Quick Hitts

Note to non-US readers:  Knowing a few facts about the state of Mississippi will make the following story more understandable.

The sole purpose of Mississippi is to keep Alabama off the bottom of every quality of life list.  Whenever you see a chart of US states comparing unwed births, high school dropouts or average number of teeth per citizen you’ll see why Alabama’s state motto is “Thank God For Mississippi.”

Is This The Face of Evil?

Constance McMillen attends high school in Mississippi’s Itawamba county.  She’s also a lesbian who wants to wear a tuxedo and take her girlfriend to the prom.  The school district responded, not simply by refusing to let her attend, but by canceling the prom.  They don’t even have the guts to admit their reason, saying it was canceled “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

One board member reflected the board’s “thought” process when he said, “We have to protect the childreeeeeeen.  Seeing a cute lesbian in a tux will make all the other girls turn queer.  The only way to prevent a flood of lesbians is to stick our finger in the dike.”  This quote could not be confirmed and may have been made up by me.

Quick question for all the guys reading this: If you were back in high school and had to choose between attending a prom full of pimply heterosexuals trying to look cool, or a prom full of pimply heterosexuals trying to look cool and several hot lesbians in tuxes, which would you pick?

Me too.  I’ll meet you in the long line.

You should follow me on Twitter.

Marketing failures can teach you as much, if not more, as marketing successes.

I just received an e-mail from a company I’ve done business with.  The headline was “Free Ground Shipping from <Company Name>.  I opened it and saw a very attractive ad, which I clicked.

Instead of  taking me to http://companyname.com/ it loaded http://marketing.companyname.com/ and requested a user name and password.  It looked like the prompt for the e-mail administrator.  I tried my name and password anyway, and got a very unfriendly “Access Is Denied” message.

They spent time creating an attractive advertisement. They got me to open it.  They got me to click on it. Then they got me to laugh at their incompetence, because they skipped the simple step of sending a copy to themselves and testing it.

Not too smart, folks.

Check out the latest Quick Hitts Podcast: Figuring Our The Tea Party. Are they a great thing that will save us from creeping socialism, or a mass of misfits and whack-a-loons?

I’ve watched a few CPAC speeches, and they reminded me of townhall.com: It was a combination of brilliant thinkers and mouth-breathing wing-nuts.

It was encouraging to see they invited a gay rights group, and even more encouraging when a wing-nut who condemned them for it was booed off the stage. But it would be better if the wingier of the wing-nuts we’re left where they belong – waiting in the wings. It’s hard to take any movement seriously when a substantial percentage of its followers are birthers and truthers and theocrats.

I don’t usually have the patience for long videos, but this one is worth your time. George Will was funny, entertaining, and smart as he talked about the dependency agenda being installed by both the Republicans and the Democrats.

As promised, here’s the second half of the TADD list from 2009.  This are culled from the second half of last years leftover bookmarks.  They document all kinds of things things done by believers, from the horrific to the hilarious.

A group of 35 clerics in Saudi Arabia has declared that no woman should ever appear on TV, nor should any image of any women be allowed in any magazine or newspaper.    A woman who dared to not only appear on Saudi TV but to actually discuss sex was sentenced to 60 lashes.

This book wasn’t written by an atheist

In Illinois a gaggle of ignorant Christians, under the banner of the Illinois Family Institute,  have attempted to get The Friendly Atheist (who runs one of the calmest, least snarky atheism sites on the net) fired from his teaching position because he has a blog about . . . gasp! . . .Atheism!

In Minneapolis a pastor told his congregation a tornado was God’s way of punishing Lutherans for not hating gays enough.

In Kenya people, including children, are still being killed and maimed because someone, not an atheist, has labeled them a witch.

Muslim women should still be sexy under their Burkas, but only for their husbands.  With that in mind, a new line of body covering clothes will allow them to work out at the gym without their head scarves getting caught in the equipment.

Wiley Drake, who believes the nut job who murdered Dr. Tiller was an answer to his prayers, told his followers they should be praying for Obama’s death.

When Pastor Manning was questioned about using the N word while declaring Obama the antichrist, he justified it by explaining the word is also used by Kanye West, P. Diddy and Snoop Dog.  I was surprised to learn they were religious leaders too.

Islam forbids homosexuality.  Pedophilia with young boys is just fine, though, which isn’t surprising considering Mohamed was a pedophile.

