Interesting to see that you actually write for the filthy swine over at Blue Lew’s Lagoon, home of Confederacy R’ Us. Of course, this automatically proves that you are an inferior type of humanity, but I will condescend to communicate with you. Be glad that my serum monster is presently otherwise occupied at the moment. (I know how scared you Rockwell types are of cartoons, after all.)

1. Murray Rothbard is beyond the consideration of any decent human being because he cheered the fall of Saigon. Simple as that, you ass-licking toad.

2. Before you bleat about freedom, better go take a look at what your in-house fanatic, Gary North, wants as his ideal society. Hint; Non-Calvinists better look out for flying stones.

3. Do go on and tell me how Lew the Swine has a lot of individual opinions, etc, etc, and how you are not responsible, etc. I always like to hear that lie.

Okay! You are fixed, temporarily! Now get out of here as I think I hear the distant screech of the serum monster - unless, of course, you want to rest in pieces! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!

“The terrorists present the world with an endless supply of lies, which generally take the form of accusing us of what they do (and we don’t). Many of their actions are staged precisely for the benefit of reporters (like the horror scene of the four dead American contractors a couple of weeks ago). They brought in the television cameras the other day to film the execution of an Italian hostage, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, but something went wrong. After forcing him to dig his own grave, they put a hood over his head and ordered him to kneel so he could be killed. He wouldn’t go for it. He tried to remove the hood, and defiantly yelled at them “I will show you how an Italian dies.” The scene was a propaganda disaster for them, and good old al Jazeera, the modern mother of lies, announced that they had the tape but wouldn’t release it because it was too terrible to witness. It was terrible, but not in the way al Jazeera wanted us to think. It showed Western bravery, not Arab domination, so they couldn’t show it.” - Michael Ledeen

Further I told him that when I hear the Italian National Anthem I get teary eyed. Hearing that �Fratelli d�Italia, l�Italia s�� desta, parap�, parap�, parap�….” , I get a knot in my throat. I am not even aware that as a National Anthem, ours is rather ugly. I only think: it is the Anthem of my Mother Land. The knot in my throat also is present when I look at a white, red, green flag waving. Of course not taking account of the hoodlums of the soccer stadiums.

I have a red-white-green flag from the 19th Century. It is all stained, blood stained, all gnawed by mice. Although in the center there is the crest of the Royal House of Savoy (albeit without Cavour, Vittorio Emanuele II and Garibaldi who bowed to that crest, we would not have made a united Italy) I treasure it as if it were gold. I care for it like a jewel. We died for that tricolr, by God! Hung, shot, decapitated, killed by the Austrians, the Pope, the Duke of Modena, the Bourbons. We had the Risorgimento with that tricolor and the Unification of Italy, the war on the Carso and the Resistance. For that tricolor my great-great maternal grandfather Giobatta fought at Curtatone and Montanara, and was left horribly disfigured by an Austrian projectile. For that tricolor my paternal uncles suffered the horrors of the Carso trenches. For that tricolor my father was arrested and tortured at Villa Triste by the nazi-fascists. For that tricolor my entire family joined the Resistance myself included. In the ranks of Justice and Freedom, with the battle name Emilia. I was fourteen years old. When a year later they discharged me from the Voluntary Italian Freedom Corp, I felt so proud. Jesus and Mary, I had been an Italian soldier! When I was informed that with my discharge I was to receive 14,540 Liras, I didn�t know whether to accept them or not. It did not seem right to be paid for having done my duty towards my country. I ended up accepting them, no one at home had shoes. With that money I bought shoes for myself and my younger sisters. - Oriana Fallaci

(It is typical of the swine and filth over at Lew Rockwell’s that they attempt to smear Oriana Fallaci. And, no, I don’t intend to give the link.)

Let’s turn our attentions to merry olde England, where we find the scientists (so called) of the Zoological Society of London hard at work:

If humans behaved more like their chimp relatives they might be better at communicating, say experts. Scientists at the Zoological Society of London are looking for volunteers to “talk chimp” in their everyday work and home life to test out the theory.

One part of the survey recommends waving your arms, brandishing objects and making yourself appear large, to assert authority over others.

Volunteers can also bond with their group by grooming each other.

…

Volunteers are expected to replace their usual human reactions with chimp behaviour, and report back on how it worked.

Instead of bitching about your terrifying boss behind their back, try showing them your fear by baring your teeth and using submissive body language such as lowering your head and crouching.

A simple hello when greeting friends should be replaced with an extended arm and throaty “huh huh huh” pant.

This is beyond absurdity. What came to my mind when I read the above was the scene from the first Lord Of The Rings movie, where Gandalf was reading from a book found in the tomb of the Dwarf King, inside of Moria:

They have taken the bridge and the second hall.
We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long.
The ground shakes. Drums, drums in the deep.
We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark.
We cannot get out…
They are coming…

The drums of the Endarkenment are beating, in the deeps.

Ghost Stories With Hidden Agendas

A man was driving down a winding country road late at night in the pouring rain. There was nothing around but farmland for miles. Suddenly in the headlights, a figure appeared, standing by the side of the road. It was a female hitchhiker. The man wasn’t normally the type to pick up hitchhikers but he felt obliged as it was raining and very desolate where she was standing. He backed up alongside her and rolled down the window. “It’s an awful night to be out. Want a lift?” She lifted up her head, brushed her wet hair out of her face and looked at him. She was a beautiful young girl with pale skin and unusually dark eyes that almost appeared to float above the white plane of her face. She said nothing, but opened the rear door and slid into the back seat. Immediately, the man felt icy cold. He rolled up the window quickly and turned on the heat, but the chill remained. He caught a glimpse of her arm in the rearview mirror. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent.

