Monday Morning Coffee (He Who Hesitates Is Late Edition)

Instead of simply doing a quick "Blog This!" move when I come across something noteworthy, I've been collecting notes and links for more comprehensive posts with multiple items to read. The problem is that news keeps traveling on without a pause and sometimes by the time you have time to assemble a post, what you were going to talk about is old and moldy or simply not relevant to the day's situation. Remember what I wrote about "Jihad - Canadian Style"? Of course you don't, because it never got posted, along with stories about the religious underpinnings of Iran's belligerence toward its neighbors and more.

In the future, I'll be doing more instant posts because I'm not getting any less busy and may quite possibly be taking on more work than there are hours in the day to accomplish. So, let's clear the backlog as quickly as possible. It won't be as deep as I'd like it, but you gets whats you pays for.

ALL THE FAKE NEWS THAT FITS, WE PRINT: The Treason Media have sustained several more blows to their shredded credibility as they've be busted by the Blogosphere for collaborating with terrorist outfit Hezbollah and running propaganda as real news in an effort to undermine Israel and America's ability to respond to unprovoked attacks upon civilians.

Last week, the big stink was about the likelihood that pictures from Qana were staged because the same guy kept turning up in so many photos and has been shown at disaster sites in the past. (I can't find the link to a better story about the hinky nature of the pix. Sorry.) The Treason Media agencies of Al Associated Press and Al Reuters blew off those charges, but Al Reuters commited a Dan Rather-grade error when they had to post this:

...after the Blogosphere - led by Little Green Footballs, the site that busted Rather's fake memos in 2004 - spotted the clumsy use of the Photoshop clone stamp tool to fake up more smoke in the picture. Reuters has sworn off using more photos from the Hezbollah PR rep masquerading as a photographer, but they're putting out his lame excuse for his fraud:

“The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under,” said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

1. Dust marks aren't much of a problem in digital photography and even so, wouldn't require so much cloning.

B. More importantly, "poor lighting conditions" would imply that he was working in a dark cave with insufficient light to see what he was doing. If he was airbrushing a print, that would fly as an excuse, but to use Photoshop REQUIRES A COMPUTER AND THOSE MONITORS SEEM TO PUT OUT ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN!!! Don't tell me he had the screen brightness turned down - it's a fakey fake and the Treason Media spin is just eyewash to bamboozle the rubes.

Michelle Malkin has a good wrap-up post (pay heed to the two photos of the same site allegedly on different dates); here's a video that shows how it was done in Photoshop; Ed Driscoll traces how the Treason Media got to its current ring of Hell; another blogger wonders who this unlucky woman is; and Power Line has a transcript of CNN's "Reliable Sources" program in which a member of the Treason Media (WaPo Chapter) reveals his blind bias by accusing the ISRAELIS of deliberately killing their own citizens in order to maintain the moral high ground in the war.

Next time you hear the Treason Media bleating about how "objective" they are, how they aren't liberal and how inaccurate the blogs are compared to their annointed holiness, remember how they blithely lie to the public and then lie about their lies when busted by those who can back up what they say. Pathetic.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF MEL GIBSON: So, Mel gets drunk, goes insane and says a bunch of things that Cindy Sheehan would approve of, yet not get lynched by the media for saying herself. If Sean Penn got hauled over for DUI and spouted off a tirade against Christians, they'd be holding a parade for him and telling offended Christians to "f*ck off, Jesus freaks!" But because Mel is a hated Catholic who defied the Hollyweird establishment to make "Jesus Beatdown" (aka "My Big Fat Roman Crucifixion") and made a ton of money in the process, they've been looking to take him down and just like Ann Coulter, he handed them the axe with which they could cut his head off with. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

Christopher Hitchens got his Mel hate on and several other blogs noted the double-standards at work, but the best pair of comments came from David Frum and your truly. Frum said:

If a drunken Mel Gibson did indeed call out, "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," then there can be only one possible place for a man who believes such things: as the next Secretary General of the United Nations.

And in reply to a comment here from a reader asking what I thought of Melgate, I replied:

I find it fascinating that with Hezbollah lobbing 2000 ball-bearing packed rockets into Israel; a Muslim barging into a Jewish center in Seattle and shooting six unarmed Jewish women, killing one and wounding a pregnant woman; and the leader of Iran basically calling for the annihilation of Israel, the most dangerous and despised anti-Semite in the world is a drunk actor who shot his mouth off. Some disproportionate response there, no?

SPEAKING OF DISPROPORTIATE RESPONSE: Israel is under attack and their kinder, gentler, White Guilt-approved response is being attacked by the anti-Semitic world as being "disproportionate" by those who want the Jews gone for real, not just in a drunken rant. Charles Krauthammer had a great column about this madness and NRO's Rich Lowery said:

At the same time that terrorist insurgents around the world are spectacularly demonstrating their depravity, the West has acted to give them more rights and to tie its own hands with unrealistic expectations of strictly limiting collateral damage. The Supreme Court has granted Geneva Convention protections to al Qaeda, part of a push to wipe out any moral and legal differences between civilized armies and terrorist bands. The outcry over Qana is directed entirely toward Israel by the “international community,” rewarding Hezbollah for deliberately endangering civilians.

