The Lasso of Truth

"To the Moon, Alice!"

Or not, as it would seem.

Glenn Reynolds muses...

But will Obama back other means of promoting space exploration? My own guess is that he’s actually hostile too space, regardless of budget priorities, but who knows?

It's not that hard to know, actually.

The left has always been hostile to the space program, mostly for one overlying reason -- because it represents the height of human endeavor and is the starkest repudiation of the denialists who prefer to conceive of humans as nothing more than the brutes at the top of the food chain.

Obama may be making all the noises of wanting to shift the focus of space exploration, onto the private sector, but how long before that shift gets paired with a raft of new and stifling regulations, making commercial space flight too onerous and too expensive to bother with?  Because stifling it is the point, you see...

A new meaning to "orgy of violence"

If this theory holds any merit (and I think that it does), you can imagine what we can look forward to, when this burgeoning problem comes to a head.

Marginally related...

A group of three geographers who research internet map data did an exhaustive study of user-generated markers on Google maps. [..] 

One of their most recent results is this map showing the prevalence of words associated with different religions (they picked the words "Jesus," "Hindu," "Buddha," and "Allah"). [..]

Then the researchers added in places where there were markers that had the word "sex" in them. You get a nice view of sexy places and religious places.

The abundance of purple dots in Western Europe is unsurprising, as is the rarity of purple dots in the Middle East.  But who do the South Americans think they're fooling?

I can't afford to buy you flowers ;)

Four years ago tonight, I attended what promised to be a typical night of levity and political schmoozing - a bi-partisan bar night in joint celebration/lamentation of the recent Conservative Party electoral win.

I was meeting up with a few blog friends and decided, since he lived in the area, to invite my most devoted regular reader.

"I'll be the one with the pigtails."  I said in my email invitation.  Cute and saucy, like I always am, to everybody.  Thinking it would be just another chance to interact with a kindred spirit from the blog world, like I'd done a bazillion times before.

But the sweet face that greeted me and my pigtails was not just a kindred spirit.  He was a soul mate.  It wasn't long after, before my heart realized it and my life changed forever.

The realization was terrifying and the changes were painful for all of us.  But I believe I can safely say, on behalf of myself, my children, and the sweet man who is now my husband, that the joy we share now was worth every trial and every tear.

The Conservatives still rule the roost (for now), and they suck in many predictable (and unpredictable) ways, despite being the best choice of the bunch at the time.  But after four years of having to set up a whole new life together, dealing with two very uncooperative and unpleasant ex-spouses, fighting two (going into three) drawn-out, expensive and harrowing court battles, amalgamating and raising six dynamic and challenging (and immeasurably wonderful) children (and the boatloads of laundry and dishes that go with), plus pleasing one very obnoxious and demanding ginger cat - I can honestly confess to not one single ounce of buyer's remorse.

Thank you Mikey, for coming out on that cold January evening, to meet a saucy blogger and her silly pigtails.  You gave me my life back and made me into the person I always hoped I'd be.  You showed me how to live the life I'd only imagined for my heroes.  You showed me that heroes really do exist.

Now, if only they could take office...

;)

THIS is why I'm not a fashionista

Where they see avant garde couture, I just see...well, I don't know what the heck to call it...

 Sadly, this isn't even the weirdest one. 

I guess I'm just not cultured enough.

WANT. ONE.

In Gunmetal Grey.

What justice?

'In this case I believe there is a legitimate public interest in naming this offender. It may prove to be a deterrent to others.'

Not when the see what his sentence was.

Or how about this one?

And they keep on coming...'You have to remember just how unusual this case is. These children were so young.'  Yes.  I see that.

Oh, the irony...

Of King Charles making the "fake, but accurate" argument in defence of warmenists who falsify and manipulate data for political purposes.

Maybe he'd be less sympathetic if they were Republicans, from Alaska.

The importance of face time

Although it's not the main crux of the article, I found this part interesting...

The research doesn’t bode well for the late-night booty text, one-night stand, or random fornication in the fraternity house as pathways to an orgasm. In the one-on-one interviews included in the study, one man explained that with his girlfriend, “definitely oral is really important [for her to orgasm],” but that with a casual hookup, “I don’t give a shit.”

For all the talk about the sexual revolution "empowering" women, the truth is, casual sex and casual attitudes about sex actually reduce a man's view of a woman from the status of potential life partner, to glory hole - with shoes.

h/t

Banana Cream Bomber

Let me be clear.

I have no kind words or tolerance for activists who toss pies, shoes, or anything, at elected officials,to score press exposure and cheap political points.  It’s assault and should be dealt with as such, to the fullest extent of the law, in order to discourage these types of stunts.

