Quick Hitts

The Muslim’s standard operating procedure for humiliating a defeated enemy is to destroy their most sacred buildings and replace them with mosques.  They then declare each one is one of their most holy of mosques and demand that everyone, Muslim or not, treat it with reverence.  They did it in Jerusalem, where they built the Dome of The Rock over the site the Jews consider the holiest place on earth.  They’ve done it elsewhere when they conquered a land or a people.

They can’t build a mosque on the actual site of the twin towers (and, apparently, we can’t either, which is an embarrassment) so they’re building a it a few hundred feet away, a thirteen story “fuck you” that will literally cast a shadow on the site they destroyed.  A gutless NYC community board, eager to display their political correctness, has overwhelmingly approved it.  The vile creep Bloomberg likes the idea.  As an added insult the Muslims plan to fast track the construction so they can open it on September 11, 2011 – the ten year anniversary of their murderous rampage.

The Imam who will be running this claims he’s a moderate Muslim.  He’s a proponent of Sharia law, a violent, barbaric, misogynistic and hate-filled system of oppression.  It specifies that a woman’s testimony is only worth half as much as a man’s, and features brutal punishments for nearly everything.  For instance, if a woman is raped she is guilty of adultery or fornication.  The punishment is punished by being buried up to her  neck and stoned to death.  This sentence is still carried out regularly in Muslim countries.  He’d like to see these laws in the US.

Good thing he’s a moderate Muslim.

Citizens are justifiably outraged.  There have been protests and sign waving and shouting and a move to have the existing building declared a historical landmark.  One of these things might work.

It’s tempting to let them build it, and then let the fire department take their own sweet time responding to the inevitable mysterious fires that will break out during and after its construction.  Perhaps they could pause at each intersection for a moment of silence to honor their fellow firemen who were murdered on 9/11.  A minute or two at each stop light should be sufficient.  And if the streets are congested on the way, they’ll need to take a different route, perhaps via New Jersey.

Or we could just let them build it and then fly an airplane into it.

Those are just fantasies, of course; no civilized person could justify endangering people and adjacent buildings.  But there is a way, a very effective way, to keep this insult from ever being finished: Bureaucracy.

Bureaucrats can grind any project to a halt, keep it stopped for months, let it proceed for a day or two, and then stop it again.  It already happens regularly with justifiable building projects.  It can be used to prevent this one.

Declaring it a historic landmark is a start.  The process to determine if it qualifies is long and arduous, and can be made longer by excessive foot dragging.

If that fails, and it probably will, the next step should be an environmental impact statement.  Every species of rat and mouse and cockroach and mold and dust mite in the existing building needs to be carefully examined to see if it might possibly be endangered.  You can’t be too careful with this stuff.  It can’t be rushed.

If it passes those hurdles, we must consider the possibility that the ground underneath it may contain important historical artifices.  It should be carefully examined by highly trained archeologists, removing the dirt a fraction of an inch at a time, in search of an old boot or something.

All of the associated expenses for these studies and delays would be billed to the mosque, of course.

The project can be stalled every step of the way.  “I’m sorry, your blueprints are the wrong shade of blue.  The official shade of blue is just a tad darker.  You’ll have to get them redone and we’ll examine them again.  I can fit you in two months from now.”

Two months later:  “Ah yes, you’ve got the right shade of blue here, but they’re an 1/8 of an inch too narrow.  You’ll have to do them again and bring them back for approval.  Unfortunately, we won’t be able to examine them again for three months, but we’ll be sure to expedite things after that.”

Three months later: “Perfect!  They’re the exact right size and shape.  It’s a shame, though, that you stapled them together, when the specifications clearly state they must be attached by a paper clip. . .”

Done properly this could delay the start of building by a decade or two.  If construction ever does begin, inspectors should make sure that all building codes, especially the conflicting ones, are adhered to.  Wherever possible they should wait until a significant part of the construction is nearly finished, then find fault somewhere and force the builders to rip out wiring and duct work and plumbing and drywall, rebuild, then repeat the process again.  And again and again and again.

The beauty of this approach is that it can’t be stopped by political weasels eager to kiss Islam’s ass.  All it takes is clerks and bureaucrats and inspectors quietly protesting by doing their jobs.  No one can fault them for carefully enforcing every existing rule and carefully (and slowly) wrapping every procedure in the mandated red tape.  Add a little extra foot dragging and this thing may never get started.  If it does it won’t be finished in our lifetimes.

Shortly after 9/11 this picture of a radically altered NYC skyline was passed around the Muslim community, with the caption “New York City, 2006:

The night after the attack I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and created this photo suggesting replacement buildings which would also dramatically alter the skyline:

I spread the buildings out too much, though.  They need to be in a circle, which would highlight the effect, and the tallest one should be facing Mecca.

This is a plea to all the clerks, inspectors, and everyone else who has any say in any part of this project. You can stop it.  You must stop it.  This celebration of slaughter must not be built.

Hat Tip

I’ve always admired Helen Thomas, even though I vehemently disagree with most of her politics.  I liked her style, a mix of brash feistiness and a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Most reporters in the White House Press room are mild little sheep that are very, very careful not to piss off the powers-that-be.  That’s understandable – no one wants to lose an easy, cushy job.

Helen, OTH, didn’t care about that.  She ruthlessly grilled presidents of both parties for decades, and refused to be snowed by BS answers and evasions.

I also admire anyone who goes to work every day at age 89.

Her recent statements about Israel were flat out ridiculous and wrong on every level.   But. . . I like her, respect her, and will miss her.  She’s was one of the last few gutsy journalists in the WH press room, and until someone else decides to follow her example, we’re all poorer for her forced retirement.

