February 12, 2007

GUESS I'LL START RIOTING IN PROTEST

Most TV opinion shows have the decency to have at least one person from each side of the issue they're discussing. When they don't, it makes them look a little catty.

Like this clip from Paula Zahn's show that I found via Hot Air (and an e-mail from Frank J. of IMAO), where they discussed their final solution to the atheist problem without having an atheist on the panel.

First, ya gotta love those big, yellow, hornets'-nest-stirring questions in the background:

"Why do atheists inspire such hatred?"

and

"Are atheistic tactics too militant?"

Jerks.

Anyway, it occurs to me that just as non-terrorist Muslims need to speak out, condemn, and separate themselves from the splodey-dope lunatics who claim to be members of the same religion, I - as a tolerant, sane, non-evangelical atheist - need to do the same thing.

When people talk about atheists, they usually think about the frothing, blasphemous, God-hating, religion-mockers. People who write screedy, antagonistic diatribes like Russ of Pam's House Blend.

I just don't understand that stuff.

I think most people agree that in-your-face Christian evangelicals can be annoying with their constant fretting about the state of your soul, and their polite-but-condescending invitations to Bible studies. It's like having your 70-year-old mother who lives in another state calling you before you go to work to remind you to take an umbrella because the Weather Channel says it looks like rain.

Thanks for caring, but really, I'm good, here.

But why should atheists adopt the same tactic, going out of their way to antagonize Christians? It's a waste of time. You're not going to de-convert anyone. Try doing something productive with your life.

Personally, I'm not so insecure about my lack of religious beliefs that I feel the need to sway people to my way of thinking, and I'm not afraid of or offended by the little scraps of Christianity that poke their heads up in day to day living, like having "IN GOD WE TRUST" on the back of my currency. Let's face it, no one's ever said to me "You must be a Christian because the money you're spending professes trust in a deity".

And just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I think that "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others" must automatically be bad advice. I believe in wisdom, regardless of the source. I just don't believe in miracles.

So you go ahead and worship your God, and I'll go ahead and not worship mine, and as long as neither one of us are obnoxious about it, I don't see any reason why we all can't get along.

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September 05, 2006

BOOK REVIEW: THE BLOG OF WAR

The first time I ever reviewed anything written by Matty O'Blackfive, I had this to say:

...the setup is overly long, and the first part probably should've been in a separate post and shortly summarized before the more relevant part of the story.

In other words, "shut up, boy... ya talk too much".

After I got to meet him in person, I found out that that was a feature, not a bug. Matt's a born story-teller, and - since he's of Irish descent - I assume that he not only kissed the Blarney Stone, he may have given it more than a little tongue in the process.

However, when it comes to his book ("The Blog of War", by Matthew Currier Burden, paperback, 304 pages, available at Amazon.com) he does an amazing thing: aside from various introductions and the Epilogue, he actually shuts up and lets other people do the talking. You'll never see that in REAL life, so you might want to buy the book just for that experience alone.

On the other hand, those of you who know Matt also know how much he enjoys name-dropping. In this book, he does little but. What it lacks in personal loquacity, it makes up for in shout-outs to folks both in and closely related to the military.

Which is appropriate, since it's their stories that he's telling in his book - told in their own words and often taken directly from their own blog posts - with very short introductions by Matt. These are arranged in chapters according to various aspects of the war experience, summarized below:

1 - "Some Must Go To Fight The Dragons" - Setting the stage for the rest of the book by dealing with the broad, philosophical reasons why some men chose to put their life on the line to answer their nation's call. This chapter - like many of the others - is hard to read. Not because it's poorly written, but because it's written so well. It's hard on the heart, and touches the reader's deepest core

2 - "Life In A War Zone" - Very earthy, very gritty, very you-are-there tales from the front line. I imagine that to civilians, some of the oddball fuck-aroundery in NCO Alley will seem incomprehensible, but those with military experience will be able to relate and will get a huge kick out of it. I don't know if I'll ever get that "like a coyote ravishing a housecat" line out of my head.

3 - "The Healers" - Tells exactly WHY war is hell, in heart-rending, blood-soaked detail. If you don't tear up, wince, or flinch away from the book at least once during this chapter, I'd suggest getting your soul checked, because I would question your humanity.

4 - "Leaders, Warriors, and Diplomats" - There's a lot of talk about "winning hearts and minds" in this war. The newspapers will never explain what that actually means. This chapter does. You'll see soldiers winning with a cool head instead of a hot hand, and perhaps you'll come away with a better understanding of the fact that war isn't all about killing. It's about accomplishing the mission, however that needs to be done.

5 - "The Warriors" - I'm going to be understated. This - in clear and disturbing detail - is what good men have to do to keep you safe. If you ever meet one of these men, thank him. Profusely.

