This clip will never get old.



Heh.

I had to laugh.

Striking faculty members at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus were informed by e-mail that their health-care coverage through the university has been canceled but that they could continue coverage at their own expense under the terms of the federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or Cobra.

Brian Harmon, the campus's public-relations director, said that the university stopped faculty members' health-care coverage when the strike began, on Wednesday, the first day of fall classes, because it is permissible to do so under the institution's policies on benefits. The coverage, he added, can be reestablished once the professors go back to their classrooms.

I want to see how long the strike lasts now.

So the UN finally passed a resolution.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council voted Thursday to authorize military action, including airstrikes against Libyan tanks and heavy artillery and a no-fly zone, a risky foreign intervention aimed at averting a bloody rout of rebels by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Senator Lugar thinks the President has to ask for a declaration of war. (Where was this guy in 2003? Seriously.)

Anyway, the UN resolution means that yes, Libya can be bombed now. The Enterprise was in the Red sea on March 10th. Anybody know where it is now? Will the President order airstrikes? Can he? Does Congress have to approve any action? Will they?

Discuss.

Student suspended for riding horse to school

Zero Tolerance

Bad Clovis People! Bad! Bad!

The Devil is always in the details.

A computer game retailer revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions agreed to by online shoppers.

The retailer, British firm GameStation, added the "immortal soul clause" to the contract signed before making any online purchases earlier this month. It states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.

Apparently the thing is an April Fool's joke, but still.

The power of contracts and deals runs very deep in Western civilization. God knows what could be conjured with something like this.

I’m unhappy and my life is hard and nobody understands and this should be important to you.

Read it quickly before the woman comes to her senses and takes it down.

Grim, you ain't missing anything. Get settled with your family.

(via Ace of Spades)

I keep saying it sounds better in the original German.

But hey, it is a snappy tune.

I keep telling people that you couldn't make this shiat up if you tried.

I think the phrase is "sympathetic magic".

You know, take an umbrella if it looks like rain, and it won't rain, but if you didn't you'd get soaked.

So my first reaction on seeing this was: "But it will."

Healthcare Reform Named After Ted Kennedy Must Not Suck.

I suspect that the naming of things is still has power.

NO FAT CHICKS

A new PETA billboard campaign that was just launched in Jacksonville reminds people who are struggling to lose weight -- and who want to have enough energy to chase a beach ball -- that going vegetarian can be an effective way to shed those extra pounds that keep them from looking good in a bikini. "Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly is no day at the beach," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman.

Yup, I think that's going to convince people. Really.

(via American Digest)

North Korea Tests Second Nuclear Device, Fires Short-Range Missiles

Korea made its second test of a nuclear explosive on Monday and declared it was more destructive than the first, an advance that is likely to embolden Kim Jong Il's regime in rebuffing calls by the U.S. and others to halt its weapons program.

The country also launched three short-range missiles, including one from the same site from which it fired a long-range missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean seven weeks ago.

It never quite starts where you expect it to.

Right now, it seems Iran is the focus of the Obama administration's nuclear worries.

East wind, rain.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution, Kyodo news agency said on Monday, weeks after a North Korean missile launch.

In 1941, the Roosevelt administration expected, that if war broke out, the Japanese would attack the Philipines first.

People don't always do what you expect them to.

Oh, and happy Memorial Day to all.

The guy over at the Volokh conspiracy is right; this is just creepy. (catch it at 3:54)

I could make all sorts of rude jokes on this, but I don't feel like polluting the hall like that. But Jeebus. What were they thinking? Do they realize how insane they sound? Not to mention how nobody is going to believe their bullshit?

Another one who just doesn't get it.

Quite a while ago, I fisked the same sort of academic who was upset over the fact that the US no longer conscripts its troops. (I note for the record that we never actually did hear back from that professor.)

Any way, the writer of this article, one Danielle Allen (who has some sort of post at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton) manages to observe this:

Military institutions across nations and throughout time have always been important creators of culture. They strive to develop unbreakable bonds of solidarity among their members based on shared values, experiences and outlooks.

and this:

I spotted the link between military service and regional partisan divisions when I was researching not military history but Internet political communication. After spending time on political Web sites of the right and left, I noticed that posts on right-leaning sites often employed military lingo -- habits of developing monikers and jingles and of using the vocabulary of military tactics and strategy. Left-leaning sites, in contrast, mostly lacked any easily recognizable features of military language.

