English Say English Is Too Confusing

...grunting soon to be the only acceptable form of communication allowed in Britain:

On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.

England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned....

"Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," [Birmingham City Councilor Martin Mullaney] said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it."

Yep, you heard it right. Mr. Mullaney is so mind-bogglingly stupid he believes one needs a high school education to understand the meaning and proper use of an apostrophe.

Presumably, the semi-colon would require a doctorate, or a fifteen year apprenticeship.

Our civilization is doomed.

Al, For The Last Time...

...CO2 does not cause global temperatures to rise.

Learn it already, you dimwit.

And, while we are at it, the Sun does not revolve around the Earth... so don't even start with that.

Stimulus Package = Democratic Vibrator

Well, so much for bipartisanship.

Obama spent almost his entire time as President-elect talking about how we needed a real stimulus package, which would focus upon addressing the toxic real estate assets and large amounts of infrastructure spending.

So, is that what we got? Hell, no.

What we got was a Democratic spending orgy that only shows depraved indifference to the well being of the country.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.

Really, I didn't think anything could get Republicans to close ranks this quickly after the drubbing they took in November...but this greed fest did it. Hell, even 11 Democrats couldn't stomach the thing.

And, believe it or not, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The Dems are still going to want to spend trillions of dollars nationalizing health care in one way or another.

This all matters because there are actual things that should be done to help fix the economy, and the Democrats refuse to do any of them. In fact, most of the "stimulus package" is going to beef up welfare programs for the hordes of unemployed and, now, unemployable the Democrats just created.

This is the Smoot-Hawley of the 21st Century.

Enjoy.

Britain Unleashes Horde Of Doner Kebab Police

I love lots of stuff about the ol' UK, but they seem to have collectively lost their minds: Health survey skewers kebabs

Doner kebabs, standard takeaway fare for thousands of Britons following a night out, contain "shocking" amounts of salt and fat, and many may include meat that is not listed as an ingredient....

The Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) which coordinated the research, said it had revealed "shocking figures" about the contents of doner kebabs.

"We would never consider kebabs part of a calorie-controlled diet, but the level of saturated fat and salt in some is a serious cause for concern," said Geoffrey Theobald, chairman of LACORS....

The study, which involved tests on 494 kebabs by officers from 76 local authorities across Britain...

No word on if the Army will have to be called in to quell the resulting "kebab riots."

On a related note....I'd kill for a doner kebab right about now.

Paul Begala Is A Fascist (Or At Least Sounds Like One)

There I said it.

Saddest part is its true. Fasicsts have no respect for actual democracy either.

What am i talking about? Compare and contrast:

Begala: You know you're low when you have lower ethical standards than a convicted felon, but that's where former Sen. Norm Coleman finds himself.

Wow. Coleman is now as bad as a felon! Why is that?

Castellanos: As Michael Stokes Paulsen, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis wrote in The Wall Street Journal, there is a lot in the recount affair to concern us. Franken has exploited a weakness in almost every state's recount process.

Recounts, Paulsen observes, must not violate the 14th Amendment, which provides that "no state shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The Constitution suggests it is a matter of some importance that votes be counted uniformly in a democracy.

The Supreme Court's "Bush v. Gore" 2000 decision reaffirmed the equal protection clause: Ballots in one precinct or county must not be evaluated differently than those in others.

Recounts, however, are conducted locally, with individual precincts and counties interpreting state election laws. The result in Minnesota is a crazy quilt of newly evolved standards that, in fact, have become no standards at all -- and are constitutionally unacceptable. All votes are meant to get equal protection in Minnesota, but Franken's votes are getting more equal protection than Coleman's.

In some parts of the state, as a Wall Street Journal editorial observed, recount officials have accepted Franken votes tallied on election night, even when the physical ballots were nowhere to be found for the recount.

Let's say, through error or design, some overly enthusiastic election night official fed Franken votes through a voting machine twice: In some parts of Minnesota, Franken kept those votes, even though they could not be re-tallied.

In other jurisdictions, the election night tally was thrown out and Franken got to include votes he didn't have election night but his team subsequently discovered. Availing himself of dissimilar standards in different parts of the state, Franken got to pick which benefited him the most, the election-day tally or the recount.

It's amazing, Al Gore drags the 2000 election all the way to the Supreme Court and Democrats laud him as a freakin' hero. But if Norm Coleman contests an election, well, he's basically a criminal.

So now it is criminal to have a fairly conducted election, if you don't belong to the one party deemed acceptable to Paul Begala.

Gee, that sure sounds like fascism.

