Category: Uncategorized

Mario Loyola spots the logical fallacy inherent in the current argument for sending more troops to Iraq:

I still don’t see why everybody assumes an inverse relation between the prevalence of security forces and the strength of the insurgency. I hate to keep coming back to this, but the Islamist insurgency in Algeria during the 90’s arose volcanically in the very teeth of an enormous army that was fully in control of the security situation everywhere.

While increasing the number of troops works very well in a conventional military conflict, the same is simply not true in a non-conventional guerilla war. Even extreme brutality doesn’t work particularly well, as has been seen in Chechnya over the last 15 years.

Once it becomes clear that there is a genuine non-conventional resistance, there are only two options, the Roman and the British. In this case, the British is unlikely to work due to the religious aspect, while the West simply doesn’t have the colonists to support the Roman method.

Unless, of course, that plan for colonizing the Middle East with millions of Hispanic illegal aliens is put into play. If the US truly wants to “win the war” in Iraq, that is the only option with a plausible chance of success.

Which means, of course, that it’s never going to happen. All this “triumph of the will” nonsense from the neocons is simply balderdash, it’s remniscent of Hitler’s latter-stage rantings when the Third Reich’s fate had been sealed two years before.

From the Houston Chronicle:

A Houston Chronicle analysis of sexual crimes registered through the Texas Sex Offenders Database indicates that, despite the publicity of some high-profile cases, such cases remain rare. According to the database, 267 registered sex crimes in the past 10 years included older women and teenage boys….

At least 26 of the registered female sex offenders in Texas once held teaching certificates.

So ten percent of the registered female sex offenders were teachers. I wonder what the male offender percentage is? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was even higher, considering how few normal men want to go in for a teaching career.

No disrespect to Catkiller! of course….

Amynda and Feministe are apparently now writing for Saturday Night Live:

“Making a false accusation of rape can be every bit as traumatic as actually being raped…. And for the false accuser, when they are finally proven to be lying, it’s being like being raped all over again….

It’s a sad, sad day when it takes the comedians many months just to catch up with the feminists.

From the New York Times:

Ms. Wilderotter herself started off as the lone woman on nearly all the 14 boards of which she has been a member over the years, with the exception of those at Xerox and the McClatchy Company. She says she is most proud of the fact that she never left a board without a woman on it. “I would finesse myself onto the nominating committee and try to populate boards with women,” she says, laughing.

And that’s why you put them on at your own risk…. It’s amusing to know that she obviously puts the welfare of those 14 companies behind her feminist ideology, isn’t it.

It might be interesting to do a study of the performance of those Fortune 500 corporations with three or more female board members. It’s possible that it would be better than the average. More likely, given Ms. Wilderotter’s little admission, it would be worse.

Like you couldn’t see this coming:

With the recent release of Microsoft’s newest potential cash cows, Windows Vista and Office 2007, the company is expecting a wave of upgrades from users seeking the latest functionality. But what if you’re not looking for new bells and whistles? What if you want to keep your old operating systems, such as Windows 2000, running as long as possible?

Microsoft isn’t making it easy for you. Office 2007 and the software for the company’s much-hyped Zune music player won’t install on Windows 2000. As other new products emerge from Microsoft in 2007 and beyond, more and more of them are likely to leave Windows 2000 out of the party.

There’s only one way out of the trap. Use non-Microsoft products at every opportunity. I’m stuck using XP for the moment, but it’s literally the only Microsoft product that I use, I’ve finally moved completely away from Microsoft Word in favor of OpenOffice 2.1.

I’m just waiting for Google to realize that they can topple Microsoft by releasing an easy install G-Linux. Google has been nipping around the edges with its web-based applications, but G-Linux would drive a stake right into the vampire’s heart.

Google has the resources now, here’s hoping that someone there sees the benefit in ending Microsoft’s evil reign.