But…

I also believe that when we overreact, and try to get this idiocy labeled as terrorism, what we really do is diminish the impression and concept of what terrorism really is.  The corollary of this kind of nonsense is that when a real terrorist act gets committed or planned, the perpetrator(s) get placed on the same level as a pie-thrower at a luncheon.

Is that really what we want?

The power to silence

And the abuse of that power...

An infringement of the Charter by the actions of the delegated decision-maker in applying the legislation, as distinct from the legislation itself, does not render the legislation invalid.

This is what so-called free speech, in this country, has come to...A never-ending fight against the ultimate Weeble.

Shucks!

And just think...we missed out on hearing him say "Barack Obama doesn't like black people".

Or perhaps wrestling George Clooney to the floor, for the mic.

Who approved this?!

I definitely think whoever decided to inscribe American military gun sights with Bible verse codes should be fired immediately!

If he had half a brain, he'd ensure that all weapons be oiled with pork fat, instead. Sheesh!  What, are you new?!

Weekend Pinup

This week has been a revolving door between work and bed, for my sweet hubby and me.  The week started out with a raging stomach flu that knocked us both flat, and has progressed to a general malaise and wracking cough with TB-ish intonations.  Today is work - again.  I think I'll spend the whole day tomorrow, snuggling up in bed with my fellow sick-heart ;)

~ The funny thing is, if the U.S. had a machine capable of creating a catastrophic earthquake, anywhere in the world, Haiti would seem a peculiar choice of target, wouldn't you think?  I mean, there's no oil there, no industry, no Muslims...

~ While Hugo is at it, perhaps he would like to fling the accusation that the U.S. is responsible for the cold snap that's killing the mentally infirm in Cuba.  Oops!  They beat him to it...

~ From the founder of a movement to "liberate women"..."The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."  Looking on at the consequences (unintended or otherwise) of progressive social engineering.

~ Examining why the middle class is the segment most discontent with government.  Boiled down: Too poor to be in on the pork shoveling and too rich to be at the trough.  But read it anyway.

~ Regarding the madness of King Charles and the question of what prompted the change of heart?  Don't discount the possibility that he was never with us in the first place and it was only knee-jerk anger at 9/11 that lead to his temporary alignment with the right...anger which, by his own admission, has faded over time.  Or, he could just be a megalomaniacal narcissist.  I'm of an open mind.

Speaking softly, without the big stick

Every Wednesday morning, John Oakley has John Bolton on his morning show to discuss world events.  My son and I try to never miss it, and it is a highlight of our morning drive to school.

When a 15-year-old emo kid can understand and appreciate your knowledge and eloquence on foreign policy, you’ve achieved a minor miracle.  I can tell you.

Due to this regular contact, I was marginally oblivious to the fact that he was no longer the US ambassador to the UN, or who his replacement was.  I don’t feel so bad though, realizing now that the latest ambassador leaves an impression slightly more memorable than a stump of wood.

Do you get the impression that her colleagues regularly refer to her as wazzername?

While Rice, like all Democrat-appointed US Ambassadors to the UN, also serves in the President’s cabinet, she has nevertheless been absent at many crucial Security Council meetings in New York during some of the world body’s most turbulent times.  Rice was even missing from this week’s Security Council debate and vote to add new Peacekeepers to a beleaguered UN operation in Haiti.  According to several UN veteran reporters and some US Mission staff, Rice has been missing from crucial negotiations on Iran too.  They say that when Rice does attend UN negotiations, she is all too willing to avoid confrontation.  The Permanent Members of the Security Council – the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia and China – rely on American leadership to drive issues to a close and force votes.  While the Permanent Members historically complain publicly about being forced to vote or meet on certain issues, without one country driving issues to completion the UN Members will keep talking or find ways to continue fruitless discussions.  After spending 8 years inside the UN and watching the Security Council debate a plethora of issues, I can personally attest to the fact that an effective American Ambassador cannot worry about being the most popular person in the room.  Forcing an end to a UN debate and calling for the Security Council to vote on an issue is never popular.

Over the last year, Rice has avoided tough negotiations and public feuds at the UN and has subsequently produced very few UN resolutions on America’s priority issues.  While other foreign Ambassadors speak fondly of Rice and her ability to make nice at the UN, she has been a weak negotiator for the American people.  Many UN veterans have indicated that Rice’s lack of leadership on the Iranian issue in particular has forced the French Ambassador to pick up the slack in trying to forge a new Security Council resolution to increase sanctions.  The irony that the French are tougher than the Americans on the Iran issue has not been lost on career State Department officials.

Uh oh!

Mikey won't be happy to hear that his "daily physical" may actually be doing harm to his health...

According to a new research out of the UK, men who have frequent sex in their twenties and thirties were at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer later in life.

[..]

