Category: Uncategorized

A reported death by shopping:

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

This is being reported as a shopping stampede, but don’t believe it for a second. Those who have seen the movies will recognize the signs; it’s obvious the great zombie panic of ’08 has begun!

For proof, consider this screen-captured image from CNN’s initial report of the “stampede” before it was scrubbed.

I was wondering how on Earth one of the top Indian counter-terrorist specialist managed to get himself killed at the Taj Mahal:

The death of Bombay’s top antiterrorist officer is a devastating blow to a police force struggling to confine a burgeoning Islamist threat. Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, was shot three times in the chest as he led his men at the Taj Mahal Palace, one of the two luxury hotels overrun by heavily armed terrorists.

Mr Karkare’s decision to lead his troops from the front was typical of India’s anti-terrorism commanders. The country has a tradition of promoting police officers who specialise in “encounter killings” – a controversial form of extrajudicial justice used against suspected criminals. It is not unusual for such men to have dozens of kills to their name.

I’d been assuming that the militants had a sniper armed with a .50 caliber or something who took Karkare out when he was surveying the scene or giving a press conference. My alternative explanation was that a booby trap had been prepared with a large bomb. It never occurred to me that an experienced paramilitary commander would perform the modern equivalent of a cavalry charge into a fortified position. The amateurish Indian tactics explain another thing that was confusing me from the initial reports, namely, the fact that police and military casualties actually outnumbered the Islamic militants killed.

Bravery is an excellent thing in a commander. But it’s not really an effective substitute for intelligence and strategy.

I’m just curious how long it will be before one of these terrorist spectaculars takes place at the Mall of America. It seems that Somalis given residence in Minneapolis are known to have been successfully recruited to join the jihadist efforts in Somalia, while the Telegraph is reporting “Two British-born Pakistanis were among the terrorists who killed 140.”

I also wonder how many will have to die in the name of multiculturalism before it is finally rejected by the American people?

Courtesy of Rampant Loon Press and the WCA.

I am grateful to God for many things this Thanksgiving, particularly the following:

1. The health and happiness of my family.

2. The quality and commitment of my employees and partners.

3. Ristretto in the morning.

4. Prosecco in the evening.

5. Adrian Peterson.

I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she’s not staying with no gentleman of contracting circumstances:

Having married her wealthy husband with his considerable salary uppermost in her mind, the Toxic Wife simply does not do “for richer, for poorer”. Little Dorrit, she ain’t. Indeed, lawyers and financial advisers have reported a 50 per cent increase in the number of divorce inquiries since the financial markets collapsed in September….

According to Susie Ambrose, a marital psychotherapist and CEO of Seventy-Thirty, an upmarket introduction company that takes its name from the work versus free time balance, there has been an unprecedented demand from married women recently. ”We are being targeted by women on the fence between leaving their husbands who are on the brink of losing their wealth, and wanting to meet someone extremely rich straight away,” she says.

I’m sure it must be very hard for a proud and previously successful man to realize that his marriage is a sham and he’s been taken for a complete tool. But really, it’s not as if the warning signs are seldom there. If a woman is so psychopathic as to go ballistic over her husband not being willing to fund her every whim or give in to her every demand, he’d do well to sign Vampirella up for one of those upmarket introduction companies himself and shed the cashsucker at the earliest opportunity.

Of course, not everyone can be as happily philosophical about their previous mistakes as one acquaintance of mine in the game industry. When in the course of conversation, someone brought up the failure of his first marriage, he smiled happily and pronounced the divorce settlement to be the best $200,000 he’d ever spent in his life. Life is always better without Toxic people around.

And the hard, cold reality is that the Attractive Girls Union always plays hardball.

Paranoia doesn’t mean someone isn’t really out to get Santa:

FGCU administration has banned all holiday decorations from common spaces on campus and canceled a popular greeting card design contest, which is being replaced by an ugly sweater competition. In Griffin Hall, the university’s giving tree for needy preschoolers has been transformed into a “giving garden.”

The point isn’t that Christmas is in danger of being eradicated. The point is that those who celebrate Christmas know that those who insist on replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” will ban Christmas if they are ever given the opportunity.

You know, there’s probably an animated Christmas special to be found in this somewhere….

The Chairman responsible for the tax code is a tax evader:

First there is the Washington Post’s revelation that Rangel inappropriately claimed a tax break on his D.C. townhouse by claiming it was his primary residence. The five-year charade only netted the congressman from Harlem about $1,500, which is relatively small potatoes. But it nicely dovetails with two other Rangel escapades of late: That he failed to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from his luxury beach villa in the Caribbean because he—ahem—didn’t know it was income; and that he scored several rent-stabilized apartments in New York, each of which he must claim as his primary residence. Taken all together, it looks like the top tax-writer in Congress is a tax cheat.

So, what are the odds this guy will get more than a decade in jail?

There can be no question:

The man charged with providing the President-Elect with information about the US media regulator spends his spare time fighting monsters and completing quests on the fictional planet of Azeroth…. He has invested so many hours in the game that his “Tauren Shaman” character has reached Level 70, one of the higher ranks.

For the Alliance!

It would be very interesting to see if Obama and the Democrats are truly dumb enough to call the Roman Catholic bishops on their threat to shut down one-third of the hospitals in the country:

The bishops are not bluffing when they say they’d turn out the lights rather than comply. Nor is Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis exaggerating, I don’t think, in vowing that “any one of us would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow—to die tomorrow—to bring about the end of abortion.”

Whatever your view on the legality and morality of abortion, there is another important question to be considered here: Could we even begin to reform our already overburdened health care system without these Catholic institutions? I don’t see how.

I don’t see what’s the problem here. Surely Richard Dawkins and those millions of caring, selfless atheists will gladly step into the gap.

Here’s a science skeptic’s prediction that I notice those who have enjoyed hammering me for my errant expectation of President Rodham haven’t seen fit to mention. In March, I put my intellect up against the foremost professional housing experts and their science:

According to the “scientific” forecast, housing prices were to stabilize in late 2007 and hold firm in 2008. Here’s the November 2007 forecast for 2008: “Existing-home prices are expected to decline 1.7 percent to a median of $218,200 for all of this year and hold essentially even in 2008 at $218,300. Wow, what precision! To a tenth of a percent! The February report comes out this week… let’s just say that instead of $218k, I’m expecting a decline that would project to $175k or less by the end of the year. But what do I know, I’m not an “expert” paying close attention to the “science” of the housing market, after all.

So, you’ll understand if this story caught my eye yesterday. Nov 24, 2008: WASHINGTON (AP) – With nationwide sales of existing homes falling more than expected last month and the median sales price plunging to $183,000, the U.S. housing market keeps getting worse. With more bad news likely on the way, industry groups pressed President-elect Barack Obama to help stem the damage.

I can’t help but notice that 183 is a lot closer to 175 than 218. And I’m reasonably confident that home prices won’t be increasing in November and December.