Dean's World

Now the funny thing is I've known women who actually have the gall to get angry at this sort of thing and site it as proof of rampant male chauvanism or "oppression of women." That's what life was like in the '70s and '80s especially...

Anyway, more funny at Nationalbanana.com.

Our Constitution, is the 1.0 design, though it's in REV 27 by now. The Brits do have an older one, but it's still in Beta-- and documentation is spotty at best! Must have been written by Google...

Ariel
Beverly
Carrol
Dana
Dakota
Evelyn
Jordan
Joyce
Leslie
Marion
Meredith
Morgan
Paris
Peyton
Stacey
Taylor
Tracy

Every one of those used to be common boy's names. Now, in the West, amongst English speakers, they're generally considered feminine.

As is "Ali" by the way.

And you know, it swings the other way. There are a ton of girls in America now running around with names like "Madison." And, it turns out, "Thomas" used to be a popular girl's name.

I don't think there's anything deep there, except that it's sort of funny.

I tell people that I like the writings of Evelyn Waugh and I like the musicals of Meredith Wilson, and they think I'm talking about women. Which, I wouldn't mind at all if they were women, but they weren't.

My aunt Beverly would undoubtedly find this amusing.

I think if I ever am lucky enough to father a daughter, I'll name her "Sam."

I don't know if this made it to the front page:

Of course, you can't watch this one too often :)

I mostly ignore hate mail, but once in a while it's fun to play with the trolls. Case in point, the brilliant Jacob Karsemeyer:

This is pure genius, no? How can you top this Karsemeyer guy? I savor every moment of this exchange.

Luckily some enterprising reporter managed to smuggle this video out from Iraq. Hasn't been verified but seems pretty incriminating to me. This stuff dates back to the 1980s!!

No wonder these guys won time's "Person of the Year"!

Edward Luttwak has a fascinating essay that argues, startlingly, that last year's war with Hezbollah wasn't the disaster it's been made out to be. He starts with some fascinating history:

In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 October War there was much joy in the Arab world. The myth of Israeli invincibility had been shattered by the surprise Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal and the Syrian offensive that swept across the Golan Heights. In Israel, there was harsh criticism of political and military chiefs alike, who were blamed for the loss of close to 3,000 soldiers in a war that ended without a clear victory. Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff David Elazar and the chief of military intelligence were all discredited and soon replaced.

It was only later that a sense of proportion was regained, ironically by the Egyptian and Syrian leaders before anyone else.

Then he does a pretty surprisingly good job of comparing that 1973 conflict (which everyone now agrees was a decisive and positive moment in Israeli history) to the current situation, and concludes:

For that very reason, the outcome of the war is likely to be viewed in the long term as more satisfactory than many now seem to believe it. Nasrallah is not another Arafat, who was fighting for eternal Palestine rather than the present generation of Palestinians (whose prosperity and safety he was always willing to sacrifice for the cause). Nasrallah has a political constituency, and it happens to be centered in southern Lebanon. Implicitly accepting responsibility for having started the war, Nasrallah has directed his Hezbollah to focus on rapid reconstruction in villages and towns, right up to the Israeli border. He cannot start another round of fighting because that would destroy everything again. Yet another unexpected result of the war is that Nasrallah's power-base in southern Lebanon is now a hostage to Hezbollah's good behaviour.

But you should read the whole thing.

If you don't read XKCD on a regular basis... you should. It's A) rad, and B) very funny. And often true.

Enjoy the archives...

(Stolen from I Drew This)

Martin notes how you can be horribly fooled by the latest scams, and how to avoid it.

"Just don't click that link" is rule #1.

Mint was 4 when her family began to force her to drink 14 gallons of camel's milk a day. When she vomited, she was beaten. If she refused to drink, her fingers were bent back until they touched her hand. Her stomach hurt so much she prayed all the animals in the world would die so that there would be no more milk.
...
"My husband thinks I'm not fat enough," complained Zeinabou Mint Bilkhere, explaining that her husband found her pretty during the last months of her pregnancy. Since giving birth, the weight has dropped, however, and with it his desire for her.

