The Disconnected Left and the Lie that is a Dare

Via Michelle Malkin comes this gem:

You know those New Orleans cops caught looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

Well, according to a New Orleans police spokesman, they weren't looting. They were, well, let's let him explain:

Police spokesman Marlon Defillo said police are looking into the possibility that up to 12 officers were involved in misconduct.

The Police Department has 1,750 officers.

He rejected the use of the term "looting" but said authorities were investigating "the possibility of appropriation of non-essential items during the height of Katrina, from businesses."

It reminds me of Stephen King’s Gunslinger series. “You have forgotten the face of your father” is a huge insult in that world, and that’s the best way to describe Defillo- as a man who has forgotten the face of his father. The man, it seems, has no sense of morals or ethics, and no personal pride. He doesn’t care that the entire nation knows he is a weasel. He doesn’t care about what making such a statement reveals about:

his community,

his colleagues,

his friend,

his family,

himself.

He has forgotten the face of his father.

But how do you reply to the lie that is really a dare? There is no doubt that he is lying, weaseling, spinning, euphamizing, call it what you will. The only issue in doubt is whether or not those who hear such a bald lie will react appropriately. The appropriate response, I think, is to kick Defillo in the face until he cries and pisses himself, which probably wouldn’t take long. But I wouldn’t have the ‘nads to do it because I wouldn’t want to suffer the consequences.

Failing that, pointing at him while laughing and calling him a “li’l bitch” might do. But professional reporters can’t do that without losing their jobs. Sigh. Another reason why bloggers are superior to MSM reporters, I suppose.

The Left loves the Lie that is a Dare, and has ever since Clinton used it so effectively, and often. It worked for Clinton. He redefined "Is," after all. But the Lie that is a Dare doesn't work for liberals generally because they don't understand it. The Lie that is a Dare REQUIRES that a majority of people think a person is being unduly persecuted by a (ideally puritanical) minority. The majority of Americans (I'm not one of them) didn't care that Clinton lied under oath because they didn't care about what he was lying about.

The majority of Americans DO care about police officers looting, so this Lie that is a Dare will fail.

I think.

If somebody kicks this guy in the face until he pisses himself we'll know I'm right.

Best Movie Review Ever.

Is here. It's a review of Revenge of the Sith. Couple excerpts:

If you were unfortunate enough to hear your stupid co-workers yammering on about Lucas' latest shit burger, you might have heard them saying something like "I didn't like the first two, but this one was good!" When I ask why, these people have trouble responding because it's hard to talk with George Lucas' flaccid penis in their collective mouths.

............

It just so happens that this "children's movie" has a scene where a guy gets his hands chopped off, a graphic decapitation, the wanton slaughter of children (the highlight of any movie), and the coolest scene in any space action movie starring Ewan McGregor: Anakin getting his legs chopped off as his stumps catch fire while his face melts. By the way, if you haven't seen this movie yet, don't read the previous sentence.

Sadly enough, I think I wrote a review of this movie saying it was good. I am a Star Wars nerd. There can be no doubt. Of course, with a blog named Harkonnendog, you probably had no doubt.

GREAT post of the day.

From Eric over at Classical Values. If you want an example of how incompetent, hysterical, and shameless the MSM is, you will enjoy reading it. If you DON'T want that example, you MUST read it.

Great coverage of a protest here. Post of the day.

Check this out.

A new Carnival of the Short Stories is up.

Here:

The next storyblog is up at Tales of Tadeusz at http://talesoftadeusz.blogspot.com/2005/09/starting-second-year-of-storyblogging.html . If you could link to this that would be helpful.

This is the group kind enough to link to my CLOWN excerpts. Not sure how many people enjoy this carnival, but it is still very nice to share. Check it out!

CLOWN, Chapter 2. Work.

Chapter 2. Work.

The building my law firm was located in took up the entire block between 2nd and 3rd Avenue in downtown Seattle. It was about ten blocks North of the baseball stadium and ten blocks south of Pike’s Place Market. I was a temp. When I first moved to Seattle I was going to make a living teaching poetry in seminars and stuff. After I woke up from that little pipe dream I got a job working as a temporary file clerk for law firms.
I’d worked at Schwenk, Caine, and Giam for almost a month straight. SCG was hurting. At their best they’d taken up all of the 34th and 35th floors, but, due to the tech-bubble-burst, they were giving up most of their space on 35. That meant they had to close out a lot of cases and move a lot of secretaries and lawyer’s offices. Rather than hire permanent file clerks and professional movers they sent a call out to the temp agencies for file clerks who wouldn’t mind helping move office furniture and stuff. So I closed out cases and moved furniture.
I liked working at SC&G as much as I could like working anywhere. They liked me because they could leave me alone to close and I liked them because they usually left me alone. Most law firms I temped at were set up the same way. You have the lawyers’ offices hugging the outer rim of the building. Lawyers always get the offices with windows. Then there are secretary pods facing each lawyer’s office, with a hall in between. Behind the secretaries are cabinets full of the files the lawyers didn’t use often enough to keep in their own offices. Then, in the middle of the building, snug up against the elevator shafts, are the file rooms where the secretaries send the files they don’t use often enough to keep in their own pods. I worked in the file room, closing.
Actually I worked in a converted closet in the file room. That was actually kind of nice because I got to be alone. By closing I mean I inventoried, boxed, and shipped offsite the files that weren’t used enough to keep in the law firm's file room. There are a lot of files in a law office, in case you haven’t noticed. From a file clerk’s perspective a law office is just a place where files are moved around and lost and retrieved and closed.
But Tuesday morning I didn’t have any files to close so I was helping to move files. What you do is you take the files from the old file cabinets behind the secretary and put them on this rolling, mobile file cabinet, and then you wheel the mobile cabinet down to the secretary’s new cubby, and then you take the files off the mobile file cabinet and put them into the file cabinet at the new cubby. People get paid 15 dollars an hour for this in Seattle. No joke.
But I wasn’t thinking about that. Here’s what I was thinking while I took the files from Sidney’s old file cabinet and put them into the mobile file cabinet:

