D-Rod, Tuning Spork, and Leif are tied for the lead with $1500; Shelly has $1000; Victor has $700; Law Fairy has $500; Maximum Leader and KG have $300 each; Matt of Overtaken By Events and Trint have $200 each; Drake Steel, TBinSTL, SkippyStalin and Blu have $100 each.

The category is "Ronald Reagan," for $200.

Posted by: annika at 05:27 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment
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Peter's summer vacation.

On a tropical paradise.

Posted by: annika at 11:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Posted by: annika at 09:11 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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OMG this is the most ROTFL thing I've heard in fucking ever.

More versions here. The Doors one made me cry it was so funny.

This video is pretty good too.

Posted by: annika at 08:20 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I just read Photon Courier's excellent post about the murder of Atefeh Sahaleh by the Iranian government. I call it a murder because I learned in my first year criminal law course that the term is defined as "the unjustified killing of a human being by another." What was Atefeh Sahaleh's crime? Having sex.

Oh, she was 16 years old.

[Still think the Iranians are basically nice guys who can be reasoned with?]

So, that led me to Amnesty International's excessively neutral post about the execution. You've heard of Amnesty International. They're the organization that's always criticizing the United States because we still have capital punishment.

So then I decided to compare stats. Without looking, can you guess which country killed more women last year?

If you guessed Iran, you'd be correct. In 2005, only one woman was executed in the United States.

[Her name was Frances Newton, and she was executed by lethal injection on September 14, 2005, by the State of Texas. When she was 24 years old, she shot her husband Adrian, her 7 year old son Alton, and her 21 month old daughter Farrah with a .25 caliber pistol to collect life insurance money. Frances Newton was 40 by the time she was finally executed for the crimes.]

Then I went over to a site called Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism In Iran. It's worth bookmarking if you're curious at all about the type of society our enemy would like to impose upon us.

Just looking at the left sidebar, which contains links to various news stories, is pretty enlightening. Here's a selection of headlines:

Amnesty International: Young woman, Delara Darabi, 19, facing imminent execution

A Kurdish woman sentenced to stoning

More crackdown on women

Women-only buses another government run, gender-apartheid program

Iran’s police stop 10-year-old girl for “mal-veiling”

Women ejected by force from Iran stadium

300,000 homeless women in Iran capital

Iran police prevent women from watching football match

Iran's Islamist rulers want sex segregation on pavements

Iran to hang another teenage girl attacked by rapists

Iran to execute two other women

An Iranian woman in the town of Varamin is sentenced to death by stoning

Iran sentences a woman to death by hanging

Another woman is sentenced to death by stoning in Iran

Female workers are ordered to get home by dusk to serve their families

Senior Iran cleric: Prostitutes must be hanged

Iran to execute two other women

Iran to hang 19-year old mother

Sixty Iranian women activists made a public appeal on Thursday for the release of a Kurdish feminist campaigner

Fundamentalists recruit Women for Martyrdom Seeker Movement in Iran.

Post-election, A New Wave of Crackdown on Women.

Thousands join womenÂ’s anti-government demonstration in Tehran.

Crackdown on Women.

Defeating misogyny in Iran .

Save the Women, Save Ourselves.

UN women's rights official raps Iran over abuses.

Four Iranian Women were executed in 2004 by public hanging or stoning. There are 14 women to be hanged or stoned to death in coming days, weeks or months.

A woman is facing stoning in next five days

A 19 year old mentally ill girl is facing imminent execution in Iran

Another woman facing stoning in Iran

13 year old, Jila, facing death by stoning flogged 55 times

Iranian Student protest forced veiling

Imminent execution of a 33-year-old Iranian women, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh...

Iran moves to roll back rights won by women...

Violence, poverty and abuse led girl, 16, to gallows...

Amnesty International outraged at the reported execution of a 16 year old girl in Iran...

'Painful' day as mother's death recalled. Zahra Kazemi's son still seeks answers. He has no faith in upcoming Iranian trial.

