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"A cruel debate opponent" "Pagan blasphemer" "Reverse-iconoclast" "don't get pissed at him b/c he pwn yalls whiney asses"
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Location: Indiana, United States

Miscellaneous meanderings and philosophical ramblings. The title from a spiral notebook I used to jot down my thoughts on religion and other matters some years ago. I like to write, think and express my views on various issues. Robust discussion is welcome.


Chris of Rights and Charles Martin <-- Lists of debunked Sarah Palin rumors

"Lan astaslem."
I will not submit. I will not surrender.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

I've been censored?


And perhaps your blog has been censored as well. As many are aware, the Chinese government attempts to control access to the Internet by blocking web sites and search engine results.

A site has been made that allows one to check to see what URLs have been blocked.

greatfirewallofchina.org (thanks to Crazy Samantha Burns)

greatfirewallchinablocked

I'm suspecting that Blogspot in general has been blocked. Then again, I did criticize the China/Google search engine fiasco and other matters in previous posts.

Maybe I should ease up on commies when I post.

mmm - nope, ain't gonna happen.

---

Filed under: Misc.

Trackposted to: Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, third world county, Right Celebrity, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Pirate's Cove, The Right Nation, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, A Blog For All, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, , Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, LaTogaStrappata®, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, sissunchi, Allie Is Wired, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, CORSARI D'ITALIA, High Desert Wanderer, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

It's going to be a busy week


While it would be tempting to make this post about Rosie O'Donnell's 9-11conspiracy lunacy, or the (ir)rational response squad, as both subjects have shown to be quite useful as idiot magnets (exhibits a, b, c) and therefore quite entertaining, I'll do something else. I'm going to be quite busy this next week and doubt I'll be able to post anything so here's a bit more on the Battle of Thermopylae, which was dramatized to great affect in 300 the movie, a film I greatly enjoyed.

The History Channel had a special about the battle, using computer graphics to help illustrate the tactics and events. It's been uploaded to Youtube in three parts.

The Battle Of Thermopylae 1

The Battle Of Thermopylae 2

The Battle Of Thermopylae 3

And to the dork who whined about my not meeting his schedule for approving his inane twaddle regarding 9-11, I probably won't have the ability to approve comments either for the entire week. Sorry, but Karl Rove needs to brief me for my next assignment.

Until I can post again. RAAARRRR!

300-1

My apologies if that caused the French to surrender.

---

Filed under: Movies -- Misc.

Trackposted to: Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Pentimento, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Uncooperative Blogger, Pirate's Cove, LaTogaStrappata®, Right Voices, Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, Maggie's Notebook, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, LaTogaStrappata®, sissunchi, Faultline USA, Allie Is Wired, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, CORSARI D'ITALIA, High Desert Wanderer, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Sunday, March 18, 2007

OTA Open Trackback 03.19.07


As the lovely Samantha Burns says:

Please use this space to trackback your best, main page articles (I just require a link to this article, as always). Also, if you have something to discuss, it is welcomed here as well.

ADVICE: Trackback main blog page articles to showcase your work (and it will help to attract readers).

Yep, I was in a plagirizing mood ;-) Nevertheless, it's a good way to draw more attention to your blog, so trackback away :-) I'll have one of these each Monday, because, well, I hate Mondays ;-p

Please refrain from using international accent marks in your post url. The inline trackback script will fail if those are used.

Do NOT link your open trackback post here. Use Linkfest Haven instead.

63126210_cf86211d09_o

More trackback partys, open posts and linkfests can be found at:

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Get the code for this blogroll
Add this Blogroll to your site


Filed under: OpenTrackback

Disclaimer: trackbacks do not necessarily represent the opinions or standards of Mark My Words

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Henry Waxman - closeted Islamofacist?


Judging from his recent performance, just like Islamofacists, he doesn't like an informed woman speaking. Either that, or he's just a megalomaniac who cares nothing for truth in his grasping for power. Hmm, maybe the Islamofacists are closeted liberal Demoncraps.

The video at HotAir

Notice his complaining about defining the law in question. Heaven forbid a law be defined, before application, or hearing from someone who actually wrote it. You can't do that if you want to have the convenience of applying it willy nilly as your political calculations determine your strategy and targets. Welcome to the political "trials" of the former Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes.

As noted in one comment in that HotAir post, how would everyone react if Republicans treated Valerie (she's a babe) Plame that way?