Hey, It's Not Just Me

Sure, I've been calling Anthropogenic Global Warming proponents "frauds" for awhile now (see here, here and here for examples.) But unless you think me eccentric here is another person who holds similar views:

NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote....

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. [emphasis added]

Yes, you heard that right. The former chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA is accusing AGW peddlers of outright scientific fraud.

I, for one, am not surprised.

(Gleaned from Gaius over at Blue Crab)

Alright, Someone Let Me In On It

Hmmm....I've had about 200+ people check out this blog, specifically all the posts I've labelled "that darn scientific method" because of some email going around. Please, someone forward that to my email. The curiosity is killing me.

Idiot Alert

Jeezus H. Christ. What exactly does it take to write for Slate? Charles Pierce (who is NOT, I repeat NOT to be confused with Charles Peirce) single handed proves it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot. The Cardinals' presence in the Super Bowl is fluky and disgraceful.

[W]e are going to be inundated with mendacious swill over the next two weeks on the subject of what a great story the Arizona Cardinals are....

We're going to hear about how they magically transformed themselves at the end of the season. We're going to hear about the remarkable comeback of Kurt Warner. We're going to hear about how marvelous it is for the National Football League that a Super Bowl championship is within the grasp of a team so thickly dripping with obvious mediocrity that it's a wonder Charlie Sheen isn't playing left guard. We are going to hear all of this because the NFL and its broadcast partners operate on the very simple premise that everybody who reports—or follows—their sport on television is a paste-eating moron.

This simple fact is that the very presence of the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl is at best a fluke and, at worst, a disgrace.

Tough words from a writer based in a city that produced, by far, the worst team to ever make a Super Bowl. The 1985 edition of the New England Patriots was a joke of a team that got utterly embarrassed in Super Bowl XX, which they lost 46-10. The Patriots managed a robust -19 yards of offense in the first half. Only the Bears showing some mercy when the game was out of hand in the second half allowed New England to finish with more than 100 yards of offense for the game. That vaunted New England rushing attack amassed 7 yards in 11 attempts for the entire game.

Granted, this was in the middle of an era of NFC dominance where the AFC lost 15 of 16 Super Bowls between 1981 and 1996. (Only the Raider's win in Super Bowl XVIII kept the AFC from complete futility.) But even in this age of relative AFC ineptitude the feebleness of the Patriots stands out. (Yes, the Broncos were creamed worse in Super Bowl XXIV, but Denver had the best record in the entire AFC that season, so just imagine how much worse the loss could have been had Cleveland or Buffalo made it that season.)

So could the Cards stink up the joint on Sunday? Sure they could, but they have high standards of sucking to meet before we starting making noises about "all-time worst" whatevers.

Hey, but maybe Pierce can back his contentions up with facts and stats. Let us read on:

They played in a landfill of a division. They won their two playoff games because Jake Delhomme of Carolina turned the ball over six times and because the Philadelphia Eagles all looked at the newspapers last Sunday and discovered they were in the NFC championship game again.

Actually, the Cards have won three playoff games this year, not two. But beyond that mistake lets check the logic here. "The Cards suck because the rest of the NFC West sucks." I guess the 2006 Colts, the 1999 Rams and the 1998 Broncos sucked as well since they also won divisions that featured no other plus .500 teams. Oh, wait a sec....all of those teams won the Super Bowl those years? Hmm...that must mean the quality of the division doesn't necessarily reflect on all the teams. Who knew?

Oh, and Carolina and Philadelphia, who collectively turned the ball over 9 times against the Cards, did so completely without defensive pressure from Arizona. Funny, I watched those games and I don't seem to remember it that way, but my eyes must be lying.

Cardinals are a glorified Arena Football League team with a soft defense and a running game unworthy of the name.

Yes, they don't have the high powered running offense of the Steelers, right? Well, let us see...the Cards racked up 3.5 yards a carry this season which ranked them 31st in the league. Pittsburgh is much better than that, right? Well, the Steelers averaged 3.7 yards a carry ranking them 29th in the league. Oh yeah, that's impressive. So according to Pierce averaging 3.5 yards a carry makes you a "glorified Arena Football League team" while 3.7 yards makes you an NFL juggernaut. Gee, thanks for the tip Chuck.

They are in the position that they're in because the NFL rigs its season worse than any carny rigs his wheel. For all the macho posturing of its principal propagandists, between the jiggering of the schedule and the conniving of the draft and the socialistic revenue schemes, and the desperate grab for any mechanism that will flatten out the differences between really good teams and really bad ones, the NFL is the league that comes closest to the biddy soccer league philosophy of making sure that everyone gets a trophy.

