Popehat

If a potentially embarrassing brother is a presidential qualification, it’s surprising that Barack Obama doesn’t have more to say about George Hussein Onyango Obama.

The Illinois senator mentions his brother in his autobiography, describing him in just one passing paragraph as a “beautiful boy with a rounded head”.

As George Obama describes himself:

I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists.

Sounds like George would fit right in with Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, and Neil Bush.

(Via)

written by Patrick \\ tags: Barack Obama

Where in the Hell did they find a man named Hans Von Spakovsky?

And why did they hire him to monitor elections for the Civil Rights Commission?

(These are rhetorical questions, of course.)

written by Patrick \\ tags: Elections

Jimmy Mason of Christchurch New Zealand faces trial on criminal assault charges for abusing his three year old son. Mason says that he “flicked” his son’s ear as a disciplinary measure, after the three year old had injured Mason’s even younger son. Though Mason allegedly only flicked the ear of the older son, he faces charges for assaulting both sons.

Presumably, the younger son was traumatized by this criminal ear flicking.

At issue is Section 59 of the New Zealand criminal code, which, depending on how one reads it, criminalizes any force whatsoever against a child, for disciplinary purposes.

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written by Patrick \\ tags: Crime, kids

Much of what is denounced as “political correctness” is in fact simple politeness: referring to groups of people using the terms they’d like to be named by; criticizing those who think humor is a license to say hurful things without social consequences; not shoving one’s religion (or lack thereof) into the faces of others. Even in the actual cases where it goes too far, the harm is minimal. Idiots who invent euphemisms, or assert that Shakespeare is irrelevant to the English Department may inconvenience and annoy, but they don’t kill.

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written by Patrick \\ tags: medicine

We’ve all done the internet quiz thing, from the “world’s shortest political quiz” (on which everyone I know answers libertarian) to the “are you autistic?” quiz (the only quiz on which I got almost but not quite as many answers right in my life was the LSAT), to the “which Japanese city-destroying monster are you?” quiz.

It’s a shame that the interview from which the quiz I’m writing about was drawn is a Q & A with some Marxist sourpuss freak. Sample answer:

What makes you depressed?

Seeing stupid people happy.

Neverthelesss, the questions are excellent, and blogger Tim Blair of Australia has extracted them (complete with a link to the original interview) here. The questions are open-ended, and do require self-examination. Look it over, and answer as many as you wish. They’re thought provoking.

Question 22 strikes home on this front: “What is the worst job you’ve done?”

The personal answers would be: Questioning someone whose face had been burnt off in an explosion about her sex life before the accident (morally speaking, one of the lowest moments in forty years), and cleaning the windows of the gas chamber in “dog-chopping room,” which is a location in America’s largest supplier of educational biological products.

I love dogs, and “dog-chopping room,” over 20 years later, is still a horror.

Pick a meaningful question, and answer it in our comments if you so choose.

written by Patrick

What indeed?

Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built near his Wind Gap home.

The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left Plainfield Township last year, Neidlinger was ecstatic.

There was just one problem.  While Neidlinger and his fellow snobs were assiduous in attending planning and development meetings, and making their opposition to big box stores known, they were less than diligent about checking the zoning status of the Wal-Mart site.  It was already classed “industrial.”

So they got a metal shredding and auto recycling plant instead.

The noise is a constant nuisance and the explosions make our windows shake,” Neidlinger said. … RPM takes in 300 tons of scrap a day. The scrap includes everything from appliances to bicycles, but is mostly crushed cars. The scrap must arrive without batteries and fuel tanks. After the shredder slices it into small pieces, the foam, plastic, cardboard and other ”fluff” is separated. … [O]n Aug. 9, fire swept through the 300 tons of fluff and scrap, sending a thick plume of black smoke over Neidlinger’s and Hendershot’s homes and bringing more than 100 firefighters from 18 stations.

