Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Will Oprah Apologize For Endorsing Obama?

Granted, Barry hasn't actually failed yet - he's just sitting on the beach and keeping his mouth shut about world events lest he blow his facade of Messianic cool - but as another one of Oprah's book recommendations turns out to be a tall tale, we have to wonder just what bill of goods she was selling us when she piously anointed Him as "The One". She's obviously been repeatedly fooled by book authors, so why should we take her endorsement for anything as being worth squat? The bigger question is what sort of herd animals look to the Big O for political instruction in the first place?

Clintons To Drop The Ball Again.

Sure, this time it's only Times Square for New Years Eve, but when you consider the feckless mishandling of repeated Islamofascist attacks during Bubba's regime, you have to appreciate the (unintended) symbolism.

Dirk Mini-Reviews 4 More Movies For You!

Been on quite a tear here. Let's get to 'em!

BURN AFTER READING - The Coen Brothers get a ton of slack accorded to them because they've made some decent flicks, but No Country For Old Men was pure airless crap that was only lauded on the basis of the coin toss scene and the line about how long the quarter had been traveling to get there. A Best Picture Oscar for a 4-1/2 minute scene. Pfft. It was better when dubbed as "No Country For Gay Men"!

Anyway, Burn After Reading is a step up in energy, but still as pointless in the end. The big-name, award-winning cast - Clooney, Swinton, Malkovich, McDormand - all play venal dolts of varying levels of stupidity involved in a caper about purloined CIA intelligence and endless fornication. (Not that that's a bad thing, mind you; the boffing, that is.) Dumbest of them all is a hilarious Brad Pitt who is a bright spot as a dim bulb, but all the running around goes nowhere and it's not really worth the time. Go rent an older Coen flick instead. 5/10

VANTANGE POINT - It's Roshomon meets Sha Na Na - not really, just making a funny there - in this supposed thriller about an assassination attempt on the U.S. President in Spain told in looping sequences from the various players....wait for it....vantage points. (Tada!) While there are a couple of cool twists, it ends with absolutely nothing about anyones' motivations explained and never recovers from all the "that would never happen" moments. 4/10

TRANSPORTER 3 - Man, did this franchise catch four flats and a bent rod in this trip. How hard is it to mess up the formula of Jason Statham being badass in his car? Not that hard, it seems as writer Luc Besson comes up with a tired plot involving an annoying and un-hot supposed babe - which Besson apparently cast cuz she gave him a stiffy - and new director Olivier Megaton (AWESOME NAME!) stages the fight scenes rotely and redundantly. (Seriously, two fights play out almost exactly the same.) While the 2nd Transporter flick was dopey with flipping cars and crashing planes, it had some snap to the proceedings including that crazy hot Pink lookalike with the machine guns. Skip this one and rewatch the first two Transporters or watch... 2/10

DEATH RACE - Despite being a remake of the schlocky Seventies Roger Corman flick Death Race 2000 helmed by uber-hack Paul W. S. Anderson and starring Jason Statham as....wait for it....a bald badass race car driver (tada!), this slice of ridiculous ultraviolence works because it doesn't pretend to be about anything more than heavily armed cars crashing into each other and general mayhem. Joan Allen has fun as the evil sexy prison warden orchestrated the races. Totally predictable, but still a small blast worth renting. 7/10

Sunday, December 28, 2008

How Liberals Destroy Urban Youths In Ways The Klan Could Only Dream Of.

Liberals are racists. I know I say it a lot here, but it bears repeating. If you objectively look at the destruction of the black family after 40+ years of the "Great Society" and the pathetic state of the government education system (aka public schools), there is no other conclusion that can be drawn than liberals hate black people and will not rest until they are nothing more than slaves begging for alms from liberal politicians. Sure, it's a hateful and cynical way to work, but when your brutality is rewarded with a 95% support rate, why change? It works and for some reason, blacks keep voting for more lashes.

What prompts this sadly needed restatement of reality is Nolan Finley's Detroit News column "Detroit blew chance for school rescue", which reads in part:

With the Detroit Public Schools near disintegration, it ought to be noted that it's been five years since Plymouth philanthropist Bob Thompson was told to take his $200 million and get back to the suburbs.

Thompson, a retired road builder obsessed with spending his fortune to get urban children a high-quality education, ran into a political buzz saw when he offered to open 15 charter high schools in the city that would guarantee to graduate 90 percent of their students and send 90 percent of those graduates on to college.

Community activists denounced Thompson as a white meddler out to steal their children. They were joined in their absurdity by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who threw their lot in with the teacher union.

The rejection of Thompson's millions became a national story of a city so seized by racial divisions it couldn't set them aside even to save its children.

So instead of a network of alternative schools that would have rescued roughly 5,000 students from the sinking DPS, look what Detroit has today:

A school district that fails to graduate 70 percent of its students; a school board that's fired two superintendents and an interim superintendent in four years; 18 of its 19 high schools on the failure list; and a fiscal meltdown.

Five years after Thompson was given the boot, Detroit is officially the worst big city school district in the nation and still sends more children to welfare and prison than it does to college.

Think about how different things might have been. Had the Thompson schools been built, they would be preparing to graduate their first class in the spring. Two thousand Detroit seniors would be making college plans. And Detroit's fast-fleeing middle class would have a reason to stay.

Yet no one has dialed up Thompson to apologize, to say they were wrong, to beg him for a second chance.

In fact, the governor and Democratic lawmakers are stubbornly blocking other Bob Thompsons from saving Detroit's children.

High-quality national charter school operators are lined up to get into the city. A group of Detroit teachers are pleading for the chance to remake a school under the successful Green Dot model.

But state law still traps students in hopeless public schools. Granholm refuses to lift the cap on charter schools, and the state House just passed a law protecting DPS from competition.

Nothing's changed in Detroit.
Well, a little has changed. Thug Maya Kwame Kilpatrick is in jail for multiple felonies and Jenny G. is lending her economic expertise - which has led Michigan to a nation-leading 10% unemployment rate - to Obama, showing just how clueless The One is about economics. But the schools still suck and the race war which has thrived since King Coleman Young rages on with any attempts to salvage the Detroit schools rebuffed as some racist plot by Whitey to boss the colored folk around.

Um....let's examine that concept: Someone wants to EDUCATE urban youths so that they can go to college and have successful lives and not end up on welfare or in prison and that's a BAD thing?!? Just because white people are suggesting that a good education, they're against it. And blacks keep voting for politicians who keep them slaves in exchange for sticking it to Whitey?!? WHY?!?!?

How The UAW Work Rules Have Killed The American Auto Industry.

If you want to get liberals all riled up, all you need to do is say anything against unions. Nevermind that liberals are elitist sh*tbags who sneer at Joe Six-Pack types for not being as grease-free as they are, with their soft hands and bodies toned by trainers, not actual hard work; they fancy themselves (and unions) as champions of the Little Guy. Bah.

I know people who are auto workers - a good friend is also involved in union activities - and have heard plenty of stories like the ones related in Detroit’s Downturn: It’s the Productivity, Stupid, so before the Anonymous Pussies who fill their diapers in the Backtalk section waste their time hammering spittle-flecked missives that will be either rejected or torn to pieces for my and sane readers' amusement: Stop!

A snip:

But almost all of the discussion, when it comes to UAW culpability, has been on wages. The even larger issue, though, is the elephant in the room that seemingly no one discusses, even when given a political opportunity...The issue isn’t wages — though those are a problem — so much as work rules. UAW work rules, which have evolved over the many decades since the passage of the Wagner Act, are the biggest reason that General Motors is uncompetitive with its non-union American counterparts.

What are work rules? They are agreements negotiated in the contract between management and the union covering how the employees are to be classified, how many breaks they get, how much time off they get, who can do which jobs, how discipline is to be enforced, etc. The goal of the rules is not to enhance productivity or production quality. It is to provide opportunities for featherbedding, increase numbers of (overpaid) jobs for union workers, and minimize how much they have to actually work. This is important because it’s at least in theory possible that the industry could be making money even at current wages, if they could be provided with the flexibility to increase worker productivity. When you blame management for the quality and cost problems in the auto industry, first consider stories like this:
As a former supervisor of UAW workers at a GM facility, I will say that poor management and union malpractice made the Detroit Three uncompetitive long before the government sent in their arsonists.

