1984 Redux

Orwellian - The state's manipulation of language for political ends. Obfuscation in naming is a favorite; e.g. WAR IS PEACE. The state's use of language is designed to reduce or eliminate ideas deemed dangerous to its authority.

Bill would mandate nicer term for illegals

NYC Moves To Ban The 'N-Word'

And the Oscar should go to...

Pan's Labyrinth. But it didn't. The Oscars suck. I can't believe I endured watching Gorefest 2007 to watch my favorite film lose. Leonardo, you can take the kneepads off now.

When Journalists write back

I, like many right minded folks on the right side of the blogosphere, was a bit peeved when read this post on little green footballs. Apparently, the Los Angeles Times ran a photograph of dubious origins used by Iran's Fars News to implicate the United States in recent terror attacks. Bloggers complained it was another photoshop job and that the Times' uncritical posting of the pic lent credence to the Iranian allegations. Say what you will about the importance of the issue but it irked me at the time.

When the Dawg is irked, the Dawg snarks. I fired off the following tongue-in-cheek snark mail to Kim Murphy, the author of the article:

-----Original Message-----

From: xxxxxx [mailto:hooray4hines@yahoo.com]

Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 10:11 PM

To: kim.murphy@latimes.com

Subject: I know that

...if I cup my hands over my ears and hum really loudly, all of the people exposing the woefully photoshopped picture in my article will go away. Get off your dinosaur, get a blog and become relevant.

Cute. And bashing MSM is always a blast. I figured my email would end up, like most of my snark, in that great dustbin of netbage. To my mild surprise, I received the following email from Ms. Murphy:

"Murphy, Kim" wrote:
Dear Joe,

You are SO right!

But please don't mistake me for the Fars News Agency, whose photo this is. We had decided to give the Iranians a rare chance to express their allegations about the U.S., particularly since Iran had been so outraged about the U.S. allegations of Iranian weaponry in Iraq (which has also been subject to quite a bit of skepticism.) I forwarded the photo FYI to my editors, who decided to print it, obviously without making any claims as to its authenticity.

As for my beloved dinosaur, if we cavewomen weren't out there gathering the news-such as it is-in Iran, what would you bedroom-slippered bloggers have to chew the fat about? J

Regards,

Kim Murphy

Of course she is right - any fault in the matter should be attributed to the paper's editors. I was lazy and saw her email address at the bottom of the article and ran with it. But you have to admire this journalist's spunk and good natured humor. I'll let others, who so desire, parse through her defense of the article.

NOTE: I did receive Ms. Murphy's full permission to reprint her original response to me.

Derek and A-Rod

Bogey and Bacall, Heathcliff and Catherine, Joe D. and Marilyn, George and Weezie, Napoleon and Josephine.

Not that there is anything wrong with this, buuuuuuuuuut:

"The reality is there's been a change in the relationship over 14 years and, hopefully, we can just put it behind us," Rodriguez said. "You go from sleeping over at somebody's house five days a week, and now you don't sleep over. It's just not that big of a deal."

But we'll all miss this:



And especially this:

What a difference a religion makes

A Danish periodical publishes cartoons which insult the prophet Muhammed thereby inciting Muslims worldwide to - burn buildings, riot and issue death threats.

Unknown persons behead a marble statue of Jesus and the lop off the hand of a statue of the Virgin Mary inciting Catholics to - place flowers at the base of the statues, pray, and offer words of forgiveness to the perpetrators:

(CBS) WEST, N.Y. Police in West, New York are searching for the vandals who destroyed a statue of Jesus outside a local church after worshippers found the five-foot statue lying in pieces.

Students from Our Lady of Libera School helped to pick up the pieces of the desecrated statue of Jesus and laid flowers on the ground by the mess on Monday morning."Father Phil gave me a rose and I put it down next to Jesus," second-grader Alex Contreras, said.

Other second-graders prayed too, overwhelmed by the sheer cruelty that took place at their church over the weekend."I was really sad that they broke his head off and threw him on the floor," said another student, Soraya Salazar.

Alexandra Kehagias agreed with her classmate. "I'm very, very sad and angry, and angry at the people who did this," she said.

