My Archives: July 2003
Thursday, July 31, 2003
At last -- the solution! What was the problem you ask? Well...I receive emails with "phrases" like IIRC, AAMOF, GMTA...and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to puzzle out WTH (what the hell) is being said. Now, with the assistance of the Urban Dictionary, I can just feed in initials and a definition pops up. For those stubborn acronyms, I use Acronym Finder! Or, if you are trapped in a corner with no other way out, you can always break down and ask the sender WTH. That's what I had to do with LOLSCOK -- Laughing Out Loud, Spitting Coffee on Keyboard.
For the best compact chronicle of Bush's lies about Iraq and terrorism I've ever seen, click onto Steve Perry's bushwarsblog.com "The Bush Administration's Top 40 Lies"; it provides links to substantiating sources. Also recommended: Perry's "Better late than never: How Bush got away with so many lies for so long."
Best to all,
macPosted by mac @ 10:50 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Those familiar with Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" -- and it *is* one of his more obscure songs -- will fall on the floor with laughter over this fabulous Flash animation set to his lyrics.
For further comic relief, I offer cartoons by Jeff Danziger "Homeland Security Investigates Political Cartoonists" and David Horsey"s "It Must Have Been the Canapies". [more]
Posted by mac @ 11:37 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Earlier today I blogged about the Pentagon's establishing a futures market in terrorism, allowing investors to profit from betting on the likelihood of such events as a biochemical attack. Now: this just in from the New York Times...and, yeah, I think we can believe the account despite the source...Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror. An interesting sidebar: as Brad followed up on the links I provided to the PAM site, items kept disappearing from the site every time he "refreshed". For example, the model of how to bid on -- that is, invest in -- whether or not a biochemical attack would happen in "X-specified timeframe" in Israel -- suddenly was not there...from one moment to the next. The mock chance to bet on the overthrow or assassination of Arafat suddenly disappeared. PAM became the incredible shrinking website. Orwell would have been delighted or horrified or, perhaps, both simulataneously at the memory hole into which this entire debacle has been dumped. Indeed, this is the message you now receive when trying to access the PAM site: "Not Found The requested URL /pam_home.htm was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."
Posted by mac @ 10:50 PM EST [Link]
Altho' it is being reported through every major news channel...I gotta hope against hope that this one is an elaborate hoax!.... [more]
Posted by mac @ 11:14 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, July 27, 2003
A rainy day with a heavy workload...so I'm just posting a note from friends, Dick and Jill Miller, on SCO's attempt to cash in on the incredible spread of Linux, with which Brad is enchanted. The note -- circulated to the Miller's -- includes a parody of the SCO grab written by Brad along the lines of those omnipresent scam letters, "I am the son of the former President of Nambia and I wish to offer you a business opportunity!" The 3rd, 4th & 5th paragraphs are basically factual. [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:29 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, July 26, 2003
As August approaches, I urge everyone to join the boycott of the Recording Industry Association of America which has been sparked by the RIAA's totalitarian moves to stop peer-to-peer downloading of music. The very fact that a private industry can issue its own legally-enforceable subpoenas should provoke outrage. August has been slated as the month to express such indignation; refuse to buy new CDs from producers associated with RIAA. Instead, buy used CDs or buy from independent producers and stores. [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:01 AM EST [Link]
Friday, July 25, 2003
For a chortle, I recommend The Bush Administration Random Allegation Gizmo. Among the Bush allegations that the site scrambles together..."It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that Queen Beatrix of Holland has been hoarding vast quantities of transcripts of Al Gore speeches which can be used to attack the United States in a matter of minutes. This really bad person must be stopped now." I also recommend the "Bush Dictionary" that allows you to understand GW's speeches: for example, what does "nucular" mean? Now you don't have to wonder. Nor is the source of the uranium rumor a mystery any longer -- the Italians are to blame! Seriously! And a woman is behind it all.
Tom Tomorrow strikes again! with the cartoon "Back to the Ugly Future." [more]
Posted by mac @ 04:05 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Interesting news, sent to me via AASG (All Around Spiffysorta Guy) Stephen Kinsella, who wrote, "Wendy you probably have heard, but yesterday Sean Hannity read extensively from your recent column on Kobe Bryant, and he praised you a great deal. It was a good column, I had already read it--I was driving home and heard him on the radio yesterday, he read quite a lot of it." As I told Stephan...the author is always the last to know.
According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, U.S. Army leaders are poised to announce "a plan to start relieving exhausted troops in Iraq with thousands of soldiers from U.S.-based units and an additional 10,000 National Guards members who will be called to active duty." Many of them will serve for a one-year stint. More than 200,000 U.S. military reservists are already on active duty in Iraq -- reservists who were never meant to substitute for regular army in planned foreign policy gambits, who never signed on to act as policemen in Baghdad. Two implications of misusing reservists are rarely discussed: 1) the dislocation costs imposed on businesses who must, by law, keep jobs open for those employees who were called up. The dislocation includes the many small businesses that are owned by reservists and, so, must be closed...sometimes permanently; and, 2) the probability that enlistment in the reserves is going and has already plummeted. With the timeframe for US occupation of Iraq being now forecast at 4 years, it becomes more likely that a draft will be instituted. This is likely to occur in Bush's 2nd term -- if he is re-elected, as I believe he will be -- because Bush will not so much as hint at such a controversial move during this term. I dread the prospect of a 2nd Bush Presidency. The Cartoon Network's tagline for its upcoming new series, Duck Dodgers In The 24-1/2th Century captures my reaction, "...If he's our future, we're history..."