Channeling Instapundit...READ IT ALL! For an extra kick, check out this video which shows Hezbollah fighters piling into a UN AMBULANCE to flee from the scene. Why the f*ck are we expected to treat terrorists who refuse to wear a uniform, hide amongst civilians and hide inside UN aid vehicles with such tenderness and understanding?!?

GITMO: THE GUARDS SIDE OF THE STORY: You've heard ad naseum about the supposed mistreatment of the po' widdle jihadis being held at Gitmo because while they were willing to kill themselves and innocent civilians in order to enter Paradise, they can't withstand having an infidel touch their Koran or bring their three hot halals a moment too late. Well, according to this report, here's a taste of what the guards endure:

The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift weapons, Pentagon reports say.

Incident reports reviewed by The Associated Press indicate Military Police guards are routinely head-butted, spat upon and doused by "cocktails" of feces, urine, vomit and sperm collected in meal cups by the prisoners.

They've been repeatedly grabbed, punched or assaulted by prisoners who reach through the small "bean holes" used to deliver food and blankets through cell doors, the reports say. Serious assaults requiring medical attention, however, are rare, the reports indicate.

Charming. The recent suicides of a trio of terrorists were coordinated via legal envelopes protected by lawyer-client confidentiality laws in order to bring more bad press to a place already mischaracterized by a Treason Media disinterested in anything other than the defeat of Team Dubya and America at all costs, as if they'll be allowed to scrutinize the Islamofacist masters after the jihad succeeds. Lying chumps!

TAKING BACK "TAR BABY": If you've seen "Clerks 2", you'll recognize the phrase "I'm taking it back", but while that was a dumb guy doing it for dumb reasons, the fact is that perfectly innocuous words like "niggardly" and "tar baby" are being P.C.-ed out of usage because aggrieved race-scab-pickers attack any white person who dares speak about stinginess or reference Br'er Rabbit. Romney should've come out and said, "I was talking about Br'er Rabbit and it is not helpful to the cause of improved racial relations to heap racial bias upon non-racial comments. Sometimes you've got to call a shovel a shovel." (Note the irony in that last part.)

THE END OF E3 AND THE 20 GAYEST GAME CHARACTERS: After all this heavy news, here's some fun stuff to try and brighten your day starting with this article listing the gayest game characters. Kinda cute, but more critical is the response to the end of the big Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) after the pullout of the big publishers. While those media outlets who will still be in the inside are cool with the change, this site has a list of "Ten Reasons Why No E3 is Bad For Game Industry". Check it out, y'all.

THE FRIDAY FIVER (DOUBLE SHOT): I didn't even have time to do these. Yeesh.

1. Do you smoke?

No. Used to smoke the occasional cigar when it was the rage, but not since.

2. Are you more likely to be caught humming, whistling or singing to yourself?

Combination of all three, but since I'm a musician, it's OK and I sound good.

3. Have you ever been to New Orleans?

No. (Get it? N-O. Heh.)

4. When is the last time you saw the sun rise?

The day before I became a vampire.

5. Can you swim?

Yes.

1. When is the last time your phone rang in the middle of the night?

Can't recall.

2. Who makes you yell?

Stupid people.

3. What do you do for fun?

Yell at stupid people.

4. What hours do you work/go to school?

9 am - 6 pm.

5. Who is number one in your life?

Me.

SAY HI HI TO PUFFY AMIYUMI, YO: I've been a fan of Japanese pop duo Puffy Amiyumi for a few years now. While some may know them from their gawdawful fourth-rate "Powerpuff Girls"-style Cartoon Network show, they're a musically fascinating outfit thanks to the hidden army of writers and producers behind their diverse sound. While they are a pair of cuties, that's not why I dig them. I'll do a more comprehensive post about them some other time to elaborate - yeah, right, but for now, take a peep at their cool video for "Nice Buddy" off their new album, "Splurge!"



Oh yeah, if you noticed on the super, they're called Puffy in Japan but because of a certain whack-ass rapper, Sean "Puff Daddy/Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy" Combs, they had to append their combined first names of Ami (long-haired one) and Yumi (short-haired) to their band name here in the Colonies.

Whew! That should catch up most of the stuff. If you made it this far, congratuations! Thanks for reading.

BTW: I picked up some microphones last week for what will become the most fearsome pair of words the Left could ever hear: DIRKWORLD RADIO!!!!

Stay tuned...literally. :)

McNewspaper Leaves Out An Inconvenient Truth.

According to Clayton Cramer's blog, when USA Today reported the story of some knife-wielding madman who wounded eight people - That's it! We need knife control and waiting periods! - who was stopped by an armed citizen, the not only left out the gun, they fabricated new details and then lied about it. They've changed the story back to something resembling reality, but once again, it took the watchdogs of the Blogosphere to hold the lying Treason Media to account.

"THE ANT BULLY Is Like The Communist Manifesto For Kids"?!?

