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  • Shams al-Nahar 7:51 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Breitbart, James O'Keefe, John Derbyshire, Max Blumenthal,

    I kind of marvel at the evolution of Known Blogspace. It seems to me that two great forces are being arrayed on the plain of combat like LoTR or the Last Battle for Narnia. I suppose I am a sort of traitor/translator, having learned the languages of both sides. Once I was linked approvingly by Glenn Reynolds and John Derbyshire, and Dr. Bill Frist answered H1N1 questions from my anime avatar on line. Once I was a GNXP co-blogger.
    But things like this just really make me sad anymore.

    While I was filming at CPAC for a forthcoming project, I was confronted by Hannah Giles, Andrew Breitbart and a mob of crazed teabaggers. They were enraged by an article I wrote for Salon.com about James O’Keefe’s attendance of and assistance with a white nationalist event featuring open racialists Jared Taylor and John Derbyshire as well as Kevin Martin of the right-wing front group Project 21. Project 21, by the way, is a black front group created and operated by white conservative operatives to provide cover to figures like Taylor.

    Why do intelligent people on the right support coded racism and anti-intellectualism to pander for votes and power? What has happened to stewardship and responsibility and leadership?
    Why can’t they just say, racism is wrong and antiquated, get over it?
    My old homeslice Reihan Salam said I was ruining his bloggy fun with my “scabrous, contemptuous” commentary….which actually constisted of rubbing his nose in the truth.
    But he has it wrong…
    I don’t feel contempt for my onetime sword-comrades on the right….what I feel is horrified, incredulous, loathing.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:56 am on February 8, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    Here is some discussion of why the Obama adminstration is not doing what Sister Wllow elected him for.
    I crafted a thought experiment/plausible scenario for the Potemkin Village at TAS to explain how one simple error by the Camp No cleanup crew….failing to remove the rags from the throats pre-autopsy, will possibly result in the eventual collapse of the house of cards Bush built.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:14 am on February 8, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    One more time, I would like to point out that the conservative/republican/right affiliation in America seemingly has either become colonized by or devolved to majority WECs, white evangelical christians.
    If someone has access to the Rasmussen crosstabs my hypothesis could easily be either verified or disproven.
    However, I am a poor student and can’t afford 20$ a month for house bias.

    I think the one thing that really did surprise me was the high level of explicitly Christian social conservatism on display here. One of the “breakout sessions” featured a speech from Pastor Rick Scarborough — who is most famous for trying to get America’s preachers more politicized. (“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christocrat.”)
    After his speech, a middle-aged female delegate with a twang stood up and said, during the Q&A, “All the media types are asking us why we’re here. Here’s what I say. We’re all here for a little R&R — revival and revolt. If you’re not a Christian, and a person of faith, you just can’t understand what we’re doing!!” She got a standing ovation.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 7:18 pm on February 4, 2010 | 5 Permalink | Reply
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    Here’s a thought…..rather than Sistah Willow whinging about Obama not doing the job she “elected him for”……perhaps she might write a frontpage piece about what we know and call for congress to appoint a Kenneth Starr like Special Prosecutor?
    I mean, since she is a blogger an’ all that.

    It seems extremely clear that they violated standards and procedures that are routine for both civilian and military autopsies. For example, organs removed from bodies are always returned to the next of kin for secondary autopsies if requested. That didn’t happen.

    From the pathologist, Dr Michael Baden:
    It is not appropriate to be unresponsive to the pathologists conducting the second autopsy. If the body parts that were removed have been properly preserved, they can still be examined years later to assist in independently establishing how the death occurred.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 2:26 pm on January 27, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    For those of you that haven’t been following this, this is is the last day of testimony in the Prop 8 trial.
    I have to say….Boies is beastin’.
    I imagine this to be like Ghazali demolishing Tamiya with his Hermaneutic of Reconciliation.
    Excellence in jurisprudence. :)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 10:29 am on January 27, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
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    All along Obama has wanted to move forward. It is perfectly understandable why he would rather America doesn’t have to drink this cup of gall.

    Remember how the bruised bodies – even with throats and organs removed – also did not fit the suicide explanation. I think we know why the Obama administration is ignoring this.
    The enormity of what might have happened – the torturing to death of an innocent 21 year-old, held captive since he was 16 and the removal of his organs – would recruit even more Jihadists than Cheney managed in his seven years of torturing and covering up. It would put US soldiers at risk. It would galvanize the enemy. It would be a huge propaganda victory for al Qaeda.