“Hey Clown.”
“Hi Sidney. Good morning.”
“Why are you doing that? Did you get tired of closing Hereford?”
That’s what she would have to say. Nothing less. I can stand here and put files on a shelf and walk the mobile shelf over and stick the files in her cabinets all day, without ever saying a word to her. I’m happy just doing something for her. Playing at helping her, as if the dork (her regular, assigned file clerk) on break wouldn’t do it if I didn’t do it first. As if I can put files away better than he can. But when I’m doing it I somehow believe it, and so I’m happy.
But as for talking to her? Ha. Har de farging har har har. No way. If she was to ask why I was doing it, maybe I would say this:
“Why are you doing this? Tired of closing Hereford?”
“Your clerk went on a break. I thought it might be nice to do this because I kind of like you. I like doing something for you.”
I might actually say that, even though I know she would just think I’m a total freak and a loser and probably call her boss and then I’d, if I got lucky, get sent back into my little hobbit hole to close and close and close and forget myself and what an idiot I am until the end of the day.

That’s what I was thinking when I was taking her files out of her old cabinets and putting them on the mobile cabinet. I did that until it was full.
When I rolled the cabinet down the hall I was just thinking about not crashing it into any of the walls. That took some concentration so I didn’t think much while I was doing that.
When I got to her new cubby she was talking to somebody on the phone. I don’t know what about because I blacked it out or something. Actually, I think I don’t know who because I didn’t pay attention because she looked and sounded so bored that I figured it would be tiring if I overheard it. So I concentrated on filing instead. I just think that’s why I don’t remember what she was talking about. It just sounds like me.
I slowly put the files in her new cabinets. She didn’t notice it was me. I thought about acting like I didn’t know where a file went so I could ask her about it and try to start conversing. But it was so obvious where they all went that if I had asked I would have looked stupid. I figured it was better not to ask than to ask and look stupid.
I know a lot of guys who look stupid in front of women all the time but the women don’t care. I know the women aren’t stupid enough not to know what the men are doing. The men are so transparent I want to cry for them. But then the women go home with them.
A lot of women like it when men act stupid for them. Women. Usually the men who act stupid for them also act stupid in front of other men. They try to impress their buddies by telling stories:
“That bitch was a triple dipper. She would have been a five-orifice girl if my dick was thin enough to fit in her ear!”
Or some garbage like that.
Then you get to meet the girl and she’s all smiles. And the guy’s all smiles because he’s going to triple dip her again and this time he might try to finish on her eyes so he can brag about how he glued her eyelids shut. And I stand there, all smiles, because I feel sorry for her and don’t want her to know I think she’s an idiot.
I’m not worried about whether or not he knows I think he’s a jerk because I’ve told him I think so and he won’t believe me. That’s how these guys are. That’s why they hook up so often. Because they don’t believe they’re assholes and these stupid, weak women are overpowered by their personalities so that THEY don’t believe it either.
And if you can’t recognize that somebody like that is a villain and laugh at them and dismiss them then you can’t get mad when they do that on your eyelids. Why not? Because then you not only got that shot onto your eyelids, you’re not just unable to open your eyes because this semen is on them, you let an asshole do that to you. Now you’ve got to marry him or you’ll never forgive yourself for being dumb enough to let someone like that debase you. So then you have his kids and your kids turn out like their prick of a father. .
That’s how they breed. I’m convinced of it.
Actually I’m not. I can’t figure it out. The real reason I stand there and smile and act natural is because I can’t figure the woman or the man out, and I don’t want them to know I don’t know how the world works. I can’t believe women like to be treated that way, or are dumb enough to think these guys don’t brag about it, but what other explanation is there? So I just stand there and smile. “Uh-huh. Hey. Nice to meet ya’.”
And that’s just me: Impotence through over-thought. Wait. No, I’m romanticizing it. I guess I’m scared because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And until I DO know what’s going to happen I don’t want to look stupid so I don’t do anything.

That’s what I was thinking while I put her files in her new cabinets. I felt kind of good because I was doing something for her. She’s beautiful and she’s friendly. She’s also a little bit like me because she can’t always figure out why people are nice to her. Mostly people are nice to her because she has a pretty face and a good body. She’s too humble to know that. That’s another reason people like her. Of course she’s too humble to know that too.
If she wasn’t out of my league, I might try to become her lover. But even the fact that I think of it that way, ‘try to become her lover’ I mean, shows that any woman is out of my league. I’m such a ridiculous dork. My only solace is that people don’t know quite how much of a dork I really am.
When I was done putting her files in place, I slowly walked away. I looked back but she was still on the phone. She never saw me doing her filing. I bet she thought her file-clerk did it.
I got a little morose-attack when I got back to my rabbit den because I had missed an opportunity with Sidney. So I put my Pulp Fiction soundtrack on and put it on track 8. That’s the part where there’s some Quentin Tarantino Dialogue:
Pretty Hot French Chick: Whose motorcycle is this?
Bruce Willis: It’s a Chopper, baby.
PHFC: Who’s Chopper is this?
BW: Zed’s.
PHFC: Who’s Zed?
BW: Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.
Is that not perfect? I played that like ten times and felt pretty good again. Then I went back to filing. I filed until lunch. Actually I filed until about two o’clock before I realized I had missed lunch. I was happy, the way a lot of people are at work, that two extra hours had passed without me noticing. I think that is probably a sin.
You just lost two full hours of your life. You could have made love eight times. You could have read Hamlett. You could have bought a gun and learned how to shoot it. Instead you’re happy that your brain was numb so you didn’t notice two hours disappeared FOREVER.
Gotta be a sin.