“What’s a girl like you doing out here in the middle of the night?” he asked. She replied in a voice so jarring, deep, and hoarse it made his hair stand on end: “Tell me, does your cell phone plan have rollover minutes?”

(Presently listening to “Fuck You, Aurora” by The Alkaline Trio)

“You won’t catch me behind the wheel/Of a Chrysler ever again.” “You have to be the cutest gravedigger/I’ve ever seen”

(For Kennedy)

From here.

Act I, scene v. A platform before the castle.

Enter GHOST and HAMLET.

GHOST: My hour is almost come,
When I to sulf’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

HAMLET: If you get a ringing in your ears,
don’t answer it.

It appears that John T. Kennedy was right, way back when:

Could these be the words of a minarchist on the verge of rejecting government altogether? [Arthur] Silber should of course follow this this line of reasoning through to it’s logical conclusion and decline to grant government the power to do anything.

I’d snorted to myself when I read that but now Roderick long notes this:

Arthur Silber has joined the ranks of the anarchists! Welcome, Arthur! (He adds that his anarchism is only “provisional,” but we certainly don?t intend to let him leave ….)

I’d previously round-filed Silber as a hopeless confuseoid, but I think I’ll see what he has to say, the next few weeks. Maybe he, too, will prove himself right.

..The next time some yammerhead mouths off about “freedom” here in the US of A: the definition of freedom now includes the freedom to have a platoon of government agents armed with machineguns and tear gas invade your home, kidnap a child, and return him to a Communist hell-hole.

But [US District Judge] Cooke said the agents’ actions “were not unreasonable considering the agents were there to search for a small child who could have been, and in fact, was, carried away and hidden.”

Those small children who might be carried away and hidden require a large amount of force to deal with, you see.

Above: officially not an unreasonable action.

“My fantasies are always horrible. For example, I love my young daughter more than anything else in the world, but when I dream of her its always frightening. Do you want to know what character is haunting my subconscious? A violinist who serenades the woman he loves by playing on the tendons of his arms. Everyday life works on my imagination. Just this morning I found a letter, still sealed, from a friend who has since died, written to me ten years ago. It was like receiving a letter from a dead person. What would you do in my place? I burned it…”

“People, and critics too, should know about the circumstances under which I had to shoot my films. On Terrore nello spazio, I had nothing, literally. There was only an empty soundstage, really squalid, because we had no money. And this had to look like an alien planet! What did I do then? I took a couple of papier-m�ch� rocks from the nearby studio, probably leftovers from some sword and sandal flick, then I put them in the middle of the set and covered the ground with smoke and dry ice, and darkened the background. Then I shifted those two rocks here and there and this way I shot the whole film.”

Possessione!

(Thanks to Troy Howarth’s Mario Bava Webpage)

Here’s the transcript of the SBVT ad:

John Kerry: They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads. . .

Joe Ponder: The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating.

John Kerry: . . . randomly shot at civilians. . .

Joe Ponder: It hurt me more than any physical wounds I had.

John Kerry: . . . cut off limbs, blown up bodies. . .

Ken Cordier: That was part of the torture, was, uh, to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.

John Kerry: . . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan. . .

Paul Gallanti: John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.

John Kerry: . . . crimes committed on a day to day basis. . .

Ken Cordier: He betrayed us in the past, how could we be loyal to him now?

John Kerry: . . . ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.

Paul Gallanti: He dishonored his country, and, uh, more, more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out.

Announcer : Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

Let’s see: “Devastating”, “Hurt me”, “Gave the enemy for free”, “Betrayed”, and “Dishonored his country”. Strong words, but: is Kerry lying?

The TV ad doesn’t even bother to address that question, and I judge that it’s because the truth simply doesn’t matter. The truth obviously isn’t useful for the purposes of the Swift Vets’ television ad, or they’d have included something besides null-content heartstring-pulling. This is about appealing to voters, not about making a rational argument - the vaguer and more emotional the pitch, the better. The intended audience for this ad simply isn’t interested in the truth.

Of course, “Swift Boat Veterans For Vague Emotional Appeal” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

From the March ‘04 issue of Aviation Week:

While outsourcing is a key element of the company’s cost-control strategy, executives have not lost sight of the need to replace workers who will retire in the next 10-15 years. That has translated ino a long-term investment program centered around helping nearby schools.

“We found that our employees’ kids’ school districts are so dependent on government dollars that they can barely exist”, Henden said. “So, we partnered with an elementary school a few blocks from here, and have helped the build a technology lab [and] launch an accelerated math program.”

The company donated money to buy computers, software and supplies - but with conditions. “We required them to report their progress, just like it was a [contracted] program,” Hoffman said. “And they did it. They came back and showed us how many sixth-graders are reaching a [certain] math competency level. It wasn’t just giving; we expected something in return. That also taught those sixth-grade students that, to get something, you have to give something. Those expectations are being set at an early age. They build in values that are necessary for [success] in business.”

“Beyone that, it’s investing in the next-generation workforce,” he added. “And we’re not giving them oodles of money. You’d be surprised at how far $1,000 or $5,000 can go.”

Y’get it? The company in question, ACSS, is looking decades into the future and realizing that they’ll make more money by slapping some backbone into MiniEd’s curriculum. The company knows that they need talented engineers. So, they fund math and science programs: not only does that encourage their employees, smart folks with likely smart kids, to stick around, but it’ll breed a whole new generation of potential employees, who’ll have been looking at the “This Lab Maintained By ACSS” signs for their formative academic years. Further, they’re treating this as the investment that it is: making sure the school in question doesn’t simply dump the money down some rat-hole of a new-age hugfest.

This is the concrete manifestation of enlightened self-interest: in a word, it’s selfish. And selfishness is a very, very good thing.