To put it bluntly, the UAW takes the hard-earned money of the best workers and spends it defending the very worst workers while tying up the industry with thousands of pages of work rules that make it impossible to be competitive. And the spineless management often makes short-sighted decisions to satisfy the union and maximize immediate benefits over long-term sustainability.

The strength of the union and the weakness of management made it impossible to conduct business properly at any level. …

I supervised a loading dock and 21 UAW workers who worked approximately five hours per day for eight hours’ pay. They could easily load one-third more rail cars and still maintain their union-negotiated break times, but when I tried to make them increase production ever so slightly they sabotaged my ability to make even the current production levels by hiding stock, calling in sick, feigning equipment problems, and even once, as a show of force, used a fork lift truck and pallets and racks to create a car part prison where they trapped me while I was conducting inventory. The reaction of upper management to my request to boost production was that I should “not be naive.”
Read it all and check out the comments that amplify the points. Also read Michael Barone's column which fills in more blanks and shows that instead of bailout cash, the Detroit 3 need to be forced into Chapter 11 and at that time, the UAW must be crushed and its leech-like corpse pried off the economy. Make it happen!!!

Dirk Mini-Reviews 13 Movies For You!

Just catching up on the backlog, in case you're at your Netflix queue on another browser tab and stumped for what to pick next.

11:14 - Oddball indie with a surprising cast including Patrick Swayze, a seriously drabbed-down Hillary Swank and a awesomely sluttied-up Rachael Leigh Cook with the intertwined events surrounding the titular time shown from multiple points of view. Some of the timing doesn't quite work, especially at the end, but it's goofy enough to breeze by the illogical bits. 7/10

The Dark Knight - You've seen it and already know what you think about it, but it moves even faster on the second viewing and if Heath Ledger doesn't get the Oscar, something is seriously wrong. Get it on Blu-ray if you've got the hardware to play it. 10/10

Eagle Eye - Fast-moving, if ultimately preposterous thriller with Shia LaBeef(sp?) as a guy being bossed around by a omnipotent voice on the phone. (No, not Mr. Moviephone.) When the big secret and plot's endgame are revealed, it may make you want to throw up your hands in dismay, but if you roll with it, it's OK. 7/10

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds - The first Feast was a nifty cult gem borne of the final Project Greenlight competition and the same writers and director come back to continue the story. Unfortunately, this episode is heavy on the spurting monster fluids and light on the wit of the original. I was surprised the same writing team typed this script; I'd thought they been replaced by a Cobb salad or hamsters. Even some late-game biker chick nudity can't salvage this letdown. 4/10

The Gene Generation - If it wasn't for a hot, sweaty Bai Ling in various saucy outfits and a couple of cool, very brief, action bits, this movie is all sorts of lame and stupid. Low-budget and looking it; very poor, Playstation 2 cut scene-looking CGI FX; idiotic plot; poor plotting; bad acting; lame, lame, LAME!

But, boy is Bai Ling hot. I'm tempted to edit this down to just her scenes. Not enough nudity, though. Brief tantalizing moments of pencil eraser nipple glory, but not enough. 3/10

Grizzly Man - Werner Herzog's documentary about a dumb hippie schmuck who goes to Alaska to commune with the grizzly bears and ends up getting torn to pieces and eaten by one is the feel good heart-warming comedy of the year! No, really. This guy is such a grating bonehead, you're rooting for his demise from the first moment you see his dumb, dead ass. 8/10

The House Bunny - Revenge of the Nerds gets a gender swap and a dose of Legally Blonde in this peppy, albeit formulaic, comedy. Anna Faris is bubbly fun as the Playmate-wannabe turned sorority house mother and Emma Stone (also in Superbad and The Rocker) is shaping up to be Lindsey Lohan 2.0, hopefully without having Paris Hilton turn her into a crack whore. 7/10

Lars and the Real Girl - Quirky indie about a odd duck who orders a lifelike sex doll and how a whole town caters to his fantasy could've been a sneering put down of small town folks, but instead comes of a sweet and low key. 7/10

Running Scared - Paul Walker finally doesn't totally suck in this gritty, over-the-top violent tale of a missing gun and a little boy. Directed by Wayne Kramer (not the MC5 gutarist; the director of The Cooler), it feels more like a Joe Carnahan (Narc) movie, but it works out fairly well. 7/10

Step Brothers - Much funnier than I expected with Will Farrell and John C. Reilly basically acting like bratty 10-year-old boys, but they're 40. Rude and crude and it delivers the laughs. Not a classic, but worth a rental. 7/10

Surviving Christmas - My girlfriend told me this wasn't as bad as the Ben Affleck/James Gandolfini vehicle's universal critical drubbing and box office failure would indicate and she was right. It stumbles a bit toward the end as the Formula Police from the studio probably mandated, but it's got some nice acid-tinged humor and good performances. 6/10

Teeth - Indie flick about a teenaged chick who is a virgin and then discovers that she has choppers in her hoohaw, which come in handy during the multiple times Evil Males take advantage of her. A one-gag movie that doesn't really go anywhere, though star Jess Weixler will freak you out with her resemblance to Heather Graham. 5/10

Traitor - Don Cheadle stars as a former American soldier who appears to have joined a radical Muslim terorist group. While the twists and turns were fairly predictable, it's a well-balanced story which will surely disappoint those looking for the usual America-bashing undertones, which is why the reviews were mixed by the usual liberal critics. Check it out. 8/10

Thursday, December 25, 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

God bless us, everyone! :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Need A Last Minute Gift?

Another Reason Why Cats Will Destroy Us All.

They suffer thru this now because they now because they know a big payback is coming later.



This is also why Godzilla keeps stomping Japan.

(h/t LH)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

iBoobs: NOT Coming To An iPhone Near You Soon!

More proof that Apple is no fun.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Web Rules Don't Apply To The Obamessiah.

Is there any rule or law that Barry "The One" O'Bama intends to obey? Better yet, is there anyone willing to tell this charlatan "Oh, HELL no!!!" to any of his ego-tripping desires?

Malkin has copies of FOIA documents regarding the creation of Barack Obama’s Change.gov website and it shows the Imperial rule that The One is setting up for Himself:

You’ll recall last month that I blogged several questions about the propriety of allowing the perpetual Obama campaign to use a .gov domain name for what appeared to be a fund-raising front. Readers and industry observers noted that the decision appeared to violate General Services Administration rules governing government domains.

Guess what? They were right. The FOIA documents sent to Lance O., which he forwarded to me, reveal that the GSA initially rejected Obama’s application for “Change.gov.” On Oct. 21, Peter Alterman, Deputy Associate Administrator of Technology Strategy at the GSA, denied the Obama campaign’s request for a government domain because:

1) It would be a a violation of the government’s naming conventions (too generic); and

2) using ‘change’ in the domain name would be political, since it was the trademark slogan of the Obama campaign.

The day after the election, on Nov. 5, GSA Chief Information Officer Casey Coleman overruled Alterman after apparently receiving a waiver from Chris Lu, Executive Director of Obama’s Transition Project. As reader Lance discovered through his FOIA request, Ms. Coleman did not elaborate on the granting of this waiver except to say that she had “determined that it is in the best interest of the Federal Government to register the subject domain name.”

As another GSA official who facilitated the convenient change in policy regarding change.gov exulted to the Obama campaign after the domain was granted, “Rock and roll!”
More like "SEIG HEIL!!!"

Friday, December 19, 2008

Boring Anti-Porn Scolds Are Boring,

"Pornification" is a word I first heard from Laura Ingraham and am hearing again today in this column by Mona Charen. While I'm sympathetic to their concerns about the coarsening of the culture and the casually blatant sexualization that's everywhere, the scolding tone of these sorts of screeds isn't going to convince anyone to come to their side. Heck, I want to visit 20 porn sites in retaliation right now! A snip:

The statistics are mind-numbing. Pamela Paul, author of "Pornified," reported that "Americans rent upwards of 800 million pornographic videos and DVDs per year. About one in five rented videos is porn. Men look at pornography online more than they look at any other subject. And 66 percent of 18-34 year old men visit a pornographic site every month."

They are not, Paul and others explained, looking at Playboy magazine-like images of naked women. Instead, they are descending into darker and darker realms where sadism, fetishes, and every imaginable oddity are proffered. Sex and violence are offered together. Women are presented in a degraded -- not to say disgusting -- fashion.