Since prostate cancer is known to be associated with male hormone levels, the researchers used frequency of sex as a proxy. They theorized that a man who had lots of sex when young would have had higher hormone levels driving the urge. Thus, highly sexed men — men who had sex more than 20 times a month, according to the study — should be more prone to prostate cancer.

But there is hope for the future...

One of the more puzzling aspects of Dimitropoulou's study is the fact that the trends she identified appear to reverse when men have frequent sex in their forties and fifties.

"A possible explanation for the protective effect that men in their fifties appear to receive from overall sexual activity, and particularly masturbation, is that the release of accumulated toxins during sexual activity reduces the risk of developing cancer in the prostate area,"

Just a few years of abstinence, and you'll be in the clear, my love!

In the meantime, maybe it's time to milk that sucker ;)

This is how the enlightened ones do it

And I am left to wonder if this girl could have avoided all this trouble, if she had used the phone as a detonator, instead.

Because apparently, that's ok where they come from.

A strange venue for "sensitivity"

I think it’s amazing (and pathetic) that a game which invariably always involves a mixture of fist fights, elbows to the face and teeth knocked to the ice, would be suddenly paralyzed in a collective gasp of revulsion and echoing silence, in the wake of a “racial slur”...

An on-ice racial slur by an Oakville high school male hockey player has prompted the school's principal to shut down the team for the season.

The Thomas A. Blakelock Tigers will not skate for the remainder of the 2009-10 Halton Secondary School Athletic Association (HSSAA) season after the player directed a discriminatory slur against a player of Middle Eastern heritage on the Milton District Mustangs on Dec. 16.

How did we get to a place where physical assault is grounds for a 2 minute penalty, but muttering a heeb or raghead comment nets the entire team banishment for the rest of the season?

Congratulations!

 
So sexy.

I'll leave the complex analysis to others.  For now, I'm just sorry Teddy wasn't still alive to see it happen. 

Calling for an occupation

From quarters where the hue and cry would be deafening, should imperialist westerners dare occupy, to civilize, violent cesspools like Afghanistan or Palestine -- we have the call to send in the Marines..!

Canada, the U.S., France and other nations are rushing aid to Haiti. Food and medical help are essential, but Haiti also must have an effective government that cares for its desperate people. A small UN contingent has achieved little. What Haiti really needs is to be again administered by the U.S. Marine Corps.

This column despises any form of imperial action as a grave violation of democratic and republican values. But the U.S. could do enormous good for Haiti, which needs a major rescue mission for a desperate people who have failed to govern themselves and have no other hope. Most Haitians, I think, would welcome U.S. humanitarian intervention.

It's heartening to see a member of the esteemed intelligentsia acknowledge that there are societies which cannot be relied up on to govern themselves, and require the hand of a functioning democracy, to establish working order.  One wonders though, what distinguishes Haitians from, say, Palestinians...I mean, other than skin color?

Well, if you mean they're more bratty...

...then I would have to agree.  Otherwise, I think my ex-husband, my current husband, both my parents, my children and a significant portion of my acquaintences, would all have to disagree that any fairer creature could be more determined or warlike than me, both in my natural red-haired state, or my bottled brunette.

The only blonde I've ever met who is more warlike than me, also has batshit crazy and bitchy in the hopper, in quantities that I simply can't muster.  That is where intelligence becomes the edge...and nobody is craftier than this saucy little redhead ;)

h/t

The true nature of God

I don't have much time for a kook like Pat Robertson.  Most decent people don't.

But the good Christians who get frustrated whenever his caustic delusions gain traction have to understand something:

In the Bible, there's a whole lot of smiting going on.  Time and again, the tale has been told of civilization going astray and being wiped out by an act of God, to start over.  The fate of Sodom as well as the story of the flood in Genesis, are iconic examples of the destructive brutality of God's wrath, as it's related through the sacred text.

So, don't be surprised when even the unbelievers among us hear a creep like Robertson profess the intentions and motivations of God, and figure that matches pretty well with the image that even his own spokesmen have put out there.

Instead of taking issue with the messenger, perhaps the more rational among you should start taking issue with the message.

Weekend Pinup

~ Today's saucy little platforms are brought to you by the validation I feel upon hearing that I'm not the only woman who prefers high heels for just about everything - and it's not such a bad thing.  I may just put a pair on, for sleep tonight ;)  Thanks Paul.

~ And in the world where saucy will get you killed, apparently getting raped will also get you arrested - or at least, reporting it will.  It's important to note, I think, that this woman is not a citizen of Dubai, but the imposition of Sharia social law on her personal life choices, while vacationing there should be a warning to anyone who travels and regards Islamic rule as just a quaint little local custom. 

~ The fascists of Iran are busy spinning a revisionist weave around the internationally witnessed murder of Neda Soltan.  Your lyin' eyes, and such.  Because gawd knows, Iranian officials would never brutalize one of their own citizens.

