Obsidian Wings

Looking on the bright side, Part I

by Slartibartfast

Having lost one's near vision can renew that respect one once had for the sharp cutlery one nearly lost a finger to, last October.

More bright side vantage points as they occur.  Don't wait up for me, though.

Another Stupid Open Thread

Too late for April Fool's Day, I give you this.

And, hopefully, this.  Rocket scientist humor.  Ar ar.

Plus, we were long overdue for an open thread.  Have at it.

Open Thread: Special Chaucer Edition!

by hilzoy

Via Crooked Timber, I see that Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog. Go read. I especially liked the advice column:

"My betrothed, a most wicked man, betrayed me near as bad as Tereus did Procne. His woman of choice commited, though, that villainy which women do best, and tempted him away. Presently it is not legal, where I live, to have either of them killed for this treachery -- what shall I do to avenge the wrong they both have done to me, and to my virtue? Their joy at my grief does pain me so.

Cor Fracta Est

Ma Cher Coeur Brisee

Thoughe y love a goode revenge tragedie as much as the nexte guye, y muste counsel yow to a bettre path. Yow sholde maken pece and kepe faithe, not wyth thyne betrothede nor wyth this womanlie Diomede, but rathir with yowrselfe. For vengence aperteneth and longeth al oonly to juges. Remembre yow that pacience is a greet vertu of perfeccioun, and remembre that ther are tymes ordained unto al thynges by the first moevere -- of the ookes, and of the hard stones, and of man and womman seen we also, in youthe as well as age, alle shal be dumped , a kyng as shall a page - som dumped on dates, som dumped by telephone, some dumped in compaignie, som dumped allone - ther helpeth noght, al goth that ilke weye.

And thus, take two pintes of hagen dasz dulce de leche, a ful seson of buffie the vampyre slayre, and calle me in the morninge.

Le Vostre G"

I Smell Trouble

by Charles

There's trouble all right.  Trouble in Berkeley city.  This website spells out the next wave of malodorant activism.  Some excerpts:

• Body Odor Rights Activists of Berkeley California
• Fighting for your right to communicate naturally
• Deodorant is Barbarism!
• Body Odor can communicate what words can't. Our natural smells let others know our moods, our availability for sex, our essence, our dreams. To cover it up or wash it away is like sewing your mouth shut.
• 2006 Goals:  Destroy deodorant manufacturing plants.
• Vaginal odor rights are our next threshhold to cross.
• Oppressive douche companies must be removed from mother earth.

They're inspired by ELF and they're itching for a "lawsuit against America".  Or maybe they're just itching.  For the record, I don't use deodorant.  I also don't know if this is satire or real, but either way it made me laugh.

OMG...They're Coming For Us Where We Live Now!

Long-time readers may recall my painful confession from many moons ago that I am terrified of whales. I don't know why, it's totally irrational...they live in the ocean, I live inland. Or at least it used to be that way:

A lost and likely sick whale swam up the River Thames past Parliament and Big Ben in central London on Friday, attracting huge crowds and a police boat escort before nearly beaching itself on the shallow riverbank.

The Northern bottlenose whale appeared to be about 20 feet long, witnesses said. The whale, which usually is found in the cold waters of the North Atlantic, was about 40 miles from the mouth of the Thames on the North Sea.

Tom Howard-Vyne said he saw the marine mammal swim under Westminster Bridge near Big Ben.

"I saw it blow. It was a spout of water which sparkled in the air," he said. "It was an amazing sight."

TV stations followed the marine mammal with live coverage as it wandered into shallow water near the muddy banks of the tidal waterway. The whale appeared to get stuck several times, and officials wearing yellow jackets could be seen running up and down the shoreline at low tide trying to push it back into deeper water.

I'm not falling for that whole "Oh poor me, I'm not well" ruse it's got going on either. They're coming inland to get us people!

I'm moving to Kansas.

Did Bush Know?

Behind-the-curtain statement by a Redstate editor:  "Bush knew Gilligan was sick and he didn't lift a finger."  What say an open thread?

The Audience-participation Enlightenment Open Thread

The title should explain it all.  Your mission is to go out there and find the funniest thing you can, and post it here, in comments.