Surely only people with peculiar sexual tastes are drawn to this sort of thing, right? Not exactly. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, author of "The Brain That Changes Itself," noted that pornography use actually changes the brains of consumers. Like other addictions, pornography use breeds tolerance and the need for more intensity to get the desired result. He quoted Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons," in which a college kid asks casually, "Anybody got porn?" He is told that there are magazines on the third floor. He responds, "I've built up a tolerance to magazines I need videos." Tolerance is the medically correct term, Doidge notes, which is why pornography becomes more and more graphic.

The men (and they are overwhelmingly men) who become hooked on this bilge are often miserable about it. They know that it affects their capacity to love and be loved by real women. As Doidge explained, "Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and a release from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure. Paradoxically, the male patients I worked with often craved pornography but didn't like it." Hugh Hefner, the godfather of mainstream porn, apparently does not have normal sex with his many girlfriends. Despite the presence of up to seven comely young women in his bed at a time, he uses porn for sexual satisfaction. Think about that.
Uh-huh. I'm thinking that Hef is 1000-years-old and probably wishing he could just read a book in bed instead of having to be King Stud for a herd of dippy bimbos, but he's trapped into having to live a lifestyle he's outgrown.

Notably missing from these scolding articles is any mention of the WOMEN involved. The drunk bimbos flashing the "Girls Gone Wild" cameras aren't staring down the barrels of guns and not every porn performer is a sad junkie who was molested by their stepfather. By removing the suppliers and bashing the consumers, it makes you wonder how repressed Laura and Mona are and how that's manifesting itself in these screeds? Why they aren't saying, "Put your clothes on, ladies! Show some pride!"? Why just yell at the menfolk that they're destroying their families by looking at porn?

Granted, there are sick losers whose lives are messed up by this stuff, just as there are pedophiles and liberals who prey upon the powerless, but to take a "Reefer Madness" stance on it only backfires IMNSHO. It's ironic that these two scold liberals for trying to use isolated incidents like splashy gun incidents as an excuse to disarm the citizens, but use a few perverts to make it sound like they want burquas for women.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The UAW Bailout In 1000 Words.

While this slags the Detroit Three (formerly the Big Three, not to be confused with the Furious Five) and leaves the greedy bastards of the UAW unscathed, it's pretty funny.



Hardy-har, right? Now try laughing after you read about the UAW’s gold-plated golf course. Still laughing? My friend just got cashiered from his gig at one of these companies due to the cutbacks thanks to the Democrats fiscal treason. Since the public was ignorant and afraid, they voted in MORE Dems last month, so it's only going to get worse. Yay, democracy! Pffft.

UPDATE: Unlike the pitiful commenter who embarrasses himself badly in the Backtalks, cartoonist Michael Ramirez sees the UAW's culpability in the Detroit Three's dire straits:

Friday, December 12, 2008

Questions For Christopher Nolan

To show off the BD-Live capabilities of "The Dark Knight" Blu-ray disc, evil Warner Brothers is hosting a viewing of the film with director/co-writer Christopher Nolan and as part of the RSVP, you can pre-ask three questions for the chat session. Here's what I tossed in:

1. Was the IMAX camera destroyed shooting the chase on Lower Wacker covered by insurance or did the production have to pay for it outright?

2. Some people believe that The Dark Knight is a veiled defense of George W. Bush and the War on Terror; others think it's a criticism. Which is it? (No link in submitted question; provided for readers here.)

3. With Heath Ledger's passing, does that mean the Joker will never appear in any future Batman movies you make or would you recast the role? If the latter, how about Christian Slater? He could work.
Hopefully, they'll post a chat log of the session that can be read later. If any answers to these questions are provided, I'll update this post.

UPDATE (12/19): Saw a thing on AICN saying it was totally lame and this Gizmodo item concurs with a lot of funny spoofing in the comments. Too bad, but not unexpected.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Trying Twitter Again.

After a one-day dalliance with Twitter a couple years ago, I blew it off as too short and inane to be useful. I'm not convinced it's not the latter, but I'm starting to think it will get me more active in updating little info tidbits that are too small for a full blog post. The feed is at right and you can follow my tweets by clicking the link. We'll see how this goes.

All Bands Should Take Names from Photoshop

This list explains why. Some goodies:

1. Gaussian Blur
5. Desaturation
13. Histogram
14. Color Burn
15. Hard Mix
18. Anti-Aliased
(h/t briancarter via Twitter)

Monday, December 08, 2008

J*** In My Pants!

While the overall quality of Saturday Night Live has been on the upswing this season, the SNL Digital Shorts by Andy Samberg's Lonely Island troupe are off the hook and their latest takes it up another notch with a hooky tune and excellent production values on the video. (A little NSFW. Wear headphones.)

Friday, December 05, 2008

Thursday, December 04, 2008

CFE: PC Gaming's Big Problems

THE BACKGROUND: Saw at Voodoo Extreme a link to a brief interview with Bioshock designer Ken Levine in which he said:

What is the industry's biggest mistake?

I'm a real believer in industrial Darwinism. It's hard for an industry to make a mistake because the market tends to be self-correcting...but I wish the industry could find a way to make PC gaming more broadly successful. There are so many challenges for PC gaming--the complications from systems specifications to the drivers--most people look at PC games and say, "What are you talking about?" It's a shame because as a gamer, I am never more comfortable than I am sitting with a mouse and keyboard two inches away from my monitor.
I posted at VE:
Unfortunately, he is right, though it's ironic that his own Bioshock was in the vanguard of PC titles that punished PC gamers with SecuROM shenanigans. It doesn't matter if he didn't want the crap the publisher ladled onto his game; the damage was done.

This has to be the worst year, problem-wise, I've seen in PC gaming in my decade of gaming. I am so fed up, my purchase ratio has swung from about 50-50 PC-to-console to 90-10 in favor of console. Since I buy 90% of my console titles used all PC games new, my shift has not only meant less money for PC game pubs, but console title pubs, too.

Let's count some of the problems of the past year:

* Crysis - A year later, it's still a slide show on the majority of gamers' rigs unless they turn the eye candy down which defeats the purpose of this boring game. When every game you play EXCEPT Crysis will run with all the sliders to the right, something is desperately wrong in the devs heads.

* Gears of War (PC) - It takes longer to install (~45 minutes) than it took me to unlock Half-Life 2 on the disastrous launch day. That's time spent NOT PLAYING. Toss in the widespread bug that leads to all your saved progress being randomly deleted - it happened to a friend after he'd put in many hours and me after about an hour - and it doesn't matter if they added levels.

* Unreal Tournament 3 (aka Gears of Unreal) - Epic sodomized PC gamers a second time by making the PS3 their primary focus and showing utter contempt for the PC, starting with the interface. They could've hired a 17-year-old off a mod forum and paid him a couple cases of Bawls and a trip to a strip club and gotten a better interface in a couple of days. There is no reason why they couldn't have just slapped the UT2K4 front end onto UT3 other than sheer laziness. I'm also pissed that the game crashed every 20 minutes when it worked and now doesn't work at all, but what I saw told me I'd wasted $60 buying the CE on day one. If I'd waited a few months, I could've gotten the same for less than half price.

* Fallout 3 - While I've only had a few crashes and one funny glitch I captured and posted to YouTube, others are having tons of problems. Bethesda also hasn't released the mod tools which made a PC purchase the logical choice. WTF? PC gamers get screwed again. As an extra kicker, when my cable was out and I couldn't log into the Live network, I was unable to play offline with my saved game! WTF is that about?!?

* GTA IV (PC) - A glance at the front page of VE shows had badly botched this port has been. I played GTA III/VC/SA on the PC, but bought another Xbox 360 to play GTA IV when it came out. I was likely to buy the PC version to get the replay editor and higher rez quality, but it appears they've lost another sale.

* Vista Compatibility with Older Games - It's too hit and miss. I can't get Red Alert 2 to run at all and that was a Win2K-compatible title. Blade Runner had graphical corruption until I found out that if you alt-tab back to the Desktop then return to the game, it'll be fine. Your new hot-rod computer is less capable than one from the turn of the century.

* Impulse - Stardock took all their DRM-free goodwill and torched it by releasing a Steam-wannabe client that works fine on WinXP and refuses to run on Vista. (Hey, maybe after it's out a couple more years, they'll learn to code for it.)

* Games For Windows Live - The anti-Xbox Live which showed that all the brains were in the console department. All M$ needed to do was buy X-Fire and rebrand it as an integrated buddy list/game updater/game launcher. How fraking hard would it have been to do that? About as hard as putting a decent interface on UT3, I suppose.

