joyfulchristian

The meaning of friendship

Michael Ubaldi explains for those not paying attention why the US might treat Japan better than South Korea.

Podcast

OK, I've been listening to the IMAO podcast and you really need to give it a go.  Pay special attention to the section on Alabama.  You may also note SarahK LHBO in the background of the roundtable section.  Have fun.

Hadn't thought of that

Brian Micklethwait explains how to enjoy sports if your not a proper sports fan.  He concludes by saying:

At half past one a.m. tomorrow morning they will be showing it again. And that I will video, and then watch it properly later, and then again in the months and years to come. That is how to enjoy sport, if you are a not-proper sports fan like me. Watch and rewatch the games your guys win in style, and forget the rest. Do not waste your one life obsessing over games that got away, or which were won by your team but unmemorably, without any amazing magic moments to savour. Take all that spiritual energy, and apply it to doing real life better, I say. My method wastes far less time on all this nonsense.

But when games go right, enjoy.

When I was younger, I was a practically rabid sports fan, even when watching games betweens teams I didn't care about playing sports I didn't particularly care for.  As I've grown older I have a harder and harder time getting worked up about sports.  Even my favorite team (Dallas Cowboys) playing my favorite sport (Real football!) don't generally get me very worked up.  I now find that the only way I can watch baseball on TV is the way I'm doing it now; I have the TV on while doing something else and if the announcers sound excited I'll look up to see the replay.  I hadn't thought of Brian's approach which basically takes what I'm doing and makes an art form out of it.

Sounds about right

LaShawn Barber has the goods on an open position at Newsweek.  I'm just not entirely sure she's joking.

Heh

I don't usually pay any attention to gossip columns, but when I stumbled across this, I couldn't let it pass:

Shannen Doherty is disinvited from another television project. In related news, the sky is still blue.

USA Today reports that the former Charmed and 90210 star has been dropped from UPN's fall sitcom Love, Inc., in which she was to have played a dating consultant who's unlucky in love.

"Shannen is a terrific actress, but we're going in a different creative direction with the show," UPN spokesman Paul Hewitt says.

Probable translation: "Holy Aaron Spelling! Who knew the rumors could be so accurate!"

Um, anyone with a brain?

Is it real?

... or is it Scrappleface.?

The problem with Scott Ott is that sometimes it's hard to tell.

Sounds about right

Spoons explains the filibuster deal.  I think he's probably being generous.

It's so cold in here

that I better turn the air conditioner on.  Or something like that.

Interesting

I was out of touch with the world during most of the hole Dobson-SpongeBob thing so I didn't really pay much attention to it.  However, Josh Claybourn says Dobson's position was unfairly maligned.

Arghh!

Donald sensing points out something disgusting.  I know somebody stole my sticker.

The sad thing is

... that this Snopes entry even had to be written.

an, it's no, "A Modest Propsal," but it's a pretty obvious example of satire.  Come on people!

Marriage based on genetics

I don't know why, but this Eugene Volokh post is very interesting to me:

Selecting for Intelligence as Causing Societal Inequality:I don't intend to blog much more on this, but since a bunch of people raised this point, let me speak to it. The argument (buttressed sometimes by citations to the movie Gattaca) is that rich people will improve their kids' genes, which will increase social stratification, as descendants of the poorer people will find it harder to compete. I profoundly disagree with this argument.

1. If you take this seriously, it would be largely an argument against private education (and I've heard the argument made this way), since of course private education lets rich parents improve their kids' competitiveness relative to poor kids. You might even be upset when smart people marry other smart people.

Would you support "breeding for equality," in which smart people self-consciously try to marry dumb people, so their kids wouldn't have too much of an unfair advantage? Or how about programs that try to persuade smart men that the feminine ideal should indeed be the dumb airhead woman (and, of course, to persuade smart women that they should marry dumb men)? Yes, I realize that there's potentially a significant difference in degree between the IQ benefits to be gained by genetic engineering and the IQ benefits to be gained by lay genetics (i.e., smart people marrying smart people) or education. But I stress the "potentially," and in any event the principle strikes me as quite similar.

Just keep reading.

That's about right

Gotta love ScrappleFace:

President Bush, upon learning of yesterday's leaked confidential Guantanamo report, said, "I'm always deeply concerned about allegations that our government has acted improperly. And of course this story has the added credibility of coming from anonymous sources leaking selected excerpts of confidential documents to the The New York Times. And that's tantamount to journalism."

