perfidy

Pandagon's Jesse Taylor fisks the daylights out of Dennis Prager's fumbling attempts at cutting satire.

And since this is Gay Marriage Day at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy (there'll be a parade later, on the Ministry's dime), it's about gay marriage.

It's time for my semi-regular, always belated and apologetic link to BTD's Sunday Comics feature. The crew over at Begging to Differ has had a recent lineup change - they've assimilated three new bloggers, but have also lost a regular, BTD Mike. I am happy and sad for them.

As a sort of follow-on to my earlier post, we have this interesting article by Thomas Lifson in the American Thinker. (hat tip: Chris Hall's Spacecraft)

Ronald Reagan is 93 today. 

I shamelessly stole this graphic from Max Jacobs at Commonsense and Wonder. But then, he shamelessly stole the graphic from someone else, likely these people.

Over here, you can get your very own Hoser ID Card. Just like mine: 

Ross and others might be interested in this.

Steve at Begging to Differ has found a wonderful, addictive internet timewaster:

Hit the Penguin

You are a Yeti. Your job is to whack the penguin as far as you can. The key is to get some air under him, but not too much. You need to skip him like a flat stone on a creek. So far, the record is 323.4 by Fred. Mine is 322.6.

There is another version of the game, Yeti on 'roids. Records there are 593.5, and 499.7 on the fly - both by BTD Steve. (I've gotten 591.3 and 498.1. So close, but yet so far away. As Vince Lombardi once said, second place is the first loser.)

[wik] And, while we're at it, here's another fun game: Moonlander, which is reminiscent of one of my favorite old school arcade games. If I could have any three classic arcade games, they would be Asteroids, Moonlander and Centipede.

[alsø wik] My wife informs me that there is also a super-steroid version.

Blackfive has some extensive notes on how to prepare for a deployment in Iraq.

My esteemed coblogger Ross has in the past dismissed the word "idiotarian" as trite, empty, and cheap, and rightly so in my opinion. As he is currently embroiled in a sharp exchange with some of the guys at Winds of Change that turns partially on that very matter, I hereby propose Judson's Law:

As a weblog discussion on politics grows longer, the probability of a participant calling another an "idiotarian" approaches one.

This is of course supported by Judson's Corollary:

In a weblog discussion, the first participant to call another an "idiotarian" automatically concedes defeat thereby.

[wik] Ok, ok ok. It was me who said that the word"idiotarian" was trite, empty and cheap. I editorialized a bit. Ross simply said it was meaningless and I ran with it. But, speaking as a historian, I can tell you the past is all in how you choose to remember it, and I like my version better. With apologies to Ross. I still owe you that twelvepack.

I will interrupt my self-imposed blogging hiatus to ask an important question:

I just received a spam to my personal account with the subject line, "glory dental shakespearian phosphate." Just what is the pitch here, and what could they possibly be selling (purple monkey dishwasher)?

[wik] Another one... from an entity calling itself "Rosanna Betts" with the subject line "altar shannon orville widgeon ." Sure! I'll buy one!

[alsø wik] Yet another... from someone called "Dr. Howard Dean, M.D."... it sez "Two days left - rally with Governor Dean." What the hell is that all about?

[alsø alsø wik] Via rocketjones I find this post from plasticbag.org, in which our hero takes spam literally at its word and busts out the photoshop to show the world. Witness!

Hi-larious!!

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] The foregoing was merely an attempt to make perfidy.org load even slower.

The Federal Government is closing early today, for fear of evil weather. Thus, I am homeward bound. I leave you with this thought: is it better to have the million plus federal workers go home spread out out over several hours - risking the tail end Charlie's exposure to an ice storm; or send them all home at once, overloading a metro system which is already running at as low as 50% capacity on some lines due to ice on the rails?

You be the judge.

Sorry John, I've never had the pleasure of Ohio. Maybe Buckethead and I can swap Washington for Maine sometime? 

Rocket Jones found a nifty mapmaking utility on the magical interwebs. You can tell it what states you've been in, and it will draw a map for you. Here's where I been:

All educated folk know that the third millennium began on Jan 1, 2001. Not in 2000 as some rubes entranced with nice, round numbers believe. I would argue that the Millennium and our current, nameless decade began over nine months later, on the morning of September 11. It is convenient to divide recent history into bite sized nuggets. Ten years is a useful period of time, and we have very clear conceptions of the fifties, sixties, seventies, etc. But when exactly do they begin and end, if not on Jan 1 every ten years?

