Archive for the 'Links' Category

The Facts - Not The Fiction.”

Our/your silence signifies our/your shame. For certain.

Demand today that our/your politicians act now ~ not just “meet & discuss” while this slaughter continues. And start with the local ones. Remind them that they’re our/you official paid representative and that their comfortable, cushy overpaid jobs depend ‘entirely’ upon our/your votes.

Also, please help us to get the truth out, since it’s only the truth that can ever set any of us free. Including the freedom of you and your own loved ones.

Remember this: the Iraqis, Lebanese, Palastinians, Gazans, et al, are ALL human beings. Just like we are, and you are, and your loved ones are.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Alex Horton of Army of Dude has some Veteran’s day advice:

Whether a brother or sister, father or mother, grandfather grandmother, friend or foe, go out there and thank a veteran today. Do your best to understand what they had to do for the country and the comparative ease in which you live. Ask about their good friends they still keep close to their hearts. Don’t approach the subject of what they did and saw in combat. It is the ultimate insult to the memory of our fallen. I write about those things because people ought to know what is happening to our men and women in a far away land. I can’t write or talk about such horror without shedding a few tears. So please don’t ask about the greusome details. Rather, ask them their most cherished memory during their time in the service.

More here.

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50,000 years ago, Neanderthals had red hair. And they still do.

Andrew Sullivan is a right wing gay journalist who once demonized antiwar demonstrators, and now demonizes war supporters. But he does read comments by Liberal Avenger contributors like Sirkowski, and that makes him OK in my book.

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(click to inflate)

In Davis, California, Brandon Raphael and Kiernan Gatewood, both boys, were elected homecoming princes.

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Over at National Review, dirty old man John Derbyshire was outraged to find that there are a lot of Hispanics attending school in Iowa:

The “Student Stats” on GreatSchools for Storm Lake show percentages Hispanic as:

* High school: 32
* Middle School: 43
* Elementary schools: 53, 66, 63, 53.

Say what you like, that is truly an invasion. Why on earth are we letting this happen?

Derbyshire is himself an immigrant, so he’s not all that concerned about immigration in general. He’s upset because the figures indicate that there are a lot of one special kind of immigrant. You might think that he’s peeved because he thinks that many of the Hispanics are illegal immigrants, but you’d think wrong. His colleague Kathryn Lopez had this to say:

Um, Derb …. I have no idea the situation as to their immigration status, but if that population consists of legal immigrants who speak English … I’m not moved to invasion outrage.

And that prompted this reply:

I can’t agree, Kathryn. Legal or illegal, this is asking for trouble… If we must have mass immigration, can we please return to the fine old American tradition of taking people from (A) lots of different places, none of which are (B1) contiguous to our territory and (B2) make historical claims — propagated, for instance, in their school textbooks — on that territory?

You just have to shake your head in amazement at the idea that the National Review would continue to employ a man who would be so naked in his racism when speaking with a woman named Lopez. He doesn’t have a problem with white immigrants like himself coming in, and he objects to Hispanic immigrants, even if they are legal and speak English.

By the way, when he talks about historical claims being propagated in school textbooks, he’s talking about the concept of Aztlan (which I’m sure is not included in the curriculum in Iowa’s schools). Wrongly characterized by bigots like Lou Dobbs and David Duke as being a call to stealth conquest of the American Southwest, it’s actually a call to internationalism:

The concept of Aztlán was originated by the poet Alurista in the year 1969 at the conference organized by Corky Gonzales in Denver. In an interview, Alurista said:

“People call California, Arizona, Nueva Mexico and Colorado Aztlán, but really, Aztlán is wherever we are. We don’t recognize borders. It’s more a matter of cultural/political identity. When I say this is our land, I don’t mean that we own it. Who owns anything?”

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Today’s first link is a very sad one. As Japanese cities try to cut back their welfare caseloads, many of the elderly and disabled are left to fend for themselves. The case of a 52 year-old Kitakyushu man became especially poignant when his diary was discovered after he died of starvation:

In a thin notebook discovered along with a man’s partly mummified corpse this summer was a detailed account of his last days, recording his hunger pangs, his drop in weight and, above all, his dream of eating a rice ball, a snack sold for about $1 in convenience stores across the country.

“3 a.m. This human being hasn’t eaten in 10 days but is still alive,” he wrote. “I want to eat rice. I want to eat a rice ball.”

Toshihiko Misaki, head of the city’s welfare section, was unsympathetic:

“On the one hand, there are people who’ve done their utmost to remain standing on their own feet,” Mr. Misaki said. “On the other hand, there are those who’ve gotten into trouble because they’ve led idle lives and are now receiving welfare. That’s taxpayers’ money.”

I’m surprised that the Libertarian Party hasn’t yet asked Mr. Misaki to run for president.

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New Scientist tells us how it feels to die of several causes, but starvation isn’t listed.

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Bonus Gay Athlete Photo! Woo! (click to inflate):

Here’s some dispiriting-yet-enraging news from our ally in the war against Islamic extremism:

7,000 Lashes For Being Gay

You can send a polite email to the Saudi embassy here.

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Here’s some uplifting-and-hilarious news from here in Oregon:

State elections officials reported Monday that the effort fell 116 valid signatures short of the 55,179 needed to suspend the law and place it on the November 2008 ballot for a popular vote.

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This has nothing to do with any of this week’s links

You’ve probably seen dozens of news stories that refer to Iraq’s “130 degree heat”. As it turns out, it doesn’t get that hot in any of Iraq’s major cities. In reality, Baghdad’s weather is similar to that of my hometown of Tucson, Arizona.

But I can tell you from brutal experience that you don’t want to spend a day without electricity when the temperature climbs to 110 degrees.

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Army officials say that they want to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. Pressuring sniper teams to get more kills was probably not a good way of achieving that goal.

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It’s hard to overstate how bad the conditions are in Iraq’s prisons. Now prisoners are developing scabies, and they’re not receiving treatment.

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Most marriage brokers connect North American and European men with women from the developing world. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes abusive men use these services because poor women from abroad are more vulnerable than their Western counterparts.The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) requires marriage brokers to disclose the criminal records of their clients to the prospective brides, and inform the brides of their rights under the law, and of resources available to battered spouses. Not surprisingly, the guys in the Men’s Rights movement think this is a bad thing.

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Awhile back, I wrote about an infamous broker named Natasha Spivack. Spivack (AKA Moscownights) joined a lengthy discussion and tried to justify her behavior. Check it out here.

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OK, today was busy for me. So today’s links are going to be fairly raw, with very little explanation. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that they’re all interesting. Ready? Here goes:

There’s been quite a bit of hatred in the news lately. Xicanopwr looks at the recent upsurge in hate crimes, examines the roots of institutional racism, and explains why the new hate crimes law, which would cover hate crimes against gays, would help all groups that are traditional targets of hate crimes.

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It seems that lately there’s been a lot of animosity toward fat people. Even people who aren’t fat at all, like Britney Spears, are feeling the hate.

And of course, there’s also a “women only” rule that goes along with this hostility: you can’t be too skinny either. Just ask Rene, Victoria, and Angelina.

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