DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for August, 2008

Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong

31st August 2008

Read and heed.

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Feminist Makes Excuses for Misogyny

31st August 2008

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Of course — straining at gnats and swallowing camels is what leftoids do best. Why do you think that lawyers give most of their political contributions to Democrats?

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

One third of graduates do not benefit from having a degree, report says

31st August 2008

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Of course not. “When everybody’s somebody/Then no one’s anybody.”

Most of the jobs that “require” a college degree these days actually don’t, in any practical sense; I’ve got three degrees, which makes me a more interesting person, I’m sure, but not one of which involves anything that I use in my daily work.

Considering the state of the educational system these days, I suspect that employers these days require a college degree to make sure that applicants have at least what used to count as a high-school education. Go take a look at what they used to teach in high school during the ’30s and ’40s — and, and if you want a real scare, look that the tests they gave eight-graders back a hundred years ago.

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USB anion humidifier soda can confirms you shouldn’t be allowed to have a credit card

31st August 2008

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I don’t know — I think it’s kinda cute.

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Sonim’s rugged LM801 phone will probably outlast you

31st August 2008

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If Black & Decker made a cell phone, this would be it.

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Sometimes War IS the Answer- Ask any Recovering Victim of Abuse

31st August 2008

Yaacov ben Moshe draws an analogy — a damned good one.

My original thought was to draw a superficial comparison. I wanted to ask (especially of the feminists and people of the left) why, if it is so obvious to everyone that the common and well-documented cycle of pathological denial, minimization, deflection and projection that domestic partner abusers employ to keep control of their victims and to avoid punishment for their episodes of violence must be met by confrontation or, at the very least, the safe escape of the victim, can’t they recognize the need for confrontation and punishment for the analogous behavior by the Arab/Muslim world against Israel.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Sometimes War IS the Answer- Ask any Recovering Victim of Abuse

A Fan of Short Books

31st August 2008

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This is a great idea, and I hope it comes sooner rather than later.

Everyone involved in software development is familiar with having six or eight (very expensive) 400-page tomes on a particular subject that have to cover the whole of a particular tool (e.g. Integration Services) and so cannot do so in sufficient depth to really help out a developer who is stuck in some petty little quirk of the system. The problem is that there isn’t sufficient market to have a 100-page book devoted to, say, the Lookup Component (and if you don’t understand what that means, then you’ve never worked with Integration Services — not that there’s anything wrong with that….) to justify doing the whole write-and-publish-dead-tree-version process.

But e-books take us completely out of that high-friction world. To expand on the example that Joe used: Imagine a 25-page summary of Integration Services. For somebody seeking a broad overview, that will probably be sufficient — and, being a commercial product, it will be far more readable than the Defense-Department IBM-wannabe corporate tech-writer style of the Books On Line that come with the product.

However … say you wanted to know more about the Data Flow Task. Fine. For a few dollars more, you can buy an expansion of that section, and it will deal with that Task in depth.

And, if you’re really stuck in a problem, for a few dollars more you can get an even deeper treatment that tells you EVERYTHING THERE IS TO BE KNOWN about the Lookup task, including things that Microsoft would rather hide under the rug, preferably written by somebody who’s been bitten by that bug and had to work around it — somebody like Ken Henderson (and I’m not talking about the ball player).

I’d buy it. I don’t know anybody I’ve ever worked with who wouldn’t be delighted to have such a tool available.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on A Fan of Short Books

A summary of Olavo de Carvalho on the Leftist mind

31st August 2008

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Scroll past the obligatory Palin stuff (pause to appreciate the poster).

The Left (which he calls the “revolution”) is not a unified ideology or agenda at all, but rather a way of seeing the world, and specifically it is an inversion of what normal people call common sense. And this inversion is the sole unifying factor, the one common thread running through the revolution since the 13th and 14th centuries

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Ion-mask military waterproofing technology coming to civilian garb

31st August 2008

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The typical military effect on clothing is “effective but totally uncomfortable”. Let’s hope they’ve avoided that here.

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Jerry Pournelle on Sarah Palin

31st August 2008

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I’d rather see her President than McCain, but we live with the choices we have.

And that says everything that needs to be said on the subject.

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Mr Clipboard and the self-perpetuating bureaucracy

30th August 2008

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Grammar vigilantes go to war on error

30th August 2008

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And about time, too.

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San Marino appoints a diplomat to Wales

30th August 2008

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Legal bid to stop CERN atom smasher from ‘destroying the world’

30th August 2008

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Aw, Mom….

