DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for September, 2010

Enlisted Sikh To Become First In 30 Years To Win Right To Wear Faith Articles in Army

3rd September 2010

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For the first time in more than 30 years, the U.S. military has allowed an enlisted Sikh soldier to maintain his religiously-mandated turban, beard and hair while serving in the Army.

Lamba was recruited by the Army in 2009 through the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program for his language skills in Punjabi and Hindi. He was initially advised by an Army recruiter that his Sikh articles of faith would likely be accommodated. But the Army’s current regulations do not permit a new recruit to request a religious accommodation.

It would seem foolish to reach out to someone for specific skills and then get all bureaucratic on him.

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8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

3rd September 2010

The Onion is on the case.

With audible murmurs of “This is no way to live,” “What the hell am I doing here—I hate it here,” and “Fuck this place. Fuck this horrible place,” all 8.4 million citizens in each of the five boroughs packed up their belongings and told reporters they would rather blow their brains out with a shotgun than spend another waking moment in this festering cesspool of filth and scum and sadness.

But municipal unions still hold out for wage and benefit increases.

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Qantas pilot tells passengers ‘we’re a tad busy up here’ as plane engine explodes

3rd September 2010

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Gotta love Australians.

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Joseph Cao: ‘I love the president’

3rd September 2010

RINOs everywhere.

Of course, Cao is a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic district — one he won only because of former Rep. William Jefferson’s numerous scandals. Some say he’s the most vulnerable Republican incumbent. He was the only Republican to vote for the House’s original health-care bill (though he voted against the final legislation). He’s also backed financial reform and a repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

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Mistresses and wives clash over trapped Chilean miners

3rd September 2010

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Authorities at Camp Hope have had to deal with a rush of women coming forward claiming to be first in the Chilean miners’ affections in order to receive government handouts.

At least five wives have been forced to come face to face with mistresses whose existence was kept from them by their husbands, who have been trapped more than 2,300ft below since a cave in on August 5.

Boy, I’m tellin’ ya, being trapped underground just sucks.

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The problem with the Americans With Disabilities Act

3rd September 2010

John Stossel kicks over a rock.

You own a business, maybe a restaurant. You’ve got a lot to worry about. You have to make sure the food is safe and tastes good, that the place is clean and appealing, that workers are friendly and paid according to a hundred Labor Department and IRS rules.

On top of that, there are rules you might have no idea about. The bathroom sinks must be a specified height. So must the doorknobs and mirrors. You must have rails. And if these things aren’t right—say, if your mirror is just one inch too high—you could be sued for thousands of dollars.

And be careful. If you fail to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his “service animal,” into your restaurant, you could be in trouble.

All of this is because of the well-intentioned Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H.W. Bush signed 20 years ago.

And Bush Senior will burn in Hell for it.

What does it do? The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, requiring businesses to provide the disabled “equal access” and to make “reasonable accommodation” for employees. Tax credits and deductions are available for special equipment (talking computers, for instance) and modifying buildings to comply with the accessibility mandate.

The ADA was supposed to help more disabled people find jobs. But did it?

Strangely, no. An MIT study found that employment of disabled men ages 21 to 58 declined after the ADA went into effect. Same for women ages 21 to 39.

How could employment among the disabled have declined?

Because the law turns “protected” people into potential lawsuits. Most ADA litigation occurs when an employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those costs is not to hire the disabled in the first place.

Whatever the government touches turns to shit. Believe it.

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Kazakhstan the home of the apple

2nd September 2010

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Borat would be pleased.

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Majority of Az voters favor key provisions of SB 1070

2nd September 2010

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Arizona voters overwhelmingly favor even the most controversial provisions within SB 1070, according to a poll released Wednesday Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

“What surprised me was the level of support in both Republican and Democratic parties,” said David Daugherty, the Morrison Institute’s director of research. “Even when you sort of tear the bill apart and look at the pieces, people support it.”

“I’ve been doing research for 30 years, and it’s really hard to get any group to have more than 90 percent agreement on any issue,” Daugherty said. “The size of the majority supporting [these provisions] is a little eye-popping.”

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Economist Christina Romer serves up dismal news at her farewell luncheon

2nd September 2010

Dana Milbank, ordinarily a dependable Voice of the Crust, wanders off the reservation.

Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion.