That's the take of Massawyrm at Ain't It Cool News. The lede:

The Ant Bully: Rise of the Prolitari-Ant. Easily one of the most bizarre kids films I’ve seen in a long time, The Ant Bully is your typical, by the numbers CG kids film thinly disguising a delightful work of subversive fiction. It’s one of those films, that as it unfolds, causes you to look around the theatre at the other adults and ask: I’m not the only one seeing what I’m seeing am I?

You know those Bibles they make for kids? The ones with the simple stories and colorful artwork that leaves out all of the complex and adult themes that you’d have to commit hours of time to explaining away? Well, if someone sat down to make a similar version of the Communist Manifesto, it would look a hell of a lot like The Ant Bully. It’s a warm ultra-liberal hug of a kids film, preaching the joys of socialism and hard work, all the while telling a story of what the world might be like in a liberal post-9/11 world.

What? You think I’m kidding? Over-reacting? Maybe that I’m reading too much into this? Well, lets talk about The Ant Bully.

Since just about anything that looks family-friendly makes a stack of chedda, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Are We Too Nice Too Win?

That's what the Jedi Hater is wondering and while the guy is an absolutely asstackler about entertainment stuff, he's usually spot-on when it comes to politics. Some snips:

WHAT if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?

What if the universalist idea of liberal democracy - the idea that all people are created equal - has sunk in so deeply that we no longer assign special value to the lives and interests of our own people as opposed to those in other countries?

Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Watch it, John, or else AllahPundit will ban you from Hot Air with the approval of Michelle Malkin!!! We won't be having about of that mean conservative talk there, dontchaknow?

Didn't the willingness of their leaders to inflict mass casualties on civilians indicate a cold-eyed singleness of purpose that helped break the will and the back of their enemies? Didn't that singleness of purpose extend down to the populations in those countries in those days, who would have and did support almost any action at any time that would lead to the deaths of Germans and Japanese?

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?

Welcome to DIRKWORLD® of two years ago! I was saying that we should've annihilated Fallujah after the contractors were slaughtered, burned, dismembered and hung from a bridge, but was anyone listening? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! 2000 dead soldiers later, it's too damn late, morons!

Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking victory through demoralization alone - by daring us to match them in barbarity and knowing we will fail?

Are we becoming unwitting participants in their victory and our defeat? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?

This image (h/t Power Line) sums up the rules for modern White Guilt warfare:

Tuesday Morning Coffee ("Can You See The Signs?" Edition)

Stupid Blogger wouldn't stay up long enough to delete this duplicate post, so I'll just edit it into today's missive.

• I HATED HER, YET I MISS HER NOW - Hate is too strong a word - but it makes for a catchier headline - but the bimbo who I referenced yesterday apparently didn't appreciate her scolding about her stupid bulletin spam and I see my friend count has dropped by one and MyBulletin Space is free of her junk. It's like the quiet after the neighbor's screaming child has finally shut up. Weird, but I'm sure I'll cope fine after 15-20 minutes.

• MY SUPER-EX GIRL WEARS PRADA - This is one of the double-bills at the drive-in I pass on my way to work. I wonder if they matched them this way just to get the marquee fun factor up.

• SNOOTCHIE BOOTCHIES! - I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen "Clerks II" yet, but I actually say this in big letters on the back of a pick-up yesterday on the way in. Nootch!

• HOT CUBAN SANDWICH - They're making sandwiches out of Gloria Estefan?!? =O

• PISTOL OPERA - I watched this Japanese freak-out last night and while it was certainly different, it was too long and totally incomprehensible and this seems to be its strongest suits with the elite film snob crowd. Read about it at these links to see how being really different can be more important than being really good to some people. On the IMDB boards, someone slagged it and one of the fans replied, gaining my reply to him:

I'm guessing you're one of those people that think that a movie has to have a coherent plot and political, spiritual, and philosophical messages to be good.

And I'm guessing that you're a film snob who believes that the less coherent and more alienating a movie is, the better it is because it allows you to feel superior to the proles who "don't get it". Get over yourself.

I watched this last night and found it too long and nearly incomprehensible, though I enjoyed the way it was framed and lit like still fashion photography and not your typical movie. While it had energy at the beginning, the constant bewilderment rapidly tired me and my g/f out and it was at least a half-hour too long considering the paucity of actual story.

While it was interesting to look at, there's little to latch onto for those not looking to snob out and sneer at the fools who like coherence in their entertainment.

Movie snobs don't really like movies - in fact, I suspect they really loathe them - but they chosen it at the format through which they can act out their superiority over others and express their contempt. "You haven't seen [insert Obscure Foreign Cult Title here] ?!? Better stick to pirate movies!"

• LAST FRIDAY'S FIVER - Yeesh. I was so busy, I forgot this one.

1. What don't you understand?

Why people are so filled with self-hatred that they'll sacrifice everyone and themselves rather than stand up for their own survivial.

2. Name someone in your life with blue eyes:

Princess. (A friend of mine. I think they're blue.)

3. When is a lie not really a lie?

When it's told by a fascist liberal. (According to them, that is.)

4. When is the last time you got really dirty?

Watching this frightening Elvis impersonator who really should've been wearing briefs under his jumpsuit.

5. Are you a lefty or a righty?

Right-handed, right-minded.

Monday Morning Coffee (Screw Blogger Edition!)

