Must not nag
Jan 30, 2012
Alpha Game has a post on nagging.
There's no question it poisons a marriage. Just yesterday, I saw a woman nagging her boyfriend in the supermarket. They were likely in their early 20s. The guy was replying in a disgusting, appeasing manner but she just wouldn't stop berating him. I was in their proximity for a mere twenty seconds and I wanted out!
Why do guys put up with such crap? Aren't these people interested in being partners instead of having a mother-child relationship?
To me, it's one of the things that's non-negotiable in a girlfriend or a wife: read the title of the post.
To infinity ... kinda
Jan 29, 2012
The low budget Canadian space program:
The Toronto Star reports that Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad have been friends since middle school. A couple of summers ago, Ho saw a video online that showed some Massachusetts Institute of Technology students sending a balloon into space. The two teenaged boys began working on their project in September, and four months of Saturdays later, they were able to launch their balloon, with Lego man astronaut, into the skies.
Cool.
Test no. 2032
Jan 28, 2012
The number one team in the world gets beaten by a team which is ranked fifth. The current England team is the strongest of the last 20 years at least. They've annihilated Australia in Australia and crushed India at home. They have earned the right to be called the best.
But then they folded against a rising Pakistan team twice!
... a total of 72 can never be acceptable. It was their lowest score since the debacle of Jamaica in 2009 and the first time they had lost two Tests in a row since 2008. It was also only the second time in a century that they have failed to chase a target under 150 in the fourth innings.
Two things become clear from the two Tests:
- Pakistan have recovered from losing their two best bowlers who cheated and were sent to jail. Their bowling department is, I think, the strongest in the world right now.
- Even with excellent players like Strauss, Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell, England cannot conquer the Asian conditions. Their performances have been exceptional in England but in the UAE, they've been wretched for a team ranked first.
England will try their mighty best to save the third Test. Otherwise, the end will be an utter humiliation.
"I guess you wear red then!"
Jan 27, 2012
Imitation is the sincerest form of annoyance.
I played this game in arcades in Pakistan. Brings back memories. The Sagat comment and Blanka dragging Balrog's drunken ass makes it hilarious.
WWII for Generation Z
Jan 26, 2012
Facebook version of the Second World War.
They got the big stuff right but still they should have mentioned North Africa, Canada and Australia.
Those peaceful muslims again
Jan 25, 2012
The deadly result of an innocent infatuation:
Rehnaz Bibi, 13, was allegedly shot dead by one of her cousins in September 2010. According to reports, Bibi left home to convince the boy she liked to marry her without her family’s consent. However, she was sent back home by his family, who lived in the same village, with the promise to send a proposal for her later.
When her family found out about the incident, her father, who was in Karachi at that time, allegedly asked one of his nephews to kill her.
According to an application filed in Haripur district and sessions court by a local activist Qamar Hayat, Rehnaz was fired at with an AK-47 and received 30 bullets. Her family had termed her death as an accident.
I initially thought it was a suicide.
Link via Jihad Watch.
Moocher lifestyle
Jan 24, 2012
Tonight's stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the "Evil Empire", Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks. America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system. Not surprisingly, it is not only the richest and most audacious thieves that prosper - it is also the penny scammers at the very bottom of the economic ladder that rip off the middle class each and every day, courtesy of the world's most generous entitlement system.
There really are Two Americas. One is where people work hard and don't scam the system. The second is filled with entitled parasites.
Muhammad the Wicked
Jan 23, 2012
Tambi Dude emailed me the latest post from an ex-Muslim woman:
... the so-called Holy Prophet of Islam is nothing but a sick, perverted sex maniac, a pedophiliac misogynist, and a heartless creature who had absolutely no sense of morals or ethics. He was a self-proclaimed prophet who wanted nothing but power and pussies.
She provides plenty of quotes from the Islamic canon to back up her conclusion. I certainly can't disagree.
Hard fought football
Jan 22, 2012
Tom Brady goes to his fifth Super Bowl. Truth be told, he gave a horrible performance today given his lofty standards: 0 touchdowns, 2 interceptions.
The other game is still going strong in overtime. It'd be cool if the Giants won.
The Patriarchy strikes again
Jan 21, 2012
Q: Roughly 9 out of 10 Wikipedia editors are male. Why does the Wikimedia Foundation consider that a problem?
Sue Gardner: It is a priority for us to raise the number of women who edit. The reason is quality: Wikipedia aspires to contain the sum of all human knowledge, and we are not able to do that if our editor base is a narrow group of people. Women have a very wide range of interests and experiences and backgrounds. But we can assume that if they are not represented roughly to their equivalent of the population, there are gaps in the coverage. To me, it is not an ethical issue, it is not political correctness, but it is to ensure the quality of Wikipedia.
Perhaps, Wikipedia can make the text pink.