The Butler Did It!!!

Hollywood loves to lecture the masses nowadays, and mostly Hollywood loves to lecture the masses about how much we suck. (And no, if you don't mind the lectures that doesn't mean you're sophisticated like Hollywood insiders, it means you are an asshole like Hollywood insiders. And no, if you dislike the lectures but think it is good that the masses are lectured to, you are not sophisticated and smarter than the masses, you are a snob and a dick. Okay let's move on.)

I don't want to throw spoilers out, but Debbie Schlussel doesn't mind. So go here if you want to read about why Jodie Foster is the suck. And don't watch Flight Plan unless you appreciate being lectured to or want to support Hollywood's lecturing to the masses.

HAHAHAHA

Speaking of Christians, what this pastor says is too funny for words. He MEANT to say "pitch his tents." Take a guess about what he said before you watch the video. :) I wonder what/who he was looking at befoer the Freudian slip.

Hat tip to Dean's World.

Why I love George Bush, lol.

This below is from this post at Powerline, emphasis etc. mine.

President Bush spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington yesterday on the occasion of the group's twentieth anniversary...

"Rabbi Stanton Zamek of the Temple Beth Shalom Synagogue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, helped an African American couple displaced by the storm track down their daughter in Maryland. When Rabbi Zamek called the daughter, he told her, "We have your parents." She screamed out, "Thank you, Jesus!" (Laughter.) He didn't have the heart to tell her she was thanking the wrong rabbi. (Laughter and applause.)"

That cracks me up. It also says something about the kind of Christian Bush is. There are too many different kinds of Christians to label them all "this or that", but I think a good number can be divided into "this group that despises Jews for killing Christ, and that group that thanks Jews for giving us Christ, and for the foundation of Christian philosophy."

I'm squarely in that group, and I think most Christians nowadays are. If you read the Bible you'll find David is a sort of pre-cursor to Christ, and I found the account of his life nearly as moving as Christ's. (Solomon, on the other hand, I found to be the suck. I don't know why people dig him so much.) Most modern Christians read the Bible, in fact they STUDY the Bible, and I don't think that was always so. Certainly that was not true back in the day when nobody could read the Bible because it was in Latin. Reading the Bible doesn't really lend itself to anti-Semitism.

Come to think of it, there may be a pretty direct relationship between the percentage of Christians who read the Bible, and the lessening of anti-Semitic violence.

And as long as I'm thinking with my fingers, (by typing I mean) I have to say that 400 years ago Christianity was a lot more like Islam is in the Middle East today. A bunch of assholes were in charge of the religion AND the government, and when people got pissed off at the religion and/or the government they blamed the Jews.

Hmm... But Muslims today read the Koran, so the theory breaks down.
Or do they? How many Muslim in Saudi Arabia actually read the Koran? Let's assume all those who CAN read do read it.

Let's see. 79% can read, according to this site. Yeah, it doesn't really work. Well... anyway I thought it was a funny joke.

First Ever Video Post of the Day

Watch the video availabe here. Hahahahahaha! (aahhhhh)

A review of Alexander.

Alexander-

Rotten Tomatoes compiled a 14% freshness rating for this movie. Holy crap that's low. Waaay too low. First of all Rosario Dawson out-hotties Angelina Jolie in this film. That shouldn't be possible- that ISN'T POSSIBLE, but it happened. And if you're not into the chicks there is a lot of male eye candy for ya' too. And actually that's part of the problem.

Lot of gayness in this movie. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but Alexander the Great isn't Great because he digged boys. I mean don't hide it, but don't make the love story a major part of the picture, Stonie. Bad artistic choice. We go in looking for Greatness, not Days of Our Lives.

(You'd get no complaints if Ferrel's doing Dawson during the whole movie because there's some sexual tension there, there's some HEAT, and 90+% of your audience would get off on it because, well, we can put ourselves into Ferrel's or Rosario's body and imagine. But, assuming, generously, that 10% of the population is gay, you've still only got 5%, the male gays, willing to put themselves into the body of a guy on guy love scene. Anyway, Stonie doens't have the balls to show gay HEAT on the screen, so even those guys don't dig it. So there's no commercial reason to go there either.)

Stonies idea of Greatness apparently inolves a lot of "Daddy didn't love me! Mommy's a psycho!" type stuff. Er, whatever dude. There has to be a lot more to Greatness than that. I mean you made up a bunch of dumb shit (that's not even entertaining!) instead of looking for Greatness. You could have read biographies about Great conquerors- MacArthur, Napoleon, Nimitz, Eisenhower, and the like, and taken bits of pieces to find out what makes the type tick. Instead you just made up a bunch of dumb shit (that's not even entertaining!) and made a historical epic version of Beyond the Glory.

Maybe it does deserve a 14% tomato rating? Nah. It is worth a watch.

Oh yeah... I know the movie is old. I know. What can I tell you?

Cindy Sheehan jumped the shark?

I think you have to be cool like Fonzie to be able to jump the shark, don't you? I mean Cheers can jump the shark, but Charles in Charge cannot. IPod can jump the shark, but that K-Mart blue-light special mp3 player cannot.

Still, to give you an idea of how loony lefty this poor lady is, read this. (via LGF)

I don’t care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don’t care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don’t care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don’t fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.

It really isn't funny. (Yeah it is, I know. But it is not cool to admit it. So I guess I'm not cool.) This poor woman...