I had a half-written post and went away to do some work and when I came back, my f'ing PC had a black screen and wouldn't respond. I come here and find the autosave didn't work, so all the work went POOF! Dammit!!!! Well, if I get a chance, I'll post up the fluff, but here's the one serious item I had.

• NEWT FOR PREZ? - I heard Newt on Bill Bennett's "Morning In America" show and was reminded again why I refused to vote for Dubya in 2004: Dubya's crippling inarticulateness (is that a word?) in times when important things must be said clearly. If Dubya could assemble a coherent sentence, his poll ratings would be far higher because people may understand what he's doing instead of depending on the Treason Media's twisted lies about what he's doing. When you can't speak well for yourself, your enemies will speak poorly about you and you'll have no response.

I think this is why so many conservatives are creaming their Dockers in anticipation of Newt running in '08 and forgetting that he doesn't stand a chance of winning. The media will crucify him again, the Stupid Party already revolted against him after he brought them to power and promptly became wasteful liberals in his absence and his tacky personal history will make for easy sport with the Dems. Now, if he was a Dem, all his failings would be forgiven, but Stupid Party members are held to a standard that the Dems get to breeze right by.

Not-so-fearless-prediction: The next President will be a good talker. After eight years of Dubya's Tank McNamaraesque fumble tongue, America will be in the mood for anyone who sounds like a game show host or car salesman. Clinton was a liar, but he was a smooooooooth liar. Gore and Kerry, OTOH, were lousy, condescending, clumsy liars and the people rejected them for the guy they felt wasn't fibbing in every other word. Does the Stupid Party have anyone who can put together an honest, clear sentence or will people go for the soothing lies of the Left?

• TOM IS NOT MY FRIEND! - I just whacked Tom off my MySpace friends list. Ahhh, freedom. I had a huge post about this bimbo on my list and the Smackdown I dealt her, but it got eaten and it's not so important that I need to dig it up. You're not missing much.

• TWO ONE-SENTENCE DVD REVIEWS. - "Ask The Dust": Not even extended Salma Hayek nudity makes this snoozer worth watching. "Awesome; I F***in' Shot That!": A great Beastie Boys concert gets obscured by a failed experiment in fan-shot filmmaking.

Hey, I got some of the fluff in after all. Sorry, but no time to dig up a photo for a Dirk's Dish Du Jour, but it would've been Salma Hayek. Later, all.

"Pacifists Versus Peace" by Thomas Sowell

I'm going crazy busy with 500 things here, but I had to take a moment to post this brilliant column by Thomas Sowell about how the surest way to get killed is to buy into the inane "give peace a chance" codswallop spouted by the terminally ignorant, misinformed or stupid.

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

HELL, YEAH!!! As I've mentioned before in reference to Shelby Steele's column on "White Guilt" (also a book), the only reason we're still dragging along in Iraq after all these years is because we've tried to fight a kinder, gentler war in which we don't look too mean so that the UN, Al Queda and the Treason Media will be nice to us and Team Dubya.

Yeah, that worked real good, didn't it? Continuing...

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

Remember the Falkland Islands war, when Argentina sent troops into the Falklands to capture this little British colony in the South Atlantic?

Argentina had been claiming to be the rightful owner of those islands for more than a century. Why didn't it attack these little islands before? At no time did the British have enough troops there to defend them.

Before there were "peace" movements and the U.N., sending troops into those islands could easily have meant finding British troops or bombs in Buenos Aires. Now "world opinion" condemned the British just for sending armed forces into the South Atlantic to take back their islands.

Shamefully, our own government was one of those that opposed the British use of force. But fortunately British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ignored "world opinion" and took back the Falklands.

The most catastrophic result of "peace" movements was World War II. While Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth, "peace" movements in Britain were advocating that their own country disarm "as an example to others."

British Labor Party Members of Parliament voted consistently against military spending and British college students publicly pledged never to fight for their country. If "peace" movements brought peace, there would never have been World War II.

Not only did that war lead to tens of millions of deaths, it came dangerously close to a crushing victory for the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese empire in Asia. And we now know that the United States was on Hitler's timetable after that.

For the first two years of that war, the Western democracies lost virtually every battle, all over the world, because pre-war "peace" movements had left them with inadequate military equipment and much of it obsolete. The Nazis and the Japanese knew that. That is why they launched the war.

"Peace" movements don't bring peace but war.

While asstacklers like Lou Dobbs are filling their diapers over Israel finally being fed-up enough to take action, it's good to see some pundits who actually understand the real world that the "reality-based" (HA!) liberals can't seem to glimpse.

Loved this comment Sowell's piece drew from a poster at Town Hall:

I am so glad Dr. Sowell brought up both the WW II and Civil War examples. Today the biggest problem between the North and the South is that everyone from the North wants to move into the South, when they retire if not sooner. The Germans and the Japanese insist on selling Americans well-engineered cars and electronics at reasonable prices. But this happy state is only possible because first Lincoln was prepared to kill every Southerner who didn't surrender, and FDR was prepared to kill every German and Japanese.

I've always said, "Peace comes when all of your enemies are dead."The Islamofascists want to kill all the Jews and destroy Israel. Israel has to choose whether to live or die as a nation and a people. Time to sort it out like "good little Christians"*, eh?