Iran's government has launched a crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress codes during the hot summer months.

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girlsÂ’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

You know, fuck Mike Wallace, fuck Ahmadi-Nejad, and fuck the fucking mullahs. These people are so completely evil, I can't even finish what I was going to write.

Update: Thanks to Beth of MVRWC, I've been alerted to this update regarding the Nazanin case.

On 3 January, 18-year-old Nazanin was sentenced to death for murder by a criminal court, after she reportedly admitted stabbing to death one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 16-year-old niece in a park in Karaj in March 2005. She was 17 at the time. (See Iran: Amnesty International calls for end to death penalty for child offenders, MDE 13/005/2006, 16 January 2006). At the end of May the Supreme Court rejected the death sentence against Nazanin, reportedly on the instructions of the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. The case will reportedly be retried in August and sent to a lower court for further investigation.

The Iranian government really is waging a war against women!

Posted by: annika at 07:06 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Is the big surprise, which the Iranians are planning within the next few days, an announcement that they already have the bomb?

Read this chilling interview with former Danish agent Regnar Rasmussen in Front Page Mag. He says the Iranians already got three warheads from Kazakhstan back in the nineties.

In autumn 1991 Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Khazakhstan, sold three nuclear warheads to the Iranians. The Iranians wanted to use them as a prototype for their own bomb manufacturing. The price was said to have been 7.5 billion USD. Whether this amount is true or just the fantasies of a less paid government official, I cannot verify. The amount was to cover all bribes and kick-offs and military protection during transport. Every country involved had demanded their fair share of the deal.

Anyway, the warheads were removed from a military depot somewhere in Kazakhstan and transported by train down to Makhachkala in Daghestan. Here they were reloaded onto huge trucks and then taken through the Caucasian region and into Turkey. In the city of Dogubeyazit the Iranians met the convoy and took over. The three vehicles were then driven by Iranian drivers down to the border post Bazargan, where they entered Iranian territory.

The warheads were brought down to Teheran and parked in the military campus Lavizan. Here they were seen by a soldier who later defected to Israel and told the story to the Israeli intelligence services who at that time were unable to verify the matter further. Various rumours have been circulating ever since. Some stories say two bombs, some say four. The correct number, however, is three.

The Wall Street Journal again reminds us that a nuclear Iran would be a bad thing.

“A nuclear-armed Iran would likely embolden the leadership in Tehran to advance its aggressive ambitions in and outside of the region, both directly and through the terrorists it supports—ambitions that gravely threaten the stability and the security of U.S. friends and allies,” says the House Intelligence report. With a nuclear arsenal that they felt protected them from retaliation, the mullahs would also be more likely to use conventional military force in the Middle East. The domino effect as Turkey, Egypt and the Saudis sought their own nuclear deterrent would also not be “stabilizing,” to cite the highest value of our Middle Eastern “realists.” And don’t forget President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow that “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

h/t Regime Change Iran & Protein Wisdom

Posted by: annika at 10:44 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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From the best contemporary Danish poet out there, Henrik Nordbrandt:

Sailing

After having loved we lie close together
and at the same time with distance between us
like two sailing ships that enjoy so intensely
their own lines in the dark water they divide
that their hulls
are almost splitting from sheer delight
while racing, out in the blue
under sails which the night wind fills
with flower-scented air and moonlight
- without one of them ever trying
to outsail the other
and without the distance between them
lessening or growing at all.

But there are other nights, where we drift
like two brightly illuminated luxury liners
lying side by side
with the engines shut off, under a strange constellation
and without a single passenger on board:
On each deck a violin orchestra is playing
in honor of the luminous waves.
And the sea is full of old tired ships
which we have sunk in our attempt to reach each other.

Posted by: annika at 09:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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D-Rod, Tuning Spork, and Leif are tied for the lead with $1500; Shelly has $1000; Victor has $700; Law Fairy has $500; Maximum Leader and KG have $300 each; Matt of Overtaken By Events and Trint have $200 each; Drake Steel, TBinSTL and SkippyStalin have $100 each.