6 - "Heroes of the Homefront" - Another "hard on the heart" chapter. This is the hell the families left stateside have to go through to keep you safe. If you ever meet them, thank them also.

7 - "The Fallen" - Unlike the other chapters, you KNOW how the stories in this one will end. There is no way to thank these men. They are gone. All you can do is honor them by cherishing the freedoms they bought for you with their lives, and never forgetting what they've done.

8 - "Homecoming" - As much as our troops want to be out of the war zone, the transition back to life in the safe, civilized United States is rife with mixed emotions and conflicting feelings. For our troops, it's one final battle to win the war inside themselves.

As for the epilogue... well, you remember how Animal House ended? With little snippets of "where are they now?"

Somehow, I'm not surprised Matt used this technique himself.

Teasing aside, I think it was an excellent idea to give some closure with the people the reader has come to know and care about. Well done.

I'll also mention that there's a handy glossary for military terms and acronyms. You probably won't need it, though, since Matt and the contributors did a pretty good job of defining the terms as they came up. Even the greenest of civilians will be able to avoid getting lost in the terminology.

So... were there any bad parts? Is this review going to be nothing but ass-kissing suck-uppery of Matt's brilliance?

Not really, and mostly. The only thing I could find to complain about is that a few of Matt's introductory paragraphs are written - for no discernable reason - in present tense instead of past tense. I realize that's a bit of nit-picking on my part, but I stand by it. I also lay the blame for it squarely on the shoulders of the book's editor, who should have corrected it before the book went to press.

However, that and the occasiona minor typo (possibly in the original posts being reprinted) will likely pass completely unnoticed by the reader, since the stories themselves are too gripping to leave awareness left over for grammatical niceties.

Do I recommend this book?

Yes.

If you support the war, but don't know anyone personnally who's serving overseas, you owe it to yourself - out of intellectual honesty, if nothing else - to read this to find out EXACTLY what it is you're supporting.

If you enjoy reading warbloggers, you will enjoy the familiar, blog-entry-like style of the tales contained within. It reads so much like a blog, I sometimes found my hand twitching to try to click a link. No book has ever cried out more to be published in a fully hyper-linked electronic format.

If you've served overseas, you should read it so that you can see whether you should nod your head in agreement or call "bullshit" over an inaccurate description (of which I suspect there will be very few). I'd be curious to see whether those in-the-know think Matt got it right.

Who would I not recommend this book to?

Those with delicate constitutions. There's plenty of coarse language and adult situations. I'd give it a good, solid R rating. Definitely not for children or the child-like.

On the other hand, I also think everyone should buy this book so that Matt can quit his crappy day job and go to blogging full time. Which would be a wonderful thing.

Even if he does talk too much ;-)

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August 29, 2006

IS THERE ANYTHING PEOPLE *WON'T* SAY TO GET THEIR 15 MINUTES?

David Frum is talking about the Hezbollah Hundreds again. And he's talking out of his ass. For example:

Only one thing was missing--the thin wire security strip that runs from top to bottom of a genuine US$100 bill. The money Hezbollah was passing was counterfeit, as should have been evident to anybody who studied the photographs with due care.

I assume he's talking about the one single picture that shows a $100 bill with light passing through it, which I discussed in a previous post

As I said before, I don't think the picuture is clear enough to be definitive.

He goes on to brag about how "SnappedShots.com, MyPetJawa and Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs" pointed out the counterfeiting:

These [blog] sites magnified photographs and showed them to currency experts and detected irregularity after irregularity in the bills.

I'm calling bullshit. Other than the questionable "absence" of a security strip, there was nothing in any of the pictures I saw which indicated that those notes were counterfeit. American currency is subject to wide variations in ink color and seal placement, and all the notes I saw were within spec.

I'm putting out a challenge: if there's anyone who can point out any "irregularites" BESIDES the crispness of the notes, the security strip in that ONE picture, ink color, or seal placement, (all of which I address in the earlier post mentioned above) please bring it to my attention, I'll tell you whatever I can based on my considerable currency-handling experience.

And for heaven's sake, use direct URL's that work.

A final thought, because I want to be very clear on this point. I'm NOT saying these bills are genuine. I'm saying that I haven't seen enough evidence to declare them counterfeit. Unlike these so-called "currency experts" who are, in my opinion, simply taking advantage of the situation to gain a little ego-stroking from the media.

[Hat tip to reader Larwyn for pointing out Frum's article to me]

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August 26, 2006

MY CONCLUSION ON THE "HEZBOLLAH HUNDREDS"

I've been chatting with Sticky Notes about whether Hezbollah is passing out fake $100's, and, as I said earlier, I'm not inclined to believe they're fake.