This pastor, whose holy vestments consist of coveralls and a dirty t-shirt, is organizing a book burning.  Not only is he burning books written by fellow Christians he disagrees with, but any bible that’s not the King James version, which he considers the only true word of god.  Surprisingly, his congregation consists of only 14 people.

Novels, plays and, of course, cartoons are being withheld from publication or performance for fear of attacks by the Religion of Peace.

Four people drowned during a baptism ceremony in South Africa. People, people, you’re not supposed to hold them under that long.

Jehovah’s Witnesses berate the Catholic clergy, but they do have one big thing in common – sheltering, aiding and abetting pedophiles.  This is a transcript of a BBC documentary on the subject.  This is the first of a 13 part BBC series on the issue.  This is me having some fun at their expense over at the rather useless Yahoo Answers.

Here’s a good argument against becoming a religious vegetarian.  (Warning: This is a link to pictures of face piercings that are graphic and disgusting.)

If you’re a Muslim father in Phoenix, upset that your daughter has become too “westernized,” what do you do?  Run over her with your car, of course.  And just for good measure, hit her roommate too.   If you’re in Somalia, of course, you just half-bury her and then stone her to death.

Not being Muslim is no excuse for eating during Ramadan.

In Washington DC the Catholic Church says they help tens of thousands of people with adoption, homelessness and health care.  When DC proposed a same-sex marriage law, they lovingly threatened to pull out {insert your own birth control joke here} unless the law was changed to please them.

In Nigeria a 15-year-old-girl was put into protective custody to protect her from a lynch mob.  They wanted to murder her because they believed she had changed into a cat, and then back into a girl.

Warning: This next link contains extremely graphic, very disturbing photos. These are professional portraits of Muslim women who have had acid thrown in their faces.  If you are even slightly squeamish or prone to nightmares I recommend you move on to the next entry on the list.  These are horrible and heartbreaking.  This is not hyperbole.  If you still want to see them, click here.

And last of all, to finish things up on a lighter note, here’s a list of some incredibly stupid/funny things spewed by the overly religious.  One of my favorites: “I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed.”

Last year the nicotine nannies (NNs) took their Second Hand Smoke nonsense a step further and announced that third hand smoke (THS?) was deadly.   The evidence consisted of someone doing a survey, asking people if they believed this nonsense, then presenting that as scientific proof.   “Journalists” ran with the story, declaring that smokers who had politely avoided smoking near anyone were still deadly bags of toxins.  That’s not hyperbole: the gullible Dr. Nancy Snyderman declared, on national TV, that smokers were “a walking toxic dump.”

The purpose of this is, of course, is to continue the NNs tireless crusade to make non-smokers hate and fear smokers.

This kind of nonsense might be amusing if it didn’t have such serious consequences.  In the UK one hospital banned smokers from visiting patients, for fear of third hand smoke contamination.

The latest “study” on THS comes out of Berkley.  (Surprise!)  Unable to find any dangerous levels of anything in THS, they exposed particulates to nitrous acid and announced that it resulted in horrible deadly tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs)

The study hasn’t been published yet, so they’re using the oh-so-respectable method of Science-By-Press-Release to spread their message of fear and hate.  In their release they mention children, toddlers and infants over and over and over.  Of course.

Just how much of this stuff have they managed to fabricate in their lab?  The lead “researcher” explains:  “Whereas the sidestream smoke of one cigarette contains at least 100 nanograms equivalent total TSNAs, our results indicate that several hundred nanograms per square meter of nitrosamines may be formed on indoor surfaces in the presence of nitrous acid.”

Most people don’t douse their furniture or their smoking friends with nitrous acid, but for the sake of this thought experiment let’s pretend they do.  How much toxin is he talking about?

A nanogram is a billionth of a gram.  A single grain of salt weighs about 120,000 nanograms.  Let’s assume this shill’s extremely imprecise “several hundred” means 300.  Hell, let’s make it 500 to make the math easier.  We’re talking the mass of 1/240 of a grain of salt spread over a square meter.  Oooo, scary stuff.

You’ll find a more complete explniataion of the “study” here.

As someone commented on this blog, at these levels talking about Homeopathic Smoking.  Homeopathy claims that diluting a toxin increases its strength, so reducing exposure to THS or SHS increases the danger.  Quick, get to a smoke filled room!