    I think once the blogverse gets its teeth in a story…the ending is inevitable.
    The blogverse leads the MSM now….ever since Rathergate, where a handful of bloggers forced the narrative.
    Obama can get ahead of the data/opinion wave by citing Sgt. Hickman’s recent testimony as persuasive…..that gives him some power to shape the narrative. If he waits it will be forced on him. Holder should open an investigation NOW….better to embrace destiny than to run from it, and to embrace destiny in the name of our national honor and the Rule of Law is good thing.

    Tardiness often robs us of opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
    Niccolo Machiavelli.

    And it isn’t just the enormity of what happened to the three detainees……it is the enormity of the cover-up. Either we have a rogue military/CIA running wild or the cover-up taint goes right up the chain to Bush.
    Do you think Cheney will fall on his sword for Bush?

    The Operative: You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.
    Dr. Mathias: Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 5:44 pm on January 26, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    Gitmo Torturegate continues to heat up.
    As I understand it, the debate is not about whether detainees died in US custody while being subjected to “enhanced interrogation”……there are over a hundred deaths of that sort.
    The question is….did US military personal and/or CIA operatives cover-up what happened?

    In this case, it’s the much more extraordinary claim to suggest that three men, at least one of whom was looking forward to release because he had no discernible ties to terrorism whatsoever, all committed simultaneous suicide at the behest of terror organizations they had never in their lives communicated with, as opposed to the much more prosaic claim that these men were being interrogated (as we know they did at Gitmo) under circumstances of “enhanced interrogation” (torture, which we know they were doing at Gitmo) at a CIA black site (which we know exists at Gitmo) and then died (which we know has happened during these investigations in more than one hundred other cases.)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 6:20 pm on January 25, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
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    Just when I am about to give up and turn cold, Andrew scroungs up a tiny crumb of sparkly hope from the bottom of the pandora’s box of horrors that American political discourse has morphed into.
    Obama reads the Daily Dish on Iran.
    I myself have had a letter frontpaged at the Dish on Iran….more than one, lol, and Andrew links NIAC and Tehran Bureau and the most clearsighted Iranian blogs.
    Maybe…….what we do here is not without value.
    Maybe…….our muslim perspective on Iran helps dilute the neo-con “bombbombbomb Iran” cluelessness.
    Maybe.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:42 am on January 19, 2010 | 5 Permalink | Reply
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    In 2006 I was a republican. In the first time I met Ali Eteraz in Known Blogspace I argued the asymetrical warfare defense of the Gitmo “suicides”.
    I said often, my government doesn’t torture….we are the “good” guys.
    Look how wrong I was. This is a farkin’ movie script, and its going to blow the vile Bush/Cheney torture presidency “legacy” up like a j-dam. And its a stunning meme-warfare coup for the reaver brigade.

    Ali, I beg your forgiveness.
    I feel sick.

    I’m actually rather proud of Mrs. Suderman as a fellow XX at this point…..she has more nads than her husband and the rest of the bourgie conservatives combined.

    Americans tortured other human beings TO DEATH under the Rule of Law?
    I think this is somehow significant.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 10:46 am on January 8, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    best. review. evah.
    <3 strangehorizons
    warning: here there be spoilers

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 4:10 pm on January 6, 2010 | 13 Permalink | Reply
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    Great Avatar discussion thread.
    In the end, commenter chet solves the puzzle of why conservatives hate Avatar….it isnt about capitalism….it is about race.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:26 am on January 5, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    A friend sent me this link …..Secrets of Khamenei.
    On the Basij–

    Khamenei was the head of the Islamic Republic Party (NB Created 1979, disbanded 1987). He believes that the Basij can be his party, a party which is also an army. Critics who speak of a ‘barracks party’ are referring to this issue. [Khamenei] has built himself a military party with the government and people’s money.

    I especially liked the parts about horses.