But if that money IS genuine, that leads me to another thought:

That cash is a few years old, and it's still in like-new condition. Whoever is bankrolling this operation is well-funded enough to let large stacks of US currency sit around untouched for years.

This is no grass-roots relief effort. There's a major player involved. Who that might be, I don't have enough information to speculate on, but it narrows down to a question of "what source of Hezbollah funding could afford to sit on hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in cash without needing to spend it?"

Whoever it is needs to have their assets frozen until they decide that terrorism is not a good investment.

Interestingly enough, Sticky Notes speculates that if they ARE fake (which I admit they might be - I can't tell for sure without actually touching them), she might have a guess as to their source.

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June 23, 2006

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREAT

The Humble Devildog of Random Firings of Neurons listened to his music collection and contemplated the causes of "greatness".

To me, the most notable aspect of great men is that they possess an insane and fanatical devotion to the pursuit of their goals. The spend what normal people consider "too much" time doing what they love.

In the cases he cites, it's music. They spent too much time reading it, writing it, and playing it. And they created a large body of crappy and forgettable work in the process. Most people wouldn't be able to continue after producing those tons of worthless garbage - they'd think "I can't do any better than this. I might as well give up."

But the greats kept on trying anyway. "Luck", after all, is when hard work meets opportunity.

They probably had a LOT of people tell them "There's more to life than just music. Why don't you get out once in a while? Get a hobby. Learn to play golf or something".

Thankfully, these idiots were ignored.

Of course, producing large quantities of crap does NOT guarantee eventual greatness (see my 6000 or so blog posts for proof), but greatness simply can't be done without it.

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June 20, 2006

FREEDOM OF SPEECH VS. NOT KNOWING WHEN TO SHUT UP - UPDATED 6-22-06

Blogson Jeff of Ponytailed Conservative considers the story of Brittney McComb, who - while giving her valedictorian speech at her graduation ceremony - had her microphone cut off because she repeatedly referenced her Christian beliefs.

Jeff thinks the school was wrong to cut her off.

I have to politely disagree.

She didn't get her mic cut off for mentioning God, she had it cut off for deviating from the speech which had been previously approved by the school board - as she had been warned beforehand would happen. She agreed to the rules, then broke her agreement. What other recourse did the school have?

I think the essential question here is - did the school have the right to edit her valedictorian speech in the first place? Well, they're paying for the mic, so I think they do, for this particular venue.

Brittney's still perfectly free to praise God on her blog, or in her church, or even on random street corners. Her right to free speech in general is not being threatened here. The democratically elected school board has been granted the authority by their electors to set guidelines on graduation speeches. Given the information in the article, I don't see anything to indicate that they've misused that authority.

And I *do* have to wonder about Brittney's choice to go ahead with the unedited version of her speech. Why did she feel the need to mention Jesus over and over again? Wouldn't a simple, humble, "and I'd like to thank God" have been sufficient?

Perhaps she should re-read Jesus' opinions on the habit of indulging in pious public acts for the purpose of impressing other men.

As for the secular issues involved, the solution when butting heads with a rule you don't like isn't to violate the rule, it's to either complain loudly enough to get the rule changed beforehand, or to find an alternative means to reach your goal WITHOUT violating the rule. She could have printed her original speech out and passed it around as a flyer. She could have posted it on the internet as an MP3. She could have discussed it with her peers, one-on-one.

As it was, her actions were disruptive and uncalled for. She behaved like an undisciplined, spoiled brat, throwing a tantrum because she HAD to have HER way, right NOW.

Hopefully, as she matures, she'll discover that going over, under, or around are sometimes better methods of getting past a brick wall than trying to bulldoze through.

UPDATE 6-22-06: That 1 Guy of Drunken Wisdom provided a link to a story that fills in a LOT of the missing details about the content of the speech (original vs. edited) and some legal reasons why the decision was made as it was.

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May 18, 2006

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I'M NOT A BITTER LITTLE MAN CONSUMED WITH ENVY

Democrats are complaining because the latest Bush tax cut will only provide an average of $20 to Joe-six-packs like me, but $42,000 to those making $1 million plus.

the American people are beginning to understand that when they talk about tax cuts, they're not talking about helping middle-class people. They're talking about helping the wealthiest corporations and individuals among us," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Ya know something Schumer? F*ck you.

That's still 20 bucks more than I would've had if idiots like YOU were in charge, and my soul is not so black and shriveled that I can't be grateful for the small things I *do* get, even though I'd have been happier with more. For example:

My health club has a machine that rents movies for $1 a night. Now I'll be able to watch 20 more movies than I would've.

Or buy 3 more bags of my favorite Kenya AA coffee.

