DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for May, 2008

Playing Golf Extends Life 5 Years?

31st May 2008

Read it.

No, it just seems like five years.

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George W Bush bumps chests with graduate

31st May 2008

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Once a frat boy, always a frat boy.

On the other hand, I can’t see Barack Obama doing that.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on George W Bush bumps chests with graduate

Taking Children from their Parents: The General Issue

31st May 2008

David Friedman is always worth reading.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Taking Children from their Parents: The General Issue

How the Irish will save civilization

31st May 2008

Or at least Europe.

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Web 2.0 Buzzword Bingo

31st May 2008

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They actually pay people to come up with this stuff.

(Well, I don’t really know that — it’s entirely possible to have it done by a computer program.)

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Web 2.0 Buzzword Bingo

National Cathedral In Fiscal Squeeze

31st May 2008

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Note that the “National Cathedral” in question is Episcopalian, which tells you a lot about American culture.

Unfortunately, both the Episcopalian church and American culture are unravelling at an ever-increasing pace.

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Future of the Right

31st May 2008

Read it.

This is one of the best analyses of the current situation I’ve seen.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Future of the Right

The “I’ll See You in Hell” Syndrome

31st May 2008

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

Not surprisingly, players in all countries chose to give up some money to punish freeloaders. The difference was in how the freeloaders reacted to being punished. In prosperous countries, the cheaters tended to respond to punishment by mending their ways. In the more uproarious countries, however, the bad guys just got mad and hit back.

In countries with democratic market economies, peer pressure goaded people to cooperate. Among authoritarian societies or those dominated more by ties of kinship, freeloaders instead lashed out at those who censured them, the researchers found.

That explains a lot about the Middle East.

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Tiny Towns in N.J. May Have to Merge

31st May 2008

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And the octopus draws its tentacles ever tighter.

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Berkeley Bionics’ HULC exoskeleton lets you effortlessly carry 200lbs

31st May 2008

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Starship troopers, here we come.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Berkeley Bionics’ HULC exoskeleton lets you effortlessly carry 200lbs

Carbon’s Power Brokers

31st May 2008

George Will points out that whenever politicians come up with a complicated “solution” for a problem that exists primarily in the media-fueled fantasy world of public opinion, it’s all about money and power for the Overclass.

AlGore isn’t bleating about Global Warming because he’s worried about the fate of the earth — if he were, he wouldn’t have a carbon footprint as big as King Kong. He’s pushing it because it stuffs his pockets with dollar bills.

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Students required to attend CAIR indoctrination event

31st May 2008

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A public school principal in Texas who arranged for an Islamic instruction presentation for students by an organization whose leaders have been linked to terror groups apparently arranged for that indoctrination after being told not to by her district’s superintendent, parents have told WND.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Students required to attend CAIR indoctrination event

Blind seven-year-old beaten to death for failing to learn the Koran

31st May 2008

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The parents of a blind seven-year-old who was sent to a religious school in Pakistan have told how he was hung by his feet from a ceiling and beaten to death after failing to memorise the Koran.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Blind seven-year-old beaten to death for failing to learn the Koran

CHICKEN OF THE SEA

31st May 2008

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Ships, helicopters … what is Greenpeace’s carbon footprint these days?

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Soros Publisher ‘Shaped’ McClellan’s Hit Job

31st May 2008

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At American Thinker, William Tate observes that other publishers approached by McClellan don’t even recognize it as the same book.

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The Few, the Brave, the Other

31st May 2008

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

Modern Western culture, dominated as it is by status striving among whites to score points off each other by most fervently embracing “The Other,” has largely become dependent upon a tiny handful of Others to say the things that need to be said.

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French Muslims’ marriage annulled over virginity lie

30th May 2008

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A French court has annulled the marriage of two French Muslims because the husband complained his wife was not the virgin she had claimed to be. His lawyer won the case by arguing a civil marriage is a legal contract and lying about an important element in it amounts to fraud. Religion had nothing to do with it, he argued, and the court agreed.

Isn’t it amazing how Muslims can game Western legal systems in ways that non-Muslims would never be allowed to get away with?

