Saudi Woman Driver Detained for Vagina Possession

How is it that the US bullies the rest of the world over human rights (as we define the issue) while one of our 'allies' tell their female citizins that they can't drive.

Talk about 'WTF'. From Al Jazeera:

A woman in Saudi Arabia was detained after she launched a campaign against the driving ban for women in the Kingdom and posted a video of herself behind the wheel on Facebook and YouTube.

Human rights activist Walid Abou el-Kheir said Manal al-Sherif was detained on Saturday by the country's religious police, who are charged with ensuring the kingdom's rigid interpretation of Islamic teachings are observed.

Al-Sherif was released hours later, according to the campaign's Twitter account. The terms of her release were not immediately clear.

Al-Sherif and a group of other women started a Facebook page called "Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself,'' which urges authorities to lift the driving ban.

She went on a test drive in the eastern city of Khobar and later posted a video of the experience.

Hussy. 

Tech Support Logic

One of the company's finest technicians was drafted and sent to boot camp. At the rifle range, he was given some instruction, a rifle, and bullets. He fired several shots at the target. The report came from the target area that all attempts had completely missed the target.

The technician looked at his rifle, and then at the target. He looked at the rifle again, and then at the target again. He put his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand. The end of his finger was blown off, whereupon he yelled toward the target area, "It's leaving here just fine, the trouble must be at your end!"

President Carter - Defining insanity

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I used to have certain amount of respect for President Carter. Then he left office. What's the Nobel Peace Prize winner (yeah, their standards that low for years) up to these days?

He's going back to North Korea.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and three others from a group called The Elders will start a three-day trip to North Korea today to encourage Pyongyang to engage in a meaningful dialogue with Seoul and to address the country’s food shortage.

Maybe the North Korean Grand Poohbah Kim Jong-il will be home this time.

The former U.S. president’s last trip in August 2010 to Pyongyang ended without a meeting with Kim Jong-il, who was visiting China at the time.

President Carter wants to send food to the staving people in North Korea. Great idea, but I think he still doesn't get it. He's quoted as saying 'When there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer the least'. The peacemakers may be blessed, but trotting off to North Korea to ask for permission to feed their starving masses is exactly what the North Koreans want. Everyone knows that there is absolutely zero chance of any food sent to North Korea ending up in the mouths and stomachs of starving citizens.

And aid sent to North Korea will go directly to their military. They're the ones with the guns and the regime will do anything to keep them at least well-fed enough that they won't shoot the Dear Leader and his cronies and take their food.

God bless you, President Carter. May your naivete never become out of fashion.

Iran's war on vulgarity and why I'm grateful to the US Left

It strikes me as more than mildly ironic that at least a few American conservatives have more in common with the leadership of Iran than they have in common with most American people.

If some on the extreme right had there way, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine an order to corporations doing business in the US 'to remove "immoral, sexual and crude" advertisements for products such as condoms and erectile dysfunction medicine' or saying the 'way hair and beauty products are being advertized is immoral' or commenting on 'the "vulgar" packaging' of some of these products.

Not that I think their concerns are completely unfounded. But when I see the Islamic Republic of Iran taking a hard line against such advertising it makes me thankful for the Libs and the ACLU helping us keep what's left of our 1st Amendment rights. 

Combating punctuation inflation

This is a kind of 'reference post' to explain my aversion to exclamation points. That's these things:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do a fair amount of commenting on other people's Flickr and Blip postings and some on Facebook. A lot is of the 'Great shot', 'Thanks' and 'LOL' variety. 

Many times I really love a photo someone has posted but lack the verbal ability to express what I'm thinking and feeling. Or maybe I don't even know why I like it, I just do.

So, I'll say something like 'Great shot'.

Sometimes someone will express their appreciation for a shot I've posted.

I'll say something like 'Thanks'.

Notice something odd? It looks strange and flat. It looks like I didn't mean it as much as if I had said 

'Thanks!' or 'Great shot!'