I once dated this total bitch. I mean my friends all hated her etc. etc., but my judgement was compromised by the sex. Anyway, my friends all sort of distanced themselves from me, and vice versa, until I finally got dumped by the bitch, which was like two years later. And then all my friends acted like nothing happened. To them nothing did happen. Young men get blinded by pussy all the time so no forgiveness necessary you'd do the same for me and so on. So I hope, once the hard left dumps her, once they are done with her, Cindy Sheehan's friends and family forgive her for being blinded by the hatred of the hard left.

Am I going to hell

for finding this funny?

It is a video of two old guys fighting, btw.

On a similar note, for those of you around 30-years-old...

Have a bunch of out of shape 50+-year-olds been like, bullying you lately? I've had three separate 50-year-old men pick fights with me THIS YEAR!!! The only problem with these guys is I would feel like shit if I hurt them... but what's the deal? Do these guys just go around bullying young tough looking guys? And do all these guys, like me, just let it go out of pity? And then do these old dudes actually think they've intimidated them???

What a fugged generation, lol.

New winner of the Post of the Day

This is the 1st time I've used a Hugh Hewitt post. It is a post about other posts, and includes this:

The refusal by the Senate Democrats to fight this nomination with unrestrained righteous fury is the ultimate betrayal of the liberal rank and file. It is an act of cowardice that cannot be rationalized with the standard deceitful rhetorical cover of a shrewd tactical retreat while keeping our powder dry. The tactical retreat in which the Democrats invariably engage is perpetual rather than shrewd. And there is no powder, dry or otherwise. Political leverage is never gained by capitulating. If it were, the Democrats would already possess enough dry powder to blow the Earth off its axis. Weakness merely begets the perception of weakness, which just happens to be the Democrats greatest electoral problem.

The dirty little open secret of the Senate Democratic Caucus is that its members have far more contempt for their liberal supporters than they have for their conservative opponents. In repudiating the filibuster, Feinstein bitterly criticized progressive activist groups for pressuring her to oppose Roberts regardless of the merits. The merits are that Roberts is a malicious ideologue yearning to annihilate the liberal base. Yet to the Seven Democratic Dwarfs who crafted the nuclear option compromise, that factor is infinitely less important than getting themselves praised by the corporate media for being statesmanlike, i.e., doing the bidding of big business.

HAHAHAHA!!! Read that 2nd to last sentence, "The merits..." again. Here I'll do it for you. "Roberts is a malicious ideologue yearning to anhilate the liberal base."

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Where does the guy get this from? Malicious? How can you say that? Got evidence? Ideologue? Is that even an insult, I mean by itself? Don't you have to identify what's wrong with his ideology before that is an insulte? Would you rather have a nihilist on the court? What does annihilate the liberal base mean, btw? Are you suggesting Roberts wants to kill liberals? Wtf?

Yeah, serious liberals despise the Michael Moores of the world. EVERYBODY DOES, EXCEPT THE MICHAEL MOORES OF THE WORLD.

HAHAHAHA! Today is a good day.

Michelle Malkin rips Brown a new one.

Here.

Whoa... Apparently this guy really is a dweeb. Then again, he has some defenders, who Malkin links to... So far, I'm thinking Brown is THAT kind of a boss. You know, the kind of boss who thinks being a boss is not about getting stuff done, but about going to conferences and staying abreast of new developments in his field and dumb shit like that. The kind of boss who thinks, basically, that being a boss means working less as opposed to much, much more.

There really is no excuse for putting a man like that in charge of anything important.

Funniest Post of the Day Ever.

I don't usually post or ling to stuff like this but holy crap this is hilarious!!!

Katrina- Natural Tragedy or Human Tragedy

No doubt it is some combination of both, but it might help to get a clear picture by trying to separate the two.

The looting is clearly Human Tragedy... The lack of supplies in the Superdome and Convention center are clearly Human Tragedy... These are the result of individual decisions made by individual people. Not only that, they are also inexcusable. There is no excuse for taking a plasma television. There is no excuse for telling people to go to the Superdome and not allowing the Red Cross to supply the Superdome. Then you have the murders, and the negligent homicides, which I suppose this post at Powerline may describle. I'm hesitant to label it as such until more information comes out.

Then you have your areas where it is clearly a Natural Tragedy. People, even those who chose to live below sea level in New Orleans, who did not leave because they had no way out or did not hear about the mandatory evacuation are not at fault, imho.

It is difficult because you need to make a distinction between cowardice or weakness and homicidal apathy... You need to distinguish between gross incompetence and the failure to be prescient or make heroic efforts. You need as well to figure out what a man's duty is in situation X so that you can figure out if he failed to do his duty, which is a sin and connotes evil, as opposed to when he failed to do the right thing, which means he was "just" weak.

We'll see. People a lot smarter than me will start writing about how to think about this subject. (I hope.) I'll be learning as I go along, and pass their thoughts and mine along.

Mark Steyn puts it so well!

I'll leave it to future generations of historians to settle the precise moment at which Hurricane Katrina finally completed its transformation into a Kansas-type twister, and swept up the massed ranks of the world's press to deposit them on the wilder shores of the Land of Oz. But for a couple of weeks now they've been there frolicking and gambolling as happy Media Munchkins, singing and dancing "Ding Dong, The Bush Is Dead".


From here.

I suppose it is all about how you view the MSM. If you believe, like I do, that the MSM is generally full of shit, and that when it comes to Bush they are full of shit almost without exception, then you watched and read the coverage of Katrina thinking the following:

bullshit...bullshit...bullshit...bullshit...bullshit...bullshit...

If you didn't think that while you watched and read the MSM, as well as most of the lefty blog coverage of Katrina, you've been had.

Sucker.