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on French Muslims’ marriage annulled over virginity lie

Baltimore’s War on Blunts

30th May 2008

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Yet another piece of condescension by an Overclass bureaucrat.

“In other words, upper class people can responsibly choose to smoke a cigar, but poor people need to have choices taken away from them.”

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Baltimore’s War on Blunts

Everyone Needs a Hippocratic Oath

30th May 2008

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I think much the same thing is happening in the adoption process and at the local animal shelter. It’s not that adoption case-workers or pet shelter volunteers are consciously wasting peoples’ time to make themselves feel more powerful. I’m sure they sincerely believe that their efforts are helping kids and cats, respectively. But I think they’re wrong.

A big part of the problem is that people have a natural tendency to over-estimate their own importance. Nobody takes a job he believes is a waste of time, and people self-select into professions they happen to think make a big difference in society. So TSA security screeners believe they’re making air travel safer, even when the evidence says they’re not. Patent attorneys believe they’re promoting innovation, even in industries where the evidence says otherwise. And adoption officials naturally believe that they play a vital role in ensuring kids get placed in loving homes.

This is in continuation of his previous article on the same subject, which is also worth review.

The concept in question, of course, is “Primum non nocere”, “First, do no harm”, which few employees of governments or similar Serve The Public Good organizations seem to have on their radars. The CPS rampage in San Angelo is a fairly obnoxious case in point. No one doubts that these do-gooders have the best of intentions, but, in the classic phrase, that road leads to Hell. The problem is not their intentions but their effects, and the arrogance that underlies the assumption that good intentions will necessarily lead to a good result.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Everyone Needs a Hippocratic Oath

Cambridge students tested on Diana biography

30th May 2008

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Prof Mary Beard admitted some of her colleagues were “a bit dubious” about the academic value of the history course, which ran for three years.

Oh, ya think?

This is what happens when universities go all hip-and-trendy.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Cambridge students tested on Diana biography

Man convicted of assault with a hedgehog

30th May 2008

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Tourist bitten on penis by deadly brown snake

30th May 2008

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Michael Crichton, Vindicated

30th May 2008

Read it.

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Rich tribe restoring prairie

30th May 2008

Read it.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Rich tribe restoring prairie

Mugabe will keep office, wife says

30th May 2008

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Well, duh. That’s what dictators do. I’m surprised he even went along with having elections.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Mugabe will keep office, wife says

Earl of Devon bans gay marriages at his castle

29th May 2008

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Let the whining begin.

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Holmes, Sweet Holmes: A Floorplan of 221B Baker Street

29th May 2008

Read it.

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California tolerance.

29th May 2008

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But only for the Right Sort.

Suppose you are a government employee in California, authorized to conduct civil marriage ceremonies, and you object on moral or religious grounds to same-sex marriage. According to the plain logic of the California Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month, you are simply a bigot; the spring of your objection is irrational prejudice. There is no ground for tolerance for your views, precisely because your views impinge upon the fundamental rights of others. Recall that even someone (like Senator Obama) of the view that while marriage should remain an institution exclusive to a man and a woman, civil unions should be established for homosexuals, is also a narrow-minded bigot, again according to the force of the Court’s logic.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on California tolerance.

What’s Important to Google? Answer: Mountain Climbing

29th May 2008

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Rioters demand lower caste status in India

29th May 2008

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Thousands of protesters have besieged India’s capital New Delhi demanding their caste status be reduced to secure government benefits.

Incentives work.

Or sponge, as the case may be.

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Acorn: Another Radical Group in Barack Obama’s Closet

29th May 2008

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Business Travelers, Beware the Customs Desk

29th May 2008

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Susan Gurley, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, an advocacy group for the business-travel industry, tells us that the problem isn’t that Customs can now conduct these searches, but that Customs hasn’t made public its policies regarding how it handles the data it confiscates. For example, Gurley asks, how long will Customs keep a laptop? What happens to data once Customs is finished inspecting them? And how will Customs ensure that confidential information doesn’t leak out?

We tried for a week to get answers to those questions. The closest we came was an assurance from Hollinger that Customs and Border Protection handles all information as required by law.

Our pure-speculation translation: Customs is making this stuff up as it goes along.