There's still plenty of money left on the board for you dark horses to make a move!

The category is "Ronald Reagan," for $100.

Posted by: annika at 09:11 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Guys like Chuck Hagel and David Gergen seem to think that talking to the Iranians will prevent them from joining the nuclear club. It's a crazy idea, and I don't understand why so many notable people have put their faith in this silly course of action.

Iran is presented with a finite number of choices and outcomes, which can be easily and logically analyzed. At the end of any honest analysis, you can see that it is simply not in the mullahs' interest to negotiate away their nuclear arms program. Therefore it's logical to assume that they won't, not only because they have repeatedly said they won't, but also because the best possible course of action from Iran's point of view (regardless of whether they are rational or irrational actors) is to continue their program until they get the bomb.

It's like simple math.

Assume three possible outcomes available to Iran from the current state of negotiations.

Outcome O_N: Iran gets a nuclear weapon.¹

Outcome O_I: Iran gets a package of incentives from the West.

Outcome O_S: International sanctions imposed on Iran, most likely a combination of economic and diplomatic restrictions.

Although it's not essential to my analysis, you may also assume that the West² wishes to prevent outcome O_N, but also that the values of outcomes O_I and O_S are variable and uncertain, due to dissention within the West.

Now at first glance, one can see two alternative courses of action for Iran that are obvious.

Course of action CA₁: Iran refuses to abandon its nuclear enrichment program, rejects all efforts at compromise, and continues working until they get the bomb.

Course of action CA₂: Iran abandons its nuclear program in exchange for the package of incentives offered by the West.

CA₁ = O_N - (O_I + O_S)

CA₂ = (O_I + O_S) - O_N

However, we live in the real world and we all know that the value of a nuclear weapon to the country that possesses it far outweighs the value of any combination of incentives or sanctions the West could possibly offer. Especially if said country has already expressed its desire to wipe a hated enemy off the map, and has recently sent weapons, including rockets, missiles and drones to a proxy army fighting said hated enemy as recently as this month.

Given the above, one would assume that Iran would pursue course of action CA₁, but as we have seen, they continue to pay lip service to the negotiation track, CA₂. Are they really pursuing course of action CA₂? Not if CA₁ > CA₂! What then, are they doing?

Perhaps there is a CA₃, a third course of action that would tempt Iran with the opportunity to gain outcomes O_N and O_I at the same time without incurring any sanctions.

CA₃ = (CA₁ + CA₂) = (O_N + O_I) - O_S

CA₃ = (O_N + O_I + O_S)

But CA₃ contains one flaw: verification. Certainly the West, weak as its negotiating position is, will never agree to deliver incentives without a gauranteed inspection regime. Although the inspections might be watered down, we already know about the Esfahan, Natanz, and Arak facilities, so it would be difficult for the Iranians to refuse access to those sites. Some experts estimate the number of centrifuges necessary at Natanz for a decent enrichment program to be 50,000. That kind of operation would be hard to disguise or relocate.

That's why I think Iran is following another course of action, CA₄:

CA₄ = (O_N x TN_T) - (O_I - O_S)

Course of action CA₄ translates into what we've been watching unfold during the past several months. Iran negotiates in bad faith, makes empty promises, renegs, delays, obfuscates, then makes more empty promises, all the while maintaining their research and enrichment activity.

It's possible that a compromise settlement might be reached in the near future, but I seriously doubt it. Iran has repeatedly and unambiguously asserted its intention never to give up its enrichment program (a fact that seems to be lost on many negotiation-fixated politicians and pundits). I take the Iranians at their word, because it's not in their interest to give up the bomb. They've already done the math.
_______________

1.    Or, more accurately, Iran successfully gains the ability to domestically produce fissile material for manufacturing nuclear weapons. One can assume that creating delivery systems such as missiles and warheads are less of a problem for the Iranians. These can be purchased, or reverse-engineered by Iranian technicians. But weapons grade plutonium and/or uranium from their own factories are what they need to become a nuclear power, and this is the outcome we need to prevent.