The crueler sex
Jan 20, 2012
It is deeply ironic that men are generally considered the commitment-phobic sex when it is easily observable that the main reason they tend to increasingly avoid making commitments is because they are forced to take them very seriously. Women, on the other hand, superficially appear pro-commitment, but this only holds true so long as there is no substantive and quantifiable aspect to the commitment for which they can be held accountable. It's rather fascinating to see the way in which marriage has been transformed from an institution wherein wives were expected to provide actual "marital duties" to one in which sex is now widely considered to be at the sole and unilateral discretion of the wife while the husband is not permitted any reliable expectation of it, much less right to it.
The first comment there:
Man has an obligation to go to theater, to prepare breakfast in the morning, to help wash the dishes (dishwasher), to say good words, give the occasional massage, listen to a whole day's nonsense when he wants to relax, give a hug, give a caress, challenge intellectually, make money, buy food, carry the grocery, carry the garbage.... add infinitum
A two minute handjob needs to be earned. Even then, she needs to be in the mood.
Funny, at my workplace today, two guys were talking about a cost benefit analysis of a girlfriend versus a prostitute. The prostitute won. It wouldn't be much different with a wife instead of a girlfriend.
Justice shattered
Jan 19, 2012
If one were to extrapolate this reasoning then all of us could become vigilantes of the harshest kind. Of course, we know full well what would happen if our annoyances at day-to-day realities were to motivate us to take action against random strangers being nice to us in a fully-appropriate location.
Test no. 2030: third day
Jan 19, 2012
Game over!
Pakistan, India and Bangladesh were one nation before 1947. Yet, the most consistent and impressive bowlers keep on originating from Pakistan. Right now, Pakistan seems to have the most potent bowling attack in the world. The series against England will be interesting.
England were defeated in three days by Pakistan. I didn't expect that. I thought their batsmen would fight in the second innings but shockingly they failed even more miserably.
England were disappointing, a batting performance unworthy of their status. But Pakistan have also made Sri Lanka look miserable here, and perhaps there is more substance to this revival than could have been hoped for? With Saeed Ajmal in such mesmeric form and Misbah's leadership more impresive by the day, Pakistan are capable of turning their Middle East abode into as much of a fortress as Karachi once was. On this evidence, Pakistan can be a power again in Test cricket and the world game will be better for it.
Yeah.
REDUCE!
Jan 18, 2012
Totally awesome: Cooking with Walken.
Hating the Yahood
Jan 18, 2012
John Robson showcases why there is no peace in the Middle East.
Test no. 2030: first day
Jan 17, 2012
When I read 192 all out this morning I thought that Pakistan had folded on the first day. Upon reading carefully, I realized that England -- the #1 Test team in the world -- had crashed for that low score.
Pakistan at 42/0. Effectively making England 150 all out. It's surprising to see the Pakistani openers survive for that long. Usually they crack under pressure and the middle order has to save the day but not today.
On a pitch that, initially at least, offered little assistance to bowlers of any type, England's top order folded as meekly as a shy kitten in a room full of alligators. All the brave talk about their new-found confidence against spin bowling was shown to be mere bluster. Whatever their success elsewhere, they have acres of room for improvement on Asian pitches.
Fruits of feminism
Jan 16, 2012
A cruise ship crashed into rocks on an Italian island:
As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’
There's a lot more whining in the whole column.
This was not so much predictable as predicted. Women have methodically attacked the concept of male duty and honor through every possible means for the past ninety years, and now they are whining that they don't get special treatment simply because a ship happens to be sinking. Why, exactly, should any man "prioritise women, expectant mothers and children"? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted?
Gender doesn't exist unless there's an emergency like a life or death situation -- then sacrifices are expected of only one gender.
How convenient.
Australia vs. India
Jan 15, 2012
One stat tells the whole story:
There have been nine 50-plus scores in the series for each team. Australia's four best scores, though, are 329*, 180, 150* and 134. India's top four scores are 83, 80, 75, and 73.
Here's another:
In the last 13 months, India have lost five Tests by an innings: one in South Africa, and two each in England and Australia ... Between October 2001 and March 2008 India didn't lose a single Test by an innings.
The Indians simply don't have the bowlers who can contain the English and Aussie batsmen. End result: innings defeats.
Super cool
Jan 14, 2012
Earth Architecture via Instapundit:
By 400 BC, Persian engineers had mastered the technique of storing ice in the middle of summer in the desert.
Wow. That was just around the time of the Peloponnesian War.
These ancient refrigerators were used primarily to store ice for use in the summer, as well as for food storage, in the hot, dry desert climate of Iran. The ice was also used to chill treats for royalty during hot summer days and to make faloodeh, the traditional Persian frozen dessert.
No way! I didn't know that falooda in South Asia is a derivation of the original faloodeh from Persia. I've had it once in my life in the city of my birth.
If I remember correctly, that falooda had rose syrup, vermicelli, milk, vanilla ice cream and pistachio. I consider it the Greatest Dessert Ever.
It cannot be refined
Jan 13, 2012
Andrew Roberts interviewed on Uncommon Knowledge:
This week on Uncommon Knowledge historian Andrew Roberts discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, his book The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. In the book, Roberts investigates what led up to the war, the historical factors responsible for Hitler’s rise to power, Hitler’s shortcomings as a military leader, Nazi Germany’s defeat, and Allied contributions to the victory.