* 1000 points to whoever posts what that reference means in the comments.

Wednesday Night Snack (Geek-Heavy Edition)

This was supposed to run last Thursday - and also be a Morning Coffee, but I've been too swamped and since the beginnings of the long-a'coming World War 4 will still be happening in the next few days, let's clear up the old business before it grows fur, mmmkay?

• UBUNTU! UNGAWA!!! Whenever I read the techie news sites like ZDNet or Slashdot, the comments are overrun with drooling Apple cultists fwapping madly about their sacred white pieces of overpriced plastic and insane Linux jihadists who are always up for a suicide bombing of Redmond. The latest chant from the latter doofs has been, "You can just dump Windows now that the new Ubuntu distro is out!"

In a word, this is bullsh*t. I downloaded the core load which can be burned to a CD and used to boot your computer, allowing you to try it without needing to install it first. During the bootup, it appeared to be giving errors for several minutes before it finally kicked in. The bundled Firefox worked fine, though text looked different thanks to the different system fonts, but trying to open a document in OpenOffice was a no go because it couldn't see my PC's hard drives or flash keys. I build my own PCs and possess an above-average level of geek skillz and I was stumped. If I had trouble, WTF are civilians like my girlfriend - who is FINALLY getting off of AOL after too many years of wasting time on dial-up - supposed to do?

Linux is still not a non-geek friendly OS. It'd be nice if it was, but it ain't. Yet.

• CERTIFIED GEEK WEAR: On second glance, the gamer/geek-themed shirts at Jinx aren't all that great, but there are a few goodies like this one that made me smile.

• SONY - THE DUMB & ONLY: On top of the insanely high price tag ($600) they're going to command for the PS3, despite the loss of the GTA4 as a system exclusive and the loss of rumble in their controllers, news of an old patent has lead to fears that Sony is trying to kill the used and rental game market by locking games to a specific console, rendering it useless on a friend's or second-hand buyer's system. While Sony would surely like to foist this scheme on their customers, it's too suicidal for a system that's going to test gamer's goodwill with its price tag. But the story has traction precisely because Sony's been extremely arrogant in their comments and no one puts it past them to do something this stupid. Stay tuned.

• DIRK'S DISH DU JOUR: Mrs. Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese, has acknowledged that her endowments aren't all-natural when she poses au natural.

Dirk sez: SO WHAT?!?!?

Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager!

KILLER!!!



UPDATE: I sent it in to Jonah Goldberg at NRO and he posted it here. (Of course, no props for Dirk. At least he's not a Jedi-hating tool like J.Pod!)

More True-Life Fun With Pr0n Spambots!

[16:46] laurice nak val: Hi :)

[16:46] DirkBelig: OH MY GOD!!!! THERE ARE PARROTS EATING MY FACE!!!!

[16:47] laurice nak val: I think we should meet sometime!
karalynntaniestrellawchristianegeorgettawilhelminewirenadapheneevangelinewallsunmerileeingunna
britnimeishaylynnLocalSexySinglesolympevinnycatherina
rosemariesondraphaedranfidelityjudithgertrudaeverieeannelieseamelietblinniezsazsajuliana

[16:47] DirkBelig: OH SHIT!!!!! NOW I'M BEING ATTACKED BY TELETUBBIES!!!!!

End of line.

Top This Obituary, Bitches!

This can't be real, but if it is, it's kinda neat. A snip:

Frederic Arthur (Fred) Clark, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle as a result of an automobile accident on June 18, 2006. True to Fred's personal style, his final hours were spent joking with medical personnel while he whimpered, cussed, begged for narcotics and bargained with God to look over his wife and kids.

He died at MCV Hospital and sadly was deprived of his final wish which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a double date to include his wife, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to crash an ACLU cocktail party.

Read it all.

Tuesday Morning Coffee

Mixed bag of stuff to go with the java this morning...

• THE CULT OF LEIA'S METAL BIKINI is a Wired story about the reason why Gen Xers get all sad when they see what's become of Carrie Fisher's figure. (Anyone remember the MAD magazine "Star Wars" spoof which had "Body by Fisher" in one of the panels?) There's a web site dedicated to the garment and Wired icludes a sampling of shots for those, like me, whose work filters block the site. The first one's always free (click it for big action):


• GITMO TERRORISTS TO GET GENEVA SPA TREATMENT: It's hard to believe that we're seriously trying to win the war against Islamofascism when we're so pussified that we're unilaterally granting cushy treatment to the people who behead civilians, blow up school children and basically seek to end Western civilization and drag us all back to the 10th Century. Sure, it allows the bleeding hearts to smugly feel all mushy inside, but the only mush that matters is the blobs between their ears if they think that the jihadis are going to be nice in return for our weakness and appeasement. Morons.