Church members believe the person or people who did this beheaded the statue first, then pushed the body to the ground. "The nose would have been crushed. It could have been beheaded first," said Rev. Philip J. Rotunno, the pastor of the 105-year-old church. He says the vandals also took a hand from the statue of Mary, which is in the same courtyard.

"I want to first repair them because they're donated by founding families of the parish and those families are shattered," he said.

Police have been going to stores in the area, looking for possible witnesses.

*******
The vandalism has broken big and small hearts alike, but parishioners say they forgive the person or people who committed the horrible acts.


Good thing Goober, Floyd the barber, lil Opie and the rest of of Andy's appointed Deputies are on the case:

"Right now, we're investigating this as a criminal mischief case. At this point, there's nothing to indicate a hate crime," West New York Police Director Tim Griffin said.

Am I fuckin nuts to say that spending the time to lop off the head of a marble statue Jesus is, in and of itself, evidence of a hate crime?

LMAO

Iowahawk's hilarious parody letter from disturbed and psychophantic blogger Amanda Marcotte makes it onto John Edwards blog (click to enlarge):




Iowahawk's original post here.

Kudos jamie t.

For the person that can't chew bubble gum...

...and cross the street, NY State Sen. Carl Kruger has the answer. Make it a crime:

Ban Proposed On Cell Phones, iPods In Crosswalk
Ban Would Apply To Cell Phones, MP3 players, Blackberrys

NEW YORK -- A state senator from Brooklyn said on Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation that would ban people from using an MP3 player, cell phone, Blackberry or any other electronic device while crossing the street in either New York City or Buffalo.

NewsChannel 4 reported that Sen. Carl Kruger is proposing the ban in response to two recent pedestrian deaths in his district, including a 23-year-old man who was struck and killed last month while listening to his iPod on Avenue T and East 71st Street In Bergen Beach.

"While people are tuning into their iPods and cell phones, they're tuning out the world around them," Kruger said. The proposed law would make talking on cell phones while crossing the street a comparable offense to jaywalking.

Some pedestrians said they were not worried about their safety while using their electronic devices while walking. "I look for the light," said Venus Montes of Williamsburg. "I'm still looking," said Lance Gordon of Far Rockaway. "It's not like I'm not paying attention."

Others said the proposed ban would not work. "I don't think anyone's going to be up for this," said Patricia Lewis of Staten Island. "I don't think anyone wants this."

Other pedestrians said they thought the proposal was a good idea. "It's too dangerous," said Nicole Lake of Jersey City. "Drivers don't pay attention and pedestrians don't pay attention."

Senator Kruger, you are an asshole. Why don't you pay a little more attention to your constituents in Brooklyn who are getting their homes stolen from them to build a new arena.

A bold new diversity training

Whites just suck in general:

'Most white people most of the time" share the belief that "bland is best" when it comes to aesthetics. They believe that "wealth equals worth" and that a wife is "subordinate to (her) husband."

In communicating, white people "don't show emotion" and "avoid conflict, intimacy."

They share an ethic of "win at all costs" and possess a "master and control nature."

Had enough of this bigoted, juvenile, trashy analysis? Unfortunately, I'm merely quoting from a sheet distributed recently to some teachers at Cimarron Elementary School in Aurora as part of the diversity training set in motion last year by the Cherry Creek School District.

The teacher who showed me the paper was deeply offended by it, as of course she should be. It is replete not only with simple-minded generalizations, but also with subtle digs at social norms such as the nuclear family and attitudes that enable people to succeed in a society such as ours.

If planning for the future, delaying gratification and self-reliance are "aspects and assumptions of white culture," as the paper insists, instead of good habits that assist all of us in achieving our goals, then people who harp on such traits may unconsciously be putting minorities down. Thus the perverse logic of such exercises.

The idea behind such training, as I explained in two columns last May on Cherry Creek's embrace of radical diversity ideology, is that the achievement gap between some ethnic groups is mainly a product of institutional racism and the culture of "Whiteness." Teachers with the suspect pigmentation are expected to feel guilt and shame.

For the moment let's forget that this radical ideology insults the vast majority of well-meaning, nonracist teachers. And let's ignore the fact that its thesis fails to account for the astonishing academic success of Asian-Americans. The most surprising feature of this brand of diversity propaganda is, as you can see, its sheer crudeness - as well as the fact that it is inflicted upon one of the better educated professions in the land.

