Category: Uncategorized

It seems old Sigmund after all:

Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup’s coat of arms. The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports.

The lesson, as always….

No doubt the responses to this article will be amusing. I love the fact that they published it in the women’s section:

I am a massive fan of British women. UK girls, in my opinion, are the greatest natural beauties in the world . . . when they’re 17 or 18 years old. The girls I was surrounded by when I was a teenager were sublime roses with lustrous hair, flawless skin, bright eyes and lithe, athletic bodies. They dressed as if there would be a prize at the end of the night for the girl wearing the least. I then went away to Philadelphia for university. Four years later, I came back and wondered: “What the hell happened to all the beautiful girls I knew?” My first assumption was that one half of them had eaten the other half and washed them down with a crate of lager. These girls looked phenomenal when looking good took no effort. But when British women get to the age where they have to make an effort, they appear unable, or uninterested, in rising to the challenge….

The irony is that, as obsessed as American women are with their looks, they totally ignore their social skills. Within 10 minutes of meeting an American woman, I guarantee you will know her salary and most recent medical/ dental procedure. They all but turn up with their CV printed out. In return, they will immediately want to know “all” about you, ie, how much you earn, how much you have earned in the past, what your future earning potential is, whether you own property, whether you have an investment portfolio, where you shop, where you “vacation”, what you drive and how large your parents’ house is. I once got to the end of a date in New York, pulled out my credit card to pay and the girl solemnly remarked: “A green American Express card? I didn’t know they still made them in that colour.” American women also take themselves too seriously and are annoyingly confrontational.

The solution for the British women is easy enough, as before too long they’ll all be wearing burkhas anyhow. As for American women, that problem is taking care of itself too, as men of the upper education and income classes marry non-career women and leave the high-flyers to their cats and gamma males. The ironic thing about the women who get so upset over wealthy executives and sportsmen marrying pretty secretaries and hot nannies is that it’s not as if there’s a shortage of plumbers and electricians and garbage men for them to choose from, it’s just that most white collar women think they are too good for such men by virtue of their paper collection.

But it’s that very attitude, of course, that is the very reason no rational white collar men wants anything to do with them.

Agent Provocateur makes a heartfelt plea:

Dear Gov.,

All I want to do, is wake up in the morning, walk outside and stand in my back yard with my Lab, the desert before me just as the sun rises, and take a deep breath of clean crisp morning air … a free man at liberty.

What is so hard about that?

Dear Agent Provocateur,

Put some clothes on or we’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace.

The Government

One of fantasy’s best and most entertaining writers, Terry Pratchett, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s:

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early
onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism.

I came late to Pratchett’s Discworld, but very much appreciate his books and the way he has become a better, more subtle and more amusing writer as his career has progressed. Here’s wishing him all the best in his battle and I hope he will write many more books in the years to come.

As NRO leaps the Lamnidae:

I have pretty much decided for Ron Paul myself. I am sympathetic to many of the reservations you have posted, but every piece of serious policy analysis I read confirms to me that our country has gone too far down a wrong path—a path that leads to nothing I recognize as conservatism.

Meanwhile, Joe Carter may be supporting the Huckster, but that doesn’t mean he can’t put a cogent point together about how the Manhattan Conservatives of NRO are increasingly out of touch with the Republican base:

Has National Review jumped the shark?

I don’t mean to be glib or facetious in raising the question for I love the magazine dearly. NR was a formative influence on my political philosophy and continues to shape my thinking. It introduced me to conservative ideas, policies, statesmen, and writers. Indeed, three of my favorite conservatives—Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat, and Byron York—still write for the august publication.

But over the past few years (at least that is the time that I began noticing) there has been a shift to what I call “Manhattan Conservatism.” Because almost all of the NR staff lives and works in New York City, their concerns and values tend to reflect a NYC/DC-centric urban cosmopolitism. They’ve adopted a watered-down form of big-tent fusionism in which embracing any non-liberal ideas are enough to earn you the label of “conservative” (a Manhattan Conservative can have the same views on abortion and gay marriage as the liberal intelligentsia so long as they embrace supply-side economics or torturing terrorists)….