~ Meanwhile, this is a rather overly-optimistic look at democratic trends in the rising wave of Islamic demographics.  The belief that "Islamic parties often find themselves liberalized by the electoral process." Doesn't take into account the fact that politicians lie to get elected and often hide their true intentions until they have gained power.  Islamic politicians are likely aware of this strategy and may, in fact, be using our naivety about the insidiousness of their system of rule, against us.

~ Speaking of blood-sucking social degradation...We saw Daybreakers last night, and LOVED IT. LOVED IT. LOVED IT.  It's really something, when the screeching, snarling, de-evolved bat-like creature elicits a feeling of pity, while it mindlessly savages everything within it's reach.  Worth seeing, if only to cleanse your mental palette of the "sparkly vampires" of recent film.

I have a suggestion

Since they don't like us using the word "Allah", we can make up a few nicknames to use instead.  For example, we could call him a "goat-humping pedophile", or maybe "violent retard"...

That way they can have Allah all to themselves.

We're all about peaceful compromises here, at The Lasso.

And in the spirit of plentiful diversity, please feel free to offer more suggestions in the comments...

Friday Afternoon Rumor

Canadian Liberal MPs don't think the work in their individual constituencies is important enough to do, when they are not expected to sit in Parliament. 

They'd rather spend their time sitting around Ottawa, sulking.

That's just what I hear...

What was your first hint?

Could it be that they even havea department called the Anti-Human Sacrifice Taskforce?

Faster Please!

Am I losing my mind? Could it really be the French showing some iron-clad balls, these days..?

Women who wear Islamic veils in public will be liable to a fine of more than £700 under strict new laws being formulated in France.

The amount could be doubled for Muslim men who force their wives or other female members of their family to cover their faces.

Of course, some of the real gold can be found in the comments...

If this rule actually becomes law, then me and my family will move to UK. I am not prepared to live in a country that dictates what clothes i wear !
- Nasbeen, Paris,France, 07/1/2010 12:03

I've got a better idea, why don't you move to Afganistan instead.

- norm, Newcastle upon Tyne, 07/1/2010

Amen, norm.  Amen.

Paper or plastic? I wish...

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a ban placed on plastic grocery bags in the municipality where I live.  The nearby fascist bastion of Toronto though, has recently put such a ban in place and my local grocery chains have been all too eager to follow suit voluntarily, in the interest of tacking an extra 5 cents per, onto my grocery bill.  My parents have it even worse.  The new large-chain grocery store in their neck of the woods doesn’t even offer bags at all, whether you pay for them or not.  All in the interest of feigning eco-piety.

Commentary notes some of the corollary effects in the wake of the death of the plastic grocery bag…

A nickel might not seem like much. But anyone who has lived recently in Hong Kong and experienced their 6-cent bag tax knows how burdensome that levy makes commerce. There, grocery-store clerks must cram as much as possible into a single, side-split reusable bag – or face a perturbed customer. (Never underestimate the public’s desire to save a buck.) Milk, butter, and eggs become Tetris blocks; and consequently, the checkout lines grow longer and longer as clerks painstakingly pack for maximum space efficiency.

But that is not all. Customers once re-used their grocery bags to dispose of trash; now, in Hong Kong, they buy trash bags. This suggests the tax is not effective in reducing bag consumption; it certainly doesn’t encourage conservation of resources. But it does, evidently, cause delay and hassle for everyone.

And increases revenue for the tax-takers.

Another unpleasant consequence I have personally noted is the degradation of the service level of my grocery buying experience.  Where once I used to have my purchases sorted and packaged for transport, now, even when I pay for the bags, the cashier hands a mitt full of empty bags to me and patiently stands inert while I bag things myself and hold the line up.  In fact, on a recent trip to my local store, while I was paying for and bagging my purchases, I overheard the petulant little sprite behind the counter complaining to one of her coworkers about an encounter she had with a shopper who actually dared to expect the cashier to bag her groceries with the bags she paid for!

Charge me more and service me less.  Is this really what we’ve come to?

Decoding Darwin

Another step down the path of understanding evolution...

In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argued that Darwinian evolution is driven by "selfish genes" that want to replicate themselves. Wrong! It turns out that evolution functions even among proteins that have no DNA.

Proving, once again, that science is never settled.

JUST. NOT. GETTING. IT.

Not that I'm a big fan of the idea of installing scanners at the airport, but this initiative seems somehow self-defeating...

Travellers under 18 will be exempt from Canada's peek-a-boo body scanners amid international fears that the resulting images would amount to child pornography.

because gawd knows, terrorists would never resort to using a child as a vessel for a bomb.

If we were really serious about security, we would call up a few Israelis to come over and show us how it's done.  After all, when was the last time one of their planes was the subject of a breaking news report?

A fitting effigy

Heh.