2.    i.e. the U.S. and certain allies, to varying degrees.

Posted by: annika at 07:21 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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ABC News says Iran has delivered their response to the "package of Western incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment." Apparently, nobody knows what's in the Iranian proposal yet.

How much you wanna bet it's a "demand for Jizya," or a tax on non-muslims. Just a hunch, but we've already had the "call to Islam," so it's time for step two in Ahmadi-Nejad and the Mullah's 3 step plan for jihad.

Update: When you read stories about today's Iranian proposal (indeed, when you read any story about the current standoff), especially by the Associated Press, I want you to notice one conspicuous omission. The AP is always careful to balance the U.S.'s accusation that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon with a "fair and balanced" disclaimer like this:

Iran says it wants to master the technology to generate nuclear power.

Iran says it will not abandon what it calls its right to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power stations.

One might think that little bit of information would add some important perspective to the story.

Posted by: annika at 08:24 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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[I can't help but join in the huge Passey hatin' dogpile that's been going on in every corner of the blogosphere lately. She's too easy of a target.]

Every time I looked in the mirror, I cried a little. I'd see my own awful skin blemishes and they'd remind me of how inadequate I was next to Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most perfect female.

Then I imagine Terrence out with her. And I remember the cruel questions he used to ask me before he dumped me for Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most perfect female.

"Why can't you be slim like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, instead of being one of the 62% of women who are fat according to Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey?"

"Why can't you be more attractive than 86% of the women whose pictures have been rated by visitors to the website Hot or Not, like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey is?"

"Why can't you be relatively young like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, instead of being one of the 82% of American adult women who are old according to Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey?"

"Why can't you be smarter than 97.5% of the population, like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most smartest and perfectest female?"

"Why can't you have your financial shit together like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey the world's most financially shit-togetheringest female?"

"Why can't you have a strong libido and love to have sex like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most horniest female, whose lovers never have to beg, except when they have to beg to be allowed to go to sleep?"

"Why can't you have interests that tend to be more popular with men, like science fiction, libertarianism, blogging, politics, economics, guns, gambling, scratching, picking, sniffing, and eating of one's own boogers, like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most masculine female?"

How I wished I could win Terrence back. I cried and cried and cried, boo hoo hoo. Then my best friend told me about the secret of Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment!

Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment was such a quick, easy way to attain just the tiniest fraction of the perfection that Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most perfect female was born with!

And since the whole country is littered with low quality men who've been cast off by Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey like so many squamous cells after a nightly exfoliation of her perfectly unblemished and taut ass, I realized that all I needed to have was a tiny fraction of Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey's perfect perfection in order to hook me a fine low quality man!

Why, if Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey can boast of receiving 50 to 100 (sometimes more) responses whenever she trolls for high quality men in the personal ads of her local free newspaper, I was sure I could find at least one medium quality man and perhaps several low quality men by utilizing Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment!

And when I heard that Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey (who knows how to make money blogging, ask her how) had kicked Terrence to the curb, because he turned out to be just another low quality man (and she being quality, only dates quality), I resolved to give Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment a try!

What did I have to lose? I asked. And after only a week of Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment, what I gained was Terrence, who became mine again . . . completely!

The secret is in the special patented Super Stick, invented by Dr. Passey. The treatment only takes three minutes a day and the results can be felt instantaneously!

After you wake up in the morning, all you do is take Dr. Passey's Super Stick, apply the special patented Super Stick lubricating ointment to the outside of the Super Stick, apply some more to the outer rim of your anal sphincter, and then shove the Super Stick in as far as it will go!

Walk around like that all day, and I gaurantee you will begin talking, acting, and looking just like Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey in no time. She's the world's most perfectest female of them all!