But at least it’s not Wal-Mart.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Wal-Mart

Catholic League President Bill Donohue, one of the grandest asshats astride the modern American stage, is protesting the inclusion of two (out of one hundred twenty) of the bloggers given press credentials for the Democratic convention. One of them, Towleroad, I’ve never heard of (apparently it’s a little bit “lavender under the collar” if you know what I mean). Nevertheless, I encourage you to visit it because any enemy of Bill Donohue is a friend of mine. Donohue hates the site because its author feels that ermine, which is a part of the Pope’s costume when he wears a cape, is tacky, and because its commenters say “vile and profane” things.

Sounds like my kinda blog.

The other, Bitch Ph.D., is a personal favorite from which I occasionally poach source material. I recommend the site unreservedly. In this case, Donohue is upset that Ms. Ph.D. has written disapprovingly of twisty balloon Jesuses (which as Edge of the West points out is rather ironic in light of Donohue’s past tantrums against milk chocolate Jesus).

Donohue concludes with this threat:

Both of these blogs should be cut immediately from the list of credentialed sites. Neither functions as a responsible media outlet and both offend Catholics, as well as others. To allow them access to the Democratic National Convention sends a message to Catholics they will not forget. We look for Leah Daughtry, CEO of the Convention, to nix them ASAP.

Here’s hoping Ms. Daughtry stands firm against a discredited gang of bullies who likely aren’t voting for Barack Obama anyway. And since Donohue would certainly “nix” a blog called Popehat, my chances of being named substitute blogger at the convention won’t be hurt by concluding this post with a series of images lifted from the comics of Jack Chick:

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written by Patrick \\ tags: asshats, Democrats

But since dolphins don’t have gym class, this one is teaching others to “tail surf,” or to “walk” above the water using their tail fins. This is a feat that, for dolphins in captivity, takes long training.  But this dolphin is teaching the trick in the wild, with no human intervention.

Pretty damned impressive for a gym teacher.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Animals

Proving Russia’s inferiority complex runs deep at the highest levels, puppet President Dmitri Medvedev, celebrating his country’s first military victory since Czechoslovakia in 1968, is already handing out the medals:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev awarded medals Monday to servicemen involved in the conflict in Georgia, calling it a peacemaking operation that will be remembered as one of the “glorious deeds” of the Russian military.

Mission accomplished.

“I am sure that such a well-done, effective and peacemaking operation aimed at protecting our citizens and other people will be among the most glorious deeds of the Russian military,” Medvedev said.

Please. Russia defeating Georgia in a war is akin to the United States defeating coup plotters in Grenada. But even Reagan, as hungry as he was to promote that “win,” didn’t hand out medals while combat operations continued. And he didn’t give medals to gangsters, as Medvedev is proposing for the Ossetian “volunteers” who’ve been shelling Georgia proper for most of this decade.

But to compare egging a country of four million into a war it couldn’t win to the “glorious deeds” of Russian military history? Battles and campaigns like Stalingrad, Borodino, and Suvorov’s conquest of Italy? That’s strictly Vince Carter dunking over a third world basketball player and then taunting him about it afterwards.

“What Georgian authorities have done is beyond human understanding. It cannot be understood and left unpunished,” he said. “The world realized that even now there are political freaks who were ready to kill innocent people for the sake of political fashions and who compensated for their own stupidity by eliminating a whole nation.”

Tell that to the Chechens. And tell it to the Poles and Ukrainians, who understand Medvedev and Putin all too well.

Not via La Russophobe, but it should have been.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Russia

“Ok, the camera. Whatever. Place the camera on the ground… Yeah, I know I told you to put your hands up. How you get the camera down is your problem! I’M THE ONE IN CHARGE HERE!!!”

We’ve written a bit previously, but not enough, about the harassment that many amateur photographers face for the simple act of taking pictures of innocuous things in a nation that’s gone to the nannies.  But the nannies can be beaten.  The story linked below, which is about a year old, is a classic tale of one man’s revenge against the petty cops who worry that somehow, somewhere, someone is taking photographs of things that shouldn’t be seen.

You need a permit to take pictures of this building.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Nanny State, photography

Get out your wayback machine, and set the dial to 1998. Let’s say that a student with an unusual name is accused of something unsavory, only it’s something that can’t be proven in court. He’s still disciplined for the offense by his college, but he feels that he was disciplined more severely than other students. So he complains about that.