Apparently the Blame Bush Meme has Shifted to

Bush should have known the democrats in charge locally would be useless.

The above is video, this links to a transcript of the most relevant part.

This is an argument?!?

Fantastic Post of the Day

Right here.

I was going to make a comment on it but the guys at Powerline already said it.

I've commented before on the unwillingness of critics of the administration's response to Katrina to engage in any analysis of how that response compared to the responses to prior, but less severe, hurricanes. Without such an analysis, it's baseless to say that, on balance, the federal response this time was poor. This means that such a claim arises not from the facts of the matter, but from the a priori view that Bush is incompetent and/or a villain, or from unhappiness over non-hurricane related events (in Korb's case the war in Iraq). Unfortunately, when it comes to the MSM, this phenomenon is reinforced by natural laziness and the desire to entertain and scandalize, rather than to think and inform.

Further evidence that the left saw/sees Katrina less as a tragedy or an emergency, and more as an opportunity.

Monument Alternative

L

R O L L

E
T
'
S

Like Napoleon Dynamite, I lack skills. Numbchuck skills, computer hacking skills, graphical artist skills... but it is supposed to look like a cross. NOT a Christian cross, of course. Any resemblance is purely coincidental!!! Anybody who wants to take this idea and run with it has my blessing. (NOT a Christian blessing!!!)

Monument to the 911 Terrorists

I'm sure they never even dreamed the US would honor them so! Click here to see the Flight 93 Memorial Project overlayed with an Islamic crescent.

"WTF?!?" was my first reaction. But the architect says I shouldn't jump to conclusions... it is a crescent, yes, but that doesn't mean it represents Islam! Don't be so paranoid!!! A bunch of liberals echoed that sentiment, so I began to question myself.

Well, it certainly could be a coincidence. Weird symbol to choose for basically random reasons- I mean why choose a crescent at all... but okay, fair enough. It isn't like that crescent points toward Mecca or anything. Maybe there's no there, there.

But wait. Turns out it DOES point to Mecca. For a better graphic of this click here. The significance? From Wikipedia:

Qibla is an Arabic word referring to the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays. Originally, this direction was toward Jerusalem (and it is therefore called the First of the Two Qiblas). In 624 AD, during Muhammad's exile in Medina, the Qibla was changed to point to the Kaaba, in the city of Mecca, present day Saudi Arabia, where it has remained ever since. Some academic scholars have attributed this change in the direction of prayer to a rift between Muhammad and the Jews in Medina.

The Qibla, for any point of reference on the Earth, is the direction of the Kaaba. In Muslim religious practice, supplicants must face this direction in prayer. It should be noted that Muslims do not worship the Kaaba or its contents, any more than Christians worship churches or crosses; the Kaaba is simply a focal point for prayer.

The Qibla points along the shortest path to the Kaaba. Because the Earth is approximately spherical, this path will be a great circle such as airplanes fly. The location of the Kaaba (at 21° 25' 24" N, 39° 49' 24" E) can be used together with spherical geometry to determine the Qibla for any given point on the Earth.

Seems like an open and shut case to me. What cracks me up is
1) the architect thought nobody would care that it looked like an Islamic crescent,
2) the architect himself thought an Islamic crescent an appropriate center piece for a memorial to the people who died fighting Islamist terrorists
3) the architect thought nobody would break his little code
4) a bunch of liberals went on record, between the time conservatives called shenanigans and the time a conservative broke the code, saying conservatives were paranoid schizos and it was all just a coincidence
5) those same liberals are now backed into a corner. they will now either have to continue to claim it is just a coincidence despite overwhelming evidence or else admit the conservatives they derided as paranoid wingnuts were correct all along.
6) those liberals who will admit conservatives were right all along will now be divided from those who still claim coincidence
7) those liberals who will admit conservatives were right all along will probably NOW argue that it IS okay to have an Islamic crescent be the center piece of the Flight 93 Memorial Project

HAHAHAAHA!!!

Excellent Photographic Storyline from New Orleans

Just wow.

Nobody anticipated that the levees would BREECH

This fiasco reminds me of the way lefties turned their brains off when the accusation of Koran flushing was their cause celebre. Over and over I asked the question: "How can you flush a Koran down the toilet?" and nobody could answer. That little detail was too inconvenient for Bush bashing, so it was ignored. Now the left is ignoring another little detail- that water spilling over a levee, called overtopping, is not the same as water gushing through a breach.

One of first cheap shots the left took was saying Bush was clueless and out of touch because he said

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breaching of the levees."

Well guess what- he was right. Lots of people talked about levees overtopping, but that isn't the same thing. Overtopping is temporary, and the water gets pumped back out after it comes in. Breaching, while not permanent, requires that the breach be fixed, or the water gets put back into the city as fast as it is pumped out.

Shhh... If we don't acknowledge it it isn't so!




In case you don't remember the Koran STORY was utter- well- shit.

Imprisoned in New Orleans by Gretna Sheriff

Watch this horrible video of Fox News correspondents Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera begging for people to be allowed to walk out of New Orleans.

Good background on this available at Classical Values.

Excellent Wapo article on FEMA

Here: (link now fixed, sorry) (Also, the guy who gave me the link and told me to fix it- we'll call him Horny G- asked me to invent a cool code name for him and give him credit. There you go Horny G. Hope you like it.)

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

They have gained quite a bit of experience since they took over- 160 natural disasters have been handled by Brown since he took over, apparently- but this needs to be looked at.

Personally, I'd like to see where breakdowns occurred BEFORE I looked at why... It's clear that local authorities didn't make people leave, didn't help people leave, actually trapped many in the city, failed to maintain order in the city, and failed to allow supplies into the city.