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As Food Becomes a Cause, Meeting Puts Issues on the Table

30th August 2008

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What’s in a name? A great deal, say researchers

30th August 2008

Read it.

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French surgeons destroy brain tumour on conscious patient in world first

30th August 2008

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It used to be that this sort of advance took place in America. What changed?

The surgery was made possible thanks to a revolutionary American-designed laser that is permanently chilled to avoid causing blood clots on contact with the brain or epileptic fits.

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Monks’ network of medieval canals discovered in aerial photos

30th August 2008

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Is Military Spending the Key to the Next Silicon Valley?

30th August 2008

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Not if the Democrats get in.

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Coca-Cola readying 100-flavor soda fountains

30th August 2008

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Yeah, but it’s still Coke products. Let me know when Pepsi gets in the game.

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Anti-Cancer Effect Of Black Raspberries At Genetic Level

30th August 2008

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Fitzgerald: Muslims and America

30th August 2008

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If Muslims have no trouble at all being “as American as apple pie” then surely they have no trouble viewing the defining document of the American polity, the Constitution of the United States, as worthy of their complete loyalty. And that includes, of course, the guarantees of individual rights in the Bill of Rights. And since the Bill of Rights is so very close, in so many of its key provisions — freedom of speech, freedom of conscience (which naturally includes the right to apostatize) — to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can we conclude that American-as-apple-pie American Muslims find it puzzling that all of the Muslim countries (save for the Shah’s Iran, and most temporarily and temporizingly) have failed to subscribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and instead have concocted a Muslim version, the so-called Cairo Declaration, which in every essential respect, involving individual rights, fatally vitiates the original, Universal Declaration?

Reminder for the dimwitted: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Fitzgerald: Muslims and America

Sweden’s ‘Loch Ness Monster’ captured on film

30th August 2008

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No indication of whether it’s blonde.

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Map reading skills ‘dying out due to internet and satnavs’

30th August 2008

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Yeah, and a lot of people can’t ride a horse any more. Color me worried.

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Map reading skills ‘dying out due to internet and satnavs’

Crunchy-con carne?

30th August 2008

Megan McArdle, ordinarily so sound, just doesn’t get it when it comes to food.

Crunchy cons–and everyone else–wouldn’t be so afraid of this if the rest of us didn’t get mad at people who have difficult ideals, and then put them into practice.  As long as no one else is doing it, we can let our own behavior go, swept along unthinkingly in the comforting certainty of the herd.  But once one of the sheep starts moving in a different direction, we have to start wondering if we’re going the right way.

Whenever there are a group of people who discover what they consider to be “the way”, they get very tedious on the subject to those to whom it isn’t quite as obvious. Vegetarians are especially boring about it, but “crunchy cons” are almost as bad. They ascribe all sorts of character defects to those who resist their blandishments, because the alternative is to accept that hey, there just might be cogent arguments on the other side of the question — and the True Believer refuses to entertain that thought, or any like it.

You don’t like to eat meat? Fine, give me your share. If God had intended me to be a herbivore I would have been born with hooves. You want to cancel the Industrial Revolution and go back to buying from local farms? Fine, but I prefer to keep my food budget small and spend the rest on, oh, say, books.

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People can be too clever to spell

29th August 2008

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And too clever to get it right when correcting others, it would seem.

Researchers at Collins Dictionaries found that the most commonly misspelt word was supersede – being wrong on one in ten occasions. The problem arises because people use their knowledge of the words that have a phonetically similar ending, like intercede, precede or cede, from the Latin cedere – to yield. They then wrongly assume that supersede is spelt with a ‘c’.

The truth is that “supercede” is a perfectly good word and has a slightly different meaning than “supersede”; the problem is that people don’t appreciate, and therefore don’t exploit, such precise shades of meaning.

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on People can be too clever to spell

Pirates raid £20 million yacht

29th August 2008

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I thought people with expensive yachts all had platoons of heavily-armed thugs to do their bidding?

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New ‘cancer-fighting’ berry arrives in British shops

29th August 2008

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Can the breakfast cereal be far behind?

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Toddler survives after being partly eaten by wild dogs in jungle

29th August 2008

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So quit whining about what a bad day you’ve had.

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Punitiveness, not compassion, drives the Left

29th August 2008

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Leftists are essentially haters, and leftist policies are characteristically designed to punish people they don’t like. Think about it, and you’ll see it’s true.

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Charles Murray and the Dilemmas of Education

29th August 2008

Read it.

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Mont Saint-Michel to become island again

29th August 2008

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Although why this is a good thing is nowhere stated.