Or take my wife out to dinner at a Chinese buffet place, and still have enough change left over to buy her a bottle of that White Zinfandel wine she likes.

True, these are only small pleasures, but they are pleasures nonetheless, and who the hell is Charles "6-figure-salary" Schumer to begrude ME these small pleasures simply because he hates people who make 7 figures?

What a tiny, wretched, bastard of a man.

$20 isn't nothing to me, Mr. Schumer.

But you are.

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May 14, 2006

NO, REALLY, IT'S *JUST* A COMMERCIAL

(cross-posted from IMAO)

Via Right Wing Nation, I found an offended feminist complaining about this Carl's Jr. commercial wherein Dr. 90210 recommends breast augmentation... the punchline being that he's talking to a chicken, and chicken sandwiches are what's being advertised. But yon offended feminist claims that it's not "just a commercial"

It's not "just" anything. It's an ideological piece of propaganda designed to justify two things: the annihilation of chicken's lives and the annihilation of the human female's self esteem.

Gotta disagree.

Here's what the commercial is designed to do:

Sell chicken sandwiches.

But what the hell does a cosmetic surgeon have to do with food?

Here's the deal - prior to about 1950 or so, advertisements took the direct approach. They told people why a product was good and asked them to buy it. Maybe they threw in a jingle to help folks remember the product's name.

But somewhere in the early 50's, marketing researchers discovered that listing the features and asking for the sale wasn't necessary. Just the jingle. Because people don't choose which products to buy for logical reasons, they buy them for emotional ones, and make up the logical ones afterwards to justify it.

Ultimately resulting in marketers designing ad campaigns that went straight for the emotions.

The way they do this is to spend the bulk of the commercial using sensory stimuli designed to put you into a particular emotional state - usually a positive one - and then telling you what they want you to buy in the hopes that the product will become associated in your mind with the positive state.

Does this mean that every time you pass a Carl's Jr., you'll slam on the brakes and zombie-shuffle into the store to buy a chicken sandwich?

No.

But if you're hungry and you're driving around and you see a Carl's Jr. sign, when you ask yourself "should I stop here?", a quick mental Googling of your inner database will turn up a response of "I've heard of Carl's Jr. and my general feelings toward it are more or less positive".

You may stop at Carl's Jr., you may not. But the commercial upped the odds somewhat.

But why would Carl's Jr. advocate murdering chickens and demeaning women in an attempt to make people feel good?

They. Didn't.

It was a joke. It was funny. Here's why:

In order for something to be funny, it needs both truth and exaggeration. If it's only exaggeration, it's just a lie. If it has only truth, it's a physics textbook. You need both.

However, if you don't have any truth handy, a popularly accepted stereotype will work almost as well, since a stereotype is something that's true for a significant portion - but not all - of a given group of people.

In this case, the stereotype is that women are insecure about their physical appearance, and some will seek to correct that through breast augmentation. The exaggeration is that this would apply to a chicken.

Throw in a pun on the word "breast" and you have humor. Which is designed to make you laugh so that you feel good so that you'll associate Carl's Jr. with that good feeling and stop into one of their restaurants to spend your money which they'll spend on more funny commercials.

Thus completing the Circle of Corporate Life.

The next logical "offended feminist" question is, "But doesn't it say something about the corporation that they chose to joke about women's breasts instead of, say, professional football, like in those nice Creepy-the-King burger commercials?"

Probably not. It's more likely that it's just what came off the top of the ad agency's head that morning.

As a self-described humor writer, I know how the creative process works, and it's something like this: you pick a topic, you free-associate some facts & stereotypes, and when you find one that takes you off on an unexpected tangent, you make a punch line out of it.

In this case, Mr. Ad Man had to make a chicken joke; thought about feathers, beaks, eggs, farms, and roosters before the idea of breasts; then - knowing "sex sells" - connected it to human female breasts, and eventually decided to use breast augmentation surgery as the segue between the two.

A joke was made, people laughed, a commercial was produced, and chicken sandwiches were sold by the ton.

Except to offended feminists, who will never go to Carl's Jr. ever again, on the assinine assumption that Mr. Ad Man's first thought was "How can I demean women today?" and not "How can I make a joke about chicken?"

But that's how it goes with humor. When you use stereotypes instead of truth, the joke will fail for the people to whom the stereotype does not apply. One man's funny is another feminist's annihilation propaganda. So when you write, the best you can do is aim for the bulk of your target audience, ignore the offended, and hope that next time you have to write a joke, the truth or stereotype you base your humor on is more universal.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go assuage my hunger with a Carl's Jr. chicken breast sandwich.

Heh. I said "breast"

*snicker*

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April 15, 2006

HOW LONG SHOULD YOU KISS THE BRIDE?

