Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Groveling before the Imperator
Just before the presidential election, Griffin sent a letter to Obama saying, "I am deeply grateful to you, personally, for your leadership" on the vote to allow NASA to use Russian spaceships. Does NASA still exist? Last time I remember it doing something was 1969.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Our tax dollars hard at work
Earlier this month, as the New York-based insurance giant benefited from $153 billion in tax-supported bailout funds, it launched a business unit offering Shariah-compliant insurance products in the U.S. [...] To fully comply with Shariah code, AIG has hired a "Shariah Supervisory Board" composed of "Shariah scholars." [...] The Treasury Department co-sponsored a seminar in November titled "Islamic Financing 101" to promote Shariah financing to corporate America. Great, just great. Let's ululate. And dole out another $100 billion to AIG.
Hallelujah
Gringos not as locos as Pepes sometimes believe.
However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.
Darwinism at its best.
However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.
Darwinism at its best.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Right Huckster Rick Warren and the Grand Toothbrush of Syria
The Grand Toothbrush of Syria received Gorgeous George Galloway, the Wizard David Duke, and not long after that Rick Warren. Obama simultaneously tries appealing to the Evangelical and Islamic base? WTF? Kind of reminds a guy of Hitler's Pope (that is, Warren in the context of the Grand Toothbrush of Syria; Obama should get someone else for the inauguration).
Here's Warren on Syria:
"Syria," he [Warren] told his viewers back home by video, is "a moderate country, and the official government rule and position is to not allow extremism of any kind."
Maybe I'm just thinking of a different Syria than the one Warren is thinking about.
Orwell on Ponzi
Here's one of the many great little excerpts from Orwell's Why I Write -- think Ponzi when reading the below, and how a petty C-Store thief would be treated in contrast to how a Maddof would be treated; or how CEOs from the Big Automotive Manufacturers are treated in contrast to how, well, we're treated:
"It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for grated that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not."
Orwell, "Why I Write" (Penguin Books), p. 21.
Orwell was commenting on the English legal system, but evidence suggests that it just might go beyond the limits of Great Britain's coast.
"It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for grated that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not."
Orwell, "Why I Write" (Penguin Books), p. 21.
Orwell was commenting on the English legal system, but evidence suggests that it just might go beyond the limits of Great Britain's coast.
Labels:
Candles in the Dark,
Great Britain,
madoff mullah,
Orwell
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The mother of all Ponzi schemes
Social Security taxes current workers to pay Social Security benefits for current retirees. In other words, the new entrants into the Social Security system, the young workers, pay off the previous entrants, the older workers. And despite the fact you have a Social Security “account”, there is no necessary link between what you paid into the system in taxes, and what you receive.
Don't worry, be happy. Have some more ouzo. Everything is under control. Trust me.
Don't worry, be happy. Have some more ouzo. Everything is under control. Trust me.
The babbling clown speaketh
The gift that keeps on giving. Even by the low standards of Pinko Aristos fom Planet Pepe, this must be a relative minimum.
Joys of Taleban
“Female education is against Islamic teachings and spreads vulgarity in society.” Yes, Pepe, yes. If you say so.
The value of a good religious education
Sure, there will be mistakes here and there, but knowing right from wrong is the most important thing.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Joys of Putinomics
Only Equatorial Guinea is both richer and more corrupt than Russia. You don't say.
JJ won't have Samuel Huntington to kick anymore
Down memory lane, here's a letter JJ wrote a while back (February 2005). I won't reproduce the whole thing (otherwise JJ would bite off my head), just the starting line: Professor Huntington, I have read lots of your work with admiration and agreement, but..., after which, JJ proceeds to nip at the great man's heels.
Later that day, JJ wrote to AA and me: Damn. I'd forgotten how good I am. Huntington must be in hiding because of my letter. Yeah, sure. Now he's really hiding.
Later that day, JJ wrote to AA and me: Damn. I'd forgotten how good I am. Huntington must be in hiding because of my letter. Yeah, sure. Now he's really hiding.