* The Addiction to Punitive DRM - I believe that piracy has received its biggest boost as a direct result of the outspoken attitude that the paying customers are actually predatory thieves robbing developers and publishers of their just rewards. Huh?!? Install limits, irremovable DRM schemes, we know the drill. People who honestly took their money to the store to buy the game were punished for the sins of the real thieves and after getting slapped in the face over and over decided that if they were going to be treated as if they were guilty of something, they may as well save $50 and commit the crime they're being suspected of. How many people downloaded Spore just to stick it to EA? How many sales were lost because people won't pay to be insulted?

The combination of buggy, half-assed games and lousy support and insulting DRM is killing my love of PC gaming. For every Witcher EE (new, improved, DRM-free, and cheap) have been several pooch screws. I have spent at least five hours researching my UT3 problems, un/reinstalling, updating drivers, downloading patches, rebooting and watching it lock up and fail again. Every hour spent futzing with beta drivers for the newest games is an hour not spent PLAYING! (I want to know are these games being developed when the necessary drivers and hardware aren't available until after the game has shipped?!?!?)

I'm a fairly savvy wirehead and while I'm searching the back alleys of teh Intarwebz looking for fixes for my problems, I often pause to wonder WTF civilians who just want to game would do when confronted with the myriad problems PC gamers suffer thru as par for the course? How the hell can we proselytize PC gaming as being a superior experience when it clearly isn't? How can we say to someone, "No, you don't want to buy a $300 Xbox 360 that will play games like Gears of War 2 and Dead Space with stunning graphics, has great online features, and the ability to stream Netflix to your 50" HDTV. You want to spend $1000 and have to constantly update your drivers for every game and not be able to lend or sell the games you're done with and if there's a bug or incompatibility spend hours trying to figure out why it's not working. Hey, why are you looking at me like I'm crazy?"

If PC gaming is dying, it's because it's bleeding to death from all the bullet holes in its feet. Before anyone retorts that it's more fun on the PC because you get to tweak and mod in ways that consoles can't, tell me what that has to do with my complaints that if you just want to play games and have fun. Spending hours monkeying with your systems should be a CHOICE, not a requirement. Most people would rather finish a game than try to get it running in the first place.

Blizzard Man Kicks It, Yo!!!

This sketch from SNL a couple of weeks ago just killed! Props to T-Pain for being a good sport and giving a good performance.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Home Depot Scam - Guys Beware!

A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular Home Depot customers. This one caught me by surprise.

Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naïve enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.

Here's how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the trunk. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts.

It is impossible not to look.

When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead ask you for a ride to McDonalds.

You agree and they get into the back seat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.

I had my wallet stolen March 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th & 29th. Also April 1st & 4th, Twice on the 8th, 16th, 23rd, 26th & 30th, three times last Saturday and very likely again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful.

P.S. Walmart has wallets on sale for 2.99 each.

=============

Yes, it's an obvious joke someone sent me, but I smiled. I sent this reply: "Oh, please! We're supposed to believe that this guy is so foolish as to be buying three dollar wallets when you can get them at the dollar store for, well, a dollar?"

Friday, November 28, 2008

Kitteh Whack-A-Mouse!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

"What's the difference between evaporated and sweetened condensed milk?"

That's the question that Hermione called me with at 2 pm, rousing me from my slumber. She was making a pie and needed evaporated, but had the condensed. I read her this article which is pretty clear that they aren't interchangable, but she's going to do it anyway. Oy vey.

"Where's Sock Puppet's Bailout?"

Cute satire wondering why the tech boom was allowed to go bust while there's plenty of wealth being spread for the more politically-connected dumbasses this time.



Despite living in the Motor City and having plenty of friends whose lives are dependent on the auto industries, the "Detroit 3" need to be forced into bankruptcy in order to allow them to get the UAW contract leeches off their back. The weakness brought by the combination of union parasitism and governmental meddling is killing them.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

A 12-Pack of Crushing Disappointment.

Think these girls are upset now? Wait until these girls get dumped by the boy who deflowers them.

Pole-Dancing Practice Prompt Persistent Pussy Pestering!

Not as dirty as it sounds and safe for work.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Just No End To The BDS-Fueled Smears.

Saw at Malkin's joint:

The Bush Derangement Syndrome lemmings on the Internet lit up yesterday over a video that supposedly showed world leaders “snubbing” George Bush and refusing to shake his hand.

CNN moron Rick Sanchez wet his pants over the video, exulting that Bush was being treated like the kid in high school with “cooties.” He then ranted about Bush as a “bully” who deserved rude treatment from the world because “What goes around comes around.” The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart cackled over the clip, too.

It was left to CNN humorist Jeanne Moos to set the dunces straight. Bush had been shaking hands and slapping backs all day long with the world’s heads of state. There was no “snub:”



Bias? What Treason Media bias? Is there any doubt that Obama will receive the exact opposite treatment, no matter how big a gaffe he makes? Duh.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Obama's AG Pick To Be Even More Corrupt Than Janet Reno?

Hard to believe they could top the shaved Wookie for sheer partisan corruption under color of law, but Eric Holder looks to be quite the fellow. If I was a child in a church, I'd be pulling on the Nomex and brushing up on my Spanish.

Much has been made, and appropriately so, of Holder’s untoward performance in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued in the departing president’s final hours. Of these, most notorious is the case of Marc Rich, an unrepentant fugitive wanted on extensive fraud, racketeering, and trading-with-the-enemy charges — but granted a pardon nonetheless thanks to the intercession of his ex-wife, a generous donor to Clinton’s library and legal-defense fund.

Holder’s role was aptly described as “unconscionable” by a congressional committee. He steered Rich’s allies to retain the influential former White House counsel Jack Quinn (Holder later conceded he hoped Quinn would help him become attorney general in a Gore administration); he helped Quinn directly lobby Clinton, doing an end-run around the standard pardon process (including DOJ’s pardon attorney); and he kept the deliberations hidden from the district U.S. attorney and investigative agencies prosecuting Rich so they couldn’t learn about the pardon application and register their objections.

There’s more. In 1999, over the objections of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and prosecuting attorneys, Holder supported Clinton’s commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN conspirators. These pardons — of terrorists who even Holder has conceded had not expressed any remorse — were issued in the months after al-Qaeda’s 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, when the Clinton administration was pretending to be the scourge of terrorism. The commutations were nakedly political, obviously designed by Clinton to assist his wife’s impending Senate campaign by appealing to New York’s substantial Puerto Rican vote.

Equally noxious were the stealthy pardons of Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans — Weather Underground terrorists associated with Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn — issued on the same day as the Rich pardon. Rosenberg and Evans had been serving decades-long sentences for bombings targeting American government facilities. With Holder again helping to circumvent the pardon process and to evade objections from prosecutors, the terrorists’ jail terms were commuted just weeks after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.

Under Holder’s stewardship, moreover, the Justice Department chose, in the Dickerson case, to oppose its own prosecutors and seek reversal of the conviction of a bank robber whose voluntary confession had been elicited without Miranda warnings. Taking the Justice Department's signal, the Supreme Court overruled the lower courts and vacated the conviction, upending 30 years of precedent which had held that Miranda was not part of the core Fifth Amendment guarantee. Thanks to this ruling, rendered in the comfort of pre-9/11 complacence, terrorists tried in civilian courts — which is where Obama and Holder want them to be tried — will enjoy a powerful argument against the admission of critical confession evidence.

To be blunt, Holder is a terrible selection. If there’s any Obama cabinet nomination that Republicans feel moved to oppose, this should be it.
Gee, coddling of terrorists including Weather Underground? Just the kind of guy Obama needs on the case, what with all his Weather pals. However, there's no way that opposition will crop up because the spineless Stupid Party know that the banner headlines - "GOP BLOCKS FIRST BLACK AG" - are ready and waiting to run against them.

Roomba Kitty!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Can You Tell The Spoof Obamabots From the Real Drones?

Saw these at Power Line - the first is a very funny Onion bit about the pointlessness of the Obamessiah's disciples after His election, but the 2nd is depressing when you realize the sheer level of ignorance of his typical supporters.


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are



Red State has the latter clip along with accompanying poll data showing that the Treason Media did its job in making sure anything bad about the non-Messiah side they could put out there stuck. Obama's win was based on ignorance and fear along with a hefty dose of white guilt* and media pixie dust.

64 days until the Apocalypse? Hope not.


