking began, grown men fled in tears.

via

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Early Influences -- Lincoln, and Link



Insight into the younger years of our soon to be president: he watched The Mod Squad growing up. That's Link above on the right. He was the crime fighter in a dashiki, and along with Pete and Julie, he battled the forces of evil with his far-outness. Link's fro is a little bigger than the messiah's, but Obama came a little late to the party; when this picture was taken the style favored half-fros. Ha! Nobody under 45 will have a clue about what I just said.

Anyway here's the trio:



Unrelated, check out the dialog, and fifty pound car-phone:



Great googily-moogily, we used to watch just anything.

Stimulus Shenanigans


OK, I'm not an economics wonk, but this seems wrong:

Though no stimulus bill has yet been drafted, Republicans are wary of some of the proposals put forward by groups that are talking to Obama's transition team. They cite a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors listing myriad projects cast as vehicles to create jobs and boost the economy. Those include a dog park in Hercules, Calif.; a bike path in San Diego; and a $1.5-million push to curb prostitution in Dayton, Ohio.

"My fear is it will be a tool for all kinds of pet spending projects, for wasteful pork barrel projects and redistribution of wealth," said Pat Toomey, president of Club for Growth, which promotes fiscal conservatism.

What is a dog park? It's been my experience that whatever is there is a park as far as a dog is concerned. Waste of money.

And really, $1.5 mil to curb prostitution in Dayton? I've been to Dayton. It may have grown some, but the last time I was there, you could curb prostitution with a stern, "Come on now Gladys, time to go home."

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Wacky World



Injustice! So where's the ACLU?:

EASTON, Pa. - A supermarket is defending itself for refusing to a write out 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on his birthday cake. Deborah Campbell, 25, of nearby Hunterdon County, N.J., said she phoned in her order last week to the Greenwich ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.

Two things, first: which one is the mommy in that picture? Second thing: No, really, which one is the mommy? Criminy-crotchpants, what is it with feminine neo-nazis?

Remember that skinhead that threatened Obama? I can see these two guys out riding in the pick-up truck, one praying for a flat tire, the other praying to run out of gas, "so the only thing we could do was take off our clothes and huddle together to conserve body heat." In July. In downtown Houston. At noon.

Come on out of the closet fellas. You don't have to prove your masculinity, but even if you did, being intolerant isn't a pass into the manly club.

Am I Good or What?



I called Time's person of the year months ago. Which is an accomplishment I'd put on par with guessing that the sun will come up tomorrow. I'm just that good.

First runner-up ...... Barack Obama. Third, fourth, fifth... you get the idea.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Pity the Anarchists


It's a Greek tragedy! Honest young anarchists, throwing regulation sized bricks, burning down stores and banks in the proper manner, and what does the Greek government do? They use the wrong tear gas on them. Bastiges!

Thousands of Greek protesters clashed with riot police yet again in Athens today, as police started to run out of tear gas after battling rioters day and night for a whole week.

Police sources said their riot squads had fired 4,600 tear gas canisters this week as rioters torched hundreds of banks and shops and occupied their campuses, where police after forbidden by law from entering.

The police have asked Israel and Germany to send them emergency supplies, while protesters claimed that they had been using old stock from the 1980s in a desperate bid to contain the rioting. They claimed that corroded chemicals were causing some demonstrators to collapse and need medical attention.

“We found tear gas canister dated from 1981,” said one demonstrator, calling himself only GK. “The old chemicals make us sick, people have fainted and have trouble breathing,” he said.

Sounds to me like there is something wrong with the new tear gas; the old stuff is working as advertised. Well,I guess staying home isn't an option; their parents are probably down to old stocks of tear gas as well. Yikes, they may have to resort to acceptable behavior.

Those in Need


Stolen straight from James Taranto:

The Neediest Cases
It's easy to think of the economic downturn in abstract terms: the rising unemployment rate, the falling Dow Jones Industrial Average. But behind these numbers is a great deal of human suffering, and reporters at the New York Times have been laboring heroically to tell the stories of the people who are hurting. Here is one such story:

Jodi Hamilton began her senior year of high school in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., this fall on the usual prosperous footing. Her parents were providing a weekly allowance of $100 and paying for private Pilates classes, as well as a physics tutor who reported once a week to their 4,000-square-foot home.
But in October, Jodi's mother lost her job managing a huge dental practice in the Bronx, then landed one closer to home that requires more hours for less money. Pilates was dropped, along with takeout sushi dinners, and Jodi's allowance, which covers lunch during the week, slipped to $60. Instead of having a tutor, Jodi has become a tutor, earning $150 a week through that and baby-sitting.
"I just thought it would be responsible to get a job and have my own money so my parents didn't have to pay for everything," said Jodi, who is 17. "I always like to be saving up for something that I have my eye on--a ring, a necklace, a handbag."