Had local authorities 1.) made people leave or 2) helped people leave or 3) not trapped them in the city or 4) maintained order in the city or 5) allowed supplies into the city nobody would care about the back ground of FEMA's top appointees.

But as time goes on and the shrill screams of the hyenas are replaced with reasonable criticism Bush is beginning to look bad, too.

Ebert sucks part- what-5? 8? I don't know.

From his review of The Exorcism of Emily Rose:

"Demons exist whether you believe in them or not," says the priest at the center of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." Yes, and you could also say that demons do not exist whether you believe in them or not, because belief by definition stands outside of proof. If you can prove it, you don't need to believe it.


Okay, I don't know whether anyone needs this to be explained or not. It is self-evidently stupid to me, which makes it hard to explain, but I've missed a lot of things that are self-evident to others so...

Point 1. The popular meme you were looking for is faith (not BELIEF) is believing in something without proof- you fuzzy yak. "If you can prove it, you don't need to believe it." No, pistachio-teeth... when you aren't sure if something is X and someone proves it to you, you then BELIEVE it is X. Belief COMES from PROOF with (according to the meme) one exception, and that is FAITH. FAITH is belief WITHOUT proof, you overpaid Farigno.

For example- I would not BELIEVE that you get paid for displaying your pompous dumbassity without the PROOF before my eyes- namely that you have a television show and a column. Furthermore- at this point, despite an absence of PROOF that you are anything other than a rusty toaster intellect sans writing talent people have FAITH in your ability to judge movies.

What makes all this worse, though, is point 2.

Point 2. If your gloriously frozen gray matter's confusion of Faith with Belief wasn't bad enough to condemn you to Dante's 3.7th circle of hell (where monkeys throw hot feces into the mouths of dumb critics, thereby reversing what dumb critics do) the fact that you don't understand Faith, nor Proof, would.

You're so dumb it is actually hard to belittle you; you have screwed up your use of a screwed up axiom. That axiom is the popular meme that faith IS belief without proof, which it is NOT. Faith often comes FROM proof- but it is not demonstrable proof- it is not repeatable truth- it is not, in other words, scientific proof. This is NOT the same as saying it comes without proof.

You dumb dirigible. You indigestible planet. You flacid monkey. You sucktoid.

If true, this explains a lot.

from here

Trust Us

One thing is clear: federalizing everything into "FEMA" was a horrible idea. When there was an Office of Civil Defense and LOCAL Civil Defense organizations coordinated through the Federal OCD, there were training exercises, many of the officials were volunteers who lived in the area, they made use of retired military people. There was a Director of Civilian Marksmanship and a conscious effort to arm Civil Defense people to form a well regulated militia.

All that was destroyed, and pretty well turned over to a Federal civil service bureaucracy which was then subject to the vicissitudes of politics and appropriations. The notion that preparedness for disasters was a local responsibility, and the Federal responsibility was to assist and come in when needed but not to set up the primary disaster preparedness and relief organization -- that was all lost. Trust us, said the Federal government.

Well, in New Orleans and Mississippi they had no choice but to "trust FEMA". The centralizers won and pursued, and extirpated most of the old Civil Defense organization. THEN came Homeland Security, which swallowed FEMA and neglected it.

Should the President fire every executive in FEMA? Fire the political appointees and transfer all the Senior Executive Service people to a FEMA office in Nome or Point Barrow? Possibly. At least some knew of the problems and did not resign in protest. But some did know, and fought to make changes, to no avail. But. Their efforts were doomed. The centralizers had taken over. And of course many of the FEMA executives were centralizers, who said "trust us."

FEMA we trusted you. We had no choice but to trust you. You left us no choice but to trust you.

You failed us. You failed miserably, but you do not share the misery.

The President ought not have to fire you. You should resign. You can make the resignations effective a year from now and get on with picking up.

* * *

hAHAHAHA

We laugh because it's funny and we laugh because it's true... (from here)

SECTION 2: DISASTER THINKING

-Do you believe that no one can voice support of the IRAQ war UNLESS they are willing to serve in it?
-YET when it came to the flood, you readily assumed an expertise in crisis management within hours of the disaster?
-And only so you could heave blame at Bush like a monkey flinging his own feces?

Do you always try to relate large-scale tragedies to your own life?
-Do you say things like, “Wow, I was just in New Orleans."
-"I had a connecting flight there."
-"I bought some beads in terminal 2."
-"I rented the Big Easy once. It was good."

-do you see "looting" as a function of poverty?
- brought on by Bush's policies?
-do you think you and a looter might get along over a beer?
-as you both agree over the point you just made about poverty?
-do you press charges after he stabs you?

Do you assume all poor people loot when faced with crisis?
-Even though most, if not all, poor people hate looters?
-Even though most, if not all, poor people HATE YOU MORE- for excusing looters?

do you really believe Bush doesn’t care about poor, black people?
-But, then, who really seemed to RELISH the tragedy more?
-Bush?
-or The Huffington Post?

Raiders @ Patriots Preview from Fester's Place

I am ready for some meaningful football. (My fiancee is now rolling her eyes over the last two words in that sentence... but still). Tonight sees the Oakland Raiders visit the New England Patriots at Foxboro for the kick-off game of the Pats' quest for three straight. I see this as a reasonable objective for the Patriots, but it will, as always be a difficult journey.

I see the Patriots as a well managed team that attempts to use its versatility as its core competence. As I have written before, the Patriots seek to take away the opposition's first choice option. The fundamental gamble here is that the Patriots are betting that their second, third or fourth preferred style of play is vastly superior to whatever the opponent's second preferred style of play. This was seen most notably in the 2002 Super Bowl against the Rams where the Patriots were able to disrupt Marshall Faulk for the entire game, and thus putting the offense solely on Kurt Warner's shoulders. The Greatest Show on Turf managed 17 points.