• THE WAR AGAINST THE WAR: An extremely depressing (and long) article article about how the Supreme Court's suicidal decision to be more like Belgium is going to likely lead to more 9/11s as we cover our eyes and plug our ears to the enemies among us. If Dubya was a Democrat, none of the treasons we've witnessed would be happening because the Treason Media wouldn't be on jihad to destroy him, leaking intel and otherwise undermining the war effort. The hypocrisy of the Left is stunning: After 9/11 they bashed Dubya for not connecting the dots; now they're bashing him for not only trying to connect the dots, but for looking for the dots to connect in the first place! We can't win when half the country is insanely fixated on one guy as the enemy instead of the thugs with daggers slitting throats.

• KILL THE DEATH TAX! Deroy Murdock tells of some Dems who want to end this immoral theft of private wealth. Yes, Paris Hilton is a stupid, spoiled whore, but the accumulated assets of a person belong to the heirs, NOT a government who uses envy to convince people that robbing those who've achieved is a fair state of affairs. People who want to extract vicarious vengence upon the wealthy never seem to consider that THEY aren't getting richer, the GOVERNMENT is via this theft. Envy is the ugliest emotion, innit? (A related NRO editorial is here.)

• CORVETTE SUMMER: At an impass as to what to watch last night - we literally have hundreds of unwatched DVDs - Hermione suggested the 1978 Mark Hamill-Annie Potts epic "Corvette Summer" which was the first movie I probably saw because someone from "Star Wars" was in it. I don't think I've seen this since it came out, but was surprised at how many details I remembered, though I somehow forgot the suprising nudity for a PG-rated movie. I'm sure my mother was mortified that her 11-year-old boy was watching a schlocky movie about a girl whose dream is to become a hooker getting nekkid. As for the movie - it's Seventies crap. I'll probably watch this movie again in 2034.

• THE BIG DIG KILLS! Whenever you hear a politician lying to you about all the good things government does better than the private sector and blah-blah-woof-woof, simpy ask them, "You mean like the Big Dig?" This $14.6 billion fiasco in Boston is the poster child for government failure and contractor corruption - or do I have that backwards. Shoddily-built at great expense, it killed a woman yesterday when a huge chunk of the concrete ceiling fell down and flattened her car. Your tax dollars at work, eh?

• CATS AVOID MURDER CHARGES: When I saw the headline, "Body Found in Home with 110 Cats", I thought that the long a'coming move by cats to enslave humanity was under way, but it appears the dead woman's daughters may be involved. I'm still watching you, kitties!!! I am soooooooooo on to you!!!

• DIRK'S DISH DU JOUR: Wrapping up with the Leia again, here's Melissa Joan Hart showing how to stuff a wild space bikini:

Bush Pilot!

Finally, a decent explaination for Dubya's woefully inarticulate language skills!

Friday Afternoon Getaway

Wrapping up this lousy week with a few odds and ends...

• DUBYA'S "UNITED STATES OF WHATEVA!" - Obviously trying for some Jib-Jab level viral video notoriety, this remake of Liam Lynch's most-excellent "My United States Of Whateva" is kinda cute, though obviously meant to be the usual nasty hit piece. As the Wired poster wrote:

Judging from the opening animation, My United States of Whateva is intended as a biting satire of George W. Bush's policies, and it certainly works on that level. At the same time, though, I can't help but think Bush supporters might really like it as well. Such are the strange times we live in.

Oh, boo-friggedy-hoo. The stoopid Red Staters may see it as an appropriate FTW statement. Waaaaaaaaaah!!! Not enough hate for ya? Bah.

• OH, CRAP! - I just noticed that I haven't posted anything since Monday?!? Yeesh. I was thinking of posting some stuff, but I guess that doesn't count, does it? That why everyone should add the feeds (at right) to their RSS readers so that they don't miss a single exciting episode of DIRKWORLD®!

• FRIDAY FIVER:

1. Have you ever had an addiction?

I played so much Quake 3 that it delayed my band's album about a year.

2. Are you afraid of the dark?

No.

3. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip.

4. Have you ever been to the circus?

A few times, but not since childhood.

5. What do you think of North Korea testing nuclear weapons?

I think it's further evidence of the utter failure of the feckless and criminal Clinton Regime. They appeased Kim Jong-Il and gave him nuke tech in the hopes that it would keep him happy. Now that he's lobbing missiles toward Hawaii, the Clinton minions - like Madeline Albright - are taking to the airwaves to blame both Bush 41 and Dubya for this situation, as if they (the Clinton gang) didn't do anything to make the world less safe. (This is the same play they pulled after 9/11 - "It wasn't us!" Please.)

• THE "KEN LAY AIN'T DEAD! DUBYA SNUCK HIM OUT!" MOONBATS: So, Enron evildoer Kenny-Boy Lay croaks of a heart attack and the insane Left immediately starts yelping that this is all a hoax in order to preserve Lay's "anal virginity" and to prevent seizure of his ill-gotten gains. One member of the Treason Media pinched off this charming missive which encapsulated the sheer hate and hypocrisy of the Left as he wrote:

But now that he's died of a heart attack in the luxury of his Colorado getaway while awaiting sentencing for his crimes, none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he's locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands; and long days in the prison laundry or jute mill or license plate factory, gibbering with anguish as fire-eyed psychopaths stare at him for unblinking hours while they sharpen spoons into jailhouse stilettos.