* Before you racist liberals try to make something of that part, you know it's true. If Colin Powell had been the Republican nominee in 1996, he could've knocked off Bubba Clinton.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

New Sig Time!

The photographer in me still cracks up at this one:

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Obama To Get Away With His Massive Illegal Campaign Fundraising.

The One promised to take public financing. The One lied. He then raked in something north of $600 million in contributions which he combined with the in-kind cover-up operations of the Treason Media to run a propaganda blitz that would rival the real Messiah for ubiquity of message.

Nevermind that he got caught funneling cash to ACORN to finance their voter fraud operations. Ignore the illegal donations under fake names from foreign contributors. Forget about the fact that they turned off address verification on his website allowing "Adolfe Hitler" and "Osama Bin Laden" to contribute unknown millions in sub-$200 increments and will never release the names. Why? Because the FEC will probably never bother auditing His books. Meanwhile, poor John McCain WILL be audited for years and have to pay for it because he kept his word and took the public money. Sucker.

This is proof that if you lie, cheat and steal big enough, you'll get away with it. Got that kids? Cheaters always win! Following the rules is for suckers, innit? Can you get away with anything if you're protected from investigation? YES, YOU CAN!!!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Friends With Benefits Wedding

C-C-C-Combo Breaker!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

McCain Classy In Defeat; Obama Arrogant In Victory.

A lot of people leery of McCain suspected that he was willing to "lose with honor" rather than actually fight the evil that Obama and the fascist Democrats represented. I called him out on this that if he didn't properly highlight Obama's close ties to radicals, racists and criminals, his life of service to country, which he is so proud of, would be for naught for defeat would usher in an age of darkness for the world. Well, mission not accomplished means no soup for you, John.

However, his concession speech was a thing of grace from a bygone and now lost age. Whenever the crowd started to boo, he sternly hushed them up, and he pledged his support to the new President with a sincerity that comes from being a true patriot (plus being more comfortable cuddling with the Dems.)

Mark Levin wrote:

John McCain just gave a classy concession speech. If McCain had won, we were told of possible riots.
That's a telling note. With a million people crowded into Grant Park and a nation of people told that they are victims unless liberal fascists are empowered to rob the producers to give to the moochers, there was a fear that riots would recreate 1968. (I wonder how many are disappointed that they didn't get to tear things up?)

In contrast, Obama was robotic and soulless. This cat isn't "cool", he's smug and arrogant. With a million people in front of him, he delivered a dour, sour campaign speech which steadfastly looked backwards and kicked Dubya in the shins for good measure. When he tried to get the chants of "Seig Heil", er, "Yes, we can!" going, it showed that 20 years in the pews of Jerimiah Wright's racist church didn't teach him much about rhetorical abilities.

Obi-Wan Kenobi said that, "the Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded," and that's my problem with the ninnies who are literally dampening their panties over this tabula rasa of a Rorschach test: There is literally no THERE there. I feel like I've taken crazy pills because people are acting as if the sun has finally risen after eight years and all over a false Messiah who has accomplished nothing but to bamboozle them into projecting their fondest wishes upon him and them worship him blindly.

Most of them are like this woman:



They think they've just won a free Xbox in a fast food scratch-and-win contest. They're jumping up and down thinking their time has come and they'll matter. They have no idea what they've just voted for because even when brainwashed by professors and the media, most people don't willingly vote themselves into slavery.

Hard times ahead.

Let The Recriminations Begin!

With the apparent election of Barack Obama as Dear Glorious Leader and Furher of the Fourth Reich of the Soviet Socialist States of AmeriKKKa, there is plenty of time for post-mortems, backbiting and second-guessing. I'll toss something up eventually, but this post on The Corner already has a hefty chunk of my thinking:

1) We got this the old-fashioned way: we earned it. The other side took the fight to us, and we never took the fight to the other side, except coyly and obliquely. That's not a mistake we should make the next time. "Honorable campaigns" are for losers. Next time, call 'em as they really are, not as you wish to see 'em.

2) Where was Bush? Once again, and right to the bitter end, he let his passion for "loyalty" supersede what was stragetically right for the party, not to mention what was best for the country. I think his reputation has nowhere to go but down; yes, he got one big thing right, but he got everything else wrong. Enough of this family in our country's politics!

3) Good riddance to Liddy Dole, the woman who gave us the national drinking age of 21 and a host of sozzled underage college students. She won't be missed.

4) Hillary comes out smelling like a rose, plus unbloodied. She and Bill are already scoping out 2012.

5) Time to clean house. McCain should have been president in 2000, not in 2008. No more "it's my turn" for the last loser. We need to be looking for our candidates in the ranks of returning war vets — think Eisenhower in '52 as the model — and let the Dem's shifty lawyers run the country for a couple of years. Then hit them across the board with people who know how to lead. Gen. Petraeus might be a good place to start. Lots of junior officers, too.

6) You know what? McCain never did sell himself as a leader. He sold himself as a maverick.

7) One upside: McCain/Feingold is now dead, as is public financing. Talk about being hoist with your own petard!

8) That Gang of 14 thing really worked out well, didn't it? Say good-bye to the courts. And we were so close...

9) Joe Lieberman was worse than useless. When he could have made a difference, he didn't cross the aisle to caucus with the Republicans. Now, it doesn't matter. Thanks, Joe.

10) Age matters. McCain ran an "honorable campaign" because he never really understood in his heart that the other guy had no intention of doing so; he didn't "get" Obama's generation, or Axelrod's.. Obama would lie about public financing, "oppose" gay marriage but also oppose Prop. 8 and never see it as morally contradictory. The world that McCain understood and operated in is vanishing, and tonight is visible evidence.

11) Unlike the Democrats, let's show some class in defeat. That doesn't mean lie down and roll over: it means fighting for what we believe in, doubly so now. But their sneering childishness is not for us; and now that they've won, they won't be able to control it even in victory. This is an unlovely party filled with unlovely people, as America's about to find out once the Obama pixie dust wears off.

12) Understand, once and for all, that the old media is part of the Democratic Party now. Ignore it. Never send Michele Bachmann onto Hardball again. Never send Sarah to play nice with Katie. We need to develop and create our own work-arounds — Fox, talk radio, NRO, etc. — and use them. Don't play by their rules: make our own.
Yep. Sounds right and saved me some typing.

The Cluelessness of Michigan Mirrors the Ignorance of a Nation.

Two years ago, Michigan re-elected Jennifer Granholm to a second term as Governor despite her failed leadership in her first term that kept the state in a one-state Depression, with unemployment running over 2.5% higher than the national rate. When she was first elected, she was such a rising star, there were noises that the Constitution would have to be amended to allow this golden goddess the opportunity to run for President. (She's Canadian.) After a couple of years, she'd submarined the state so thoroughly that no one ever mentioned it again.

Her opponent was Peter DeVos (of the Amway family) and he was a boring white businessman with a proven record of corporate success who just didn't connect with voters. (Sounds a lot like Mitt Romney, no?) Banking her reliable union support, Granholm was re-elected and continued driving Michigan into the dirt. After four years of utter failure, the voters rewarded her with four more years - the first half have been more of the same.

Since the Democrats took over Congress two years ago, the housing market has collapsed thanks to the Dems blocking of Fannie/Freddie regulation; the economy has tanked; fuel prices doubled (and fell back only when people stopped driving); and Congress' approval rating is in SINGLE DIGITS, less than a third of the much-slagged Dubya. The country's dire economic straits are mostly thanks to the liberal Democrats who are the puppets of the Big Money on Wall Street and what have the voters done?

THEY'VE SENT EVEN MORE OF THEM TO WASHINGTON!!!

If you went to a restaurant a couple of times and got sick with food poisoning each time, would you go back again AND take some friends with you or would you find someplace else to eat? (Duh.) Despite the facts, an ill-informed and frightened* electorate has gone back for seconds. If they end up choking and/or starving to death as a result, what will they do then? Vote for thirds?


* It's funny how the knock on Team Dubya by the Left was that they were using fear (of terrorism) to score votes, only to see the Left use economic fear to scare voters into rushing into Uncle Sam's smothering clutches. On NBC News' coverage, they proclaimed it as a triumph of "hope over fear". Are you f*cking kidding me? They used the public's legitimate fears over the economy as their ticket to power. That the Dems are the cause of the crisis is just the perverse cherry on top of the sh*t sundae.

Why the Hell Are Conservatives Acting As If Obama Will "Govern From the Center"?!?