This show trial and agencies like CNN that cover it, layered with their bias, undermine our constitutional government and do nothing to properly inform anyone. I would say they should be ashamed, but they've shown that they are far beyond feeling any shame for their actions.

---

Filed under: Politics -- MSM

Trackposted to: Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Sujet- Celebrities, Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, , stikNstein... has no mercy, Overtaken by Events, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, Adam's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Some people just have too much time...


To display their ignorance and their desire to maintain it. I recently criticized the Rosie, for her silly 9-11 comments on her blog. Hardly surprising, though rather entertaining, is that someone took exception to that and made repeated comments disagreeing with me.

It's rather funny, when someone complains about my calling their tactics conspiracy lunacy, and then they go right on and provide even more evidence supporting what I said.

So, for the entertainment of my reader, I'm going to bring this particular individual's latest comments into a post. You can see what preceded here.

The looney tune's original comments in regular font, my replies in bold, interspersed throughout.

---

conspiracy lunacy?

Yes and thanks for providing more evidence of that.

are you claiming that the government and mainstream media should never be questioned and they offer 100% truth and accuracty 100% of the time. And everyone in authority is to be trusted 100% of the time and to do otherwise is indulging in "conspiracy lunacy"

Nope, never said that, red herring 101, look it up.

That is what you are implying by anyone who has sincere and good intentions about finding out the truth about 911 which even you would have to admit is a noble thing to do.

The search for truth is noble. The problem is, you've spent all this time making your previous vacuous statements and then tossing out this drivel, much of which has been answered by a link I provided in a previous post.

I am not sure what role the government had in 911 and the wtc fall.

You say this and then go on to throw the typical yadda ya out there, and demonstrate you haven't even bothered to do an elementary search for answers even on my blog.

But I do know the building clearly did not look like it fell from fire. I have eyes. I know it looks like it fell from explosives.

Nope. Take some time to actually go through the images here.

From the author:

Put it all together, then, and the “squibs” appear after WTC7 has begun to fall, as floors sag across the building, and at almost exactly the same time as this effect causes other windows to break. As these also appear to eject more material than the “squibs”, then the most plausible explanation is they’re nothing more than windows breaking as the building falls.

The BBC report is to say the least a little odd.

Only if you're desperate to find conspiracy. As I already said in reply to another Rosie supporter:

John, I've seen the video in question. News reporters make mistakes all the time, even more so under stressful conditions. Considering that firefighters pulled away from the building because it was so dangerous it's not surprising that a live report, during a traumatic event, would have such an error. Your silly tactics are typical of conspiracy lunacy.

Video of firemen telling people to get away from the building because it was about to "come down" is a little odd.

Because they should wait until an unstable structure is actually falling? Remind me not to have you run a safety program anywhere.

Larry silverstein saying he and the fire cheif decided to "pull it" ( I don't think Larry was referring to the firefighters as "its" do you?)

It can easily refer to pulling the operation. You really are desperate to maintain this conspiracy aren't you? More here on this  pull it yadda ya. You fail again.

Most suspiciously of all however is the government immediatly sending all the rubble to Asia to be recycled immediatly without any investigation of the molten steel.

Nope, wrong again. As noted here.

Many of the sites who talk about this like to emphasise the “speed” of the recycling operation. For example:

...the steel beams were quickly recycled before investigators even had the chance to look at them...

Sounds suspect, right? But it’s also untrue. First, the steel wasn’t entirely cleared from the site until May 2002, not perhaps as quick as the claims suggest.

The author goes on to quote an investigator:

"There has been some concern expressed by others that the work of the team has been hampered because debris was removed from the site and has subsequently been processed for recycling. This is not the case. The team has had full access to the scrap yards and to the site and has been able to obtain numerous samples. At this point there is no indication that having access to each piece of steel from the World Trade Center would make a significant difference to understanding the performance of the structures".

Just the fact that a building that size was completely demolished from several relatively small fires is odd enough to warrant an investigation into the cause. don'y ya think?

Not sure which building you're referring to here. So I'll reference several items.

WTC-7 fires were not small

A number of claims against the WTC towers being brought down by the fire alone are dealt with here. The author also has numerous links regarding the WTC towers demolition here. He includes links to both sides of the argument as well, so don't get your panties in a twist about bias. You look silly enough without flopping into the argumentum ad hominem fallacy.

Yeah I do to but not the governement.

