Nice slow weekend. Thought I’d just link out to things to see what happens.

Best Star Wars Kid video I’ve seen yet: Star Wars Kid: A New Hope
I for one hope SWK gets a part in the next Star Wars movie. He deserves it, putting out all these fan videos.

I get a ton of hits from Google and other search engines for “Women of Fox News”. So here is a good place to go:
http://www.geocities.com/foxnewsmisc/pictures.html
http://groups.msn.com/FoxNewsNetworkWomen
http://www.jerseygop.com/R_babes/index.html
My favorites? Linda Vester, Besty Hart and Jennifer Eccleston.

Something else I get a lot of hits for is Man Over Women. Not sure why, but I do. I’m not sure if its an orthodox religious thing or something porn related. I hit the search for it and there are no direct hits for “Man Over Women”. I’m currently the number one hit for it, because of “Pirates, Man your Women” which isn’t the same thing I hope.

But still, my number one favorite episode from number of hits to it, is Episode 18. All about Busty Wenches becoming unionized. Its actually a link to the International Wenches Guild who are of course affiliated with our local Pirates and Privateers Local #151.

In checking my stats page, since I’ve converted to Blog format, we’ve gone up about 700 hits per month each month. Not too shabby. Apparently someone is reading! So thanks to Right We Are, Talk Like A Pirate, Dizzy Girl, and all the other sites linking to us.

And finally, we’re getting close to Talk Like a Pirate day. Check out Pirate Mod for the latest (and oldest) in Fine Piratical Fashions…

Worldwide Faith News has this press release where The Peacemaking Program of the Presbyterian Church sends their condolences to the UN over the terrorist bombing of their Baghdad headquarters.

The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division, sent an official letter of condolence last week to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

“I am keenly aware of the shock you must be experiencing over the bombing of the United Nations Office in Baghdad, and the grief over the death of your special envoy, Dr. S. Vieria De Mello, and many others,” McClure wrote. “… The world mourns this great loss, and we of the Presbyterian Church (USA) profoundly share your grief.

“We send our sincere condolences to the families and continue in prayer for comfort in their sorrow, and for recovery and healing for the surviving victims of this awful tragedy.”

I agree, I do feel sorry that those people were killed. This is another group of people that will only return to their families one last time in the worst of circumstances.
However, (and there is always a however in blogging!) it included this statement:

The Rev. Jennifer Butler, Director of the Presbyterian United Nations Office in New York City, said sadness and grief were palpable in the U.N. headquarters building after the bombing, which also injured scores of people.

“In talking to U.N. staff, I’m realizing that this was their 9/11, a catastrophic event,” she said, ” - and symbolic in terms of U.N. work.”

This is one of those, Oh.My.God.Did.She.Really.Make.This.Is.Stupid.Statement times.
This was not their 9/11. Comparing the deaths of 3000+ people being killed in their normal lives in a suprise attack vs. 20+ killed in a relatively active war zone. That is some pretty disgusting moral equivalence. Its almost to the point of saying that the car accident I was in was soooo catastrophic, that its just like 9/11. People are still dead that *shouldn’t* be however it is orders of magnitude different.
The equivalent of the UN bombing would be more like a normal Tuesday in Israel during the Intifada. But that wouldn’t be politically correct to say stuff like that, now would it!

I’ve read about a third of it so far. It’s a surprisingly easy read with some extremely beautiful photographs. I’d recommend that you check it out now.

Our “beloved” General is at it again. Wesley Clark is claiming that the White House has it out for him so they tried to get him fired from CNN. OK, so the guy almost starts a larger war in Europe during the Balkan crisis, and gets fired as NATO commander by Clinton. Then he shows up as a commentator on a second-rate news network (CNN) forecasting gloom and doom and tens of thousands of US casualties. And the new White House obviously has it against this nutcase, so they’re trying to get him fired by CNN.

“The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war,” Clark told Newsradio 620 KTAR. “Apparently they called CNN. I don’t have all the proof on this because they didn’t call me. I’ve only heard rumors about it.”