Although few women are force-fed today, many feel pressured to be bigger-than-average. Like many, Bilkhere has turned to a more scientific method of weight gain, using foreign-made appetite-inducing pills.

A friend of mine who always figured himself a permanent bachelor got married. He began to settle into domestic life, and was constantly amazed at all the bourgeois things he subsequently found himself doing. We were talking on the phone one day and he said, "Dude, we recently bought an ottoman. Can you believe it?"

I said, "What's he do, stand in the corner at attention all day?"

We both laughed and laughed.

Everything is screwed up. It's so horrible, I can barely get up in the morning. This once-great country of ours lies in ruins. I sob in my coffee cup as I roll out of bed and look at the barren wasteland. I burst into tears when I see the utter depravity all around me. The evil BushHitler Machine and the Neocons and the Global Warming and the Democratic Congress and the Muslim invaders and the Fundamentalist Christians and the atheists have destroyed it all beyond redemption. Plus the corporations and the big government.

The Constitution lies in tatters. The Bible has been obliterated. The flag smells of dog poop. Justice is destroyed. Piles of burning bodies lie all around me as I struggle just to shave my cheeks in my bathroom mirror. Murder, rape, and pillage are all around me as I step outside my door on my way to work, as the roving bands of gay-killers and other Xtianists seek to destroy everything that moves. Even if I should manage to escape death during my soul-destroying 12 hour commute to my 280 hour a week job, I must cope at the end of it all with with the body collectors yelling "Bring Out Your Dead!" when I get out of my car and step over the rubble into my inadequate house every night, where my harpy shrew wife awaits to yell at me yet again that I forgot to take out the trash this morning--and I wail in agony and rend my garments.

Truly, these are the darkest days of doom and shame and destruction this once-beautiful country has ever seen. I do not know how any of us will be able to survive to next week.

Our only salvation seems to lie in the hope that Sanjaya might be voted off of American Idol tonight. Otherwise, mass suicide is probably the only sane option left to any of us in this increasingly insane world.

*Update*: Did I mention that our once-precious civil liberties have been utterly annihilated, along with our freedom of thought and our love of God? And the rampant destruction wrought by the feminists and the homosexualists and the rethuglican thought police? I'm sure I should have mentioned that somewhere. Between the Nazism and the Communism and Masculism that afflict us every day, it's amazing that I could even post this tiny glint of truth on this weblog.

*Update 2*: Sanjaya has moved on to the next round, while Stephanie Edwards was (surprisingly, in my view) sent home. As always, I blame the Jews.

There was a time in the United States when the vast majority of Americans collected something called Green Stamps, more properly known as "S&H; Green Stamps." S&H; was the company that issued them.

Not that everyone collected Green Stamps obsessively of course. But pretty much everyone (especially middle class or blue collar) had earned some Green Stamps and had them laying around at some point or other. A lot of people collected them quite avidly. Especially thrifty housewives--and yes, by the way, there used to actually be something known as the "thrifty housewife," with no shame or irony attached to that role whatsoever.

I've had some younger people tell me they've heard of Green Stamps but they don't really understand what they are, or were. This is because, by the early 1980s, the S&H; company nearly collapsed. Most agree that their collapse was due to the horrible period of hyperinflation and economic instability of the 1970s. But there was a time before that when you could gas up your car, shop for groceries, and visit several other stores in a week and earn Green Stamps at almost every stop.

It was an entirely private enterprise to help retailers improve customer loyalty: the S&H; company would sell these green-colored stamps to retailers. Retailers could then give away the stamps to customers based on how much money the customers spent and what they spent their money on. Customers would collect the stamps, paste them into books, then redeem the books full of stamps for goods or services from the S&H; company's catalog. You could get good, useful stuff that way, including things like all-expenses paid vacations or even cars. Although, far more commonly, people would buy things like toasters or can openers or radios.