I've read and watched more history about the Allied efforts in North Africa, Western Europe and in the Atlantic Ocean. So, the statistic that four out of five Germans in the war were killed by the Russians is just stunning. It's difficult to wrap your mind around the sheer scale of human suffering in those terrible years.
Hell on earth
Jan 12, 2012
Vlad Tepes: Egyptian Cleric Ali Abu Al-Hasan: In Several Decades, “Europe Will Become a Single Islamic State”
That's what "peace" means to them; when all infidels are subjugated, then the world will have peace.
By Ado-bay
Jan 11, 2012
One of the best videos I've seen in many months.
VIDEO: Introducing the Greatest Cosmetic Product Known to Mankind.
It even lets you adjust your race!
Where is the right hope?
Jan 10, 2012
Remember, Reagan and George W. Bush were the more conservative candidates. (Bush '43 wasn't really conservative, but he was definitely perceived that way.) Both won two general elections. George H.W. Bush, Dole, and McCain were the less conservative candidates and Bush '41 won one general election. However, I was at the Republican convention in 1988 and I can testify that he was being pushed as the natural heir to Reagan and billed as a True Conservative. By the end of his first term, everyone knew better.
Quite right. The point about the "conservatism" of George W. Bush is correct which means that the last time the US had a true conservative president was about twenty four years ago! That's despressing. Worse, another Reagan isn't on the horizon. Of course, there are many conservatives in America but none with the magnetism possessed by the 40th.
Iran vs. Satanbook
Jan 09, 2012
ISNA on Saturday broadcast coverage of the response of Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi-Golpaygani, a senior cleric, to the question about Facebook and Iranian membership in the social networking service.
"Basically, going to any website which propagates immoralities and could weaken the religious belief is un-Islamic and not allowed, and membership in it is therefore haram (a sin)," the ayatollah replied.
Of course, El Diablo is a nerd.
The land of pure corruption
Jan 08, 2012
This is worth paying attention to the end. Some interesting revelations about the way the Pakistani Army functions and its nuclear weapons assembly.
Pakistan is a swell place for those who are born in a military family.
Not equal
Jan 07, 2012
Susan Walsh:
One of my core beliefs about mating is that the sexual double standard reflects the biological differences between the sexes. Generally speaking, men prefer women with less sexual experience than they have and women prefer men with more sexual experience than they have.
When will this OPPRESSION end!?
Seriously, read the whole thing. The comments are interesting as well.
It's Alive!
Jan 06, 2012
Four years and five months after the D3, we get the Nikon D4.
Joe McNally, that lucky bastard, has been testing it for weeks.
Be not afraid
Jan 05, 2012
16-minute video: Tommy Robinson on Michael Coren’s show Jan 2 2012.
History in color
Jan 04, 2012
The Daily Mail via Instapundit:
They are considered to be part of one of the most important collections of early colour photographs ever seen, capturing key moments in history and the dying embers of many cultures.
And now - more than a century after the ambitious project was launched - these incredible images are being brought to a mass audience for the first time.
The digital crowd today would call the photos a bit "noisy".
The 4th not on the 4th
Jan 04, 2012
Nikon missed a great opportunity. They should have announced the D4 on January 4. Instead, they'll wait till January 6.
Understanding economics
Jan 03, 2012
Richard Epstein writes about the effects of the "living" wage and the minimum wage laws in the United States:
When the minimum wage law was equal to $5.15, about 6.6 million individuals earned less than the $7.25 wage level. By 2010, after the wage level was increased, unemployment rates did move sharply upward. Some of today’s workers will be lucky enough to ride the living-wage tide upward, but others are likely to be cast aside. The empirics on matters of degree are always up to debate, given the huge set of other regulations that hit labor markets. In principle, the law of demand says that as the wage demanded increases, the jobs offered will decline. Unless demand curves are flat, there must be unemployment effects. The only question is their magnitude. The imposition of a high minimum living wage will reduce, all other things being equal, the demand for labor.
No question about it. There will be some who will have their wage cut down to $0 because of such laws.
Very old Nazis
Jan 02, 2012
Larsson fearlessly exposed the true plagues menacing contemporary Sweden: rich Nazis, Christian male chauvinists, rapist legal officials, and two generations of billionaire serial killers—the first preying on Jewish women, the second on immigrant women.
Fortunately, two human beings dare stand up to this fascist tsunami engulfing Sweden. One is a middle-aged leftist journalist (in other words, Larsson’s sockpuppet). Although persecuted (and possessing no discernible personality), he’s still dynamite with the ladies.
Even with all the ridiculous liberal spice, the first novel was an interesting mystery / thriller. The Trinity reference is right on, however.
Marriage 2.0 needs an upgrade
Jan 01, 2012
It's not true that men have no idea what to look for. They know what they want, they're just not finding it as easily anymore. And it's not being branded "a sexist pig" that turns men off to marriage, it is the guarantee of severe economic liability and the unacceptably high possibility of losing his house, his children, his savings, and reducing his future net income.
A lot of interesting comments there as well.