Except your assertion about the recycling is false and leaves this conclusion unsupported.

Why dosen't the media EVER mention the mysterious demolition of building 7?

Because it ain't so mysterious.

Ever see it replayed on mainstream network tv? me neither?

Already dealt with in WTC-7 fires were not small and the several links at that article.

Why in the world would a president who's country has been attacked to this degree not want a thorough and complete investigation?

Your one support for this conclusion, ie the recycling, has been show to be in error.

There are hundreds of questions like this and either

So? There are answers for each one of these.

1. You are completely brainwashed. 2. You have a 75 I.Q. or lower. or 4. Your benefit financially, politically or otherwise from perpetuating this nonsense. Unless you are a complete moron which you might be you are equal to a Nazi sympathizer.

And there you go, flopping into the ad hominem fallacy and/or you need to get some help with your Freudian projection problem.

---

Dork boy, having a serious OCD issue with tossing his ignorance on my blog, added this comment, before I finished this post.

as I am sure you are well aware of you sound like the fool. Saying that 911 has unanswered questions does not equal a conspiracy theory

*yawn*

Even more hilarious, while I was putting this post together, he replied again.

you won't even "approve" a comment that raises questions that you can't respond to with an insult. I really hope this administration has your back for all the disinformation and insults you are spewing at anyone with a brain. good luck with your payoff Mark. And if you are doing if for free that is even worse. You should be getting some reward for your contribution to stifling the truth. Bye Mark. Good luck. And by the way Mark "Mr. Pro-life" on a different subject ( of which you are woefully wrong and ignorant) Who is going to take care of all of these unwanted babies that you want to force women to have that are created in THEIR bodies and come out of THEIR vaginas. Not yours. Are you going to take care of them? How many babies have you personally adopted? A couple I hope. How much money do you contribute to help raise these babies to teen mothers and those that cannot afford to raise them. Alot I hope. Douchebag loser.

Yes, that's right, I didn't approve the comment yet, because I was preparing a post replying to it in detail. Pardon me, for not realizing that not meeting this twat's schedule means that I am unable to offer replies. I guess my taking more than 26 minutes, which is the time between his blah blah that I've replied to above and his waaaa! about my not approving his comment, is certain proof that I'm an agent for the administration. Damn! I blew my cover. Sorry Karl, I guess I'll have to do that other job we were discussing over that excellent dinner you prepared yesterday.

I wonder if he'll try to "debate" me on being prolife? That ought to be hilarious considering what we've seen thus far.

---

Filed under: 9-11 Conspiracy nuts

Trackposted to: Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Sujet- Celebrities, Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, , stikNstein... has no mercy, Overtaken by Events, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, Adam's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Friday, March 16, 2007

Additional sources for info on Iraq


With the mainstream media largely concerned with merely touting our casualty numbers, rather than presenting the entire picture on what is happening in Iraq, it's hardly any surprise that many Americans have an incredibly negative and inaccurate view of the situation. The Coalition has come up with a way to get the information out, that sidesteps this bias and goes directly to the viewer.

Coalition reaching out via YouTube

BAGHDAD — Coalition military officials in Iraq are hoping to reach out to younger, broader audiences by posting clips of servicemembers in action on a popular video-sharing Web site.

Clips of combat and support operations have been posted to the YouTube Web site in an effort to inform Americans of the successes of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers in Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said during a phone interview this week.

“How do we reach out to those in mid-town America who don’t know someone serving here? How do they find out what’s going on?” Caldwell asked. “One thing people don’t know is what’s really going on over here on a daily basis.”

The initiative first came about when soldiers began brainstorming about how to reach out and share stories of what’s happening in Iraq with a greater number of people. The group determined that the user-generated Web site would be a perfect venue for the more visually oriented, younger American audience.

“We want the American public, from an unfiltered vantage point, to be able to see what coalition forces and Iraqi security forces are doing here in Iraq,” he said.

[...]

You can subscribe to this channel if you have a youtube profile.

Multi-Nationla Force - Iraq (Youtube channel)

It would be worth saving the following link as well, to keep updated.

Operation Iraqi Freedom (Official site Multi-National Force - Iraq)

(Thanks to Drew who provided a link to the Youtube channel in a comment left at this Ace of Spades post.)

