The Blog of Record

Awesome. Ghey, but awesome.

Is Reagan – gasp! – making fun of America’s enemies?! Didn’t he know he was supposed to reach out to them? He should’ve tried extending an open hand to them or something – surely that’s all that’s ever needed to make your mortal enemies unclench their fists.

Part 1

Part 2

Their names are Ty Ziegel and Renee Kline.

The president of the United States bowing before the president of Mexico:

Reuters photo.

It could have been worse. He could have bowed while mumbling apologies for Arizona’s immigration law.

A couple of Taliban locals got to play supporting parts in establishing a new sharpshooting record in Afghanistan: 2475 meters, or 1.54 miles:

Craig Harrison’s record breaking shots felled the insurgents with consecutive bullets – even though they were 3,200ft beyond the official range of his rifle.

The Household Cavalry veteran’s kills from a distance of 8,120ft beat the previous record by 150ft.

He was using the British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.

He was so far away that the 8.59mm-calibre bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target. Scores of Taliban gunmen have fallen to the gun which has been nicknamed The Silent Assassin.

It is only designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft – just less than a mile – and capable of only ‘ harassing fire’ beyond that range.

But Corporal Harrison took his record-breaking shots after his commander and Afghan soldiers were attacked during a patrol in Helmand in November last year.

Some of those bearded guys in turbans ought to be good with rifles, too.  I wonder if they also make some impressive shots every now and then that we just don’t hear about.

CNN: it’s not reporting, it’s journalism:

Hundreds of people gathered outside Arizona’s Capitol building on Sunday in a largely peaceful protest against the state’s tough new immigration law.

“Largely peaceful?” Is there something CNN is not telling us? The report doesn’t mention anything unpeaceful about the protest – but there must have been something, otherwise why use a reservation?

Had it been a tea party protest where anything even remotely unpeaceful happened, do you think CNN would not mention it in its report and just call it “largely peaceful”?

Picture from here.

No different than Osama bin Laden at all:

When you make the argument that the South was angry with the North for “invading” its “homeland,” Osama bin Laden has said the same about U.S. soldiers being on Arab soil. He has objected to our bases in Saudi Arabia, and that’s one of the reasons he has launched his jihad against us. Is there really that much of a difference between him and the Confederates? Same language; same cause; same effect.

If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?

If the Sons of Confederate Veterans use as a talking point the vicious manner in which people in the South were treated by the North, doesn’t that sound exactly like the Taliban saying they want to kill Americans for the slaughter of innocent people in Afghanistan?

Defenders of the Confederacy say that innocent people were killed in the Civil War; hasn’t the same argument been presented by Muslim radicals in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places where the U.S. has tangled with terrorists?

We can’t on the one hand justify the actions of Confederates as being their duty as valiant men of the South, and then condemn the Muslim extremists who want to see Americans die a brutal death. These men are held up as honorable by their brethren, so why do Americans see them as different from our homegrown terrorists?

The fundamental problem with extremism is that when you’re on the side that is fanatical, all of your actions make sense to you, and you are fluent in trying to justify every action. Every position of those you oppose is a personal affront that calls for you to do what you think is necessary to protect yourself and your family.

Just as radical Muslims have a warped sense of religion, Confederate supporters have a delusional view of what is honorable. The terrorists are willing to kill their own to prove their point, and the Confederates were just as willing in the Civil War to take up arms against their fellow Americans to justify their point.

Even if you’re a relative of one of the 9/11 hijackers, that man was an out-and-out terrorist, and nothing you can say will change that. And if your great-great-great-granddaddy was a Confederate who stood up for Southern ideals, he too was a terrorist.

They are the same.

As a matter of conscience, I will not justify, understand or accept the atrocious view of Muslim terrorists that their actions represent a just war. They are reprehensible, and their actions a sin against humanity.

And I will never, under any circumstances, cast Confederates as heroic figures who should be honored and revered. No — they were, and forever will be, domestic terrorists.

Terrorists? That’s so Bush-era. We don’t call people terrorists anymore, don’t you know? Confederate insurgents. Southern freedom fighters. Get with the times, Mr. CNN political analyst.