Wait a second! Suddenly its rumours. This is the kind of thing that CNN would have all over the news if they were pressured by a Republican government. CNN only keeps quiet about this kind of stuff if third world dictators try extortion.
So, not only is Wesley Clark a Communist, but now he is a paranoid nutjob. Going to the press saying the big bad White House is out to get him because of his views about quagmires and such. But almost every talking head pundit just like him was parroting the same damn lines. And none of them were pressured to be fired. I don’t see any stifling of dissent. It seemed more to me that the White House was cautiously amused by the gloom and doom predictions that were so far off of reality…

Insisting on the accuracy of his military analysis of the Iraq War, Clark said, “No one ever complained about my analysis being partisan except for [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay and he’s hardly an unbiased source,” Clark told KTAR.
“I was anything but biased. I was 100 percent objective. I called it right and I stand by the results,” he said.

So, he said tens of thousands US troops would be killed, fighting would go on for years, etc. And he still thinks he is accurate. This guy is so paranoid and off his rocker he sounds just like a Democratic candidate for President! Wait a minute…

Watching the intro to Trigun with the wife. Most of the way through the intro she looks up from what she was working on and says to me, “This reminds me of the episode where Milhouse got Bonestorm, and he says that he has only put his name in so far!”

Bart walks back down the street, still dejected. Passing one house, he
sees lights flashing brightly inside and hears the sound of lightning.

Bart: Milhouse has Bonestorm!
[inside, Milhouse's hair is being blown back from the TV]
Milhouse: This is great…and all I’ve done is enter my name!
“Thrillhouse”.
[screen shows "WELCOME THRILLHO"]
Bart: [walking in] Say, cool dude, can I play too?
Milhouse: [scrambling] Uh, uh, it’s only a one player game.
Bart: Then how come it says “Second player score”?
Milhouse: [pause] Mom! Bart’s swearing!

I still think the best opening in an anime is Evangelion. The graphics used in the series are amazing. And once the opening kicks into fast mode the gestalt of it all is just unbelievable. I will sometimes just load the DVD in to watch just that.
Hope everyone is using the new Google toolbar. Incredible at blocking popups. It works the way it should, no mucking with whitelists, blacklists, etc. Its simple. If you click something, the popup is allowed. If it just appears because you’re entering or leaving a site, its not. Woot! Its that damn simple.

Nothing is worse than having a nice post all ready when the lightning hits and the power shuts off for a second. The servers are on backup power, but not my workstation. So, I’m just going to throw out a few random things and hope power doesn’t dump again.

This is the kind of boat any pirate would like. Not because it is beached, but because of what you can see while standing on the deck. Very nice… Where is that boat located again? Hello, Travelocity?

There’s a post on RWN about the Columbine killers. Its a chat between John Hawkins and Andrew Ian Dodge about what caused the killers to flip out and lose it. Andrew is saying that while the killers deserve to be dead, burning in hell, what they did was 100% wrong, he can at least see that them being bullied relentlessly can cause someone to go whacko. He was not approving of what they did in the least. However, hardly anyone in the comments section could figure that out. Some of the comments were approving of bullying as something to “build character.” Others said they were bullied and lived through it. That was the stupidest comment ever. If I lived through a car accident, that doesn’t mean that those that were killed did something wrong. Or, the ever present, fight back and the bullies will respect you. Either that, or more than likely they’ll kick your ass even harder.
Anyways, the biggest comments were that fighting back with guns were “out of proportion” to the killers being bullied. OK, then does that mean that two years ago we should have flown a few airliners into Mecca and Riyadh and called it even? Nice, proportional response.
Anyways, my biggest gripe about the whole damn thing is that so few of the posters could take a logical look at the argument being presented by Lagwolf (Andrew’s handle) and instead reacted so completely emotionally. I’m sorry, I thought the right wing was supposed to be logical, and not as likely to be swayed by the “Its for the children” arguments.

