March 21, 2010
Bloop
Mythos fans will recognize the Bloop for what it is (sound file at the link).
The stars, pretty much aligned.
...
According to the NOAA description, it "rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km." NOAA's system ruled out its origin as any known man-made sound, such as a submarine or bomb, or familiar geological sounds such as volcanoes or earthquakes. While the audio profile of the bloop does resemble that of a living creature, the system identified it as unknown because it was far too loud for that to have been the case: it was several times louder than the loudest known biological sound.
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
Via Dark Roasted Blend.
DUNE: An Interview with Frank Herbert & David Lynch
There are six parts in total.
Also: Jodorowsky's Dune.
David Bowie: Life On Mars?
March 20, 2010
Off your meds, I presume
When I first learned of objections to the restoration of a bronze statue memorializing Henry Morton Stanley I assumed such objections were based in post-colonial ideology, Congolese nativist fascism and the generalized, low-grade anti-British grievance children of British immigrants come to expect in, for example, Canada.
But it turns out Henry Morton Stanley was a psycho.
This could end badly
Minuteman Civil Defense Corps President Carmen Mercer says the Minutemen are returning to the border – locked and loaded.
...
Mercer stated, “We will forcefully engage, detain, and defend our lives and country from the criminals who trample over our culture and laws.”
Obama and a spiritually corrupted Congress will not stand for this. We are perilously close to a scenario where the armed forces of the United States will be ordered to use deadly force against American civilians guarding a border the armed forces of the United States have been ordered not to defend.
God help us all.
There is little hope
Yukio Noguchi is one of the few economists who predicted correctly the collapse of Japan's "bubble economy" in 1987.
Noguchi now warns Japan is in danger of bankruptcy (the mostly likely alternative being hyperinflation). Enjoy!
Japan's present debt-to-GDP ratio is only comparable with what it was at the end of World War II. At that time, the only way the government could reduce the debt was through hyperinflation, which wiped out much of the people's wealth with skyrocketing prices.
"I can't tell exactly what will happen (this time), but what actually happened after the war was that the price level surged 60 times in just over four years," Noguchi said. "If the same thing happens again, a ¥10 million bank account will have the same net value of just ¥100,000 today. It's actually possible," he warned.
Those magnificent men and their flying machines
On the one hand: F-35 completes vertical landing.
On the other hand: Russia's secret fighter jet with 'human intellect'.
On the gripping hand: ACLU sues government over drones.
The good bit:
Vanessa Paradis: Divine Idylle
Both hot and beautiful, btw.
March 19, 2010
Men are quite simple to understand, actually
Sandra Bullock's husband cheated on her with the heavily tattooed Michelle “Bombshell’ McGee, leaving David Forsmark confused (hat tip to Kathy).
Leave aside the tattoos* and we are left with the question of why a man would pass over a great beauty for the charms of a seemingly lesser beauty. If he could have Sandra Bullock why would he choose to turn elsewhere?
There are two answers to this question.
The first concerns a distinction between a woman who is "beautiful" and a woman who is "hot". While the expression of this distinction is idiosyncratic to some degree, I believe the distinction itself will be immediately recognizable to most men. When it comes to sex, "hot" trumps "beautiful" every time.** Sandra Bullock is beautiful, quite lovely actually, but Bombshell McGee is hot, much more so in person, I suspect, than in her photographs.
The second answer is a bit more straightforward: Sex addiction.***
Related: Michelle McAgee teaches men how to pick up women. They like the unattainable, apparently.
* Theodore Dalrymple will never see eye to eye on the issue.
** Some lucky men are blessed to find both qualities in the same woman. But then I am in favour of tattoos.
*** In which Matt Stone mocks The Huffington Post to their face.
Omega Males
Jessica Grose offers a limited typology of the Omega-male, a non-Alpha, non-Beta male who is middle-aged, unemployed and beneath the notice of quality women like Jessica Grose.
I cannot help but notice the one thing Liberal Arts Layabouts, Mimbos, Beer Guys and Game Boys have in common is their varied life strategies all mean they do not have to deal with grasping and, I strongly suspect, single post-feminist entertainment journalists whose liberal ideology conflicts with their conservative biology. Call them Omega Females, confused and paralyzed by their forbidden longing for Don Draper and apoplectic with rage that real Don Drapers all yearn for Sarah Palin.