My contempt for these dirt bag hate-mongering pseudo-scientists exceeds my ability to articulate it.  They should stripped of everything they own, including their obviously meaningless degrees, and make them spend their time standing in the middle of the freeway holding signs that say “Will Fabricate Junk Science For Food.”  That won’t happen until I’m made King of The World, which is a ways off, so expect to see more of this nonsense flooding the media in the months and years to come.

Throughout his campaign LMO promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250k/year.  The *first* thing he did in office was raise the tax on roll your own tobacco by an astounding 2,159%.  It’s a pretty safe bet RYO smokers are making a *bit* less than a quarter million bucks a year. (BTW, it was to pay for medical coverage for kids whose parents made up to $63k/year.  So the minimum wage guy trying to save a few bucks on his smokes gets to finance the larvae of $63k “poor” citizens.)

RYO tobacco producers responded by re-labeling their RYO tobacco as pipe tobacco, which received a mere 158% tax increase.  Same stuff, same bags, same tobacco, but a different name.

Congress’ is pissed that anyone dare get around their draconian increase.  Their solution is a 775% tax increase on pipe tobacco, making sure that pipe smokers get screwed so RYO smokers won’t be able to evade *their* screwing.

Is it time to shoot the bastards yet?  Seriously, how much longer should we wait?

I’m not sure how much good it will do, but here’s a petition to tell your elected scumbags to knock it off.

Those of us who are fond of reality make the mistake of using logic and reason to deal with religious nutters in an attempt to show them their conclusions are flawed.  (We use the term “flawed” because it’s impolite to use the more accurate term: “fucking stupid.”)  We can be persuaded by logic and reason, so we make the mistaken assumption it can work on them.  Unfortunately, their mighty shields of impenetrable ignorance can deflect even the most obvious facts.

Anger and outrage are even less effective.  They are black holes of anger and outrage, and so any more directed at them just gets sucked into their own dark core – it feeds them.

There is a weapon, though, that they simply can’t handle – ridicule.  The most obvious example was the Dutch cartoons that resulted in thousands of Muslims going on murderous riots and rampages – and they’re still trying to kill the cartoonists.   Fortunately for us, most fundy Christians aren’t as violent as fundy Muslims, so we can have some serious fun at their expense without the serious consequences of being attacked by seriously pissed-off followers the eternally angry Allah.

Alleged homosexual Fred Phelps provides us with a perfect test bed for nutter containment.  Normal citizens have reacted to his insanity by blocking his protests with fire trucks, motorcycle brigades, their own signs, and passing laws restricting protests at military funerals.  (I think it says a lot about us that he hasn’t been beaten to a bloody pulp.  Not even once.)  But when he showed up outside Twitter’s offices in San Francisco to protest, well, everything in the city, he was met by a counter protest of signs even more bizarre and ridiculous than his.

My personal favorite was “I Have a Sign,” although “Bitch Burger” runs a close second for its pure meaningless surrealism.  I appreciate people who go out of their way to add a little surrealism to our lives.

I’ll sometimes debate with religious nutters for my own amusement, getting them to contradict themselves or backing them into corners, but these signs have inspired me to try a different approach.  The next time I have a chance I’ll just ask them, as seriously as I can, “Do you think Martians like pancakes?”  It makes just as much sense as what they’re saying.

Hat Tip: Hayden Black of the very funny Goodnight Burbank.

This has been a very bad week for the left.  They’ve received bitch slaps from three different directions, but only one of them will have any lasting impact.

The Democrats lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in one of the nation’s most liberal states, a state that already has its own version of Obamacare. (Which has been a complete disaster.)  The election of Senator Scott Brown threatens to drive Obamacare off a bridge and leave it to drown while congress wanders off in a drunken stupor.

The Brown family has the potential to be as entertaining as the Kennedys.  Not only did Scott pose nude for a Playgirl centerfold, his wife started in a video where she simulates a hand job (at about 1:04 in this video)  before getting arrested wearing a bikini.  The only useful thing we get out of our elected weasels is entertainment, and these folks should be able to deliver.

In other news, Air America went belly up.  The network was populated with far left pundits who were as ignorant and pompous as their far right counterparts, but not nearly as entertaining.  Using capitalism to promote socialism wasn’t a viable business model.  Surprise!

And last off all came the Supremes overturning much of the McCain-Feingold free speech limits, declaring that corporations can spend as much as they like to influence elections.