Or, not.  Just be that way.  See if I ever give you another open thread to play with, to gaze at in rapt adoration, and then slip and let it fall to the floor, shattering it into a gazillion similar pieces that resist all attempts at reassembly.

So: participate, for Catsy's sake.  Catsy is sick of heart, and is yarking up hairballs of anguish.  Help Catsy; administer the Laxatone of humor.  That is all.

How Many Blastocysts Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?

by hilzoy

This is a serious question, and one that pro-life conservatives typically haven't bothered to consider. The answer is: even an infinite number of blastocysts can't screw in a light bulb. They can't operate a tool-and-die machine, come up with novel medical innovations, or start a small business either. The contribution blastocysts make to the American economy is precisely zero.

And yet pro-life conservatives want to say that blastocysts are people like the rest of us. What they don't seem to understand is that if we count blastocysts as persons like anyone else, our per capita GDP will drop sharply. The same goes for average productivity. And as any economist will tell you, lowering average productivity compounds over time, making life progressively poorer for all of us and greatly increasing the chances that we will be economically overpowered by countries that don't count blastocysts and embryos as persons. Countries like China.

Pro-life conservatives think they can just extend rights to everyone. They haven't stopped to consider the economic costs or the threat to our economic position in the world. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that their views put not just our way of life but the American dream itself at risk. Once we welcomed strapping immigrants who were willing to build this nation; pro-life conservatives want to replace this inspiring vision with a nation of parasites who can't swing an axe, program a computer, or dream a dream. And that's not what America is all about.

(It's 'Blog Like A Conservative Day'. I'm being Donald Luskin, sort of. Jesse at Pandagon has more. Feel free to use this as an open thread.)

***

Update: Moderate Left and Loaded Mouth have more. And Roxanne covers the bases.

Meanwhile, PZ Myers spots an alarming new conspiracy.

***

Update 2: Heh.

Department Of Redundancy Department

by hilzoy

Via Crooked Timber and into your nightmares comes this:

That's the front cover of a forthcoming comic book based on the following premiss:

"It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City ... And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations dominated ultra-liberalism. "

You can read the synopsis of the entire eight issue miniseries here. It's hysterical. Excerpts:

"On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices went forever silent at the hands of terrorist assassins. Those which survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called “The Freedom of Information League”, aka F.O.I.L. (...)

The New York City faction of F.O.I.L. is lead by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed “Oscar”. F.O.I.L. is soon to be joined by a young man named Reagan McGee.

Reagan was born on September 11th, 2001. He is the son of a NYC firefighter whose life was spared by attending his son’s birth. Reagan has grown to manhood in an ultra-liberal educational system: being told, not asked, what to think. With personal determination, which alienates him from his contemporaries, he has chosen the path less traveled…the path to the Right."

There's only one problem: making a comic book about Hannity, North, and Liddy is completely unnecessary, since they are already comic book figures. (Especially Liddy.) It's like making a plastic action figure of Sylvester Stallone or a stick figure drawing of Kate Moss: completely and totally pointless. When reality has rendered one's best efforts superfluous, the wisest course is to pass by in silence.

For sale...this fully armed and operational battle station.

Via Will Collier at vodkapundit, we have this offering for funniest real ebay offering since...well, since the last time anyone mentioned this sort of thing.  The caption on Will's post is rather amusing, too.  Excerpt:

In my batchelor days I decided I needed a subwoofer for my lounge, a subwoofer so powerful it could loosen fillings, shake out the colesteral from my arteries and generally make a lot of noise. It seemed to me that the Death Star, ignoring the weakness that ultimately lead to it's complete destruction, was a pretty good design... so I made my own (with a lot of help from my then housemate).

Diameter	~ 36 inches, on it's stand it's about 44 inches tall.
Speaker Diameter	12 inches
Weight	~ 65Kilos.... I did say it was over engineered!
Power	More powerful than you can possibly imagine, or 300W which ever is the smaller
Weakness	No known weakness, but the Rebel Alliance may find one
Loud	Yes
Unique	Probably, I've not seen another.

It's pretty much the idea of this that tickled me, but the account of its construction was also pretty funny, especially the bit about no project going under-engineered or even adequately engineered.

P.S. Be sure to read the Q&A at the bottom of the eBay listing...some of them are priceless.

P.P.S: Edited HTML, because it cut-and-pasted a bit screwy.