Not to worry, Jessica. I imagine you will find someone willing to settle for your bullshit.
The sleeper awakes
Gary Hubbell says Barack Obama is a good thing for America.
Read the whole thing.
Preaching to the reverted
Mezhgan Hussainy's family wants music mogul Simon Cowell to convert to Islam before he marries her.
'Simon might be a big deal in the UK, but there are other people in the Afghan community in Los Angeles who her parents will be more afraid of offending. It would bring shame on their family and community if Simon did not respect their beliefs,' the friend added.
Simon Cowell might want to increase his security detail.
Related: Notable people who converted to Islam.
March 18, 2010
The problem, in a nutshell
This is what the IDF thinks will win hearts and minds in the West.
It won't.
A self-declared “green” army, the IDF recognizes projects that connect its soldiers with the environment.
Look, barn owls are awesome (at the link) but they are also entirely beside the point.
Almost nobody in the United States who supports Israel is much fussed about an impact on the environment if it means defending an embattled democracy, still less by yesterday's carbon emmissions hoax. And anybody in the United States yearning for a "green army" (most Leftists would describe this as a contradiction in terms) would already be convinced of Israel's virtue by now were they open to reason, justice, even naked self-interest, in the first place.
The Left is right about one thing: They do not despise Israel out of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is an excuse - for the paleocons, a reflex - but I expect the Left would hate Israel all the same if its first language were, say, Swedish. The key is to find a people other than the Jews who would have dared a democratic and socialist experiment in the desert, who would have attempted to found a polity grounded in equality in the midst of medievalism, barbarism and spiritual darkness.
The Left despises Israel not for its crimes (imagined, for the most part) but precisely for its virtues. The Left hates Israel because Israel is a democracy, because Israel supports the rights of minorities, because Israel defends the rights of women. Advertising the green credentials of the only country in the Middle East that isn't an environmental (economic, social, political and moral) disaster is a lost cause. If anything, it is more fuel for the fire.
The Left hates Israel because the Left hates itself. The Left is a suicide cult but - as with their shaheed brothers - they do not have the decency to top themselves quietly in a corner. Their plan is to take as many of us with them in as gruesome and pointless a manner possible.
Worse yet, Israel is itself largely a product of the Left. How else to explain Gaza, armed and aggrieved with a stated aim of genocide. In most normal history, Gaza would be green, prosperous and empty of evil squatters. The war would have been over fifty years ago and the Arabs, having lost, might have learned to live with their neighbours in peace.
Note to future civilizations: Think carefully before extending the franchise to the mob. It is not as if you haven't been warned. We were.
To the US postal worker who opened my letter from Washington DC
There was no money in it, you union scum.
Fuck you and fuck Barack Obama, your hero.
(There was no customs sticker or the like. Don't make excuses. This was attempted thievery. Such is the state of the Republic in its twilight.)
It will be brutal
The British enjoy a budget deficit worse than Greece.
Jedi believer wins apology after being kicked out of Jobcentre for wearing a hood
When benefits claimant Chris Jarvis was asked to put down his hood in a Jobcentre, he said he was entitled to wear it because of his Jedi faith.
'Someone with their own religious views is allowed to wear what their religion says - the Sikhs are able to carry a great big dagger. My religion allows me to wear my hood.'
I am foursquare in favour of the Jedi religion (Episides IV, V, VI, obviously; followers of "I", "II", "III" must be killed) but surely this sets a bad precedent. Imagine the next time some child rapist is caught and he claims to follow a religion where God tells you to rape children. It would be compensation next. "No such religion exists", of course, but give it time and something like that might turn up in the UK.
/angry sarcasm
Then the angels will hit you with a hammer
Some might consider this insensitive, even offensive. Some would be wrong. It is a righteous duty to ridicule these morons. And by "we" I mean our elected representatives. We (really, you and me, the electorate) have instead spent the last ten years making disingenuous apologies and trying to figure out how big a bribe it is going to take. Meanwhile, the Left has made it illegal to laugh at stupid ideas (for obvious reasons).