This year, I think that the Patriots are significantly deeper and more versatile on offense. With the return of Ben Watson, I will be shocked if the Patriots do not line up with two tight ends for at least forty percent of their first downs. Dan Graham and Ben Watson present some intriguing passing game match-up problems for any team that does not have multiple rover linebackers/strong safeties (6-2+, 225lbs+, 4.5 or better speed) and if a team has a light fast defense in, the tight ends can stay in and assist the power running game. This is one of the many less than pleasent choices the Patriots force teams to make. This is a key illustration of what Bill Bellicheck has been attempting to build over the past five years --- situations where the best solution is still an unsatisfactory solution for the opposition.

I am slightly worried about the wide receivers over the course of the season as Deion Branch, he of the amazing quicks, and fragile body, has yet to play a 16 game season. Troy Brown is old, as is Tim Dwight, while Andre Davis is new right now. Bethel Johnson has amazing speed, but is still inconsistent and injury prone. The only receiver I am not worried about is David Givens. However within this set of receivers, there is a wide diversity of skills and attributes that would allow the Patriots to quickly shift their offensive focus from short crossing routes in a West Coast Flavor to a vertical game. I would think tonight that the Patriots would want to take advantage of the comparative slowness of Oakland's big linebacker corps and run plenty of crossing routes and seam patterns with receivers and tight ends isolated against a linebacker who is bigger than some defensive ends.

Now onto defense, this has been the forte of the Patriots' ability to mirror and deny an opponent's strength over the past four years. I am liking the defensive line quite a bit. I was surprised that the Patriots cut Rodney Bailey in favor of keeping undrafted rookie Mike Wright, but even still, the Pats in their base 3-4 have significant talent in their starters and impressive depth. Richardy Seymour and Vince Wilfork each demand two blockers on running plays, and Ty Warren will dominate against most right tackles when he is one on one. Oakland will be forced to keep their running backs or tight ends in to help block more often than they would prefer.

The strength of the defensive line is the strength of the unit as a whole. If the three linemen and the typical pass rushing linebacker can force Oakland to keep seven blockers in, the task for the secondary just got a whole lot easier. I am not sure who the starting cornerbacks will be tonight, as the Patriots currently have four corners who have started for Super Bowl winners on the roster. I would imagine that the Patriots will attempt to play some aggressive man with zone support against Randy Moss and keep Chad Scott in as the physical bump and run corner for at least third down plays. I also anticipate the Patriots keeping Eugene Wilson in deep centerfield for most of the game, as I think that the Patriots would be willing to see Moss have a T-O type game if they can shut down everyone else on the field. They just need to avoid the multiple big plays that are Moss's bread and butter, even if that means giving up more 10-15 yard gains.

I am not sure what the Patriot linebackers will be doing this year. The outside linebackers are experienced, fast, smart and solid. Roosevelt Colvin should finally be completely healed from his hip injury suffered two years ago while Willie McGuinest just gets craftier and better as his health is still with him. I doubt that Willie McGuinest will be healthy for the entire season, but Tully Banta Cain, in limited playing time, has shown some significant pass rush ability over the past year. Mike Vrabel is just a playmaker who is never out of position.

The loss of the top three playing time inside linebackers from last year is a large loss which creates a significant question mark. I am glad that Vrabel is shifting to the inside, as he is smart, and it will keep the Pats' three best linebackers on the field more often. The question mark is who plays next to him --- Monty Biesel or Chad Brown. I think this will be a platoon position with Brown in on run downs and Biesel in on pass downs.

I have a difficult time seeing how the Raider's defense can keep the Patriots from scoring, and so far, the Patriots have taken down better quarterbacks who play vertical passing games with comparative ease (Hi there Kurt, hi there Peyton.) I forsee a lot of pressure, and a lot of sacks against Collins unless the Raiders invent an effective screen game. Therefore, I am calling it 27-17 Patriots winning.

Raiders @ Patriots Fanatical Sophistry

This post will be posted at Harkonnendog, as usual, but also at Fester's Place. Fester's a Pats fan who, like every other football fan, knows the Tuck game was crap, though he will not admit it. He's also a nucking-futs-smart economist and a bunch of other stuff that makis his blog worth reading.

Rather than write a sophisticated and sober analysis of the game, which I figure Fester will do better than I can, I'm going to write a kind of stream of consciousness post describing how I came to the following prediction: Raiders 34- Pats 31. It wasn't easy getting there, but now that I'm there I'm sticking to it!

Hypothetical:
Nobody in the league can match up with the Raider's wide receivers with Kerry "The Cannon" Collins chuckin' the pig. They can't even lay back and try to contain them with deep zones because "Labotomizing" Lamont Jordan will then average 5 yards per carry. Raiders win!
Test:
That Indy team has a pretty good QB, receiving corps, and runner. Since they wrecked the Pats we will too- oh shit.
But:
With Ty Law and Romeo Crennel gone the Pats aren't the same. Plus Moss is better than Owens and Owens had a huge SB.
Result:
Raiders will score a lot but not dominate the Pats defense.

Hypo:
The Raider D will contain the Pats offense.
Test:
I won't even bother to try to justify this.
But:
We're better. We had a great preseason against the likes of, um... we ARE better, though! Plus we have this freaky-deaky 6-5 lineup nobody has ever seen. Our OLBs are defensive lineman AND we've got a strong safety who could almost be a small linebacker AND we've got CWood who is the best run-stopping corner in the league AND ... well that's enough, ain't it? The Pats won't run on us. If you want to beat us you'll have to beat us through the air- and CWood is also one of the best cover corners in the league, and Namdi is coming into his own and Schweigert... er... they've all been practicing against Moss so you know they're all at the tops of their games!
Result:
The Raider D containst but does not dominate Pat's O.