A madoff isle
Universities lured the children of fishermen and trained them in finance. In 2005, Silja Sigurdardottir, 26 years old, was an engineering student, then switched to financial math. "The banks were really big, and everything was going up," she says. Ms. Sigurdardottir got her masters in 2007, and worked for Kaupthing for one year. During that time, "I didn't really worry about money," she says. Those days are over. She was laid off in October. Next year she plans to begin studying for a new degree, in sustainable development. "Now I have to go back to being a poor student," she says. Life is a bitch, even in this icy land.
The pinko version of the Flat Earth Society
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Joys of Planet Pepe
A revolving gold statue, pink champagne and a "Pleasure Brigade" of nubile retainers: let the good times roll.
BBC's evenhandedness
Let's discuss the possibility that the Jews had it coming, OK? Just a hypothetical.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Smuggling the good stuff
The goods that come through the tunnels include livestock, cement, steel rods, refrigerators and computer screens, along with Coca-Cola, cigarettes and pharmaceuticals such as the erectile-dysfunction drug, Viagra. At a mobile-telephone store in Gaza City, a smuggled Apple iPod Nano 4-gigabyte model sells for $500. It lists for $149.99 on Amazon.com. Making an honest buck on Planet Pepe.
Brainfryers in lieu of cash?
Don't all those people already have like 10 cell phones each, the more to jabber incessantly instead of actually doing something?
Shilling for Ayers at the NYT
.. but not letting anyone respond. Standard operating procedure in the pinko MSM.
Help is on the way
“I would fully expect that France and the European Union will push for ‘LGBT rights’ and ‘gender-identity rights’ and collaborate heavily with the Obama administration, beginning in the first quarter of 2009." France was “greatly emboldened” by the U.S. election of Barack Obama as president. "They know they are going to have a partner to work with at the U.N.” Planet Pepe getting ready to take charge.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Kayla crushed
Another G.U.T.: Post-Einsteinian World
While general relativity is very successful in describing the gravitational interaction and the structure of space and time on large scales [205], quantum gravity is needed for the small-scale behavior. This is usually relevant when curvature, or in physical terms energy densities and tidal forces, becomes large. In cosmology this is the case close to the Big Bang, and also in the interior of black holes. We are thus able to learn about gravity on small scales by looking at the early history of the universe.
Starting with general relativity on large scales and evolving backward in time, the universe becomes smaller and smaller and quantum effects eventually become important.
Of course, I could've told you the same: Loop Quantum Cosmology happens all the time with the beer reserves (or depletion of) in my fridge. It's impossible to not take full account of the local -- at home -- beer supply.
Monday, December 22, 2008
The jihad-for-virgins scam
Kasab was horrified to see the dead bodies of his colleagues killed in the Mumbai attacks. Kasab is now accusing the Pakistan army officers and Lashkar commanders of cheating the teenager terrorists with promise of sex with beautiful virgins in heaven. Kayla is waiting, instead.
Mr. bear is gunning for the Gray Old Lady
The New York Times (NYT) has to repay $400 million in debt in the first half of 2009. It does not have the money. It plans to mortgage its headquarters, but it is uncertain what that will bring in an uncertain real estate market. The firm’s Boston Globe and regional newspaper operations lose money, so they will be hard to sell. NYT is controlled by the Sulzberger family which has super-majority voting shares. That won’t matter much when the company runs out of money. Bailout time!
AA flying the icy skies
A weekend storm dumped about 5 inches of snow around Seattle by Sunday morning, and it snowed anew all afternoon, with the National Weather Service predicting up to 4 inches more by Monday morning. Storms in the Northeast and Midwest also produced travel headaches for those trying to get home by road, rail and air. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, one of the world's busiest, canceled about 150 flights Sunday. Some flights arrived two to three hours late Sunday at New York's Kennedy Airport and Boston's Logan Airport.
Sounds like an account of AA's travails with AA. Hey, I told you it's better to just walk!
Sounds like an account of AA's travails with AA. Hey, I told you it's better to just walk!
Menage a trois
To see AI's face as he reads this...priceless it would be!
Writhe around like the salted slug you are AI! Hah!