Anyways, been reading The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd that came in yesterday. It really is amazing that a book that has this much detail is not fiction. Such vivid visuals. This reads like the author followed around Cap’n Kidd with a film crew. Here’s the Amazon review:

From Publishers Weekly
Entertaining, richly detailed and authoritatively narrated, Zacks’s account of the life of legendary seaman William Kidd delivers a first-rate story. Though Kidd, better known as Captain Kidd, was inextricably bound with piracy and has popularly gone down as a marauding buccaneer himself, Zacks (An Underground Education) argues that he was actually a mercenary backed by the English government and several New World investors to track down pirates and reclaim their stolen wares. The book is cogent and replete with supporting evidence without the heavy-handed feel of some scholarly work. What really sets the book apart is Zacks’s gift as researcher and storyteller. He highlights the role of an undeniable pirate, Robert Culliford, in Kidd’s tale and pits the two men against each other from the outset, constructing his book as an intriguing duel. Aside from the tightly constructed plot, Zacks also wonderfully evokes the social and political life of the 17th century at land and at sea, and he takes turns at debunking and validating pirate folklore: while it appears the dead giveaway of a skull and crossbones made it a rare flag choice, Zacks contends that pirates did often wear extravagant clothing and were as drunk, cursing, hungry, horny… and violent as myth would have them. Augmented by such details and driven by a conflict between Kidd and Culliford that keeps the pages flying, Zacks’s book is a treasure, indeed.

A fine pirate like myself recommends this one for an entertaining read before you sack and loot the next port…

The Earth Liberation Front torched a LA Hummer dealership according to this story at Fox News. The fire destroyed a warehouse and several SUVs including H2s. Slogans written in large letters on the sides and hoods of the vehicles included “I (heart) Pollution,” “American Wastefullness” and “Fat, Lazy, Americans.”

Money Quote:
From Rick Genovese, fire marshal for West Covina (township in LA):
“There’s a lot more pollutants from the fire than the vehicles would pollute during their lifetime,” he said. “There’s hundreds of tons of pollutants that were spilled off.”

It always amazes me how hypocritical people can be - especially the liberal elite. Check out this article on Fox News.

“I’m very concerned about a private developer’s plans to build an industrial energy complex across 24 square miles of publicly owned land, Walter Cronkite says in a commercial he filmed imploring viewers to Save Our Sound.”

Walter Cronkite opposed the war in Iraq. Wind power would reduce American reliance on foreign oil. Therefore one would think that Cronkite would support such an environmentally and socially conscious plan. But he doesn’t.

Why? Because the facility will sit on the horizon off Cape Cod - where Cronkite lives. Last I checked Cronkite hasn’t taken his house off the electrical grid. So he is powering that house with energy generated in someone else’s backyard from a place that is being liberated and protected by American soldiers in an operation Cronkite opposed.

Cronkite may have become a near-mythological figure in today’s media - but his actions prove that he is human - and more hypocritical than most of us.

News headlines for today on Foxnews. Draw your own conclusions.
Bus Explosion Kills at Least 15 in Jerusalem
Blast at U.N. Mission in Baghdad Kills 20
Two Dead in Ohio Plant Shooting
W.Va. Shootings Victims Buried
Nine Cops Killed in Afghanistan
Study Ranks University of Colorado No. 1 for Partying

Got a letter to the editor published in the paper over the weekend. (Follow the linked page to the last letter)

Clark’s view of taxes fits with Marxists

Gen. Wesley Clark for president? In June Clark was on “Meet the Press” talking about tax cuts and how he disagreed with them. He said, “I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation.” The United States did not have a progressive income tax until the 16th Amendment passed in 1913, 137 years after this country was founded.

However, Point 2 of “The Communist Manifesto,” written by Karl Marx in 1848, refers to “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” Maybe Clark read the wrong history books in school if he thinks the United States is Marxist.