Now to be fair, Romney is not an unacceptable candidate if the criteria is simply to endorse a Republican. But to pass over true conservatives for a moderate is a slap in the face to the magazine’s dedicated readers.

And that’s exactly why I let my subscription to NR Digital lapse about eighteen months ago. NR is more Rockefeller Republican than Reagan Republican these days, that they would nominate Captain Underoos and do so with a straight face tells you all you need to know about their continued relevance. Romney gives off signals of High Weirdness even if one leaves his religious peculiarities out of the equation. (And before any Mormon readers get in a lather, please note that I’d cheerfully endorse a one-legged gay atheist crack whore if he genuinely supported small government, valued human liberty, and honored the U.S. Constitution.) Religion is not synonymous with ideology in many cases.

Joe’s take on the matter may help illustrate why I laugh when people attempt to mock me for choosing to write for WorldNetDaily instead of a more “reputable” publication. WND has grown from three million monthly readers to eight million since I’ve been writing for it, over the same timeframe, most media publications have seen significant drops in readership. The fact that Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee have both improved their poll standings since Ilana Mercer and I started writing about Paul and Chuck Norris came out for Huckabee may be a complete coincidence – I imagine the latter’s speech to the Council on Foreign Relations was rather more important – but it would be a big mistake to assume that everyone across the right wing takes NRO more seriously than WND simply because the New York Times and Fox News do.

UPDATE: David Fredosso joins the Ron Paul Revolution too:

Now (I think) I can vote in what will be my first presidential primary election ever. I will not be voting for Huckabee, but for Ron Paul — but I still like to think I’ve helped the cause of Freedom and Democracy by helping Huck get on the ballot.

HT: Catkiller spotted these interesting developments first. It will be interesting to see where the rest of the NROniks go if Romney drops out after NH… and how many would go for Hillary over Paul.

It’s frustrating beyond words that it has taken this long for the conservative Christian commentators (such as Vox Day) to begin to understand the chicanery and duplicity involved in the corrupt Bush Administration. Better late than never? No, in my mind it’s just a Pavlovian response to a situation that has already been consigned to the dust heap of history. Sadly, the worldly Church is invariably in reaction mode to the world and its evil.

Seriously, does anyone read the information relevant to their chosen subject before leaping to the keyboard and pecking madly away? My very first op/ed in 2001 predicted chicanery and duplicity by the Bush administration. At least this critic correctly grasps that I am not, and have never been, on George Bush’s side.

Tale of 2 burdens

While reading Vox Day’s latest diatribe against George W. Bush, especially the parts about the president’s “assault” on our liberties, I couldn’t help but think about the vast difference between these two men. More specifically, I couldn’t help but think about the vast difference between the daily burdens they carry. Bush, a public servant, awakens each day to a Threat Matrix that outlines efforts to kill American citizens. Then there’s the Iranian nuke situation, developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, various domestic crises and on and on. Meanwhile, Vox’s biggest challenge is finding ways to show off his Mensa-level I.Q. from the sidelines … that and fashioning his hair so as to seem relevant to 15-year-olds.

From the sidelines… that’s certainly an interesting perspective given that the people, not the president, are supposedly sovereign. But he’s right, it is a heavy burden I face in trying to find new ways to show off my genius in a manner that the synaptically shortchanged are capable of recognizing as brilliance rather than madness.