He will not be ground into gray jailhouse paste by listening to the eardrum-scarring symphony of 131-decibel despair that is the Muzak of penitentiaries, by gagging on the dead prison air, by choking on the deader food, by watching the blue sky taunt him with freedom over the exercise yard, and by feeling his nervous system rent by the cruel grenades of memories -- explosions of nostalgia for the days when he knew he'd be swanning forever through the comfy laps and cool lawns of luxury and infinite possibility.

It's funny how the people who caught the vapors at the slightest hint that terrorists at Gitmo may not be having their halal meals prepared by Wolfgang Puck and shrieked "TORTURE!" over infidels touching Korans are now upset that Lay wasn't repeatedly gang-raped in prison and believe that a big scam was perpetrated to deny them their schadenfreude. Of course, they're the same folks who proclaim that our privacy is being invaded if terror dollars and jihad phone calls are monitored, then cheer like giddy schoolgirls as Rush Limbaugh's medical issues are splashed all over the front pages. What hypocrites.

• ON A LIGHTER NOTE, why not peruse a list of "The 100 Worst Album Covers Ever"? A sample:

Paddy Roberts - "Songs for Gay Dogs" (1966)

Wolfgang Pug licked his share of peanut butter to get this modeling gig. But playing "bury the bone" with Paddy was a low point in his career.

(That's not even a particularly good one, but more an inside joke for a friend.) Read 'am all!

• DIRK'S DISK DU JOUR: Though she's really lost her appeal with all her party whoring and anorexic crack usage, there was a time when Lindsay Lohan - or "HO-han" as the g/f and I call her now - was quite the dish. In a recent issue of Premiere, they had her done up as iconic film characters and her Sally Bowles getup was pretty good and she had good boobage on the cover. I can't find either shot online, so this will have to do:


Sucks, don't it? {8p (Click for even bigger boobs!)

Remember, if you vote for Democrats, you're voting for surrender to Islamofascists, voting for dhimmitude and voting to make images such as these capital offenses. Yes, the Stupid Party is feckless and useless and too faux-moralistic, but they aren't gonna chop off any heads to cover up nubile starlets, ya dig?

Flashback Alternatives Warning!

While FA is super-cool, what's not cool is the pop-up ads that listening to the WMA stream brings. I listen with WinAmp at home, but here at work, I've got to use the Windows Media Player and while the stupid display which buries the song info at the bottom of a scroll window sucks, what sucks harder is coming back after a half-hour away to find 14 ad windows opened in IE. Seriously lame.

DO: Listen to Flashback Alternatives.

DON'T: Use the WMP. Use WinAmp.

Monday Morning Coffee

Work is quiet due to most people having had the foresight to take the day off, so I'll be catching up on my other obligations and trying to avoid being distracted by the numerous bad things which continue to happen regardless of whether we're paying attention or not.

• SUPERDUDE'S BACK: I caught this yesterday and while my g/f, Hermione, liked it more than she expected - she was referring to this as "Stupidman" and only went grudgingly - I was let down overall. I think "X-Men 2" is the best comic book movie ever, so I had high hopes for Brian Singer to do the same with this Superman reboot, but it was too slow in pace and light on compelling story. If the discovery of Christopher Reeve to play Superman in 1978 seemed miraculous, the fact that this Brandon Routh kid both looks and sounds like Reeve AND Superman is doubly so. He needs to play a serial killer next or something, lest he be typecast right out of the box, as Reeve was.

Kevin Spacey was his usual good and Kate Bosworth was OK, if too young, but the problems with the story (not much of it) made for slow-going and a mid-pack ranking for comic movies. I give it an 6/10, wait for the dollar show recommendation.

• UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION: Rented this last night and it wasn't as good as the original. Kate Beckinsale is hawt in her leather and rubber vamp wear, but the doof who looks like the singer of Creed sucks and I didn't particularly care if he lived or not. Some decent action and FX, but overall it was a bit of a yawn. 5/10.

• TREASON MEDIA UPDATE: Guess I should mention that Malkin is reporting that the TM is backpedalling a bit on their latest treasons, but as this snotty cheap shot shows, the Treason Media is still extremely arrogant and have annointed themselves as the Last Word on what gets to remain secret. Until approved-of fascist Democrats are elected, it's clear that the secrets (and treasons) will keep flowing. Dispicable.

• SO THAT'S WHERE THAT CAME FROM: I've just added super-cool online radio station Flashback Alternatives to the links at right and this morning I heard this song that sounded like "Where's Your Head At?" by Basement Jaxx slowed down. Checking the WMP display, it turns out they nicked the loop from Gary Numan's "M.E." If you're a Gen X-er who remembers that Generation X was Billy Idol's pre-"Rebel Yell" band, then you must check it out. Now Playing: Roxy Music, "The Bogus Man". (Better than hearing "Love Is The Drug" for the thousandth time, innit?)

• DIRK'S DISHES DU JOUR: Though I'm not so hot for Kate Bosworth, since she is the new Lois Lane, I figured she was worth a look along with her "Blue Crush" co-stars. Below her is Kate Beckinsale in her Death Dealer drag. Hubba hubba.

