31 December, 2009

Arise, Sir Patrick & Sir Peter

Patrick "Jean Luc Picard" Stewart has made Queen Elizabeth's Honors List for 2009, and is to be knighted.

Also knighted was film director Peter Jackson, best known for the Lord of the Rings films.

Congratulations to both gentlemen!

29 December, 2009

Illinois GOP Statement on Andy "Scumbag" Martin's attack on Mark Kirk

The Illinois Republican Party will have none of Andrew Martin's crap:

"The Illinois Republican Party disavows the statements made today by Mr. Andrew Martin in his statewide radio advertisements. His statements today are consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party. Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican Candidate by the Illinois Republican Party."

Pat Brady, Illinois Republican Party Chairman

GOP Statement on Andy Martin

According to the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, Martin's real name is Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, and that he has had a history of making bizarre claims. He was once denied a law license in the State of Illinois because the Illinois Bar Character & Fitness Committee found him unfit and unsuitable to be a lawyer, which considering some of the people they have accepted, tells you all you need to know about him. Oh yeah, he's also apparently a Birther, one of the first to loudly question President Barrack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate.

Scumbag. Prior to this, he was polling at around 2% among Republicans. Now I doubt he'll get even a tenth of that.

28 December, 2009

Marvel/DC Season Three: Zero Hour #1

Usual disclaimer: This is going to make absolutely no sense to those who aren't comics fans (or who haven't been following Itsjustomerandomguy's other videos).

Mud starts flying in the Illinois Republican US Senate Race

I knew this was going to happen in the closing weeks before the primary.

Desperate to get somewhere above 5% in the race for the Republican nomination for US Senate, Andy Martin is attacking Mark Kirk... by claiming that Mark Kirk is gay.

Now, I've actually met and talked with Kirk.  I have no idea if he is gay or not.  But guess what?  I don't flipp'in care.  Its nobodies business but Mark Kirk's.  Even if he was, it certainly wouldn't change my opinion that I think he's the best man for the job.  If anything, the only thing that's changed is that I now believe Mr. Martin to be the last person who should get the job.  So keep running those ads, Mr. Martin; prove to the world just how big of a scum sucking dirtbag you are.

Mark Kirk for US Senate!!!

25 December, 2009

December 25, 2009

Merry
Christmas
To All!


23 December, 2009

Best Titans Moment 2009

My nomination for the best moment in a  Titans comic for 2009: Beast Boy defeats Black Lantern Terra.


Blackest Night Titans #3
Written by JT Krul; art by Ed Benes & Rob Hunter

Later on Gar acknowledges that Terra was "not worth it", and finally puts her behind him.



Here's hoping that sticks.

New 10000Pennies

21 December, 2009

ObamaCare and Mission Creep

One, two, three, everybody now... "I am going to be in so much trouble when my in-laws discover this blog..."

17 December, 2009

Ludwig van Beethoven


Ludwig van Beethoven,
by Joseph Karl Stieler

Today is the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), one of the greatest composers who ever lived.  So let us take this moment to enjoy a performance by one of the most gifted interpreters of his music of all time:


Liberal Fascism on the March

Venezualian dictator Hugo Chavez gets a hero's welcome by the Climate change delegates in Copenhagen. They also warmly greet mass-murderer Pres. Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Hopenchangen crowd.

Seig Heil!

10 December, 2009

An Open Note to Whoever Is In Charge of Protocol at the White House

You suck at your job.

Look. I'm just a know-nothing schlub who sometimes studies history and occasionally dabbles in politics. But even I know that, when you win the Nobel Peace Prize, its EXPECTED that you at least spend a little time with the King of Norway over tea and lutefisk.

Especially when, after having been given the Nobel Peace Prize based on the thinnest of achievements, you promptly turn around and deploy 34,000 more troops into a war zone.

I don't care if you think getting Health Care through congress is important. This is the rest of the world we're talking about. Appearances matter. And flying in, picking up the prize, giving a little speech, and then heading home is NOT the way to ingratiate yourself with your hosts. Surely you could spend even a day doing the positive foreign relations thing, especially in this modern age when arm-twisting reluctant senators is little more than a cell phone away.

This was a bone-headed, unnecessary move that will do little to dispel the reputation of arrogance that President Obama says he wants to change.

06 December, 2009

Merry Christmas from the BBC!

BBC1's ident commercials for the 2009 holiday season have a distinctly Doctor Who theme to them...







Dictionary Definition of Hypocracy

According to the UK Daily Telegraph, the delegates to the Copenhagen Climate Change conference will use some 140 private aircraft, and 1,200 limos. Convention attendees such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore will stay in luxury hotel suites costing a minimum of over $1,000 a night. In the space of a few days, the International Climate Change Conference will leave a carbon footprint equivalent to the yearly output of a mid-sized town.

And then they'll tell us how the rest of the world is ruining the planet, and that everyone "needs to make radical changes" in their lifestyle.

You first.

02 December, 2009

Trust Science

Over on National Review Online, the always interesting John Derbyshire puts the current Climategate controversy in perspective.

Jon Stewart on Climategate

Memo to climate change doomsayers: You know you're in trouble when Jon Stewart starts making fun of you.

The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate

Can't have a day go by without at least one post about Climategate, can we?

Ronald Bailey at Reason has a write up about what must be done going forward for climate research.

01 December, 2009

2001: A Who Odyssey

An impressive little fan film:

Today in Climategate Opinions

Richard S. Lindzen (Professor of Meteorology, MIT), today in the Wall Street Journal:

What does all this have to do with climate catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machinations in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.

The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA,(globally averaged temperature anomaly) to a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter), represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And all these examples involve phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many factors.

The Climate Science Isn't Settled, Richard S. Lindzen