I realize that people sometimes think I invent critical strawmen because it’s so easy to disprove what my critics are saying, but these quotes are all taken directly from the comments on a previous post. By the way, lately I’ve noticed a trend of people providing links in apparent ignorance of what is actually on the other end; if you’re going to provide a link in an attempt to support what you’re saying, I highly recommend reading it all the way through:

Looks like the killer was a fundagelical scorned. And let the VD spin begin: Oh that’s right he wasn’t a xtian cos no real xtian would have done that. So he must have converted from his wish to be a missionary to being a life long anti-xtian. Yup it was a hidden thing I guess.
– DC

Read the rest of the shooter’s quotes. He still believed in Jesus: He carries on about how his hatred for Christians is the pentecostal ones at the church, and that his belief in god is different. But he still believes. Not an atheist.
– MB

There’s nothing about holding the position of atheism that entails anything other than a disbelief in god…. Not only was he not an atheist, he appeared to have been raised and influenced by christians.
– WCAW

A few points:

1. Murray was raised and influenced by Christians. So was Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and apparently Daniel Dennett. Unless one believes all three of these atheist icons are currently Christians, one cannot claim that Murray is a Christian on that basis. He was not a “fundagelical scorned”, he scorned fundagelicals.

2. Look at the link MB provides. He appears to be operating under the impression that any mention of Jesus equates to belief in him. But this is the sum total of references to Jesus in the link: a) Murray (rightly) states that Jesus’s words do not support Dominionism, b) Murray (rightly) rejects the view that a chosen generation will take dominion until Jesus’s return, c) he states that he got tired of hearing “Jesus loves you!”, d) he remembers being afraid as a child that Jesus would return while he was sinning and being left behind, e) he writes a poem saying that Jesus has ordered a child to obey a parent’s desire to molest him.

3. If atheism is merely, as WCAW insists, a disbelief in god, then no amount of references to Hell, an afterlife or various supernatural concepts precludes atheism.

4. Now consider more of Murray’s actual words:

Well, I got all fed up with the insanity, hypocrisy, conflicting doctrines, the and lack of absolute answers in regards to “salvation,” heaven and hell and other theological issues, the child abuse, brainwashing, lies, gossip, scandals, threats and fear mongering. I got tired of always hearing “oooohh, you’re saved by grace, not by works!” “Everybody loves you! Jesus loves you!” only to hear about how I was going to hell for watching “The simpsons” or could lose my salvation and could never be certain if 30 years from now I might lose it due to some odd sin and die in an accident and end up in this eternal hell preached to us day and night. Me, I found a new Law to live by and I realized……I don’t have to be abused nor submit to these liars and their lies nor do I have to be afraid of this make-believe hell and false theory of salvation which no fundamentalist Christian could ever give solid answers on.

Me and many others are waking up. We will rise up above and against these abuses against humanity. Men will no longer be ruled by fear and superstition, oppressed by bigotry and tyranny….

I’m full of hate and I love it! I hate people and they better @#%$ fear me if they know what’s good for them. Yes I hate, I’m headed to Hell and I guess I want others to know it. “Moral Values” people like Christians bring it on themselves….preaching all their bullshit and trying to take over the world with their Nightmare religion…… “what would Jesus do” and all their ten commandments bullshit…me…..I will do MY Will and I will kill those who try to thwart my will…Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law….

Murray is very closely echoes three strains of thought here. The first is the Enlightenment philosophy of the secular humanists. The second is the nihilistic egotism of Nietzsche and Mao Tse-Tung. The third is Aleister Crowley. Either one can reject Christianity or one cannot do so. Atheists cannot have it both ways, claiming that their own rejection of Christianity is legitimate but pretending that Murray’s is not.

And as I have already noted, Murray’s references to Hell cannot serve to disprove his atheism even if WCAW’s definition is ignored; half of all self-described atheists believe in Heaven and Hell. One need only visit Pharyngula, American Atheists or any militant atheist site to recognize that at its core, atheism entails the rejection of God and the denial of the supernatural, a mere lack of belief in God is more agnostic than atheistic.

