It’s as if millions of pantyliners suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Reader Tips
In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips, replete with dancing poolside bikinis, Frank Sinatra impersonator Frank Sinatra Jr. takes a flying backyard leap at Cole Porter’s Love For Sale.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
50 years of David Bowie’s hairstyles in a single gif.
Wynneing!
“In this audio exchange, which Kathleen Wynne has denied occurred…”
MPPs @RickNichollsMPP & @SteveClarkPC are asking the @OPP_News & @Sudbury_Police to re-open the @OlivierAndrew investigation. #onpoli
— Steve Paikin (@spaikin) January 15, 2015
Great Moments In Socialism
Rationing began in September when consumers were forced to register their fingerprints at PDVAL stores in order to limit the consumption of 23 basic goods ranging from milk to toilet paper–in order to prevent the resale and smuggling of goods, authorities said.
But since many public supermarkets didn’t get scanning machines, most shops registered identity card numbers instead.
Seems like a lot of trouble. Tattoos would be easier.
h/t Kevin B.
Two dead in Belgium
Damned Dutch Reformists.
Via, Glenn.
In The Mail
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New Siqdor (Zero Point Light Book 2) by Stephen Carter. (This ebook is posted now at Amazon as a “pre-order”, going live on January 26. Anyone who orders it would automatically receive download on January 26.) |
Operation Empty Chair
#WhiteHouseSleeperCell MT @MaxBoot anti-ISIS campaign so ineffective that many Iraqis think US in cahoots w/ISIS. http://t.co/E1dpVQ4Q7U …
— Katewerk (@katewerk) January 15, 2015
In The Red
Target says its cash costs to shut down its Canadian operations will be $500 million to $600 million. The stores will remain open during a court-supervised liquidation period.
It also plans to sell its real estate.
I’ve always loathed shopping in Target stores. Who sold them on those irritating red interiors?
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Cape Wind was supposed to be America’s first offshore wind project. Chief sponsor Jim Gordon labored since 2001 (14 years!) on his vision of 130 massive spinning fans sited in shallow federal waters off New England’s historic coastline (468 MW at maximum capacity). Mr. Gordon was the darling of environmental groups and green-minded politicos who pushed big wind at any price.
Last week, the project was dealt a fatal blow when utilities who contracted to buy the energy terminated their agreements. Cape Wind will never be built, and no amount of green-colored optimism will change that fact.
h/t Don B.
Reader Tips
Tonight’s tips video gives us a rare behind-the-scenes look at a traditional Irish Funeral.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Honey, I Finished The Internet
Let’s Make A Deal
We’ll ban images of Mohammed when the Saudis allow churches and synagogues and Hindu temples…
#JeSuisDentalStudent
Je Suis Free Speech Memory Hole. RT @SunNewsNetwork Police reviewing Dalhousie dentistry students' Facebook posts http://t.co/XjxzkuZhJi
— Katewerk (@katewerk) January 14, 2015
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
The Atlantic gets letters! “Mr. Bennet, permit me to suggest that when the first ten paragraphs of an article in a respected publication like The Atlantic are in error, that alone should serve as sufficient grounds for the withdrawal and correction of the piece.”
Forward!
There are so many other things that the existence of a White House “sleeper cell” would explain that I couldn’t even begin to count them.
Wildrose Country
At that time there were a variety of fringe right-wing parties floating around and, under Hinman, they consolidated under the Wildrose Alliance. I loved it, because I was (am) fantastically right-wing. My assumption was that anyone drawn to the Wildrose Party would be people like me or, at the very least, people slightly more conservative than what the PC party offered in 2009.
During the 2012 campaign I realized I was wrong.
People in 2012 were supporting the Wildrose Party because they were a new, populist party that people associated with friendly, photogenic Danielle Smith. I found myself campaigning alongside wildly different types of supporters. Liberals informed me that they were voting Wildrose because they offered the best alternative to a PC government. This was before they seemed to realize what the other, original half of the people in the party were about.
Plenty of good observations in there, I suspect.
The Sound Of Settled Science
“Artificial Amplification of Warming Trends Across the Mountains of the Western United States”
“Who speaks for Islam?”
We were told that the 9/11 terrorists, though Muslim, did not speak for Islam. OK, maybe they didn’t. But how about the London subway bombers? They claimed to be murdering people in the name of Allah or Mohammed. But maybe they were wrong. Maybe they read the wrong parts of the Koran or Hadith, or interpreted those eyebrow-raising passages too literally or something. Maybe.
Yet here’s my puzzlement. Let’s agree, for the sake of the discussion, that the 9/11 bombers did not speak for Islam. Ditto the London murders. Indeed, let’s say that neither the Boston marathon bombers nor the people who murdered a total of 16 people in Paris last week (the 12 at Charlie Hebdo and four at the kosher market), let’s say that they did not speak for Islam either. Like Major Hasan, who murdered 13 people at Ft Hood in 2009 while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” they were just “lone extremists” who carry out murder and mayhem while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” But that has nothing to do with Islam. OK. Got it.
But here’s my question: Who does speak for Islam? We are assured that it’s not the group that now calls itself Islamic State, but which, following Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, I am considering calling Daesh, a name they apparently dislike. Anyway, we know that they don’t speak for Islam because our political leaders and our media have told us so. It’s the same with Boko Haram, the Nigerian Muslim group. This morning, quoting the Australian journalist Andrew Bolt, I noted that they had kidnapped and sold into sex slavery 300 Nigerian school girls. That was before I saw the story that Boko Haram had just invaded another town killing as many as 2000. Boko Haram appears to believe that they represent Islamic teaching, but no: our leaders have assured us that that is not the case. Ditto about Syria: this summer an adulteress or two were stoned to death, but that, of course, was the work not of Islam but of “extremists,” if not quite “lone extremists.”
So who, according to the establishment gospel, does speak for Islam? The Ayatollah Khomeni was the spiritual leader of Iran, a great Shia Muslim country. Did he speak for Islam? He didn’t like a novel by Salman Rushdie and told his followers to kill him for insulting Islam. Did the ayatollah speak for Islam?
Read it all. (h/t Ed Driscoll)