Seriously, though – does it make the Democratic Party of the time (the slavery and secession party) no different than al Qaeda? And does it make Abraham Lincoln, who fought the Confederacy – I mean insurgency – with any means necessary, no different than the Bushitler?

With people like that employed as “political analysts”, no wonder CNN is dying.

How to get motorists to slow down:

Bando headshot

(Via Japan Probe.)

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Wagen: Designer Dr. Ferdinand Porsche demonstrates a model of the future Volkswagen car to Hitler and the gang.

Photo from nazipop.tumblr.com.

Someone was selling this on a Toronto classifieds Web site today as a coat and hat hanger.

If you define “best” as “most popular”, that is.

Look for Haiti to become staggeringly prosperous very soon:

For an island with a population of fewer than 10 million, there is at least one NGO per 1,000 people.

From the comments at the link:

Go to the capital of any third world country. Look on a map for a cluster of nice international hotels in a scenic part of town not too far from where all the embassies are. Look for internationalish restaurants (say Italian or French), bars with blackboards outside showing scores of European soccer matches, and that kind of thing. Walk inside the first such establishment you find. Swing a cat. You will have hit members of at least 20 NGOs. At least one of these people will work for the WWF, Greenpeace, or some other NGO explicitly opposed to cat swinging, but they will probably not harass you over it as they will be too busy enjoying the lifestyle – really very pleasant in these sorts of places on what the NGOs pay.

Or U.N. humanitarian agencies.

Laws, like taxes, are for the little people.

A tax solely on whites to fund health coverage for the uninsured (mostly non-whites), brought to you by the Democratic Party:

Tanning enthusiasts will have to shell out more to achieve the golden shade. The health care law imposes a 10 percent tax on the service.

You don’t have to be a genius to figure out who will pay pretty much all of this tax. How many dark-skinned people use tanning beds?

And how did the Democrats arrive at this tax? By rejecting a more race-neutral option:

Lawmakers had considered taxing elective cosmetic procedures, but changed the language to tax indoor tanning services instead.

If Republicans introduced a tax that hit minorities while excepting – and primarily benefiting – whites, media cries of G.O.P. racism would rise to high heaven. But CNN, needless to say, sees nothing remarkable about the new tax.

The rule of the Clinton White House internship: whether you interned for Bill or for Hill, you got screwed:

A relative of mine worked as an unpaid intern in the Clinton White House writing Hillary Clinton’s daily briefing. After a year of that, she asked Hillary’s chief of staff, Evelyn Lieberman, “I feel guilty living off my parents. You have me doing important work for a year now. Could you see your way clear to paying me?” Evelyn responded, “Don’t you realize how lucky you are to have an internship in the White House?!” My relative, incensed at the hypocrisy of Hillary, who gives speeches on behalf of labor [but] wouldn’t even pay her, who had won her university’s outstanding student award, minimum wage. She quit.

Regular marathoners have been found to have more calcified plaque in their coronary arteries than people who were tested for symptomatic or suspected heart abnormalities:

A group of elite long-distance runners had less body fat, better cholesterol and blood lipid profiles, and better heart rates than people being tested for cardiac disease. Paradoxically, however, the runners had more calcified plaque in their heart arteries, according to a study reported this week. . . .

Researchers looked for the amount of calcium plaque on the inside of the subjects’ arteries. Past research has suggested that the more calcium plaque inthe arteries, the higher the risk of heart attacks and death from heart disease.

In the non-runners, the calcium plaque volume was 169 cubic millimeters, compared with 274 cubic millimeters for the elite runners, the researchers reported at the American College of Cardiology meeting.

You mean routinely beating up your body with huge amounts of catabolic, muscle-wasting, inflammation-causing endurance running isn’t as healthy as people, for some mysterious reason, believe? Shocking.

Some people want us to believe that animals aren’t that much different from us. By which they really mean that we aren’t that much different from animals.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know what’s coming next: the same people telling us about plant suicide and plant self-awareness.

Not all of them are retired, though, even in their 60s.

Parts 2 and 3.