Murray possessed the passionate hate of the militant atheist, the arrogance of the entitled and the nihilistic rage of the social outcast. It is the combination of those three things with youth and testosterone that make a killer. I should note that it doesn’t surprise me at all that Murray was influenced by Klebold and Harris, as I wrote in The World in Shadow, the Columbine killers are and will continue to be genuine heroes to the hated and unhappy of the world. If Christians do not reach out to them in love, then we cannot be surprised when the void in their hearts is filled by the prince of this world.

Nevertheless, I do see Murray as a failure of the Christians around him. Like Murray, I too was sickened by the shallowness and stupidity of the Christians around me from the time I was a child. Like Murray, I too am disgusted with the Dominionists, the paranoia that sees demons at work in every paper cut, and the hubris that proclaims false prophecies and visions in the wide-eyed congregations. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I understood that nearly everyone, of every creed, is shallow and stupid, and that one cannot reasonably judge the true essence of a belief on the basis of the believers. Murray’s atheism does not absolve Christians of his violent end; it condemns them more completely than if he were merely a mentally ill parishioner in good standing.

UPDATE: at least one atheist hasn’t been paying attention to the atheist hymnbook and is out of tune with the godless chorus singing sweet songs of innocence and light. TA writes:

All I can say is thank you. Thank you to the shooter for taking out some of the most hate-filled control freaks on the planet. Thank you for finally bring the publics attention to the cult like brainwashing that is forced upon these kids at such an early age. Thank you for exposing the cult like ways of YWAM.

America needs more heroes like him. And I expect more incidents like this as victims throw off the shackles of their imprisoners and implode from the years of systematic brainwashing.

Throw off the shackles of oppression and start with the killing. Gee, that’s a new one. So many atheists are incredibly obsessed with this idea; whether they call themselves sans-culottes, scientific socialists or New Atheists, they always seem to end up there eventually.

The whole Mormon thing aside, Mitt Romney is seriously weird:

This summer, Romney said his favorite novel is the Battlefield Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard.

If that doesn’t eliminate you from presidential consideration, I don’t know what would.

As no one will likely be surprised to hear, WND has asked me to provide them with series of excerpts from my forthcoming book for publication when the book becomes available. I’ve decided to do three; it’s one thing to beat the subject to death here on my blog – it’s my idiom, after all – but it’s another to do it in the column where beating the subject of Ron Paul to death is apparently more to the point.

I do get into a rut, don’t I. I wonder what the next one will be?

Anyhow, what is your preference regarding the columns? Three excerpts from the same chapter and therefore the same topic, or three excerpts from different chapters dealing with different subjects. In either case, which aspect of the overall religion debate interests you most? I can’t guarantee that I’ve anticipated and covered it, of course, but I’d still be interested in learning in what element of the argument those here, atheist, agnostic or Christian, happen to be most interested.

111 Mounds View Meerkats
90 East Mesa WhiteTrash

86 Winston Reverends
35 Burns ICU

83 Greenfield Grizzlies
74 W.C. Silver Spooners

53 Black Mouth Curs
35 Village Valkyries

78 Masonville Marauders
72 Cranberry Bogs

The plucky piranha of the Serengeti finished the season with a bang, crushing the defending champions and killing their playoff hopes. Unfortunately, the Meerkats’ slow start meant that not even a five-game winning streak down the stretch nor a second-ranked scoring offense was enough to get them to the postseason this year. Following the game, Mounds View GM Vox Day announced that while head coach Lonzell Cahill will return next year, defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell’s contract will not be renewed.

Congratulations to Masonville, who clinched the regular season title by fending off a high-scoring Cranberry team this week. Congratulations to Cranberry as well, setting a regular season scoring record with 1061 points. Cranberry’s average of 75.8 points per game beat East Mesa’s record from last year by more than three points per game. Greenfield earned its playoff spot with an impressive win over the Spooners, while the Valkyries couldn’t pull it together when they needed it most. And to no one’s surprise, the ICU set a new record for futility while putting up a measly 35 points to end a season that was nearly as bad as Michael Vick’s.

So, Masonville and Greenfield will square off as Winston travels to Cranberry in the first round.