Silencing Old Blood and Guts
Bazata ... staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton's Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile, which broke his neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch... When Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general. [Bazata] confessed to me that he had caused the accident, that he was ordered to do so by Wild Bill Donovan. Holy shit.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A House of Lords?
Referring to replacements being named or proferred to replace Senators Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Reynolds said, "We're seeing a seat-warmer in Delaware, a seat-seller in Illinois, and we're making seat-cushions in New York for, kind of, an aristocrat royalty of entitlement coming in here." Sounds more like a House of Dunces to me.
Ass-freezing in a warm Goreball
In which you can see clearly where AA is trying to fly to-and-fro. Hmmmm.. I see in my crystal ball lots of twiddling of fingers in airports. Time to meditate on the evils of global warming.
Labels:
Al Gore the Science Guy,
Gorebal Warming,
Seethe AA
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Cockburned
Today I decided to address a problem I've had with drinking, and that problem has been my unexplainable avoidance of porto. So, to address the problem, I purchased a bottle of Cockburn's Fine Tawny Porto, straight from Gaia Portugal.
Chefed up some French onion soup this evening, using some of Cockburn's porto in the recipe. I also used some damn good imported Swiss Gruyere as well (no French-style Gruyere to speak of, Pepe), shredding it and applying heaps to the hot soup. Good stuff when outdoors it's -11 F (at least the temp at 8:15pm). I've been texting various friends to bring me another bottle of porto (as you can see the first is now a dead soldier).
Back to some Mencken for the evening...
Two Weeks of Peace
To all on FCP, as you know I am no believer in any religion. The books of these, to me, are so poor before the Universe's majesty and challenge, that however grand in stretches the myths they skein they fail to compel the mind as much as they do compel admiration for the ingenuity of their authors.
Now Christmas is, by any honest measure, a profoundly religious holiday. Yet, however much I have become alienated from the creed I was born into, I cherish the vision of a human hope which, even in the darkness of the deepest night, connects our frail lives to the grand substance of the Universe [or "the Gods" or "God" or whatever word best underlies the sheer mystery of existence]. It is a hope shared both by the message of that weirdly great man, Jesus Christ, and by the pagan tribesmen of the frozen stretches of Europa, lighting the fires that defied the Triumph of Winter and the End of Days.
It is a hope we all, whether or not it sustains us, have felt at some moment of life. So may you be warmed by that hope, and may it sustain you.
Until next year, friends.
Obamacles Goes Gorebal Warming
It's all a Madoff con game
.. says the ex-Enron advisor. He knows what's he talking about.
Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients’ money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while — say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate — he (it’s almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big — but he’ll keep those bonuses.
You don't say. Ah, for the good ole days of Don Corleone.
Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients’ money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while — say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate — he (it’s almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big — but he’ll keep those bonuses.
You don't say. Ah, for the good ole days of Don Corleone.
There goes Pepe's grant
The foundation... was created in 2002 to promote justice, equality and human dignity and tolerance. Standard pinko party line.
Listed previously at $1 billion, the foundation’s assets were managed by Bernard L. Madoff. Uh, oh. May as well have given the whole pot to Pepe, to create socialist realist art...
Listed previously at $1 billion, the foundation’s assets were managed by Bernard L. Madoff. Uh, oh. May as well have given the whole pot to Pepe, to create socialist realist art...
The Essential Iowahawk
The 5 Year Plans always fail. [maybe that's why Obamacles is on the 8 Year Plan].
Friday, December 19, 2008
Princeton prof cavity-searched
I'm moving to Israel! These guys are great.
Labels:
Not from Planet Pepe,
Seethe AI Seethe
Snow Storm Cometh
Well, I thought I had no time until January for catching up on FCP, but my overlords surprisingly canceled the last day before Christmas Break [er...Secular Winter Interlude Days of Social Reflection] because one modest little storm is about to arrive. So this interlude within the Interlude sees me here.....Excellent.