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Heated car seats could reduce male fertility, say scientists

29th August 2008

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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Newspapers Beginning To Ditch The Associated Press?

29th August 2008

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Note that it isn’t what you would think, that the A.P.’s stories are full of politically-biased left-wing crap. No, it’s because the A.P. is selling their politically-biased left-wing crap stories to people other than newspapers. You can lie all you want to but don’t touch that wallet….

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The monetary density of things

29th August 2008

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“Worth it’s weight in what?”

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Dinosaur skeleton discovered in Spain ‘could be a new species’

29th August 2008

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The resemblance to Joe Biden is purely coincidental. Really.

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America’s students given lessons in surviving campus shootings

29th August 2008

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With campus no-guns-unless-you’re-the-killer policies, sounds like a very useful thing.

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Barack Obama boxer shorts featuring a large image of the presidential candidate’s face have gone on sale ahead of his key speech to the Democratic convention.

29th August 2008

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“Vote for Barack! Get it in the shorts!” There’s a winning campaign theme for you.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

Seventy African immigrants die trying to get into Europe

28th August 2008

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Note that nobody is dying to get into Africa. What do they know that you don’t?

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A Garden Grows Underground

28th August 2008

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Brains Age More Rapidly In Final 15 Years Of Life

28th August 2008

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And I, for one, am looking forward to it.

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Treat children like dogs, says animal behaviour expert

27th August 2008

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I’ve said that for years. Children don’t act like humans until they get to be 24 or so. Don’t believe me? Look at car insurance rates. Actuaries are the least delusional people in the world.

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Hijackers of Sudanese airliner want fuel to fly to Paris

27th August 2008

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After all, who wouldn’t rather be in Paris?

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The shape of your face betrays how aggressive you are—if you are a man

27th August 2008

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PHYSIOGNOMY, the art or science of predicting inward character from outward form, has had its ups and downs over the years. A century ago, the idea that a person’s character could be seen in his face was more or less taken as given. It then fell out of favour, along with the idea that behaviour is genetically determined, as Marxist ideas of the pliability and perfectibility of mankind became fashionable. Now, it is undergoing something of a revival. It has been found, for example, that women can predict a man’s interest in infant children from his face. Trustworthiness also shows up, as does social dominance. The latest example comes from a paper just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society by Justin Carré and Cheryl McCormick, of Brock University in Ontario, Canada. This suggests that in men, at least, it is also possible to look at someone’s face and read his predisposition to aggression.

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Obama, Biden’s Son Linked by Earmarks

27th August 2008

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Sen. Barack Obama sought more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbyist son of his Democratic running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, records show. Obama succeeded in getting $192,000 for one of the clients, St. Xavier University in suburban Chicago.

Democrats? Corrupt? Boy, that’s news.

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And What Would Happen If Commercial Aviation Was Simply Impossible To Do Profitably?

27th August 2008

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I guess the Overclass would get their wish to revive the trains. I strongly suspect that a lot of leftoids would have played with trains as a kid if they could have figured out how to put the tracks together.

Just think: Four days from New York to Los Angeles rather than eight hours, and you’d have to travel through all those grubby big square states full of non-organic farmers and people who drive pickups with gun racks in the bag. The horror! The horror! But they’d get to have negro servants again; I suppose that would be something.

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Just right for the garden: a mini-cow

26th August 2008

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For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the freezer.

A lot more useful than a cat. Sign me up.

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Woman Sues Mayor For Order Demanding She Remove City Links From Her Website

26th August 2008

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Politicians abuse power, and the less power they have the more they abuse it. This is a particularly absurd example. Be careful who you vote for; you never know what you’re going to get.

The city attorney told the mayor that a link is perfectly legal — but offered to send a cease-and-desist anyway, which the mayor approved.

That that’s why lawyers have a popularity rating below used-car salesmen.

How can you tell the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute? A prostitute will make you feel good for at least a little while, doesn’t wear a necktie, and charges less.

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Georgia’s government: The Davos Man Junior Varsity Team

26th August 2008

Steve Sailer is not impressed with the new global ruling class.

These are the kind of people who will be running the world for the next generation, making Georgia a harbinger of what’s in store for all of us.

And what did these exemplars of the globalized Best and Brightest do when they got power?

They started a tank war with Russia.

Gee, it sounds sort of stupid, the way Steve says it. (Come to think of it, I can’t think of any way to say it that doesn’t sound stupid. Maybe, just maybe, it actually was stupid. Ya think?)

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Python kills careless student zookeeper in Caracas

26th August 2008

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Think of it as evolution in action.

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