My Hero

From CNN:

A flight attendant cursed out passengers, grabbed a beer then triggered an emergency chute Monday at a JFK Airport terminal, authorities say.

When the police arrived, he was having sex with his boyfriend.

Alabamastan, indeed

Honoring Miss California
Neal Boortz

The Alabama legislature has decided that they have nothing else left to do. All of Obama's stimulus money has been spent. All local Little League baseball teams have been congratulated. So now they are moving on to Miss California. The House approved a resolution praising Miss California Carrie Prejean for speaking out against gay marriage.

Now there is a great use of your tax dollars. Sure am glad there are no more pressing issues in Alabamastan. It's not that I disagree with the resolution, it's just that there are more pressing issues to deal with. Also .. the resolution should have said something about aftermarket equipment.

This story is useless without video, right?

Via LGF

Texas School Board Chairman Endorses Book Calling Pro-Evolution Parents 'Monsters'

We’ve had several posts about the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy, a dentist and young earth creationist who is doing his best to drag science education in Texas back into the Dark Ages, with help from the deceptive propagandists at the Discovery Institute. In an especially Orwellian touch, they’re calling this effort “academic freedom.”

Jeebus!! I am apoplectic!!

From Ace of Spades

Democrat (Of Course) Legislators In Connecticut Seek To Reorganize Catholic Church In That State


Well, thank Zoroaster they've "reconsidered":

CT Legislature...Hey Maybe We Won't Reorganize The Catholic Church After All

Insert sarcastic comment about the clerks knowing it was a Bat'leth here

Pic Shows Man Robbing Stores With Klingon Sword
Clerks Recognize Sword As 'Bat'leth'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A surveillance picture released by police Wednesday afternoon shows a man armed with what appears to be a small Klingon sword, holding up a 7-Eleven convenience store.

That same man robbed another 7-Eleven store store a half-hour later, and remains at large, Colorado Springs police Lt. David Whitlock said.

The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m., at 145 N Spruce St. The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series.

The robber demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount.

A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber "transported" himself out of the store on foot.

Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a "bat'leth."

Neither clerk was injured in the robberies.

The Startrek.com Web site describes the Klingon weapon as crescent-shaped and about a yard long. However, the weapon that the man was wielding appears to be smaller than that. The bat'leth has points on both ends, two points in between and a handle on the outside.

Police said they don't know if the sword used by the robber was made of metal.

Klingons were warlike enemies of the good-guy United Federation of Planets in the original "Star Trek" series but were allies in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

What the @#&!?

Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban in order to get them to switch sides

Witless Realpolitik Alert: the British once again demonstrate their utter incomprehension of and disregard of the jihad ideology. Sure, the Taliban will accept their training -- and continue to pursue jihad.

"Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan," by Jerome Starkey in the Independent (thanks to Blue):


Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.

Halo 3: Homophobia Evolved

Funny or tragic? Hmmm...

Another treasured childhood memory (not to mention actual American hero) ruined by idiots

G.I. Joe was just a toy, wasn't he?

Hollywood now proposes that in a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line, Joe's -- well, "G.I." -- identity needs to be replaced by membership in an "international force based in Brussels." The IGN Entertainment news site reports Paramount is considering replacing our "real American hero" with "Action Man," member of an "international operations team."

Paramount will simply turn Joe's name into an acronym.

The show biz newspaper Variety reports: "G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer."

Well, thank goodness the villain -- no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK -- is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.

....

Well, who cares. G.I. Joe is just a toy, right? He was never real. Right?

On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.

Read it all @ the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

IMDb: G.I. Joe (2009)

They can't even hang on to their own Elvis

“In France, To Earn A Lot Of Money Is To Be Seen As A Little Bit Criminal”

"However, the smart ones are voting with their feet:

Angry at paying more than 72 percent of his income in taxes, he moved to the ski resort of Gstaad last December in a storm of publicity. After Sarkozy's May election, Hallyday hinted he might come back. His press attache Catherine Battner says he has yet to make up his mind.

Fleeing the Tax

Households fleeing the fortune tax climbed to a record 649 in 2005 from 370 in 1997, according to a study by French Senator Philippe Marini. "

Read it all at No Pasarán.

Sacrilicious Challenge

PZ Meyers has a story of some guy being charged of a hate crime for putting a Quran in a toilet. I'm not going into how this vindicates my position on hate crimes (unnecessary and Orwellian), but Meyers ends the post with a list of ways he could desecrate the Quran.

In that spirit, please offer up some ideas. Although I must admit, making a new cover out of bacon will be hard to beat.

I'll put mine in the comments later.

One for Clyde

At the last public display of what remains of G.od's O.wn P.arty some mammal named Sam Brownback joined two other mouthbreathers in indicating they did not believe in evolution. The NYT then gave this homo erectus a few inches to further hang himself. Over at The Edge, a place we should all frequent, Jerry Coyne, a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, filets him in a response - Don't Know Much About Biology.