    There are about 100 horses, whose estimated total value is $40 million. The most expensive horse is worth $7 million and is called Zuljanah (NB The white stallion of Imam Hossein. Imam Hossein’s martyrdom in 680 AD is commemorated on Ashura.) Mojtaba’s horse is called Sahand. The horses are kept in two stables, one in the Malek Abad estate in Mashhad which measures 10,000 square meters and houses 70 horses, and another in Lavasanat (NB North of Tehran), measuring 3,000 square meters and housing 30 horses.
    In 1999, Khamenei fell from a horse because he rides with only one hand and broke his hand. (NB Khamenei’s right hand has been disabled since an assassination attempt in 1981. A bomb hidden inside a tape recorder blew up as he gave a Friday Prayer sermon.) On long trips within Iran, for example to Mashhad, Khamenei and Mojtaba’s personal horses are taken to the destination inside an A330 airplane. Three specially-equipped trucks are used for transporting horses on shorter hauls.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:08 am on January 5, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply
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    Sneering at Avatar is now a fulltime “conservative” bloggin’ genre.
    I’m reminded of “conservative” crits of the Star Wars prequels as only enjoyable for 14 yr olds.
    Well….Avatar is District 9 rendered for 13 yr olds.
    E.D., you are not the target audience…no wonder you and Douthat and Goldberg don’t like it….and no wonder I do!
    I’m never going to grow up.
    The next 6 years will feature an Avatar trilogy, with parts 2 and 3 released two years apart. The console game will become a staple, merchandising, action figures, t-shirts, spinoffs….just like Star Wars.
    Care to guess how much Star Wars has shaped contemporary culture over the last 30 years?
    And the 13 yr olds who are watching Avatar today…..will be 19 yr olds voting in the 2016 presidential election.
    See how that works?

    All your base are belong to us. :)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 6:21 pm on January 4, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    Breitbarts Big Hollywood has the absolute worst, most delusional, convoluted, pathetic review of Avatar evah.
    Poor conservatives. You simply can’t get to cooltown on the conservative express…..it only goes to Jesusland…and Yearning for Zion.
    Like I said….Avatar has the exact same message as District 9, and it is a daisy cutter packed full of liberal memetics aimed right at the heart of the 13 year old demographic…..the voters of 2016.
    In 2016 the 13 year olds that are now watching Avatar 3x, playing the Avatar game, buying the dvds when available, anticipating the sequel…..are going to be 19 year old voters……lets say we have a sequel in 2012, and the third in 2014…kinda like LotR, but more seductive, more immersive….more glamorous.
    The Avatar generation.
    This cheers me. ;)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 5:10 pm on January 4, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    The leviathan stirs in the Sea of Green.
    The events of Ashura have become a fulcrum point.
    However…Captain Stupid is quite wrong about the outcome.
    My prediction? The office of Supreme Leader will be split among a council. This is Rafi’s design from long ago.
    Iran will absolutely remain a theocracy, and…..an Islamic state.
    A “mullahcracy” like Captain Stupid puts it.
    Just like Iraq is an Islamic state with islamic law (shariah law) written into its constitution.

    The government has already collapsed. There’s going to be big changes very soon. Believe me, it will happen soon. I can promise you that I will meet you for the next interview in Teheran very soon. However, I am afraid that the transition won’t be peaceful. You see what has happened during the religious ceremony called Ashura a few days ago.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 12:13 pm on January 4, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    Rasmussen polling is WEC polling.
    Let’s just be demographically honest.

    And when we are told that a big majority wants to torture the undie-bomber, we have to realize that what that really means is that a lot of older, whiter, evangelicals want to torture the undie-bomber, which, at this point, is, sadly, not news.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:15 am on January 4, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply
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    Hitch and Captain Stupid are dead wrong.
    The Iranians are not seeking a return to the bad old days when the American Tyrant-Puppet Shah’s SS slaughtered students to supress protests in advance of Nixon’s visit.
    They seek to restore the rule of law.
    Islamic LAW in an Islamic REPUBLIC.
    no “democracy” or “freedom” involved. ;)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:08 am on January 4, 2010 | 6 Permalink | Reply
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    I find the near-universal “conservative” denigration of Avatar to be hilarious, given that many of them “liked” District 9. Avatar is just District 9 (rated R) rendered in PG-13 and gamertech.
    And I predict it is the Star Wars for the next generation.
    It is already the 4th highest grossing film of all time.

    I liked Wade’s comparison of religion to language.
    Culture is a language as well…..one that “conservatives” have forgotten how to speak. ;)

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:55 am on December 31, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
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    Seyyed Mir Hussein Mousavi is Andrew’s post of the year, at least.
    Aziz says…..