I blogged about this earlier in Episode 36. Thanks go out to Rachel Lucas for breaking this story. I posted the letter to the editor in response to an opinion piece in the News Journal that proposes to draft Clark for President.

A retired Army four-star general and former commander in Europe, Clark has the character, intelligence, experience and toughness to inspire Americans. A groundswell is building among Democrats to draft Clark for the presidential nomination.

I thought Draft was a four letter word to Democrats. Anyways… Just because he was a general does not make him either a good politician nor a good leader. Just because someone makes it to general, even a top general, doesn’t mean that he is competent either. Look at the northern generals during the Civil War. So many useless generals were fired until Grant was finally brought to the top.
His views on the war on Iraq:

Many other news outlets followed suit. Quoting unnamed sources within the Bush administration and ex-military leaders, the media was fixated on calling the US military plan a massive “blunder” and “miscalculation.” CNN’s most visible and most decorated hand wringer was retired General Wesley Clark. CNN finally figured out a way to find someone who’s military record placed him in the strata of untouchables by the right wingers, all the while keeping their policy of “all news-all Bush bashing-all the time.”
Wesley Clark said Mr. Rumsfeld’s insistence on a smaller invasion force had left troops vulnerable and the 300-mile oil supply line between Kuwait and Basra open to guerilla attack.

I’m sorry, but such a great general should have had a better clue on reality.

Just returned from an all too short stay at Fenwick Island DE.
The Delaware beaches have a long history of involvement with piracy. For example, today beach front property sells for $2+ million - a price that would make Blackbeard ponder if he should have gotten into real estate instead. Such prices are truly “land piracy” - just without the plank business. 200 years ago the residents of the stretch of shore from Lewes to Ocean City MD used to put fire pots on the backs of donkeys in order to trick captains into thinking they were seeing the Cape Henlopen lighthouse, then run their ships aground. The locals would then plunder the ships. It was a tough dog-eat-dog world back then.
One of the more interesting wrecks in the area is that of the Faithful Steward. The story of the wreck ties in the avarice of the locals with the desperation of the Irish.
Anyhow, the trip to Fenwick and this story about the discovery of the S.S. Republic has me feeling in a maritime mood this morning. May your enemies be unarmed, your plunder vast, and your winds favorable for the rest of the week.

The 19th of September be the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And ye will comply, unless you wish to be kicked like the bad little puppies you are! Scoundrels the lot of ya.
If you’re not sure how to talk like a pirate, you can usually get by just by adding a lot more Arrrr’s to your speech. Example:

Pass the ketsup, Arrrrrr!
Arrrrrr, do you have the latest sales reports for the Northeast region? Arrrrrrr!
Arrrrrr, the answer is, the speed of light in a vaccuum.
Hey baby, wanna wrestle? Arrrrrrr!

Even lubbers are wishin’ to be marauders for a day.
To further celebrate your life as a buccaneer, you will need accessories. A mug o’ rum, a cutlass and a black powder pistol. A sash is also a good thing. We don’t even need to cover you having a puffy white shirt, big black hat, and tall black boots.
This mug o’ rum was given to me last night by my favorite busty wench. ‘Tis a good mug. Holds lots of rum. Or beer. Maybe even iced tea. But its from the family’s ancestral home. The pistol is an original Disney Pirates of the Carribean pistol, some twenty years old. But still can knock a parrot off a shoulder when thrown just right. Ahhh, those Pirates of the Carribean, they knew how to pillage and plunder.

This quote from their inner pirate quiz is more accurate than my cannons!

You are The Cap’n!
Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn’t eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones’ locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.
What’s Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

Just a quick note:
From MSNBC
“On July 10 (of 1977 - the last large scale blackout), power officials guaranteed Congress that another power failure like the 1965 blackout would never occur again. Three days later, the lights went off a little before 9:30 p.m. and stayed off all night 13 hours in all.
More than 3,700 people were arrested in looting across several neighborhoods. More than 1,000 fires were set, and estimates of the damage ranged from $61 million to more than $300 million. “

Here we are at hour 18 of the current blackout and here are the stats:
“There were no reports of serious looting in the big cities affected by the failure.”