As I understand it (and I’m not a lawyer, so feel free to smartenize me if I’m wrong), corporations are persons under the law.  This legal fiction allows them to be liable for wrongdoing (as opposed their officers being liable), to own property, including intellectual property, and to remain in existence long after their founders have died.  It also gives them rights, including the right of free speech.

I don’t know if that particular right can be reigned in through legislation declaring that free speech applies to individuals and not corporations.  I doubt it, because that would affect the press and political organizations whose sole purpose is political speech.

My first response to this story was surprise that the Supremes finally made a correct decision, although to be fair, they usually get First Amendment cases right.  It’s the only part of the entire constitution that they actually understand.  When they’re finished completely eviscerating it the one right we’ll have left is the right to bitch about it.

My second response was agreeing with the liberals: this will allow corporations to purchase every single congress weasel.

My third response was: So what else is new?  Congress has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America for decades.  If it’s good for corporations, it becomes law.  If it’s good for American citizens, feh.

Occasionally congress pretends they’re doing something good for us, but digging just a bit deeper almost always reveals it’s a gift to one of their corporate buddies.  The sole exception is when they’re grabbing more power or money for government itself. Unsmartenized people are routinely fooled into thinking congress is looking out for them, but anyone with the slightest connection to reality knows who “their” representatives really serve.

Brown’s election could (and should) derail Obamacare and Cap and Tax, but the other two stories, which have the lefties wringing their pale, uncallused hands, won’t change anything.  A station no one listened to went off the air.  Boo Hoo.  And congress weasels will still be able to sell out to the highest bidder.   Ho hum, what’s for dinner?

Back in 1978 F. Paul Wilson wrote Lippidleggin’, a short story about a farmer bootlegging butter and eggs, which had been banned to improve everyone’s health.  I’m guessing that back then most people thought it was entertaining, but silly.

Back in 2007, with the author’s permission, I did a reading of the story for an episode of The Quick Hitts Podcast.  By then it didn’t seem silly at all.

And now the UK is taking the first steps toward making it a reality: spew from an expert who claims banning butter will save thousands of lives.   Uber nanny Shyam Kolvekar says, “By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat-fat intake would be reduced by eight grams.  This would save thousands of lives each year and help to protect them from cardiovascular disease – the UK’s biggest killer.”

This kind of nonsense is already starting here in the US.  Transfat is illegal in New York City, many states are clamoring to tax soda, and in 2006 Chicago banned foie gras to placate animal rights activists.  (The ban was lifted two years later, proving that incessant ridicule can be an effective political tool.)  If Obamacare becomes a reality Big Brother will have a perfect excuse to ban, regulate, and/or tax anything it deems unhealthy.

This may seem unrealistic – after all, there’s a huge dairy lobby, and they’d never let that kind of thing happen, right?

Ask a tobacco company executive about that.

So make it a point to enjoy real butter and eggs while you can.  It won’t happen immediately, or even very soon, but given how well nannies and Big Brother work together, it will happen unless we wake up and put a stop to this kind of nonsense.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are actively discouraged (virtually forbidden) from contributing to relief organizations in response to disasters.  On Friday afternoon someone on the Jehovah’s Witnesses Recovery Forum suggested setting up a site to encourage ex-JWs to donate to Haitian relief funds.  Friday night several of us had a conference call to plan out the details.  Now, on Sunday morning, less than 48 hours later, Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses For Haiti is up and running.

A half dozen people contributed their skills to make it a reality.  I’m very proud of all the people involved, and proud to have been a part of it.

An Open Letter to Everyone who has Escaped from Jehovah’s Witnesses

When we were Jehovah’s Witnesses, we responded to disasters with a perverse glee. We believed things like the earthquake in Haiti were a fulfillment of prophecy, a welcome sign that we were closer to our eagerly anticipated apocalypse. We were trained to be observers on standby, obediently waiting to hear from Bethel if there were any “brothers” or “sisters” in need. If there weren’t, we did nothing. If there were we’d be generous, but our generosity was limited to other Witnesses. Once in a great while, if anything was left, some non-Witnesses might receive some of the leftovers, but that was rare in our experience. We were disgustingly self-centered.

Now we’ve escaped and become the “worldly” people we were warned about. We read what we want to, watch what we like, pursue education, and develop friendships with good people who have real compassion that we never experienced in the cult. We no longer have the self-serving fear of humanity that defined us in our past life. And we are no longer discouraged from helping people in their times of need. We will never again help only “our own”. Now we understand that all of humanity is united, and our “brothers” and “sisters” are everyone, including those suffering in Haiti.