Jonah Goldberg puts Ms. O'Donnell in her place, & PM explains the science- again

The 'Queen of Nice' has gone nuts, and ABC lets her rant on and on
By Jonah Goldberg, The New Hampshire Union Leader

RENOWNED metallurgist Rosie O'Donnell proclaimed on TV Thursday of last week that Sept. 11, 2001, was a more significant date than most of us realized. It was, in her words, "the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel."

This, of course, came as news to steelworkers, welders, blacksmiths, firefighters, manufacturers of samurai swords and other fools who hadn't realized that steel is forged in magic furnaces using dragon breath and pixie dust.
...
Still, not even the heat of ridicule can weaken O'Donnell's steely resolve to make an idiot of herself.

That's fine. Normally we expect such outbursts from the poor souls who rage against unseen threats at bus stations and public libraries. But even the rich and famous have a right to mutter inanities, shout non sequiturs or shriek possum recipes.

Read It all.


Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments: Popular Mechanics Responds

Recently, Rosie O’Donnell, a co-host of ABC talk show The View, made comments on the show that renewed controversy over the collapse of World Trade Center 7.

While saying she didn’t know what to believe about the U.S. government’s involvement in the attacks of Sept. 11, she said, “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7—building 7, which collapsed in on itself—it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes—7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”

She continued: “To say that we don’t know that it imploded, that it was an implosion and a demolition, is beyond ignorant. Look at the films, get a physics expert here [on the show] from Yale, from Harvard, pick the school—[the collapse] defies reason.” (Watch the clip here)

For those interested in what physics and demolition experts have said regarding WTC 7’s collapse, as detailed in our book Debunking 9/11 Myths, Popular Mechanics offers these notes....

Read it all.

Too breathtakingly absurd (& hilarious) to ignore, courtesy of The MEMRI Blog

Iranian Minister: 300 Film is an Insult to the Entire Iranian Nation

According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, Iranian Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi has told his ministry staff that Iranian artists will respond to the film “300,” which he claims does not correctly depict the great civilization of Iran.

Iranian Media: "300" Film "Intentionally Insults Iran's Ancient Culture"; Bootleg DVDs Already Available In Iran

The Iranian news agency Fars is reporting that the film "300" has angered the Iranian people "due to its intentional insults to the country's ancient culture" and is being "viewed by many, even non-Iranians, as overt animosity towards Iran."

Drum roll, please, as we have a winner:

IRINN Commentary on The New Film "300"

The following commentary was aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on March 13, 2007

Reporter: Tonight, IRINN commentary also sheds more light on the conspiracy behind the screening of this anti-culture Hollywood film.

Voiceover: Screening of the movie ‘300’ which has depicted war between the Persians and the Greeks, using an unreal and fabricated story, is facing a wave of protests and criticism by Iranians both inside and outside the country. Warner Bros., which belongs to the famous and rich American Jew, is the company that has made the movie. This movie, which is totally against Persian culture and civilization, could be considered a production by Zionists and a group of American extremists. The film ‘300’ shows the historical war between Persians, at the time of King Xerxes, with the Spartans. The director wrongly depicts the Persians as being violent and warmongers. This film is a complete distortion of history. It shows the Spartans, who were warmongers and racists and violent, as peace lovers, and the Persians as uncivilized- which is nothing but a lie. In addition to distortion of history, the Zionist Warner Company is also pursuing cultural and political objectives by producing such a film which has a very shallow script. From the cultural point of view, the Zionists and the elements affiliated to the U.S. have tried to launch a propaganda front against ancient and historical roots of Iranians, and the hasty production of this film is an indication of its propaganda aspect. But political intentions of Warner have been more important than anything else. This film tries to paint a violent image of Persians who are against peace in today’s world, in order to increase the international political pressure on Iran. This is while films should be made of crimes committed by the Americans, throughout history, all around the world, and it should be shown what the so-called civilized Zionists and Americans are doing today with human rights and humanity.

I see dumb people.

lgf: 9/11 Denial on Mainstream TV:

"Rosie O’Donnell is now officially a Truther. She came out today on “The View....”"

I gleaned from some of the comments that Ms. O'Donnell said that this was the "first time in history steel melted." This comment alone is funnier than any stand-up she ever did.

Just for the record:

Debunking The 9/11 Myths - Mar. 2005 Cover Story

PM examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.

Henry Rollins: A Love Letter To Ann Coulter

"Do not consult a telephone directory while driving your car "

Warning: This Column Might Give You Something to Think About: a review of the book Remove Child Before Folding (via JunkScience.com)

A new book of real-life product labels reveals that the possibility of satire is, alas, vanishing.

If you order a drink at a dockside bar, it may come with a little cocktail napkin printed with a map of the local harbor. A friend recently passed along one of these on which was emblazoned the stern warning, “Not to Be Used for Navigation.” I can only say that if you are trying to land your dory or skiff with the aid of a cocktail napkin in the first place, you are probably far beyond the reach of any warning from the rest of us.