This is one sign that our public sphere already suffers from a division between military and non-military cultures. The division is not trivial, and without institutional change it is likely to be durable.

And finally this:

It is time to think seriously about a structure for national service -- both military and non-military -- that could successfully integrate young people from different regions of the country so that they will come, at least, to understand each other. We need to weave a fabric of shared citizenship anew.

As I said then, (and I don't really think I can say it any better now):

A universal duty to service is already there. It exists whether or not there is a draft law. To fufill that duty, all it takes is to walk into a recruiting station and say, “I wish to join.” The professor could have done that at anytime in his life. He appears to have chosen not to. In short, the professor himself is at the heart of the professor’s argument that there is a disconnect between the citizenry and the military. Enough of the professor’s generation decided that a draft was unnecessary and made its feelings known quite loudly that the draft was abolished. And now the professor is complaining because there isn’t a draft?

She manages to make the connection between military culture and "the" culture at large, (I wonder if she read Martin van Creveld's "The Culture of War", he talks alot about the military and culture in that book), notices the distinct lack of military jargon on left-tard sites, and can only come up with the idea that we'd better draft people so that they 'weave a fabric of shared citizenship anew'. Oh, and its supposed to be both 'military and non-military' too.

BUT SHE JUST DOESN'T GET IT.

All those people on left-tard sites could have joined up. but they didn't. They. Did. Not. Of their own free will. 40 years of academia, movies, books, radio, rock and roll etc, etc, etc, running down the military will do that, you know. And now she wants to change it? Good luck with that.

The duty is there whether it performed or not. All you have to is Do. Your. Duty.

So just who is threatening you, Congressman?

Back at his home, Emanuel appeared "beet-red," according to an ABC News cameraman who was invited inside by Emanuel to use his bathroom this morning.

"I'm getting regular death threats. You've put my home address on national television. I'm pissed at the networks. You've intruded too much, " Emanuel said, according to the cameraman.

I'm thinking that cameraman is going to need a porta-john from now on, though.

This looks pretty bad. Of course, if the congressman would quit farking lying through his teeth, maybe the reporters would farking go away.

But maybe not. Jeez, and I thought it was going to take till the summer for Obama's administration to screw up.

Dude, there are sharks circling, and you are the crew of the Indianapolis. And you farking did it to yourself, you silly retread.

You just had to lie about it.

You. Just. Had. To.

Tell 'em, Ed.

Can you do better?

I just know Grim's going to like this:

"US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has announced his resignation from the controversial Chicago church he attended for 20 years"

It's getting crowded under that bus.

Rashomon.

“There’s a lot of people with a lot of different perspectives,” Prosecutor David Gibbons said. “It’s difficult to say what caused it.”

I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it soon.

This here, is what you call a Freudian slip.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Yup, just keep talking. It's most instructive.

Clever lads.

If this isn't proof that the UK is overrun with surveillance cameras, I don't know what is.

One of the most difficult things for a DIY label to do is to create an engaging music video on a shoestring budget. The Get Out Clause has found a novel way around this problem using a combination of Manchester’s state of the art CCTV system and a little knowledge of the Freedom of Information & Data Protection Act. The Get Out Clause set up at various locations around Manchester city centre where they knew there would be CCTV coverage and performed their new single Paper. The footage was then requested under the Freedom of Information & Data Protection Acts and a video was cut together in their home studio.

What's also telling is that all those cameras don't seem to be doing anything to reduce the crime rate, either. At least somebody has found a use for the things.

(via Art of the Prank)

WELL. This is just plain fascinating.

Memeorandum, at 10:20pm EST on April 12th.

Senator Obama has, as the saying goes, stepped on his training aid; and reveals that he really does not have a clue. Either that, or he's just not experienced enough to act in the Kabuki theater that American presidential election politics has become lately.

And you know what else? I still think he's going to get nominated by the Democrats.

Now, as in wars, those who make the fewest (or maybe the smallest) mistakes typically win. McCain at this point just basically has to not make any big mistakes like this, and he's going to get elected President.