I've noticed in coverage, mostly on the radio, that a odd amount of people who should know a hell of a lot better have been saying that Obama would probably not govern as a hard-Left radical fascist Marxist - as his lifelong record shows he is - but would push back against the liberal instincts of Pelosi and Reid and the rising tide of Democrats in Congress, who, if trends continue, will claim a huge mandate to impose massive socialism on this country.

If I may ask a rhetorical question: WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU MORONS SMOKING?!? BASED ON WHAT CAN YOU PREDICT THIS?!?!?

Bill Clinton came in with well over half of the voters having chosen different candidates and acted as if he was crowned Sun King and governed with great hubris (HillaryCare anyone?) and promptly lost Congress to Newt and the Republicans in 1994. These pundits believe that Obama would not make the same mistake, but if the Dems rout the way it's looking now, what restraint would he need to show? With a Treason Media looking to protect their Anointed One after they got him on the throne and actively cheering any fascism he wishes to implement, why wouldn't he put his life's radical ideology into practice?

The Story of Voter #1304.

I stopped at my voting precinct this morning about 7:30 am to vote before heading to work and found the usual spot empty. Going into the school, I was told that they were voting in the gym. Popping my head in, I saw a line running all around the perimeter and realized there was no way in heck I'd get to work on time.

Returning a bit before 6 pm, I had no problem getting parking and a guy holding a sign for some Circuit Court judicial candidate said the wait was about 15 minutes. I had a paperback and my PDA, so I was ready for a long wait as I entered...

....the nearly empty gym. Huh?

There was no line at all. I walked to the ballot signup table and presented it to the woman handling the "B"s who asked if I was related to my mother. I told her about Mom's stroke and where she was in residence. Looking over to the voting booths, I spotted a woman I know whom I always seem to see at the polls. Taking the next booth over, I said hello and we proceeded to chat and joke about how we were canceling each others' votes out while we marked our ballots. She asked if I'm Republican and I said, "I am this week. More accurately, I'm voting anti-Democrat, as usual. If it was Hillary, I would've voted Barr (the Libertarian), but because it's Obama, I gotta go McCain." She said she liked McCain, but "hated" Palin for all the usual reasons. (God, abortion, blah-blah-woof-woof.)

I skipped most of the ballot - why vote for trustees and board members you know nothing about? - scattering my non Moose-Slayer votes among Libertarian and Stupid Party candidates. I voted yes on medical marijuana (though I believe it's a punk half-step instead of a proper decriminalization) and no on public stem cell research funding (let the private sector play Frankenstein on their dime).

On my way out, a young guy from the University of Toronto college paper (apparently he's from my area) asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed and, of course, I dropped a ton of science on him. I could tell by the look on his face he didn't know much of what I was telling him about how the Treason Media (just "media" for his purposes) had deliberately failed on vetting Obama compared to the anal probes Palin and others got. When he took my picture, I thought, "Good thing I shaved this morning." (I somehow knew I should tidy up this morning. I even wore pants!)

1300 people voted ahead of me, so it's a good thing from a civic perspective, though the fact that so many voted ignorantly for an ultra-radical fascist makes me wish they'd stayed home.

Total time spent at polls (not counting the interview): 13 minutes, and most of that was chatting people up. If I hadn't stopped, I would've been in and out in five minutes.

Let the Race Riots Begin!

Just got a call from my girlfriend who lives in Detroit. "Are you ready for this? Listen." I hear a sizable crowd chanting, "Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!" Where was this racket coming from? "In front of my house. There's a crowd; they have children and they're marching up and down. [Next door neighbor - a black woman] hates us because she asked my father who he voted for and when he said it didn't matter, she said, 'You didn't vote for McCain, did you?'"

So much for the post-racial aspect of the Barack Obama myth: He's the BLACK candidate to a segment of the public who has been so exploited by racist liberals that if he doesn't win, they're going to burn the country down in retaliation. The Black Panthers threatening people with clubs in Philly were just a warm-up if the aggrieved factions of our population aren't satisfied.

Who's REALLY screwed in this situation? The Democrats! Why? Because they've built their power on exploiting minorities - i.e. vote (D) or else you'll be even worse off - only to ignore them as soon as the election is over. Now that the top guy is a member of a Designated Victim Group, how in the hell do the Dems think they're going to put a non-minority candidate at the top of the ticket? Those who live by identity politics, die by identity politics.

Sure, Obama might be the puppet of White Devils Pelosi and Reid (as if he's not simpatico), but the Presidential nominee slot is now forever lost to white Dems. That's gotta sting! All those years exploiting minorities and the racist liberals get thanked this way? Ha!!!!

It's 5 p.m. and Still No Exit Poll Leaks; Is McCain Winning?

The Treason Media wants nothing more than to get to the coronation of their Anointed Fuhrer and the sooner they can call the election based on exit polls in the East, the faster they can depress turnout in the West. In 2004, the misinformation operation was going full swing by 2 p.m. EST, but here we are nearing the dinner hour and nothing is stirring.

Why not? It's not as if they're concerned with their journalistic integrity given everything they've covered up for the past year, so I'm wondering if the polls are showing a surprising McCain surge that both moots all the pre-game propaganda but could encourage Westerners to rush to/go home from the polls depending on how the results affect them. With garnering even greater majorities for the Dems Job One, perhaps the TM is hedging their bets lest they get caught out so badly that there's no way to spin their culpability.

We Now Pause For A Happy Video!

After all the depressing clips of various fascist words and actions I've posted today, we need to take a moment to pause and appreciate something a little lighter.



This is soooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than that totally ghey ad with Kobe, Phelps, Hawk and Jeter. Totally.

Black Panthers Acting As Obama Brownshirts!

We're probably going to HEAR a lot of reports about how Evil Racist Republicans (triply-redundant, dontchaknow) are trying to suppress minority turnout, but I wonder how many of these incidents we'll actually SEE?

Since it seems everyone has a camera phone - I don't, but I have a pair of Flip video cameras - it will be very easy to surreptitiously document any shenanigans, so we'll see who can show intimidation in action.

Here's the first I've seen: Black Panthers with nightsticks at a polling precinct in Philadelphia.



If two white skinheads were standing around the doors of a precinct with billy clubs in hand, don't you think CNN et al would be all over it? In this case, it's one brave citizen with a camera phone taking his life into his hands to document the thuggish tactics the Obama Brownshirts (or more accurately Blackshirts) are using to terrify dissenters into foregoing their right to vote.

Talk Radio = Pornography To Fascist Dems!

You've got to respect the naked displays of hunger to stomp their jackboot of fascism down the Democrats are showing in anticipation of having total rule over the nation. Whether it's Barney Frank's desire to slash our military and rob the successful of their earnings or Chuck Schumer's belief that political speech should be treated the same as pornography, it's not as if we didn't have plenty of warning as to what they had in mind for us, their subjects.



Anyone else notice the irony in this comment:

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”
Aren't the libertine liberals the ones who think the bluenoses should STFU and GTFO in criticizing porn? He's using the restrictions of explicit sexual content as an excuse to stifle dissenting speech. If conservatives tried to shut the Left up under this rationale, the Left would have kittens. I don't recall any moralists demanding that Air AmeriKKKa be regulated under porn laws. They just didn't listen. Funny how the supposedly tolerant and diversity-loving liberals can't turn the radio off themselves.

CFE: The Triumph of Liberal Branding

Andrew Stuttaford has a post on The Corner entitled "Elites and Their Choices" which observes:

Assuming the worst (but, of course, hoping for the best) for today, as one must, one of the fascinating questions to come revolves around what's next for Sarah Palin, both as a political figure in her own right, and for what her future role will say about the evolution of the GOP. We've already had a few skirmishes here on the direction the GOP might take (and there will be more elsewhere), but when I read this comment by David Brooks in an article running in this week's New York magazine, I don't feel very optimistic about the tone of what lies ahead:
Others maintain that the damage to her image has been so enormous that it is essentially irreparable. And still others contend that she is simply too dim to be a major figure in our national life. When I asked Times columnist David Brooks if he thought that Palin could be the Republican nominee in 2012, he said, “I don’t.” When I asked why, he answered with a chuckle, “I just don’t think the human capital is there, to put it politely.”
Politely? Meanwhile, on a not entirely unrelated topic, I saw this interesting piece by Christopher Caldwell in the London Spectator:
The Democrats are now the partisan home of the upper crust of the American meritocracy, of the credentialled classes, the classes that believe every endeavour is some variety of IQ test. USA Today did a review of fund-raising data and discovered that Obama dominates fundraising among the leaders of ‘finance, insurance, real estate, health, communications and law’. The Democratic party is the vehicle through which, after a populist interlude, the governing classes are proposing to take their country back. Obama is a restoration candidate but that doesn’t mean he has a plan.
Food for thought.
So much for that "Party of the Little Guy" crap they've been peddling, too.