You know how I know you are gay...

.....you are a man that pays to have sex with other men. Not that that is a big deal, but don't tell us that now, after a few weeks of counseling, that you are straight. A wonderful story of D-E-N-I-A-L:

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

That is according to one of the disgraced pastor's overseers, who on Monday revealed new details about where Haggard has been and where he is headed.

The caption to his picture is priceless:

Fresh from counseling, Ted Haggard reportedly called his "sexual immorality" a case of acting out.

Muslim UK School - Jewish "apes", Christian "pigs"

Another 'lose your cookies' story from Londonistan:

An Islamic school is poisoning the minds of pupils with lessons in hate, a former teacher claims. Colin Cook, 57, says textbooks used by children as young as five at the King Fahad Academy in Acton describe Jews as "repugnant" and "apes" and Christians as "pigs".

One keeps wondering when America will wake up to the threat posed by Islamists. But if Great Britain still hasn't, our prospects seem abysmal. Special shout out to our buds from Saudi Arabia.

Why we fight

Great, heartfelt, poignant words from Barista.

Friday Night Faroe

Tórshavn at dusk:

Eysturoy at dawn:

From Tsjoen, our ever excellent Faroese correspondent.

The sky is falling...and the Polar bears are stranded

I let this poignant pic of polar bears stranded on an iceberg tug at my heartstrings, until................

I actually read the article entitled "Global warming sees polar bears stranded on melting ice" only to find that our adorable poo bears arent stranded at all:

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice.

Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes.

"Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one," said Dr Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

This is beyond advocacy journalism. It is injecting fairy tales into scientific debate.

BREAKING UPDATE: Freeper photojournalist cripplecreek shows the heroic rescue of our friends adrift.

NFL - Nazified Fascist League

Well maybe not quite all that. But it does kinda turn one's cookies to have to read this unfortunate statement on a church's website:

We regret to inform you that we have had to cancel our bash to view the Colts game this Sunday in a family friendly environment due to the fact that the NFL believes we would be in violation of the Copyright Act, because we had planned to show the game on a screen bigger than a 55 inch diagonal. We have appealed to their legal counsel and exhausted all options without success. We have been informed that the only exceptions to view the game are given to sports bars and restaurants. While we have argued that we only intend to provide a family oriented environment that will make no profit from the showing, the NFL claims that our event cannot proceed by law. Therefore, we have no choice but to challenge this in court or cancel the event. We choose to cancel the event. We deeply regret that we have been prohibited by the NFL from providing a family friendly environment for celebrating the Colts great season. -Pastor John

More background here:

The thousands of churches across the country that want to host Super Bowl parties Sunday night had better not pull out big-screen TVs, or they could face the wrath of NFL attorneys.

The NFL is telling Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis that the church's plans to use a wall projector to show the game at a party for church members and guests would violate copyright laws.

NFL officials spotted a promotion of Fall Creek's "Super Bowl Bash" on the church Web site last week and sent pastor John D. Newland a letter -- via FedEx overnight -demanding the party be canceled.

Initially, the league objected to the church's plan to charge partygoers a fee to attend and that the church used the license-protected words "Super Bowl" in its promotions.

Note to NFL: You are showing a game. You aren't the Knights Templar protecting the Holy Grail. You aren't haven't discovered a Brazilian herb that cures all communicative disease. Again, you are showing a game. The fact that hundreds of people want to get together and watch your product is something that you not only should be proud of, but you should encourage. Maybe a little less $500 an hour lawyerly advice and a bit more common sense from the average Joe's and Jill's at the local coffee shop.

According to the article, the NFL's Party Rules read as follows:

NFL PARTY RULES

For groups that want to host Super Bowl parties -- other than sports bars and businesses that normally show televised sports -- here are rules the NFL says must be followed:

• No admission fees (even to pay for snacks).

• Only one television (55 inches or smaller).

• No use of the words "Super Bowl" in promotional materials.

• No exhibition of the game in connection with events "that promote a message."

Queries to the NFL re: MY Super Bowl Party:

- May I journey to the rest room during the game without your express written permission?

- Can my guests put empty peanut shells in my ash tray?

- Is the NFL owed a royalty on my empties?

Oh yeah, you saw it right - "SUPER BOWL!!!!". I said it. Sue me.