Hopefully, this will help people get information that is so desperately needed. With the way certain news programs report about Iraq, one would get the impression that all our troops are doing is being killed. The fact of the matter is that Iraqis have voted several times now, their voter percentages rivaling our own, especially considering the threats of violence and such a long history of brutal tyranny. They have agreed or are near agreeing to a framework for sharing oil revenue with all Iraqis. The "surge" is already having a positive affect, families are coming back, markets have reopened and hundreds of insurgents have been captured.

Those who claim we have failed must ignore a great deal of information available which is not that hard to find, despite the usual suspects spinning the information into nothing but negatives, or their reluctance to even report it. Too much is at stake in Iraq to merely allow one's lack of respect or even hatred for George Bush, get in the way of being responsibly informed.

---

Filed under: Iraq

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Our dear little Rosie


Now this is something the Donald should sink his teeth into. Rosie O'Donnell is peddling 9-11 conspiracy lunacy on her blog. One has to wonder if Barbara Walters will allow this drivel on the View.

wtc 7 (thanks to Debbie Schlussel)

for the third time in history
fire brought down a steel building
reducing it to rubble

hold on folks
here we go

• The fires in WTC 7 were not evenly distributed, so a perfect collapse was impossible.
• Silverstein said to the fire department commander “the smartest thing to do is pull it.”
• Firefighters withdrawing from the area stated the building was going to “blow up”.
• The roof of WTC 7 visibly crumbled and the building collapsed perfectly into its footprint.
• Molten steel and partially evaporated steel members were found in the debris.

She goes on to imply that it was to cover up various investigations. If this is what hanging upside down results in, we need to bolt her feet to the floor before she infects others with this tripe.

Or as Heather, that gorgeous Kentucky woman I've quoted before, said to me:

loon. I guess it never occurred to her that perhaps that building with said offices in it could have been attacked b/c Al Qaeda knew that those offices and certain people were/would be there. Geez, buy a brain cell or something. I'm willing to donate one of mine.

If only it would be that easy. While Heather missed that it was about wtc7, with her off the cuff and justified slam of the Rosie, the point stands, there are other explanations other than conspiracy that are available. If we merely take the time to consider all of the evidence at hand, we can see there is no need for appealing to huge, secretive plots that rest mostly on creative story telling. Sadly, what I've seen here and here, with conspiracy theorists, reveals they care nothing for facts. Those previous posts already contain enough to deal with Rosie's silliness, so take the time to follow the links there.

It's rather interesting how she ends her blog post:

lets start here
ok…go slow
remember 2 breathe
use google

Remember 2 breathe? Yes, that would prevent oxygen starvation of the brain. Too bad Rosie didn't think to remind herself to do that before she typed out that post.

The View is bad enough as it is, now at least one member is a 9-11 conspiracy nut. Hard to believe, but daytime television just descended to even lower depths.

---

Filed under: 9-11 Conspiracy nuts

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

One way to define Dhimmitude


The NY Times demonstrates dhimmitude by wrapping part of their anatomy around part of CAIR's anatomy. It must suck, in some fashion, to be so eager to serve those who desire to subjugate western culture.

And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords - Kent Brockman, lead editor, NY Times

Unfortunately, CAIR is not merely little ants in a funny cartoon, made large on a video monitor. They have worked well at taking advantage of our culture, the foolishness of cultural relativism and appealing to those who view being politically correct as a moral crusade.

If only CAIR's goals were only as they state, to improve relations between Muslims and western nations. However, many critics have said a sinister agenda and ties to terrorism are under that non-threatening public facade. Serious charges indeed, but you would think that such negative appraisals were mere assertions with no evidence if all you did was read the NY Times recent article about CAIR.

"Captain Ed" has a hard-hitting post, Gray Lady Uses Skirts To Hide CAIR, taking the NY Times to task for it's providing cover for CAIR. I'll start first with an excerpt from that NY Times article.

Scrutiny Increases for a Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S.

Yet a debate rages behind the scenes in Washington about the group, commonly known as CAIR, its financing and its motives. A small band of critics have made a determined but unsuccessful effort to link it to Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, and have gone so far as calling the group an American front for the two. ...

Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.

“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,” said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.

Those poor misunderstood Muslims right? Not so fast, as "Captain Ed" points out.

Let's get specific and move past any blank stares, shall we? For instance, on Kaufman's site, they have screen captures from 9/17/01 of CAIR attempting to direct visitors to their web site to make donations for 9/11 relief to what they first identified as "NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund". The hyperlink took people to the Holy Land Foundation's website. The HLF funneled money to Hamas by the millions until the federal government shut it down in December 2001. Eight days later, they changed the hyperlink to identify the site as HLF and added one for the Global Relief Foundation -- which also got shut down in December 2001, this time for channeling money to al-Qaeda and Hamas.