Transitioning from the Witnesses to the real world is always very difficult and usually takes many years. We try things, experiment, fail, try again and fail again, over and over until we finally succeed in finding our place in the real world and being comfortable in our own skin. While many skills, attitudes and actions are difficult for us to learn, some are pretty simple. An easy one, one we never did as Witnesses even though most “worldly” people do it as a matter of course, is helping out others in extreme need. It takes very little effort, other than to truly love all of our neighbors.

Whether you’re someone who hasn’t donated to an outside organization yet or a seasoned volunteer looking for a way to help, this is a perfect opportunity to both help Haitians with their recovery and show solidarity with other ex-Witnesses who wish to provide real relief in disaster situations. Simply select one of the charities on the home page, click the button, and make a donation. If you can only afford a few dollars, that’s fine. Discover how great it feels to give freely to help complete strangers in a dire situation.

Dropping money into the contribution box never felt this good.

* * *

ExJWs4Haiti never touches the money that’s donated – it goes directly to the charity of your choice.  Donations are completely anonymous.   The organizations we’ve selected, The Red Cross, CARE, Doctors Without Borders and Save The Children, are letting us know the dollar amounts contributed, but by design are providing no other information.

According to their official press release the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society – the controlling body of Jehovah’s Witnesses – are offering Haiti – prayer.  Whoop de do.  If they ever get off their self-righteous butts and send real aid we can be certain it will be earmarked for other JWs, and no one else.

If you’ve escaped from the JWs, or any other cult, this is an opportunity to pitch in and offer some real help.  It only takes a few minutes, and every dollar helps.  Please stop by Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses for Haiti and give what you can.

Few things can make life as miserable as idiot neighbors.  Imagine someone next door demanding you give up your cell phone and wi-fi because he’s allergic to electromagnetic radiation.

If you life in Santa Fe, you don’t have to imagine it.  Arthur Firstenberg is demanding his neighbors turn off everything to cater to his imaginary allergy to EMF.  He’s banded together with other idiots who are insisting that all wi-fi be banned in all public buildings.  “I get chest pain,” he says.  “It doesn’t go away right away. I suffer for a couple of days. If I walk into a room of a building that has Wi-Fi, my most immediate sign is that the front of my right thigh goes numb. If I don’t leave, I’ll get short of breath, chest pains and the numbness will spread.”  He’s banding together with other neurotics, trying to use the American’s With Disabilities Act to force everyone to cater to their nonsense.  (I wonder they get together?)

This reaction to our wired world is somewhat popular among those claiming Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, another imaginary disease.  (When typing this, I misspelled “sensitivity.” My spelling checker suggested the correct word was “senility.”)

These people are suffering.  Their pain and symptoms are quite real.  The problem is with their self diagnosis.  They are not suffering from EHS, MCS, or any of the other long lists of diseases they whine about to anyone who makes the mistake of asking them, “How are you?”  Their real illness is severe hypochondria. There are treatments for that, but since they won’t accept a legitimate diagnosis they’ll continue to wallow in their self-imposed anguish and demand that everyone else change their lifestyle until they’re just as miserable.

I’ve found the best way to deal with such people: avoid them as if they had a real and contagious disease.

Add-On: Mike Tighe sent me this link about locals whining about the horrible things a local radio tower was doing to them.  There was just one little problem:  The tower had been turned off for weeks.

I’ve got a lot of 2009 links left over for the ever-popular Things Atheists Didn’t Do series.  Here’s the first half of the list.    (You can find other TADD here.)

This one is actually from 2008.  (I have so many of these things saved sometimes they  get lost.)  Three Christian parents murdered their children by relying on prayer or faith healing instead of getting them proper medical care.  Their children, who could have been saved with simple and safe medical procedures, would still be alive if their parents were atheists.

Hurting the feelings of Muslims is a crime in some parts of the world and  they’re attempting to spread that insanity world wide.

In January the Pope revealed a list of sins so heinous only he could offer absolution.  On the list:  a parishioner who has participated in an abortion, even by simply paying for part of it.  Not on the list: priests raping children, of course.

Click to Enlarge

Waitresses depend on tips to survive, but a group of Christians told a waitress they wouldn’t be leaving her a tip because they thought working on Sunday was a sin.  It was OK for them to enjoy the labor of sinners working on their holy day, as long as they didn’t pay for it.    (In my experience Atheists tend to tip generously.)