We cried because we had no Kobe beef until we met a girl who had no sushi.



Halp, Oprah


Here's an odd one.

With these new-fangled Haloscan comments, I see comments even if they're posted on very old posts. Recently this was posted on an Oprah post from two years back:

hello dear please help i and may chealdern in iran my husband dead in akcdent in aroplan and we have very bad lif pleas help we go to the canada i can not good writh english dear opra help help help.....

Just some kid messing around, right? But I checked the IP and it came back to Iran University of Medical Science and Health Services. So it's an Iranian kid goofing if that's the case. And whoever it was spent several hours on the site, so maybe it was some spectacularly web-unsavvy person trying to contact Oprah by googling "Opra woman."

Anyway, not much can be done. I can't find the name through google, and contacting Oprah is out of the question since that last photoshopping incident. Anyway, what are the chances Oprah would really help someone if there was nothing in it for her?

Waiting..


I'm waiting around today, trying to straighten out problems accepting a credit card that the government switched to two weeks ago. There have been problems at every turn: my processor, the card holder, the government contact... pretty much everyone involved. One thing I've noticed though: the outsourced Indian customer service lady solved more problems, quickly and pleasantly, than anyone else.

So while I wait for a call-back telling me why we can't put money in my account, I'll catch up on some of these: Friends of Santa:
Psycmeister's Ice Palace!
Arts & Ammo
Paco Enterprises
Moonbattery
The Other Turban bomb: En Bombe i en Turban
Dallas
And I know I'm still missing lots. My bookmarks list is so long that I've taken to putting people in folders near the top - this means many people are filed under "food", "duck videos", "bail bondsmen", etc.

Plus, I'm not sure I've got the processing power to scroll to the bottom of the list before bedtime. If and when Blogrolling comes back online, I'll have to set up a real blogroll.

Easily Distracted


Just a reminder. Thousands of shoes found their way to Saddam's face. So, the shoe vote still favors W.


But just one, ok two, thrown shoes and the Huffpo people have an excuse to ignore the fact that our president elect comes from the cesspool epitomized by Blago. (not only "comes from"; he's king of the hill)

Solving Cognitive Dissonance


I really thought the Drudge headline was a link to a parody:

AP: “While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.”

But no, Seth Borenstein meant it. Maybe he said it to see how many sheeple would accept it; once again giving me the feeling that this is one huge national IQ test.

It should read:
“Skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend. It illustrates what happens when we enter a period of little or no sun spot activity.”


Kremlin Nightmare


Woke me up. Someone threw a shoe at Putin, then a chainsaw. He escaped to Cuba, and traipsed around Havana looking for Betty Page. Then it got weird.




Sunday, December 14, 2008

Build Up Our Future


Just in case anyone has forgotten:



Blog Analyzer Shenanigans


Blog Analyzers, is there anything they can't do?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the Typealyzer just called me gay, or at least French. It found me:

ISFP - The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living
.
I'm going to have to leave the chainsaw laying out just to butch up the place. Course, then the Obamalyzer - Blog Analyzer for Change and Progress will proclaim AWL as too crude to be One of Us. Can't win.

Fiddling


Just photoshop fiddling with a couple of images from that Obama Message page. The skull used to be a world, presumably happy and harmonic.



For years he tried to smile, sometimes practicing for hours in front of a mirror.


When Crisis Strikes


What? He promised us he was Superman. He sounded so sincere too.


Saturday, December 13, 2008

Message for Obama


I've been flipping through the Message for Obama Flickr site, and found two things to be happy about. One, a fair number of the posts are negative. (yeah! go negative!) And two, we don't have to worry too much about Obama's inexperience, because he's not doing it alone. He's got help:


Whew, that's good to know, huh?

Laurence Fishburne


Singing for the Democrats.


Time to smile. Just a little bit more.


Dididn't Meet




***Update:
Just because the first one was fun to do:



Friday, December 12, 2008

Been There, Done That



Save the Planet




via

Rahm Emanuel Isn't Talking



Actually, I could sympathize with him - not wanting to talk to reporters while at a school concert to watch his kids. Still, the picture on Drudge made me think of noir interrogation rooms and tough talking cops.

fighting101s.jpg