I wrote Stuttaford a note:
Regarding the execrable David Brooks sneering at Gov. Palin - that "Gov." meaning "GOVERNOR", not "lick-spittle brown-nosing NY Times lackey" - as being too stupid for his lofty perch: What the jeering elitists never explain is how this dim-witted, Jesus-freak, redneck, breeder cow managed to take down her own party's old boy network (in a place where old boy networks are surely tighter than most) and become the most popular governor in the Republic. That she was able to climb the ladder from the school board to the state house without benefit of money, connections, or celebrity should be testament to some sort of intellectual acumen. That supposed "conservatives" like Brooks can't resist defecating on her and her unlettered ilk while liberal Democrat Obama-supporter Camile Paglia recognizes her strengths shows how pitiful the "pseudo-cons" (or CINOs) are these days as they try to curry favor with those on the Left whom they assume will be their masters.

The reason the "elites" and "intellectuals" are liberals is because liberalism has succeeded in branding itself as the "Smart Folks' Ideology." Liberals are smarter. Liberals are nicer. Liberals are more diverse. Liberals are more tolerant. Unlike those backward superstitious racist sexist bigoted homophobes (i.e. conservatives), liberals are inherently better than the rest. Look at all the pretty celebrities and rich people; they're liberals. Join us! It's the same thing that makes people pay a premium price for Apple products - they're perceived to be better, cooler, the choice of the Eloi, not the Morlocks. Forget "Pepsi: The Choice of the New Generation"; it's "Liberalism: Because You're Smarter Than Them!"

I stumbled into this insight while debatng with a friend and she threw the argument at me that since most college graduates are liberals, then clearly liberals are smarter. (She's an artist who probably doesn't know another non-liberal outside of me. If we weren't old family friends, she'd probably never associate with my kind.) Looking around, I realized that most liberals can't articulate their superiority without using that in the definition (e.g. "Liberals are smarter because they are smarter.") or denigrating conservatives (e.g. "I'm liberal because you stupid people think Jesus rode dinosaurs 2000 years ago.") That they lack the intellectual and epistemological curiosity to notice that there is no actual diversity or tolerance in their ranks is a sign of irony-deficiency that no multi-vitamin can compensate for.

Hypocrisy is the coin of the liberal realm, but they envision themselves to be more highly-evolved and thus entitled to reign over the benighted proletariat.
Damn straight!

Sunday, November 02, 2008

This Guy Isn't Looking To Stay Employable After Tuesday, Is He?

Never heard of this bloke, but a commenter at Malkin's crib put this link up. Check it out (unless you're an angry black liberal Obama voter - which is several times redundant, I know.)



Friday, October 31, 2008

Mmmmm...Babybel!!!



That is all.

“Spider-Man Told Me To Vote!”



Best Line Candidate? "I can register to vote while pooping!"

Obama Bars Reporters From Papers That Don't Worship Him Properly.

How important is it for Obama to maintain his human shield of Treason Media reporters? He's tossed reporters from papers that endorsed McCain off his airplane:

The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

The NY POST, WASHINGTON TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.

Some told the DRUDGE REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.
Holy cow! Other than the conservative blogosphere - especially Stanley Kurtz's in-depth (and probably in vain) reporting - and Fox News, he has gotten little actual scrutiny compared to say Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, but he's being actively protected by outfits like the LA Times (which is hiding the video from that PLO guy's party) and the NY Times, who are being shown as liars by their own archives:
From today's circle-the-wagons smooch:
[Khalidi] taught at universities in Lebanon until the mid-’80s, and some critics accuse him of having been a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mr. Khalidi has denied working for the group, and says he was consulted as an expert by reporters seeking to understand it.
Tom Friedman report for the New York Times, June 9, 1982:
The Israelis are out to "crush the P.L.O.," said Rashid Khalidi, a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa. He said they hope that by doing so, they will undermine the international recognition the P.L.O. has gained and eliminate its demands for an independent Palestinian state as a rallying point for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Joseph Goebbels would be so proud of Barry. When McCain is mean to the press, they bash him for it. Will those still on the plane wonder what's going on or are they so enamored with The One that as long as they get to bask in the glorious aura of Dear Leader they'll go along with the program? (Duh.)

Four out of Five Pimps Register Democratic!

As do 78% of hookers!

Based on the prostitutes' voter registration cards, they're destined to become Obama girls in November. That's because 78 percent of them registered as Democrats. Countywide, Dems make up only about 62 percent of voters, according to the Division of Elections.

The Illinois senator also has the advantage with local "johns" -- 72 percent go Democratic. And convicted pimps: Four out of every five register Democratic. And for the most special of special interest groups -- male transvestite hookers -- they're batting a thousand for Dems, albeit in drag.

"For years and years we had politicians paying too much attention to hookers, so it's great to finally see hookers paying attention to politics," said Dan Fee, a top Philadelphia Democratic consultant who helped Obama's Pennsylvania primary campaign.
Any questions now as to why the Dems want to allow convicted felons to vote?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Al Queda Sounds Like Daily Kos!

They both want Dubya and the Stupid Party "humiliated."

Even If You Vote For Obama, You're Still A Racist!

I'd like to think Obama and his disciples constant playing of the race card would backfire as people resent being tarred as racist because they don't want to vote for a redistributionist fascist, but people filled with White Guilt may outnumber them. It's ironic that amongst that latter group, their guilty support of the Obamessiah may still not gain the absolution for their racism they so crave because an advisor to The One says that because Obama is bi-racial, he isn't truly black enough to qualify as a vote for a black man.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, they are that crazy. This guy is being talked up as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division during an Obama Regime.

/me goes to look into Australia immigration.

Why Moving To Australia Might Not Be Too Bad.

Just as Jews had to flee post-Wiemar Germany, people not down with the fascist tyranny of an Obama Regime are going to need to find someplace else to live. Canada would be an option, but as Mark Steyn's persecution has shown, it's rapidly following the terminal England into the darkness of Islamofascism under the rubric of "diversity" and it is even worse than what America will become as far as speech freedoms go. With those two big English-speaking countries out, that leaves Australia to investigate as a new home.

One selling point is Natalie Tran of YouTube fame. She's cute, Asian, has the Ozzie accent and does funny self-deprecating videos like this one:



She was recently ranked #7 on G4's Women of the Web countdown (jump to :56 to see her bit) and her video mocking this was a hoot, too.

"The least qualified candidate in American history — at one of the most dangerous points in history."

Looking around at the vacant eyes of clueless people actually admitting that they stood and applauded The One's infomercial last night, I feel like I've taken crazy pills. These people are so ignorant that they don't even know that every vote for Obama is a bullet in the head of the security of the world. Thomas Sowell's sage column would pass right in one ear and out the other on these dolts.

Some elections are routine, some are important, and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic — and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of “change” are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries — and failed repeatedly in other countries.

[snip]

Higher taxes to “spread the wealth around,” as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons. Glib rhetoric about Iran being “a small country,” as Obama called it, will be a bitter irony for Americans who will have to live in the shadow of a nuclear threat that cannot be deterred, as that of the Soviet Union could be, by the threat of a nuclear counter-attack.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy — and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come.

Is this the legacy we wish to leave our children and grandchildren, by voting on the basis of style and symbolism, rather than substance?

If Barack Obama thinks that such a catastrophe can be avoided by sitting down and talking with the leaders of Iran, then he is repeating a fallacy that helped bring on World War II.

In a nuclear age, one country does not have to send troops to occupy another country in order to conquer it. Osama bin Laden...threatened retaliation against places in the United States that voted for George W. Bush. But he didn’t have nuclear weapons to back up that threat — yet.

America has never been a conquered country, so it may be very hard for most Americans even to conceive what that can mean. After France was conquered in 1940, it was reduced to turning over some of its own innocent citizens to the Nazis to kill, just because those citizens were Jewish.

Do you think our leaders wouldn’t do that? Not even if the alternative was to see New York and Los Angeles go up in mushroom clouds? If I were Jewish, I wouldn’t bet my life on that.

