4. mars 2004

Congressman: Vote against Bush is vote for Bin Laden Republican Congressman Tom Cole is arguing that those who vote against Bush is supporting Bin Laden, and that non-Bush votes are equivalent to voting for Hitler during World War II: U-S Representative Tom Cole might have stirred up Democrats by saying a vote against the re-election of President Bush is like supporting Adolph Hitler during World War Two. Or supporting Osama bin Laden now. "If George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election," Cole is quoted in this week's edition of the Yukon Review which covered the recent meeting of the Canadinan County Republicans where Cole was a speaker. The newspaper says Cole claims if Bush loses his re-election bid, the enemies of the U-S will interpret it as a victory for bin Laden. No comment so far from Oklahoma Democratic party leaders to see if they think Cole is comparing John Kerry to Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden. In the Yukon Review article, Cole is quoted as asking what Hitler might have thought had Franklin Roosevelt not been re-elected in 1944. Many leftists have gone overboard in comparing Bush to Hitler, but it's still the case that two wrongs don't make a right. Now, Cole didn't compare Kerry to Hitler in any way, as some leftist bloggers have argued, but he seems to argue that opposing Bush is de facto support of Bin Laden. Cole has issued this press release where he says he was misrepresented. Godwin's law still applies. Thoughtlessly comparing anything or anyone to Hitler is inflammatory and will get you in trouble. Nod to CalPundit. PS: Irrelevant nitpick: Why are so many who should know better spelling Adolf with "ph"? 11:29:55 PM    comment []  trackback []

C.H.E.S.S. Check out the Calvin and Hobbes Extensive Strip Search. Yes, every C&H strip is available and searchable on description or published date. A massive resource for comics fans! Eh, has anybody told Bill Watterson about this? 9:38:51 PM    comment []  trackback []

Bush releases TV ads "I am George W. Bush, and I approve this message." Don't switch horses in mid-race, the Bush-Cheney campaign essentially argues. This message will only work if people agree that the US is essentially on the right course. 9:13:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

No honour among pirates Lawrence Lessig has a great article in Wired on peer-to-peer, "piracy" and intellectual property. If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio, and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation - until now. The overbroad war on piracy has become a war on creativity. 7:45:32 PM    comment []  trackback []

Inject vaseline into the...? Argh! This sounds like a horribly, horribly bad idea. The only good thing about it is that the dimwits increase their chances of getting a Darwin award. Doctors in Britain have been surprised at Asian men importing the practice to inject vaseline and other oils into the penis, hoping to enlarge it. All together now: Ouch! It works only if you don't intend to use it for anything in the future. Manit Arya at the Institute of Urology and Nephrology (IUN) in London reports: "This was the first case we had seen. It was a very interesting case. "The man had used a high-pressure pneumatic grease gun to inject his penis. "But the girth of the man's penis continued to grow and he was no longer able to achieve an erection. "He needed urgent treatment for both problems." No kidding. Via Dean's World. PS: This is where I usually tell my (true) penis size joke: Me and a few friends visited a pharmacy in a Thai village some years ago, looking for some medicine against insect bites. On the counter there was an ad for a brand of condoms. It said "Extra large condoms. 5.5 cm" (~2.17 in). It sure cracked us up. 3:47:13 PM    comment []  trackback []

The problem with Norwegian media Bjørn Stærk has provided a translation and some comments on travel advisor Jens A. Risnæs' great article, blaming the 68'ers and the left for Norwegian media giving us a totally warped view of the rest of the world. The problem is that Norwegian academia and Norwegian media have been run by a left which since 1968 has been wrong about most things. And here the problem is not primarily AKP (m-l), but the Socialist Left and its predecessor the Socialist People's Party. The left committed a collective spiritual harakiri by systematically failing to criticize, and in the worst cases supporting, totalitarian, anti-human and medieval regimes. And still it has been allowed to dominate the intellectual scence in Norway after the war, because it has claimed to be more moral than the centre and the right. In addition, the Norwegian left, as the only one in Europe, has made sure to keep Norway outside the greatest democratic project in Europe in our time, the EU. The combination of left radical domination and isolation from the democracies of Europe has lead to a most worrying situation for the Norwegian society. Agreed. For domestic issues, the dominance of the media has had less effect, since the voters have personal experience about the issues. On international issues, personal knowledge about the world is much worse, so people go along with the warped ideas of the leftist "elite." 3:36:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

Now that's how we know Kerry "John Kerry has already begun his search for a running mate. They say that because John Edwards still has $50 million in campaign money Kerry might pick him. Pick him, hey, for 50 million Kerry will marry him." (Jay Leno) 1:50:26 PM    comment []  trackback []

It seemed a good idea at the time An exciting new development of legal theory: Enter the blowjob defence in a manslaughter case. Heather Specyalski argues she was not driving a car in a fatal 1999 crash; she was performing oral sex on the driver at the time. And that exonates her from blame how? 9:05:04 AM    comment []  trackback []

Yahoo's harakiri Yahoo! has divorced its own search service from Google, obviously planning to take on the search giant in the marketplace. It is not a small surprise, then, to learn that Yahoo! now plans to sell prominence on search listings to the highest bidder. This is a certain way to destroy the users' confidence in the product. Google could hardly dream about a greater gift as it's planning to public. 1:35:36 AM    comment []  trackback []

Dances with Wolves 2.0 I have just seen The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, and as the last epic battle ended I knew I had seen this before. It is a perfect remake of Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves. Like it, "Samurai" was perfectly made, epic, entertaining and very forgettable. I am just happy it didn't receive any oscars, because it sure as hell didn't deserve any. Still, it was well worth watching. But those who really, really love it, will be slightly embarrassed in a few years that they did. Coming home, I found out with a bit of googling that I was far from being the first to note the extreme similarity with Costner's old movie. So much for composing a great blog entry in my head on my way home. To be an original reviewer, you have to see the movie before everybody else. 1:28:34 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 31.03.2004; 03:00:39.