Why did the retailers do it? To increase customer loyalty and to give incentives for people to buy higher profit margin items.

How did the S&H; company make its money? Partly by selling the stamps to the retailers. Partly because a whole lot of people earned the stamps but never bothered to redeem most of them.

Sound familiar? It's just like the airline "frequent flyer miles" programs, isn't it? You bet it is.

I was amused by a recent Open Thread link challenge to learn that they S&H; company still exist, and have modernized for the Internet age. In fact I fell over laughing: Apple Computer's Apple Stores now give out Green Stamps! (Okay, they call them "Green Points" now but it's the same thing.)

It's really not complicated once you understand it. Successful ideas rarely go completely away.

I'd be willing to bet that most people under 30 barely know what item depicted on the right is for. Especially the sharp pointy end. It's known as a churchkey.

Why do I mention it? Well for one thing, I've recently been drinking a lot of tomato juice. When I was growing up, almost all juice--orange juice, tomato juice, grape juice, grapefruit juice--was in cans that required an opener like this. Even beer and soda pop used to commonly come that way.

But now for some reason only tomato juice and a few other things come in such cans. At least, in my part of the country. They still sell good old-fashioned V8 juice that way, for example, and it's cheaper in that primitive can than in an easy-opening plastic bottle.

I noticed what an anachronism this is recently when I decided, "Hey, I drink a lot of tomato juice, and it's way cheaper in those old-fashioned cans." (Which, by the way, it is; almost a dollar a can difference.) So I bought some tomato juice in cheap cans, then realized that I did not currently own a churchkey. Worse, I had to go to five different stores before I could even find one. A frickin' churchkey!

My local convenience store didn't have one. The little grocery mart down the street didn't. The local hardware store on my way home from work didn't have one. Other stores didn't have one. When I finally located one at the supermarket, it cost only a dollar. But even when I found one there, I had to hunt. There were literally dozens of specialized utensils, including wine corkers and lemon juicers and garlic presses and apple corers. Indeed, there were at least a half-dozen different egg slicers (egg slicers?? who the hell needs an egg slicer?!?) and only two churchkeys on the whole wall.

If you're young and still not sure what this thing is for, here's an explanation: the sharp pointy end is used to punch a triangular hole in a can so you can pour the liquid out. If you know what you're doing, you punch two holes: one large to pour the liquid out of, and a smaller one on the other side to equalize the pressure so it pours evenly.

You actually have to explain that to kids these days. 30 or 40 years ago, most convenience beverages came that way. Including most beer and canned soda pop, as it happens. Now they're practically exotic.

Almost like... shoelaces. (Mwahahahaha!)

seriously.

(watch that video too many times and you'll start to feel like this)

Here's an amusing science story:

Female Antarctic Seals Give Cold Shoulder To Local Males Science Daily — Female Antarctic fur seals will travel across a colony to actively seek males which are genetically diverse and unrelated, rather than mate with local dominant males. These findings, published in this week's Nature, suggest that female choice may be more widespread in nature than previously believed and that such strategies enable species to maintain genetic diversity.

Anyone who thinks that female choice isn't common in mating has obviously not paid close enough attention. Yes, the bulls may fight, but the girls usually choose in the end. :-)

More at Science Daily.

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Tremble in fear at this awesome power.

Set the Scene:

The young astronautette, Lieutenant Lisa Nowak, has the hots for the Space Shuttle Pilot, Commander William Oefelein. They've both been on multiple missions, risking their lives in the name of humanity's scientific future. She thinks he shares her love, but then suddenly realizes that some little slut earth-pounder named Colleen Shipman really has his heart.

The innocent earthbound hottie Shipman is totally in love with Commander Oefelein. They're both in love and ready to start making little astronaut babies.