I've been to a few weddings in the last couple of years, and I've always found myself raising an eyebrow at the "kiss the bride" segment, because the kisses were short, perfunctory, and absent of all but the most token passion.

By contrast, during my own wedding ceremony, the nuptual buss was long, deep, and enthusiastic. When it was finally finished, the minister's first words were "you may now STOP kissing the bride" (seriously, we've got it on tape).

So, how was YOUR wedding kiss?

If it was short, was it just because you were nervous, or maybe just intimidated by the throng of witnesses?

Also, do you think there's any correlation between the enthusiasm of the wedding kiss and the longevity of the ensuing marriage?

Posted by: Harvey at 05:38 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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March 22, 2006

MEN IN A NUTSHELL

Richmond of One For the Road says that to understand men, all you need to do is understand the 7 questions that drive their lives:

1. Am I hungry?
2. Am I horny?
3. Do I have to pee?
4. Is the game on?
5. Will this get me laid?
6. Am I sleepy?
7. Will this make me money?

Can't really argue with this list. And the number 8 for married guys rounds it out exquisitely:

8. Is my wife gonna yell at me if I.....?

However, I think she may be slightly off on answering this particular question:

"Why don't men see things that need to be picked up?"

The truth is, every person - men AND women - have a certain tolerance for chaos & disorder in their living environment. A certain amount of "scattered objects and dust-bunnies" above which the irresistable desire to restore order kicks in. And the level is different for everyone.

So, in ANY given couple, someone will crack under the stress of needing to clean before the other person. Usually it's the woman.

However, when I got married, Beloved Wife had a higher tolerance for chaos than I did, and I could never figure out how SHE could manage to "not see things that needed to be picked up".

Which left me with three courses of action:

1) Change her
2) Clean up after her
3) Adopt her level of chaos tolerance

I chose option 3, and we've lived happily ever after, even if there ARE a few things that need putting away.

How YOU folks choose to solve the "chaos gap", I leave to your own discretion.

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March 16, 2006

WIFELY REMINDERS

Bloggranddaughter ArmyWifeToddlerMom made mention of this in her meme answer:

~7)Least favorite thing about your significant other.
~he procrastinates, and is irritated with my "reminders".

9) Your significant other's least favorite thing about you
(again, without asking them).
~"reminding" him he has procrastinated.

Meanwhile, Bloggranddaughter Lee Ann of Lee Ann's View is getting called "mother" for passing out "reminders"

Which got me thinking... Beloved Wife TNT of Smiling Dynamite does NOT nag.

She does, however, "remind".

And pretty much every time she does, I find myself getting irritated.

And I have no idea why.

It's not like she's hitting me with a rolling pin at the time, or speaking in some gawdawful Gladys Kravitz voice, so it shouldn't cause me any discomfort.

To my own credit, I don't snap back at her, and I reply with an acquiessive "Yes, dear", because I *know* my reaction is inappropriate and needs to be squelched. Yet I always rankle a little at queries about my to-do list, as if she were questioning my competence to function as an adult.

Which she's not, so it makes no sense for me to react as if she were.

I'm puzzled about this, and so I ask - is there a way for a wife to give "reminders" that ISN'T irritating, or is this just a permanent skirmish in the battle of the sexes?

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March 03, 2006

GUYS, I NEED A LITTLE HELP WITH THIS ONE

Bloggranddaughter Rave of Quic Nunc asks this question:

[My 15-year old son] has decided that it's fun to sneak out of the house at midnight.....

[snip]

Now, he did not have glassy eyes or smell of weed, which is good. But it doesn't clear him, by any means.

[snip]

WHY does he do this? I am not a 15 yr old male. I don't know what's going through his head.

Short answer - because it's fun.

As a former 15 yr old male, I confess that I occasionally snuck out after midnight. Sometimes not even for criminal purposes.

If I remember correctly, it had to do with the solitude. I knew the whole world was asleep, and no one was going to see me walking around. I lived in a small town that rolled up the sidewalks at 9pm, so this might not be applicable to Rave's case.

Traipsing about in the wee hours, there's nothing but you, your thoughts, and a sky filled with stars. No people, no distractions. It was a good time to contemplate who I was and what was going on in my life without worrying about being interrupted by an inquisitive parent.

Plus the added thrill of doing something forbidden.

As for what to do about it... I have no advice. I think it's just one of those "straining against the leash" phases. All I can say is that if you don't hold the line on this, he'll just find another boundary to test. Make a fuss about it to his face, but inwardly, be relieved that it's just a growing pain.

If any other former 15 yr old males have more insight, please share.

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February 27, 2006

IS IT THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL, OR JUST THAT LAYER OF SLIMY STUFF THAT GROWS ON TOP OF IT?