I always knew it
Former press secretary Ari Fleischer agreed, saying that Bush carefully cultivated his image as a masculine, simple-minded, heterosexual male in order to combat his insecurities about appearing weak before the international community.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Joys of burkha
What may be a new discovery to outsiders is that Islamic sexual mores are not only about veiling women, segregating the sexes and austerity. On the contrary, sex is there to be enjoyed to the maximum by Muslims - as long as they are married Muslims - and there are numerous religious exhortations on the importance of foreplay, mutual titillation and satisfaction for both partners. Adventurous underwear is popular among conservative Muslim couples. Indeed, if a husband fails to satisfy his wife sexually - or vice versa - it is considered grounds for divorce under Islamic law.
Uh, oh, Pepe.
Microsoft pisses on the porn party
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
A destructive distraction
.. according to Jean-Francois Mac & Newt. Hey, JJ, you're still blindly following McCain?
Generation X Goes to College
From the reviews: The author believes that most students have the consumerist attitude that because they're the ones paying, it is the teacher's responsibility to teach them, not their responsibility to learn. I would put it a little differently. The overwhelming majority of my students were quite indifferent to whether they learned anything. Their consumerist attitude wasn't so much about trading money for learning as it was trading effort for grades. You don't say.
All opinions are equal, after all, and their opinions are just as "true for them" as yours are "true for you." Apparently it's better that students be socialized to be thin-skinned ignoramuses than that they have "Western logic" and "linear thinking" imposed on them. We are all Pepe now!
All opinions are equal, after all, and their opinions are just as "true for them" as yours are "true for you." Apparently it's better that students be socialized to be thin-skinned ignoramuses than that they have "Western logic" and "linear thinking" imposed on them. We are all Pepe now!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Ponzi schemers
The basic idea was hatched in Beantown:
When Ponzi was released he eventually made his way back to Boston. There he met an Italian girl, Rose Gnecco, who was swept off her feet by Ponzi's charm. Though Ponzi did not tell Gnecco about his years in jail, his mother sent Gnecco a letter telling her of Ponzi's past. She remained with him nonetheless and they married in 1918.
Aahhh... Italian girls don't listen to mamma.
Ponzi canvassed friends and associates to back his scheme, offering a 50% return on investment in 45 days. ... A frenzy was building, and Ponzi began to hire agents to take in money from all over New England and New Jersey. At that time investors were being paid impressive rates, encouraging yet others to invest. By May 1920 he had made $420,000.
Aahhh, when Italian smarts meet cosmic idiocy and sheer greed...
When Ponzi was released he eventually made his way back to Boston. There he met an Italian girl, Rose Gnecco, who was swept off her feet by Ponzi's charm. Though Ponzi did not tell Gnecco about his years in jail, his mother sent Gnecco a letter telling her of Ponzi's past. She remained with him nonetheless and they married in 1918.
Aahhh... Italian girls don't listen to mamma.
Ponzi canvassed friends and associates to back his scheme, offering a 50% return on investment in 45 days. ... A frenzy was building, and Ponzi began to hire agents to take in money from all over New England and New Jersey. At that time investors were being paid impressive rates, encouraging yet others to invest. By May 1920 he had made $420,000.
Aahhh, when Italian smarts meet cosmic idiocy and sheer greed...
Will Blago get his cut?
Already, some other Democrats have pointedly questioned her credentials for the job. United States Representative Gary Ackerman, a Queens Democrat, said last week that he did not know what Ms. Kennedy’s qualifications were, “except that she has name recognition — but so does J. Lo.” How about the derrière?
Bettie Page, RIP
To look at these photographs is to enter another world. I don’t think for a minute it was a more innocent world, but it was one in which sexualized images of women, even trussed up in rope, seemed somehow, well, charming. I’m sure there are plenty of women and some men who would disagree, saying that one generation’s erotica is another’s pornographic exploitation. But the sheer volume of images that wash over us now have blunted our sensibilities, I think, and made us less alive to the beauty, the poetry and the mysteries of the naked body. We are surrounded by visuals that are far more explicit than any Bettie Page pinup, images of oiled and sculptured flesh that promise the universe and deliver so little.
I don't know about Manohla, but the Iranian bikini-mullah delivered me a lot this morning.
I don't know about Manohla, but the Iranian bikini-mullah delivered me a lot this morning.
A Refuge For Each,Unto His Realm
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