It wasn’t the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her “valedictory” before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last:

She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn’t understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn’t have much of an idea about how to fix things.

What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: “Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare.”

This person was Chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. After confessing to being totally clueless, she’s off to teach economics at Berkeley. I think it’s time to be afraid.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

UK: Twitter and Facebook ‘bringing back regional dialects’

2nd September 2010

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Language experts have found the increased speed at which people communicate on the web means they are more likely to lapse into colloquialisms.

Now they are quickly being adopted by people hundreds of miles from where they originated.

And the rapid rise of social media and instant messaging in recent years has seen such regional phrases spread swiftly from one end of Britain to the other.

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Where’s the Mosque?

2nd September 2010

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The federal government considers the Muslim group founded by Ground Zero Mosque leader Feisal Abdul Rauf to be a tax-exempt church. But federal records show the group obtained that status by claiming to hold prayer services for up to 500 people in a Manhattan apartment building that has no space to hold that many people.

Gee, Muslims wouldn’t lie to the government, would they?

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A Place of Mourning

2nd September 2010

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Six years ago today a group of Muslim terrorists took more than a thousand hostages in a school in Beslan, in the Russian Caucasus. That was the beginning of a three-day standoff that became the Beslan Atrocity. Nearly four hundred people were killed, many of them children, and hundreds more were injured.

It was one of the greatest barbarities of modern times, and can be credited — as so many others can — to Islam.

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Bill Millin, piper at the D-Day landings, died on August 17th, aged 88

2nd September 2010

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ANY reasonable observer might have thought Bill Millin was unarmed as he jumped off the landing ramp at Sword Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944. Unlike his colleagues, the pale 21-year-old held no rifle in his hands. Of course, in full Highland rig as he was, he had his trusty skean dhu, his little dirk, tucked in his right sock. But that was soon under three feet of water as he waded ashore, a weary soldier still smelling his own vomit from a night in a close boat on a choppy sea, and whose kilt in the freezing water was floating prettily round him like a ballerina’s skirt.

But Mr Millin was not unarmed; far from it. He held his pipes, high over his head at first to keep them from the wet (for while whisky was said to be good for the bag, salt water wasn’t), then cradled in his arms to play. And bagpipes, by long tradition, counted as instruments of war. An English judge had said so after the Scots’ great defeat at Culloden in 1746; a piper was a fighter like the rest, and his music was his weapon. The whining skirl of the pipes had struck dread into the Germans on the Somme, who had called the kilted pipers “Ladies from Hell”. And it raised the hearts and minds of the home side, so much so that when Mr Millin played on June 5th, as the troops left for France past the Isle of Wight and he was standing on the bowsprit just about keeping his balance above the waves getting rougher, the wild cheers of the crowd drowned out the sound of his pipes even to himself.

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Be Prepared

2nd September 2010

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Golfer sparks 12-acre fire with shot in the rough

1st September 2010

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A golfer managed to set fire to a course when he accidentally struck a rock with his iron, sending sparks into the Californian rough.

Dangerous game, golf.

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For trendy décor, the writing’s on the carpet

1st September 2010

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The President’s fashion statement gets no respect across the pond.

I don’t know about you, but I had never considered words on my carpets. Where will it all end? Garage doors with: “Open the gates of new life” (Browning)? A chair with: “Sit thou still when kings are arming” (Scott)? A loo with: “Roses for the flush of youth” (Christina Rossetti)?

It is not that household goods have been quite free from writing. “Bathmat” it says, in a gnomic kind of self-reference, on some bathmats. “Bread” it says on some breadboards, though never “Board”. The next step is the “Welcome” on the doormat.

I have a front door mat that says ‘LEAVE’.

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Sir Peter Gwynn-Jones

1st September 2010

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Sir Peter Gwynn-Jones, who died on August 21 aged 70, was Garter Principal King of Arms, the effective head of the College of Arms, from 1995 until earlier this year; during his tenure as Garter he steered the heralds through a period of technological change, while his designs helped to reinvigorate the ancient art of heraldry.

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Think the Answer’s Clear? Look Again

1st September 2010

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In his 20 years as a researcher, first at Stanford University, now at the University of Toronto, Dr. Redelmeier, 50, has applied scientific rigor to topics that in lesser hands might have been dismissed as quirky and iconoclastic. In doing so, his work has shattered myths and revealed some deep truths about the predictors of longevity, the organization of health care and the workings of the medical mind.

