Just desserts

There comes to us from Iraq the news that a terrorist group calling itself Sword of Truth has kidnapped four people from a group called Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and has threatened to kill them unless some demands for the release of certain terrorists from Iraqi jails are met. What makes this interesting is that… Continue reading Just desserts

Iraq Gun Porn

This is an essay blog; I don’t normally just carry links to other peoples’ postings, but Iraq Gun Porn is just too informative, and too much fun, to pass up. I was particularly tickled by this: The ..45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is… Continue reading Iraq Gun Porn

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Categorized as Firearms

Rudyard Kipling Invented SF!

Ever had a moment when somebody else drops an insight on you, and you feel totally stupid because you had all the facts and all the motivation to generate it yourself, it was about something you’re expert at, but you just…didn’t…see…it? And you should have, and you’re damn annoyed with yourself for missing it?

Take the WRT54G challenge!

So, LinkSys (formerly independent, now a tentacle of Cisco) has brought the Linux version of their WRT54GL wireless router back to life. We’d previously heard that Version 5 of the box would run proprietary VxWorks firmware. But according to this story over at LinuxDevices.com, LinkSys is shipping a Linux-based WRT54GL model that it says it… Continue reading Take the WRT54G challenge!

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Categorized as Software

Mathematics versus reality

In the comments to my posting on the incoherence of Narnia, it has become apparent that some of the respondents are deeply confused about the relationship between mathematical and empirical truth. Symptoms of this confusion have included a superficially plausible but mistaken application of the Law of the Excluded Middle and an an attempt to… Continue reading Mathematics versus reality

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Categorized as Science

Anti-fashion

Manolo the Shoeblogger writes in The Paradox of Not Caring: “claiming to not care about the clothes, to not be concerned about what one wears, it the paradox, for the clothes worn by one who claims not to care make as much the statement as those worn by one who dresses with the purpose.” He’s… Continue reading Anti-fashion

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Categorized as Culture

Riots in France declared over

The Brussels Journal reports that the French government has officially declared the banlieu riots over. The article continues: Police figures are at exactly 98 cars torched on Wednesday night. This, the police say, is a normal average. Consequently the 20th consecutive night of violence was declared the last one. Yes, you read that correctly. 98… Continue reading Riots in France declared over

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Categorized as Politics

2wenty minutes of goo

Went to see the latest Harry Potter flick last night and got — no, I won’t say “assaulted”, I’ll say “oozed on” by the infomercials Regal Cinemas started running earlier this year, some sludge called “The 2wenty” that tries to be trendy and hip and cool and attractive and fails miserably on all four counts.… Continue reading 2wenty minutes of goo

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Categorized as Culture

The Ice Harvest

In 1997 I was delighted by Grosse Point Blank, John Cusack’s masterpiece about a hitman who finds himself (in both senses of the phrase) at his high-school reunion. I loved that movie for its action, its dark comedy, and a script that never stopped being wickedly intelligent for even a second. I’ve been waiting nearly… Continue reading The Ice Harvest

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Categorized as Culture

Peak Oil — A Wish-Fulfillment Fantasy for Secular Idiots

Secularists and leftists enjoy sneering at conservative Christians who believe in the Rapture and other flavors of millenarianism. Reasonably so: it takes either a drooling idiot or somebody who has deliberately shut off most of his brain, reducing himself to an idiotically low level of critical thinking, to believe such things. The draw, of couse,… Continue reading Peak Oil — A Wish-Fulfillment Fantasy for Secular Idiots

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Categorized as Politics

Paris is Burning

As I predicted two years ago, in Demographics and the Dustbin of History, Paris is burning. The banlieu riots are so out of control that the French have declared a national state of emergency.

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Categorized as Politics

Suicidalism

The most important weapons of al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamist terror network are the suicide bomber and the suicide thinker. The suicide bomber is typically a Muslim fanatic whose mission it is to spread terror; the suicide thinker is typically a Western academic or journalist or politician whose mission it is to destroy… Continue reading Suicidalism

Help with WordPress

This is a request for help from my readers. I’m trying to find out how to hack WP so that it will never insert <br> tags in my entries. I want it to ignore hard newlines, treating them as soft.

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Categorized as General