[more]Posted by mac @ 10:17 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Using Google, it took me roughly five minutes to find the name, photograph, address, phone number, and email address of the woman who is accusing Kobe Bryant of rape. Given that nationally syndicated radio host Tom Leykis is announcing her name over the airwaves and linking to her photo, it shouldn't have taken me that long. The media, down to the janitorial staff, know her identity and are doing everything short of spelling out the letters of her name in the air with one finger as they broadcast that she graduated from Eagle County High School where she was a varsity cheerleader, she attends the University of North Carolina, etc. etc. Rape shield laws have become utterly unenforceable. [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
I highly recommend this powerful animation about the occupation of Iraq... As the host site explains, "One of the most egregious omissions in recent mainstream US news is accurate reporting as to the true nature of conditions in Iraq. For all the average american hears, Iraq is now a slightly troubled disneyland of liberty and ubridled joy. Not one, single second is given to reporting the truth- that Iraq has been reduced to a fourth-world sewer, in which disease, crime, rape, kidnapping, piracy, and drugs are running rampant. Outside of a few, small pockets in the major cities where US troops have nominal safety to maintain a semblance of law and order, Iraq is now a lawless cripple of a nation."
And, after *that*, I recommend some comparative levity in the form of a few choice cartoons: Foreign Policy Made E-Z by Tom Tomorrow; Damage Control, Inc. by Mark Fiore; and, Empire Builder by Campbell. [more]
Posted by mac @ 08:10 AM EST [Link]
Monday, July 21, 2003
Fortunately for my blogging schedule, I have been flooded by emails that deserve to be circulated. Thus, and without further ado, here are the two best... [more]
Posted by mac @ 08:40 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, July 19, 2003
The Washington Times did a fair job of writing up last week's seminar held by the National Coalition of Free Men at which I spoke. It opens, "Eliminate affirmative-action programs. Do the same with the sexual-harassment industry. Refuse to accept bias against boys in public schools. Those don't sound like the talking points of your typical feminist, but while Wendy McElroy isn't typical, she is a feminist." The article misreported my position by saying I advocated allowing men to renege on their parental responsibilities but, then, it quoted a section of my presentation that made my actual point a bit clearer. [more]
Posted by mac @ 06:21 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
David Theroux of the Independent Institute writes, "Especially now as new revelations are coming to light daily regarding the true basis of the U.S.'s war in and now occupation of Iraq, we believe that you may be particularly interested in the Independent Institute's new web site on war and government power, OnPower.org. OnPower.org is a one-stop Internet resource featuring a bibliographic compendium of both scholarly and popular works and commentary on the domestic and international effects of national "crises," especially including interventionist wars around the world to create a U.S. empire." [more]
Posted by mac @ 03:42 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
For some time, a clever spoof has been making the e-rounds. Click Google and do a search under "Weapons of Mass Destruction"; the first site to pop up imitates an "Error" URL -- at least, in format -- which states, "The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable. The country might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your weapons inspectors mandate." (should this page become suddenly unavailable thro' this means, click here.) Major media has finally picked upon the phenomenon...so how long can it last? Or does Google have a sense of humor?
It is amazing to me that Bush's house of cards is starting to crumble over some 16 words uttered in a Presidential address -- "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." [more]
Posted by mac @ 01:39 PM EST [Link]
Monday, July 14, 2003
I just returned from four days in Washington D.C. where I did a presentation at the National Press Club for the National Coalition of Free Men, after which Brad and I haunted Smithsonian museums and indulged in a guided tour of the major sights -- mostly memorials to wars and to dead Presidents. Brad was most "affected" -- I won't say "impressed" -- by the Vietnam War Memorial which overwhelms you as the blocks with 58,000 engraved names grow in size like a wave cresting. I was most affected by the Korean War Memorial...perhaps because I did not expect it to be moving. It consists of 19 life-sized statues of individual soldiers in varying postures as they cross rocky terrain that is meant to depict a Korean field. Both the Vietnam and the Korean Memorials had real impact because they focused on the individual soldiers -- many of whom (in the latter) looked frightened, grim, or confused -- rather than focusing on the glory of war, the nobility of sacrifice, or patriotism. As I stood by the Vietnam Memorial, I remembered the words a Smithsonian guide had spoken the day before. She described how people left flowers, stuffed toys, photographs, medals, and other "gifts" at the wall every day. She explained why: "They want to say 'thanks for giving your life'." I winced then; I wince now. H.L. Mencken once made a toast that was meant as a tongue-in-cheek put down of a friend with whom he constantly exchanged insults: "May you die for democracy..." It will take a few weeks for that toast to seem humorous again. [more]
Posted by mac @ 10:07 AM EST [Link]
Friday, July 4, 2003
Roy Childs's long-lost essay "The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism" has just been posted on the Last Ditch website. The announcement reads: "It is my honor to publish for the first time anywhere the single greatest work by the late Roy A. Childs, Jr., 'The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism' (1969), along with a fascinating scholarly preface by our senior editor, Ronn Neff, 'Roy Childs on anarchism.'" Thanks to Ron for the heads-up.BTW, I concur in the assessment that this is Roy's best work.
Posted by mac @ 07:55 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, July 3, 2003
I write today's blog with mixed emotions. I closed down the ifeminist BB a few days ago. I delayed pulling the plug for weeks even tho' I was/am certain it was/is the proper course; given sharply increased writing demands, I have to start budgeting the hours and half-hours in my day with a miserliness usually displayed by Leprechauns with pots of gold coin. The BB was a volunteer effort for me and for Brad, who served as tech support/co-moderator, and we have run out of hours in the day. As of Monday, the BB was "officially" closed...to a large degree, a victim of its own success.
[more]
Posted by mac @ 06:30 PM EST [Link]