But even in 1998, was it smart to complain to a small newspaper, which had a website? The content will be around for a while, and he’ll always have his unusual name.

Flash forward to the present. Ten years later, the small story is still there. But now the story itself bothers him more than the original allegation and punishment, because it shows up on search engines. So what does he do? He complains again, this time to a large newspaper, which also has a website:

Ten years later, he just wants to get it out. . . .

He’s a lawyer now, and that article–still among the first hits for ________’s [withheld in case he’s innocent] name on Google–continues to hurt him personally and professionally, he said. So ________, at 33, has been pressuring SPU to help clear his name. . . .

With that popping up every time someone searches his name, ________ said he cannot escape the shadow of the accusation of attempted sexual assault, even though Seattle police closed the investigation and he was never charged. He’s also worried what people will think after reading this article.

The story, and Mr. Unusual Name’s plight, are so interesting that the story gets picked up by one of the largest sites on the web (scroll down).

Now what has Mr. Unusual Name accomplished? While I sympathize with him if he didn’t do what he was accused of doing, maybe it’s well past time to shut up. After all, it’s going to take a lifetime of well-publicized good deeds to force the Wall Street Journal onto the second page of a google search for this most unusual name.

written by Patrick

Since Friday we’ve been spammed over two hundred times by Alex, who continually posts this message:

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!

Alex has a mail.ru email address which, while I like Russians, is a bad sign. Alex’s website is affiliated with blogspot. If enough people “flag” a blogspot blog, Google/Blogger will permanently delete it.  The “flag” button is at the top of any blogspot blog.

The address is: http://street-streetmachine.blogspot.com/

There is no objectionable comment on this blog (yet). As a matter of fact, the only content on the site, at all, is an image stolen from Ken at this blog. Ken stole it from somewhere else. I’d meant to comment about the flaws in the message Ken’s image portrays, but I’ve had other stuff to do.

Time marches on. Anyway, please visit that site (again, there is no objectionable content on it), and flag it as inappropriate. Alex is the worst spammer we’ve ever had, but he spoofs IP addresses in every message, and I can’t ban the name Alex, as one of our valued commenters has that name.

We’re glad that this blog has grown to the point where we get autobot attention from beginning Russian spammers, but this one is an absolute pain, and I grow tired of reading his message.

Thanks in advance.

written by Patrick

Inflatable dog turd the size of a house attacks Swiss children’s home.

“Complex Shit”, a sculpture by the American artist Paul McCarthy, cast loose its moorings and was lifted by a sudden gust of wind from the Paul Klee centre in Berne and carried 200 yards to eventually make landfall in the grounds of a children’s home.

Museum authorities said the work had an automatic safety device that was supposed to make it deflate in the event of a storm - but it failed to operate.

Perhaps God was testing his fan, or a metaphor, or something.

written by Patrick

You probably didn’t know, given today’s news about that shithead John Edwards and the beginning of the genocide games in China, that we’re drawing ever closer (and I mean just a few steps away) to war with Russia.

You didn’t know that, did you? Friday is always a slow news day.

Watch this story.  It has the potential to be a major problem.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Russia

There are many reasons for which reported attacks of animals on humans may be increasing in number.  We are displacing them from their habitats.  There are more of us every day.  More areas of the world, which previously were cut off from the charmed circle that enjoys the internet, satellite, and cellular phones by which such attacks can be reported and gain attention, are opening up.

But according to The Daily Telegraph (a newspaper I generally like), it’s because animals all over the world have suddenly decided, in the past ten years, to take revenge on humanity.

This is one of the worst pieces of science reporting I’ve ever seen.  To the extent that any of the scientists quoted within believe what I say this story is about, they’re nuts.  But I don’t think any of them believe that animals are taking revenge on humanity, except as a metaphor.  Yet that is exactly the thesis the Telegraph, in this story, has twisted or misquoted them to support.  Truly truly awful journalism.

I have an equally if not more plausible theory.  As the web disrupts the ecology formerly enjoyed by newspapers, they are lashing out at humanity, becoming more partisan, more unreliable, more just plain nuts, in a desperate attempt to defend their ecosystem.

written by Patrick \\ tags: Journalism