Try Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment in the privacy of your own home for a free ten day trial and watch the results on your own face, when you first administer the treatment. I think you'll agree, there's no feeling in the world like the Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey feeling. It's absolutely gauranteed to take your breath away!

So act quickly, supplies are limited, and so is the number of low to medium quality men. You may never hope to bag as much high quality man-flesh as Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, the world's most perfectest female, but once you start using Dr. Passey's Super Stick Treatment like she does, you'll be sure to have your pick of the leftovers.

So be a hot chick . . . hop on the stick!
Dr. Passey's Super Stick, that is!

Posted by: annika at 12:56 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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I'm a friend of haile selassie
I'm a friend of mother jones
I'm a friend of jackie passey
I'm a friend of long john holmes

I'm a friend of kathy griffin
I'm a friend of clay aiken
I'm a friend of old cal ripken
I'm a friend of barbie's ken

I'm a friend of stuart smalley
I'm a friend of michael moore
I'm a friend of janey pauley
I'm a friend of daniel schorr

I'm a friend of tuning sporky
I'm a friend of ned lamont's
I'm a friend of doc kevorky
I'm a friend of the country france

I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
I'm a friend of a friend but you don't know me
I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
And if I go there tonight, can I get in free?

I'm a friend of sarah connor
I'm a friend of miles dyson
I'm a friend of the party donner
I'm a friend of andre rison

I'm a friend of molly ringwald
I'm a friend of lance armstrong
I'm a friend of what's this thing called?
I'm a friend of long duk dong

I'm a friend of frida kahlo
I'm a friend of ed asner
I'm a friend of a girl named j-lo
I'm a friend of fat bastard

I'm a friend of lindsay lohan
I'm a friend of billy gates
I'm a friend of joshie groban
I'm a friend of norman bates

I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
I'm a friend of a friend but you don't know me
I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
So can I get in tonight . . . cuz I have to pee!

I'm a friend of chelsea clinton
I'm a friend of jar jar binks
I'm a friend of hergé's tintin
I'm a friend of michael spinks

I'm a friend of debbie schlussel
I'm a friend of that crocodile
I'm a friend of simon cowell
I'm a friend of katherine heigl

I'm a friend of kathleen willey
I'm a friend of blue man crew
I'm a friend of anything silly
I'm a friend of youtube too

I'm a friend of brian boitano
I'm a friend of what's-his-face
I'm a friend of kazakhstan-o
I'm a friend of the human race

Posted by: annika at 08:48 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Annie's drunk!!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 09:22 PM (o9M49)

2 Though, I gotta say, rhyming Ed Asner with Fat Bastard was pretty dang funny. Not to mention sporky/kevorky, of course.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 09:49 PM (o9M49)

3 OMG ur a friend of linsey lohan cn u get me her email addy she is SOOOOOOOOO AWSUM k thx by

Posted by: Leif at August 22, 2006 10:19 AM (CPQ57)

4 I got no friends and I hate everyone. What can I rhyme with that?

Posted by: kyle8 at August 22, 2006 02:25 PM (R+pIN)

5 kyle8, you simply say what you just posted, to the tune of Talking Heads' "Girlfriend is Better".

Posted by: mitchell porter at August 22, 2006 08:12 PM (shx+O)

6 But it really doesn't matter who you put upon the list.Cause there's none of them be missed.There's none of them be missed.

Posted by: colin at August 24, 2006 06:29 PM (fNoD4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

[part of a continuing series]

What does "turnkey" mean? I keep hearing it in radio advertisements, referring to a kind of business.

Posted by: annika at 09:09 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Be my virtual valet. Please don't steal any change out of the dash.

Warning: don't click the link if you have anything important to do today.

h/t Merri Musings

Posted by: annika at 07:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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D-Rod, Tuning Spork, and Leif are tied for the lead with $1500; Shelly and Victor have $700 each; Law Fairy has $500; Maximum Leader and KG have $300 each; Matt of Overtaken By Events and Trint have $200 each; Drake Steel, TBinSTL and SkippyStalin have $100 each.