Over on the Skeptics Guide To the Universe forums someone started a thread about Cigars, asking for advice on picking a nice cigar without spending too much.

It didn’t take long for the Nicotine Nazi/Nannies to show up, whining about, well, everything.  We asked them to take it elsewhere – we just wanted to have a nice conversation about cigars – but nannies are physically incapable of minding their own business.  They have to run their yaps to relive the intense pressure caused by the volatile mixture of ignorance and arrogance that powers them.  Otherwise they might physically explode.

I’ve been dealing with these clowns since the days of dial-up BBSs, so I knew what was coming.  Nannies, having no imagination, are entirely predictable.  I knew at least one of them would spew a scatological post – I would have bet my house on it.  Sure enough, MisterMarc dropped this gem:

YEAH! I mean, what are you going to do next, try to stop people from pissing and shitting wherever they want? Dude, that’s just wrong! If you try to stop me from shitting on the sidewalk, you may as well be trying to stop me from BREATHING!! It’s a natural body function! If people don’t want to watch me shit, then they should go somewhere else, you Nanny-State lover!

Every time, every single time, NNs infest a forum conversation, you’ll see a post like this.  They’ll talk about shitting on the sidewalk (or your salad), farting in your face, peeing in your pool or pissing on your dinner plate.  They never realize they’re providing us with a perfect insight into what makes them tick.

Most toddlers go through a scatological phase.  They’re obsessed and fascinated with farts and pee and poo.  They think any reference to them in hilarious.  This is perfectly normal, and healthy kids outgrow this phase around age four or five.  Nannies, though, never do.

They’re toddlers living in a grown-up’s body.  They miss having mommy and daddy taking care of their every need and protecting them from every real and imagined danger.  Since Mommy and Daddy have left them on their own, mistakenly thinking they’re now big boys and girls, they’re desperate for a surrogate.  The only one they can find to fill the void is Big Brother.

Remember this when dealing with any flavor of nanny.   The only difference between them and a snot-nosed toddler is that on rare occasions the toddler may listen to reason.

If you get this joke in three seconds or less you are a Geek.

If you get this joke in three seconds or less you are an Ãœber Geek.

If you looked at the “Ãœ” character and thought “I know the alt/numpad combination to generate that without looking up an ASCII chart” you are a Super Ãœber Geek.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide if your ranking is a good thing or a bad thing.

For the record, I got the first one right away, because I’ve worked for software houses and know that cliché by heart.  I got the second one quickly too,  but had to Google an ASCII chart to find the key combination for the “Ãœ”.  (It’s alt/154.)

While sitting in the bathroom, reading one of those insipid Sunday paper magazines, I saw a text heavy ad about a cure for tinnitus, an incessant ringing or buzzing in the ear.  I’ve never had it, (although I’ve experienced the symptoms temporarily after too-loud concerts or shooting off an excessive amount of fireworks) but for some reason it interests me.

The writer claimed to have tried this, that and the other thing, all to no avail, then to have stumbled on the perfect homeopathic remedy.

Dammit!  He just wasted two minutes of my life that could have been spent reading pointless gossip elsewhere in the magazine.

I’m not fond of regulation, but I’d make an exception for ads like this.  Any ad that has any kind of an unproven miracle cure should be required to feature a large cartoon duck in the upper right hand corner.

It would serve as a warning that the ad was written by a quack.

In 1996 Richard Jewel discovered a pipe bomb at the Atlanta Olympics.  He helped clear the area, and was considered a hero until the FBI decided he was a suspect.  After leaking their suspicions to the media they raided his home and took just about everything that wasn’t locked down, including his mom’s Tupperware bowls.

Yes, he lived with his mother.  And he was a security guard.  He practically had an L tattooed on his forehead and the media had a field day at his expense.  They blasted the airwaves with his “criminal profile” (i.e. shit they made up) and turned him from a hero to a zero literally overnight.  The FBI put him under 24 hour surveillance, questioned everyone he knew, and made his life hell until his attorney had him take a polygraph test, which he passed.

That last sentence is important – he had an attorney.

So did Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was able to defend himself when he was accused (but never charged) with being the person behind the 2001 anthrax attacks that happened a few days after 9/11.  He was even able to sue the Department of Justice for ruining his life, and, surprisingly, won.   (Jewell also won lawsuits, but against the media that vilified him, not the government.)

Both of these people were able to defend themselves because, and only because, they were able to fight back using their civil rights.

John McCain and Joe Lieberman thinks that’s a bad idea, and they’ve introduced legislation that will allow the government to toss anyone they want into a black hole indefinitely, denying them of all their civil rights, on nothing more than the say-so of a government lackey.  There are no time limits. Suspects can be held forever.

I’m a pragmatic guy.  If we are ever in a real ticking bomb situation, fine, call in Jack Bauer and do whatever it takes.  It won’t come up often, if ever, because real ticking-bomb scenarios are as rare as believable plots on “24.”  I’ve also got no problems with the US putting a contract out on Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, because there’s solid proof, in the form of his own videos, that he’s a dangerous terrorist.

But most terrorists are clumsy punks who have shown time and time again that they pose little real threat to us.  Certainly not enough of a threat to further shred the Constitution.  And if this bill passes we can be certain that lots of innocent people will be rounded up as well.

Richard Jewell and Dr. Hatfield retained their freedom because they retained their civil rights.  If this law had been in place when they were suspects, they’d probably still be in jail.  The media would have assured us that they were guilty, and we wouldn’t know any better.

Think this couldn’t happen to you?  I’m guessing Jewell and Hatfield thought the same thing.

In 1971 John Lennon asked us to Imagine a few things, including a world with no religion.

In 2010 it inspired this poem and video, which is powerful enough that any commentary I could add would only be a distraction.