Here's how I would break it down:

• The Twenties began on November 11, 1918 and ended on October 29, 1929.
• The Thirties came to an abrupt halt on Dec 7, 1941.
• The Forties is a tough one. I am tempted to say that the decade concluded on August 14, 1945, but in the end I'll have to go with June 25, 1950.
• The Fifties took a bow on January 20, 1961.
• The Sixties died on May 4, 1970.
• The Seventies shuffled off into the sunset January 20, 1981.
• The Eighties took a powder November 9, 1989.
• And the Nineties ended on September 11, 2001, making it the longest decade in the twentieth century.

We can have the same fun with centuries - the nineteenth century lasted from 1815 to 1914. The eighteenth century began in 1702. The seventeenth century started in 1607. (This is for American history, of course.)

Not serious history, but something to idle away a few moments.

The good folks over at Begging to Differ have put up their weekly Sunday Comics, and I recommend you check it out. Other cool things I've seen include:

• Newspaper Ads over at Rocket Jones.
• The XM8, a love letter to an assault rifle, over at Murdoc Online.
• Insults Unpunished talks about the Syria situation.
• James of OTB has a good one on national policy and partisan politics.
• Too many good posts to list over at Commonsense and Wonder. I hate those guys, I really do.
• And, as Allah Pundit said it best, "Conclusive proof from the Clark campaign that there are wrong answers to subjective questions."

Tiger, raggin' and rantin' has come up with a useful method for expanding the range of your blogging. I think I'll be giving this a try:

Let's call it Go Back Five. Pick any blog on your blogroll, open the main page, go to the fifth entry, find a link to another blog, click it, if archived page, go to main page, go to fifth entry, click on a link to another blog, do this three more times until you are lookin' at the main page of that last blog, then find somethin' on that blog to blurb about.

This could certainly give you a boost out of any blogging rut you may find yourself in. Or waste a few hours at work, at the vey least.

Brad DeLong highlights a Tom Friedman column that advocates immediately moving into the Israeli-Palestinian situation and forcing Israel's withdrawl.

Let's put a few facts down: First, we spend around $200 Billion and 500 soldier's lives so we can capture Saddam Hussein (there doesn't seem to be any other reason for the war, that was given before the war, that's held up).

Second, we spend aroun $4 Billion a year on aid for Israel, mostly in the form of military aid.

Third, the burn rate for cash in Iraq is around $4 Billion a month.

Fourth, building a Palestinian economy from the ground up would probably cost less than $10 Billion, and it might be a lot less than that. And that's presuming we'd see no long term assets or returns.

Fifth, the primary reason that Palestinians object to the fence is that their economy would be destroyed.

Sixth, the single most significant justification given for Islamic hatred of the US is its support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people.

If you add all that up, you realize that instead of throwing all that cash away in Iraq blowing shit up so we can have a theocracy there, we could have forced the creation of the wall between Palestine and Israel, made our aid to Israel contingent on acceptance of our designation of the line's path, and then rebuilt the Palestinian economy by investing an amount equal to the Israeli aid directly behind the wall.

Taking a page from Irshad Manji, we could have used micro-loans to jumpstart the businesses, and we could have specified that fully 50% of those loans must be made to women.

What does all this achieve? It puts significant economic power in the hands of women, which directly counters the stupidest and most pathetically mysoginistic parts of what purports to be Islam in the Palestinian territorires. It gives both sides peace and security. It gives the Palestinians something to do, and a way to feed their families. It will also significantly improve America's standing around the globe, and particularly in Islamic countries.

Go read these Andrew Sullivan bits. Good stuff!

In other news, at tacitus.org Bird Dog coins a fancy new neologism to describe a Palestinian-mother-of-two-cum-suicide-bomber: "splodeydope."

Have you ever wished you could be more like the Ministry of Minor Perfidy?

Have you ever wanted to deploy and discipline minions?

Have you ever wanted to invest in giant underground lairs, improbably large submarines, and silly footwear?

Now you can! Via rocketjones comes the Make Your Own Evil Plan generator. Now, I'm not saying you can learn to run with the big boys, but you sure can have fun playing in the kiddie pool.

Not Fooling Anybody, recommended by the inestimable Lileks, is an amusing compendium of places that have been awkwardly and none to subtly transformed. While the site seems to have entirely missed the pervasive, "Hey that used to be a Red Barn" phenomenon that you so often get in Ohio, they did have this comment to make about my lovely home state: 

CREATIVE INTERPRETATION: Convenient adaptation of drive-thru for alcohol purposes; very Ohio