One of the many signs that American conservativism is in trouble:

I don’t know why, but it seems like I just keep seeing stuff about Leonardo DiCaprio lately. Magazine covers, bits on the news, etc. etc. I didn’t want or read any of it because I find him so unappealing and uninteresting. In fact, I find him so unappealing, he is one of those actors who makes me not want to see a movie if he’s in it, which on occasion might be too bad because he’s been in some good ones. Regardless, I have an unformed theory about DiCaprio that he’s a male lead actor for women. The old line about “women want him, men want to be him” doesn’t apply to DiCaprio the way it does to lots of other male actors. Women obviously want him, but I don’t think many men want to be him. Not like say Harrison Ford or Sean Connery or, say, pre-brain-implosion Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson et al. There’s just something Clay Aikeny about DiCaprio, in a non-gay way. I really can’t put my finger on it. I don’t think it’s simply his age. Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and lots of other younger male actors pull off being compelling in a male way that DiCaprio just can’t. But, he keeps making big movies, which means he must be appealing to lots of people. So maybe I’m merely projecting my personal distaste?

Now, I do like Jonah Goldberg. I do. Honest. And I’m not saying that he’s wrong about Mr. DiCaprio, although I have to confess that I’ve never given the matter a moment’s thought.

But I just don’t see him at the forefront of a movement that’s going anywhere.

From the Water Carrier his own large self:

“EARS” OBAMA: You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I’m very sensitive about — What at I told them was, ”I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.'”

Yeah, this guy’s really ready for the big time. He reminds me of Bruce Willis on Friends. “Chickenboy? Chickenboy?” Barack Hussein got teased as a child, boo-freaking-hoo. Sure, there’s plenty of Democrats who will eat this sob-sister nonsense up, but Obama’s problem is that the Lizard Queen might literally do so.

Starting with those big, crunchy ears of his.

I don’t think the fact that the Lizard Queen has her own lesbian Karl Rove is going to be particularly interesting to the voting public, I think they’ll be much more interested when she pulls a “V” and devours a live kitten during her 2008 debate with George Pataki or whoever the Republican fall guy turns out to be.

As for Ann Marie Cox’s public declaration that Ears Obama is “sexy rock star”, it’s primarily a testimony to why she should never be permitted to vote or even allowed to publicly express an opinion about anything but her favorite color.

Just in case you didn’t grasp the idea that your money is SUPPOSED to be worthless:

The United States Mint, concerned that rising metal prices could lead to widespread recycling of pennies and nickels, has banned melting or exporting them. The Mint is also testing dozens of cheaper alternative metal compositions in the expectation that Congress will mandate a change when it meets in the new year.

According to calculations by the Mint, the metal value of pennies, which are made of copper-coated zinc, is now more than one cent. The metal value of 5-cent coins, made from a copper-nickel blend, is up to 7 cents. Adding in the costs of manufacturing means the Mint now spends 1.73 cents for every penny and 8.74 cents for every nickel it makes.

Until 1982, pennies were made of 95 percent copper. The commodity metal value of one of those coins, which still make up a large percentage of the pennies in circulation, is 2.13 cents, according to the Mint.

Yeah, you’re so free that you can’t even melt a nearly worthless piece of metal. That you own.

A potential lesson in the reliable foolishness of trusting the conventional wisdom:

Pseudo-Knowledge and “Pagan Christmas”

Time was when I, like most people, took it for granted the winter solstice and, in particular, the Roman Feast of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun were simply pagan celebrations that hung around into Christian times. In fact, when I set out to write this book I still thought this. But I discovered the reality is far more complicated and interesting. Indeed, it turns out this widely assumed “fact” that “everybody knows” is probably another sample of pseudo-knowledge. For according to William Tighe, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College, “the pagan festival of the ‘Birth of the Unconquered Sun’ instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the ‘pagan origins of Christmas’ is a myth without historical substance.”

For the fact is, our records of a tradition associating Jesus’ birth with December 25 are decades older than any records concerning a pagan feast on that day.

[T]he definitive “Handbook of Biblical Chronology” by professor Jack Finegan (Hendrickson, 1998 revised edition) cites an important reference in the “Chronicle” written by Hippolytus of Rome three decades before Aurelian launched his festival. Hippolytus said Jesus’ birth “took place eight days before the kalends of January,” that is, Dec. 25.

Tighe said there’s evidence that as early as the second and third centuries, Christians sought to fix the birth date to help determine the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the liturgical calendar—long before Christmas also became a festival.

Obviously, this is the first I’ve heard of any such claim, but if it turns out to be true, it would be pretty amusing. Of course, it won’t slow down the bureaucratic neo-pagans trying to shove “Winter Break” and “Solstice” celebrations down everyone’s throats.