Blogdaughter Boudicca of Boudicca's Voice said

What has this blog come to that IÂ’m carpet blogging? I am sure it is truly the most pathetic blogging around...

Most people put cat-blogging at the bottom.

Which makes me wonder... what IS the "quality blogging" hierarchy?

I'll take a stab at it. From highest to lowest:

1) Original news - breaking a story before the MSM
2) Competing news - covering stories that the MSM is ignoring
3) Original opinion - finding an angle on a news story that no one else has
4) Helpful advice - posting a piece containing a solution to a problem
5) Essay blogging - sharing a common opinion, but doing so in uncommonly good style
6) Story blogging - well-written original fiction
7) Life blogging - well-written true-life stories
Original humor - just making stuff up to make people laugh
9) Forwarded humor - re-posting something funny you found elsewhere
10) Hey! Look at this! - linking something interesting you found elsewhere
11) Memes
12) Quizzes
13) 24
14) American Idol
15) Carpets
16) Kids/Cats/Dogs/Hamsters/Ferrets and other critters that mess up carpets
17) WTF! OMG! RU serious? - Live Journal teen angst diary-posting heavily laced with IM abbreviations and/or dark, introspective poems about how painful life is.

Which is not to say that any of these are - by definition - not interesting. I'm just talking about perceptions of status.

You may bicker & second-guess in the comments.

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February 23, 2006

WHITHER ACCENTS?

In the comments to this entry about Hugh Laurie's marvelous American accent posted by Jim of Parkway Rest Stop, commenter Sluggo chimes in:

Why do Americans sound so phoney when they try to put on an English accent, but the gotammed Brits can sound like they just rolled in from Lincoln, Nebraska whenever they want?

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's because the "accentless" cornbelt dialect is quite popular in movies & TV, and fairly consistent between speakers. If you can tell the difference between someone from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, I'd be flabbergasted. So of the thousands of famous people who speak "Normal American", you can pick any one of them to emulate & pass yourself off as a Yank.

Famous British accents, however, are numerous and conflicting in style. If you're in-country and travel 20 miles down the road (or even across town in London), it's going to be noticably different. It's just harder for an American to pick one and find enough examples of it to master it properly. Who should I pick? Mick Jagger? Pierce Brosnan? Benny Hill? John Cleese? Tony Blair?

So my short answer is: because Hollywood is a district of Los Angeles, not London.

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February 16, 2006

QUICK! BURN AN EMBASSY!

He's making fun of Jesus!

Seriously, though, no Christian would be upset by this, because Christianity isn't about an image, or even Jesus. It's about an idea. The idea that Jesus embodied. The idea that a person can examine his life, discover his faults, repent his mistakes, and choose new behaviors at ANY point in time in order to live his life more in tune with his professed moral code.

Juvenile mockery bounces off that like a pebble off a stone wall.

I hope that Islam embraces a similar idea someday, so that it its adherants may join the ranks of the civilized world.

[Hat tip: Lynn of A Sweet, Familiar Dissonance]

Posted by: Harvey at 01:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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February 15, 2006

IS IT *EVER* OK TO USE RACIAL SLURS? - UPDATED 2-16-06 9:30AM

Kevin of Eckernet is a little pissed at Ann Coulter for using the term "raghead", citing this quote (I can't find a transcript - search "ann coulter cpac" on Google News for more info):

"Maybe they do [have nuclear weapons], maybe they don't, but they're certainly acting like they do. ... If you don't want to get shot by the police, don't point a gun at them. Or as I think our motto should be, post 9/11," Coulter said, "'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'"

I'm not sure I agree with him.

Now, I'm not usually a fan of racial slurs. Using them bespeaks a lack of imagination on the user's part. After all, there are SO many creative ways to be insulting, why settle for the easy target?

On the other hand, there may be times...

A thought experiment - if a black man murdered my wife, I wouldn't refer to him as "an African-American gentleman". I'd feel free to trot out a stream of the most hateful race-based epithets I could conjure, and I wouldn't feel bad about it.

I think in that case, it'd be ok, because it's personal between me & him. I don't mean to insult his race as a whole. I'm just trying to find the cruelest, most hurtful thing to throw at him, personally.

On the other hand, if I were to look at a black man looting stuff during Hurricane Katrina and I were to say something like "Ain't that just like a Negro to steal anything that ain't nailed down?", then that's NOT personal - that's just blanket bigotry. I'm insulting all black people in general.

Ann's case is somewhere in between. We're at war with a lot of Middle-Eastern Muslims. I'm a big fan of disrespecting my nation's enemies. Anything that pisses them off or makes their lives miserable is a GOOD thing in my book.