In Saudi Arabia housekeepers were hounded into admitting they had cast dozens of spells in people’s houses – because the householders insisted it happened.  They should have hired atheists housekeepers.  Good luck finding one in Saudi Arabia, where admitting to believing reality can be fatal.

A woman in St. Paul withdrew her federal lawsuit against her husband for using voodoo against her because God told her to stop being an asshole.

Want to get a woman to blow herself up for Allah?  Just rape her first.  And you don’t even have schedule it yourself – this nice Muslim grandmotherly type will do it for you.

In Saudi Arabia a 23 year-old woman who was gang raped by five good Allah worshiping Muslim men was sentenced to a year in prison and 100 lashes for adultery by a Saudi judge.  Because her rapists impregnated her, the most merciful Islamic court will wait until after she gives birth before beating the shit out of her.

In Pakistan popular singers are quitting their profession in the face of threats from the Taliban.

Catholics are pissed off at the Detroit Tigers for starting a game during “holy hours.”  The only  atheists angry at them were those foolish enough to bet on them.

A Muslim woman who was repeatedly raped by her Imam father fled his home when facing a forced marriage.  He formed a 40 man gang and went on a hunt with the explicit intention of murdering her.  I wonder if he hangs out with priests?  Since Mohamed was a pedophile priests and Imams should get along great.

In NYC a deli owner who accidentally served non-kosher hot dogs to Jews had to fight some of them off with an electric knife.  There are no videos of this, which is unfortunate because it would be freaking hilarious.

God is a crappy co-pilot.  In Tunisia a pilot who prayed instead of following emergency procedures while is plane went down was (surprisingly) convicted and sentenced to jail.  The 16 people who died would have been much  better off  with an atheist pilot.  In contrast, Captain Sullenberger crash landed his plane in the Hudson River and saved everyone on board.  When asked if he prayed he said. “I would imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane.”  Which pilot would you want in the cockpit during an emergency?

In Iran a member of the Basiji militia confessed about how, in the name of Allah he would “marry” and rape young girls the night before their execution, because Islamic law forbids executing a virgin.  Allah is merciful, piss be upon him.

In Chicago a Muslim woman beat her two year old to death.  The Muslim community was outraged – not about the beating death of a child, but by the news media showing her face.

Here’s some relationship advice from Pat Robertson, who is as brilliant as ever.

I’m only about half way through my backlog of links, and I’ve discarded at least half of them.  I’ll post the rest of them later this month.

You’ll be notified of the update (and any updates to this blog) if you follow me on Twitter.

The latest terrorist attempt to bring down a plane proves, beyond any doubt, that the TSA’s security theater is useless.  This guy was already on their watch list but that didn’t even slow him down.  (The watch list has, however, caused a lot of perfectly innocent people, including infants, from getting on a plane, because in their brilliance the TSA only goes by names, evidently unaware that many people share the same name.  Even uncommon names are shared by many people.  For instance, I always thought my name was pretty unique, but there are over 20 people on Facebook named Dave Hitt.)

Hardened cockpit doors and passengers who are now willing to subdue any attempts at hijacking are all the security we need.  Still, people want to feel secure, so the solution is simple: dissolve the TSA and let each airline design and publicize their own security measures.  Passengers then could decide which level of security they’re comfortable with and pick the appropriate airline.  Here are a few suggestions to get them started.

Totally Safe Airlines – Passengers have to book their tickets a month in advance and be completely vetted by a private security firm before being allowed to board.  The security firm would check their religious affiliation (of course), their political views, their friends and acquaintances, and anything they’ve said or done on the internet.  Just before they board each passenger would be subjected to a strip search, including a body cavity search.

Funny Eyes

Bacon and a Kiss Airlines – Penn Jillette came up with this one, which capitalizes on the fact that most terrorists are members of a religion that’s paranoid about pork and insanely homophobic.  There are no searches required. There would be a man and a woman at the gate.  Each would be completely naked and holding a plate of bacon.  Getting on board is simple – passengers just have to eat a piece of bacon and lightly kiss the genitals of the attendant whose gender matches theirs.

Fatalist Airlines – In keeping with their motto “When You’re Time Comes, It Comes,” Fatalist Airlines lets everyone on without checking anything.