    The Iranian reformists meanwhile are engaged in a political struggle, with the aim of replacing Ahmadinejad with Moussavi as President of the Iranian regime.

    I disagree.
    The Green Wave seeks to restore the truth of al-Islam, the justice of the Islamic Republic.
    Moussavi did not choose…..he was chosen.

    30 years ago, in this country a revolution became victorious in the name of Islam, a revolution for freedom, a revolution for reviving the dignity of men, a revolution for truth and justice. In those times, especially when our enlightened Imam [Khomeini] was alive, large amount of lives and matters were invested to legitimize this foundation and many valuable achievements were attained. An unprecedented enlightenment captured our society, and our people reached a new life where they endured the hardest of hardships with a sweet taste. What this people gained was dignity and freedom and a gift of the life of the pure ones [i.e. 12 Imams of Shiites]. I am certain that those who have seen those days will not be satisfied with anything less. Had we as a people lost certain talents that we were unable to experience that early spirituality? I had come to say that that was not the case. It is not late yet, we are not far from that enlightened space yet.
    I had come to show that it was possible to live spiritually while living in a modern world. I had come to repeat Imam’s warnings about fundamentalism. I had come to say that evading the law leads to dictatorship; and to remind that paying attention to people’s dignity does not diminish the foundations of the regime, but strengthens it.
    I had come to say that people wish honesty and integrity from their servants, and that many of our perils have arisen from lies. I had come to say that poverty and backwardness, corruption and injustice were not our destiny. I had come to re-invite to the Islamic revolution, as it had to be, and Islamic republic as it has to be. In this invitation, I was not charismatic [articulate], but the core message of revolution was so appealing that it surpassed my articulation and excited the young generation who had not seen those days to recreate scenes which we had not seen since the days of revolution[1979] and the sacred defense. The people’s movement chose green as its symbol. I confess that in this, I followed them.
    And a generation that was accused of being removed from religion, has now reached “God is Great”, “Victory’s of God and victory’s near”, “Ya hossein” in their chants to prove that when this tree fruits, they all resemble. No one taught hem these slogans, they reached them by the teachings of instinct.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:32 am on December 31, 2009 | 14 Permalink | Reply
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    Aziz denigrates the martyrdom of Ali Mousavi as not as important as it appears at first blush. The reason it is important is that it deligitimizes the regime for the pious rural poor……for these people.
    This is a meme translated to language the pious can all understand…..the language of the Holy Qur’an and the language of the Battle of Karbala.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 8:39 pm on December 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    Khamenei’s bags are packed.

    Iranian Supreme National Security Council has ordered a complete check-up of the jet which is on standby to fly Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family to Russia should the situation in Iran spiral out of control.
    The order, to the Pasdaran Revolutionary Guard Corps, was dated on Sunday, 27 December, the second day of recent unrests in Iran.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:27 am on December 27, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , seyyed,

    The Tyrant Khamenei and his stooge ‘Nejad pour gasoline on the fires of Islamic revolution. Because that is stone brilliant (not) move– killing one of the line of the Imam (a seyyad) on Ashura.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 12:02 pm on December 15, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , wetsuits

    Comedic genius Michael Steele strikes again.

    The Republican party took down its innovative link shortening tool Tuesday after pranksters had a field day using the tool to associate the GOP with bondage sites.
    [.....]
    Users of the Balloon-Juice website entertained each other last night by exchanging scores of such links, which have since been blocked.

    Balloon-juice gets props from Wired.
    lol

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:57 pm on December 11, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
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    I used to tell a friend that brown would be so cooool some day.
    Icecold.
    Check out the bollywood/hiphop dance fusion in this Jay Sean viddie.
    That is how the world will be healed.
    Music and dance and film.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 4:36 pm on December 11, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , evolutionary theory of culture,

    Allahpundit and Ace and the rest of the Butthurt Brigade are about to stoke out over Avatar. I havent been this entertained since Suderman and Sailor tried to spin the powerful anti-apartheid scifi masterpiece District 9 as a polemic against hispanic immigration to the US.
    It is hilarious that conservatives see this as a culture war……it isn’t a culture war…..it is an evolution of culture event……like an ice age or the extinction event at the K-T boundary.
    Hollywood is painted blue….and green and black and brown and yellow.
    Per usual, the WECs are trying to battle cultural glacial flow with pitchforks and torches.