On the other hand, there are plenty of Middle-Eastern Muslims I would be proud to call "friend". Specifically, the ones who are working to help transform Iraq into a civilized nation in the face of a long, uphill struggle.

So if Ann were to say something like "I wish I could go to Iraq and personally shoot every last raghead I saw," then I'd say "Ann, you ignorant slut. Sit down and shut the f*ck up."

(Notice how "ignorant slut" is personal to Ann - I'm not insulting EVERY woman who's intellectually-challenged and vaginally-generous)

But upon examining her quote, she appears to be directing the "raghead" label only at Middle Eastern Muslims who actually threaten the security of American interests, rather than just haphazardly toward anyone who's wearing a turban. She's specifically aiming at terrorists, who - in general - suck. This isn't strictly personal, but I think it's nearer to that end of the spectrum than it is to bigotry.

So I'm leaning towards not having a problem with what she said.

Feel free to persuade me otherwise, if you're so inclined.

UPDATE 2-16-06 9:15 am: Perhaps the question should be, "is it simply wrong to insult a man based on ANY unchangeable physical characteristics?" For example, if my hypothetical murderer were bald, missing an eye, and had a club foot, would it be inappropriate for me to call him a "butchering, chrome-domed, popeyed, monopod"?

Not a rhetorical question. I'm honestly trying to examine where lines should be drawn on this issue. I know it's a sensitive topic, and I appreciate that so far the discussion has remained rational.

UPDATE 2-16-06 9:30 AM: Would calling him a "bastard" be considered a slur against people born out of wedlock? Would the appropriateness of the insult be affected by whether or not his parents were married when he was born, i.e. if he actually WERE a bastard?

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January 16, 2006

CAN THE NSA MONITOR INTERNATIONAL PHONE CALLS?... MAYBE... (UPDATED 1-17-06)

If you're interested in the NSA phone-tapping controversy, The Volokh Conspiracy does a thorough - but still readable - examination of some case law surrounding the issue. I'd recommend this post as the BARE minimum for you to know before attempting to discuss the matter at your next cocktail party or Democratic Underground comment flame.

Having read it, I'm still a bit undecided on the technical legality of it, but more sure that I don't have a problem with it. Here's what I mean:

1) Article 2 of the Constitution gives the President the authority to warrantlessly monitor completely-foreign communications.

2) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act forbids the warrantless monitoring of domestic communications.

The NSA program warrantlessly monitors communications that involve one end in the US, and one end in a foreign country, and there's no solid legal precedent for saying whether the situation falls under area 1 or area 2.

That's how things ARE.

As for how they SHOULD be, it comes down to the following question:

Do you fall on the side protecting the privacy of US citizens, even if it means extending the protections to their foreign contacts; or do you fall on the side of monitoring foreigners, even if it means monitoring US citizens?

Because we're at war, I'm willing to stand for the second option, mostly because these are marginal cases, and I don't see this escalating toward an approval of purely domestic warrantless wiretaps.

Feel free to disagree in the comments, if you're so inclined.

Meanwhile, (via the Puppy Blender), The American Thinker recalls (and quotes) the New York Times nodding approvingly about Bill Clinton's warrantless eavesdropping via ECHELON.

UPDATE 1-17-06 _Jon of We Swear points out a post at Power Line wherein some more on-point case law suggests that Article II trumps FISA when it comes to warrantless international searches.

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January 09, 2006

DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK INSTAPUNDIT'S BEING A LITTLE UPPITY HERE?

Glenn Reynolds criticizes high-interest lenders like LoanMax thusly:

"many of the deals offered by a lot of these loan outfits are so bad that it's hard to believe anyone agrees to them understanding what's going on."

Easy for HIM to say. He's a lawyer with an IQ of 170. He understands EVERYTHING.

For the rest of the country - especially the half with sub-100 IQ's and no training in legalese - every legal and financial form is just so much unread gobbledygook. They rely on what they're told by the smiling lender on the other side of the text, and they mostly only want to know two things:

What day of the month are the payments due?

and

How much are they?

Yet Reynolds insists that that's not enough. If borrowers don't care about interest rates, then it's obviously because they're being craftily misled by spiky-toothed loan-sharks:

"The interest rates are so absurdly high that merely spelling out the deal would seem to be evidence that the borrower probably didn't realize what was involved."

Here's a different theory: They realize just fine. However, they don't give a shit.

Take for example, a female acquaintance of mine, who is not named Carol.

She had a credit card from a local furniture store (she LOVED furniture & decorative doo-dads), which she more or less kept maxed out - around $1000. As soon as it got paid down below the credit limit, she'd be back in the store getting more crap.

Making minimum payments every month at 18% interest.

Meanwhile she had about $2000 tucked away in a savings account pulling less than 1% interest.