Not to worry, it's a process. It took us several hundred years the first time before we got round to inventing the Crusades.
Related: Lawfare taken to the next level as "descendents of Mohammed" take in Britain's adventageous cuisine, climate and libel laws.
March 17, 2010
Temper tantrum
Yet another Day of Rage in the disputed territories and we are meant to believe this is connected to a new Jewish suburb of Jerusalem. If they need an excuse, this latest rage has much more to do with the rebuilt Hurva synagogue.
And, I suspect, with the explicit encouragement of the Obama administration.
In related news: The Central Bank of Iran plans to issue 100 thousand Rial notes in the next Iranian year (whatever an Iranian year might be when it is at home). At some point, the "Palestians" are going to run out of backers for their United Nations reality show.
Back off, get your own sandwich
Rumours British firm Desire Petroleum may have struck oil near the Falklands arise as the Royal Navy announces the arrival of nuclear attack submarine HMS Sceptre to patrol the islands.
There are already two Navy vessels in the area. HMS York, a Type 42 destroyer, is partolling off the island's capital of Port Stanley. HMS Scott, a survey vessel, is also nearby and the fleet has air support from a squadron of RAF Typhoon fighter jets based on the islands.
The United States of Deferred Maintenance
A Declinist moment at Newsweek.
Fatuous
Funny how none of the four Entertainment Tonight and Entertainment Tonight Canada puff pieces on Kirstie Alley's fatuous new weight loss show mention her Organic Liason diet food line is yet another Scientology front company.
WWTDD? comments on the scandal.
March 16, 2010
Corpus Coranicum
Jeff Black says German researchers are preparing “Qur’an: The Critical Edition”.
What this means is that the research team is in the process of analysing and transcribing some 12,000 slides of Qur’an mansucripts from the first six centuries of the text’s existence. Once that is complete, the way is open to producing a text that annotates and, presumably, provides some sort of exegesis on the differences found in the early manuscripts.
RTWT (via Quotulatiousness).
Now about the “terrible and forbidden books” — I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis, while the Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. Robert E. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his Unaussprechlichen Kulten.... As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes — in all truth they don’t amount to much. That is why it’s more fun to invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon.
- H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Willis Conover
Gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran
Ten containers carrying bunker-buster bombs including 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.are supposedly on their way to Diego Garcia.
Promises, promises.
The preparations were being made by the US military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision.
I may have identified a weakness in American strategery.
Related: Iranian leader shuns ancient fire festival.
Hopefully, this makes Persia's ancient fire gods cranky.
Insulting
Israeli's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren makes an observation. Then I make an observation.
Ambassador Michael Oren's remarks clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assurances that the political turmoil resulting from the settlement announcement, which the Obama administration slammed as "an insult," was under control.
Barack Obama: America's first President to have been born and raised in a shame-culture.
This sort of thing has consequences.
Related: Na-na na-na na-na Leader!
Sticks and stones: Sultan Knish considers what the Left is calling Israel's insult to the United States (via JihadWatch).
No, none of those incidents were described as insults. Nothing that Muslim countries did to mock, humiliate and murder Americans were even noticed at all. None of them produced furious condemnations from the White House or two hours of Hillary Clinton screeching on the phone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what did Israel do that was so awful, so horrible and terrible? It built houses. Yes, civilian houses. Not army bases or nuclear missiles or walls. Houses.
November 1, 4006
Sabrina Sforza Galitzia has worked out the real Da Vinci code, a clue to the end of the world as we know it.
“There is a da Vinci code — it is just not the one made popular by Dan Brown,” she said.
Not so fast, say the comments.
If Leonardo really referred, in 1498, to the date "November 1, 4006", he would have been using the Julian calendar, as that was the calendar then in use. On our current Gregorian calendar, the date in question would be November 29, 4006. Not that the four-week difference means that much when you are talking about the "end of the world". But Ms. Galitzia also says that the date will mark "a new start for humanity", so I guess it isn't the literal end of the world after all, is it? Any more than December 21, 2012 will be.