[...]

That's not all that makes critics suspicious of CAIR. Several of its officers have involvement in terror...

Be sure to read all of it.

Is the NY Times article incredible incompetence or subservient bowing in anticipation of those who will eventually rule? It really doesn't matter, if the end result is identical. Western civilization is under a determined threat. Muslim extremists are not just about blowing themselves up, they will infiltrate a society and try to change it incrementally, with little victories for sharia law here and there. All  under the guise of "respect" for other's religious beliefs. Do we really want to go the way of some countries in Europe that have seen how cultural relativism has allowed for home grown Muslim extremists to flourish?

Recently it was Halal meat at schools unannounced, cabbies refusing to pick up fares with alcohol and dogs, and now extremism seems to be taking the name of the Target store rather literally.

From Pamela at Atlus Shrugs we have:

CULTURAL JIHAD: No Halal MEAT at Target

Customer service and faith clash at registers Some Muslim cashiers at Target refuse to handle pork, setting off another debate over the place of religion in society.

[...]

In the latest example of religious beliefs creating tension in the workplace, some Muslims in the Twin Cities are adhering to a strict interpretation of the Qur'an that prohibits the handling of pork products.

Instead of swiping the items themselves, they are asking non-Muslim employees or shoppers to do it for them.

[...]

Any doubt that a lawsuit will be the next step, should these employees be reassigned, fired or not receive promotions or that it will be said they were emotionally traumatized because they were given gloves to wear as an attempted compromise? Any question that CAIR will be involved in the matter? Will Target stand up for common sense or cave in and help take another incremental step to sharia being imposed in this country?

As for me, I would be tempted to wear a pig snout to Target if I worked there and had to deal with such foolishness. If touching pork that's wrapped in plastic is so horrible, why not being within a certain radius? It's not like air molecules are more impervious to the taint of pork than our skin. Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to parody such extremism.

It will be instructive to see how this pork situation at Target turns out and perhaps a warning of how far down this path we've already tread. We can be sure, that no matter how the perpetually grieved fare on this matter, they will not give up. They'll create other opportunities, always pushing the boundaries. We do ourselves and future generations a great disservice if we do not wake up and begin to resist this creeping take over of western civilization.

---

Filed under: MSM -- Islamofascism

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

300 the movie and Sparta


An unknown Hollywood writer has penned an interesting review of 300. I'll provide a short excerpt, be sure to read it all.

300 Shocker

... a movie about a handful of brave warriors who stand up against the limitless central-Asian hordes, iron men vs. effeminate oriental voluptuaries, and patriots against robotic slaves. How was this picture allowed to be made?

I’m talking, of course, about 300, a gory retelling of the Spartans’ defense at Thermopylae, which has got the whole town buzzing, and not just about its first-weekend grosses. Is it an ode to Riefensthalian fascist militarism? A thinly veiled attack on the Bush administration‘s insane war-mongering? Or is it something else?

Help me out here, because I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around a few things: When, early in the film, a sneering Persian emissary insults King Leonidas’s hot wife, threatens the kingdom, and rages about “blasphemy,” the king kicks him down a bottomless well. And yet nobody in Sparta asks, “Why do they hate us?” and seeks to find common ground with the Persians on their doorstep. Why not?

The Spartans mock the god-king Xerxes (whose traveling throne resembles a particularly louche Brazilian gay-pride carnival float), mow down his armored “immortal” holy warriors clad is nothing but red cloaks, loincloths, and sandals, and generally give their last full measure to defend Greek civilization against superstition and tyranny. Where are the liberal Spartan voices raised in protest against this blatant homophobia, xenophobia, and racism?

[...]

Some have ridiculed the movie for the line mocking Athenian boy lovers when Spartans actually practiced homosexuality themselves. This view of Sparta may not be as certain as commonly held by many.