I think we've gotten so accustomed to using an exclamation point at the end of every utterance that we don't even think about it. Consider this sticker thoughtfully affixed to the front of a microwave oven:

 

Seriously, why all the yelling? Imminent thermonuclear holocaust? A loaded gun to my head? The heartbreak of psoriasis? The agony of defeat? What?

So I'm on a one-man crusade to turn it down a notch and same the ! for times I really want to be more emphatic than normal. Think of it as restoring value to punctuation.

If I say 'Thanks' I mean it. No need to yell. If I say I like your comment or photo, I mean it. I do not comment on yours because you commented on mine. Homey don't play dat. :)

Now, if you were to give me Eleventy Bazzilion Tax-Free US Dollars I'd be much more likely to pull out the '!' and say say 'Thanks!'. For that much, I might even drag out UPPER CASE and bold italics.

Thanks.

Oswald Bates for Congress

Could we be any worse off?

Why I'm a Wing Nut

I'm kind of an aviation freak. I look up tail numbers. I know the difference between a high-bypass turbofan and a turbojet. I (used to) love to fly and i keep up-to-date on aviation safety and technology news.

How did I turn into a ground-bound wing nut?

View the larger version here.

I grew up a little over 1 mile (~5,700 ft) from the end of runway 24L of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, moved in when I was about 5 years old and didn't leave the neighborhood permanently for over 20 years.

I remember clearly the day we moved in. My bedroom had two windows from which you could see the planes coming in to land. I did not know that. I stood looking out of the window and watched a jet coming in. The nose was white with a solid black circle in the center. I watched the circle grow until I suddenly realized that we were all about to die. i wasn't clear on the exact mechanics of the method of death, but I was absolutely convinced that I would never see my 6th birthday.

That thing was loud, louder than anything I had ever imagined. I think they were about 300 ft to 500 ft up at that point. The building shook and I could not hear my own screaming as I ran downstairs in tears to say goodbye forever to my mother.

Mom said the usual motherly stuff which amounted to telling me to chill and go change my shorts. And hey, we were still alive. Maybe I'd get that cool toy car for my 6th birthday after all. Then I heard another airliner approaching.

i ran back upstairs and watched, enchanted.

And at that moment, I was hooked for life.

I could watch as the lights came on, the landing gear and flaps came down and watch the exhaust change as the pilots tweaked the throttles. They came directly overhead most times. I had to be dragged away from my new window perch that 1st day.

Then they started taking off in our direction. It had to do with the wind direction, I think. This was before the FAA made pilots cut the throttle over populated areas during takeoffs. (What a dumb idea.) If the weather was right, the clouds acted like a huge bowl over the area and the thunder was unbelievable.

I soon learned how to lip read by watching television because every 3 minutes you couldn't hear the TV for a few seconds. Telephone conversations had a lot of 'wait a sec' moments. My dad would take us to the end of the runway and we watch the planes go over. As I got a little older, I'd go with a buddy on trips to the airport and roam around just checking everything out.

One of my first electronic kits was a crystal radio I could listen to the planes and control tower on. I could have listened to that on a tin can and a long piece of wire. Good thing, too, since that's about what the kit was.

Now I live too far away from any airports to plane watch, but being in Akron, I hope to snag a blimp ride one of these days.

Obama's Left Hand Slaps Right

It really doesn't get much better than this.

Mr Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt, was sent by President Obama to Cairo on Monday, apparently to urge Mr Mubarak to announce his departure.

So Wisner gets there and has this to say:

"We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes," he told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

"I believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical - it's his chance to write his own legacy.

"He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country, this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward."

Huh, that doesn't sound a lot like urging Mubarak to get the flock outta' Dodge. Of course the administration says Wisner is not speaking for the US. They just sent him.

Yeah. I wonder if our Secretary of State's throwing any ashtrays. No wonder the poor woman looks so ragged.