The category is "Dicks," for $300.

Posted by: annika at 10:21 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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1 Bzzzzzt!!! What is a Jaguar Hearse?

Posted by: shelly at August 21, 2006 12:03 AM (ZGpMS)

2 Bzzzzzzzzzzt.....! What is a Jaguar XK-E? Y'see, Harold had a custom-made "Jaguar hearse". But the clues says that "Harold drove ONE off a cliff...", not "Harold drove IT off a cliff...". Mwuhhuhhahhahhahhah...!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 12:30 AM (Es3DV)

3 You seriously need to get a life.

Posted by: shelly at August 21, 2006 06:17 AM (ZGpMS)

4 I'm puzzled. I know the movie, the car, the scene, but what does it have to do with "dicks"? I have a feeling that there's more to this, I just can't find it.

Posted by: Trint at August 21, 2006 07:13 AM (SlSdA)

5 the car is a phallic symbol Shelly's response is acceptable, and he has control of the board.

Posted by: annika at August 21, 2006 09:03 AM (zAOEU)

6 Attention to detail IS my life.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 01:53 PM (2lV6Z)

7 Like I said, you seriously need to get a life; detail this. OK, Annie, I gotta get me to Sacratomato today, so I'll give you the next category Wednesday when I get back.

Posted by: shelly at August 22, 2006 12:44 AM (ZGpMS)

8 Wo ho, look at you Shelly. Controllin' the pace like Pat Riley! Have fun in the River City!

Posted by: annika at August 22, 2006 01:27 AM (qQD4Q)

9 Woah! As Peter Pumpkin once said: "WTF?!" Annie Banannie, in Shelly's absence I say ye pick a category. I suggest Ronald Reagan fer $200. Take that, Shelly, mmmwwweehh!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 22, 2006 01:44 AM (o9M49)

10 OK, Annie, the topic is The gipper for $100. Spork, your life is back on...

Posted by: shelly at August 23, 2006 12:44 PM (ZGpMS)

11 Shelly, if you're outta Sacratomato I guess your life is back on too. I learned last year in annika's jeopardy that Sacratomato isn't a real place.

Posted by: d-rod at August 23, 2006 01:37 PM (hCh7a)

12 Sorry unfortunately, Sacramento IS my life. Yes, it is kind of a dream world there, but real things happen to real people; the legislators just don't know they are doing it, and the people never make the connect to understand how it is that they got so screwed. If they ever do figure it out, the Democrats will never win another election, even for dogcatcher.

Posted by: shelly at August 23, 2006 03:00 PM (ZGpMS)

13 Dang, I forgot to tell you to hit J.R.'s Texas BBQ while you were there.

Posted by: annika at August 23, 2006 06:10 PM (qQD4Q)

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From the New York Times:

A senior Bush administration official said Thursday that he anticipated that the United Nations would move rapidly in September to impose sanctions on Iran if it refused to halt uranium enrichment . . .

"I think we would want to move very quickly in the first part of September toward a debate in the Security Council about sanctions," he said. "They will be well deserved as this has gone on a long time."

The resolution passed by the Security Council on July 31 demands that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing work by the end of August or face the possibility of sanctions. It noted the need for “further decisions,” however, before any punishments for noncompliance could be pursued.

“The will of a lot of countries has been strengthened by watching the Iranian government trying to destabilize both Lebanon and Israel over the last 30 to 40 days,” he said.

The Iranian government denies that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is peaceful, for research and energy development.

Posted by: annika at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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There's currently a big brouhaha about whether to demote Pluto from its planetary status, or whether to keep it as planet under a definition that would also include hundreds of other objects in the solar system.

I don't understand what the problem is. When I learned the alphabet back in kindergarten, I learned that there were five vowels. They were a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Now if you count the vowels in that list you get six, not five. But that doesn't change the fact that there are five vowels, and y is one of them, sometimes.