Sparta Reconsidered

...it is a frequent misconception that Spartan society was also blatantly homosexual. Curiously, no contemporary source and no archaeological evidence supports this widespread assumption. The best ancient source on Sparta, Xenophon, explicitly denies the already common rumors about widespread pederasty. Aristotle noted that the power of women in Sparta was typical of all militaristic and warlike societies without a strong emphasis on male homosexuality—arguing that in Sparta this "positive" moderating factor on the role of women in society was absent. There is no Spartan/Laconian pottery with explicitly homosexual motifs—as there is from Athens and Corinth and other cities. The first recorded heterosexual love poem was written by a Spartan poet for Spartan maidens. The very fact that Spartan men tended to marry young by ancient Greek standards (in their early to mid-twenties) suggests they had less time for the homosexual love affairs that characterized early manhood in the rest of Greece. Certainly the state considered bachelorhood a disgrace, and a citizen who did not marry and produce future citizens enjoyed less status than a man who had fathered children. In no other ancient Greek city were women so well integrated into society. All this speaks against a society in which homosexuality was exceptionally common.

That site has quite a bit more about Sparta that goes against some of the prevailing views. While Sparta was certainly harsh, it's eugenics and highly regulated, to totalitarian extremes, social order not disputed as far as I can tell, there is something good to be said for women having rights much greater than other women in Greek society of that day and age.

A line from history, carried over into the film conveys the role of women in Sparta quite well.

In a frequently quoted incident, the wife of King Leonidas was allegedly asked why Spartan women were the only women in Greece who "ruled" their husbands. Gorgo replied, "because we are the only women who give birth to men." In other words, only men with the self-confidence to accept women as equals were men at all.

I prefer a woman I can admire, who has strength and intelligence and can state her views with confidence. And no, this does not mean I'm going to start leaping about in a loincloth and tunic. Then again, if I end up with a woman with some of that Spartan strength and confidence, no telling what I may do in private ;-)

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Filed under: Culture -- Movies

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Sunday, March 11, 2007

OTA Open Trackback 03.12.07


As the lovely Samantha Burns says:

Please use this space to trackback your best, main page articles (I just require a link to this article, as always). Also, if you have something to discuss, it is welcomed here as well.

ADVICE: Trackback main blog page articles to showcase your work (and it will help to attract readers).

Yep, I was in a plagirizing mood ;-) Nevertheless, it's a good way to draw more attention to your blog, so trackback away :-) I'll have one of these each Monday, because, well, I hate Mondays ;-p

Please refrain from using international accent marks in your post url. The inline trackback script will fail if those are used.

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Another complaint against 300 the movie


*This may be a bit of a spoiler for some*

It would seem there could be nearly 300 complaints against this movie, judging from the reaction of some critics. Let this then be a possible 301 in that long list.

I can imagine something like this occurring to some while they watched the movie.

The adorable hunchback, his life dream thwarted by the arrogant, physically perfect, western white guy; certainly this is the moment for the switch after this long baiting, wherein decades of the western white guy being bad and anyone else being good will occur.

Oh the tragedy! the coitus interruptus! that was sustained, to the very end, with careless disregard for the P&Ps*, helping drive so many to addled reviews, being worthy of even Freudian psychoanalysis.

That poor hunchback! they must have then raged, How dare these movie makers, these mythic story tellers, use his physical deformity as an expression of the twists within his soul! After all, it was only his life dream, to serve Sparta, to serve the king that was all he wanted. And that bad bad king turned him down! Sackcloth and ashes for poor Humpy, if only the arrogant white guy had listened to him, they would not have died and a kumbya of cultural sharing would have been the happy happy end result.

While I have yet to see a review making much of Humpy and his role in the movie, the weeping and wailing of other reviews, and their catalog of sins the movie supposedly commits, seems simply to have left little room for the inclusion of this one. So perhaps my reply is a bit of a pre-emptive shot at what I'm sure someone will eventually log as a complaint.

Beyond satirizing such a view of Humpy's role in the movie, there are the details within the storyline, that justify the King's decision, while also driving the P&Ps a little mad, gotta love a twofer like that. Certainly Humpy's desire was noble, to serve Sparta, to die for her. Sadly, this good was twisted into not being true service but only about raising personal desires to a right. The more strongly the desire is felt, the more certain and unassailable the right! Sound familiar? One has to wonder if the self-esteem crowd got to Humpy's parents. Oops, another strike against the movie for the P&Ps.

As the story was told, King Leonidas considered Humpy's offer, noting his strong thrust with a spear. I'll pause for those who see phallic imagery everywhere, so they can recover from their faint... Unfortunately, Humpy clearly could not fight in a cohesive military unit because of his limitations. This most certainly would have been disastrous for the survival of the Spartans. They didn't even allow the Arcadians to fight within their ranks in the movie either, despite their white guy, humpless physiques. Yet Leonidas would have accepted his service in ways that Humpy was capable of.