Yeah, I mean the Cards must have won only 2 or 3 games last year. The fact they went 9-7 this year must be some sort of conspiracy!! What is that? The Cards went 8-8 last year? Oh....never mind.

But wait...didn't the Cards face a much easier schedule when compared to the worthy Steelers? Well, let us compare Pittsburgh's non-division schedule to Arizona's. The Steelers non-divisional foes went a combined 95-64-1 this season with five of those teams making the playoffs. Take that you Arizona bastards!!

What is that? The Cards non-divisional opponents went 98-61-1 (three games better than the Steelers schedule can boast) AND five of those teams made the playoffs as well? But, that's not the same! Arizona only went 1-4 against those playoff bound teams! See they are undeserving!!!! What?? Pittsburgh also went 1-4 against their non-divisional playoff bound opponents? Well....crap!

The only proof anyone should need came in the 15th game of the season, when Arizona visited New England. It already was clear this year that the Cardinals were even money to finish in the middle of the pack of any league that played in the upper latitudes, with the possible exception of the Ivies. Send them north out of the pleasure dome that the Bidwills blackjacked out of the state of Arizona, and the team did things like give up 56 points to the New York Jets, playing such shoddy defense that Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns. This, of course, ignited another outbreak of hot and steamy Favre love from the easily smitten television press corps, so we have the Cardinals to blame even for that. In Foxborough, however, in December, they simply quit.

The Patriots scored on nine of their first 10 possessions. The score was 31-0 at halftime.

My God!! That is the sort of thing that only happens when one team has nothing to play for and the other is fighting for its playoff life. You know what I mean, when one side has already won their division and are no longer in the running for home field advantage...you know, like the situation Arizona was in this year. Oh wait a sec....

Maybe that isn't the point. Maybe the point is Pittsburgh didn't go on the road for the second to last game of the season and stink up the joint! What is that? They went on the road to Tennessee and lost 31-14? Well, that's is totally different because, um...well...because Arizona sucks!!!!

Bear in mind over the next week that this game will be cited as the "pivotal" moment in the Cardinals' miracle run to the Super Bowl. Ken Whisenhunt—who sat most of his offensive weapons in that game—and his staff will be the subject of gooey encomiums for cracking the whip after the loss to New England. There will be loose talk about professionalism, and about how pride was appealed to at a critical moment. And since snow is a long shot in Tampa, they might even win the game, and then there will be more of it. And it will all be nonsense.

Yeah, Whisenhunt rested his key players for a play-off run. See how that worked for him? They are only in the Super Bowl. What an idiot Whisenhunt is! Oh yeah, and even if this team wins the Super Bowl that only proves they are no good.

Who can argue with "logic" like that?

(Cross posted over at Blue Crab Boulevard)

Inauguration

Congratulations to President Obama, and good luck.

Juan Cole Is A Dipshit

No. Really.

I agonized over the title of this post. I considered "Juan Cole: What a fucking moron" or "Juan Cole as ambulatory afterbirth" as well. Instead I opted for simplicity.

In any event, Michael Totten has asked us all to "Stop Juan Cole" and I have to say I agree with him. Juan Cole IS Otto from A Fish Called Wanda, and he has the unbelievably stupid track-record to prove it.

Listen, there are lots of ways for sane, rational people to have disagreements about political issues. Hell, in many ways that is the point of politics. Somehow Cole manages to avoid all of those many ways every freaking time. He seems to think its some sort of gift. It isn't.

Can You Handle The Truth?

Most of the MSM cannot:

Allow me to propose a metric for evaluating whether a journalist is behaving responsibly or not: If he reports that Israel bombed a UN school and killed 30 civilians, he is irresponsible. If he reports that Hamas used a UN school as a weapons cache and base of operations for launching mortars at the IDF, and the IDF’s return fire killed the Hamas cell along, tragically, with a yet-unspecified number of civilians, then he is behaving responsibly. If he wishes to be particularly scrupulous, he might additionally note that Hamas had rigged the school with explosives which detonated after the IDF took out the mortar team, killing a large additional number of civilians. And he might add that you can go to the IDF’s Youtube channel to view footage from 2007 of Hamas using the very same school as a mortar-launching base.

Journalists who abjure reporting the vital details of this story should be called what they are — activists masquerading as reporters.

I'll add another uncomfortable truth: If the U.N. is covering up these facts and their role in the use of U.N. facilties to attack Israel, which they undoubtedly are, then I have to wonder how long Western nations can remain tied to such an organization.