Lieutenant Nowak, furious, decides to don a disguise and kidnap the evil slut Shipman and terrify her into giving up her love for the Commander.

Best part: it's a true story.

I call it "Anthropology 101" myself.

(I honestly feel sorry for most of those involved. But I'm sorry, this is too funny.

... or is snickers going gay?

first there was this:

Which was hysterically funny, and mildly homo-erotic.

Sunday we saw this:

Which features two men so terrified of having kissed each other that they rip off their own chest hair...

Me? I think I'll just go have a snickers bar. Because manly men can...

White Castle is a series of strange hamburger chains which are very well known in the Midwestern United States, and also in New York and New Jersey. Outside of these regions, they're virtually unknown. They're also not found anywhere outside the United States that I'm aware of.

They make an odd sort of hamburger. They're basically tiny burgers, sort of like greasy finger sandwiches. They are very small, with a light bun encapsulating a thin wedge of meat, onions, and pickles. You typically order a few of them to make a meal. Fans of these tiny burgers call them "sliders" because they're greasy and they slide down your throat. The company resisted this appellation for many many years but eventually embraced it; the company now calls them Slyders. Not officially on the menu, but they apparently have given up fighting the term and have decided to embrace it.

By the way, in the American south, there is a virtually identical chain known as Krystal. I have no idea what the historical relationship is between these companies, but Krystal and White Castle make a virtually identical little burger. I've tried both and you can barely tell the difference.

By the way: Sliders are not what I'd call ambrosia. But once you get a taste for them you do like them. Not that you want them every day, but sometimes they're just exactly what you're looking for. It's a strange addiction.

Still, make no mistake: this is cheap fast food. They've been around for about 70 years now and have their niche: cheap fast food. If anything, they make McDonald's or Burger King seem a little up-scale. If you've got five bucks in your pocket you can walk into a White Castle and order four little burgers and some fries and have a cheap meal.

If you know White Castle (or Krystal) you know exactly what I'm talking about and don't need all this explanation. I gave all that explanation just for those of you who don't know about this peculiar form of low-rent American cuisine. And I do all that just to mention that the White Castle corporation recently came up with what sounds like just about the dumbest Valentine's Day promotion I've heard about in years. Ben Kepple has the story.

It bugs me sometimes that in early 21st Century America we sometimes can't be blunt about ethnic issues. We're always so worried about stepping on toes and being accused of prejudice and bigotry rather than just saying things how they are.

For example, a good friend of mine in his 70s from Michigan recently became a "snowbird" retiree: he has lived in Michigan his whole life, but recently bought a condo down in Florida to spend his winter months at. He'd been resisting it for years but he finally did it because the winter months were hurting him. His kids urged him to do it in fact.

We talked last night and he told me how much he loved it down there: the winters in Florida are balmy and gentle, and then he comes up here to Michigan during Spring and Summer to be with his grandkids (his wife, sadly, passed some years ago).

We were on the phone last night and he was talking about how happy he was, and I said, "Hey, I hear there are like 3 or 4 other Jews down there in Florida, so maybe you've made a friend or two?"

He laughed and said, "Oh my God, it's like Jew Central down here! I go play golf with all the other Jews, and go to synagogue every Friday night and we see each other--it's great!"

I guess if you were being mean about it you'd read a lot into that. Me? I think it's awesome.

I have the same reaction when I hear there are tons of Poles in Hamtramck, Michigan, or lots of Arabs in Dearborn, Michigan. I think you should just grin and say, "Yeah, and isn't that a great thing?" God bless America.

"Though, to be honest, Wikipedia could steal my girl, key my car, and salt my lawn -- and I'd still think I'm getting the better end of the deal." - Ezra Klein

Oh. My. God.

A NEGRO is about to coach an NFL team to a Superbowl championship. Rosemary, it's time to head for Canada. America's no longer safe for good white folks like us.