Journalism at The New York Times?  Nah.

Is it satire

... or just truth in reporting. From Scrapple Face:

(2004-11-22) -- Iran today said it had suspended uranium enrichment as part of a deal negotiated with several European Union countries which, for their part, have agreed to suspend disbelief.

Heh.

Goodness!

Sarah can be mean when she's annoyed. 

Oh my

Given their track records, this might be pretty close to the truth:

(2004-11-17) -- Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart Holding Corp. today announced a merger aimed at setting a new record in the arena of retail bankruptcy filings.

"Rather than just vanish from the American landscape, we want to be remembered by our shareholders for decades," said Kmart CEO Edward Lampert who will head the new Sears Holding Corp. "We're change agents, and this merger is bound to change college and retirement plans for thousands of our shareholders."

Gotta love Scrapple Face.

Stupid people can be funny

Heh.

This reminds me, in 2 and a half years of blogging I've only gotten one genuine piece of hate mail.  I feel so left out!

I have gotten some rather spiteful comments, but most of them had nothing to do with the post and were filled with profanity so they had to be removed.

Just as well because I doubt my responses would be as humorous.

What is going on here?

Melanie Phillips has quite a bit to say about the disgusting way the world has been lavishing praise on Yasser Arafat.  Her closing is very depressing.  It's also right on target:

The reaction of the free world to Arafat's death, along with the opprobium heaped daily upon his victims in Israel, illustrates the decadence that now rewards evil and punishes those whom it terrorises. It is a horrifying indication of a world that has simply lost its fundamental understanding of right and wrong. All who value life, liberty and justice should take careful note and shudder at this moral -- and mortal -- sickness. This is the way a civilisation dies.

Yes, it is.  All civilizations die eventually.  It is the way of things.  But if we lose all perspective of right and wrong, the fall will come much faster and much harder.

For the non-French speaking

... Martin Devon offers a translation.

Now that's a turn of phrase

BlackFive says, "Lawrence O'Donnell is nuttier than pachyderm poop." Read the rest.

Ha-ha!

And you think you have it bad?

An urgent plea for John Kerry

Heh.

Well ...

... at least we'd know where he stood.

He said what?

OxBlog has some amusing caption mismatches.

How depressing

And the red tape flows:

It's official. Regulation is now Britain's biggest industry. David Arculus, the Chairman of Severn Trent Water and head of the government's Better [sic] Regulation Task Force, suggested last week that the cost of regulation to the UK economy was now more than £100 billion a year. That's more than a tenth of our gross domestic product (GDP).

That's bigger than tourism (£76 billion), or our much-vaunted financial services industry (£66 billion), or even the National Health Service (£67 billion and rising - and rising).

How depressing.

Legitimate pessimism

David Bernstein has a very good point about why peace in the middle east is almost impossible in the near term.

Meet Mr. Language

Yeah, these are some of my pet peeves too. Except for the two spaces thing.

You know ...

I'm surprised I didn't read this here.

On a lighter note

Bummer man.

It seems

... that the Nobel Peace Prize winner is a Certified-A-Number One- Fruitcake. I'll just let Susanna do the heavy lifting.

This may be the funniest thing Scott Ott has ever written

... which is saying something. I busted my gut just from reading the headline on Blog Lines:

Limbaugh Ruling Inadvertently Overturns Roe v. Wade

Now that's comedy.

The answer is "No"

Former Canadian Martin Devon asks, "Did you know that Canada has submarines?"

Not until I heard that one had caught fire.

Hey!

What's with the accountant bashing!

We do so have emotions! Like laughter. Yeah! Laughter!

What's that snickering? Accountants laugh. Occassionally. No, really.

I wouldn't normally link to cat stuff

... because I don't normally have anything to say about them. However, I found this hilarious.

Ouch!

Referring to the BBCs coverage of recent activities in Gaza, Melanie Phillips says:

But never fear -- we can always rely on the BBC to keep the flag of malice and moral bankruptcy proudly flying.

Sadly, I'm afraid she may be understating things.

Things to know

After lamenting that she is no longer an age evenly into which two can evenly be divided, Ambra lists some facts of life she says she should have learned by now. I'd agree with most of them.

John's right ... er ... correct again

(I think it's pretty obvious that he's the other kind of right.)

From John Hawkins:

John Kerry's ultra-liberal mentor, Ted Kennedy, has been out on the campaign trail talking about the war on terror and George Bush.