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Bollywood Does Better Action Movies

1st September 2010

Read it. And watch the video.

Unfortunately, The Other McCain doesn’t tell us the name of the movie.

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British spy found dead in bath was padlocked into sports bag

1st September 2010

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Well, that certainly sounds suspicious to me….

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Warning on Sony Cameras

1st September 2010

Cringely has had a bad experience.

These are great cameras when they work, but when they don’t work they are simply $7,800 bricks.  Sony clearly doesn’t care about its prosumer customers.  Interestingly you can get customer support on the weekend for Sony’s cheapest consumer camcorder but not for this baby.

Tell a friend.  Tell them that Sony makes fine prosumer camcorders but doesn’t support them worth a damn.  Tell them that Sylvia is a liar.  Tell them to expect to pay $3000 to rent a $7000 replacement camera if they need a repair.

And tell them to do what I probably should have done in the first place, which was stick with Panasonic. ?

I try not to buy Sony when I can help it. My experiences with them have not been … encouraging.

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Pakistan military delegation stops America visit in protest at checks

1st September 2010

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Mistrust exists between Pakistan and the United States even though they have been allies for decades.

Gee, I wonder why? Let’s see … this is the same Pakistan military that’s supporting the Taliban in Waziristan and who set up the jihadist massacre in Bombay, right? Somehow I don’t see this as a legitimate complaint.

“The delegation was subjected to unwarranted security checks at Washington airport by the US Transport Security Agency,” the army said in a statement.

Yeah, well, when you come to America, we like to make you feel at home. One of the ways we do this is by subjecting you to the same fascist bureaucracy that American citizens have to put up with.

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Freddie Mac’s new Chief Diversity Officer

1st September 2010

Steve Sailer likes to point out where your money is being wasted.

Freddie Mac has named Subha V. Barry to the position of chief diversity officer (CDO). In this position, Barry will lead the company’s newly formed Office of Diversity and Inclusion, with overall responsibility for the combined functions of Diversity and Inclusion and Supplier Diversity. She will be responsible for developing business strategies focused on the needs of a diverse workforce, working closely with other members of Freddie Mac’s senior management team to ensure the company is effectively utilizing diverse talent (both within its employee base and its suppliers), enhance the annual diversity planning process and manage performance against the company’s diversity plans.

Needless to day, Subha Barry is a black female, thereby encapsulating in herself the goals of her office. ‘I’ve achieved diversity, and so can you! Or else!’ (Am I the only one bothered by a quasi-governmental body having a ‘diversity plan’?)

Steve also doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to Crustian fashions:

By the way, Subha V. Barry? Is “Subha” one of those oddly-spelled names that African American schoolgirls make up when they’re pregnant? Or is Subha V. Barry an Indian immigrant riding the Diversity Gravy Train, which most Americans naively think exists to benefit the descendants of American slaves?

Judging from her picture, I think it’s more likely the latter. But these days you can never tell.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 2 Comments »

The sanctuary for Newman’s Beatification: the English bishops go for the Scientology look

1st September 2010

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Watch Britain plunge downhill….

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

How bathroom posture affects your health.

1st September 2010

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Slate magazine, a Voice of the Crust, expands on the perennial Crustian meme of ‘First World Bad, Third World Good’.

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Diesels greener than battery cars, says Swiss gov report

1st September 2010

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

Actually quite a lot of the new diesels are in the better-than-battery ballpark, according to UK government figures. The notional battery car considered by the EMPA analysts was a Volkswagen Golf with its normal drivetrain replaced by a battery one: but it seems that you would be doing slightly better for the environment to buy an ordinary new Golf with a 1.6 litre “BlueMotion” injected turbodiesel – which would be a lot cheaper. That would consume 3.8 l/100km, not 3.9.

So would a new Mini Cooper D hatchback or a new Ford Focus, actually. And if you could bear to go for something a little smaller – VW Polo rather than Golf – you’d be streets ahead on the environmental front, down as low as 3.4 l/100km with more than 15 per cent of the car’s in-service emissions clipped off compared to the 3.9 l/100km battery-car baseline. As the Swiss boffins tell us, it’s the in-service energy use and emissions which count most.

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