But for some, mere desire outweighs any consideration of others. So long as they get what they want and everything they want, is all that matters. Kind of like the Demoncrap infection in the Democrat party and the MSM defining bipartisan as always agreeing with the liberal view, but I digress.

If I say my desire is to serve, then it is, though I place condition upon condition as chains about any service you may ask of me, and woe be to those who would deny any of my conditions, even if it is to save civilization. I say it is still service to whatever you may ask, as long as you don't ask for this or that.

This elevation of the individual above all others, this service to only the self and nothing above, even say freedom for a society, or protecting a civilization facing a threat etc., is a problem when carried to extremes even in our culture. Certainly, the individual is important. Yet, to raise this to an absolute, so that nothing can ever override the individual, leaves us in a free fall of whims and emotional whipsawing of this or that  loud mouth or agitated collection of loud mouths.

While the extreme opposite end of the spectrum has its own faults, as in the society always over the individual; it doesn't mean we should trade those problems for a set of others, just because we screw ourselves over in a different way. Not having a parachute when jumping off a tall building ends in the same manner as jumping, sans said parachute, off a cliff with a view of nature untrammeled by the horrors of civilized man obliterating the landscape with steel and concrete. The kersplattt! is still a kersplattt!, though the view on the way down may be more appealing to some.

So, to those tempted to elevate their own desires to rights, as if nothing can transcend their emotions or desires, remember Humpy and the fate Leonidas wished upon him, "I hope you live forever" and Humpy's realization of his shame and what he had done. Truly, at times there are things more important than the self and our personal desires. It would be tragic if some only realized this at the very end, after they've helped lead society, or even just their own social groups or families down the abyss.

Come to think of it, since he didn't get the death penalty, or even a wish for it from Leonidas, for betraying his king or Sparta, one would think, the P&Ps might find the movie redeemable at the end. Certainly that has to count right? Oh well, I guess when the possibility of climactic enjoyment was by then, too far destroyed by Western white guys pummeling the crap out of non-western and, oh goodness, bad guys, and "boy lovers" was used in a negative fashion very early in the movie, and in the end, more white guys were rallied to the cause of actually fighting for freedom by the noble sacrifice of the previous white guys, there is no redemption. Interesting calculation that.

I would say to those who already have written their little reviews with other outlandish P&P complaints, grow up. It isn't all about you, and it wasn't or shouldn't have been, when you were in high school either. There's a real world out there, errors tend to come into this world in pairs, at opposite extremes. Use your brains and consider there are some things greater than our individual selves and very much worth putting aside our personal desires for and in some cases worth giving our lives to.

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*P&P - pussy and politically correct

Filed under: Movies -- Culture

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Saturday, March 10, 2007

How to be less than a man to an infinite degree


A man in his thirty's punches and robs several elderly women in Queens. It's on video here.

One women is 101 and the other 85. I love the spunk of the older woman, who says if she were younger she would have killed him. Hopefully this asshat will be caught soon. Not only is he such a wuss that he has to hurt women 3 times his age, but he's also brain dead enough to look up at the surveillance camera while doing so.

Heather, my quotable and hot friend had this to say, "you'd have to be pretty weak and depraved to attack only elderly women"

It wouldn't bother me much if someone with the spunk of the older woman, crosses his path and is able to do what she said she would've done years ago.

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Filed under: News

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300 - RAAAARRR!


Having now seen the movie, on an IMAX screen even, I was reminded of the silliness of some of the reviews. It was almost as if some reviewers were doing their best to one up each other on mashing two "p" terms together, rather than review this as an actual film. The terms in question being, pussy and politically correct (P&P). I had commented on the first example of this in a previous post here.

I was going to do a compilation of these reviews but someone beat me to it. I'll provide an excerpt and encourage reading the rest as it's rather eye opening.

"If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war." -- Dana Stevens, Slate (very first sentence!) (source - thanks to Libertas)

Along with the several P&P reviews listed there, the blogger also includes a positive review which is also the shortest one I've seen yet. Nope, I'm not going to tell you, you have to go see for yourself.

Here's another positive review that was rather fun to read. An excerpt follows.

Loosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae, much of the film was shot digitally in a studio, with the backgrounds and special effects rendered in "Star Wars" fashion. The film has a stylized look that matches what would happen if "The Matrix" had hot, dirty sex with "Clash of the Titans." (source)

So yes, I liked the movie a lot. The review at Libertas pretty much sums up my reasons and it doesn't hurt that the P&P types are all a twitter at the movie as well. For those who would like some of the actual history, Wikipedia has a decent article about the battle at Thermopylae and Victor Davis Hanson has a review from a military historian's perspective.

I plan to see it again, if I can manage it. If the heads of few P&P types may explode, all the more reason.

300 - RAAAAARRR!

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Filed under: Movies

Trackposted to: Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, A Few Shiny Pebbles, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, Right Celebrity, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Pirate's Cove, Overtaken by Events, The Right Nation, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, A Blog For All, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, The Florida Masochist, Jo's Cafe, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Allie Is Wired, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, High Desert Wanderer, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Ann Coulter would have a word for this


Apparently Ann's trigger finger is a bit too itchy and she missed a much better target for her attempted joke/teaching moment.

KABUL, March 7 (Reuters) - Afghan soldiers have captured a Taliban leader who tried to flee a security operation in the south dressed in a burqa, NATO said on Wednesday.

[...]

Just sayin'

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Filed under: News

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Scooter Libby - convicted


This long drawn out trial, the crown jewel for some partisans, and only an appetizer with fantasies of more gluttony down the road for others, has served to confirm several things about the media and some Democrats. Unfortunately, it has come at the expense of a man who may only have failed to maintain a perfect memory when being questioned by federal prosecutors.

I'm going to continue with a round up from several commentators who pretty much cover my views of this matter.

From the editors at National Review we have a call for Libby to be pardoned. Along with that, they cover the horribly politicized farce that this became, indeed, was from the very beginning.

President Bush should pardon I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The trial that concluded in a guilty verdict on four of five counts conclusively proved only one thing: A White House aide became the target of a politicized prosecution set in motion by bureaucratic infighting and political cowardice.

[...]

Reasonable people can conclude that it was only Scooter Libby’s imperfect memory—not willful deception—that gave rise to the charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Among the supporting players—including CIA officials, Bob Novak, Woodward and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, and Time’s Matthew Cooper—no two participants in any conversation about Valerie Plame had the same recollection.

[...]

There should have been no referral, no special counsel, no indictments, and no trial. The “CIA-leak case” has been a travesty. A good man has paid a very heavy price for the Left’s fevers, the media’s scandal-mongering, and President Bush’s failure to unify his own administration. Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn’t have lasted beyond its opening act. (source)

"Captain Ed" notes that if Libby lied he should be held accountable.

Not to say that Libby should have been let off the hook, if he indeed lied to investigators and the grand jury, as this jury concluded he did. Regardless of the pettiness of the probe, people cannot be allowed to lie to the police or under oath at hearings and trials. It undermines our system of justice even more than out-of-control special prosecutors.

But he also notes the circus this had been and that there is plenty to consider in appeal and good reason to do so.

The case will eventually find its way to an appellate court, where the justices will have plenty of issues on which to chew. Chiefly, the panel should look at the circus which preceded this prosecution and determine whether the lack of any underlying crime should mitigate towards a dismissal. Only when these special-prosecutor cases start getting tossed out will we finally see an end to that plague.

Finally, if Scooter Libby did lie and should be held accountable, then how much more should others be held accountable for their actions or at least face trial for the charges brought against them?

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs lays down a list of clearly more serious crimes and charges for which a number have gotten off with a mere wrist slap, if even that.

The Nation is Sick Libby is Guilty

Scooter Libby is guilty
And Jefferson is free. Federal agents seized $90,000 of the $100,000 crammed into plastic bags and stashed in Jefferson's home freezer. Hence the moniker, "Cold Cash."

Scooter Libby is guilty
And Sandy Berger is free. Berger stole highly classified 9/11 documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them in his pants, socks, and under a construction trailer.

[...]

The list continues and is well worth the read, as are the previous articles. I'll let the reader note the common denominator running through that list and what it says about the MSM, a particular party that controls Congress right now, and the frothing at the mouth KosKiddies and moveon.org types.

Addendum:

Local cBS news on the story, makes no mention of Armitage and gets a sound bite from that liar Joe Wilson. Ain't that special?

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Filed under: NewsPolitics -- MSM

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