Remember, if Democrats regain power, they'll surrender the War on Terror, try a doomed and suicidal appeasement strategy with the Jihadists, and when we're forced to our knees as dhimmi before the sword of Islam, such pictures will be no longer allowed. If you think Stupid Party people are blue-nosed killjoys, wait until you see what the libertine Dems set loose upon the Earth.

Seeing Color From Black & White.

Check out this wild optical illusion. Neat!

Want To Assassinate Cheney & Rummy? The NY Times Has Directions To Their Houses!

Michelle Malkin has the details about how the Treason Media - oh-so-worried about keeping Al Queda's money dealings secret - has no problems printing the street names of their houses and providing photos with details about the security precautions being used like...


There is a lens in the birdhouse at the driveway of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's home at St. Michaels, Md.

The Left has done this many times before. It's too bad that conservatives are too ethical and won't post up Bill Keller's and Pinch Sulzberger's homes and security details. Surely there is some public interest in where these traitors live?

The Treason Media Tells Us "When Do We Publish a Secret?"

Depsite receiving no sanction or real pressure from Team Dubya and the Stupid Party other than some mild grumbling, Dean Baquet, editor, The Los Angeles Times, and Bill Keller, executive editor, The New York Times have printed their self-righteous justifications for stabbing our war efforts in the back. Evoking the spirit of Watergate and Vietnam - their finest hours - they claim they're doing it to keep the government from running amok, though I don't recall any stories running when Clinton was wiping out the Constitutional militias after OKC. I guess they only watchdog Presidents of one party, hmmm?

Even the banking articles, which the president and vice president have condemned, did not dwell on the operational or technical aspects of the program, but on its sweep, the questions about its legal basis and the issues of oversight.

The article said that it was legal and Congress was briefed. So why the red herring about concerns? Duh. They're lying and are counting on readers being gullible and having "Memento"-length memories.

We understand that honorable people may disagree with any of these choices — to publish or not to publish. But making those decisions is the responsibility that falls to editors, a corollary to the great gift of our independence. It is not a responsibility we take lightly. And it is not one we can surrender to the government.

Nice that they're watching out for us. Gawd forbid we get protected from Islamofascist terror by means that the anti-American elitists of the Treason Media disapprove of. Bastards.

An Actually Vaguely Amusing MySpace Bulletin.

One of the things that having a bunch of MySpace friends allows you to do is to learn which ones are totally inappropriate with their need to share their deepest inner secrets, which come over the transom in the form of survey replies, etc.

This one girl, who is a friend of an acquantance, is the worst of all as I have been able to learn more about her sexual history and preferences against my will in a couple of days than I know about friends I've had for a decade. I'm sure that if I were to mention this knowledge to her face - "So, you and your girlfriend like to rassle while a guy spunks on you. I'd like to volunteer." - she'd slap me, knee me in the groin and pepper spray me.

Tease.

Anyhoo, one of her myriad forwarded jokes/quizs/what-porn-name-does-your-social-security-number-equal bulletins today was the following. It tickled me because it reminded me of something I did in a crowded elevator a loooooooooong time ago. There were about 15-20 people, it was crowded and everyone was uptight. So, I decided to break the ice with a cheerful "I claim this elevator in the name of Allah.", with an accent that was more Hindu than jihadi. Everyone froze for a moment before bursting out laughing.

Mind you, this is so long before 9/11, I can't even guesstimate a time frame, perhaps the early Nineties. Even then, the idea of Muslim suicide bombers wasn't unknown, yet today, we're not even allowed to use the word "terrorist" in news reports so as not to make "value judgements". How times change.

Anyhoo, on to the Lettermanesque list of...

27 things to do in an elevator

1) When there's only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder and then pretend it wasn't you.

2) Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.

3) Ask if you can push the button for other people, but push the wrong ones.

4) Call the Psychic Hotline from your cell phone and ask if they know what floor your on.

5) Hold the doors open and say your waiting for a friend. After a while, let the doors close, and say, "Hi Greg. How's your day been?"

6) Drop a pen and wait until someone goes to pick it up, then scream, "That's mine!"

7) Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.

8) Move your desk into the elevator and whenever anyone gets on, ask if they have an apointment.

9) Lay down the twister mat and ask people if they would like to play.

10) Leave a box in the corner, and when someone gets on, ask them if they can hear ticking.

11) Pretend you are a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the passengers.

12) Ask, "Did you feel that?"

13) Stand really close to someone, sniffing them occasionally.

14) When the doors close, announce to the others, "It's okay, don't panic, they open again!"

15) Swat at flies that don't exist.

16) Tell people that you can see their aura.

17) Call out, "Group Hug!"and then enforce it.

18) Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, "Shut up, all of you, just shut up!"

19) Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, "Got enough air in there?"

20) Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

21) Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce in horror, "Your one of THEM!" and back away slowly.

22) Wear a puppet on your hand and use it to talk to the other passengers.

23) Listen to the elevator walls with your stethoscope.

24) Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.

25) Stare, grinning at another passenger for a while, then announce, "I have new socks on".

26) Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers, "This is MY personal space!"

27) Bring a plastic blow up doll and pretend it is your wife/girlfriend and say "Don't yell at me woman!" and throw her into the wall.