Tunisia in a nutshell

Tunisia's been in the news lately, and a lot of people don't know anything about Tunisia.  If you need a quick primer, here you go:

Tunisia is a country in North Africa that was once two separate nations, West Nisia and East Nisia.  They merged and the Indians who once lived lived there formed their own independent state in the south called Indonesia.

Indonesia quickly became overpopulated, so most of the Indians there broke up Indonesia into over 17,000 pieces and moved them to the shallow parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania.  The Indians who couldn't adjust to island life moved to Cleveland and tried to learn baseball.

Today, Tunisia is best known for its rich deposits of Magnesia ore which is processed by adding it to cattle feed and sold as Milk of Magnesia.

Tunisians are renown for their short memories as they suffer from a rare local condition called Amnesia.

Arte Bella Portraits Giveaway!

From Arte Bella Portraits:

We are celebrating a successful first year in business and with that we wanted to show some love to those who have helped us along the way, designers we adore, and/ or have  inspired us. The designers we have chosen have generously donated some fabulous prizes for this Photographer’s Giveaway. Each item in this giveaway will benefit any photographer! There is lighting equipment, fancy white balance tools, actions, textures, clothing, props, camera bags, fancy strap covers, backdrops, and a ton of cash!! This total package is valued at more than $1000.  We are so thankful to all of our designers and hope that you take time out to check out what they have to offer.

So, what are you waiting for?  Go, win, yay!

Frankie The Fish remix

The sky that never fell

Remember what we were all talking about between April and July of 2010?  I had to think for a second, which is kinda' strange since we were constantly being told that we were all going to die from The Oil Spill That Was Going To Eat The World.

It got silly, even by the mainstream press' standards.

A scientific computer modeling study released Thursday shows that once the slick joins the loop current, it could move northward at up to 100 miles a day. It would flow up to Cape Hatteras and then turn northeast out into the Atlantic, according to the models, which were produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and produces climate science for universities.

Well, who am I to argue with computer modeling, especially the scientific kind?

(As an aside, aren't these the same people using the very same 'scientific computer modeling' who are predicting a more distant but just as certain doom caused by man-made climate change?)

So, whatever happened?  Why didn't we all die a slow, horrible, cold and lonely death?

We were lied to.  Pure and simple, the people we pay to inform us lied to us.  Again.  (Y2K ring a bell?)  It wasn't a simple case of being mistaken or misinformed.  A little common should have told us - and the mainstream press should have reminded us - that oil leaking into the ocean was not a new, man-made phenomenon.  But any whisper of common sense was drowned out by the mainstream press' constant hammering us in the head with its megaphone message of impending doom.

And where are they now?  Where's Bobby Blowdry and Perky Patty, Your Eyewitless News Team, discussing how they're going to try to get it right next time by engaging in a little (gasp!) independent thought instead of the usual happy chatter between all the solemn pronouncements that the end is surely nigh?

The thing about all this that really puts the poop in my Cheerios isn't the months-long global mind-f%#k or the mainstream press' predictable alignment with 'progressive' groups' enviroweenie  agenda.  It's that yet another Team Chicken Little stage production has made us completely overlook and/or forget the 11 guys killed on the Deepwater Horizon when it blew up.  Yeah, I have a burr in my saddle about that.  Maybe I'm just strange that way, being all soft and mushy over the death of a few people (capitalist running dog, SUV-driving, environment-exploiting, animal killers that they may have been)  when millions of (a few) otters, fish and birds were suffering.

I'm profoundly saddened that we've become this desensitized to the tragedy of human death.

Fed slapped down for banning Christ from Christmas at Oklahoma bank

It gets kind of tough to keep my mouth shut sometimes.  I try, but the half-life of the chemical restraints at times coincides perfectly with peaks in the world's assininity.  The latest example:

Federal Reserve examiners come every four years to make sure banks are complying with a long list of regulations. The examiners came to Perkins last week. And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say "Merry Christmas, God With Us." were inappropriate. The Bible verse of the day on the bank's Internet site also had to be taken down.

Click for larger version.