So why can't we just say there are eight planets, and Pluto is one of them. We can then define "planet" with a definition that excludes Pluto, while giving Pluto some kind of honorary planet status.

We do things like this all the time. There are crayolas called "white" and "black" despite the fact that those are not real colors. And Canada is a member of the United Nations, despite the fact that it's not a real country. Also, Paris Hilton recorded a CD despite the fact that she's not a real singer.

So let's just call Pluto a planet and move on to more urgent global problems.

You're welcome. That's what I'm here for, to solve the big issues.

Posted by: annika at 12:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The civilized world is in trouble. At a time when our reputation for getting things done around the globe is in doubt, radical Islam's reputation is gaining steam. Israel just lost its first war, at the hands of a bunch of cowards who hid behind women and children. Only a week after we stopped a major terrorist attack that might have killed over three thousand innocent people, a judge in this very country declared one of the methods used to save those lives is unconstitutional. North Korea probably has a nuclear bomb. Iran will probably get one soon (If they can't make it, what's to stop them from getting one from Kim Jong-il?). The best we can do to stop these madmen is to threaten sanctions that will never be imposed and wouldn't work even if they were.

Anything we do to stop western civilization from spiralling down the abyss is criticized and opposed tooth and nail by a fifth column in our own country. Movie stars who deny that al Qaeda did 9-11; people who call Bush the world's #1 terrorist (forget that, people call me a terrorist!); newspapers that refuse to publicize any wartime successes, while rushing to weaken our ability to defend against our enemies; a Supreme Court that bends over backwards for feces throwing barbarians who would kill untold Americans if only they were set free.

We all know what the problem is. It's Bush hatred syndrome. John Kerry says we should have one-on-one talks with North Korea simply because Bush is persuing multilateral talks. Then he criticizes the administration's foreign policy for excessive unilateralism. Bush is villified for removing Saddam Hussein, which is merely the successful culmination of a policy directive signed by President Clinton. The United States, long criticized for supporting evil dictators, is now told by enlightened leftists that the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam (whom we created anyway?!).

There is one solution I can think of, which could neutralize the anti-Americanism of today's leftist fifth column. We need to neutralize them now because the time to fight for civilization's very existence may be coming sooner than we think. And when the real fight comes, it won't be pretty. This country needs to be free to act without destructive second guessing by those who have a political axe to grind, or who outright sympathize with the enemy. A proper solution is one that will silence anti-American critics, and get everybody working on the same side.

The solution I have devised would allow George W. Bush to maintain the same foreign policy course as he has for the last six years. The only thing he would need to do to silence all his critics is to announce that he is gay. A tearful press conference with his longtime "companion" on his right and Laura on his left should do it. From that point on, anything he does will be golden, in the eyes of the left. Andrew Sullivan might even turn Republican again.

What about the so-called evangelicals, you say? First of all, Bush isn't running in '08, so he doesn't need their vote. And if they're smart, they'll understand the unseen political wink, and not be too upset about it. You know the political wink I'm talking about. It's the same one Democrats give to their own base whenever they talk about "reaching out" to "religious people."

Let's all join in a new political battle cry: "George W. Bush, come out of the closet before it's too late!"

Posted by: annika at 04:51 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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D-Rod and Tuning Spork are tied for the lead with $1500; Leif has $1400; Shelly and Victor are tied with $700 each; Law Fairy has $500; Maximum Leader and KG have $300 each; Matt of Overtaken By Events and Trint have $200 each; Drake Steel, TBinSTL and SkippyStalin have $100 each.

The category is "Vexatious Vexillology," for $100.

Posted by: annika at 11:54 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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I'm gettin' Instalanched over at Six Meat Buffet. Why is it, the bigs never link to my blog? All my biggest 'lanches have been at other blogs. That's what I get for spreadin' the love!

Posted by: annika at 09:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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