Note that in 1977 Carter was president and NYC was run by Democrats. Today we have a Republican president and NYC and NY state are run by Republicans.

Coincidence?

Neuro Linguistic Programming. Sounds eeeevil doesn’t it. Something about it brings to mind old men in lab coats standing around someone strapped in a chair. They’re all chanting something over and over until the subject can’t take it anymore and agrees to kill the queen or whoever.
I walked around at work today and asked people what they thought about when I said the words “Neuro Linguistic Programming.” Overwhelmingly negative. So what is NLP?

NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) is a constantly evolving set of models, presuppositions, patterns, techniques, and observation-based theories resulting from the study of the structure of subjective experience, behavior and communication. Beyond understanding, NLP seeks to enable remedial and generative change quickly and ecologically.

Hmmm.. That doesn’t help at all I’d say. Besides make you zone. Essentially NLP is a modified form of light hypnosis from what I can gather. Here are some precepts:

No one is wrong or broken. People work perfectly to accomplish what they are currently accomplishing.
People already have all the resources they need.
Behind every behavior is a positive intention.
Every behavior is useful in some context.
The meaning of a communication is the response you get.
If you aren’t getting the response you want, do *something* different.
There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.
In any system, the element with the most flexibility exerts the most influence.
The map is not the territory.
If someone can do something, anyone can learn it.

Much of that is too obvious. Personally, I like the “If you haren’t getting the response you want, do *something* different. If by the second or third time you’ve followed the same pattern of behavior and gotten the same response, what do you think will happen next? The same thing. If thats what you want, great, usually it isn’t. Unless you just like pushing someone’s buttons.
Now, I don’t know much else about NLP, but it seems to be interesting stuff. Its worth learning more about you know… Take a break from porn and blogs, they’re not the only two things on the internet you know…
My friend Mike works at one of the local hospitals and uses NLP to work with dangerous patients. Since he doesn’t have to beat ‘em up all the time, obviously the stuff works.

I’m calling it here first. I’ve googled around and found no real results.
If Arnold can be governor of California, then my call is for Bruce Willis to be Governor of New Jersey. Not only is he a better actor, he was born in the US, his father fought Nazis, and he has thinning hair. Bruce Willis would come over my house, have some burgers off of the grill and drink beer with me.
New Jersey really needs someone like him. His persona that he shows in his films is a take charge, damn the torpedos kinda guy.
If anything “the Garden State” needs its someone to knock the shit out of it and clean house. California is a mess, but its also a lot bigger than NJ. A lot of the policies and leadership is similar however.
Just to make sure it gets googled correctly… Bruce Willis for Governor - Bruce Willis for Governor - Bruce Willis for Governor
But that is what I think and I’m sticking to it.

News on California:

Gov. Gray Davis called the recall election against him “an insult” to voters Monday

I think the only insult to the votors is Gray Davis himself. Luckily, I don’t have to live in California. However, my friend Ryan does. Here is his view:

Honestly, I don’t care.. as long as Gray is outta there, NOTHING could possibly be worse… (Although, if Larry Flint wins, I’m gonna be the first to take out a loan for slot machines) I haven’t learned what all of them are behind but I think if it came down to it, the person who is willing to address the illegal immigration issue would have my vote.
In the last 3 years we lost 250,000 people to other states, yet our population has stayed constant. Illegal immigration is a huge issue that none of the politicians want to touch. They don’t pay taxes, the businesses who hire them don’t pay taxes, and now Gray wants to give them all drivers licenses. Not to mention they send back 7-8 billion dollars a year to Mexico. At one time, fleeing to the US from Mexico was considered treasonous. Now Pres Fox of Mexico is hailing them heroes for helping to rebuild their economy (largely on the backs of the border states). You want to know where our budget deficit can be resolved? Illegal Immigration. I think we can find people to mow lawns and work at fast food places, right here in America. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problems with immigration, just illegal immigration.