Kennedy has been, as per usual, wrong about almost EVERYTHING...incidentally, what does it say about John Kerry that he has an ultra-left-wing dove out on the stump enunciating what he thinks about Iraq?

In any case, I wanted to discuss this particular remark that Kennedy made...

"It's a campaign of anger and insult and the most egregious examples are the examples of Vice President Cheney. When he even goes on to suggest that the al-Qaida wants John Kerry to win, that is the most outrageous charge. It's the most anti-American — it's McCarthyism of the first order."

First off, let me point out that Dick Cheney has never said that, "al-Qaida wants John Kerry to win". However, that being said, I'M SAYING that, "al-Qaida wants John Kerry to win".

John goes on in detail, and by use of analogy, to explain that this is a rather obvious conclusion to draw. He wants to know, as I do, why people think it's so horrible to say? I mean, unless you seriously believe that al-Qaeda is huddled in fear at the thought of President Kerry *snicker*, then you have to be aware that this is the most logical conclusion to draw.

On another note, is Kennedy totally oblivious to the irony of accusing someone of "anti-Americanism" and "McCarthyism" at the same time? Just asking.

Laugh of the day

Oh, I howled in pleasure at this one.

TypePad ate my post

I had a post linking to this Samizdata post on how legal systems influence education. Unfortunately TypePad ate it. Just pretend it was brilliant.

Rules to read by

Space Monkey has posted rules for his blog. Numbers 1, 7, and 8 definitely apply hear as well. Make up your own mind about the others.

Shake hands with a Jew ...

... hack off the terrorists. See Wind Rider's remarks on the Israeli-Iraqi handshake that has Hezbollah flipping out.

Limited Democracy

A lesson often forgotten.

Hmmm ... Question

I was having a horrible time concentrating at work today. During one such instance I flipped over to SarahK's site and read her account of her American Idol audition. (You really ought to read it. She obviously enjoyed herself and Sarah's narrative's are always a blast.) While reading a question occurred to me: Since I know she's a HUGE AI fan, I wonder how her experience will affect her appreciation of the show? Will she like it more? Less? The same? Of course, right now I suppose it would still just be speculation, even from her. But who's better situated to speculate?

Why did this pop into my head? Who knows? I sure don't.

Wow

You simply must read this letter from an American Muslim to liberal Jews. It explains why the world has always hated the Jews (a very compelling explanation), and warns of what will happen if liberal Jews deceive themselves into believing they are safe from persecution. (Via Occam's Toothbrush and Israpundit.)

????????

The Presbyterian Church has voted to boycott all firms doing business with Israel. Eugene Kontorovich explains how wrong-headed this is.

It's amazing what the world will ignore

Jerry Scharf is another voice asking why nothing is being done about the slaughter in Sudan. Remember when we said, "Never Again"? Our leaders don't seem to remember.

OK, OK

I know I said I wasn't going to talk about this any more, but I just couldn't pass up Martin Devon's advice to Democrats on the Berger fiasco:

Democrats: When composing talking points on this matter please write them as if the NSA in question were Condi Rice. Once your remarks are complete do a "search and replace" with Sandy Berger. Repeat this excercise until what you've written does not change whether you are talking about Rice or Berger.

This will stop you from sounding like a partisan hack. Thank you.

Of course, there are people on both sides of the aisle who could benefit from advice like this, but the defenders of Berger are really outdoing themselves.

Counting the costs

Dale Amon speculates on some of the possible implications of Manilla's decision to withdraw their troops from Iraq. As he points out, this decision may well lead to tactical changes in the Phillipines' home grown Islamist band.

Conservatism for a new generation

Jonah Goldberg has a fascinating (and funny) look at what the apparent rightward shift of young people does and doesn't mean. At the same time I think he does a good job at reminding us what conservatism really is:

In fact, most of the things conservatives say have been said before. It's simply baked into the cake of conservatism to say the same things over and over again. After all, you cannot take it as an axiom of conservative thought that human nature has no history and then presume that you have that many new insights into human nature. You cannot believe in the "wisdom of the ancients" and then freelance a grand new theory of the universe.

I think that far too often conservatives forget that one of the fundamental concepts of conservatism is that those who came before us had very good points that must be considered before we change things. Far too many people call themselves conservative without actually thinking about why conservatism is such a good thing in the first place.

Heartless and brainless

Will Colier describes the time that he cracked up WFB.