California Legislates to Make Gay Marriage Legal

Kudos to them! (And kudos to Captain's Quarters, for bringing it to my attention here) Anti-kudos to the state's republicans, who are whining and calling shenanigans:

But opponents repeatedly cited the public's vote five years ago to approve Proposition 22, an initiative put on the ballot by gay marriage opponents to keep California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries.

I call shenanigans on that call of shenanigans. Democratic republic- you elect the people you dig and trust them to do the right thing. It's one thing for conservatives to say liberals shouldn't legislate gay marriage into law from the bench, it is something else to say you shouldn't legislate gay marriage into law from the legislature!

Uh-uh. You California Republicans (the politicians I mean) are the suck. Legalizing gay marriage, the right way, the way California has, hurts nobody and benefits a lot of people. So STFU!

How Bizarre, How Bizarre

Click here for the link.

'Don't turn away' bomber families

Mr Livingstone said it would be offensive to turn people away

Families of the 7 July suicide bombers should be allowed to attend the national memorial service for the victims, according to London's mayor.

Ken Livingstone said they should not be turned away from the 1 November mass at St Paul's Cathedral for the 52 victims.

The event is billed as a service for those who died and a tribute to police, firefighters and paramedics.

Church leaders would like the bombers' families to attend but only with approval from the bereaved and injured.

Speaking at his weekly press conference at City Hall, Mr Livingstone said: "They have to decide if they want to come and share the grief of Londoners and celebrate the lives of those that were killed on the day.

We certainly don't want to hurt the feeling of the people who raised mass murderers.

Good Post of the Day Here. Two actually.

Everybody's probably read this- but in case you're one of the few who haven't:
Tribes

This is an excellent break down of the way different agencies etc. responded to Katrina.

Able Danger confirmed.

Captain's Quarters has the scoops, as well as a bunch of links. You won't hear much about this right now, of course, but today is merely the end of the beginning of this story. The 911 Omission Commission needs a good ass kicking and it is coming.

3-1 about New Orleans

The old saying goes “When you point a finger at someone, remember you are pointing three fingers back at yourself.” This applies well to people laying blame for the New Orlean’s tragedy.

You’ve got your religious f***s who are saying New Orleans got it because New Orleans or the US deserved it. These people are the suck.
Via Eric over at Classical Values comes the following info:
Louis Farrakhan (Muslim) says the hurricane was meant to punish the US for our sins in Iraq.
Michael Marcavage (Christian) says the hurricane was meant to punish New Orleans for being a Soddom-Gomorrah kind of city.
And Godhatesfags.com of course says New Orleans has been destroyed because God hates fags.

Then you’ve got you’re political pundits who are saying New Orleans got it because Bush is Hitler the Oil Monkey.
Our beloved Cernig implied as much earlier today on the UPC.
More liberals than I have bothered to count have said the Kyoto treaty would have ended global warming and the hurricane then would not have existed. (Yes- I know these particular liberals are not just raving loonies, but ridiculously stupid raving loonies, and that most liberals know how stupid the claim is. I realize ANY thinking person, liberal or not, will figure out it is ridiculous in about 20 seconds.)
A more creative liberal blamed it on Reagan, saying that if Carter had won in 1980 the global warming which caused this particular hurricane would not have happened. (It is like reading crappy sci-fi alternate universe book premises.)
A Daily Kos diarist wrote a long and very thoughtful post proving that the Superdome was a deathtrap designed to kill blacks.
Hate is a strong motivater of imagination.

Which is kind of odd, because you want to blame something- blame a general LACK of imagination. Another hat tip to Eric at Classical Values- who brought me to this link.

Scroll down until you see the graphic representing this:

The city of New Orleans, which is at or below sea-level in many areas, is sandwiched between levees from Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to its south creating the “bowl” effect so often described.

New Orleans is a soup bowl sunk into water. It rains in the bowl. It is like… imagine putting a bowl in a sink which is just high enough not to flow into the bowl. No, that is all wrong. It is more like dropping a shoe in a sink, since a shoe is porous, and using a straw to suck water out as it fills. Also, the top of the shoe is actually UNDER the water, only you cut the very top rim off of a plastic cup and stuck it into the top of the shoe to keep the water out.

Why does such an inherently dangerous city exist? So whose fault is that? Nobody’s… New Orleans is an old, old city by American standards. It grew organically. There is no boogeyman or group of boogeymen to blame here.

No- Girls Gone Wild is not the reason New Orleans is flooded.
No- Iraq is not the reason New Orleans is flooded.
No- Reagan is not the reason New Orleans is flooded.
No- Clinton is not the reason New Orleans is flooded. (I didn’t bother to look but I’m pretty damn sure it isn’t Bubba’s fault, much as I hate to admit it.)

New Orleans is flooded because it was a flood waiting to happen. Spend your energy elsewhere.

Shame

Jonah Goldber said it...


END OF CIVILIZATION CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg]
Look: Looting for personal gain is reprehensible and should be swiftly punished. But when people fire weapons on doctors and rescue vehicles, it is a sign of profound moral decay more grotesque than words can describe. That these images are being beamed around the world is a source of deep shame. Even copkillers like Mumia Abu Jamal can have a perverse morality to them, in the sense that in their worldview cops represent oppression or some such. I think that's an attitude that runs the gamut from profoundly misguided to profoundly malevolent and copkillers should get the death penalty, period. But shooting people as they try to save the lives of babies and old women is an act so base and vile that it cannot even support the veneer of a pernicious ideology. This is so depressing.

Yeah.