The way I figure it, the citizens of the state gets exactly what it deserves. Collective punishment is bad, you say? Well, it is California after all. A larger minority of voters wanted Grey Davis. Then they found out he completely lied about the budget. Which has steadily grown worse. I have a lot of relatives in California. The economy is in shambles. Its just a bad situation, that needs drastic measures.
We’re looking to move to Colorado in the near future. One of the things I read the other day is that Colorado has a neat law that limits the amount of government spending to a set amount per citizen, only allowed to grow depending on the inflation rate. Apparently right now Colorado is the only state in the US without money problems. Funny how that works, when a conservative state run by Republicans and Libertarians can work so well. Controlled government spending means the government can only afford to do the necessities.
Its not without its problems, just like anywhere. Walter posts about issues in the city government workforce. Go ahead, click the link, it is funny. Its all about possible layoffs for city workers. Now, when the city has to give layoffs, it schedules several meetings with the unions, with all the employees, etc., for months on end. When a normal company does it, you just get called down to HR and security will pack up your cubicle and leave it on the front step.

Not exactly what I was expecting…
but better than nothing I suppose.

No mention of the website or my main argument which was that under the L-1, ALL local jobs are fair game - not just tech…

Life in this universe would be so much more interesting were the supernatural, well, natural.
I’m not talking monsters everywhere, just enough so that there would be one or two zombie hunters listed in the yellow pages for a normal size city. That the police report in the paper would occasionally list bagging a vampire or werewolf that terrorized the waterfront. The person called a witch in high school, well, really is one.
Every company had on its payroll licensed fortune-tellers. I’m sorry, I meant licensed Future Possibility Analysts. Their position would be to present reports to the board based on stock prices, and will the software actually ship on time.
Ghosts would be something you could go see somewhere besides the cheesy double-wide trailer at the county fair.
Miskatonic University would revive its Medieval Metaphysics program for serious researchers. Couldn’t wait to see who won the Nobel Prize this year for the cancer curative properties of ectoplasm. The argument wouldn’t be about whether or not Bigfoot exists. It would be about the mating habits of the Yeti that are bred in captivity.
I’m not talking about having giant wars between the vampires and the wizards. Nothing that extreme. Just enough to add a little spice to the action. Remember, it would be completely normal.

Besides this, I have nothing to say. Its a slow day, my brain is fried from working, got too much to do and no incentive to get it done.
So I’ve been looking around the internet. I’ve found that I was linked to by google for “Pirate Recipes” so I searched to find out some. Most I’ve found were either some steak with chili sauce on it, or brightly colored drinks with rum. Now, rum is a good thing. Rum would get you to sit on 15,000 lbs of high explosives.
I set someone’s password to be nyarlathotep just for fun the other day. Would have been funnier had they known what it meant.

RWN has brought up things I never knew before about the Japanese surrender ending WWII. Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times wrote an article about the atomic bombings.
Just today the mayor of Hiroshima was haranging the US about the war in Iraq. One thing I noticed: MP George Galloway of Great Britain was on hand. This is the guy who apparently was taking money from Saddam Hussein. Just the kind of person you’d want at your event. Also found this interesting.
I knew that many factions in the Japanese government wanted to continue fighting while others wished to sue for peace. I find it interesting to know that the peace factions in WWII celebrated the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They realized that the fighting would continue until there was nothing left of Japan. Which happened to be the Allies plan, to invade Japan until resistance finally crumbled. Germany was almost completely destroyed because they kept fighting.
So the bombings gave them a way to go to the Emperor and the rest of the government and show the complete annihilation that was to come. This is what finally gave them enough to have the Emperor take them to the deck of the USS Missouri.
So the peace activists at the time realized how beneficial it was to have the bombings happen. And the peace activists of today have learned absolutely nothing from their forebears.
Also a fascinating tale about how useful torture is.