Personally, I thought she was being stupid, and tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn't listen. The ONLY thing she based her spending decisions on was "Can I make the monthly payments?" Nothing else mattered. She looked at her credit card bill NOT as something that could be paid off, but as a recurring debt, much like water, electricity, or phone bills. Do you ever worry about how to "pay off" your utilities?

HELL no!

So is it really that shocking that some people would view their credit card bills the same way?

And - truth be told - this "living paycheck-to-paycheck" point of view, while short-sighted, isn't quite as moronic as it appears at first glance. As a practical matter, there's no downside to it IF you stay healthy and work (or otherwise maintain a steady income) until you retire or die.

Of course, failing to plan ahead like this makes for a train-wreck if either your health or employment goes awry, but it's NOT the responsibility of LoanMax, or Rent-A-Center, or CheckAdvance, or ANY other high-risk, high-interest lender to ensure that the borrower is living a prudent, forward-thinking life. If borrowers value immediate gratification more than they value getting a good interest rate, that's their option, and it's no sin for the lender to offer them the opportunity to indulge themselves. Just like it's not McDonald's fault for making me fat if I choose to go in there and eat six Big Macs a day.

And let's be honest here. If you outlaw LoanMax, these dim bulbs that actually use their overpriced services will just find another bad deal to piss their money away on, because making imprudent choices is simply what they do.

Posted by: Harvey at 07:23 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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December 27, 2005

GUY TALK

On occasion, I get people asking about some of the comments left by Madfish Willie. They'll say something like, "What's up with him? How come you let him troll your comments like that?"

Troll?

Hell, that ain't trolling, that's male bonding.

#1 guy rule - if someone you like says something rude, it's meant as a compliment. It's a way of saying "I think you're tough enough to take a verbal punch, and I think you're clever enough to give better right back."

Women, however, play a completely different game. With them (all too often) if you say something that can be taken as either completely innocent or mean & hurtful, they'll assume it's the mean & hurtful one (See rule #29).

And oh MY can they be acrobatic about extracting the wrong meaning.

Probably a habit formed over a lifetime of talking with other women, since when one woman says something ambiguous to another woman, she's usually getting in a cleverly-disguised little dig.

It's simply too unladylike to be mean in an upfront fashion, ya know. Gotta be catty about it.

On the other hand, maybe my mind's been poisoned from watching "Desperate Housewives".

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December 01, 2005

HOW TO EXERCISE FREE SPEECH

Blogson-in-law Alex of Alex in Wonderland is contemplating the meaning of the phrase "freedom of speech". Although in America it's usually discussed as a legal matter, he also makes note that - in a broader view - it's possible to have your freedom curtailed by peer pressure, even if it doesn't amount to a rights violation, per se.

Which brings me to the topic of how to voice objectionable opinions.

We all have opinions that other people wouldn't like, and we usually know it before speaking them. Yet sometimes the information is interesting or important. So what do you do?

My suggestion: stay calm, stick to facts, and limit yourself to a short, conclusory paragraph at the end, instead of interspersing the facts with copioius ranting invective.

For example, let's say that I'm disgusted by some things that certain black people are doing. I need to make it clear that it's motivated by hatred of stupidity, and not hatred of blacks in toto. I'd probably write something like this:


Stupid people need to keep quiet.

Or the MSM needs to speak up.

Because I haven't heard much about:

Louis Farrakan, who recently said "FEMA is too White to represent us and so is the Red Cross."

Or Kamau Kambon, who gave a speech a while back and said "We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet" (audio clip of speech here)

By the way, did anyone else know that some free blacks actually owned slaves? I don't mean just buying family members, I'm talking about a plantationful.

Wonder how the reparations crowd plans to handle that?

Oh, and there's a tendency for "people of color" not to get prosecuted under "hate crime" laws.

And does anyone remember when the Neo-Nazis marched in Toledo against "black gang violence"... at which point black gang members violently rioted in the streets? Pegged the irony meter, it did.

What's my point?

Just saying that white people don't have a monopoly on stupidity, that's all.


Another option is to whip up a bitter, shrieking screed full of typos and bad grammar, and avoid including most of the explanatory linkage that would support my points.

And then dump the steaming pile in the comments at IMAO... say in someone's Filthy Lie Assignment.

Of course, if I did that, then SarahK would rewrite the comment to make me look foolish, my message would be completely lost, and my exercise of free speech in this case would be futile.

So I agree with Alex - don't be afraid speak your mind. However, DO keep your audience in mind and make your controversial points simply, clearly, factually, and (if possible) with supportive linkage.

Remember, if a free speech falls in a forest and no one sticks around to hear it, it doesn't actually make a sound.

Posted by: Harvey at 07:39 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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