Seriously Funny Eyes

Libertarian Airlines – Passengers bringing their own guns on board would be required to certify their bullets were frangible. (Frangible bullets  shatter when they hit anything harder than flesh, so they won’t penetrate airplane walls or windows)  Passengers without a gun will be given one.

Funny Eyes Airlines – The one thing all terrorists all have in common is funny eyes.  FEA would simply deny flights to anyone with funny eyes.  Although this might discriminate against a few innocent people, it will virtually guarantee each flight is terrorist free.

Just in time for Christmas, the British Medical Journal is featuring an article blaming Santa for obesity, speeding, drunk driving, extreme sports, smoking and reckless behavior.

Dr Nathan “Grinch” Grills wants to rework Santa into a politically correct image, right down to wearing a helmet and seat belt.

Using a variation of the nannies second favorite chant (if it saves one life, it’s worth it) he whines  “Santa only needs to affect health by 0.1 per cent to damage millions of lives”.

Nutritionist Zoe Bingley-Pullin chimed in to say he should a protected brand that can’t be used to promote unhealthy food or alcohol.

May these two scrooges be doomed to a lifetime of Christmases’ eating toufurky and drinking warm near beer.  To the rest of you, Merry Christmas!

The Copenhagen summit on global cooling global warming climate change is barely started, and already impoverished nations are demanding handouts. Environment Minister Hasan Mahmud of Bangladesh says his country is entitled to a cubic buttload of money from the big nasty countries who arrogantly built successful societies while his government kept their citizens living in a rat hole.

From the BBC article:

“We are not begging any mercy from anyone. Rather we want justice as the worst victim of climate change,” Reuters news agency quoted Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, a leading economist who is also part of the Bangladesh negotiating team, as saying.

Sorry, Quazi, you are begging. And if you’re a leading economist, why haven’t you done something to improve your own economy instead of crying “gimme gimme gimmie gimmie?”

Ed Begley Jr, one of the few AGW supporters who doesn’t fly around in private jets to complain about carbon footprints and one of Spinal Tap’s many drummers, has told “developing” countries they can adopt this song, royalty free, as their national anthem:

And so it begins. Countries where despots and idiots who have squandered every opportunity and wasted every natural resource are drooling over a new source of juicy handouts. We’ve handed them a new excuse, another way to claim “it wasn’t my fault.”

Widespread poverty is the direct result of government mismanagement, incompetence and stupidity. Africa, for instance, has amazing natural resources but is still pathetically poor. Why? The corruption and oppression in most African governments is even more legendary then their stupidity. They have turned down billions of tons of donated grain because Greens have convinced them it might contain a bit of genetically modified grain which will magically and horribly pollute their native species. They deal with AIDS by relying on deadly myths and superstitions. Ethnic and religious genocide is frighteningly common. Education is a joke.

Compare that to Hong Kong, which crams seven million people into 426 square miles. Their natural resources consist of about three square feet of farmland. Even though they have to import everything they have the most healthy and robust economy in the world. The difference between Hong Kong and African countries? Government. Hong Kong’s government lets people do pretty much anything they want, and it turns out that what they want to do is thrive.

Is it really that simple? Yeah, pretty much. My broad generalizations are ignoring subtleties and nuances, but in the big picture the wealth or poverty of any nation is the direct result of their government. Big corrupt governments impoverish their citizens. Small governments that get out of people’s way let them build their own wealth. And no country has ever become successful by relying on handouts.

I highly recommend P. J. O’rourkes “Eat The Rich,” where he travels around the world trying to understand why some economies work and most don’t. It’s not only the best economics book I’ve read, it’s funny as hell.

The Obama administration is hell bent on installing a cap and tax system that will cost each of us between one and two grand a year and will reduce greenhouse gasses by approximately nothing. While we’re still struggling to pay the bill for our own government’s incompetence – a bill that threatens to bankrupt us – we’ll be expected to support every other incompetent government as well. All they’ll have to do is blame their problems on climate change and the Obama administration will write them a check.

Contemporary philosopher Johnny Virgil sent me an e-mail containing this careful and well thought out analysis of the situation: “We are so fucked.”

Bobby McFarrin demonstrates that the pentatonic scale is a universal constant.

The newest Quick Hitts Podcast, “Ask Dave,” is now available for your listening pleasure.  It explains how people can believe the earth is 6,000 years old, why parents should buy red washcloths, and things to consider before naming your baby “Thor.”