What the Middle East fanatics want is not just our resources or even our lives, but our humiliation first, in whatever sadistic ways they can think of. Their lust for humiliation has already been repeatedly demonstrated in their videotaped beheadings that find such an eager market in the Middle East.

None of this can be prevented by glib talk, but only by character, courage and decisive actions — none of which Barack Obama has ever demonstrated.
I've given up trying to discuss the issues with these people because there is no room for facts and truth in their worlds. Their lives, souls, hearts and minds (such as they are) are devoted to Dear Leader and only when the jackboot of totalitarian fascism crushes their throats will they begin to understand just how gullible they were.

And, yes, I will be saying I told them so. I will laugh at their misery because they will have been the ones who brought it down on their empty heads. This assumes, naturally, that I haven't been already interred in the Gulag by that time.

Yawn...

I'm sleepy. A couple nights staying up playing Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 makes Dirk a tired boy.

Defining Recession Down.

The economy contracted a tiny .3% in the last quarter and the media is calling it proof that we're in a recession. Traditionally, a recession was marked by two consecutive quarters of economic decline, but in the Newthink times we live in, the need to elect fascists to power requires the R-word to be slung around even when the economy was still growing. Of course, if Obama is elected Fuhrer, we'll be skidding rapidly past the R-word to the D-word.

Charlie Gibson Challenges Obama; The One Dodges FTW!

Charlie Gibson must be trying to reclaim a bit of his journalistic credibility after his sneering ambush of Moose-Slayer because he attempted to ask the Fuhrer-in-waiting about his broken promises about contributions. Notice how Obama never actually answers the questions.

GIBSON: You're going to have a half an hour broadcast tonight on a number of the networks. And the expense is not inconsiderable to buy that much time.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: Aren't you able to buy it only because you broke a promise on campaign financing?

OBAMA: Well, look, there is no doubt that the amount of money that we've raised in this campaign has been extraordinary and surprised me as much as anybody — maybe more than anybody. What I would simply point to is that the way we have raised this money has been by expanding the pool of small donors in this country in an unprecedented way.

GIBSON: But you haven't released their names.

OBAMA: We've got...

GIBSON: We don't know who they are.

OBAMA: Well, look, the — a whole bunch of them were out here today. I mean, you're looking the people who are giving 5, 10, $25. Ordinary folks who have gotten impassioned about this campaign in a way that is unprecedented. And that, really, is...

GIBSON: Shouldn't we know the names of that list?

OBAMA: Look, you know, 3.1 million donors would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process. And we have done everything that's been asked of us under the FEC guidelines. These are small donors. They're ordinary folks. And the idea behind all campaign finance reform is to make sure that the public official is not bought and sold; that that public official is accountable to the public, that they are not subject to undue influence by big special interests in Washington and lobbyists.

And we don't take lobbyists' money. We don't take money from PACs. And there's no industry, there's no group out there that I owe favors to as a consequence of this campaign. In fact, I would argue that probably — should I be successful, I may come into the White House with fewer strings attached to me than just about any presidential candidate in history. I wasn't even supported by the establishment in the Democratic Party when I started this race.

So I don't have a lot of — a lot of chits out there that are going to be collected.
Unpacking this bag of manure in reverse order:

1. He owes the George Soros/Can'tMoveOn.Argh/anti-war/race hustling/fascist-socialist groups and the Treason Media for their support and it's amusing that he thinks we're so gullible as to believe he's not beholden to all those people, especially Soros.

B. It's too hard to report 3.1 million names? Really? You can't just have someone pull the list of names from the database? Federal law doesn't require donations under $200 to be reported and thru this loophole Obama has created a massive criminal operation to launder illegal contributions through. The RNC has a website where you can search for donations under $200; Obama insists on hiding the sources of his money. As this American living in South Africa demonstrates, it is possible to contribute from people and places you shouldn't be able to. I know Obama is running for Emperor of the World, but under the laws of this tiny country, they world can't legally fund his propaganda machine.

3. He totally dodges the fact that he broke his promise to take public financing. The irony of this is that the Left has always been yammering for public financing of elections - allegedly to "get the money out of politics" - but when they find a cult leader who can fleece the flock and bamboozle a country into voting away their rights and freedoms, then, well, it's ka-CHING! time, innit? Hypocrisy is the coin of the liberal realm.

==============

INSTA-UPDATE: Heh. Just after posting this, I see Mark Steyn poo-poo'ed the idea that Gibson was anywhere near hard on Barry.

That's not a "hit", that's a Swedish massage by Princess Fluffy Bunny. That's Charlie Gibson appearing to cover himself while letting Obama get away with mush. A (Palin-style?) hit would have taken the conversation on a quite different tack:

OBAMA: What I would simply point to is that the way we have raised this money has been by expanding the pool of small donors in this country in an unprecedented way.

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION: What's unprecedented is that, unlike John McCain, your website disabled the standard credit-card security system used by almost all reputable online retailers. Why did you do that? And, given that of the record $150 million you raised in September two-thirds was raised under this systemically corrupted Internet operation, isn't it likely that a significant proportion of your half-hour infomercial was paid for by fraudulent donors? And, as to "expanding the pool of small donors in this country", what about the way you've expanded the pool of donors in other countries who've been able to make illegal contributions to your campaign because you switched off the AVS security checks?

OBAMA: I mean, you're looking the people who are giving 5, 10, $25. Ordinary folks who have gotten impassioned about this campaign in a way that is unprecedented. And that, really, is...

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION: Also a lot of extraordinary folks have gotten impassioned about your campaign. You've received contributions from, among others, a Mr Saddam Hussein, Mr A Hitler and Mr K Marx? How do you propose to return those contributions given that all three "donors" are deceased?

OBAMA: Look, you know, 3.1 million donors would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process...

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION: Why? I mean, you've had no problem "processing" the money, have you? And, if you hadn't monkeyed with the standard online retail data system, all you have to do is press a button and 3.1 million names and addresses pop right up. Ask Amazon. So why did you switch it off? And, if you yourself did not make that decision, who did?

The Senator terminates the interview to instruct an aide to have state and local officials look into this guy Gibson's child-support payments, tax liens, etc. Later, it emerges that Charlie the Anchor is not even a state-licensed interviewer.

Steyn = teh aW3s0m3Z!1!!!

Grace Jones: Ignorant On Top of Being Irrelevant

Starving for attention since no one has cared about her since long back in the last century, cultural footnote Grace Jones did the surest thing to get some ink these days: bashed Sarah Palin in a display of shocking courage against certain death for her heresy. (Yes, I'm being really, really sarcastic.)

"I can't stand Sarah Palin. I bet a woman like that has no sense of humour."
I guess Grace was busy visually inspecting her colon and thus missed Moose-Slayer's appearance on "SNL" a few weeks back.

Pity the poor diva, folks, she's just following the herd.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Does Obama Know The Presidency is a 24/7 Job or Will He Show Up Late?

Jeez, I knew The One barely served six months as a Senator before striking out to become Emperor of the World, but this montage of his wandering into Senate hearings late more often than I have makes me wonder if he'll start his reign sometime in March or April next year.

Why a Speechwriter For Obama, Edwards, and Clinton is Voting For McCain.

How vile, extreme and radical have the fascist Democrats gotten? So bad that Wendy Button, a speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton, has kissed her party goodbye and will vote for McCain:

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”

See campaigns get complicated when you’ve written for so many Democrats. Not only had I written for Senator Edwards, but I had also been Senator Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter. Senator Joe Biden is a “good looking” man and his care after my father almost died from an aneurysm is the kind of kindness you never forget. When I saw Edwards at a traffic light in D.C. about a year after our meeting, he asked for help and I did and it was an honor to help him with his concession speech. And when the primary ended, it was a privilege to help Michelle Obama with a stump speech, be considered as a speechwriter for the V.P. nominee again, and send friends in Chicago ideas until the financial crisis hit. This is what the Democratic Party has been for me; it’s family. Now, it doesn’t even feel like a distant cousin...[T]hat faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates....Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.
Wendy must surely realize that she has marked herself for destruction, which is why her brave testimonial should be heard by those "inertia Democrats" - those who vote Dem just because that's what they've always done, unaware of what the modern fascist-controlled Dem party has become - who going to pull the lever for Barry O'Bama just because he's the opposite of party of Dubya and the Stupids.