You'd think the Federal Reserve have more important things to worry about.  But more importantly, what's the whole point of Christmas?  Did the Fed miss the word 'Christ' so cleverly hidden in the word Christmas?   Sure, we've done our best to secularize an overtly religious holiday (truly a holy day) but some of us still celebrate the birth of Christ and are no more ashamed of it than all the other faiths we're constantly being brainwashed to be 'tolerant' of are ashamed of their faith traditions.  O, Diversity, how we love you - unless you're promoting mainstream Christianity.

A couple of federal lawmakers got up on their hind legs and bayed at the moon and the Federal Reserve reconsidered.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas issued a joint letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday over what the two view as a “distressing interpretation of Federal Reserve Regulation B” concerning a bank in Perkins.

“This is an all-out assault on the faith, values and rights of the bank, its employees and the people of Perkins they serve,” Inhofe said. “It is absolutely ridiculous for the regulation to be interpreted this way, and it unduly discriminates against a person’s faith in Christ and their constitutionally protected freedom to publicly express that faith. It is simply another case of liberals in Washington overstepping their bounds and intruding in the lives of individuals. I expect the Federal Reserve to rectify this situation quickly.”

They did.  This time.  Merry Christmas.

Be sure to read an Atheist's view on this story at Outside The Beltway.

China, neither good nor bad, just a normal authoritarian state

I've lately been trying to put my attitude towards the Chinese Communist party into few words, and I think Andrei Lankov has done just that:

If China is indeed as bad as hosts of the right-wing talk shows insist, it is supposed to support the Kim Jong-il regime almost by default. But China is neither good nor bad. It is a normal authoritarian nation state which advances its interests with necessary ruthlessness and determination.

Neither good nor bad.  Just a normal authoritarian state.  I like that.

H/T to Richard Horgan @LiberateLaura  LAURA & EUNA, NOW LIBERATED

What the jackasses did when the horse left the barn

There must be something - something bad - in the water our political leaders drink.  This is from the Guardian:

The Obama administration is banning hundreds of thousands of federal employees from calling up the WikiLeaks site on government computers because the leaked material is still formally regarded as classified.

The Library of Congress tonight joined the education department, the commerce department and other government agencies in confirming that the ban is in place.

Although thousands of leaked cables are freely available on the Guardian, New York Times and other newspaper websites, as well as the WikiLeaks site, the Obama administration insists they are still classified and, as such, have to be protected.

How can these documents still seriously be considered classified?  I suppose they are in the technical sense, but as a practical matter, how can something be freely available to almost anyone on the planet and still be 'classified'?  That fact alone make a complete mockery of our entire classification process.

And now we're supposedly going to 'protect' them from the very people to whom they're must relevant and the people who paid the salaries of the people who wrote them, US citizens.  People in other countries are of course still free to download and read these 'classified' documents.

The commerce department, in an email circulated to employees on Monday, said the WikiLeaks material remained classified and "is NOT authorised for downloading, viewing, printing, processing, copying or transmitting" on government computers or communication devices.

It warned anyone downloading the WikiLeaks material: "Accessing the WikiLeaks documents will lead to sanitisation of your PC to remove any potentially classified information from your system, and the result in possible data loss."

The education department said any employees who had already looked at the material should contact their internet technology department. An internal email said that IT staff "will work with you to remediate your device".

Well, how nice, the nice people in the federal government will 'sanitize' and 'remediate' your PC or device.  Just what I always wanted.

And to make my bones with theTinfoil Hat crowd, let me ask how long it'll be before they 'sanitize' and 'remediate' the minds of the people who read things they decide we shouldn't know about.  If you think I'm kidding, read this.

And please note that this is not the evil Bu$hitler regime, this is the Obamasiah Hopey-Changey gang.

Next time I just hope they bring their own water.

One last thought - let's remember this the next time we slam the Chinese Communist Party for trying to delete history.

Highland Theatre Night

Highland Theatre Night, originally uploaded by Ecstatic Mark.