Power without policy = arbitrary decisions by some carrot-IQ public employee. Hello, TSA.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Business Travelers, Beware the Customs Desk

Kurds Happy And Peaceful Keeping Out Iraqi Arabs

29th May 2008

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Nothing wrong with the Middle East that getting rid of the Arabs wouldn’t fix.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Kurds Happy And Peaceful Keeping Out Iraqi Arabs

Stuff White People Like #100 Being Offended

28th May 2008

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It is also valuable to know that white people spend a significant portion of their time preparing for the moment when they will be offended.  They read magazines, books, and watch documentaries all in hopes that one day they will encounter a person who will say something offensive.  When this happens, they can leap into action with quotes, statistics, and historical examples.  Once they have finished lecturing another white person about how it’s wrong to use the term “black” instead of “African-American,” they can sit back and relax in the knowledge that they have made a difference.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Stuff White People Like #100 Being Offended

Huge halibut hooked in Norway

28th May 2008

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Probably Global Warming. I blame George Bush.

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Let Aussies Fight

28th May 2008

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You gotta love Australians.

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Graphene-polymer hybrid composites look to oust carbon nanotubes

28th May 2008

Read it.

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Nation of Islam to Police Miami

28th May 2008

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Now, this sounds like a fantastic idea; put one of the most virulent hate groups operating openly in the US in charge of fighting crime in Miami….

The fact that they aren’t real Muslims isn’t that much of a comfort.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Nation of Islam to Police Miami

CAIR Seething Over Another Dress Code

28th May 2008

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Do it ooouuuurrrr way,

Do it our way;

Do it oooouuuurrrr way,

With Shari’a….

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on CAIR Seething Over Another Dress Code

The keffiyeh kerfuffle

28th May 2008

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If you get an outfit, you can be a terrorist too. (Or at least pretend — without having to go to the trouble of, like, maybe blowing yourself up or breaking a nail or, you know, something gross like that.)

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 2 Comments »

Thousand-year-old Lombard warrior skeleton discovered buried with horse in Italy

28th May 2008

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No doubt PETA is on the case.

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D.C. Council Crafting Plan to Pay $150 Million for Soccer Stadium

28th May 2008

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Can you think of a bigger waste of taxpayer money in a city where the crime and the quality of the schools would suggest better ways to spend those resources?

Run by Democrats, of course, like most urban behavioral sinks.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on D.C. Council Crafting Plan to Pay $150 Million for Soccer Stadium

Honor Killing Victim Wanted to Live Like other German Girls

27th May 2008

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Your future under Islam. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Honor Killing Victim Wanted to Live Like other German Girls

So You Think You Can be President? Revisited.

27th May 2008

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I favor a series of exams ending in a cage match. But that’s me.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on So You Think You Can be President? Revisited.

Avcen Jetpod T-100 City Flying Taxi says “naught” to highways

27th May 2008

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Oh, I SO want one of these.

Now, if they only have hard points for missiles….

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Avcen Jetpod T-100 City Flying Taxi says “naught” to highways

Stop Trying to Be Liked and Start Being You

27th May 2008

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Newsflash 1: Some people aren’t gonna like you.

Newsflash 2: That’s okay.

And that’s the truest word you’ll see today.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Stop Trying to Be Liked and Start Being You

Quality Health Care for Peanuts: How Singapore Does It

27th May 2008

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The reason the system works so well is that it puts decisions in the hands of patients and doctors rather than of government bureaucrats and insurers. The state’s role is to provide a safety net for the few people unable to save enough to pay their way, to subsidize public hospitals, and to fund preventative health campaigns.

How weird is that?

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Environmentally Friendly Bombs Planned

27th May 2008

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Rainbow Warrior, here we come….

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Environmentally Friendly Bombs Planned

Hippo surfing into danger

27th May 2008

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A footloose hippopotamus which has been tracked down the South African coast for months has fascinated locals by surfing in the waves.

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Countries to decide on Arctic Ocean ownership

27th May 2008

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Funny how even governments that do everything they can to interfere with property rights among their subjects seem to be at the front of the line to claim such rights for themselves.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Countries to decide on Arctic Ocean ownership