    I hope Cameron makes a ka-jillion bucks.

    rotten tomatos scores Avatar at a whopping 90%.
    And golden globes too?
    It could be the Star Wars of my generation.

    And the very best thing….

    rated: PG-13

    All your base are belong to us.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 8:04 am on December 10, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
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    Ripple effect from Charles Johnson’s break with the right.

    We don’t believe in trickle-down economics anymore, but we do believe in trickle down hate. And violence and intimidation that is practiced against our government representatives could soon enough be practiced against us.

    Every Shabbos we pray for the government of the United States. As the third chapter of the Pirkei Avot notes: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without fear of governmental authorities people would swallow each other alive.” A Tea Party rally is no place for a Jew. Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, Mr. Obama is the President of the United States and, if nothing else, he deserves to command the respect that we as citizens owe to that office.

    All of this truly makes us wonder where the Right wing has gone. Leaders like Sarah Palin, Joe Wilson, and Dick Cheney are more embarrassing than inspiring. The conservative movement, as Sam Tanenhaus writes in The New Republic, and like punk rock before it, is dead. This Chanukah we know what we want: a rebirth.
    We want the right to be Right.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 7:38 am on December 10, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
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    In this post I accuse Den Beste of either commiting intellectual seppuku or of exhibiting such raw contempt for his low information WEC base that it takes my breath away. He reposes in the perfect confidence that not a single one of his Hotair readers understands what teleology means.
    Here is the same phony pithed populism exhibited by a FOX “news”caster.
    And by Sarah Palin who sneers at “elites” while larding her “book” with phony Plato and Aristotle quotes in a craven attempt to appear intelligent and well-read.
    The simple truth is that soi-disant conservatives reject science, materialism, and empirical data in favor of clinging to a status of outdated memes, anti-scientific teleological beliefs based on religious doctrine, and magical thinking.…..the ideological Party of Teleology.

    That’s the world view of engineers and scientists — and businessmen, for that matter. It’s the world view of people who understand and use mathematics, and statistics. It is a place where cause leads to effect. It’s the place that game theory studies.

    Sowwy, SDB but only 6% of scientists are republicans– only the “businessmen” are “conservatives”…and we certainly know that is in simple selfinterest and not through any attachment to principled “materialism.”
    Either reform the core memes of conservatism, or give up on the college-educated vote like the GOP has been forced to give up on the black vote.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 9:02 am on December 8, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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    White Evangelical Christian Rick Warren stages a WEC Weimar rally.

    “In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, “Hitler, we are yours.”

    And they nearly took the world.

    Lenin once said, “give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I’ll change the world.” And, he nearly did.

    A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao.

    When I hear those kinds of stories, I think ‘what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say ‘Jesus, we are yours’?

    Hmm…given Warren’s support for the upcoming Ugandan pogram on homosexuals, who is the Hitler now?
    LOL!

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 2:02 pm on December 7, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
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    Cock-teasing the rabble.
    She has to run in 2012…..she will be post-menopausal in 2016.
    I think her neck is already getting crepey.

     

  • Shams al-Nahar 11:36 am on December 7, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Konservative Koolaid, SDB,

    /sadface
    SDB still mainlining teh conservative junk.

    That’s the world view of engineers and scientists — and businessmen, for that matter. It’s the world view of people who understand and use mathematics, and statistics. It is a place where cause leads to effect. It’s the place that game theory studies.

    LOL, but that is foreign territory for conservatives.
    Cite: “life” at conception, IDT, Schiavo, climatology, homosexuality, sex-education, and the cause of death in the Gitmo “suicide pact”.
    There is one side that accepts empirical data and another side that pushes anti-science and teleological WEC doctine posing as legislation.
    As I just pointed out, only 6% of scientists are “conservatives”. Scientists and engineers run from conservatism like scalded cats….wonder why?
    I suggest Obama’s unclenched fist has a lot more results already than Bush’s teleological Gog/Magog war in MENA.
    In a parallel universe of justice, McCain won the election, kicked 2 days into office, and Den Beste is chained to Palin’s desk in the oval office and forced to serve as her director of science and technology.
    I don’t care if Den Beste has devolved into chicking conservative boo for breakfast, but trying to trick it out as materialism is beyond the pale.
    He should stick to something he understands, like harem comedies or tentacle hentai.

     

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